Thank you all so much for your feedback. The response was amazing. It is incredible to see how much is invested into these characters.
6helterskelter6: I'm glad to hear that you have been enjoying all the fics.
ILOVEALIAS4EVER: Of course I had it planned it all along! How can I write an Alias fanfic with no cliffhangers :D
Em-958: Don't stress too much about the end of this fic. There are 42 chapters in all, so there is still a little way to go.
"Ah, there we go." Vaughn said pulling her back into his embrace. At that moment the phone rang and Sydney automatically reached out and picked it up.
"Hello," she answered, stepping back out of Vaughn's arms.
"Is that Sydney?"
"Yeah."
"Sydney, it's Eva."
"Eva." Sydney looked up at Vaughn, their eyes connecting. "What's wrong?"
"I'm at the hospital. It's Francie…"
"What about her?" Sydney asked, her tone desperate. Vaughn watched, trying to gauge, from Sydney's expression, what Eva was saying on the other end of the line. But as Sydney's eyes widened, he could not tell if it were good or bad news.
"Ok…of course…we're on our way…bye." Sydney hung up the phone and placed her hands in the kitchen bench, her eyes staring downwards.
"Syd." Vaughn placed a hand on her back. "What's happened?"
Sydney looked up at him, shock written all over her face. "Francie's awake," she whispered.
"What?" Vaughn couldn't be sure that he had heard her correctly. But right then Sydney's face broke into an elated grin, one that illuminated all of her features.
"She's awake, Vaughn!" Sydney threw her arms around him. "She's ok. Eva said that she's ok."
Letting out a sigh a relief, Vaughn placed his lips on Sydney's forehead. "You wanna go to the hospital?"
Sydney laughed. "Do I want to go to the hospital? Of course I want to go to the hospital. Just let me change my t-shirt."
As she walked off to their bedroom, Vaughn stared after her incredulously. Only a minute ago he felt as if he would never see that smile or hear that laugh again. He had never realized the potential power a single phone call could have.
"Francie." Sydney dropped her bag on a chair and hurried to the bed, wrapping her arms around her best friend. She held her for a long time before straightening up. "You scared us."
"So I heard." Francie replied, glancing at her mother who was seated beside the bed. "But then, drama always seems to be following me, so I guess this is really nothing new."
"Yeah right." Sydney scoffed with a smile. "I'm warning you now- don't you even think about pulling something like this again!"
Francie laughed. "Like I had a say in the matter."
"So how are you feeling?" Vaughn asked, stepping up beside Sydney.
"I've got this monster of a headache and I'm kind of sore all over. But," Francie paused for a second. "I am not complaining. I'm back and that's all that matters."
"Do you remember the accident?" Sydney probed gently.
Francie shook her head. "The last thing I remember is Eric trying to pounce on Dillon's birthday cake the second we finished singing 'Happy Birthday'."
"Oh, please tell me remember what Amy did to him." Vaughn put in.
"Of course." Francie smiled.
"Good." Vaughn grinned. "Cos you wouldn't want to forget that."
"So that's it?" Sydney said. "That's all you remember?"
"Yup. There's Amy setting a wonderful example for her son by using a fist and the next thing I know I'm lying in this bed, everything is aching and mum is bursting into tears."
Eva shrugged good-naturedly. "I was happy. They were tears of happiness."
"Yeah, well beforeI realized that, she scared me out of my wits." Francie continued. "I thought I was dying or something. But then she tells me I'm ok and I think 'great', only to be told straight after that that I have been out of it for two weeks." Francie shook her head. "I still cannot fathom that. Two weeks."
"And they were two pretty momentous weeks." Vaughn said with a straight face. "Will won the Kaplan Award for his story on the woman who eats newspaper, Weiss's show got taken off the air because there was complaints about his chosen content, Syd and I found out that we're having triplets—"
"What?" Francie gasped.
"…high heels were outlawed in California after a woman sued when she broke her ankle while wearing them…"
"Hang on a second," Francie laughed. "You had me going there until the whole high heel thing. You went just a bit too far."
