Title: Captured Moments: 12 Days of Christmas
Author: Kira [kira at sd-1 dot com]
Genre: Romance/Fluff
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: We all know the drill. I don't own Alias, so please don't sue me. I'm already in debt. And even if you did sue me, it would come off my credit card and I'd still be in debt. So, right. You're better off leaving me be.

Part 2: Two Turtle Doves

On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me:
2 Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree


Never underestimate the value of a large purse.

I hadn't really thought things through when I first entered the store, as to how I would be getting whatever I purchase out and home without the recipient either peaking in the plastic bag I was sure it would be packaged in, or simply looking through the translucent white plastic and seeing exactly what it was.

But I'm nothing if not resourceful, and not only found something for my father as well, but put that on top of the gift for Vaughn deep within my purse. When he looked in there, as I'm sure he did the moment I wasn't looking, he would think he was getting one thing when he was, in fact, receiving something completely and totally different.

If everything worked out right.

I often wonder how people get gifts for others without the resource and guts to listen in on their conversations or, as I was planning to do that night, sneak into their homes and snoop around in some vain effort to read their personality and choose the perfect thing to get them.

I suspect their way is the same as Will's, that is, either give them a gift card or make sure the gift receipt is taped securely on the lid of the box. The last two years, he'd gotten me sweaters either in a poor color, or the wrong size. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy, it's just that, well, he has little taste when it comes to giving gifts. Or fashion, for that matter. He seems permanently stuck in the stereotypical dress of a reporter from the 1970's, something I'm sure is due to his love for All the President's Men.

Seemed an apt thought at the time, as I was making my way to the break room, the coffee pot on the counter calling my name. Adrenaline might be the best drug I've ever been privy to use countless times, but caffeine seems safer. Just think about it. Adrenaline requires running for my life. Caffeine requires, before I get it in the morning, others to run for their lives.

I had a bounce in my step. I'll admit to that. The gift I'd purchased for Vaughn yesterday had been perfect, and my mittens now fit me properly and weren't tight like they were before Vaughn decided to try and fit his hands into them. And I rounded the corner into the large, open break room with a smile on my face -

- and heard Vaughn and Will speaking in hushed tones.

Let me tell you something I've learned about hushed tones. They're not good. Not one time have I heard something in hushed tones that turned out good in the end, unless it was a heated yet covert argument with either my father or Vaughn. Their conversation sounded nothing like a disagreement, though, and I squeezed myself into the space near the door and out of view of the rest of the JTF, my ear pushed towards the door as far as it could go without them seeing it.

"So, wait, what are you doing again?" Will asked in his usual segmented speech. I heard Vaughn sigh.

"Listen, you can't say a word, okay?" he replied quickly. Nervously? "I just needed someone to hear me out, tell me if I'm doing the right thing."

"Vaughn, I'm not going to pretend to know your relationship with Sydney. Justbe careful, okay?"

"Tread lightly and all that," he joked. I felt myself smile with him. "God, I hope she likes it." I can almost see him running a hand down his face with his free hand, a cup of coffee in the other. Oh, coffee!

"I think you're fine," Will commented as I wallowed in my coffee-less existence, oblivious to my doomed state as a non-caffinated woman. There's a pause in the conversation and I jumped at the chance, hoping to catch them off guard and not loose any information in doing it.

"Hi, guys!" I greeted warmly, making a bee-line for the coffeemaker.

There's none left.

In the time I've turned my back to them, Will had scurried out of the room, leaving a nervous and shifting Vaughn in his wake, the man's eyes cast at his shoes as he shifted from foot to foot. But he had a coffee mug, and judging from the time he got in to the time now and his talk with Will, I'm going to go out on a limb and say there's something left in it.

"Hey!" he protested as I snatched the dark blue CIA mug from his grip and took a drink of it myself.

"You're such a woman."

"Oh, great," he retorted, giving me a half-grin. "First, you steal my coffee, then, you insult it. If it's that bad, you could always just give it back."

I took another sip and tried not to cringe. God, what, did he put all the sugar from the entire room in this cup? Was I going to look in the cabinets and find no sugar, just canisters of fake cream? He was holding his hand out now, expecting me to return his coffee and be on my way. Or at least make a new pot.

"No way, buster," I grinned. "Make your own."

I left him there gawking at me as I headed out of the break room staining the lip of his nice mug with my lipstick. He shuffled around, apparently making a new pot of coffee, grumbling something to himself I missed as I headed for Weiss' desk.

I was a woman on a mission.

"Hey there," I smiled. He tore his gaze away from the screen in front of him revealing a red and green striped tie. "Nice tie."

"Thanks. What do you want?"

"Ouch."

"Kendall's on my ass."

I nodded in understanding and perched myself on the edge of his desk, resisting the urge to swing my feet. "If I wanted, to, say, get into Vaughn's apartment without him knowing"

"I'll bite, what's up?"

