A/N: Okay, I meant to put this chapter up yesterday but the stupid document manager thingy wasn't working because it was "offline", whatever that means and I didn't have the chance to upload this chapter until today. So yeah, blame my lack of update, sorta, on ff[dot]net

Monday morning. It was like a weekly reminder that life could only go downhill from where it was. Not that it could go much farther as it was. It was like two inches away from needing a shovel to go any lower.

Usually I'm an early riser. I get up when my alarm clock goes off. I get dressed promptly after going for a run and a taking a shower. I eat a good breakfast and am ready to go out the door before Kady is even up. And she tends to rise around eight. But for some stupid reason, on Monday mornings, I drag my feet and am almost always late to school. Today was not an exception.

"Mom! I missed the bus! I need a ride!"

"Sydney, I can't right now, I'm busy." Mom yelled back.

Fabulous. Bloody freaking fabulous. "But Mom, I'm going to be late." Again, I added silently.

I'll take her," I hear Aimee say to Mom. A second later, Aimee came into the foyer and grabbed her coat, "Come on, I have to go by the college this morning anyway. Your school's on the way, right?"

I grabbed my backpack from its place near my foot and followed her out the door, "Yeah, it is."

Aimee's college, now there was an interesting subject. On the day of her first college graduation, Aimee had decided that she didn't want to be business woman anymore, making her degree pretty much useless. So to fix the problem, Aimee went back to school, this time to study interior design. She and Jeremy had discussed her career options for hours because he was just as annoyed that she had changed her mind about her career before finally coming up with interior designer. Decorating other people's homes seemed to be something that Aimee did very well.

"So, how's the wedding going?" It started out as an innocent question but I don't think Aimee took it that way.

"What do you want, Sydney?" She asked, with a tone of disgust. "Money? A note out of P.E.?"

"I'm not in P.E. this semester, thanks for noticing," I muttered low enough so she didn't hear me. Then louder I added, "I just want to know how the planning was going."

"It's going fine." Aimee answered, rather sharply and fake.

Uh, huh, trouble in paradise? I simply can't imagine why you and Jeremy would be fighting. "Did you have a fight?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Sydney." What she meant was "I don't want to talk about it with you, Sydney." She stopped the car suddenly and looked over at me. "Well, here's your stop."

"Thanks for the ride." I said, getting out of the car. "Have a nice day, Aimee." I said before closing the door.

"You too." Now, normally when someone said that, they would mean it, but no Aimee. What she meant was, "Why the hell are you telling me to have a nice day, Sydney? How much money do you want?" If you couldn't tell already, Aimee and I don't really get along. We get along enough to the point of where we can still call each other sisters and not mortal enemies but it wasn't like we had late night talks about boys. Come to think of it, I don't get along famously with Kady either. Although, I can usually talk to Kady without her thinking that I wanted something. Me and my sisters were three very different people.

The first bell rang about two minutes after Aimee sped away. That meant I didn't have time to catch up with Francie before first period. Francie had a mother-child bonding class thing with Allison and about twenty other teen mothers and their kids first thing. After that class, the happy mothers would drop off their babies at the daycare center and go off to their real classes. Me, I had chemistry. Good thing I did my homework.

About twenty minutes into yet another lecture in chemistry, a student aide came to the classroom, saying that the principal wanted to me in his office. I was relieved that I would get out of chem. and at the same time, I wondered what I had done. I couldn't remember doing anything to merit a trip to the principal's office. But then again, after hell at my job, cleaning out the storage closet, which isn't a pretty sight to begin with, on Saturday, I didn't really remember a lot from last week.

I gathered my stuff and followed the aide to the main office. The receptionist told me that the principal was busy and would see me when it was my turn. And by the look of things, there were like five people in front of me. With luck, I would miss second period algebra.

Since all the chairs, a total of about three, in the office were taken, I slumped down next to the wall, leaning my head back. To my right, some girl was writing stupid, stupid, stupid all over one binder, and die, die, die all over another. A pile of permanent markers sat next to her, completing the picture.

I shook my head and closed my eyes, trying to picture summer vacation. Only seven more months til summer vacation. Wait, what am I saying? Only seven more months? The entire school year is nine months. It isn't even half way done. It was barely a fourth of the way done. Okay, forget picturing summer, move on to Christmas. Ah, yes, Christmas vacation was three weeks without school and my hell of a job.

I keep saying that. It's not the taking care of the babies that I hate, it's my boss. Marcia isn't known for being tolerant with teenagers. She's nice enough to the mothers who drop off their kids and the kids love her but with her assistants, she's like Satan reincarnated. I don't think that I've ever heard a nice word come out of that woman's mouth directed towards me.

I felt someone sit next to me, just close enough that our shoulders touched but not in a weird way. Then they reached over and poked me in the arm. Poke, poke, poke. I opened my eyes, preparing for some weird girl, like the stupid, stupid, stupid girl to be sitting next to me.

I was wrong. It wasn't some weird girl. It wasn't even a girl. It was Michael Vaughn and he was smiling at me like an idiot.

Michael Vaughn was an odd story. First off, he was called Vaughn more than he was Michael. He was one of those kids that could get away with being referred to as their surnames. Like if I tried to do that, it wouldn't work. It wouldn't be cool to call me Bristow all the time. With Vaughn, it seemed to fit him more than Michael did.

