It did not take Sydney long to calm down after her outburst, but by the time she did she was already home, and though she desperately wanted to call Vaughn to apologise, she was worried that he was hurt by the way she had spoken to him, and half afraid that Lauren would answer the phone. Instead, she got herself ready for bed, though it wasn't really late, and crawled between the cool sheets. Sleep came easily to her; it always did these days. And, like every night, the last thing she saw before she slept was what had been Vaughn's side of the bed. She still could not bring herself to invade what was rightfully his space, and she seemed to sleep easier when she lay facing it, one arm usually splayed across an empty space that should be his chest.

They did not see each other all the next day, though not through any avoidance on either part. Sydney spent the day with her father, trying yet again to scrape some semblance of meaning from the video clip showing her horrible murder of Lazarey. She met Weiss for lunch, and when, at length, she gave in to temptation and asked about Vaughn, he had only an unsatisfactory answer to give; he had not seen Vaughn since yesterday afternoon. Vaughn, for his part, was kept busy by Dixon all day, attending various meetings, which, to his dismay, did not require Sydney's presence, and typing up some over-due reports. He could not for the life of him think how he had let so much work pile up, but somewhere between worrying about Sydney and trying to be a good husband, it had happened.

So it was with great eagerness that she made her way to the warehouse that night. Hoping against hope that Vaughn would be there, Sydney broke every traffic law in existence and several that should be in existence as she sped along the roads, sighing in frustration when she got caught in traffic. The drive to the warehouse was so familiar to her that she went onto automatic pilot and allowed her mind to wander. She whiled away the dull minutes envisioning scenarios in which she apologised profusely for yelling at him, and he was so overcome with guilt at upsetting her that he took her in his arms and kissed her like she had never been kissed before and….

Shaking her head, Sydney snapped herself out of it and silently reprimanded herself for letting her imagination go places she wanted only too desperately to go for real. She was going there to apologise, not to break up his marriage. However, if Vaughn decided to break up his marriage…well, that was up to him and it certainly wasn't her place to persuade him not to. As she got closer to the warehouse, she began to wish she hadn't come. What if he was there? What if he wasn't? She had wanted to see him all day but now that it came to it, she was scared. She didn't want him to be angry with her, or to feel so guilty that he suggested they didn't see each other any more. She had to carry on seeing him. So if she just turned around right now, he'd never have the chance to tell her he didn't want to see her any more…

God, Sydney! Get a grip! This is Vaughn. He'd never say or do anything to hurt me.

With this stern mantra in mind, she gripped the steering wheel tighter and pulled in to her usual space. His car wasn't there. She sat in the car for a few moments, feeling utterly deflated. Eventually, she got out of the car and wandered into the warehouse, all the way trying to decide whether she was relieved, or upset that he wasn't there. She was just about to come down on the side of relieved, when she pushed open the door and saw him sitting on a crate, not two feet in front of her. He looked up at her, his eyes connecting with hers at once and immediately, the scales tipped as far as they would go in the opposite direction.

"Hi," she managed weakly, before giving in to the soft smile that tugged at her lips whenever he looked at her.

"Hey," he answered, the way he always had when they'd met here before, all those years ago.

Without wasting a second, Sydney jumped in to her apology. "Vaughn, I'm so sorry-,"

"Don't be," he cut in, gently. "It's hard for both of us. We just need to give it some time."

She nodded her agreement, thankful that he hadn't requested never to see her again, though in her heart, she had never really thought he would.

"So, um, where's your car?" she asked, curiosity getting the better of her, as she sat down next to him.

"At home," he grinned enjoying dragging out her confusion.

"Then how'd you get here?" she asked, as he had known she would.

"I walked."

"You walked?!" Sydney was incredulous. "All the way from your house?" She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously, but his grin only widened at her disbelief. "Why?" she asked, looking at him as if he was crazy.

"Last night I told Lauren that I was going to the car wash. Obviously, I couldn't say that again tonight. I go for a walk every night anyway, so it was the perfect excuse."

"Oh, Vaughn…" Sydney started, shaking her head sadly, her eyes beginning to fill with guilty tears. He was lying to his wife in order to come to meet her. Even though it wasn't an arranged meeting, she knew he had only come here in the hope that she would too.

"Syd, don't. I know I shouldn't lie to her like this, but what else am I supposed to do? If I told her where I was going, and why, she wouldn't understand. How could she?"

"You could stop coming," Sydney said quietly. After everything she had thought on the way there, she could hardly believe it was her making this suggestion.

"No. No way, Syd. No matter what you say, you need someone to talk to."

"But it doesn't have to be you," she argued wearily. She did not want his marriage to be unhappy, especially not because of her, but when she was arguing against these private meetings, how could her heart be in it?

"You're right, Syd. It doesn't have to be me. But I want it to be me."

"I want it to be you, too," she whispered, the first of the salty tears rolling down her cheeks. She took a shaky breath before continuing. "Of course I want it to be you. It's always been you."

