Author's note: This story has evolved into a crazy hybrid of Seasons 1,2, and 3. Please just go along with it! To clarify, SD-6 and the Covenant are both around. Irina is still in CIA custody. Sydney's still a double agent, but she also lost the same two years of her life.

Sydney hated the fact that she felt like she was running away from her life. But it was the only thing she could think to do right now. She hadn't ruled out the possibility that she was going crazy. The dreams were creating the worst emotional turmoil she had ever experiences. She was determined to figure out why they were happening and how to stop them.

The mission that SD-6 had sent her on was supposed to be simple. She had to track down an SD-6 agent for extraction from some sticky situation he had gotten into in Quito. The man in question was currently working undercover in the capital of Ecuador as a munitions expert. Sloane informed her that she had an appointment to talk with him. During that appointment, she would just explain who she was and tell him she had a car and plane ready to take him back to Los Angeles.

After a quick phone call, Vaughn had told her that the CIA didn't see the need for a counter mission. She would go in and extract the agent as planned by SD-6.

It would have been a flawless procedure if not for the actual man. As soon as Sydney told him she was with SD-6 and was there to bring him back in to the L.A. facility, he reached under his desk and pulled a gun on her. He was screaming that she didn't know the people she was working for. They were not a black ops division of the CIA. They were the enemy.

Sydney wanted with all her might to tell him that she already knew, but she couldn't risk blowing her cover. For all she knew, this whole operation was an elaborate test to make sure she wasn't a double agent. She tried to disarm the man, and their conflict turned into hand-to-hand combat.

The agent was just as good if not slightly better than Sydney. She tried to end the fight as quickly as she could. In the process of the struggle, the gun went off and the man was shot in the chest.

She watched helplessly as he died on the floor. It was finally clear. This man wasn't her enemy. He had actually been an ally. She could have taken him into the real CIA and he would have gotten a chance at a real life.

That was eight hours earlier. Now she was stuck in some seedy hotel room in Chicago because her connecting flight to Los Angeles got canceled. She was struck with the look of that agent's face as he got shot emblazoned on her mind. It wouldn't go away.

The ringing of her cell phone interrupted her thoughts. Flipping it open she greeted one of her best friend's in the world. "Will? Shouldn't you be in bed? It's four in the morning."

"Nice to hear your voice, too, Syd."

"What's up?"

"Francie's worried about you. She said you were supposed to be home over five hours ago."

"Oh my god. I'm so sorry. I didn't even think to call you guys. I'm holed up in some hotel in Chicago. My connecting flight got canceled. I won't be home until late tomorrow." Sydney expected Will to make some sort of response. But the phone was just dead air when she stopped talking. "Will?" she said tentatively.

"Francie's gone to the bathroom. How did your mission go?"

Sydney smiled to herself. Her life had gotten a little easier since Will found out the truth. It was nice only having to lie to one of her best friends, not both. However, her smile quickly faded as she remembered the mission. "It was pretty horrible."

"Are you crying, Syd?" Will asked. He could hear her voice trembling on the other end.

"I was supposed to go in and save this men. I ended up shooting him, Will. He's dead. This man who was on the same side of me is dead because I didn't do my job properly."

"Aw, Syd. I'm sure it's not your fault. The life you live is a dangerous one. Agents out there are risking their lives every day just like you. This man you killed knew that he might die one day."

"But he didn't know that he would die on the very day he could have been saved by the very person who should have been saving him."

"I'm sure the company's driver loved the fact that you kept making him stop every two miles."

Sydney was only confused for a moment. "Francie walked back into the room, didn't she?"

"Francie's here, Syd. She wants to talk to you."

"Okay. Thank you, Will."

"No problem." Sydney heard the phone rustle as Will handed it over to Francie. She almost giggled as she heard Francie demand that Will leave the room because she had girl talk to do. Will's grumbling in the background was quite funny.

"What's up, Franc?" Syd asked.

"I want to hear about your business trip. Was that Michael guy with you?"

Sydney decided to play dumb. "What Michael guy?"

"He was with you," Francie shrieked.

"No. He didn't come on this trip. Sorry to disappoint you."

"But he's still in the picture, right? He didn't get fired or anything absurd like that?"

"No, he's still working with the bank. But I've told you before Francie I don't think he wants to date me."

"Come on now. Who wouldn't want to date you, Syd? You're one of the most devoted workers that stupid bank has. You're super intelligent. And hello! You're drop dead gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous that little girls pray to be."

"Anyway, it's not the right time for me."

