Rhapsody

Raina: Haha… I'm glad you're happy, and thanks so much for reviewing… I meant to have this one up sooner, but my little brother had to get stitches on the bottom of his foot, and I had to play nurse for a few days and help him hobble around…

Natalie: Hmm. It would be interesting to see Syd's reaction if Jack died… Of course, somebody somewhere else told me that it would be interesting to see what happened if Vaughn died… or maybe it was Syd… I can't remember, but either way, it would go against your policy, now, wouldn't it? ;-) Thanks so much for taking the time to review!

valley-girl2: My first orthodontist was also my dentist. I went in for my cleaning and he decided that it would be a good idea to put on braces. And then during one of the 2-hour appointments when he was supposed to be tightening my wires, and sometime in between losing one of the brackets and accidentally breaking off the metal that goes around my molars, he cut himself, tore the glove and was bleeding. And didn't think it would be a good idea to clean himself or get new gloves before going back to work in my mouth. Needless to say, we do not go there anymore… Sorry for the long-winded story. I'm still just a tad bitter… Haha! You had quite the dinner ordeal. I'm glad you were able to finish… Your last paragraph completely cracked me up. If I had done that, I would have laughed and taken it out. Thank you so much for leaving it in there. It made my night… And of course, thank you for the lovely review. You rock!

Chapter 10: Incubus

If someone had approached Vaughn when he had first started working for that CIA and told him that he would one day not only count Jack Bristow among the members of his family, but be proud to do so, he probably would have stared blankly or tried to cover his surprise with a feigned coughing fit. Later it might have been amusing, and he and Weiss would have employed it as the entertainment needed to wash down their beers for countless evenings. Either that, or he would have cried. Incessantly and alone.

But laughter and tears were no longer alternatives, and neither was pretending that Jack's words were not true. Vaughn wouldn't have wanted to. Not when he had become so accustomed to, so in need of Sydney that his every sense clamored for her attention both night and day, and he could no longer remember what it had ever been to live without her. His younger self would have been shocked, but too naïve to understand, wouldn't have yet reached that October day which had turned his life upside-down, oddly changing it for the better.

It had been almost overwhelming at first. With the addition of Sydney, nothing in his life had been untouched. Mere happiness and sadness were no longer options: her slightest smile sung the hallelujah chorus; the sheer hint of a frown could send his world crumbling; even satisfaction, a seemingly neutral emotion before, had increased tenfold and been multiplied by infinity. He would have thought that such an intense influx of emotion would have been enough to induce a migraine or nosebleed even on his strongest of days; but that was the magic of it. With Sydney, a full-fledged bombardment of everything he was capable of feeling would never be enough.

They had trespassed into the territory of danger, crushed the odds, and obliterated every rule that authority had set between them; and he would do it all again a thousand times over, even with Jack hissing down the back of his neck like an angry python.

But Jack Bristow was as much a part of Sydney as her dimples, her favorite t-shirt, or that nervous habit she had of smoothing her hair back behind her ear. Even without the respect that Jack had come to earn from him, that alone would have made him a worthy family member in Vaughn's eyes. Oh, how his younger self would laugh…

As unlikely a group as the six of them posed: three agents from two generations, a widow whose husband had been killed by the wife of the very man standing before her, and two little boys from entirely separate continents; they were more tightly connected than any family that at that very moment, might have been sitting on the porch of their picket fence-enclosed home, sipping lemonade and sharing daily stories of school, work, the LA gridlock, or the seeming inability of their children to make their beds each morning.

They were bound one to the other with strings so fine that they must have once been plucked by the fingers of angels to generate the sweet strains of the heavens, a harmony of blood ties interwoven with the even stronger melody of love. A gossamer web that somehow held all six together, threatening to snap at any moment with only the slightest amount of pressure against the razor-sharp edges of danger and absurdity, but somehow held strong. It was the feel of Ilya calming, his little fingers playing against Vaughn's neck; the hum of Gabriel's cooing sigh just behind him; and the glimmer he caught in Sydney's eye out of the corner of his own.

He managed to pull himself together enough to nod in Jack's direction, his lips curving upwards in a smile of gratitude and understanding. Then Sydney's hand was tugging at his own and his feet marched him down the hallway along with the rest of the group, stopping just in time to prevent a collision with Jack as they came to an abrupt halt in front of Vaughn's office.

