Title: The Courier

Author: DOKChairman

Time/Spoilers: Don't know; it's a future fic. Assume everything up to "Truth Takes Time" is fair game.

Disclaimer: I don't own Alias. I don't own anything, really. I am in fact a poor person with no worldly goods. If you would like to take pity on me and donate money to my Poor Writer's Fund, please send me an e-mail with your offer. Thank you.

Chapter 6: Icarus and His Sun

"Vaughn, would you pass me the sugar?"

Vaughn raised an eyebrow as he pushed over the little clay pot that contained the sugar. "Sugar? On waffles?"

Sydney blushed a very light pink under Vaughn's inquiring gaze and simply pushed a strand of hair behind her ear before reaching for the tiny silver spoon stuck in the pot. "Hey, I like sugar on my waffles, okay? I used to eat them like this all the time when I was a kid."

Vaughn held up a hand and pushed back slightly further into his chair, grinning at Sydney. "I'm not saying anything. Not a word."

Sydney began to grumble as she poured sugar over the golden squares of her French waffles, courtesy of the man in front of her. "Don't know why we're eating waffles at 9 at night to begin with. Then he goes and makes fun of me? Hmph! Stupid Vaughn..." Her voice trailed off into total inaudibility at that point. Vaughn merely laughed.

"Aw come on, Syd!? Where is your sense of adventure? Your sense of originality? I know that you said earlier that you'd never eaten breakfast for dinner before, but even you had to have at least tried something like this before, right?"

Sydney stopped her fork from slicing through a square of waffle and looked up to face Vaughn. Uncertainty and embarrassment colored her face. "Umm...well...not really. I mean, I always saw breakfast as breakfast and dinner as dinner."

Vaughn simply grinned and made a big flourish with his arm that encompassed the whole table. Breakfast foods of all sorts could be seen: omelettes, waffles, pancakes, toast. It was a cornucopia of food and it was all for just the two of them. Vaughn knew that he had gone a bit overboard; okay, he had gone more than a bit overboard, but it had been fun to make all those different foods. Especially since Sydney had helped. It had been a team effort, and to be honest, it had taken a lot of Vaughn's will power to actually stay in the kitchen with Sydney and cook instead of do certain...other things with Sydney. Which had made the end result all the more satisfying.

But despite all the will power and effort that had been put into making the small breakfast feast, it had been worth it to give Sydney this little moment of her childhood back. At least, that was the reason why Vaughn suspected why Sydney had never eaten breakfast for dinner before. With her mother dead (of course not really, but another story for another time) and her father constantly busy and away, Vaughn suspected that Sydney never had the opportunity to participate in what he considered to be primarily a family activity.

Yes, there had been times where he had had breakfast for dinner in college, but that had been because it was something simple and easy to make. But something told him that Sydney had never quite faced the kind of frat house lifestyle of a college male. So, that left the family angle as one of the only reasons that he could see why she had never participated in this activity. At least, it was with his family, and then his mother after his father died, that he had done this sort of thing with when he had been younger.

Well, he considered Sydney to be his family now. Sort of. Almost. Maybe. Oh hell, he didn't know. He just knew that he would do anything for the woman sitting across from him, and looking so incredibly cute as she sullenly ate her waffles.

A soft smile graced Vaughn's face and he moved his chair to sit besides Sydney's. He placed an arm over her shoulders and she leaned her head up against his and he talked quietly, "It's okay, Syd. I think I understand."

Sydney stuffed a forkfull of waffle into her mouth, mumbling the whole while, "Thank you. It's just...thank you."

Vaughn kissed the side of her head and pulled back to simply sit and watch her. It wasn't long before Sydney began to squirm under Vaughn's constant gaze and she placed her fork down and pushed her plate away. She turned to face Vaughn and gave him a look that clearly showed her exasperation. But she was smiling and her eyes were bright and full of affection. "Vaughn, what are you doing?"

