Disclaimer: Alias belongs to people who aren't me.

Wow, thankyou to everyone who reviewed! I'm sorry it took me a while to get this next part up. My evil laptop crashed and took with it a lot of stuff I had saved, including this, so I had to rewrite it.

In response, I didn't name the target or the mission because I wasn't sure if I was going to continue with this and I thought it made it too complicated. As well as that I didn't like the idea for the mission. It seems like rather a sloppy operation for the CIA to be involved in. But I put it back in because now I have a few ideas of where this could go, and it's still sloppy - I apologise. But anyway.

Okay, here we go. Vaughn's turn:

He Loves Her

PART 2: Vaughn's Point Of View

Lauren calls me as I ready myself for the mission. "Hello, love." Her voice, clipped accent enhanced by the electronically-bridged distance, is a sudden and unwelcome interruption as I balance the phone against my shoulder to allow me to button my shirt. "I'm being sent to London. I won't be back by Friday - I'm sorry. I know we planned to spend some time together."

"We'll make up for it." I hear her smile, and I twist the gold wedding band off my finger and toss it absently on the bed. "I miss you."

"I miss you too, love."

I hang up before she does and I toss the phone after the ring, threading a tie through my collar. Lauren bought this one for me - it has small hockey sticks printed on it. She'd got it for me on one of her trips, and had waited, eyes shining in anticipation as I'd unwrapped the gift box. Waiting to see if the gift pleased me. I always make an effort to show that they do, that I appreciate the gesture. I fumble with the silky material, wondering why I feel so annoyed that she should call me here.

Then, with a grimace, I decide that the restaurant we're attending is a casual enough place to allow me to forgo the neckwear.

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The brick wall is rough against my back. I try to ignore the smell - which is hard, considering I'm crouched right next to the dumpster containing the offending odour. Soft, light rain has started to fall, soaking through my jacket and causing a drainpipe nearby to spill a cascade of water onto the street.

I've been running through the mission briefing over and over, trying to keep my mind on the job and off the disastrous evening so far. I was actually glad to learn that I would be coordinating this operation with Sydney. I'd hoped, even as Dixon outlined the situation, that we would be able to spend some time together, that I might be able to regain some of her friendship, her trust. Something of the friendship we once shared. Hoping - that she might talk to me.

Of course, I can think of a million places I would rather spend time with Sydney than an awkward dinner in a horrible restaurant followed by a stake-out in a foul alleyway waiting for some slimeball of a man to exit.

The mans name is Walter Fochette. Once a leading designer of computer security systems - rumoured to be unbreakable - he was contracted by the CIA to install part of their security network. When a glitch allowed the leakage of some sensitive data, he was arrested and, though he managed to avoid a jail sentence, was ordered to pay fines totalling somewhere in the hundreds of thousands.

A few months ago, someone at Langley noticed some unusual activity on the servers. They reported it, but nothing was found amiss - until they checked the system registry logs. Someone had hacked in using codes that implicated Fochette. There was no conclusive proof. Even Marshall is in awe of this guys ability to cover his tracks.

The proof came in the form of a phone tap, revealing that Fochette was about to meet with someone we believe to be a representative of the Covenant. We're unsure of the nature of the information he might have been able to lift off our network, but it's entirely possible that he had access to critical intelligence, personnel files, even our data on Rambaldi. With information like that, he can name his price.

The meeting with the Covenant representative is in three days. Our mission is to take Fochette into custody - quietly, without arousing the suspicions of the Covenant contact, so that we can ID the representative. And ...

Why'd she have to wear that dress?

She's got plenty of dresses for various disguises and situations, and most of them enough to reduce the IQ of any male within visual range by a few significant points. But when she emerged from her hotel room wearing that tight, low-cut, form-fitting black number, it was a while before I could make any sort of coherent sound, let alone look away. When after a few moments she began to give me concerned looks, I managed a strangled 'Let's go' and spent the drive to the restaurant trying to keep my stubbornly recalcitrant eyes on the road.

She's a very intelligent woman. I'm sure she must know what kind of effect she must have on men. I'm pretty sure she noticed my behaviour, labelled it quite rightly as inappropriate and offensive, and that's why she spent the rest of the night avoiding eye contact and making no effort to talk to me.

And I'm doing it again. Letting my concentration wander where it's not supposed to.

I key my comm., trying to draw my focus back onto the mission. "Anything yet?"

