"I've gotta go find him!" Sydney managed to say between the tears. She knew that he would be hurt by what he saw, but she needed to explain what really happened to him. She turned to leave, but Weiss pulled her back.
"Syd, what's going on?" Sydney stopped and turned back to face them. She wiped her cheeks dry and looked at her friends; concern on each of their faces.
"I…" She shook her head and looked down at the floor. "I've got to go." She didn't even bother to explain she just turned around and left. The three of them stood confused in the hallway for the second time that night.
Vaughn pulled his jacket tighter around himself, before replacing his hands back in his pockets. Ever since leaving the Halliwell's house, he had been walking down various streets, trying to clear his head. He didn't want to go home yet, he knew his mother would ask him why he was home before 10 p.m. on Christmas night, and he didn't know what he would say to her. As much as he tried, he couldn't get the image of Sydney and Danny together out of his head.
He angrily kicked a can that had been thrown on the floor, as he crossed the street. He didn't know where he was going exactly, he just kept on walking.
Sydney walked as fast as she could to Vaughn's house. She wasn't even sure that he would be there, but she didn't know where else to check. LA was a huge place; he could be anywhere in the city. She didn't even know where he liked to go when he was angry; she had never had to find out before.
She took a deep breath as she walked up his driveway. She didn't even know what she would say to him if he were there, but before she could give herself tome to think, she found herself knocking on the door.
Amelie Vaughn answered the door, a smile on her face. Sydney could tell that she had been drinking a little, she was acting merry, but she was no where near drunk. "Sydney!" She wrapped her arms around Sydney's neck and embraced her. "Happy Christmas."
"Yeah you too!" Sydney faked a smile. The Vaughn family had been so nice to her over the past couple of months, she just hoped that what Danny had done wouldn't jeopardise that. "Er…I was just wondering if Michael was home?" Amelie looked at her strangely and shook her head.
"No dear. He's over at the Halliwell's. I thought you were with him…" Michael had told her that him and Sydney were going to the party together, so now she was slightly confused as to why Sydney was looking for him.
"Yeah he was. We were." Sydney panicked, she didn't know what to say. Her eyes fell to the floor. "He erm…I…"
"You two had a fight?" Amelie asked, causing Sydney to look up. Her facial expression read 'how do you know?' giving Amelie the only answer that she needed. "Don't worry. I'm sure whatever it is, you guys will get past it. You're perfect together, nothing could ruin that." She gave Sydney another hug, and felt her sob against her shoulder. She held her tighter, reassuring her that everything would be ok. "Do you want to come inside and wait for him?" She offered.
Sydney forced a smile, but shook her head. She quickly dried her cheeks with her hands, trying her best to compose herself. "I'm just gonna go." She slowly started walking away from the house. She felt embarrassed for breaking down like that infront of Michael's mom, and she felt guilty for the sympathy that Amelie had given her. If she knew the truth was Sydney was there, she doubted that she would be receiving sympathy.
"Ok, when he comes home, I'll tell him you stopped by." Sydney nodded.
"Thank you Mrs Vaughn." She thanked the older woman, only Amelie would never know the true depth of Sydney's words. What she had said to Sydney gave her hope. You're perfect together. Sydney knew that she was right, now all she had to do was find Michael and fix this mess.
Sydney took her cell phone out of her purse and dialled Vaughn's number. She waited anxiously for him to pick up, while the sound of the dial tone filled her ears. Eventually his voice mail service picked up. Sydney sighed, she didn't want to do this over a voice message, but she knew that she had no choice; if she didn't leave a message, finding him would be even harder.
"Vaughn it's me. When you get this message will you call me please? We really need to talk." She paused before shutting her phone and placing it back in her purse.
She finally went home after looking for him for aver an hour. She managed to avoid her mom and dad, and went straight to bed, where she cried herself to sleep.
The next morning, Sydney still hadn't heard from Michael. She called his house and his dad answered.
"Hey Mr Vaughn, can I speak to Michael please?"
"I'm sorry Sydney, Michael isn't in. Him and his mom left early this morning to run some errands."
"Oh ok. Bye!" Sydney hung up the phone and lay back on her bed. She wasn't sure if he was telling her the truth, or whether Michael had told him to lie to her.