"Watching you?"

"I was eating!" Sydney shook her head and laughed lightly. Vaughn simply shrugged his shoulders.

"So? You're still beautiful." Sydney blushed and lowered her eyes, but then flashed Vaughn a dazzling smile that reminded him of the rising sun. Vaughn smiled in return and reached out with his hand to touch her arm and Vaughn felt like he could fly as high as any bird, as long as he could see that smile.

***

Vaughn rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hand. Weariness combined with fever and the wound in his stomach were quickly sapping him of his strength. He was finding it increasingly harder to drive, to concentrate, to do anything.

He wasn't sure why his thoughts continued to drift back to Sydney and their last night together. He couldn't even remember when that last night was. Two nights ago? Three? All he remembered was that was when everything went wrong for him. The beginning to this day that would not end and the case that he could not seem to get rid of. The damn, overbearing, stupid...Vaughn's mind drifted as he drove...

***

Vaughn pulled back from the kiss when the necessity for oxygen became a concern. Vaughn moved back to his own chair, grinning like a fool, or at least what he imagined what a fool would grin like, and Sydney merely looked satisfied, like a Cheshire cat who had eaten the canary.

The last of the food was gone. Credit that to one Sydney Bristow. Slim and lithe as a dancer, but boy could she eat. Vaughn knew it was due to her incredible metabolism and the constant stress her body endured. But even still, he was amazed at the amount of food she could eat. He had helped, of course, but she had done most of the heavy lifting.

And they had just been partaking in some of the dessert. So far, it had been Vaughn's favorite part of the meal. He smiled at that thought and leaned in for another kiss. This one lasted as long as the last one, but it was Sydney who pulled away in need of oxygen this time. "We really should clean this mess up first before we...move on."

Vaughn almost began to protest but he knew the enormity of the project awaiting them and it would be faster for them moving onto what they both wanted the sooner they got the mess out of the way. Besides, he recognized that look in Sydney's eye. It was the stubborn look she got when she had her mind set on something and was not ready to be easily swayed to do something else.

Vaughn knew if he tried, he could change her mind, but then he'd feel guilty leaving all the cleanup work till later, where she might have to do it all herself. So, he stood up out of his chair and began to gather dishes off the table. This would be the perfect opportunity to bring up something that had been on his mind for a while now anyways.

He lifted off the plates and made his way towards the sink, talking over his shoulder. "Umm...Syd, a couple of weeks ago, I meant to offer you something, and well, things happened that got in the way of that and I never did get to give you it."

Vaughn felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned his head to see Sydney smiling softly next to him. "It's okay, Vaughn. I know. Things just got crazy."

"Well, I'm not saying that I'm talking about it now, but if I were to make the offer again soon, do you think you'd be okay with it?"

Sydney leaned up and kissed Vaughn on his cheek, moving off wordlessly to put her pile of dishes on the counter near the sink. Vaughn watched her go and he smiled, walking to join her pile with his, and mumbling to himself, "I'll take that as a yes."

***

Vaughn smiled through his pain at the memory. That had been a very pleasant time, for the both of them. He only wished that it had lasted. But like so many things in his life, and especially Sydney's life, all good things had come to an end. And it had been a rather magnificent end. Vaughn could not help but grin rather sardonically at that thought.

Vaughn coughed and the grin was wiped from his face in a grimace of pain. A horrible visage contorted his face as a fresh wave of pain overcame him, reminiscent of the gargoyles that dotted the cathedrals of half his ancestry. This was getting to be too much, and thinking about Sydney and how things went from good to suddenly worse with her was not helping his mental situation. God, why was he still driving?

Vaughn closed his eyes and took quick, shallow breaths. He just had to stay conscious. He had to deliver the case. He had to get home. He had to find Sydney and fix things...

