Chapter Five

"Mr. Vaughn," Jack said briskly, taking a step forward and standing by Vaughn. "May I have a word?"

Vaughn's eyes quickly darted around the rotunda. He quickly spotted Weiss not far away, holding a book in front of his face. It would have fooled him except for the fact that the book was upside-down, and the last 'book' Weiss read, was a Sport's Illustrated magazine.

"Uh, sure," he said, wiping the sweat that was starting to form on his chin.

Jack led him to an empty conference room and pulled out a chair. He gestured for Vaughn to sit down, then folded his arms across his chest and put the all too well known 'Bristow Glare' into full effect. "I suppose you know why we're here," he stated tersely.

You want to give me a promotion? Vaughn sardonically thought to himself. "Um, no Sir," he responded, trying to avoid Jack's probing eyes.

"You're going to be on a three month long mission with my daughter," he said in a low voice. "I just would like to ...warn you, that if you lay a hand on my daughter, I will not hesitate to relieve you of your job."

"Yes Sir," he said obediently, wondering why Jack hadn't already done so.

"Thank you for your cooperation," he said briskly, then walked out of the room.

---

The distance between them seemed to grow longer as Sydney slowly made her way toward him. He stood by the tree until she got within a couple feet of him. He put his cell phone in the pocket of his shorts and smiled. She followed suit and turned her cell phone off and looked up at him.

"Hi, my name is Vaughn Bennett," he said with a grin.

I certainly wasn't expecting that... she laughed to herself.

"Sydney Parker," she said, shaking his outstretched hand with a wide smile.

Vaughn took out a pen and clicked it. "We've got thirty minutes," he said in an animated voice.

For what? A little voice in her head asked. She secretly hoped that it had nothing to do with the mission.

"Shall we?" he said, walking out onto the dock.

She nodded and followed him out to the end where she'd been moments before. They sat down, causing more ripples to appear on the surface of the quiet lake. Vaughn took off his sandals and stuck his feet into the water and let out a long sigh.

"Long car ride?" Sydney spoke up with a nervous laugh. She crossed her legs and leaned back on the palms of her hands. The light smell of Vaughn's cologne was drifting her way and she wasn't sure how long she could go without kissing him.

"You have no idea," he shook his head. "Weiss kept calling me..."

"It's better than riding with Francie," Sydney scoffed. "She made me listen to a Michael Jackson CD for the last hour of the drive."

"That I'd have to agree with..." he rolled his eyes.

"I mean, it was one CD! She put it on repeat... over and over..." she placed her hands to her forehead and let out a small cry of agony. "I still have a headache from it, too."

Vaughn patted her back lightly. "It'll be okay, Syd. Next time she turns it on I'll accidentally break it, okay?"

Sydney nodded happily. "Sounds good to me!" she said with a smile. She lay back on the dock and looked up at the sky. The moon was shining brightly and she could see a few stars glowing. She couldn't think of anything to say, and evidently he couldn't either. The silence of the night had settled in between them and the imminent awkwardness was starting to creep in.

"So, uh..." he started to say slowly.

She looked up at him, knowing where this conversation would lead. She sat up and looked him straight in the eye. "Yeah?" she whispered. Her heart was beating faster and faster as time seemed to stand still. Say something, say something, say something...

"After we took down SD-6, I wanted to tell you something..." he said, taking a deep breath. "And, before that I-I didn't get the chance because we kept getting interrupted."

She thought of how they were interrupted by Weiss both times he had tried to talk to her. She often wondered if he didn't want the two of them together. Vaughn took the moment of silence to scoot a little bit closer to her. "What I said was true," he said ardently, looking into her deep brown eyes.

"All I want to do is kiss you..."

"Obviously this is nothing new to you, but... I just wanted to clarify-" he paused for a moment, "...despite rule number five," he added, "I do have feelings for you."

Sydney watched him intently for a moment. His eyes were shining brightly and she could tell that this was something he had been waiting to tell her for a very long time. She continued to gaze at him, their bodies seeming to inch closer together as they sat on the edge of the dock. Vaughn took in a deep breath and finished his speech, "Feelings... that I shouldn't have."

He stopped talking and watched her with an anxious expression on his face, waiting for her reaction. She didn't know how to react though. For almost a year she'd had feelings for him but never expected anything to come from it. The relationship she had planned in her head seemed to be anything but reality, yet there they were...

They both sat in the calmness of the night, gazing into each other's eyes. Sydney could feel his hot breath against her face. She leaned forward a slight bit, her lips burning to touch his. She closed her eyes and mentally prepared herself for her first kiss with Michael Vaughn, when...

Footsteps could be heard from the pathway leading to the lake, causing the two of them to jump back from one another. "Hey!" Francie's voice floated over to them.

Sydney stood up and jogged to the shore, Vaughn following closely behind. "Hey Fran," she said with a teasing smirk.

"I got your note..." she mumbled in some unintelligible lingo, her eyes wandering off to the man that had walked up behind Sydney.

"So I see," she nodded. Vaughn cleared his throat and stood next to Sydney. "Fran, this is Vaughn Bennett, he just arrived here at camp too," she said with a flighty smile.

"Hey," Francie said, shaking his hand. "I'm Francie Calfo. You can call me Fran, though."

Vaughn smiled. "It's nice to meet you, Francie," he informed her. "I was just getting to know your friend Sydney here," he said politely, shaking her hand in return.

