Chapter 2

Vaughn's POV

She won't answer my calls. I've been trying to reach her repeatedly for the past few weeks. I know there are times that I've annoyed to the point of her either leaving the phone off the hook, or disconnecting the telephone line for a little bit because at times I receive a busy signal. It's not my intention to annoy her, but I know that if she gives me any time at all, even just five minutes, I can explain myself, and hopefully reconcile with her. I've truly missed her. As the saying goes, "You don't know what you have until you lose it," and I've never realized…cancel that, I realized that when she had "died" after her fight with Francie, excuse me, Allison, but the realization sinks in again.

I hear her pick up, and I frantically beg her to listen to me, but my pleas are instantly met by a dial tone. I know she's trying to shut me up, and I give her a few minutes before I dial her number again, only to be greeted with a dial tone when she picks up again.

I know she must still be sore from what I told her in the car before that d car accident. We were the lucky ones. We were wearing our seatbelts, and according to the medics, that's what saved our lives; unfortunately the other couple wasn't so lucky.

I've been calling since 10:00 this morning, and it's already 2:00. Time flies when you're really bored, I guess. I wait a little more before dialing her number again. Fortunately this time, she allows the answering machine to pick up. "Syd," I start off, "we need to talk. Please, Syd, just pick up the phone. I wait a few seconds, but when nothing happens, I hang up again.

I know that the constant ringing of the phone is annoying, but if it'll give me a chance to explain myself to her, I'll keep it up. I dial the number again. No one answers, and almost as soon as I hang up, I get another call. Answering it, I hear Weiss's voice at the other end. "Hey, bud, we're about to have a meeting here at APO. You're required to show up."

"Will Sydney be there?"

"Yeah, Jack's calling her right now."

"I'll be there in a bit." I hang up the phone, change into some better clothes and drive out to APO. When I get in the meeting room, I look for two adjacent chairs so that Sydney will be forced to sit next to me. Jack obviously has already anticipated this, and Wiess and Marshall separate the remaining two free chairs.

The group sits around in silence, and I can see the fury towards me that Jack is very clearly trying to hold in to keep from hurting me. He stares at me, watching my every move. He's studying me, much like a lion stalks it's prey before it strikes.

Sydney finally arrives, carrying a box, the contents of which I can clearly make out being some of my clothes, and other miscellaneous things that I've left about her apartment in our times together. She takes her seat and Jack begins speaking.

"We received a transmission today that requires our immediate attention." Pushing a button, a voice that sounds surprisingly familiar to me wafts through the room.

"We need your help!" the voice says, clearly concerned about something. "Scientists have predicted that the magnetic field is about to reverse. Should that happen, the Earth's magnetosphere, which helps prevent gamma and X-rays from space would disappear, allowing for the complete power of the sun to bake Earth's surface, killing every living thing. We need a location to evacuate to. Should we stay on our planet, it'll be the end of the world. Please help us."

"Good God" I think to myself as the transmission ceases.

"I don't get it," Sydney says, and I turn to look at her. "I thought you said this directly affected me."

"It does," Jack says, and I suddenly realize why I recognized the voice. How could I have not figured it out before?

"How?" she asks, and I open my mouth to speak, but am interrupted by Jack turning the job of explaining the transmission over to Marshall.

He begins nervously, and from what he says, I'm sure that rumors of what happened in Santa Barbara have been floating around APO since our return. He questions her name, checking to make sure she hasn't taken my last name. She answers by showing him her bare finger, and I want to cry, knowing the pain I've put her through.

"Okay, then. Ms. Bristow…Sydney, we ran a voice print analysis of the speaker, trying to find out who sent it, and here's the thing, when it was completed, the results came up with you being the speaker."

Though I had figured out that she was the speaker earlier, the obvious question of why would Sydney send that message, and if she did, why doesn't she remember it comes to the forefront of my mind.

"What?" she asks, obviously confused.

"Sydney Bristow recorded that message."

"I never recorded that. Where'd the transmission come from?" she insists, though the evidence is pointing the other way.

I see Marshall's Adam's apple move as he swallows, and I know that the news he's about to deliver isn't good.

"Marshall?"

"The transmission," he falters here, and I'm hanging on to his every word. "The transmission came from outer space."

My eyes go big. I've learned to accept a lot of things from this job, and the job that I had before it, but this reveal shakes me to my core.

"Marshall, what are you saying?" she asks, trying to get a handle on the situation.

"We pinpointed the location of the transmission at a point far, far away. After we had a location, we had NASA point the Hubble Telescope at it and take some pictures. This is what they came up with.

The screens on the table changed.

"Now this," Marshall says with a smile, "is extremely awesome. We had the pictures enlarged." The picture on the screen zooms in some more. I recognize what it is showing, but Weiss speaks up first.

"That looks like the Milky Way," he says incredulously, and I look at the screen in confusion.

"That's because in a sense it is," Marshall continues. "We were able to further magnify the picture. This is the planet that sent the message." The picture on the screen zooms in again, and I'm looking at a picture of a planet that looks exactly like Earth.

"Oh, my God," I mutter to myself.

Marshall is silent for a moment as everyone turns to him. "We were contacted," Marshall said, and then paused for effect, "by a parallel universe. That planet that you see is Earth, except that it's a parallel version of our Earth. They're in trouble, and they need our help. They're going to send an ambassador. We're going to meet with her in two days. We're going to discuss options, and then we'll take action."

I've never seen Marshall be able to give a speech like this without getting sidetracked in some way, and the fact that he didn't this time shows me just how incredible what we just found out was.

The meeting dismisses and I see Sydney heading for the door. I hurry up and catch up to her, only to get a nice slap across my face.

"Syd," I beg her. "Just give me five minutes."

She looks at me, clearly debating whether to agree to these terms. She looks down at her watch. "You've got three."

I look at her. "What do you want to know first?"

"What's your real name?" she asks.

"Before I tell you, I need you to promise me that my family name won't blind you to my real personality. I really don't have much of my dad in me." She looks at me confused and nods.

"My name," I begin, "is..."

…TBC…