So, after checking around to see that Vaughn was still occupied with making himself some more coffee he could ruin with his horrible combination of cream and sugars, I leaned in and explained my plan.

"I know it's not original or anything," I started, leaning my head to the side. "But he showed me the antique store where he got that frame for me a year ago - "

"Ahh, that place. You know, I was wondering when he would take you there."

"Yeah. I went in and found one for him. I know it's copying and all, but I thought, since he was so close to his dad, that I would find a picture of the two of them together and put it in there. I'm sure he's got plenty up on his walls, and - you know what? Never mind. It's a stupid idea."

"I think it's perfect."

I looked up at him, surprised. "Really?"

"Yeah. He'll love it."

"I just need to get a picture to put in it."

Weiss laughed and reached into his pocket, pulling up a huge key ring cluttered with those cheep and corny key chains you get at a place like Spencer Gifts. You know, the ones about beer, idiots, and sex. Connected to the "Want to see an idiot amused for hours, turn over" key chain was a key, a key he dropped in my hand.

I almost giggled but shoved it in my pocket as Vaughn emerged from the break room, a new coffee mug in hand, a playful smirk on his face as he headed for us.

Oh, he was going to get me back, wasn't he?

I hope so.

--

With Weiss' promise to keep Vaughn from leaving the office for another half-hour or so, I felt pretty secure in sneaking into his apartment, searching for a photo album of some kind, finding a picture, and getting out of there before my mission was discovered and the surprise I'd worked hard to hide from him became for aught. Glancing over both shoulders, I slid the key into the lock at pushed open the door to the dark, warm apartment.

Oh, thank God he spares the extra money to keep the heat on when he's not home. Of course, I know it's because of Donovan, the mutt staying at home all day while Vaughn was away at work. The pooch clattered up to me, gave me a once over, and must have deemed me a non-threat because he walked off to from wherever he'd come, leaving me be.

I doubt he's kept around less as a guard dog and more as a companion; trips away and overfeeding by Weiss making him too large to ever run someone down if need be. I assumed he'd wandered back to his doggie bed in the corner of the living room and started at my task at hand, the timer on my watch set, my phone in my pocket.

Vaughn wouldn't really be mad at me if he found me here, would he? I mean, we are dating and he's been at my house when I wasn't there. Of course, I have roommates who let him in and he's isn't using a key taken from Will or Francie in complete secrecy.

Photo albums, right.

If I'm me, and keep all my photos in a hatbox at the top of my closet, haphazardly thrown in, then Vaughn has to have them somewhere neat and orderly in a book with labels, right? This is the man with the Christmas list we're talking about here.

My snooping, if you really want to call finding something for the perfect Christmas gift that, started in the bookcase standing on the far wall of the living room, crammed full with books and files, knickknacks taking up the emptier shelves in an effort to make it look more cluttered.

This man could not do clutter if he tried.

Pieces of sport's memorabilia, a few won recently, triumphs of E-Bay and flee market Sundays, stand on the taller shelves, away from prying hands but not curious eyes. Books clutter the lower shelves, dust collecting on the tops of them. At one time, they might have been often read, the spins cracked numerous times to make white stripes through creative titles and eye-catching designs, giving the impression that he no longer had time to sit down with a book to read. Come to think of it, neither did I.

That's kind of sad, when you think about it. Books were my life before it was turned around, and while I attempted to hang on to that as I fell deeper and deeper into the life of shadows, I don't even have the time to anymore. I feel consumed by work. Which is why a vacation would be the perfect gift for the holidays, not that Kendall seems the type to give gifts of any sort, especially one that would let me have a life outside his precious JTF.

Fingers ribbing against the titles as I walked down the bookcase, I kept my eye peeled for what I was looking for.

Not there.

Okay, where else would someone keep a photo album?

The kitchen was out. I'd been in there, and there wasn't more than a few dishes given to him as a housewarming gift by an ex-girlfriend who'd had secret hopes to move in ("She was insane, really," Vaughn had claimed) and some plastic utensils. The crowning achievement was his drawer, intended for cooking supplies, crammed full with every take out menu known to man living in the LA area. And here I thought I had that crown.

Left the bedroom.

Vaughn's bedroom.

Yes, we've been dating for a while, but I've never been in there. Well, at least outside of my dreams, which kept me warm on nights he didn't spend with me. A girl's got to have a healthy fantasy life, you know. I paused just outside the door, afraid that opening it, or even looking through the sliver of light allowed by the half-opened door, would ruin said fantasy life in that it would look nothing how I'd envisioned it. And while I might be an expert at lucid dreaming, sometimes, changing features of an established setting while dreaming is hard and distracting, and not what I'd like to be focusing on.