"Sydney, it would probably be a good idea if you and Mrs. Vaughn…"

"Charlotte, Jack. Please."

Although Vaughn had heard Jack's words and was somehow able to comprehend them in the dank recesses of his mind, it was his mother's words that jolted him fully back to the present, her utter calmness surprising him. He wondered, for the first time in his life, exactly what she had experienced while his father was working for the CIA; if she had seen and somehow become accustomed to this outrageous aspect of his life or was simply able to remain cool under all amounts of stress.

"Charlotte," Jack nodded in apology. "It would be better if you both waited here with the children, while Vaughn and I…"

"No, Dad," Sydney interrupted, as Vaughn had known she would the moment he caught the gist of what Jack was saying. "I'm coming with you. Whatever it is, I want to hear it."

Her hand tightened on his with frustration. They had only recently started discussing her return to work, the conversation springing up one night when she had quietly confessed to him that she felt helpless and out of the loop, as if there were so many things she could have accomplished in that time she spent at home. Vaughn had tried to assure her that she wasn't wasting her time, that he had told her absolutely everything and would continue to do so, that Gabriel needed her more at the moment than the CIA did.

"I can keep an eye on the boys, Jack," Charlotte offered, cradling Gabriel in her arms and glancing in Ilya's direction. "We get along fine without Mommy and Daddy, don't we?"

Had he been given complete freedom of choice, Vaughn would have helped Sydney's father in convincing her to stay in his office, or, better yet, escorted her immediately down to medical services. He could see that her arm was hurting her, the pain lurking in her eyes somewhere behind her stubborn resolve, but not entirely lost in its shadow. It was that same resolve, however, that he had seen when Sydney had arrived in the bloodmobile for their first meeting, so sure that they were going to take down SD-6 without more than a few well-placed punches. It was the exact strength of mind that had glimmered every time he had been her partner on a mission; and even at moments during those three and a half weeks after he had first kissed her and the seeming deception of their relationship had become too much for the both of them, but she would somehow remain strong…

There was no way he could deny her this chance, the opportunity to hear firsthand information about the little boy they were so treacherously close to referring to as their own son.

"She's coming, Jack." Because I refuse to let go of her hand… It was an afterthought, whispered from his heart to his mind, and heard by no one, not even Sydney and barely himself. But perhaps it really was the reason after all.

When Charlotte and the boys had been settled into Vaughn's office and an unfortunate Junior Agent Mraz had chosen that moment to walk by, thereby automatically volunteering his services to help her "just as a precautionary measure," as Jack had put it, the three agents made their way down to the briefing room.

"Hey!" a familiar voice called out as they were just steps away from the door. Sydney and Vaughn turned towards it, letting Jack continue into the room. "I heard that…" Weiss paused to catch his breath, his quick jog up to his friends easily winding him. In that moment, his eyes snagged on the gauze on Sydney's arm and filled with concern. "Syd, they didn't tell me you…"

"I'm fine," she answered quickly, offering Weiss a smile that quickly disappeared, as he unintentionally tugged at her arm to get a closer look.

Sydney had had more than enough experience with the various forms of torture to qualify her as an absolute genius when it came to concealing pain. Her movement was so slight and the smile slid so naturally from her face that only Vaughn caught the twinge that flared across her features. "Maybe it's a good idea if we go down to Med…"

"No," Sydney interrupted softly, warningly, her eyes managing to give him the look and beg for his understanding at the same time.

He granted her the latter without a second thought, nodding and forcing his own eyes to steer clear of her wounded arm before his common sense could get the better of him. His arm snaked around her waist instinctively and he led her into the room, leaving Weiss to trip in behind them.

Jack stood at the head of the table, already poised with the projector remote in his hand. His greeting of "Devlin named me director of this operation," was met with nothing more than silence and the accusing glare Weiss shot in young Agent Lee's direction; she was seated as far from Jack as possible, leaving Weiss the chair next to the newly named director so that Sydney and Vaughn could sit together on the opposite side of the table.

"Adrick Bykov," Jack began, flashing a picture on the screen the moment Vaughn had helped Sydney into her seat.

