Magnificent Lies
Unspoken

"Truth takes time." Irina said from the doorway. She paused, letting her eyes drift slowly from Jack to Vaughn and back again. "We're done with the questioning." She continued as Sydney and Volkov appeared at the doorway.

Sydney had been impressed by Volkov. He was a handsome man; his dark eyes were captivating, his face angular and sharp. But more amazing was his mind. After all his years undercover in France, he still remembered every detail from the KGB life he had left behind. He was able to recap almost every mission he had been on with Irina, and Sydney wouldn't have been surprised if he could recap every mission he had ever been on. He was a lot like Irina, no matter how hard she had tried she hadn't been able to read his face throughout the questioning. Unlike Irina, he seemed friendlier somehow; it wasn't a difficult task to hold a conversation with him like it was with Irina.

She also had noticed that there was something going on between him and Irina. It was as if, after all their years apart, they could still read each other perfectly. It was an odd bond, much like the one she shared with Vaughn.

"Syd?" Vaughn asked, seeing that she was lost in her thoughts. She was brought back to reality when she heard his voice. She smiled at him, then her brows knitted together as she suddenly thought of something.

"Wait," she began. "What are we doing about tonight? We only have two rooms… Who's Volkov staying with?"

"I could go back to my apartment for the night, and meet you back here in the morning." Volkov said, voicing his opinion for the first time. Sydney had also noticed that he liked to stick to the facts as much as possible, much like Jack in that respect.

"No." Jack said firmly. "You're not leaving our custody. Besides, you'll be safer here. There's no guarantee that SD-6 hasn't deployed another team here to look for you." Jack thought about how they would work out the sleeping arrangements. Volkov would have to stay in one of their rooms, obviously. Jack wasn't to keen on having Sydney and Vaughn stay together again, but he couldn't split them up because they still needed to keep up appearances for SD-6. Jack wasn't about to let Irina out of his sight either, although he was hesitant to house her in the same vicinity with Volkov. "Okay. Here's how this is going to work out. Sydney, Vaughn, you stay where you were last night. Send a message to Sloane telling him that the man was not Volkov, that the information must have been faulty. I'll make further arrangements to back up your story. Most likely, he'll have you flown back at some time tomorrow. Irina, Volkov and I will stay here. I'm going to book a flight tonight for us to fly back early tomorrow too." Everyone nodded; his plan made sense. Vaughn glanced down at his watch. Seven o'clock, PM; they had spent the whole day in Jack's hotel room. He looked back up, catching Sydney's eye.

"Well, I'm getting hungry." Sydney began. "If we're all finished here, can Vaughn and I go and get dinner?" She felt like a little kid, excusing herself from the dinner table to go play with her friends.

"Actually, I was thinking that we should all go together." Jack replied, not wanting to leave the two younger agents alone with each other just yet. A cold look from Sydney changed his mind. "But I think we'll just get room service." He added on. "With Volkov it'll be a lot more difficult to remain unseen. Plus, if SD-6 sees us all together, our cover will be blown."

Sydney smiled at Vaughn, and they let themselves out of the hotel room. As Vaughn closed the door behind him, though, Jack caught his eye at the last second, and gave him a warning glare that he would not forget. He quickly shut the door, and they were soon in a taxi.

"Where to?" Vaughn asked Sydney. She started laughing, a light, innocent laugh that made his heart soar to hear. She smiled up at him.

"Actually, I didn't really want to go out to dinner, I just wanted to be alone with you. I thought we could just get Chinese food, maybe go for a walk after dinner." He nodded, and she grinned, leaning on his shoulder as he gave the driver directions to their hotel. As they crossed over the Seine for the second time that day, she was on cloud nine. She was in France, one of her favorite countries, (her favorite after learning that Vaughn had been born in Normandy) snuggling up to her handler who had admitted he loved her the day before, and SD-6 wasn't going to get their hands on Volkov after all.

Fifteen minutes later, they were back at their hotel. Vaughn had asked the concierge for the number of a good Chinese food place nearby on the way in, and had been told to call the Imperial Choisy, which offered delivery services as well as great Asian cuisine.

"What do you want from the Chinese place?" He asked as he dialed the number.

"Um, just a spring roll and General Tso's chicken, thanks!" She called from the bedroom, where she was typing the email to Sloane. She had just finished, and was about to shut her laptop when she felt Vaughn's hand on her shoulder. He wound his other hand around her waist to wrap it around her own hand, squeezing it gently.

"Hi." She said softly as he stepped even closer to her.

"Hey." He whispered in her ear. "The food's on it's way." She tilted her head up to kiss him, softly and slowly. His hand slipped from her shoulder down to her waist as he turned her around to face him, and she could feel his lips smiling as they kissed. She grasped his shirt, pulling him towards her, into the kiss, while his hands traced slow, large circles on the small of her back. She was beginning to play with the hair at the nape of his neck when the still-open computer beeped twice.

