Author's note: This story is a double ship, Sydney/Vaughn and Sarkney. If you don't like one ship or the other, you might not want to read this story because it will have both kinds of ship in it… :O)

Sydney did the first thing that came to mind when she reached the airport. She called Vaughn. "I need to talk with you. I almost made the stupidest mistake of my life."

Vaughn quickly agreed to meet her in the warehouse and hung up the phone. He really wanted to ask her what she was doing back in L.A. so early. Her flight wasn't even supposed to have been in the air for an hour. But he saved his questions for when he saw her face to face and knew that she was truly all right.

Sydney rented a car from the airport and drove straight to their meeting place. It didn't surprise her to see that Vaughn's car was already there. He always seemed to be there, waiting for her.

"Vaughn?" she called hesitantly as she entered the warehouse.

"I'm here, Syd," Vaughn answered, standing up from where he had been sitting on a stranded desk. "What happened?"

"Don't get mad."

"Why would I get mad?" He narrowed his eyes at her. "What did you do this time? What rule did you break?"

"I let Sark give me a ride back to a L.A. on his personal jet. I didn't mean to, I swear. It was just he told me about retrieving the disk from you before you got on your plane. And I wanted to get it back. Oh, I wanted to get it back so bad. And I wanted to go home. I was so tired."

Vaughn pulled Sydney into his arms for a hug. "You sound tired. Relax. You don't have to explain your actions to me. Whatever choice you made, I support it. You know what you're doing even if no one else has any idea."

Sydney smiled at him. "Who taught you to be so understanding?"

"My father," he answered seriously.

Sydney shrugged out of his arms. Vaughn's father was still an extremely touchy subject. Her mother had killed him, and there would never be a way around that. "Anyway, Sark propositioned me again. And for some reason, I almost said yes."

"I take back all that stuff I just said. You've lost your mind," he joked.

"I didn't say yes in the end, though."

"What made you change your mind?"

Sydney hesitated for a second, wondering if she should tell Vaughn about the dream she had on the jet, but decided it would be better off if he didn't know. "That's not important. What's important is this disk." Sydney took the disk out of her pocket and held it out to Vaughn.

He took it from her hand and stared at it. "How did you get this away from Sark? There's only so much subtly you can have on a jet."

"I didn't have to steal it from him. He gave it to me in exchange for going along with him on the plane. Which makes me wonder why it was so important I be on that plane with him. Anyway, he said the disk was a lot more important than the CIA realizes."

"I'll have someone check that out tomorrow." Vaughn set the disk down on the desk. Turning, he took a good look at Sydney. "Are you sure you're all right? If I know you as well as I think you do, that face you're making is your put-on-a-brave-face one."

Sydney looked at him in awe. He really did know her as well as she had always believed. Realizing that fact set her over the edge. She burst into tears as she threw herself back into his arms.

Vaughn felt her legs give out, and they ended up in a heap on the floor. He leaned back against the wall still holding onto her tight. "You cry for as long as you want, Sydney. We don't have anywhere to be."

The soft motion of Vaughn's hand playing with her hair soothed Sydney. She managed to reduce her sobs to a few insignificant sniffles. When she had accomplished that, she tried to explain to him what was going on. "I feel like my body's shutting itself down. I sleep at all the wrong times, never in bed at night. I can't for the life of me sleep when it's convenient. My dreams haunt me when I'm asleep and when I'm awake. I feel like my whole world's about to come crashing down, and there's no reason for that."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I didn't want to burden you. It's not your responsibility to make sure that I don't fall apart."

"It kind of is, Syd."

"That's right. I'm your agent, and you're my handler," she mumbled as she felt herself drifting to sleep again. She had a gut feeling that this was a critical moment and she shouldn't fall asleep, but once again her subconscious took over her body and mind.

As she drifted off, she faintly heard Vaughn say, "Don't you think we're a little more than that?"

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

For the first time since these dreams started, there were no changes in the hallway or the doors. Sydney felt herself relax slightly as she realized this. The black door was a good distance down the hall. Knowing that if the pattern held up that was the one she needed to enter, she forced herself to walk down the hall.

She hesitated in front of the door. If this experience was like the previous one, she wasn't sure if she would be able to keep herself sane. Seeing herself hurt Vaughn so deeply had been like having a little piece of her heart die.

The door creaked slightly as she pushed it open. She peeked in and saw that it was another bedroom. "This one is definitely not Vaughn's," she thought as she entered. This room looked as sleek and sophisticated as Vaughn's home looked comfortable and homey. There was a small tingling in her chest but not the normal jolt she had been experiencing.