Vaughn scrambled to his own chair and stared at the image, intent on memorizing every feature on Bykov's face, processing the scar that slashed from his left cheekbone straight through his sneering lips, wanting to know the exact placement of every mole, every hair so that he would recognize this man in the presence or absence of light, no matter how he might try to disguise himself, or…

"… leader of a loosely banded group of rogue government officials and destitute Russian workers. While any long-term goals are still unclear, their current objective is…"

"Ilya," Sydney interrupted knowingly, and even though Vaughn was inches away from touching her, inches that seemed to stretch into miles, he could feel her stiffen at his side. "He's two and a half year's old…"

"What could he possibly have that Bykov might want?" Vaughn finished for her. "Or do that…"

"Bloodties to Devora Domaslavov," Jack cut in, answering his first question and quickly continuing before anyone could further disrupt him. "Bykov did not murder her himself, but sent his two henchmen, Ioakim and Sacha Yudin."

Bykov's image dissolved into a side-by-side display of the two men, the one on the right standing tall and stone-faced, while a hint of a smile tried to force its way through his shorter, chubbier counterpart's façade.

"Brothers. Ioakim's on the right, older by almost ten years and by far the more useful in Bykov's operation. His blood was found on shards of glass from a window broken the night of Domaslavov's murder, apparently their only means of escape when one of her neighbors became a little too... curious. You said there were three attackers today, and these are more than likely the three men who…"

"And the dog," Weiss interjected, pointing to Jack and ignoring his sigh of impatience, momentarily forgetting his relative proximity to the man. "That's Bykov's thing, dogs. Trained attack machines. He's got at least twenty-three, by the latest count, but if you only saw one, it's probably Kisa, his favorite; name means 'kitten' if I translated it right, but…"

"Wait," Sydney commanded, shaking her head and stopping Weiss' voice with her raised hand. "Bykov still wants to exact revenge for the files we found in Ilya's jacket? It's been what, eight months?"

"In a way, yes," Jack answered. "But it's more complicated than that. If Bykov had solely wanted retribution for the files, he would have been finished after he had murdered Katja Domaslavov and her group in the snow. We made a critical error in giving Ilya over to his grandmother's custody; Devora Domaslavov covers her tracks well."

At the words 'critical error' Vaughn's stomach began to churn, as if a vicious tangle had snarled itself within him and was waiting to be released, to spread into the rest of his system and light every cell with its angry fire. He couldn't see her from the way he had positioned himself, waiting for the slide he knew would flash upon the screen, but he sensed Sydney freeze behind him, unconsciously slid his chair in her direction, not even aware of the scraping sound it made as it crossed the floor or the three pairs of eyes that shot in his direction.

Without warning, the Yudin brothers transformed into a close-up of a woman so dangerous-looking that there was no way even the worst of parents would let any child within her vicinity. It couldn't have been the same woman who had charmed them with her story and tears, that they had given Ilya to with thanks and well wishes, but…

A folder was suddenly in his hands, and Vaughn glanced up just in time to see Jack take his hand away from it. "There you will find a list of her known aliases. As far as we know, Domaslavov is her legal, married name, and she has only started referring to herself by it…"

Vaughn turned and handed the folder to Sydney, but having already scanned the list over his shoulder, she slid it away, straightening in her seat and smoothing her hair behind her ear. Vaughn tried to catch her eye, but she stared callously up at the screen, and his sudden inability to connect with her, to read her feelings and know that her thoughts were in tune with his own overwhelmed his bubbling anger with a cooling concern and a hiss of fear.

"… she has worked very closely with Bykov, to the point where they were almost seen as partners of his organization. Their latest major undertaking was to obtain the files that we now have in our possession. During this time, Domaslavov had been operating behind Bykov's back, working through channels to provide Family United with the intel that spurred them to their first and last significant endeavor. We're still looking into her motives for this route of operation."

How they could have been so blind, how they could have all this information now but have missed it completely just a few months ago; how they had given little Ilya to a woman who very well might have killed him, and… There were a thousand questions vying for the chance at an answer, all of them fluttering just out of reach of Vaughn's comprehension at the moment, their wings flapping frantically, serving to fan his flaming ire.

