Chapter Four
Two days would not come quickly enough for Sydney. Right after she got off the phone with Vaughn, she quickly finished packing her last suitcase. With all the needed materials packed, she flopped onto her bed and let out an exhausted sigh. She shut her eyes and was about to fall asleep, but like any other time, the phone started to ring.
"Hello?" she asked sharply, not caring that she sounded like she was about to kill someone.
"Hey Syd," Weiss's voice floated through.
"Hi Eric," she said sarcastically. "I'll see you tomorrow at three. You know, at the meeting you assigned so that you wouldn't have to keep calling me like this."
She then hung up the phone and rolled over.
---
Sydney and Vaughn sat at a big table in the conference room watching Weiss thumb through some papers. Once he finally found the sheet he was looking for he handed one to each of them. "So," Weiss drawled out. "As you know, I'm now your guys' handler. I get to boss you around and all that great stuff." he gave them a mischievous grin and continued.
"I know that you guys both know this stuff..." he rolled his eyes, referring to the paper that they were going over. "But, Kendall and your father-" he said, looking pointedly at Sydney, "-thought it was something that might be necessary to go over again.
"Okay... Well, they thought it was most important that I go over rule number five." Weiss said with a wicked smile.
"Weiss..." Vaughn said warningly.
Weiss ignored him and continued on reading. "Two agents within the same division and/or department should not be romantically involved with one another. It is a risk to the mission and clouds your judgment in any given situation." Weiss looked from Sydney to Vaughn, not at all surprised to see that they both were glaring at him. "All 'participants' of said ... promiscuous activities will cease to work at the CIA if discovered."
"Hey, these weren't my orders." he said with his hands up in defense.
Vaughn seemed to find a humorous outlook on the whole situation, and gave a comment that even made Sydney crack a smile. "It said 'If discovered' so that means we can, but we just can't get caught; I found a loophole!"
"What else did you need to tell us?" Sydney asked with a half smile. She needed to get away from Weiss - fast - before the urge to punch him became overwhelming.
"Uh..." he thought for a second.
Why... Why, why, why? Sydney thought to herself, Did Kendall have to choose Weiss to be our handler? She knew it was silly, but whenever Eric had a questioning look on his face he reminded her of Patrick from the cartoon Spongebob Squarepants. And that's what I get for spending the one day I have off, at home watching television with Francie.
"Marshall wanted me to make sure you guys had all of your gear... So here's a check list." he handed them both a sheet of paper. "Just bring it home and make sure you packed it all."
Sydney quickly scanned through the paper and handed it back to Weiss. "I have everything."
Weiss gave her a skeptical look, grinned, and took the paper. "Don't come whining to me when you forgot something..."
They all stood together quietly for a couple of moments as Vaughn went through the paper and mentally checked certain items off of the list. Sydney tried to avoid looking at Vaughn very much so Weiss wouldn't wink at her and wiggle his eyebrows as if she was drooling over him. Once he finally finished reading it over he folded it up and stuck it in one of the front pockets of his suit.
Weiss cleared his throat and began to speak, "Well, as you both know, tomorrow is the day all the counselors meet... Then, two and a half weeks from now the campers will come for the summer. In between the time you meet the others, and the campers come, you'll be in a two week training course for counselors." He looked at them and continued, "All they really do there is teach you how to react to certain situations..."
"So when do we leave?" Sydney asked. "It's not exactly a short car ride there."
"I checked in," Vaughn spoke up. "The man I spoke to said that it's okay if we come early. They can just show us where we'll be staying and we can tour the camp and get to know where everything is. It'll give us a good chance to do some reconnaissance work."
"Okay," she said, "I guess I'll leave tonight with Francie then. Does six o'clock sound good?"
Vaughn nodded. "And I'll go later on so we don't get there at the same time."
"Okay," Weiss peeped in, "Just remember, every Saturday you make contact with me to tell the CIA what's going on... we can start doing profile checks."
"Don't worry, we won't forget about you." Vaughn said with a snigger. "We'll contact you when we arrive at camp."
