A/N: just letting you know, demon betaed the first 1/4 of the chapter, the rest is completely UNBETAED because I really really really really need to get going on my research paper (gah... genetic databasing and ethics... fun) I didn't even read it over, so forgive any grammar errors. (I'm pretty sure there isn't any spelling errors, I could be wrong though.) If someone wants to send me a PM with the error they noticed, I'd be glad to fix it. And so sorry for the long wait. 5 months is a long time. I know ::blush::

Thank you to:

alias4ever: I'm glad you liked the flashback to the watch! Hehe. I was hoping that it was something different than what people were used to. Every fic just has to have that little bit of paranormal in there ;) I think the vaughn watching syd part was my favorite so far in this fic to write! Thanks for reading.

Shayla: I'm glad you feel that some stories resolve things too quickly. It's one of my pet peeves as a fanfic reader. If the author has a great plot line, but don't go deep enough into the story so that it doesn't have a meaning, and if the characters aren't in character, then I just can't continue reading it! It drives me insane. So hopefully, things are going correctly with this fic. Sometimes though, it feels like it's going to fast. But, oh well. I'm glad you like the connection that Liana and Syd have. Thanks for reading!

emily: lol. Thanks for reading!

valley-girl2: wow. this is so outdated. hehe. I think the e-mail thing is going to work better. I can't believe I haven't updated her in over a month! But thanks for the e-mail to get me going. Hehe. 47:47. made you laugh? . interesting information. I remember once waking up at a hotel and not being able to see. literally. It was sunshine and bright and I didn't have anything over my eyes. I just couldn't see. Scared the hell out of me. Hehe. Now that we're done with waking up stories. hehe. Wow. you always laugh at Merde. you did that, too, in Wraith! . hehe, yes it was me. MV in jogging gear is. :D there's no other way to describe it. Glad you liked the Jack-Vaughn interaction. Hehe. so much can change over 2 years +. syd+liana+vaughn= big family. :) lol. well, you haven't died yet from the announcement of "no update anytime soon" so :P. ;) thanks for reading!

Chapter 3-Litany

"Vaughn, we need to talk."

He had always hated those words. They implied that something was wrong, and that it had to be fixed one way or another. And most of the time, it would be long and tedious.

"Hey, Syd. What do we need to talk about?" He turned around as he spoke.

She was standing there, pale but still as beautiful as ever in his eyes. Her posture told him that she wasn't sure about something. Her body was slightly stiff, but only someone with a trained eye for detail would notice. Her muscles were tense and the alignment of her body was rigid.

"Walk with me," she murmured, walking into the hallway to gather Liana's things.

"Where are we going?" he asked, perplexed. When serious things were about to be discussed and she was nervous, walking or running was the only cure for her extraneous energy. It was another thing about her that he had noticed over the years. It's one of the things that defined who she was, kind of like her hair tucking compulsion.

"I was thinking the park. We can watch over Liana while she's on the play structure. We'll just circle the area." She got a small red jacket for Liana, who was sitting in front of the TV watching Dragontales.

He nodded and grabbed a brown leather and suede jacket for himself and a blue pea jacket for Sydney. Over the past few years, some of her clothing had made its way into his home. Sometimes, it was because she just forgot to bring jackets home; other times, she knew she had to look after Liana for the night and left it for safe keeping. Often, he found himself staring at the combination of their clothes in the hallway closet. It just seemed so right. Like her clothes were meant to mix with his. The blue against the black, the brown windbreaker against the crème colored sweater.

It was ridiculous how attached he'd become to finding her clothes in his house. Although it was something he enjoyed doing, the situation was a bit awkward.

["Vaughn, I mean, okay, the backpack is getting a little ridiculous," she said with a shy smile.

"What do you mean?" He could not think of any other way of transporting his clothes from his apartment to Sydney's. Her apartment had become his home in the past few weeks. Did she want me to leave?

"The middle drawer. It's yours." A slow smile spread across his face into a full-fledged grin when he saw where she was pointing. Can I love this woman anymore than I already do?

"Yeah?" he was speechless.

"It's just a drawer." She said it like it was no big deal.

He was deliriously happy. Maybe the happiest he'd ever been in his life. "I'm just saying it's a great idea. "

"You sure?"

"Uh-huh."]

"Vaughn?" she said his name softly, as if she was caressing it. She didn't want to startle him. When she got no response, she raised a hand and touched his shoulder.

He started.

"Vaughn?" she asked again.

"Yeah, Syd?"

His daughter interrupted them in her obvious delight of going to the park. "Daddy! Are you ready?"

He looked over at his small daughter and felt a surge of love pass through him. It was the same thing he felt for Syd whenever she touched him or merely looked at him a certain way.

"Yeah, I'm ready Liana. Let's go."

As they walked down the path to the park, Liana bounced ahead of them. She was close enough that if anything were to happen, Sydney and Vaughn would be able to get to her in time. She was also close enough to hear whatever conversation might occur between the adults. On the other hand, Liana felt free enough to run around. Syd and Vaughn would not be able to talk until they reached the playground.

The park to which they were headed towards was where Vaughn had his first glance of Sydney's boyfriend all those months ago. In some ways, it made this occasion tainted. He saw the kiss Syd and Chris shared rewinding and playing over and over again in his head. It hurt his heart, but it also let him know that he was no long holding her back. He loved her enough to let her move on. But he was also selfish enough to keep her as his friend. It was all for the sake that she could and would be happy.