"But this Bykov guy," Weiss added, his voice cutting through the thick silence after he had actually made sure Jack was finished, "means business. At least eleven murders in remote areas of the Federation have been linked to him, without enough interest or evidence to follow through with an investigation. He's sneaky about it and holds one hell of a grudge. There are people who say they won't even let their goats graze where…"

Somewhere in between the seething anger, the flood of denial and the thin veil of disbelief, Vaughn caught the tiniest glimpse of Sydney out of the corner of his eye, saw her push her chair out from the table and shakily stand. He almost grabbed her arm to halt her hasty retreat, the blinding white of the gauze flashing into his field of vision just seconds before his fingers would have closed around her flesh.

Fortunately, Jack was one step ahead of him, his commanding tone calling out her name in such a way that she couldn't help but listen. "Sydney. Wait."

Vaughn thought that she would have kept going, but she stopped as quickly as if she had been a little girl, and spun slowly around, waiting for her father to continue. Daring him to say something to make all of this better, she silently pleaded with him to find that magic he had possessed when she was four years old and the simplest word or caress could heal the worst of her wounds.

"I asked Agent Lee to stay for this briefing so that she could fill you in on the status of Ilya's family." Jack nodded towards the younger agent, and she rose quickly from her chair.

"It's nothing you don't already know, really," Agent Lee began, her cheeks coloring when she realized all eyes were on her. "DNA confirmation has come back naming Akim Kavalek as the biological father, but despite our best efforts, the Kavalek family refuses to have anything to do with him. He has no remaining maternal relatives, and…" She fingered her carefully compiled note cards: dates of birth, death; names of every relative and where they lived, even close friends of the boy's deceased parents who might be willing to take the child in as their own. All pertinent information in the eyes of the higher-ups and worthy of report at any other time… "And that's basically it."

Sydney didn't wait for another word before turning and flying from the room, not even pausing to allow Vaughn the time to fully extricate himself from the chair he had somehow become hopelessly tangled in, his legs and arms refusing to work as they should have. But he pulled himself together, ignoring Weiss' sympathetic gaze and leaving the room before his friend could mutter anything about women and their tempers.

"Syd, wait…"

He wasn't even sure if he had spoken the words aloud, certainly wasn't able to hear them himself. But Sydney slowed and stumbled to a halt, allowing him to catch up to and step in front of her. She slumped against the wall so quickly and naturally that for a moment he thought she had fainted; should have known better, should have realized that it would have taken much more than the news of their own naïveté and a woman's betrayal to render Sydney Bristow unconscious.

Her hand came up to steady herself as she leaned against the wall. She wouldn't meet his eyes, her own finding an invisible speck on the wall and locking there, concentrating so much force, pain and anger into those few millimeters that he thought he saw the paint begin to bubble; knew it was a trick of the imagination as her words washed over him, advancing so softly and slowly from her lips that each one seemed it's own separate statement.

"I put him into her arms..."

The utter desolation undulating through her tone ripped at his insides, shredding every part of his body that was in any way able to feel. A barely controlled fury whirred around her, snatching at her voice and causing it to break, sparking from deep within her eyes. Her words were whispered only to keep her from shouting, to keep the scorching inner frustration from exploding into a fireball of passion, igniting her entire being as he had seen it do so many times before.

"Syd…"

He said her name in that gentle, nearly-impossible-to-ignore way that would have normally cleaved her from the vice-grip of any emotion and pulled her eyes to his own. But it didn't work here; she wouldn't give in so easily, was stirred by a higher form of self-loathing than he had ever seen in her before, greater than with any failed mission before SD-6's takedown. There was so much more at stake when a child was involved, when they had a child of their own.

"... I smiled at her… wished her luck…"

Her tone was dripping with disgust, saturated so thoroughly that her last word nearly drowned in the tidal wave. He let her continue without interruption, permitted the pauses that frustration choked from within her to stand in silence. Sydney had managed to keep cool longer than he had, had held back her anger in the heat of the moment, knowing that it wouldn't have helped to protect those they loved. But it had eventually become too much for her, and just as he had been before, she was precariously close to the brink, the sinister chasm that separated anger from every other conscious thought.

