Vaughn looked doubtfully at the sleeping pills in his hands. He didn't believe in sleeping pills. In fact, he didn't believe in sleeping, period. He felt it was a waste of time, unless that sleeping time happened to be in the company of a loved one; in his case, Sydney. However, he had to admit that he really needed to go to sleep. He was exhausted and hurting, and all he wanted to do was lose consciousness for at least 12 hours. Having made up his mind, he gulped the capsules down and was soon slumbering on his bed, still fully dressed in his work attire.
To say the least, his sleep was a fitful one, full of feverish turns and delirious mumbles. Vaughn was fully aware that he was living out a nightmare, and yet, this did little to abate the fear he felt as he ran down the hallway, following Sydney as a mob of agents the CIA had never encountered before chased after them. Suddenly, he lost sight of Sydney, and as he rounded the corner, a slender, muscular arm had hooked itself around Vaughn's neck, and suddenly, he felt a sharp jab right below his left shoulder blade. Even as he lay unconscious on the floor, the Vaughn who was observing everything in the dream, begged the figure on the floor to awake. When the figure did not, Vaughn willed himself to awake from the dream, but found that he could not. His eyes seemed to have been clamped shut, and his weary body seemed to want to remain intact with the bed mattress. Helpless, Vaughn knew what was going to happen next. This nightmare was a replay of the mission that had occurred about two months ago. As he continued to watch, the female who had knocked him out, approached his still body. She was clothed fully in black leather that clung to her curvaceous figure, and her steps were light, graceful, and calculative like a wily cat's. Had it been under different circumstances, he would have thought her mysteriously beautiful. Looking into the eyes of the masked face, he saw that the woman's eyes held a glint of cold humor in them. He screamed at his body to jerk back into action, for his eyes to open, but his unconscious form lay there. The woman was now at his side, her right hand on the hilt of a vicious looking dagger. "Awake sleeping beauty, you won't die just yet. Not until I've made full use of you." The hand that had been covering the dagger reached forward and traced Vaughn's jaw line. At that moment, just as Vaughn expected, Weiss rushed onto the scene, making the cat-like woman prance away quickly out of view. Weiss slung Vaughn over his shoulder and raced for the entrance, reassuring him in the meantime with short spurts of breath, that he was "going to be just fine," and that Sydney, "made it out uninjured." In his hurry to escape, Weiss did not see the masked man that stood before him until both collided into one another, resulting in a tangled mess of limbs. The masked man got up slowly, glanced uncertainly at Vaughn's crumpled figure on the ground before he swung aimlessly at Weiss's face. Weiss easily evaded the punch, and pummeled the man to the ground with his weight, knocking him unconscious against the wall. Once again, Vaughn was slung over Eric's shoulder, and as they departed, he looked around to see that the masked figure against the wall had awoken quickly and was staring after their retreating backs.
He finally awoke, his shirt having been soaked through with sweat. He remained still, puzzled, as he listened to an odd rasping sound in his room until at last, he realized that it was his own breathing that was making that unpleasant noise. "I must have pneumonia," he thought and threw the tangled bed sheets off of himself as he went to the bathroom to strip out of his suit. As he pulled off his undershirt, he saw a tiny puncture mark under his left shoulder blade from a side profile of the mirror. He froze for a second or two, then drew closer to the full-length mirror and stared at the puncture mark. He had never noticed it before in the two months that had passed since that mission. To see it now made him feel apprehensive. It was barely noticeable, and yet, the wound appeared odd. It had not scabbed over, but instead, looked as if someone had given him a fresh immunization shot that very day. Also, he noted that had it been a shot that he was given, it would have been a large needle, seeing as how the prick mark beneath his shoulder blade, was unusually large for any regular needle. He stared back at his reflection, anxious. He hadn't felt pain there at all, except for when he had initially experienced the jab from the leather-clad woman during the mission. And even then, he was sure that the shot was administered to knock him unconscious, remembering how his vision had immediately clouded afterwards. He wondered about getting it checked out, then dismissed it, as he ridiculed himself for being so paranoid.
Emerging from the bathroom, Vaughn glanced at the clock next to his bedside. It was 3:45 a.m. He groaned. Unfortunately, the sleeping pills had by now worn off, and he couldn't seem to be able to go back to sleep, not that he wanted to. He would much rather sit pleasantly on the sofa in reality, then return back to his nightmarish slumber world. As he commenced to throw the sweaty bed sheets into a corner of the room, his attention was stirred towards a sound in the guest room next door. Although he couldn't make out the words, he knew that Agent Ron was conversing with someone over the phone. He looked incredulously at the time, and wondered who would be so rude as to call that early in the morning. Perhaps it was his wife? Pondering for a second, Vaughn realized he didn't know very much about his partner at all, and vowed to better acquaint himself with the man in the following days, since they were to work together after all.