***

Vaughn smiled to himself as he dried the last of the plates. Tonight had gone about as well as he could have hoped. Sydney had enjoyed herself, he had enjoyed himself, the food had been good, and once the clean up was finished, he planned on giving into those earlier desires that he had fought so hard to control. Assuming, of course, that Sydney felt the same.

He placed the plate that was in his hand down on the counter to dry and turned around to go searching for Sydney. She had left a few minutes earlier to answer a phone call and she had still not returned yet. "Syd?"

Vaughn left the kitchen area and went off in search of his wayward...girlfriend. He wasn't even sure what to call Sydney. They really needed to define themselves in terms of their relationship. "Syd? Hey Syd?"

He walked into her bedroom to find her sitting on her bed, just sitting on her bed, listlessly staring at the wall in front of her. Immediately, he grew concerned and rushed to her side. "Syd, is everything okay?" He got no response. "Sydney?"

Sydney became a blur of motion as she exploded off the bed. She spun around to face Vaughn and she was angry. Vaughn could recognize all the signs as easily as if he were reading a book: tightness of the lips and limbs, the pacing, the expression on her face and the tenseness of her body. She was a coiled spring ready to explode. Vaughn was almost afraid to go near her.

"You lied to me!"

Vaughn blinked and took a sudden step backward. Self preservation flashed in the back of his mind and all he could think about was running. What was she talking about? "Sydney, what are you talking about?"

"You lied to me! You told me that you were finished investigating my mother."

Vaughn shook his head and took several steps towards Sydney, but Sydney leapt backwards away from Vaughn. "No! I want to know why I just got a call from Will about the project you two have been working on and why you are accessing the CIA's archives for cases pertaining to my mother! Again!"

Vaughn, seeing that going near Sydney was a bad idea in the extreme, backed away slowly. He held his hands up and in front of him, like dealing with a wild animal who had spent too much time in a cage, and pleaded earnestly, "Please Sydney, you don't understand. It's not what you think. I am not investigating your mother anymore, I'm just doing some follow up work on some related cases. I swear."

"Related cases that just happen to deal with my mother? After the last couple of weeks, I find that a little hard to believe. And to make matters worse, you're using Will?" Sydney shrieked and Vaughn winced. "WILL!? Why are you using Will?!"

"Will is good at what he does, and that is digging up information. He found some information for me that I needed quickly and that I couldn't have found myself because I wouldn't have known how to find it, first off, nor would I have had the time to look for it either. I didn't force him to do it; I asked, he volunteered." Vaughn was starting to get a little defensive, so he tried to take several calming breaths. He couldn't lose control. He just couldn't. This was a sore subject for both of them.

Vaughn wasn't sure what bothered Sydney most, the fact that he was still allegedly investigating her mother or that he had supposedly lied to her. It seemed to matter little to Sydney at the moment that he had done neither. From the way she was acting, it was probably the lying, although he knew that there would always be a large part of Sydney that would never be able to come to terms with who her mother really was.

"Sydney, just calm down and listen to me, please?" As soon as he said the words, Vaughn realized they were the wrong words to say. Outrage colored Sydney's face, turning it an interesting shade of red that reminded Vaughn of the peppers that he had cut up for the omelettes they had eaten earlier.

"Calm down!? You want me to calm down? Oh, I'll calm down all right." Sydney's voice became as cool as a New England breeze, "You should know better than anyone how much I can't stand those who lie to me."

Vaughn sighed, loudly and exasperatedly. He was getting fed up. "I'm not lying to you Syd. I was doing some research on some old cases that just happened to have information that related to your mother, okay? I thought some of them might have more information about my...father." Vaughn wiped a hand across his face and slumped his shoulders, "Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was doing this project, all right? I wasn't thinking. I didn't think anything of it at the time, I should have, I didn't realize that it would cause a big problem and that's my fault. I'm sorry."

"Don't patronize me, Vaughn. Don't apologize just because you think it's something I want to hear."