"I feel like I'm losing my mind!" she sobbed. "Like I don't even know who I am anymore, or what I'm doing or why I'm doing it!" She was already emotional, and the intrusive beeping of her pager pushed her over the edge. Without thinking, she hurled it into the ocean, though more than anything she wished she had hurled herself into the cruel water below.

"You just threw your beeper in the Pacific."

Sydney laughed in spite of the tears glistening in her eyes. With eight simple words, Vaughn had calmed her down, and had made life seem so much more bearable. "I know."

"Okay, listen to me. There's something you need to know. When you first walked into my office with that stupid Bozo hair, I thought you were crazy. I actually thought you might be a crazy person. But I watched you, and I read your statement, and I've seen… I've seen how you think, I've seen how you work, I've seen how you are in this job. In this job, you see darkness. You see the worst in people, and though the jobs are different and the missions change, and the enemies have a thousand names, the one crucial thing, the one real responsibility you have is to not let your rage and your resentment and your disgust darken you. When you're at your absolute lowest, at your most depressed, just remember that you can always…you know. You have my number."

Her heart beating quickly and lightly in her chest, she reached across the expanse between them and grabbed his hand. She expected him to pull away, but he didn't. And from him, she drew the strength to go on.


"You've always been there for me," she said into the silence. "Even when I didn't ask you to."

"I could never bear to see you in pain," he laughed quietly.

"But somehow you always just knew. How do you do that?"

"How did you find me?" Despite the fact that her mind was too full of concern for Will to think of much else, she was curious as to how Vaughn knew where to come.

"You told me a couple of months ago that when you feel the need to disappear, you go to the observatory. But the observatory was closed. And then I remembered you said the pier calms you down." Sydney blushed slightly as she thought of the reason why the pier calmed her down so well. "But you weren't there. And you weren't at the bluffs and the palisades either." Her eyes continued to grow wider as he spoke. She was amazed that he had remembered everything she had said in such detail, and the fact that he had made her feel needed and loved. Though he hadn't said anything, it had long been understood between them that they each felt more than should be felt between handler and asset.

"You didn't really go to all those places."

"Yeah, I did. And then I remembered you liked the train station too. Normal people going to their normal jobs."

"I can't believe you remembered that." She did not make a show of it, but she was positively beaming inside. He had remembered every single one of their conversations word for word, it seemed. Though it was nothing less than she herself had done recently.

They went on to talk about Khasinau and the documents and Sydney thought he was going to try and stop her, though he would only have been doing his job. Instead he surprised her, "If you're doing what I think you're doing, I'm in if you need me."


"I just got a feeling," he said at length, knowing that they were both thinking of the same incident. "And then I remembered all those places you mentioned."

"Yeah, you're definitely a good listener. I have no idea how you remembered all those," she smiled.

"You would have too."

"There's this woman, her personality like a collage I've put together from the photographs, the few memories I have, scraps of stories I've heard, the clothes of hers I've got…her books. And none of it's real. She wasn't that woman at all. She was…she was a horrible person… who killed your father." It was all she could do to keep herself together enough to tell him this when all she wanted to do was allow herself to fall to the floor and shatter into a million shards. "Vaughn, I just wanted to say…that I'm so sorry."

When he had first heard the truth about Sydney's mother, he had been torn between anger at what Irina had done to his family, and concern for her daughter who would be heartbroken by this revelation. But now, there was no warring of feelings in his heart, and no arguing voices in his head. The only thing he felt was the pain of seeing Sydney breaking apart like this. So he took her in his arms and provided her what comfort he could.


"And all those times you comforted me about my mom. That must have been so hard on you, Vaughn. God, how could I have been so selfish?! I was so wrapped up in my own pain that I -," she stopped when Vaughn, seeing that she was working herself up to tears again, put his arm around her shoulders and held her against him.

"Syd, you have no reason to be sorry for that. Being able to comfort you consoled me more than a thousand apologies could have done."

She smiled then, a radiant smile that, had he seen it, would have stayed in his memory for the remainder of the night, and sent him to sleep later with a look of bliss gracing his features. "You always say the perfect thing. Why is that?"

"Because I am perfect." She laughed, and swatted his arm playfully, and, having achieved his aim of cheering her up, he laughed with her.

"Don't push it," she said, sitting herself upright again. The serene mood of secret-sharing and heart-felt memories dissipated and they returned to the light-hearted joking that made up the other half of all their conversations.

They chatted casually for a while, until Vaughn looked at his watch and announced that he had better be going.

"Thanks…for tonight, Vaughn," Sydney said, standing up and brushing the non-existent dirt from the back of her skirt.

"Anytime, Sydney. I mean it. Anytime."

They left the warehouse together. Vaughn walked Sydney to her car and closed the door once she was in. He gave her a little wave as she drove past and then turned to begin the walk home.

As she drove home, Sydney was unable to wipe the smile from her face. Though she was still clinging on to every last shred of hope that Vaughn The Boyfriend would one day return to her, she was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, Vaughn The Best Friend might not be so bad either.