I glanced down at my watch. 20 minutes. No time to be standing afraid of a room, of all places.

So I pushed open the door.

The room was dark, but not imposing. Just a normal bedroom, laid out much like mine, in fact, which made me think either he was copying me, or had been lazy and let the movers put things wherever they wanted and hadn't bothered to change it after they'd left (who has time, anyway?). I was betting on the second as I scurried in and found the bedside lamp, frowning when little light was emitted from it.

"Oh, right. Let it warm up," I muttered, cursing out his light bulb choice. It made sense, though, for when you were woken up in the middle of the night and needed the extra time to allow your eyes to adjust.

A ting of guilt hit for calling him in the middle of the night, but passed as I spied his closet. Of course! I keep mine in the closet, so why shouldn't he?

Of course, he'd a bit taller than me, but I'm resourceful. I can climb, or in this case, tip-toe up to the top shelf and the box I know is a photo box from my trips around Walgreen's. Balancing on a shoe shelf, I stretched up as high as I could go, my fingers brushing against the box. Just a little higher. Yep, okay, hand hold an -

Shit.

Yes, I'm on the floor, the shoe shelf broken in two and an entire box of photographs spilled around me like freshly fallen snow. The shelf was forgotten as my eyes caught them, tossed without much care into a box just like I had. I had a sinking suspicion that just as I didn't wish to think about the past any more than I had to, the happy snapshots of a happier life and childhood marred by my mother's death almost unbearable, and thus tossed the photos away as if casting them from my mind, he did the same. Which was a bit surprising, considering the rest of his apartment.

I've always been a fan of sepia toned photos, and while I know I'm not old, and Vaughn most certainly isn't old, I did find myself attracted to a few of who I'm assuming were his parents, the pair standing with their arms around one another outside a house. I flipped the photo over in my hand, presented with a scrawl I could have sworn was Vaughn's own.

"First house, 1963," I read aloud, turning it back over. I looked at it for a few more seconds before retrieving the box and turning it over, placing the picture back inside. I started to gather the others up, giving them a quick glance to see if I'd like to use any one of them, and placed them back in the box. It was like a filmstrip, watching Vaughn bounce from age to age due to the random order of the photos, seeing him in one as a bright and happy five-year-old in a cowboy hat to a tumbling three year old holding his father's leg.

And then I found it.

The pair was sitting underneath a tree, his father's back to it, him standing on his lap, hands on his hips. He had to be about seven. He looked the same as he did now, though, his expression matching one I'd seen on him just this morning.

God, he was an adorable child.

His father was laughing, and at that moment, I could see why my mother would have claimed they looked alike. They did, perfectly.

My watch beeped.

Crap.

Gathering the photos together, I shoved them quickly in the box, saving the picture I'd been looking at from the downpour of photo paper and putting it carefully in my jacket's pocket. My phone vibrated as I shoved the box over the edge and onto the shelf.

"Hello?"

"Dude, get out of there. He left 10 minutes ago!"

"Weiss!" I shrieked.

"Sorry! He said he had something to do and left before I could stop him."

I heard a key slide in the lock and thought if I'd remembered to dead bolt it after I came in. But as the key effortlessly turned, I realized it was like those in dressing rooms, automatically locking when the door closed. Like a deer in headlights, I stood in the middle of his bedroom, cell phone clutched in my hand, wondering what the hell I was going to do.

First things first, I hung up on Weiss and put the phone back in my pocket.

In the hall, Vaughn kicked off his shoes, a dull thud telling me they hit the back of his couch, and let out a long sigh.

"What, you can't even greet me when I come home?" he asked out loud, apparently talking to his unresponsive dog. "I see. I'm sure you walk right up to Eric when he'd here, don't you?"

Padded footfalls headed down the hall and right for me. Okay, think about this. He's going to change and hang up his clothes, so I can't hide in the closet. And he's sure to close his door a bit, so behind there won't work.

So I slid under the bed.

Sprawled on my stomach over dust mites and shoved next to a box of summer clothes, I watched his feet pad into the room, stop just next to the dresser, and just stay there.

What the hell was he doing, just standing there?

Suddenly, the sounds of a classic Christmas CD filled the room, soft chords of old songs flowing out of a stereo on top of his tall dresser, sweet melodies turned up as he adjusted the volume.

Who'd have thought?

He let out a short laugh and left the room, footsteps leading to the bathroom just across it. I should have known; he's probably going to take a shower, giving me the prime opportunity to sneak out before he even realizes I'm here and put together my gift for him with the knowledge that he'll be really surprised, so happy he'll overlook the fact that I snuck in and stole the picture.

Wait. That isn't the sound of a shower.

It's the sound of a bath.

The cramped space under the bed immediately rose a few hundred degrees as I heard the water running and the rustle of clothing being removed just below it, a thud as each item hit the wall behind the bathroom, a few actually making it into the bedroom, his Oxford skidding to a stop right in front of my face.