I count every time I hear her voice, as if to save the words in my mind. It's only been a few weeks since she was found in Hong Kong. After two years and a funeral, alive. She truly is a walking miracle - and living, breathing proof of my lack of faith.

Her reply is somewhat muffled and flat. "Not yet."

It's Sydney's job to make it known to Fochette that someone is on to him. We have a few men set up out front to make it look convincing. When his bodyguards - considering they're trained half-decently - realise that something is up, they'll head for the only other serviceable exit. This one. That's when we make our move.

Theoretically.

I want this to work. I want Fochette out of the way so that I can talk to Sydney while we have the chance to do so without her father, Dixon, or Lauren interrupting. I want to smooth things out. I want her to talk to me, because this awkwardness, this silence, is torture. She has every reason to hate me, I know - I didn't wait for her. I didn't look hard enough for her. I wasn't there to stop whatever it was she went through in those two years. And I pretended I could have another relationship that meant as much to me as she did. But did marrying Lauren turn me into some horrible sort of person? The way Sydney is skirting around me, you'd think I'd known she was alive.

If only she could realise how I felt when I realised I'd lost her. If only I could make her understand how it felt to wake up suddenly in the middle of the night, having heard her say my name. How I felt when I first met Lauren, and how I thought that maybe life was worth living, until I dreamt that the woman lying beside me was not the woman I married.

And then in the restaurant she was sitting there not saying a word to me. Was it so damn hard for her to even pretend that she wanted to be around me, that she was on a date with me, even just for a few hours?

I snapped at her. Went into teacher mode and started spouting some crap about making it believable.

I was mad because I hate that look in her eyes. The wary, guarded look that says she's calculating everything she says before she says it, so as not to say anything out of place. I was mad because she looked so damn edible in that dress. Mad because Lauren had bought me a stupid tie that I didn't want to wear. I was mad because I wanted her to talk to me and she wouldn't.

It wasn't her I was mad at.

I was panicking. This shouldn't be so hard, but it is. Trying to keep myself focussed on the mission wasn't working. My gaze remained steadily on her, and no amount of coaxing, of pleading and rationality would tear it free. Every gesture that she made - tucking the strands of her hair behind her ears, twirling the fork absently in one hand - was so painfully familiar. I remember the scent of her, the taste of her. The way she speaks, walks, breathes. I knew I was getting further and further into the danger zone, but I couldn't pull back.

And then she set me back on track.

"You really love her, don't you."

Her reminder that I'm married to a woman that I supposedly love. That I should not be eyeing up my co-worker while I'm on a covert operation. I needed the subtle message, and used it to reinforce the fact in my own mind.

"Yeah, yeah I do."

As if saying it somehow made it more real.

I should really have called this thing off. Let Syd go back to the hotel while I went out and got horribly, horribly drunk. But I couldn't, because, if everything goes to plan, we should have the next few days to ourselves and I want that time with her.

So I asked her to dance.

Holding her that close to me again, feeling the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, moving together with the rhythm, that was when I really realised how dangerously close I was to forgetting. I wanted to keep holding her forever. It felt too right, as if I would wake up and find her next to me in bed, and that this was all a dream. It would have been far too easy to let go of myself, to pull her against me and kiss her.

The faint scent of her perfume still clings to my shirt where her hand rested.

"Okay, he's coming."

The sudden sound makes me jump, and I swear under my breath. "Okay," I say aloud. "Let's do this."

I pull my balaclava over my face and draw my gun from its holster. The door opens and a cautious figure emerges - one of the bodyguards, gun drawn, stepping over to the other side of the alley and checking left and right before Fochette and his entourage follow.

I step out of the shadows as Sydney comes in from behind, her own balaclava obscuring her face.

"Don't move!" I shout. Two guns swing my way, steely gazes following. The blonde girl gives a startled gasp, the only sound above the trickling water. Warily, I trace the movement of the men's guns. "Hands in the air."

A heartbeat passes and then they're moving. Shoving Fochette and the girl to the ground and firing. I drop, useless thoughts streaming through my mind - ImgonnadieImgonnadieI ... as bullets whip through the air. I throw myself to one side, skidding across the wet pavement to crash into the brick wall, gun aimed and ready, searching the darkness for Sydney.

Still breathing and not dead, (apparently), I aim again and make ready to fire again, but see something that brings me up short.

Sydney.

The woman has a death wish. She dives low, smashing into the other bodyguards legs. He goes down on top of her, but she'd already rolling out from under him. Her gun, useless in such close quarters, remains in one hand. And dammit, now I can't use my gun for fear of hitting her.