"Oh for Christ's sake, Sydney! I'm not patronizing you! I'm telling you the truth. This was just a case of bad judgment on my part and..." Vaughn cut himself off before he finished what he was going to say.

But Sydney knew him too well and she finished the thought for him, "And gross overreaction on my part? Is that what you were going to say, Vaughn?"

"Look, you know what? I'm sorry that I didn't tell you, but really, I swear that I'm not investigating your mother. It's just a coincidence only. But if you are unwilling to believe me, then fine, I guess I have nothing more to say here." Vaughn stared at Sydney, who simply stared at him back.

"Don't you have anything to say?" Vaughn asked, and there was desperation lacing his every word.

Sydney just stood there, fuming, mired in her own sense of wounded righteousness and feelings of betrayal. Vaughn could clearly see the warring emotions on her face. She had never been able to hide her feelings from him. She could try, she could erect walls to block off her feelings from the outside world, but he could always break through those walls. But now...she was just being so infuriating. So unwilling to listen.

He hated it when people called him a liar. Yes, it had been a mistake not to tell her about the investigation, but it really had slipped his mind. He had started it weeks ago, long before he had been investigated for his off-the-books investigation of Irina Derevko. And the cases only had a passing relation to Irina, nothing more. He just wanted to learn more about the past history of his father, that's all. Not even his father, specifically, just the world that he lived in.

But Sydney...God! She was blowing everything out of proportion, which was causing him to blow everything out of proportion. It was a tumbling line of dominoes, and Vaughn was every domino in line, each collapsing piece feeling that much more worse than the last. And he could do nothing to stop the chain reaction.

Vaughn could take the silence no longer, "Fine. I'll...I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but I am not lying to you about anything else. I know Will is your friend, but he works for the CIA now and he's a big boy, he can take care of himself. You need to get over your trust issues, Sydney, I am not your father."

"Fuck you, Vaughn." Sydney took several quick steps towards Vaughn. She was only several inches away from him now. "I think you had better go."

"Yeah, I think I'd better go too. I can tell you're being totally unreasonable tonight. Jesus, Sydney, why won't you just listen to me!?" Vaughn got no response so he just let out a disgusted sound. "Whatever."

He turned around and walked out of the bedroom. All he could feel as he walked out of the room was an intense feeling of falling, like he no longer had wings.

***

Vaughn's head lulled to the right and he groggily and slowly righted it. He blinked, several rivulets of sweat were sliding down his face, and he let go of the steering wheel with his left arm to swipe his face free of the perspiration. The car swerved and he quickly grabbed the wheel to regain control.

He had no idea where he was going. And he was hot. So hot. He felt like his skin was on fire and lava was flowing through his veins. His head lulled again and his vision clouded. He suddenly sucked in a deep breath and winced, doubling over and his forehead touched the steering wheel. The car swerved violently. If not for the fact that it was late at night and he was driving in an oft untraveled part of London (at least at this time of the night), Vaughn would have surely plowed into another car by now. Vaughn righted himself in time to prevent the car from driving onto the curb.

He didn't know how much longer he was going to last. He was being stupid. He needed to find a pay phone. But he couldn't see! His vision was too cloudy- it was the damn fever that he was running- making everything so blurry. He was amazed at the fact that he had managed to make it this far. Hell, he was amazed he was still coherent. He knew the gunshot wound was bad; he could feel it still bleeding.

He winced again, but this time managed to stay upright and in control. He couldn't do this for much longer. He needed help. But he didn't know who he could trust, who to ask for help. He couldn't remember any of the contact numbers he had been given prior to the mission; his mind was too hazy for that, or even the number to the American Embassy. It was why he needed a pay phone. They would have a phone book, or he could reach an operator, or something.

Vaughn coughed wetly, blood spraying the Ford logo of steering wheel, and sudden lightheadedness overcame him. His head crashed forward and the car curved obliquely straight into a lamppost. Metal met metal in a horrible collision and Vaughn's body was thrown back and forth against his seat and the steering wheel but he never felt a thing. He had already passed out.