"Don't get caught!" Weiss shouted out as the two left the meeting room.
Sydney and Vaughn just shook their heads and continued walking.
---
Camp
"I can't believe we're actually doing this!" Francie squealed as Sydney pulled into the Camp Liberty parking lot.
"Neither can I..." Sydney said with a laugh.
"Lets get out stuff out of the trunk," Francie said with excitement.
She quickly got out of Sydney's car and treaded over to the back end. Obviously she got more sleep than I did last night... Sydney groaned to herself. She popped the trunk and heaved herself out of the car. After hours of driving, her back was just a bit stiff and she wasn't to keen on lugging her three suitcases clear across the camp.
Francie pulled a couple suitcases out of the back of the car, and set them on the ground. She looked around and spotted movements from behind the front office door. "Hey Syd, I'm going to go sign us in and tell them that we're here."
Sydney nodded and grabbed another suitcase. She sat down on one of them and waited for Francie to return. It only took about two minutes before Francie came running back out with the camp director and Rob, the man who had given her an interview. She busied herself with grabbing her bags out of the back seat of the car.
"Ah, hello Sydney!" Rob said warmly.
"Hey Rob," she said with a smile.
Rob gazed at her until the camp director spoke up. "I'm Frank Delanco, Rob gave me a wonderful report on you, so I only expect the best." He shook her hand lightly and instructed Rob to lead the two of them to their cabins. He nodded to Sydney and Francie and walked back into the front building.
"Well, the camp is back there," he said, pointing his index finger in the general direction next to the office building. The road leading to it was blocked by a gate, but other than that, the surrounding area looked fairly lax in the area of security. Rob shifted his feet and scratched the back of his head. "The campers all meet here," he waved his hand around, indicating the parking lot, "they get their cabin assignments and counselor, then they take our bus back to camp."
Francie looked around and let out a broad smile. "This place is so beautiful..."
Rob grinned and started walking over to their bags. "And that isn't even half of it." he said. "You should see the lake when the sun is setting."
"Can we?" she asked excitedly.
"Actually, I need to show you two where you'll be staying." he said, then selected two of Sydney's bags and nodded for them to follow him to a jeep that had CAMP LIBERTY printed on the side of it. He set the bags in the back and turned to the two of them, taking some of the luggage they were carrying. "But I can show you the lake once we're done.
"The camp here is rather large and Frank doesn't really like cars being driven back there too often so each of the counselors are given a four-wheeler to drive from place to place."
"Sweet," Francie whispered to Sydney.
Rob looked from Sydney to Francie and cleared his throat. "Although, neither of you will get to drive until Counselor Training is over..." Francie let out a little huff and looked at Sydney, who was grinning. "But not to worry, they're not difficult to learn how to use and I'm sure you both will pass with flying colors."
"Thanks," Francie grumbled, and left to go get the rest of the bags.
Sydney laughed under her breath as her friend stalked off. She barely passed her drivers test, I don't know how they expect her to drive a four-wheeler...
"Is she always like that?" Rob asked with a half smile.
"Pretty much," she shrugged. "She doesn't do too well on motorized vehicles."
"Ah, I see..."
Francie came back a moment later, and pushed the last two bags into his arms. "There," she said.
Sydney shook her head. "He's not like Will... You can't just treat him like crap and expect him to take it," she whispered to Francie as Rob put the last of the bags in the back of the jeep. "Remember, we're here the entire summer."
"Okay, get in!" Rob hollered back at them, hopping into the driver's seat.
Francie rolled her eyes and muttered 'fine' under her breath as Sydney stared at her.
"Good girl, just as I taught you." Sydney said, sticking her tongue out and patting Francie on the head.
---
Sydney's Cabin
"Well here it is!" Rob said, fifteen minutes later as he parked outside a medium sized cabin. "Francie, your cabin is that one right over there," he pointed to the cabin closest to Sydney's.
Five minutes later, all their bags had been unloaded next to Sydney's cabin and Rob had given them both a package of papers that had the camper's schedules and what was planned for the upcoming weeks. Once Francie and Sydney had explored both of their cabins (only to find out that they were exactly the same) they started to unpack.
