Chapter 9
"Ok..." Sydney looked up from the floor, meeting Vaughn's gaze. His sparkling eyes pulled her in, making her momentarily forget what she was going to say. "Erm...look I'm guessing that we're both wanting to talk about the same thing?" Vaughn nodded. "Well how about for tonight we just cast that aside...and have fun like we had planned?" Sydney smiled at him, and suddenly he found himself unable to disagree with her.
"Ok, sounds like a good plan to me! You wanna dance?" He glanced over at the group of dancing people who had gathered in the center of the room. Sydney followed his gaze, and found herself slowly moving towards them.
"Come on then Vaughn, show me what you got!" She winked, and began to dance her way through the crowd. Vaughn followed her, watching every move she made. He was amazed at how well she danced, she seemed so at ease when she danced, like the music took away all the troubles in her life.
They were dancing facing each other, the music drowning out the voices of the people talking in the room. Sydney moved her hips in time with the music, her arms moving around above her head. Watching her as she danced, Vaughn realized how much he was falling for this girl. Every so often, Sydney would move closer to him as they were dancing, staring intently into his eyes.
Over the other side of the room, Piper noticed Syd and Michael dancing together and the excitement was visible on her face. Her smile didn't go unnoticed by Danny who was soon looking in the same direction she was, only to find his girlfriend dancing with the new guy. He looked briefly at them, before turning his attention back to Piper.
"Why exactly are you smiling. She's up there making a show of herself with that guy. How can you sit there smiling?"
"The only person making a show of themselves around here Danny is you. Sydney's a grown girl; she doesn't need your permission to dance with Michael." Piper was blunt. She had never really liked Danny, even though he was the most popular guy in school and any other girl would do anything to be friends with him, just like she was.
"You didn't answer my question." He glared over at her.
"Leo, you wanna go an dance?" She asked her boyfriend, who was happy to get her away from Danny. Piper and Leo joined Syd and Michael who seemed to be dancing in their own little world. Danny just watched on as the four of them had fun on the dance floor.
A couple of hours later
The party was beginning to die down now, it was now 2:30 in the morning, and several people had already left. A lot of people were either drunk, or passed out in the various rooms. Danny had been one of the first to leave, he had tried to talk to Syd again but she had spent most of the night either dancing with Michael or playing drinking games with the rest of her friends.
Syd was busy getting ready to leave that she didn't notice Vaughn walking over to her. "Great party eh?" He asked greeting her with a small smile.
"Yeah, it definitely was!" Sydney had drunk a lot, but right now she was feeling happier than ever. But she knew that she would pay for all the fun she had that night, with a big hang over the next morning.
"You want me to walk you home?" Vaughn asked, hoping she would accept his offer.
Syd paused before answering him. "Sure, why not. Let me just say goodbye to everyone." She walked away, towards Paige and Phoebe. Piper had decided to spend the night at Leo's and Francie had left about an hour ago with Will.
"You ready to go Sydney? We're just waiting for Cole and then we're off!" Paige informed her.
"Actually, Michael's offered to walk me home...so I guess I'll see you guys tomorrow!" Sydney hugged each of her friends, and then staggered back down the hallway to find Vaughn waiting patiently by the door.
He opened the door for her and they began their walk home together. The sky was perfectly clear, except for the moon shining down on them. A cold breeze made Syd shiver, so Vaughn quickly took off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.
"Thanks." She snuggled into the jacket, enjoying the smell of his aftershave, which had rubbed off of him, and onto the jacket.
20 minutes later, they were standing on Sydney's doorstep. They walked to her house quite slowly, talking about the party and Vaughn's life in Paris. Sydney fumbled in her bag for her house keys.
"Your mom must have gone to bed!" Vaughn looked at the house and noticed that there weren't any lights on.
"No, she's gone out of town with some friends. I think she said that they were going to a spa or something like that...anyways she won't be back until tomorrow night." Sydney told him as she finally found her keys. "Erm...do you wanna come inside for a little while?" Sydney asked opening the front door.
Vaughn accepted her offer immediately. "Sure!" He smiled and followed her inside the house. Sydney took off her shoes and threw her keys onto the table near the front door. "Make yourself at home!" Sydney ran up the stairs to change, leaving Vaughn sitting on the couch in the living room. The clock on the mantle piece told him that it was 3:20am, but he figured that his mom didn't know that he wasn't back yet, as she was probably asleep.
He looked around the room, admiring the photographs of Sydney from over the years. He could tell just by looking at them, that Sydney would break a lot of guy's hearts when she was older...hopefully he wouldn't be one of them. Sydney stood in the doorway silently watching him. She could see him smiling to himself as he looked over the various photos scattered around the room.
He finally turned around and saw her immediately putting down the photograph. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be noisy!" Vaughn apologised.
"Vaughn, you don't have to apologise for looking at embarrassing pictures of me..." Sydney laughed. "It just means that one day I'll have to come and look at all your embarrassing photos!" She said, taking a seat on the couch.
"Deal." Vaughn agreed and then sat next to her. Syd switched on the tv to find re-runs of Friends being shown.
"I love this show!" Michael said as he started to laugh at the comedy on the screen.
"Me too!" Syd replied, settling down to watch one of her favourite shows.
After the show had finished, Vaughn decided that it was about time that he went home. "I best get going, it's late!"
"Oh, ok." Vaughn could hear the disappointment in her voice. "Unless you want to stay here tonight? I mean...you can stay on the couch. It would be better than going home at this time, and besides I don't like being in the house by myself." She looked at him with her puppy dog eyes, and he felt like he couldn't refuse.
"Well, ok. I wouldn't want you to be all alone now would I." Vaughn smiled. "But you can't use those puppy dog eyes for a very long time!"
"Ok." Sydney laughed as she ran up the stairs and came down carrying a blanket and a pillow, which she placed on the couch. He thanked her for them and she turned to leave.
"Goodnight Syd." She smiled sweetly at him, and then walked up the stairs to her room. Vaughn turned the living room light out, and lay on the couch wrapped in his own thoughts. He couldn't believe that he was spending the night in Sydney Bristow's house, he knew that if Danny found out he would freak.
Sydney lay in her bed, trying to sleep, but all she could think about what the party and how close she had been to kissing Vaughn. She rolled over, trying to push thoughts of him out of her mind. Before she knew what she was doing, she was out of the bed and walking down the stairs towards the living room.
She could see him lying on the couch in the dark, and without making a noise she crept over to the couch. She could tell that he was still awake, so she carefully pulled back the covers and lay beside him on the couch. He responded by wrapping his arms around her and pulling the cover back around them both. Syd snuggled up to him, and just before she fell asleep, she whispered "Goodnight Vaughn."