She quickly changed and walked to Weiss's. She couldn't face staying in her house, she knew her mother would ask her questions about last night, and she didn't feel like tell her what happened. But maybe Weiss could help her out.
"Hey Weiss! I hope you don't mind me stopping by, I just didn't know where else to go…" Weiss could hear the despair in her voice, and she wasn't looking her usual happy self.
"Don't worry about it. It's fine!" He smiled, stepping aside to let her in. "Paige is upstairs if you wanna go up." Sydney nodded and silently walked up the stairs. Paige was sitting cross-legged on Weiss's bed, a magazine laid open infront of her.
"Hi." Sydney sat at the bottom of the bed, facing Paige. Paige could tell that she'd been crying, her eyes were all red and puffy.
"Is everything ok?"
Sydney nodded as Weiss walked into the room and sat on the chair by his desk. The room fell silent, as Sydney stared at the floor and Weiss and Paige threw confused looks at each other.
"Have you spoken to Michael?" Sydney asked, breaking the silence.
"Not since he stormed out of Paige's last night." Sydney nodded, her eyes falling back to the floor. Paige and Weiss looked at each other, it was as though they were silently arguing about who would ask her the question that they both wanted to know the answer to. Finally Paige backed down.
"Syd, what happened last night?"
And there it was; the question that Sydney had been trying to avoid. She felt that if she were to actually say it out loud, it would make this whole nightmare more real. But if they were ever gonna help her, she would have to tell them.
"I was going to find Vaughn, so I could tell him I loved him, but Danny stopped me before I could even get to Michael. He said that he wanted to talk to me, and at the time I didn't think there was any harm in it. So we went into the kitchen to talk, and he starts telling me about how he'd changed and needed another chance. And the next minute he's kissing me, and I was too shocked to do anything. But then I guess Michael walked in and saw us, and then stormed back out." Sydney wiped a tear from her cheek. Paige moved to sit next to her, her arm wrapped around her shoulder.
"Have you not spoke to him since?"
"No, he won't take any of my calls. I really need to talk to him, but I can't do that if he won't even see me, you know."
"Look, why don't you two go shopping, and I'll get Vaughn to come over, and I'll talk to him." Weiss walked towards Sydney. "Ok?"
Sydney nodded and her and Paige stood up. "Shall we go shopping sweetie?" Paige asked, looping her arm through Sydney's.
Sydney gave her a weak smile. "Sure." They walked towards the door, but Sydney stopped and turned back to face Eric. "Thank you."
"It's ok. I wouldn't be Vaughn's friend, if I didn't help him sort out his problems!" Weiss joked. "Now you girls go have fun, and don't forget to bring me something nice back." Paige smiled and kissed Weiss good-bye and then her and Sydney left.
"So where shall we go first? I was thinking maybe we could go and check out the sale at Ralph Lauren, I hear they've got so many nice tops…"
"Actually Paige, do you mind if we go somewhere first? There's just something that I've gotta do."
Sydney pounded on the door, not caring who she woke up. Paige had tried to talk her out of coming here, but she insisted that she needed to, so Paige just stood back and let her get on with it.
A couple of minutes later, Danny answered the door, looking rather hung over. "Sydney? Paige? What are you guys doing here?"
Sydney didn't bother answering him, she just barged right past him and into the house, which thankfully was empty. Paige followed her inside the house.
Danny stepped towards Sydney. "What's wrong?" Without saying anything, she slapped him, his hand immediately moving to cover his face. "What was that for?"
"Well you were obviously too drunk to remember!" Sydney folded her arms infront of her chest. Suddenly the sad, broken Sydney was gone, and was replaced with a much angrier version of her. Paige tried her best not to laugh. Danny had deserved that slap for so long, and now he'd finally gotten it.
"Remember what?" He asked, rubbing the pain away from his cheek.
"You kissed me last night Danny. And that I may have been able to deal with, but the fact that my boyfriend, the guy I love saw you, kinda makes me a little angry!" She yelled at him.
"I kissed you?"
"Don't act innocent with me Danny. I'm not falling for another one of your acts again." She walked towards the door. "Oh and just so we're clear….stay the hell out of my life!"