While he still felt the same wracking guilt scratch at his heart with its razor-sharp claws and the livid simmering of his blood as it began to boil in his veins, her rage somehow served to calm him. He put her before himself in everything, would help her cool her fire instead of tending to his own.

"… I've heard countless stories and lies…" Her voice trailed off, becoming impossibly softer, and he could tell that already she was beginning to crack, that anger and frustration had chipped their way through her strength. "I've told them myself… I should have known…"

"Syd," he cut in gently, when this particular cessation of speech lasted longer than the others, when he knew that she now needed him more than she did space to breathe. His fingertips found the skin on her arm, began an intricate dance of patterns and lazy designs. "It's not your fault. There's no way you could have known."

She didn't respond to him immediately, and at least that way he knew she had really heard him, that he had tugged her from anger's grip just enough so that his own words could find their way to her ears and truly be understood. When she spoke this time, her eyes actually ventured forth into his own; the still-present fury flickered within them for just a moment, softened by sadness, before she swabbed all emotion from her eyes and voice, a trick she had learned long ago, a safety mechanism that he had thought he had pulled from within her and thrown away.

"I handed our… Ilya to a murderer, Vaughn, to a…"

"We all did, Sydney…"

He interrupted her this time, his words potent, leaping from beneath the shadow of a strength he didn't know he possessed, the letters of her full name following it naturally. Only his touch deceived his tone, as his fingers jumped from her arm to her chin, tenderly catching hold of her face before she could turn away; a commanding gesture, but one almost more gentle than any she had ever known.

"… You, me, your father, and every agent of the CIA. She fooled us all, Syd."

It started with the slow almost aching rise of her chest, followed by the hissing outtake of air. She leaned into his touch, her head dipping downward as his fingers automatically maneuvered themselves from their softly authoritative grasp into a whispering caress. He knew it was a ridiculous claim, but he swore he could feel a rush of heat emanating from within her as she sighed, that the blush of distemper simmered from her cheeks and dissolved into the air, that the imp of anger crossed its arms in defiance, grumbling as it trudged away.

"I know that. It's just…"

Anger stopped and whirled hopefully around, salivating with the anticipation of regaining its quarry and taking a few eager steps forward before stumbling over Vaughn's tenacity and tumbling head over heels through the air. Vaughn had come too far to let anger win, had coaxed it away from her a thousand times before and had no intention of giving in this time. The little demon caught itself eventually, gnarled something unintelligible, shot the deadliest of sneers in Vaughn's direction, and then stalked out of existence.

All it took to secure a victory was a simple murmured command, two words contracted into one nearly effortless sound that was so strangled and faint it nearly wasn't able to take the leap from his tongue into the air.

"Don't."

He let it stand for a moment before adding another, not out of necessity, but on a whim, his lips somehow stretching it into a plea he wasn't sure he had intended, but must have, the tenderness of truth nearly overpowering the soft tone with its foghorn-like intensity.

"Please."

She had trailed off with his first word, would have been content to let him rescue her simply with that; but there was something about the second that washed over her completely, tugging at the corners of her lips. Perhaps it was the way it had seemed tacked on as an afterthought, almost didn't belong with what was spoken before, but then again, did perfectly.

"Okay."

He knew better than to question her rapid change in disposition, satisfied to let things slide as they were, revel in the fact that he had his Sydney back again. He didn't know that if he had asked her, had questioned what had made her turn around so quickly, she wouldn't have returned to anger's chokehold.

All he would have gotten was a bashful smile and simple word in response: You.

But instead, he let his lips press against hers for the briefest of seconds, stealing the thank you that was always on her lips after moments like these, that he had long ago thought unnecessary. Both his hands had come up to frame her face, and he let them trail down her sides as he pulled away, noticing her flinch slightly even as he approached the ring of gauze on her arm.

"I think you should get this looked at," he murmured. "They'll be able to clean it up better than I could, check to make sure everything's okay."

"But your…"

He shook his head to silence her, glad, at least, that she was no longer trying to convince him that she was fine. "My mother can handle the boys a little while longer." He gave her a lopsided smile, needing to break the tension, if only for a moment, add even four seconds of something resembling normality to a day that had quickly gyrated out of control. "Plus, there's a good chance that she'll kill me if I go back to her without getting you checked out first."

