Disclaimer : same as always

Story : ditto

Author, Summary, Rating : ditto

Dedication : Bob, you lost your shot. This is now going out to my hummingbird, Vivian, e'en tho' you don't read Alias . . .

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"First of all, I'm not as ignorant as everyone seems to think about skin and stuff. Secondly, what the hell do you mean by reproductions?" Bob grinned at Vaughn's tightly reined anger.

"Do you think Sydys is beautiful?"

"I think *Sydney* is beautiful. Who the hell is Sydys?" Vaughn's wrists and ankles were finally free, and he rubbed the painful portion where Buzz had been cutting off his circulation.

"Ahh, yes, I didn't mention my obsession with palindromes to you. You're such an individual. I think I'll let you keep your name," Bob said thoughtfully.

"Jeez, thanks, Bob," Vaughn said sarcastically, nearly spitting out the last word. "That's very *kind* of you."

"What can I say, I'm a nice person. Anyways, so Sydney is beautiful. She's got the genes for beauty, and the thing is, she looks good with all of her "disguises" too. So, if a random person had Sydys' face with . . . a different haircut, they could be beautiful too. However, they could still maintain their unique-ity. I've devised a way of doing this virtually painlessly and sans, that means without, any recovery time. It's genius! J-E-N-U-S!"

"I know what "sans" means. Genius is spelled G-E-N-I-U-S, and what you're doing to Sydney is twisted and wrong." Bob sighed and pulled up a seat next to Vaughn.

"Only a person without true creative potential could say that genius is not spelled J-E-N-U-S. Who do you think made it G-E-N-I-U-S in the first place? Yeah, that's right; some stuffy, wig-wearing old geezer in the sixteen hundreds. What right do they have to decide how to spell words? Do you like Syd's lips?" Bob rattled off those five sentences in record time, thoroughly confusing Vaughn.

"Um . . ." Then everything Bob had said hit Vaughn. "Stop talking about her lips! What right do you have to talk about her lips? They're not yours. They'll never be yours. Stop it!"

"But, do you love her lips? Don't you love the shape of them? The texture? The color?"

"Bob, I'm warning you. Stop talking about her lips now, or I will not be responsible for my actions."

"But you will be responsible, Vaughn. We're all responsible in the end."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Ooo. Touchy. Back on subject, her lips aren't yours either, but they could be. They're not copyrighted. Well, they might be, I'll check with Abrams, but imagine going home each night to Lauren and seeing Syd instead. It's still Lauren there, but it looks like Syd! Don't tell me this doesn't appeal to you. You're too structured and manly to get a divorce, but every night when you lie down next to her, you're really thinking of Syd. Don't deny it. You cannot hide it."

"I'm not going to deny it. Of course I want Syd, but I don't want everyone else to have her. If that's how *I* feel, think how all the guys who fall in love with the Syd look-a-likes are going to be. You'll have a mob of angry guys who are all in love with the "same" girl. You don't want that. It's worse than a pack of wild shiatsus. They'd be even worse than the man-eating squirrels in Nebraska."

"So you admit you're in love with her?"

"Bob, it's amazing how I can say that whole speech and the only thing you here is the love part. Normal people would hear about the man-eating squirrels and run for cover, but not you."

"Do I *seem* normal?"

"Point taken. Does Sydney know about your plot?"

"No, I don't believe I've informed *Sydys* yet."

"Well, can I at least go see her?"

"Possibly." Bob took Vaughn and "marched" him into the room where Sydney was. Marched isn't exactly the best term to describe the odd dance that was taking place. Bob was trying to push Vaughn forward aggressively, like he'd seen in the movies. Vaughn was trying to play along, but force Bob to move faster in his anxiousness to see Sydney and make sure that she was OK.

They burst into the dull room with a flash of lightning and thunder. There was a torrential downpour going on outside that set the perfect mood for the Frankenstein meets A Beautiful Mind story that the three "characters" found themselves in.

"Sydney? Are you OK?"

"Cotton candy and puppies. What?" Sydney mumbled. "If I don't get a straight answer out of you, Bozo, you're going right back to *It*. . . I don't give a shit if the other clowns scare you. Now answer my question. Who are you working for? . . . What does Doctor Evil want with Donovan? . . . For someone who is only staying alive because I'm in a *good* mood today, you're awfully mouthy. Now, I said, 'What does Doctor Evil want with Donovan?' . . . Answer the question . . . Yes, I know he's a smart dog. What does that mean to Dr. Evil?"

"Should we wake her up?" Vaughn asked a startled Bob.

"Jeebus, like I know. You're the one who's dating her or was before you went off and got married. Speaking of that, didn't you even have a mourning period? It's customary to have at least a three-month mourning period after a relationship, but with one as serious as you and Sydys were, you should have waited a year. What's up with that?"

"First of all, there were extenuating circumstances. Secondly, who the hell says I should have waited a year? And what makes you think that *you* can butt into *my* issues all the time?"

"Well, Lover boy, I'm sure the 'circumstances' were dire. Did Lauren threaten to feed you to Sark unless you married her? Were you afraid that without Sydys you wouldn't be able to beat up the bad guys? I mean, I knew you weren't as kick-ass as her, and you just used your looks to get by, but . . . I just assumed you had some sort of talent. Oh, and for your questions. Vatican II and because I'm *Bob* (signal triumphant fanfare)" Bob rolled his eyes as if it were obvious.

