Irina sat down at the kitchen table, regretting what had just happened. She knew that she hadn't handled the situation in the best possible way, but there was nothing she could do about that now. Jack stood by the kitchen sink, his eyes staring blankly out into the garden.
"I can't believe that just happened." Irina sighed and rested her head in her hands. Jack turned around to face her, the same frustrated expression on his face.
"I know. It didn't exactly go well."
"Well that's an understatement," she replied sarcastically, actually managing to laugh a little at the situation. That morning when she woke up, everything was perfect and now she had a daughter who probably hated her and she dreaded to think what Michael thought about the way she over reacted. "What are we going to do?"
Jack shrugged and folded his arms across his chest. "I guess we'll just have to wait until she comes home. And then we can sit down and talk to her."
An hour after she'd got there, Sydney left the Halliwell's and decided that she would go and talk to Michael. She hadn't been looking forward to going to see him; she was embarrassed about what had happened that morning, she could only imagine what he was feeling.
She paused on his doorstep for a couple of minutes, while she debated about whether or not she should actually knock. Finally making up her mind, she was about to knock on the door when it opened and Vaughn's father appeared in the doorway, a briefcase in his hand.
"Hello Sydney." He greeted her with a smile.
"Hi, I'm here to see Michael..." She smiled back at him and he moved out of the doorway allowing her to walk into the house. She thanked him and watched as he got into his car and drove away. Taking a deep breath she walked into the house and closed the door behind her. The house appeared to be empty, but she could hear voices coming from the kitchen indicating that everyone was in there.
As soon as she appeared in the doorway, Amelie spotted her and smiled. "Sydney, hey!" Upon hearing her name, Vaughn turned around and looked at her, a small smile on his face.
"Can we talk?" She asked quietly, nodding her head towards the door. Vaughn excused them and led Sydney upstairs to his room, leaving his mother to continue with her cooking in the kitchen.
Vaughn closed his door as Sydney walked over and sat on his bed. She stared down at the floor before raising her eyes to make eye contact with him.
"I am so sorry about what happened this morning." She began to apologize, running her hands through her hair and sighed. "I can't believe my mom overreacted like that. There was just no need." She sighed and stared down at the floor. Vaughn moved over to the bed and sat beside her, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders.
"What happened when I left?"
"Well my mother thought it would be a good idea to ask if we slept together, in front of my father!"
Michael looked at her in shock. It was one thing that Jack had caught him staying over, but worse now that he thought something had happened between them.
"Ok, now I am definitely staying away from your house. I do not want to know what your father will do when he sees me." Sydney playfully hit his leg, and actually managed to smile, despite everything that had just happened. Vaughn was silent for a minute but then something occurred to him.
"Oh God…"
"What?" Sydney panicked by his sudden outburst.
"I'm in his class at school. He is so going to kill me."
"Vaughn relax. He is not going to hurt you… well not much anyways." She laughed as his face went even paler. He realised that she was just teasing him and rolled his eyes at her.
"Do you mind if I just hang out here for a little while? I don't feel like going back home yet."
Vaughn nodded and kissed her lightly on her head. "Sure. You wanna watch a movie?"
Sydney's smile grew as she jumped up off the bed and walked over to the TV. Vaughn knew what she was going to pick and fell back onto the bed, regretting ever having asked her the question.
Sydney picked up one of her favourite films and put it in the DVD player. She picked up the remote and went to sit next to Vaughn, her smile never leaving her face. She wrapped her arm around Vaughn's waist and cuddled into him as she pressed the play button.
"Syd, do we really have to watch this?"
"Yes we do! It's a great film, and you know you like it really."
"But we've watched The Notebook like 5 times already, and you cry more and more each time!" He soothingly ran his hands up and down her arm, but she wasn't really paying much attention to him. The film had started and her eyes were glued to the screen.
"Ssh, it's started." She gave him a quick kiss on the lips and then went back to watching the film.
Later that night, Sydney reluctantly returned home. She walked into the house and was about to go up to her room when her mom stopped her. She sighed and turned around to face Irina.
"Sydney, we need to talk." She stated simply.
"You want me to call dad? You couldn't possibly embarrass me without him being her!" Sydney replied sarcastically. Irina sighed.
"I was hoping that we could talk about this like adults…"
"Oh, you mean like you did this morning?"
Irina hated that they were fighting. They hardly ever fought and Irina was always happy about that. She liked the relationship that she had with her daughter, and she just hoped that what had happened that morning wouldn't ruin that.
"Sydney, please!" Sydney could hear the desperation in her mother's voice and slowly nodded her head, and they both walked into the living room.
They took a seat on opposite ends of the couch and Sydney waited for Irina to start talking.
"I'm sorry for the way I acted this morning. I admit that I may have overreacted a little bit…"
"A little bit!" Sydney laughed and immediately regretted it. She knew that her mother was trying to make an effort to fix things between them; the least she could do was to do the same.
Irina paused and looked at her daughter. They sat in silence again for a couple of seconds and then Irina continued. "I was just shocked that's all. I didn't know that Michael was staying over, and when I saw the two of you lying in your bed, I just jumped to conclusions."
"Yeah I know you did! You didn't even give me a chance to explain, you just assumed what you wanted to." Irina could tell that her daughter was hurt by what she had thought, and she didn't blame her. Sydney had every right to be upset with her right now, but hopefully that would change.
"You're right. I did. But I'm not the only one in the wrong here Syd." Sydney's mouth fell open as her mother stared back at her.
"What is it I've done wrong exactly? Asking my boyfriend to stay over?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing; just when she thought that they had a chance of putting this behind them, her mom had to go and say something else.
"You didn't even tell me he was staying over…."
"You weren't here!" Sydney yelled and stood up, walking over to the window. She took a few deep breaths and turned back to face her mother. "It was a last minute decision. It was late, it made sense for him to stay here." Irina's facial feature's softened slightly as her daughter tried to reason with her.
"Obviously, you're too old for me to control your life Sydney, but all I'm asking is that you involve me a bit more. If Michael's going to be staying here, I want to know…"
Sydney sighed and sat beside her mother once again. "Ok." She replied. They smiled at each other, as the atmosphere between them became lighter.
"So we're ok?" Irina asked as she hugged Sydney.
"Yeah, we are. But I doubt Vaughn's going to be around her anytime soon. He's scared of dad!" Sydney rolled her eyes and Irina couldn't help but laugh. She found it funny how people were afraid of him. She was one of the few people who he didn't scare, but that could be due to the fact that she could be scarier than him when she wanted to be.
"Don't worry about your father sweetheart. I'll make sure that he doesn't do anything to Michael."