"I've got mail." She said, leaning her forehead against his. "Three guesses who it's from." She sat back down in the chair and read the email aloud. "Received Intel. Board flight 47 CDG tomorrow, 1200 hours. See you at home." She sighed. The email was short, succinct. Sloane wrote this way when he was disappointed, which he obviously was at the 'failed' mission.

"We have to leave tomorrow." She said sadly. She didn't want to wake up from this fantastic dream. She buried her face in Vaughn's shoulder.

"I know," he replied, smoothing her hair down her back. He had known they would have had to have this conversation at some time; but he had ignored that pesky little voice inside his head, but now it was too loud to ignore any longer. "Sydney… What are we going to do?" She flopped down on the bed, laying on her back. He sat on the end of the bed, trying to smile at her. It seemed every time he looked at her he saw more. All the little things that made her Sydney, he imprinted them in his mind so as to never forget a single one. The way her hair framed her face, the tiny freckles that dotted her collarbone. How he would ever survive without being able to brush the stray hairs away from her big brown eyes, or kiss each and every freckle, he didn't know.

"I don't know." She replied honestly. "I don't know if I can not be with you. Before this trip, I think the only reason I could was because I didn't know what it was like. But now… I just, I can't do it."

"I agree. But there are so many issues with this."

"It's not as dangerous as it was before you came into SD-6. We won't have to worry about blowing my cover." She said. "But there's always going to be one thing we won't be able to get around."

"Protocol." They said together, smiling. They sat in silence for a few minutes, thinking almost exactly the same thing. Sydney spoke first, beating Vaughn by only a few seconds.

"Vaughn?"

"Yeah."

"I don't think I could have done all this without you. In fact, I probably would have gone crazy by now if you hadn't been my handler." She paused for a second, trying to work out how to put what she was thinking into words. "Don't you think, to some extent, our success is due to our feelings for each other? If you hadn't cared about me, and worried about me, and been willing to risk your life to help me out, I'd be dead a hundred times over."

Just then there was a knock on the door, and they could smell the Chinese food that awaited them. Vaughn got up from the bed, and returned with a large, delicious smelling bag. He unpacked it all on the bed, then fished in the bottom for some chopsticks, and sat down. Sydney carefully moved to a cross-legged position, careful not to tip over any of the red and white cartons.

"Mmmm" She said, as Vaughn handed her the General Tso's chicken. Peering curiously at Vaughn's carton, she asked him what he had ordered.

"A serving of Spicy Chicken Wontons and drunken noodles. Here." He got a bite of the spicy noodles onto his chopsticks and leaned across the bed to feed it to Sydney, who smiled as she chewed it, then offered Vaughn a piece of her chicken.

They continued to eat like this, feeding each other and laughing, until they had exhausted their supply of Chinese food. (Even the spicy chicken wontons, which had been almost too spicy to eat.) Vaughn then stacked all the empty cartons on top of each other, but didn't bother to get up and throw them away just yet. Instead, he turned around and put them on the floor near the foot of the bed. When he faced Sydney again, she had moved to sit close to him, their knees touching. She grinned at him, putting her hands on the sides of his face, and kissed him.

Her mouth was still spicy from the food, which only made the kiss better as his lips were soon set afire. He put his hands on her hips, soon beginning to draw slowly on her back, but didn't go any further. They had an unspoken agreement; they were going to take it slow.

Sydney was the one who finally broke the kiss, leaving Vaughn still kneeling on the bed.

"Hey!" He said playfully. "I wasn't done!" She smiled over her shoulder at him, walking into the bathroom to get ready for bed. Vaughn got up and stretched, then followed her into the bathroom to brush his teeth with her. He was amazed at how she could make something as simple as brushing her teeth look seductive. Sydney finished first, and got dressed for bed while he was still in the bathroom. She undressed quickly, then stole one of Vaughn's shirts and threw the covers down so she could get into bed. Vaughn entered the room just as she was pulling them up over her, and caught a glimpse of her bare legs and side, causing him to grin and her to blush. Vaughn unbuttoned his shirt, turning around to put it back in his suitcase. He heard Sydney mumble something that sounded a lot like "damn," but he decided to pretend he hadn't heard a thing. He quickly pulled his pants off and slid under the covers, smiling as Sydney immediately snuggled up to his side, leaning her smooth back against his chest. They both fell asleep with smiles on their faces.

Hi everyone… J Thought you might like a fluffy chapter today… More to come, of course. (As long as I get some reviews, as always. Seriously just a 1 word review would make my day.) So review. Okay, if you like SV fluff read my other stories, Caught Up In Reality, which is finished already, and LoveWar.

REVIEW oh please oh please oh PLEASE!