Instead, I squeeze the trigger a few times, sending a few bullets in the general direction of the bodyguard closest to me, but none of them hit. He closes in, firing again and again, with somewhat more accuracy than I managed. A chunk of brick whistles past my ear. I press myself against the damp bricks and realise, belatedly, that this was probably not the best of plans. These aren't the usual bodyguard-types, the ones with no necks and two-word vocabularies. This man is trained, lean and muscular and probably very, very good at what he does.

So I throw my gun at him.

Now, in an ordinary situation, this is not something I would recommend. In fact, it's the last thing I would recommend. It's totally and utterly stupid. Which is probably why it worked so well - the guy was surprised by the move, and ducked, slipping on the pavement. My gun caught him on the side of the head, glancing off to one side. I move in close, kicking his own gun from his hand while he's distracted, grabbing it as it skitters across the road and ramming him so that he goes down. Using my weight to pin him - and his own gun butt to knock him senseless.

It's then that I hear the noise. Standing up, gun in hand, but not fast enough. Fochette and the girl are already fading into the shadows and the rain. Shit.

"Ah!"

I turn and find Sydney doing a first-class job of kicking the second bodyguard's arse. Time seems to move in fragments, like bad frame-rate on a video. But she - she is brilliant. Moving like a dancer, she makes it look effortless, easy. As if she knows exactly what she's doing and what is going to happen next. I bet there's no little voice inside her head wailing in fear.

He swings a punch at her, and she ducks. Comes up underneath and smacks him in the jaw. He stumbles back, then comes at her again - she anticipates, leaping up and rolling over his back, landing behind him. Kicks him twice, viciously, the blows knocking him back the other way, and relieving him of his gun.

But he has the advantage of size and strength. He whirls and grabs her by the arm, intending to throw her over his shoulder, but she twists and its him who cries out in pain when something snaps sickeningly. Sydney regains her balance, but he's still moving. As I watch in those few short seconds, he reaches down with his good arm and comes up with something that glints in the faint light. Metal. A knife.

Panicking, my heart thudding around somewhere in the region of my mouth, I try to line up a shot, but all I get is Sydney. She half-turns, sensing something's wrong, and he slashes downwards. The blade catches her across the shoulder blade. Her own cry of pain is soft. My blood freezes in my veins, even though I know in my mind that the wound could not be fatal, having come from that angle. The man lunges again, aiming this time for her heart.

Too late for hesitation. I take the shot.

The man goes down like a brick in a lake, bullet through his chest, and I shoot him again for having hurt her. And then there is silence above the sound of screeching car tires and the gentle trickle of the rain.

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I ply her with questions, but she answers none. She won't let me look at the wound, insisting it isn't serious, staring out the car window at the passing streetlights. Eventually she gives me a short, annoyed "Im fine" and wraps her arms around herself. I recognise the defensive gesture, and the way she retreats into herself. I let her. There's nothing else I can do.

When I reach my hotel room, she continues on to her own, not saying a word. I collapse on the couch and flick on the TV. A car chase scene blares out at me, all gunshots and flashy camera angles. Disgusted, I turn it off.

We failed. I hit the bodyguard too hard. He was dead by the time I checked his pulse, so we haven't even got one useful lead in this operation. Because of this, the Covenant is that much closer to getting the information they need to start an all-out, full-scale intelligence war. And yet my thoughts are drawn not to the fact that Sark may just win this time, but to my wedding ring, sitting on the bed next to the tie my wife bought for me.

I love my wife.

Tonight was a mistake. Dancing with Sydney - I shouldn't have done that. I love the woman I married. I love -

I love the way the dim lights played across Sydney's hair as I'd held her in my arms. I love the way she'd looked at me just then. I love the way she was so intelligent, so smart, so friendly and caring and I love that funny, playful side of her that shows only when she's relaxed. I love Sydney.

I know I should go and have a shower. Change my shirt, and go for a walk somewhere to clear my head.

I know I should put my wedding ring back on.

But when I stand, I don't head for the bathroom. Greeting an elderly lady as I emerge into the hallway, I walk slowly to the door next to mine and take a deep breath. I knock softly.

"Sydney?"

Hm. I'm not sure if this chapter works or not.

There is more to come if you want it and my laptop doesn't eat it.

AN: I know nothing about computer security systems. I'm making it up. Any inaccuracies are unintentional.

Thanks to elly for the beta.