"Listen to me, Sydney. You can't spend all your time just waiting for a second chance to come up to you. You have to go out there and find it. You're always coming up with these reasons why men wouldn't want you in their lives. It's ridiculous."

"Thanks for the pep talk, Coach." Sydney sighed. "Listen. I need to go to bed. I've had a hard day, I have a flight to catch in the morning, and you need to get up and run that beautiful restaurant."

"Okay. Keep what I said in mind, though. Don't just shrug it off."

"I promise," Sydney said as she closed the phone. She set it on the dresser and curled up onto the bed. If only Francie knew how out of the question a relationship with Vaughn would be. Plus, she didn't even know where her mind was.

She knew Francie thought her comment about it being the wrong thing had to do with Danny, but she had actually reached the end of that grieving cycle. Danny would be in her mind and heart for years and years to come. But she didn't hurt as much as she once did. She could feel herself urging her to move on with her life.

The tears had begun to run down her face back when she was talking to Will, and they hadn't stopped yet. She grabbed a tissue off the nightstand and tried to dab at her eyes. It seemed like she was always crying about one thing or another lately, ever since her mind had left her body.

She closed her eyes and willed herself to fall asleep. But it wasn't happening. Her body didn't want to sleep. She hadn't slept in thirty-eight hours, but that didn't seem to matter.

After an hour of staring at the ceiling, her focus was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Probably the damn maid," she muttered as she went to open the door.

When she saw who it was, her mouth dropped open in shock. "Vaughn? What are you doing here?"

Vaughn pushed his way past her into the hotel room and shut the door behind him. "The CIA got your call that you were stuck in Chicago. Kendall told me to take tomorrow off since you were just stuck in a hotel room."

"So you tracked me down and flew out here? That doesn't make sense."

"From the way Kendall described your phone call, I could tell you were upset about something. And being stuck in a big city with no one to talk to is not the way to cure that. Besides, I wanted to come and make sure you were okay myself. You know I worry about you when you're out on missions."

"I know."

"So tell me what happened."

Sydney sat down on the bed and put her head into her hands. "I killed the agent I went in there to save. He was just like me, Vaughn. He knew that SD-6 wasn't what they said they were. He thought I was going to take him back home to get killed. I couldn't tell him that I believed him and knew the truth. It would have compromised my position. So I kept my mouth shut. We struggled. His gun went off, and he got shot."

"I'm sorry, Syd." Vaughn took a seat next to her on the bed. "It must have been horrible."

"It was strange. I kept thinking of Danny and how he died. There's no real connection but the image of Danny kept coming up in my mind."

"That's a natural thing. Danny was the man you loved. It takes a while to move on past that, especially with the circumstances surrounding his death."

Sydney sighed. "It's just these memories keep coming up. And then there are my dreams. They're so vivid that I keep thinking of them as memories. I thought that this mission, my work, would distract me. But it's not good enough. Nothing seems to be good enough."

Vaughn didn't know what to do as she started crying again. He slid his arm around her and pulled her close so that her head rested on his shoulder. "Well, I'm here now. So you don't have to be strong. You can let it all out."

And she did just that. When Sydney's sobs had died down, Vaughn laid her down onto the bed. He stood up and took off his jacket before sliding next to her. She reached out and wrapped his arms around her waist. In any other situation, she might have found this odd, but for some reason, it felt right and okay in her current predicament.

"I talked to Francie earlier," she said randomly. "She told me that I couldn't sit around and wait for a second chance. That if I want to move on, I need to go out there and find someone. She said I had to stop making excuses for myself."

"What prompted this lecture?" Vaughn asked.

Sydney could hear the smile in his voice. He always loved hearing about the normal parts of her life. It made sense since he didn't really have much of a normal life out of the CIA. When he hung out with friends, it was usually people who worked with him at the CIA. When he went on vacation, he usually ended up doing some random task for the CIA. So, it seemed right to hear him so interested in the normal parts of her completely abnormal life.

Realizing that she wanted to see his smile, his face, when she answered his question, she turned toward him. "She asked me about a guy from work."

"A guy from work?"

"I foolishly told her I had a crush on this man I worked with. And now she asks me about him every time I go on a business trip." Sydney smiled at him. "I promised her that I would give this guy a chance."

"I'll have to let Weiss know that. He'll be excited to know that you finally come around. He's been waiting for a year and a half now."

"Very funny," she said as she smacked him lightly on the chest. She sobered up rapidly and looked him dead straight in the eyes with a serious look on her face. "I heard what you said that day in the warehouse when I fell asleep on you. You asked me if I thought our relationship was more than just an agent and a handler. I wanted to let you know that yeah, I think it is."