And second, he was one of those kids that could fit into any group. He could sit with the computer geeks during lunch and hang out with the jocks and cheerleaders after school and no one would judge him for it. It was just how Michael Vaughn was and people liked that about him. He didn't care what people said about him, though it was usually good things, like how cool he was or how funny he was.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Sydney, right?"

I nodded, "Right."

"I'm Vaughn."

"I know."

I could see the smile in his eyes when I said that. "So, what'd you do?" He asked.

"Do?" I repeated. Oh God, I'm starting to sound like Jennifer. What is the world coming to?

"Yeah, you don't usually end up in Sherman's office because he thinks you're cute." I smiled. They were right, he was funny. "So, what'd you do that landed a girl like you in the principal's office?"

"A girl like me?" Stop repeating what he says!! Stop it this minute! You're turning into that high voiced blonde twit with big boobs!

"You are the Sydney Bristow, aren't you?"

"I wasn't aware that there was a 'the' in front of my name." I answered and he actually smiled.

"Well, what I mean is, I wouldn't expect to see someone like you in the principal's office."

"What does that mean? Someone like me?"

He shrugged, "I don't know. Just I don't really picture you as the trouble maker."

"Appearances can be deceiving." I said.

He shrugged again, "I guess." He paused before adding, "So what'd you do?"

I laughed, "Okay, okay, pushy much?" He just grinned innocently. "I'm not really sure, I can't remember."

"You can't remember?" He repeated. Apparently, imitating a parrot is a very popular thing to do. "That's an okay excuse, but I've heard better. My favorite is to use the Jedi Mind Trick."

"What's the Jedi Mind Trick?"

"You don't know what that is?" I shook my head, no. "Did you see Star Wars?" I nodded, it wasn't usually something I would admit but when I talked to Vaughn, I couldn't lie to him. "Okay, say I'm Sherman, and I say, 'Michael Vaughn is this any way to start out the week? You're already in trouble for last week's fiasco with the fire alarms. You're not going to graduate next year with your class if you keep this up. Now what do you have to say for yourself?' and you're me. What do you say?" So he was the one to pull the fire alarms last week? Well, I should thank him, he got me out of a history test.

I shrugged, "I don't know. How about 'why are you calling me Michael Vaughn?'"

He made a slight face at me for mocking him and said, "Okay, what you do, is look him in the eye and say 'Mr. Sherman, you're going to let this slide because it was an honest mistake and I'm still dealing with last weeks events and the fire was put out as quickly as it was started.'"

"You started a fire?" I asked.

He smiled, pretending to be innocent, "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. The matter of it is, do you know what he's going to say back?"

"That you're crazy?"

"No, he's going to say, 'Michael, I'm going to let this slide because you are still dealing with last weeks events and the fire was put out as quickly as it was started.'"

I stared at him, "He will not."

He nodded, gravely, "Yes, he will. But words of caution, never use the Jedi Mind Trick unless you have to. Only when you have to, you got that?"

I nodded, "I got it." I paused before adding, "So, what'd you do?"

He laughed at my question. Already, after like ten minutes, me and Michael Vaughn had a private joke going. I should really stop calling him Michael Vaughn. It's just Vaughn. "I started a fire," he said.

Now it was my turn to laugh, "You started a fire?"

He nodded, completely serious, "Yes, I did."

"Are you going to admit that to Sherman?"

"No, I'm not."

"I didn't think so."

"Sydney," Both Vaughn and I looked up when the receptionist called my name. I don't know why he did. It's not like his name was Sydney. The receptionist smiled at me, "Mr. Sherman would like to see you now."

I nodded and stood up. Vaughn reached out his hand and grabbed my ankle, stopping me from walking, "See ya around, Sydney."

"You too, Vaughn." I answered, shaking free my ankle and following the receptionist into the principal's office. Now I was left to wonder what exactly it was that I did.

largemarge416- hehe, I beat up my brother because he ate my chocolate once. And there's more Vaughn coming in the next chapter.

neptunestar- Hey, you reviewed this story too. Very cool. hehe, "eric of the purple tux". that made me laugh, a lot.

morrisseylover- So am I! but unfortunately for me, I don't have any chocolate. :( it's all gone. because I ate it all but ya know, it's the principle of the thing.

cg's-gal-72689- Um, yeah, I don't have sisters. I have a brother who kinda thinks he's my mom, which is incredibly weird. He is a very strange child.

angryapplepie- Yeah, same here. I think they have like a chocolate radar thing so that they know when I have chocolate and they must come take it. it's very frustrating.

moni- Syd's going to be funny, I guess, in this. It's probably just all the sarcasm but sarcasm can be funny.

x3Tinkerbell07- um, yeah, I don't remember either! oh well, who cares. Apparently we agree and that's a good thing. Syd'll perk up, I hope, soon. Can't say if it's because of Vaughn but you probably figured that out.

Lil Aussie Alias Chick- Really? hmmm. Well, I think it's true about teenage girl's clothes. It's how my closet it and it also makes it nearly impossible to find clothes. Of course, I want to visit Sydney. It seems like a cool city.

jamie- Yeah, I agree with that, that there aren't that many good Sydney teen fics but I just had to write this one, so I'm glad that you like it. That means I didn't crash and burn, whatever that means. it's an odd saying ya know, crash and burn. it's confusing too.

genevra- Hey, I like Sydney(the city) too. I wanna go there for a visit sometime, if I can ever gather enough money. And yeah, Eric in the supermarker was Weiss. Will's okay, he just doesn't fit into this story and I'm sure he will.