She looked at her reflection in the mirror in front of her and gasped. Her appearance had definitely changed. It matched the ambiance of the room perfectly, wild and sophisticated. Her hair was chin length and bright red. She hesitantly lifted her hand up to her head and realized that it wasn't a wig. This was her real hair.

Her dress wasn't as disconcerting but none the less different. She was wearing a little black dress that seemed to have been tailor made for her body. It was extremely short and had a neckline that dove all the way down to her navel. She was wearing a necklace that had a very small but extremely exquisite diamond on the end.

In her hands was a small ring box. She was unable to hold back her curiosity and opened the box. Inside was the most beautiful ring she had ever seen. There was a diamond of at least one carat in the middle of a platinum band that looked completely flawless to her. Two sapphires, her favorite gemstone, framed the diamond. Whoever made her this ring knew her inside and out. She couldn't imagine a more perfect ring if she tried.


"I see you found it," she heard a voice from the doorway say.

"What does this mean, Julian?" she heard herself ask. In her mind, she was wondering when she had learned that Sark's name was Julian.

"I understand that you asked me not to do this, but I can't help myself. I love you completely and utterly, Sydney. Since the first time I saw you, I think I knew you were the only one for me, the only woman who could really understand me and what I am, the only woman who could keep up with me."

Sydney looked at him with tears in her eyes. She couldn't help noticing that the hand holding the ring box had begun to tremble.

"Don't say anything until I've finished." His eyes pleaded with her, and she couldn't bear to not grant him this one small thing. "You amaze me in a new way every day I'm with you. Every morning I wake up and I can't believe that you're actually lying next to me. Every night I expect you to realize how big a mistake you've made and run out of here without looking back. Sydney, I couldn't take it if you did. Since you agreed to this entire thing, you've become my whole life. And I don't want that to change. What I'm trying so horribly to say is that I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Sydney Anne Bristow, will you marry me?"

Sydney couldn't believe the words that were coming out of Sark's mouth. She never expected him to show her so much emotion. She never thought he even felt emotion. But deep down in her heart, she knew that every word he said was true. This wasn't some elaborate scheme to get her to do his bidding, to follow his master plan. For the first time since she had known him, she didn't think he had a master plan.

"Julian, you know that I've fallen in love with you. That every moment I spent with you has been unlike anything I've ever known. You're the first person I met who actually let me be who I really was. You helped me learn that the person I am isn't inherently good. I'm not that perfect agent that CIA always thought I was. I have faults. I'm not perfect. I understand that I've changed, but in the end, it was for the better. Everything you did for me was for the better." Sydney paused to wipe the tears out of her eyes. "I've never loved anyone as I've loved you. I love you so much it hurts."

"But you can't marry me." He looked up at her, and she could see the pain and realization in his face. "It's Michael Vaughn, isn't it?"

"He called me today."

"Let me guess. He told you that he was leaving his wife, that he never really loved her. You were the only one he ever truly loved. He knew that the only reason you were apart was because it was forbidden for a CIA handler and his agent to fall in love. He asked you to return to the United States, to return to him."

"You taught me that taking chances is the only way that you can find what you truly desire. I never took the change with Michael, and I think I'll regret that fact for the rest of my life. But now there's a chance to resolve that. I have to take it." Sydney was shocked to hear this words come out of her mouth. When had she become so cold inside? She knew in her heart that this coldness wasn't something she had picked up from Sark. It had always been a part of her. She felt as if her words were knives and she was repeatedly stabbing him without any remorse.

Sark took the ring out of the box and slid it on her finger. "Keep this. I want you to remember me always."

"You're not going to try to stop me?" she asked.

"No one could ever stop you when you decided on something." Sark turned and made his way to the door. When he reached it, he turned around. "Did you ever think, Sydney, that when you're spending the rest of your life with Michael Vaughn that you might regret not finding out where you and I would have ended up?"

She found herself alone, and at that moment, she knew that she had made the wrong choice.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Sydney sat up with a start, waking Vaughn up in the process. They had fallen asleep in the same positions, Vaughn leaning against the wall with Sydney's head rested on his lap.

"What's the matter?" Vaughn asked as he wiped the sleep out of his eyes.

"I broke his heart. I was so cold and horrible to him. He had been nothing but nice and kind and considerate the whole time I was with him, and I just broke him in two."

"Who are you talking about?"

"Sark." She really looked at him for the first time since she had woken up. "I'm sorry. It was my dream. It felt so real."

Sydney shrugged off the hand Vaughn had placed on her shoulder. Sighing, she stood up. "I need to go home. I've been going non-stop for too long. It's starting to mess me up. I'll see you in the office tomorrow, Michael."

And she was gone before he could ask her why she had called him Michael instead of Vaughn. Something was terribly wrong.