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Part I, Act 2

She spent the rest of the morning out. She walked the dock down by the water, listened to street musicians, browsed numbly through shops. She couldn't stomach the idea of going back to Lauren and Vaughn's apartment. Sometimes she had, in the last few months, wished she was Lauren, but actually being her was an entirely different cup of tea, she thought as she sipped from the one cupped in her hands and waited for Vaughn to join her at what she knew was he and Lauren's usual restaurant. This was reality, skewed as it was. And she was about to lie to the man she still loved: she was about to pretend to be his wife.

"Hey," Vaughn said as he took the chair across from her. "You weren't at our table."

"I felt like a change," Sydney answered, starting to feel sick all over again. "Hello yourself, darling."

She leaned over and kissed his cheek the way she'd watched Lauren do a hundred times, smelled his aftershave and felt the sandpaper of his hastily shaven skin, and forced herself to press her lips only briefly, forced herself not to breakdown and start sobbing his name.

Instead, she smiled at him. "I'm glad you made it."

"I'm sorry I'm late," he said, breaking her gaze and pulling the napkin off the table and over his lap. "It was Sydney. Did you hear?"

"Hear?"

"Weiss found her unconscious in her apartment this morning when he went to pick her up. Her door was open."

He sounded concerned for her, she realized, and it seized up her heart. But of course he'd be concerned. It wasn't as if he didn't care about her. He just didn't love her anymore. Not the way he loved Lauren.

"Is she all right? Was she hurt?"

"She's still unconscious, but physically unharmed. No bruises. No cuts. Just some swelling around the mouth. The doctors think she's been drugged."

"Oh my god." Sydney closed her eyes, relief and worry both washing over her. Warmly, she joked, "I suppose I can forgive you under the circumstances."

Vaughn studied her. "You aren't upset."

Sydney started to feel uneasy. She lifted her water glass and took a precise sip. "No. Should I be?"

"Usually when I mention Sydney—"

"Michael!" Sydney exclaimed, scandalized. "Of course not! What a horrible thing to say!"

Did he really expect Lauren would be angry over this? Would Lauren have been upset? Wasn't it enough he was hers?

"Because you know I love you," he said, brow tight and earnest, hand reaching for hers. "You know I'm committed to making this work."

She made herself smile at him, then took back her hand. "Do they have any idea who would have done this to her?"

"So far, none," Vaughn answered. "There are some theories, mostly revolving around the Covenant, but nothing we can go on. They're hoping she'll wake up soon, and will know something that can help. Jack thinks it might have something to do with the Rambaldi artifact she brought in yesterday."

"The disk," Sydney prompted, and her stomach sunk at how little out of character it must have been—Vaughn continued to talk easily, filling her in on the details of the disk: the dust, the tests they'd run, what they'd found so far. She wondered if it was this easy for her mother, betraying her father.

"So the dust is an entirely unknown compound," she said when he had finished.

"Entirely. A Rambaldi special. They're scouring the manuscript pages we have now to see if they can find anything there."

"Keep me updated, darling," Sydney said. She hated when Lauren called him darling. "I have to leave for Washington tonight, but—"

"I know, Jack mentioned it. Which I thought was odd."

It thrilled her to see the slight wariness glint in his eyes—see through her, see through me—but she had to dispel it, of course.

"I saw him this morning. The NSC had some questions they wanted answered about his ex-wife."

Vaughn relaxed visibly, and laughed. "I bet he was thrilled with that."

"He was more accommodating than I would have thought," she answered. "He was almost charming, actually."

"That must have been unnerving."

"Quite a bit," she answered, and smiled again.

They exchanged the general sort of chit chat as they waited for the food they ordered to arrive—discussed a possible vacation together, speculated about Marshall and Carrie's baby. It was almost too much for Sydney to bear. They were so easy with each other. Was it because she was Sydney, not Lauren? Or was this just them, Lauren and Vaughn? She was doing a competent job of being the other woman, but she wasn't perfect, she'd slipped, been herself—been Sydney—several times, and he hadn't caught on. Couldn't he tell the difference? Or, for all his talk of having gotten over her, past her, had he really only moved on to a safer replica, and that was why he hadn't noticed?

He paid the check and insisted on walking her to her car, though she protested.

"I had a really good time," Vaughn said to her as they stopped at her car door. As if it had been a date.

"I did, too," she said, stopping herself from tucking the hair behind her ears, smiling coyly instead.

"It hasn't been like this for a long time," he continued, seriously, and she felt tight in the chest.

Oh, Michael, she thought, and was so busy thinking it she missed the advance warning that would have allowed her to dodge his kiss.

His mouth was just how she remembered it, though the angle was slightly different—Lauren was an inch or two shorter—and she clung to his jacket, eyes squeezing shut. His lips opened against hers and she sighed into him, tasting him, pressing Lauren's body to his and wishing it was her own.

When they broke apart, she was breathing heavily and he was grinning.

"See you when you get back," he said, and kissed the top of her head.

She was still standing there when Lauren's cell rang. The number was Sydney's father's.

"Dad?" she answered, still dazed.

"I found Mr. Sark's Bellvue. A plane is waiting for you."