A glimmer of sadness swept over her features, as she realized for the umpteenth time in her life that she could have lost him, could have lost everything. Vaughn was about to apologize for his poor choice of words; something would have only been a joke between any other couple, could easily have twisted from laughter into the agonizing gasp of reality for the two of them. After all that had happened that day…

But she shook off his words before he could give them breath, willingly taking his bait and raising a hand in mock surrender. "All right. But only because I'd hate to drive your mother to manslaughter."

He grinned, nearly cheering when her face mirrored his own, and still unsure how he was able to resist the burning impulse to kiss her. They continued down the hallway, one of their hands finding its way to the other, neither realizing it until they had approached the medical unit and it was time to break apart. Before long, Sydney's arm was cleaned and bandaged to both Vaughn and later Charlotte's satisfaction, and they all busied themselves with any task that might help bring about Ilya's safety and Bykov's capture.

Not surprisingly, time found a way to pass much more quickly than it should have, one hour spinning into the next with little actually being accomplished. Well into nightfall and their third box of pizza (Weiss being a major contributor in this area, and then somehow managing to sneak home for the night), Vaughn found himself standing in the middle of the Operations Center, Gabriel's tiny body snuggled against his chest. Sydney had handed the little boy to him after his last feeding so she could rejoin Agent Lee and Charlotte in trying to coax Ilya into speaking of his grandmother. And neither the baby nor the white cloth that Sydney had first laid down had left Vaughn's shoulder since then.

He held the child deftly in one arm, the other pointing to a spot on the computer screen for what must have seemed like the hundredth time. "Have they tried there?"

"Yes, Agent Vaughn," both Mraz and Martin answered mechanically, like a chorus of bored schoolchildren memorizing their arithmetic. They had given up trying to dissuade Vaughn's determination almost two hours ago, about the same time they had stopped silently questioning whether the slightly older agent still realized he was holding his sleeping son or merely thought the infant was an extension of his own arm.

"How about…?"

"Vaughn."

Jack appeared in the doorway, his voice quiet but booming across the nearly empty Operations Center. Charlotte stood at his side with Ilya in her arms, the little boy's head resting sleepily against her shoulder and his thumb held securely in his mouth. Sydney had lagged behind, but swiftly stepped forward and approached him as Jack continued.

"That's enough for today. It's almost ten thirty."

Martin and Mraz didn't wait for their director to say anything more before shuffling quietly from the room, and at least managed to hold off their sighs of relief and cheers of joy until they were almost out of earshot. Vaughn took a breath to fuel his protests, to demand use of the facilities for the night. But it only took one glance at his exhausted family to convince him to keep his mouth shut, nodding slowly and pressing a kiss against Sydney's temple as she folded herself into his arms. Each murmured to the other what they had uncovered over the hours, which sadly amounted to little more than nothing, and the room lapsed into the hum of electronic silence.

Clearing his throat, Jack informed them that as it was much too dangerous for any of them to leave, accommodations had been set up in Vaughn's office. No one objected this plan of action, especially when he added that he had thought it would be a more comfortable alternative to the originally offered retaining cells. All involved hoped that the situation would be temporary, although there was no one brave enough to say it.

Awhile later, after Jack had left, the boys had been sung to sleep on a blanket in the middle of the floor, and Sydney and his mother were lying somewhat comfortable on the creaky cots that the CIA had dug out of the back of some storage closet, Vaughn closed the blinds, flicked off the lights and sunk into his own makeshift bed. The events of the day began sliding kaleidoscopically behind his closed eyelids and he tried to force them from his thoughts, focusing instead on the four differently-patterned breaths that accompanied his own in the room, letting them meld into his lullaby.

Within minutes, the creaking of a cot overpowered the rustling of mothball-scented blankets and sleeping sighs. Vaughn's eyes were closed and he didn't need to open them as he rolled onto his side, moving instinctively as close to the wall as he could get. He didn't flinch when he felt something brush against his shoulder, had expected Sydney's fingertips to search him out in the dark, and gingerly reached out and pulled her down next to him. It was a tight fit on such a tiny space and there wasn't an inch of his body that wasn't pressed securely against hers; but with his arm flung possessively around her waist to keep her from falling, and her fingers firmly linked with his own, neither of them would have had it any other way.