***

Sergei Sokolov kicked the moaning body over with his left foot and then crouched to his haunches. The face was unrecognizable; hamburger really. He had seen worse, so the smell and the blood, and brutality of the man's face below him affected him none at all. He cared very little about that. All he cared about was if the man could speak.

"I know you are in lot of pain, my friend. I can end your pain if you help me. Do you want me to end your pain?"

His only response was a loud, inarticulate groan, but it was more than he had been expecting. Sergei leaned his head closer to the man's face, at least what was left of it, and spoke again, "Good, friend. I know that you've seen Michael Vaughn. I want to know where he gone. Tell me, and I will stop pain for you."

The man opened and closed his mouth several times, but only a croak came out. Finally, after several breaths the man managed to utter one word, "C-c-car." Everything after that was an unintelligible groan to Sergei.

Sergei swore aloud in his convoluted Russian and stood up. So Vaughn was no longer on foot. That would make things exponentially harder, but Sergei had no choice. Sergei turned on his heel to walk away, but a surprisingly firm grip stopped him. He looked down to see a bloody hand grabbing his ankle and he shifted his gaze to the man lying on the ground. "T-the p-pain."

"Of course, my friend." Sergei pulled out his gun and shot the man once between the eyes. Or, at least what he thought were his eyes. Then he turned and walked away.

***

Sark sighed a tired sigh and slipped through the door into the waiting car. It was only three hours before dawn, and he could not remember the last time he had slept. He was beginning to feel the effects of exhaustion, and it was a welcome relief to luxuriate in the relative comforts of the car for the brief drive to his new headquarters. He had to relocate, for his previous location had simply accumulated too much use, besides, it was never wise to stay in one place for too long no matter how secure the location.

Sark sincerely hoped that they would secure the case before noon. He wanted this job over and he wanted his money. But more than that, he wanted a nap, something to eat, and a chance to relax. This job was proving to be a lot more trouble than it was worth. And if Sark was honest with himself, he was beginning to contemplate the option of just cutting his losses and shutting down the operation for good.

Rarely had he been on any op that lasted this long, let alone one that was sure to garner as much attention as this one. By now, both intelligence branches of the American and British governments would be diligently pursuing the case, and Sark was fairly certain that the British authorities would not take too kindly to those people who shoot up their streets in the middle of the day. Simply not finishing the job might actually be the prudent thing to do.

But...it annoyed him. It went against his sense of professional pride. His loyalties might be flexible, but his loyalty to his craft was not. And while selling out one employer or suddenly changing employers overnight was one thing, not finishing a job was another. On the other hand...he really was not a fan of prison. That's assuming of course they went easy on him, which he doubted they would be so willing to do.

His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. He was not expecting a call, so the call was not a welcome intrusion to his relaxing respite. Still, he could not ignore any call that managed to come through his private cell. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his phone; no number was displayed on his automatic trace/log program. That intrigued him greatly and he opened the cell.

Before he could even say a word, a voice began speaking, "I have a proposition for you."

Sark instantly recognized the voice and all signs of outward fatigue vanished from his presence. "I'm listening."

"For the case and Agent Vaughn, alive, I will pay you triple the fee that you are charging Grigori Pavonivich."

"Triple? Are you serious?"

"Very. Remember, I want him alive."

Sark snorted, "Something tells me I'll have a hard time convincing him I have his best interests at heart."

"That is not my concern. You have till sundown to deliver."

"But what abo-"

The voice cut him off, "Do not worry about that. I will know when you have what I want." And then the phone went dead.

Sark sunk back into his seat and closed his eyes. He blindly placed the phone back inside its pocket and carefully thought over this newest development. He tried to focus, but he found his thoughts drifting, too wild and jumbled to be coherent, and he soon fell into a light sleep.

The car stopped. He was here.