Passing by evergreen trees and picketed white fences, the 2.5 children, and the houses that lined the street, they took a left turn at the next stop sign. As the park approached, Liana's footsteps began to speed up. They passed by an old homeless Vietnam vet who was holding out a cup--he wasn't the same one that "Freelancer" used to request entry to JTF. Tucked securely around his wrist was the watch that he used to communicate with the Ops Center.

"Liana," Vaughn called out before his daughter could run off into the sand. "We'll be walking around, okay? But if you need us, just call out."

With a nod, the little girl ran off.

Turning to Syd, Vaughn asked, "So. why do we need to talk?"

She sighed and tucked an invisible strand of hair behind her ear and forced herself to look at him directly in the eye. "Chris. wants to get married."

Vaughn felt his jaw loosen. Partially because this was the first really personal thing she'd willingly told him since she'd come back from those two missing years. And second because she was getting married. "What?" he finally choked out.

"Chris wants to get married," she calmly repeated. Her eyes were focused on her shoes.

"So soon? You've only been going out for eight months." he was puzzled. Was she forcing herself to a marriage to forget her past? "Did he propose?" He wanted to kick himself for asking that. Their personal romantic lives had to be treaded on carefully, for they had a romantic interlude, too. But there was this burning desire to know what was going on in her life. He had been starved from hearing about her life for too long. He missed it. To be fed even a small portion of her life with him made him happy. She was looking to him for comfort, and that's all he's ever wanted. To be her comfort and friend. Being her boyfriend was just something extra, even though he still loved her. His eyes strayed to her ring finger; it was bare.

"Yeah, he did. A week ago actually," was her hesitant answer.

"What did you say?" he prodded. Please let her have said no. Please let her have said no. Please let her have said no. Please let her have said no.

"I said that I'd think about it. I told him that maybe we were going too fast. But I know that he loves me and that he'd take care of me."

His heart dropped in relief. "I think you're right," he responded. "If you're not sure yet, then maybe it is good to step back and think about it. If you feel like it's going too fast, tell him that you want to slow down. Don't rush into a commitment like that and regret it later."

["Renee! What are you doing here?" he had come home after a long day of work to find his wife back in the house after disappearing for seven months.

"I live here, Michael. Now, where's my daughter?"

The sentence angered him. How dare she say that?

"You no longer live here, Renee. You walked out of here months ago without a trace. You left me to raise my daughter alone. You have no right to call her your daughter anymore. She cried at night, calling for you, and you know what I had to tell her?" He had tears in his eyes from the thought of it.

Renee didn't answer.

"I had to tell her that I didn't know where you were. You know how many sleepless nights I tried to track you down out of some god forsaken guilt I felt? But you, you just left. For SEVEN months. You left my little girl without a mother. She won't even recognize you anymore!" he spit out the last few words. Trying to calm himself down, he took a few deep breaths while looking at the kitchen counter. He threw a glance at Renee and saw her unmoved. "Where did you go anyway?" he finally said.

"I went to see Paul," she said quietly.

"Your old boyfriend?"

"Yeah," she said. "I'm pregnant."

He looked down at her stomach. She wasn't showing.

"You went off and got pregnant while you were married and had a child?! You can't be serious." He knew very well that she was. Reaching up, he raked a hand threw his hair and pinched his nose.

"What can I say? You were so obsessed with your little girlfriend coming back? How was I supposed to have competed against her?"

"Sydney? You're blaming this on Sydney? And a competition? That wasn't what it was and you know it. I married you."

"But you were still in love with her."

He acknowledged that she was right with a drop of his head into his hands and pinching his nose even further. His forehead wrinkles were out in full force. "That still didn't give you the right to run off while we had a child together."

"Look, Michael. It's obvious that we were never really compatible. But I'm back and I want to give it a second chance."

He mulled over what she'd said. There was so much he was against and therefore didn't feel as if he could do what she was requesting. "Renee, I don't think I can give you a second chance. What matters is that you left Liana without a mother. You aren't a responsible mother and you just proved that you were never really the person I knew."

A knowing look came through her eyes.

"You want a divorce."]

What he'd said about regret was something that was spoken from his own experience. But deep in his heart, he knew it was so wrong that she said, "I think I'll think about it." He knew that if someone proposed and you knew you loved them, then it wouldn't matter the time span. It only mattered that you wanted to be with them. That was another lesson that he'd learned while he was with Renee. He'd only had the feeling of absolutely certainty once, but that had been too long ago, before Liana was born. He couldn't bring himself to ask if she returned Chris' amour.

"Vaughn, there's something else."

They both had long since stopped walking. Instead, they opted to stand next to a bench near a stone wall.

He turned his head to look at her face. All he saw was a beautiful woman that he was still in love with. Her brown hair cascading around her face and framing her honey brown eyes.

"He feels that I've been spending too much time with you and not enough time with him. He says that maybe, we shouldn't see each other as much as we have been," she said with a detached air.

He knew this was coming, felt it pounding at the back of his eyes, using his retinas as drums.

"Syd. I can't hold you back. This is ultimately your decision, but just know that Liana and I need you too. Liana would be missing out on her mother figure. She loves you, Syd. and I'd miss you too much."

Tears were threatening to trail on both adults' faces.

He reached up to cup her face and to wipe away a tear with his thumb. She flinched a bit.

"It's your decision. If you love him and feel like this is your path, then go for it. I won't be here to keep you from moving on."

~tbc~