Vaughn looked in to her eyes for a moment before realizing that she was giving him a go ahead. This was the moment he had been waiting for since the first day she stepped into the CIA offices. Smiling, he leaned in and kissed her lightly. When she did shrug away but wrapped her arms around him, he kissed her a little less tentatively.

He almost sighed when he realized her lips were exactly as he imagined. Soft, yet powerful with a hint of sweetness to them. He had been dreaming about kissing those lips for so long.

"We shouldn't be doing this," Sydney whispered between kisses.

Vaughn sighed and pulled away a little. "I know that. You know that. I don't think it's enough to stop us, though. You've had a long day. Why don't you try to get some sleep? We can sort this out in the morning."

Sydney nodded, realizing that she was in fact tired. She turned over again and snuggled in close to Vaughn's body. This whole day had put her mind into such a daze that she didn't even think to be scared of what her dreams might tell her this time.

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

There was no hallway this time. Sydney figured that her mind was starting to get tired of letting her have a choice or given her any insights. It was all business this time.

She was tied to a chair, and there was a large Asian man interrogating her. It suddenly came to her that this wasn't a fantasy or vision of what the future might be. This had happened before. If she remembered she was in a prison in Beijing. A guard had caught her with a right hook to the head when she wasn't looking.

Recalling how the scene played out, she realized that she was about to work the ropes binding her arms free. Then she was going to promptly take out every person in the room one by one. She remembered thinking this was the day she proved she could really handle herself without the help of anyone else. Afterwards, she would run back to the warehouse in Los Angeles to tell Vaughn about how she came to a realization. A realization that she could make it through this ordeal without quitting or being consumed.

Sydney was surprised to realize that she had control of her body. In her memory, she knew that the pain was a little too great for her to look around so freely. But here she was, doing just that.

What she saw shocked her. In the back of the room, there was a man issuing orders to her torturer. She recognized him as one of the higher ups in the Alliance. However, the shocking part was who was standing next to this man. Vaughn.


"This can't be right," she thought to herself. "Number one, Vaughn was visiting his mother in France while I was on this mission. Number two, there's no way he would stand by and watch me get tortured."

She shook her head, willing the scene to be altered or disappear entirely. It wouldn't. She could hear Vaughn's voice over the sound of her own screams at being punched and kicked.

"You promise there's no way she'll be able to identify that I was here. I don't want to blow my cover with the CIA."

"Agent Vaughn, there is no way Miss Bristow will connect you with what happened today," the Alliance man said.

"Good. She is just starting to trust me. If my mission is going to be a success, I can't afford to lose that trust."

Sydney stared in awe at the solemn face of her handler as the scene began to fade out.

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

Sydney awoke with a start. Vaughn was still lying beside her, sound asleep. She couldn't look at him. The events in her dream were too fresh in her mind. Like every other time she had woken up, it was so hard to separate fantasy from reality.

She slid out of the bed, being careful not to jar it so much that Vaughn realized she was leaving. With the complimentary pencil and pad sitting on the night table, she wrote him a quick note that her mind was racing with too many thoughts for her to sleep. She promised she'd be back before the sun rose.

Her jacket was sitting on the armchair next to the table where she left the note. Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she grabbed it and headed out the door.

Downtown Chicago was very desolate in the early hours just before the morning rush started, Sydney realized. If she hadn't been so occupied with trying to sort out her dreams, she might have been a little awestruck by the beauty of it. She found a deserted park bench in the middle of the maze of skyscrapers and streets and chose to sit down.

A lot of time must have passed without her realizing it because the next thing she knew she was surrounded by rush hour traffic and Vaughn was screaming her name and running towards her.

"Sydney! What the hell made you leave that hotel room?" he demanded as he leaned down to catch his breath.

"I told you in the note. I needed to think. I needed to be by myself for a little while."

"Don't go running off like that. I was afraid someone had gotten to you." Seeing that Sydney looked like she was about to cry, his face softened. "I didn't mean to yell at you. I was just worried. You mean a lot to the CIA… and to me," he added hesitantly.

She smiled at him and held out her hand for him to help her up. "Thank you."

They began walking hand in hand along the street. Vaughn held out his hand to hail down a cab. When a cab had been motioned over and they were comfortably seated inside, he asked, "So how did all your thinking go?"

"I think I came up with a lead. There's someone I need to see who may have some of the answers I'm looking for."

Vaughn looked at Sydney for a moment. She was sounded almost cryptic. He had only known her for about eighteen months, but he had never heard her sound this distant and emotionless. The impact of her double agent missions and the dreams that were haunting her night and day were becoming apparent.