"I know you're 'Bob' (signal triumphant fanfare). Where the hell is that annoying music coming from?" Vaughn paused and looked pointedly at the other man. Bob held a pastel pink clicker in his hand that read "For Bob Fanfare, Click Below". On the button 'below' there was a B very much in the style of the Barbie "B".

"Barbie?" Vaughn raised his eyebrows tauntingly at Bob.

"You either have got it or you don't. Me and Barbara Jean, we've got it going on."

"Umm, Two questions. First -"

"You're not supposed to talk during pictionary," Bob rolled his eyes in that familiar valley girl way.

"We're playing pictionary?" But before Bob could answer, Vaughn spit out the other questions that were rolling around in his mind. "Vatican II? Barbara Jean?"

"Well, you were acting as if you were playing charades. The whole "two words, starts with" thing, but that could just be *you*. Logically, I progressed to pictionary as how it is the more modern of the two games. You really need to do some catching up with the times. Not Vatican II, Ms. Manners. She's brilliant. Like Dr. Phil brilliant, but without the paunch and the balding. She just wears like sixteen ounces too much make up. And the eyebrows! The eyebrows! Didn't anyone teach that woman to pluck growing up. It's tragic! Barb Roberts. You really should catch up with pop culture. Good heavens you're like" pause for dramatic affect "30."

There was a silence in which Vaughn tried to comprehend all that Bob had just been through. It took a mind going like six times the speed limit to keep up with that man. Wait, seven times. We don't like numbers divisible by three.

"O…K."

"Hand over Donovan and no one gets hurt. . ." Sydney was still dreaming.

"Syd. Wake up. No one has Donovan. He's with Weiss right now. Don't worry. Wake up honey. Wake up." Vaughn brushed a light kiss over Sydney's forehead, wishing he could kiss her . . . other places, but he knew he had a lot of explaining to do. Plus, nothing romantic was going to happen until they could get "Bob" out of the way.

Sydney's eyes flickered open slowly. She moved her head up and captured his lips. Vaughn's eyes widened in surprise. 'What the heck?'

"Hey baby," she murmured. Syd attempted to raise her arms before realizing that they were fastened. Reality hit her hard, and her face turned a furious shade of red. "Oh My God, Vaughn, I'm sorry. I - I wasn't thinking."

"Don't worry about it, and no, I'm not God." Vaughn's weak attempt at a joke failed miserably, and Syd's face defied the impossible, turning even more scarlet.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sydney reached for the only thing she could think of to keep the focus off of herself.

"I came to save you, but if you don't need me, maybe Bob'll be kind enough to let me go."

"No, I didn't mean that, but I - I was just surprised."

"It's cool. I think I'm stuck here for good now anyways." Vaughn held up his wrists, bound with Woody. "Bob has an interesting tie collection."

"Damn right I do!" Bob chirped up from the back of the room where he had been observing their exchange. "Right now, I'm going to be the nice villain, and voy. That's 'I go' in Espanola."

"We're super-spies. We know." Sydney answered.

"Cocky little super-spies, too. I bet there's a low rate of image-related disorders at the CIA."

"You'd be surprised. Now, *vat-en*, GO AWAY!"

"That hurts, Sydys. That hurts real bad. I thought we were friends. Now you're testing me in French and practically calling me a salope."

"I would never say that, Bob. You're a boy. I'm sure there's a better word than 'bitch' for you."

"Jeez, thanks," with those parting words Bob slunk out of the room.

"I never thought we'd get to be alone."

"Vaughn, I really don't want to be alone with you right now. Unless you are going to tell me that you and Lauren are divorced, or better yet, never even married, and that you want me back. In which case, I'm not even sure I'd take you back, shut up now."

"Sydney, I can't tell you all the things you want to hear, but there is something I have to tell you."

"Fine. You have a minute. What is it?"

"Lauren is just a decoy. She's not my wife."

"A decoy?"

"Yeah, the evil guys were getting suspicious about our searching for you. Well, mainly me and your father were searching for you. They started sending assassins, snipers, and teething babies, basically anything that can inflict pain after us. We needed a decoy, Lauren, to prove that we, well, I, wasn't searching for you anymore and that I had moved on. I never moved on Syd. I swear."

"Why didn't you tell me all this when I got back?"

"Lauren lost her memory a month into our fake marriage. She got run over by a shopping cart when in the grocery store. She was picking out mangoes. They told me to just tell her she was my wife. She never questioned it. Then you came back, and they told me not to tell you until we had all of this figured out."

"Oh, well that explains it. Thank you. Let's keep Sydney in the dark. It's not like it's *her* life we're screwing up."

"Syd, I know it's bad when you start referring to yourself in the third person."

"I don't want to hear this."

"Listen, recently, Sark contacted Lauren. He told her the truth and recruited her. They've been working together, and I've been working against them. We don't have enough proof yet to completely shut them down, but we're close. I couldn't hold it in any longer. You needed to know."

The room was silent for a long time.

"Syd, I'm not married."

"I know"

"Do you forgive me?"

"I'm not sure."

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A/N : I don't write without reviews... I'm planning lots of fluff and stuff, so leave a message by clicking that pretty lil violet colored box . . .