Sleep found her quickly. He felt her grip on his hand loosen and her breathing even out; but he wasn't as lucky in his search for slumber, lying awake for so long that the only reason he was sure it wasn't morning was because the reddish glow of the emergency lights was all that lit the hallway. Just as he had finally let his burning eyes drift closed and was about to surrender to his dreams, he felt Sydney tense in his arms, her movement snapping his eyes fully open.

"Don't!"

Thick with sleep and riddled with fear, her voice didn't sound like her own, but he still would have recognized it in a sea of others, would have been able to uncover it from any accent or disguise. She attempted to roll out of his grip, but he only held her tighter, trying at once to avoid her injury and keep her from falling to the floor.

"Shh, Syd… It's okay…" He spoke in a whisper, leaning over her sleeping form and letting his lips brush against her ear.

"…Vaughn… Don't…"

The rest of her words were clouded in a mumble, could have been assembled from any of a number of letters and coupled to from various nonsensical statements: toss the guy, cross the sky, frost the pie… But it didn't matter as Vaughn pulled her back to him, sensing it was all right now to take his arm from around her and run it softly up and down her own, planting a gentle kiss on her shoulder blade as he lulled her away from her nightmares.

"Michael?"

For a moment, his mother's voice startled him. And it wasn't until he had impulsively yanked on the blankets to make sure both he and Sydney were covered and realized they were fully clothed, that he remembered where they were.

"Yeah?" he answered softly, not wanting to wake Sydney or the children, knowing they were lucky that both little boys had already slept as long as they had.

His mother was silent for so long that he almost thought the earlier sound of her voice had been a trick of his ears. But finally, he heard her take a deep breath, murmuring her words softly and carefully. "Tell me what happened to her."

He didn't even think of evading the issue, of making something up or finding a way to skirt around the truth, breaking it into puzzle pieces and only putting together the pretty ones, leaving the bloodied and tattered edges to wait indefinitely for never to one day roll around. And maybe he should have; should have blamed the nightmares on the day's events, should have attributed them to her rocky relationship with her father, her mother's death, or…

But he couldn't stop the words that whispered their way out of his throat, floating across the darkness to his mother like a psychotic version of a campfire ghost story. "About ten years ago, she was recruited by a secret branch of the CIA called SD-6…"

He remembered finishing the history, as close to the truth as he could get while leaving out the gory details. He remembered his mother's silence when he had finished, and thinking that she had fallen asleep, only to hear her tearfully murmur, Take care of her, Michael. It had been an easy promise to make, merely an extension of the very same pact he had made to himself long ago.

He must have fallen asleep then, waking only twice when Gabriel and Ilya cried, staying up with Sydney while she fed one and he comforted the other. They were all sleeping peacefully when the CIA building came to life the next morning, and no one noticed the bustle in the hallway until the door slammed open, flooding a bright, artificial light into five bleary pairs of eyes.

Gabriel began to whimper and Ilya shot off the floor, running to the back of the room and peeking out from behind Vaughn's desk; he seemed to waver as to whether he should go back to protect his little charge, but decided it would be safer to watch from where he was. Vaughn heard Sydney moan softly as she moved to sit up, and fumbled to help her while trying to remember exactly where he kept the Advil in his desk and pull himself out of bed at the same time.

"Oh, sorry, Agent Vaughn. I didn't realize you were all asleep in here," a voice whispered loudly, and the beam of light began to shrink, as the door was pulled closed.

"Wait," Vaughn called out, rubbing his eyes to help them adjust to the light, and frantically searching the back of his mind for a name to match the disembodied voice and finally stumbling across it. "Martin. What's going on?"

Brightness inundated the room once again, as the door was pushed fully open and the younger agent stepped inside. Had any of them been able to see at all clearly, they would have noticed Martin blush while he quickly scanned the room, finding Vaughn's mother with a blanket pulled tightly around her, Agent Bristow leaning sleepily against Vaughn's chest, a baby squirming on the floor, and two dark eyes peeping out from under the desk. But he quickly straightened, ready to report his news with all the dignity that his CIA training had brought him.

"It's Bykov, sir. They've found him."