"Can I steal her for just a quick second?" Francie said in a squirrelly voice. Once Vaughn agreed, she pulled Sydney out of his hearing range. She couldn't see Francie too well because of the darkness of the night and the fact that they were standing in the shadow of an oak tree, but she knew that her smile was bigger than it had ever been before.

"Look, I know what you're thinking -" Sydney started to say.

"Ah, ah, ah... We've gone through this before, you don't have ESP," she mock scolded with a waggle of her index finger.

"Okay," Sydney rolled her eyes. "What?"

"What do you mean, 'what?'," she squealed. "Are you crazy! Forget about that Michael guy and go for Vaughn! This guy is actually interested in you!"

"As much as I'd love to throw myself at a complete stranger," Sydney joked, "I'd rather not get kicked out of the camp. You know, there such things as camp rules."

"Actually, unlike you, I have a life so I didn't memorize the whole rule book."

"Gee, thanks."

Francie laughed and shrugged her shoulders. "Well, I'm just saying he was giving you 'The Look'."

"What look?" Sydney asked incredulously.

"You know, 'The Look'."

"No I don't know, now what did you come here for in the first place?" Sydney asked impatiently, eager to get their topic onto something that didn't involve a rule book, a hot man, or 'The Look', said hot man was evidently giving her. She didn't know why she was trying to hide her newly found 'relationship' from her best friend, but she assumed that Francie would freak out if she all of the sudden started dating this man she'd apparently only known for about thirty minutes.

"Well, I was going to show you how I decorated my cabin, and that we should probably be getting to sleep soon. We've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow!"

"Doing what, exactly?" she asked.

"Well, for one I'd like to see if one of us can flirt enough with Rob to get him to let us take a four-wheeler driving test." she said with a sneaky grin. "I'm really not looking forward to walking all day long. And we're going to go explore the entire camp before the rest of the counselors get here."

"Okay," Sydney shook her head. "I don't know how you find the will or the brain power to do all of that in a day, but whatever. I'll go say goodnight to Vaughn for us."

Francie giggled and started to walk away. "Don't forget to give him a goodnight kiss!" she snickered.

---
The next day - meeting the rest of the counselors.

"I'm nervous, are you nervous?" Francie asked anxiously.

"A little bit," Sydney nodded. They were seated on the hood of Sydney's car, waiting for the rest of the camp counselors to show up. The majority of their morning was spent exploring the enormous camp, then trying to manipulate Rob into letting them take their driving test early. Needless to say, Rob was easily controlled and they no longer had to walk everywhere.

"Here comes Mr. Hottie," Francie announced, nudging Sydney in the ribs.

Sydney turned her head back to the office building and noticed that Vaughn was heading over to them. He wore a pair of loose jeans and a dark blue t-shirt, along with a pair of sunglasses on the top of his head. Sydney immediately recognized the sunglasses as the ones that Marshall made for them.

"Hey," he greeted. "How'd you guys get a four-wheeler already?"

Francie blushed and cleared her throat. "We, uh... had some extra time this morning."

"Uh huh, sure," he cocked his eyebrow. "And I had to walk the whole way here?"

Sydney shrugged and let out a yawn. "Man, I'm already tired." She lay back on the hood of her car and put her hands behind her head. "What time are the other counselors-" she stopped, letting out another yawn, "...supposed to be here?"

Vaughn checked his watch and looked around the parking lot. "Ten, maybe fifteen minutes. I know a lot have had to go check in."

---

Three hours, a close call with crashing the four-wheeler, and many introductions later, Sydney, Vaughn, and Francie were all seated on the dock with their feet in the water, along with two other counselors. Their names were Scott Miller, and his close friend Eli Bolt. They were both twenty-six years old, and like Sydney and Francie, they'd decided to spend their summer as counselors at Camp Liberty.

Among the duration of three hours, they also met Jessica Anderson, Pete Ward, Liz Howe, Jon Teare, Renée Williams, Grace Flynn, Patrick Cook, Kate Lloyd, Matt Jones, Beth Flutin, and Jim Peterson. Frank, the camp director, filled all of them in on the basics of the camp. The counselors would be separated into four different groups with four leaders in them, in which they would use for night games and various other activities.

Sydney, Francie, Scott, and Vaughn were luckily all in one group, and they were called "Board Games". It struck Sydney as an odd name for a group, until she found out why. Included with the many games, the counselors all were told to choose a 'fake name' that matched their group theme. It was supposed to be a fun experience for the kids to try to guess each counselor's real name.

Each cabin would compile the names up over the summer, and whichever cabin got the most names, was able to choose two counselors to either throw water balloons at, or push into the lake. Needless to say, Sydney was thrilled.

Francie decided on "Candy Land", Sydney chose "Monopoly", Vaughn opted for "Trouble", and their new friend Scott selected "Cranium". The other group themes were "Kitchen Appliances", "Animal Names," and "Cars." Derived from those themes came the names "Fork," "Spoon," "Bowl," "Spatula," "Ewe," "Moose," "Squirrel," "Monkey," "Toyota," "Dodge," "Jeep," and "Mustang."

Francie had gotten up from the dock and excused herself, telling Sydney and Vaughn that she had to use the bathroom. She left, giving Sydney a wink.

They sat in silence, waiting for the right words to say to magically pop into their minds. Sydney sat, trying to keep her mind on anything but kissing him, and how close they'd gotten the night before. "Syd," he suddenly said.

"I know," she said, shaking her head. "Look, you don't have to--"

"No, its not that," he said, holding up his hand. "I think I know who one of them is."

"One of who?" she asked with wide eyes.

"One of the terrorists."