Chapter 2
Michael Vaughn smiled as he packed the last of his belongings into a box. Although he was glad to be going home, he was going to miss his house in Italy. As he looked around his family room, his cell phone rang from his pocket.
"Hello?"
"MIKEY!!!" He couldn't help but laugh at Eric's enthusiastic hello.
"Hey man, what's up? You got my welcome home party all lined up?"
"Of course, me and Donovan practically have the pizza ordered."
"Oh thanks a lot."
"Well I try. Seriously though I can't wait till you get here. There is so much to talk about. A year is a long time my friend."
"Yeah I know, well I just finished packing so I'll head to the airport in a while and I'll see you tomorrow."
"We'll be waiting in the terminal," Eric said as he disconnected, Vaughn smiled as he got up to let the movers in; he was finally going home.
The next day
Vaughn sighed happily as he stood up from his seat and made his way to the front of the plane. As he exited the terminal there was no way he could miss Weiss who was standing on top of a chair waving his arms and yelling. He couldn't even pretend to not know him, because now everyone was looking around for "Mikey". He smiled at his best friend who jumped down and ran over to him and gave him a huge hug.
"It is so good to have you home!" Even though he was embarrassed by his friend, he had to admit that he had missed him too.
"It's good to be home," he replied and they made their way to the baggage claim.
"We will be landing in LA in approximately 10 minutes, thank you for flying with American Airlines."
Sydney sighed heavily as she leaned back in her seat. Whatever could have possibly gone wrong in this mission did. Not only was she not at all stealthy in getting the disk, but she totally screwed up Weiss's counter mission, and now SD-6 had the information and the CIA didn't. God, she could be so stupid sometimes. How was she going to explain this one to Weiss?
A few hours later inside CIA Operations Center
Vaughn sat down at his desk and decided to check his email, before he started the mountains of paperwork that awaited him. He was excited to see that his mystery friend had written him back, and he quickly opened his mail and began to read:
October 1, 2002
To: HockeyFan23
From: AliceinWonderland
Hello again,
Has it really been only a year? I feel the same way you do, that we've been friends all our lives, not complete strangers who met in a chat room. How is it I wonder that you always know the exact thing to make me feel better? You have all the right answers and can make the best out of any situation. Every time I check my email I look forward to what you have to say.
I'm glad to hear that you are finally able to go home. Going home definitely a good feeling. My job takes me on a lot of business trips and every time I get off the plane I get that excited feeling that I'm almost home. I hope you got home safely and I'd love to hear about your flight and homecoming.
Vaughn leaned back in his chair. She was right. They did have a strange connection, what that was exactly, he would have to wait to find out. For now he had tons of paperwork to take care of before his debrief.
Sydney arrived at the CIA Operations in an even worse mood. She had just sat through a long debrief with Sloane, and it made her want to throw up. Then on her way to CIA she had hit massive traffic, and was in no mood to explain to Weiss what had happened in Prague. She walked with her head down through the hallways going over what she was going to say in her head. She was knocked out of her thoughts, literally, as she turned the corner and ran smack into another agent causing the papers he was carrying to fly everywhere.
"Dammit! Watch where you're going!" Sydney said as she looked at who she had run into.
"I'm sorry, I'm late for my debrief and wasn't really paying attention," he replied as he stooped to pick up his scattered report.
"Well you're not the only one in a rush, so maybe you should be a little more careful next time," she said rudely as she glared at the man in front of her. Without apologizing or helping him with his mess, she continued down the hall to Weiss's office.
TBC