Sydney looked at her new watch and realized that soon Vaughn would be arriving. He told her that he would leave about an hour and a half after her. Rob had said that it was normal for the counselors to arrive earlier than what was required, just so they could get a look at the camp and set up their cabins. He also mentioned that two of the other counselors had already come.
Sydney walked around her cabin admiring all of the little things that made the cabin look uniquely 'camp-like'. There were many names engraved on the bunk beds that were lined up against the walls, the couch looked well-used, and when she looked up on the ceiling she found that someone had written 'gullible' in permanent marker.
She opened up her suitcase and pulled it over to the counselor's bed. It was the only bed in the room that didn't have a bunk over it. It had a large space beneath it where she could put her suitcases and beside it she also had a dresser, like all the other beds. She began to unpack her first bag. She filled the first couple drawers with her clothes, and then moved on to her other one. She placed all of her little trinkets that Marshall had made for her in one drawer under her clothes.
The sun had already set and the darkness of the night had set in. She peeked out the window and saw that Francie was busy decorating her room. I should be setting up... She pulled out some sheets and her blankets and quickly made her bed. She fluffed her pillow and lay it nicely down at the head of her bed. She smiled with satisfaction and then moved to the corkboard that was by the door. It had a laminated sheet of paper tacked to it, entitled 'RULES'. It looked like it had been taken down and tacked back up about fifty times because it had so many holes on the corners of it.
She put up a couple more sheets of paper, including the list of her campers names, a daily schedule of what the campers were to do, and the list of what she and the other counselors were going to be doing the next two weeks.
Sydney read through the names of all her campers; Stephanie, Megan, Amy, Lauren, Anne, Skye, Amber, and Kara. Easy enough to memorize... she said to herself. She unpacked the rest of her bags and decided to take a stroll through the camp to wear off some of her excitement. She wrote a note and set it on her bed, just in case Francie wandered over to her cabin.
The sky was dark, but there was still a small glow that enabled her to find her way around the camp. Luckily for her, there were signs that pointed her in the direction of the lake, which she later found out, wasn't too far away from her cabin.
The dock stretched out about twenty to thirty feet on the lake. A couple of ripples appeared in the water as Sydney padded out to the end of it. She plopped down and took off her socks and shoes, then slowly dipped her feet into the cool water. The breezy night air gently blew her hair across her face. The camp was everything she imagined it would be... The only thing missing was Vaughn.
She was overjoyed at the fact that she would be at the camp with Vaughn, but she also knew if they didn't talk soon the awkwardness between them would defeat her. She would probably end up jumping on him. And at that thought, she couldn't help but smile. But she also knew that he was very cautious of the CIA rules, and probably didn't have enough nerve to do anything about his feelings for her.
Vaughn did have feelings for her, and she knew it very well. It was just an unspoken thing between the two of them that probably would never be brought up again. He had told her that he wasn't able to sleep when she was on missions, that all he wanted to do when she was talking was to kiss her... But, there was always something stopping them every time they tried to talk.
They had stood across from each other in the midst of the rubble she used to call SD-6. She couldn't take her eyes off of him, and he seemed to have his eyes permanently glued to her. They both knew what was going to happen if no one interrupted them... She started to take a step toward him, taking in a large breath of air. He followed suit, but right as they reached ten feet from each other, Weiss came bounding in between them.
"We did it," he had said breathlessly. Once he'd left, they stood awkwardly until Sydney excused herself. Almost...
Evidently Vaughn talked to Weiss after the little incident, because that was when he started teasing the two of them.
Sydney swished her feet around in the water slowly, enjoying the silence of the lake.
Ring, ring, ring...
She pulled her feet out of the water and answered her cell phone. "Yeah?" she asked, hoping that it was Vaughn.
"Nice view, isn't it?" his voice came through.
"You're here," she said with a smile. She looked up at the shore to see Vaughn leaning up against a large tree, holding his cell phone to his ear.
Sydney stood up and slipped her shoes on. Maybe there is a chance...