WAREHOUSE

2300 (PST)

Sydney smiled softly as she looked around the warehouse that, for almost two years, had been her safe haven. The warehouse. Their warehouse. Hers and Vaughn's. She hadn't been back since the Alliance takedown, at first because she had Vaughn around and didn't need to go there to be reminded of him, then, after her two year disappearing act, because she already had enough reminders of Vaughn and didn't want to torture herself further by immersing herself in a place that was theirs, that Lauren couldn't touch no matter how hard she tried.

The crates and table had gathered a great amount of dust since her last visit, a testament to both herself and Vaughn—not even the cold and seemingly heartless CIA superpowers dared disrupt their sacred space by changing one fake title for another and switching its use from meeting place to storage unit or safehouse.

"Not much has changed," Vaughn commented as he walked up to the cage and stepped through the open gate.

"Not a thing has changed," Sydney corrected. "Have… have you been here since we met with my dad and Kendall that day with the intel from server 47?"

"Once. After… the funeral. But it was too hard to deal with all the memories," Vaughn confessed. "I would look at the table and think about how we'd spread out files to work on countermissions together when nothing seemed to be working out. I would see the crates and think about how we'd put our coats and things there when we'd be here for more than a few seconds, when I would have time to memorize everything about you before sending you off to dangerous situations. I thought about the time you called me here to apologize because of what your mother did to my father and how you let me hold you for the first time. Or when you invited me to a hockey game and I wanted so badly to say yes. And then I would think about how many times I thought about pushing you up against the crates or the fence or the wall and kissing you until neither one of us could breathe," he said, moving closer to Sydney. Her body was tingling, aching for his touch.

"I kept thinking about the fantasies I'd had, of making love to you in here, in the one corner of the world where we could be ourselves and not worry about anything for a little while. I kept thinking about how you screamed my name whenever you came and my mind tried to decide if your voice would be louder because of the high ceilings or if it would echo because of the way the building is shaped. I drove myself crazy in the two minutes I actually stayed here, and then I ran out, locked up, and drove away, promising that I wouldn't look back because you wouldn't have wanted that, wouldn't have wanted me to live with the 'what if's' and the ghosts of our lives when they were what had taken you away from me to begin with."

Sydney wrapped her arms around Vaughn, burying her face in his neck, hating that she had hurt him so badly by being taken, wishing for the billionth time since waking up in Hong Kong that she hadn't passed out after fighting Allison. They didn't cry, having vowed not to shed any more tears for the two years of missing time with a third year tacked on just for some added torture. They just held each other and reminded themselves that they had made it through what would most likely be the biggest obstacle they would ever have to get around in their personal relationship.

Finally they stepped away from each other and Vaughn said, "Why did you want to meet here? Getting nostalgic?"

"No. Well, maybe a little, but that's not the real reason," Sydney said. "I know that this building isn't bugged, and the protocol is still set up for us to meet here despite the lack of need since the Alliance went down."

"So what's up?" Vaughn asked.

"An agent from the FBI came by the house today. She kept it very professional, but I could tell she wanted to find out everything I know about Rambaldi," Sydney said. "Even though I knew it was coming… the whole thing threw me."

Vaughn sighed heavily. "I've been calling around, trying to pin down some more details about these guys. Their methods are controversial, to say the least, but they get the job done. Their solve rate is the highest in the Violent Crimes section, and in the top ten in the Bureau overall. Agent Mulder runs the two-person division and Agent Scully gives credibility to his work."

"What's the consensus on them? Other than the fact that they get the job done, I mean," Sydney said.

"Divided. Half the people I talked to worship them, think the sun rises and sets on the X-Files team," Vaughn said. "The other half thinks they're insane. Or, more accurately, that Mulder is insane and that Scully is teetering on the edge herself for staying partnered with him for so long. Overall, though, everyone agrees that they are a good team and, though not through the most conventional of means, they have solved cases that no one else could."

"Well, at least now we know that the CIA isn't the only part of the government interested in the occult," Sydney said with a sad little sigh.

"What I want to know if how Lauren's body got to Ireland and how the FBI got involved."

"Senator Reed still has some friends in high places, even now. When Lauren's body turned up in Ireland riddled with bullets… murder was the automatic assumption. Agent's Mulder and Scully were apparently already working a case in Ireland and it got… tied into our lives, I guess," Sydney said. "I don't really know how it's working, honestly. Agent Scully was reluctant to part with any information that may colour me as a witness," she said with an exaggerated eye roll.

"I'm surprised the Director hasn't quashed this already," Vaughn admitted.

"Be hard to do without losing plausible deniability," Sydney pointed out. "Besides, if what we've been told about these guys is true they won't accept a cover-up. They seem to be very against that kind of thing."

Vaughn nodded, conceding that point.

"Okay, time to get to the point," Sydney said. "How are we going to deal with them?"


Okay, I admit it, this was a throwaway chapter. I just needed Sydney to do something proactive 'cause, well, that's what she does. I don't see her as the type of person to sit around and let someone investigate both herself and the people she loves the most.

Love it? Hate it? Somewhere in between? Let me know.

M