Okay, that didn't help with the heat under the bed, that's for sure.

The bath stopped running, plunging the apartment in a carol-filled state as I scooted from under the bed. He'd left the door to the bathroom open, but I'm a super-spy, as Weiss said the other day, and I'm sure I could get by without him noticing.

Well, he kinda is too. Which made the task a bit harder than I'd imagined.

But what I didn't anticipate, as I tip-toed through the room, over the piles of discarded clothing, was what I'd see upon passing the bathroom.

Let me paint you a picture:

From my vantage point, I could see bubbles. As in a bubble bath. But that's not all. No. He was lying in the tub, amid the bubbles; head tossed back, eyes closed. Bathtubs weren't designed for someone his height, his knees sticking up out of the water like mountains in mist, a dollop of bubbles above each one as if they felt left out and he didn't want a fight to break out.

The smell I'd gotten a first whiff of when I came up from under the bed turned out to be candles, the light I thought was from a solitary over-the-sink light in the bathroom actually candle light from three or so lit ones stationed around the room.

OhdearGod.

Michael Vaughn was sitting naked in a bubble bath surrounded by candles while listening to Christmas music.

The idea of him naked in a bath, or naked, for that matter, isn't what was astounding me so much so to root me to the spot. It was the fact that he had bubbles. He had candles that rivaled my own. He was listening to Christmas music. And while he looked oddly relaxed as he soaked in the tub, I couldn't help it.

I laughed.

His eyes snapped open, surly freaking out as he turned his head and saw a sliver of my arm. As his mouth opened wide and face turned the darkest shade of red I'd ever seen on a person, I found myself doubled over in laughter, leaning against the frame of the bathroom, unable to breath, what with the scented candles and my own laughter getting in the way.

I swear to God he shrieked.

"Sydney!" he cried, voice cracking. "What? Here? This, this is - " He fumbled, legs slipping up out of the water as he frantically moved bubbles to cover certain areas.

"I" Breathe, girl! Stop laughing! "Toyou!" The end was punctuated with more laughter as he turned to blow out the candle closest to him.

"Youshould have called."

"And miss this?" I exclaimed, motioning to the general state of the bathroom. He blushed more and turned bashful.

"Uh, yeah, this. Ummthis isn't mine. I just, um, found it all under the sink and, well, decided to, uh, use it," he explained. "No need to let it go to waste!" he finished, laughing a strained, nervous laugh. I simply shook my head and stepped into the room.

"You having fun in there?" I asked. At least I'd stopped laughing.

"I'd have more fun if you were in here with me," he retorted quickly. From his mouth to God's ears.

I pointed, determined to give him a hard time. "Doesn't look like I'd fit."

"Huh?"

Successful.

"So," I said, leaning against the counter, taking in all that I could of him sitting in the bubbly warm water. Even his hair was wet - doesn't he know you wait a bit before dunking your head under the water?

What the hell am I thinking? Of course he doesn't!

"Yes?" he squeaked.

"What were you and Will talking about this morning?"

He groaned. "What a way to ruin the moment, Syd. Nothing. We weren't talking about anything."

"Yes, you were."

"No, we weren't."

I raised an eyebrow and ventured closer. Needed a better vantage point.

"Yep."

"Nope."

"C'mon!" I whined. He smirked, a hand resting on my leg.

"Sure you want to get this close?" he asked. My eyes opened wide, and before I knew it, I was sloshing over the side of the tub, landing directly atop him fully clothed.

Wish that last part wasn't in there.

"Hi."

"How'd you get in my house?" he asked, mere inches from my face and not moving to kiss me. I looked to the side. Best to tell the truth.

"Got Weiss' key. Wanted to surprise you."

"Really?" God, how I love when his face lights up like that, his mouth turning into the sweetest closed smile I've ever seen.

"Yep."

"But you do, every day," he replied.

"Oh?"

He sighed and I know he moved to run a hand through his hair, but it was his own fault I was pinning down both his arms. "You do, with every single thing you do. Hell, even sticking with me surprises me."

"Why would it?"

"I never thought in a million years a woman like you, gorgeous, smart, strong, would go with a guy like me."

Now it was my turn to pout. "Oh? Insulting my choice in men now, are we?"

"No! Not that at all! Just - "

Okay, if he's going to be this close to me and not kiss me, I'm going to have to take matters into my own hands. Plus, while I love his compliments and talk that rivals the writers at Hallmark, I love his kisses even more, and completely forgot about the absurd state of his apartment and bathroom as I swooped down and captured his lips with mine. The sounds of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas floated in from the stereo in the other room, and I couldn't help but appreciate how true that was.

10 days till Christmas, and it was looking to be the best yet.