Vaughn grinned. "Knew I should have stopped with the triplets."
"Which," Francie turned to Sydney, "I'm guessing you're not really having."
Sydney smiled as she shook her head. "Afraid not, Fran. Only one baby this time. We'll aim for multiple births next time." She joked.
Vaughn looked at her. "Next time? How about we just see how well this kid turns out before talking about next time?"
Francie nodded. "He's got a point, Syd. Combining the two of you, it could go either way."
Sydney laughed. "Thanks a lot."
"You're welcome." Francie grinned.
When Sydney woke up on Saturday she got a small shock when she saw that the time was already after 1.00pm. Getting up and throwing on a t-shirt and pair of trackies, she padded barefoot into the living room.
"Ah!" Vaughn exclaimed from the kitchen. "She surfaces."
"How long have you been up?" Sydney asked as she walked to the pantry and grabbed a jar of peanut butter.
"Since about ten." Vaughn replied, handing her a spoon.
"Ten? Why didn't you wake me?"
"Because I don't think I would have been able to, even if I tried."
Sydney grinned sheepishly. "I kinda crashed, didn't I?"
Vaughn raised his eyebrows. "Kinda?"
"Well," Sydney started defensively, "it was the first night that I've been able to sleep properly in two weeks!"
"No urges to scrub the sink or do the laundry?"
Sydney shook her head. "None whatsoever."
"Good." Vaughn smiled as he gave her a kiss.
"Thank god you are here." Francie declared dramatically as Sydney entered her hospital room after school on Tuesday. "Did you bring them?"
Sydney grinned and reached into her bag, pulling out a large bag of potato chips. "Will these do?"
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Francie said, taking the bag. "This hospital food is killing me. You can't possibly know how badly I've been craving these."
Sydney laughed. "You wanna talk about cravings? You do realize that you are speaking to a pregnant woman who has taken to eating peanut butter by the jarful?"
"Ok then, you can know." Francie smiled. "You think you could bring me some tomorrow afternoon?" she asked in a small voice.
"I won't be able to come until tomorrow night. I've got a doctor's appointment after school." Sydney explained. "But I've already spoken to Craig and he said that he could smuggle you in something nice."
"Oh good." Francie's expression changed completely at the sound of Craig's name and it did not go unnoticed by Sydney.
"You've got that whole giddy school girl crush look going on, Fran," she said with a knowing smile. "Has he already stopped by today?"
Francie nodded. "He came by before his shift and said he'd come back when he was finished. "Which," Francie glanced at her watch, "should be pretty soon."
"So is that my cue to leave?" Sydney asked jokingly.
"Of course not!" Francie exclaimed. "We are nowhere yet done covering these past two weeks. None of the times that I've seen you since I woke up have you given me any good gossip. It's time for you to give me some dirt!"
"Afraid I can't." Sydney said apologetically.
"And why not?"
"Because I don't know any. The past two weeks have been, well, kind of busy for me. Apart from what was going on with you, I wasn't really paying any attention to what was going on with everybody else."
Francie looked at her, almost warily. "Not the stress-cleaning thing…" She trailed off as Sydney nodded. "Oh god. I turned you into psycho Syd."
"Is that what you call my concern for your well-being? Psycho?" Sydney asked.
"Uh, yeah." Francie replied bluntly. "I've seen the way you attack a sink. Concern or no concern, its psycho."
Sydney paused for a second and then reached for the bag of chips. "I suppose you're right," she shrugged.
"You know I was thinking," Vaughn said as he and Sydney sat in doctor's waiting room Wednesday afternoon.
"About what?" Sydney put down the magazine she was idly flipping through and looked at him.
"That we should go on at least one more camping trip before the baby arrives."
Sydney nodded. "I like it. Though we would have to try and do it soon. Boo is only going to get bigger, which means that I am only going to get bigger and somehow I don't think camping would be as enjoyable when you're the size of a house."
Vaughn's brow furrowed in confusion. "Who's Boo?"
"Oh." A slight blush rose on Sydney's cheeks. "I've kinda been calling the baby that. I mean, we don't know if it's a boy or girl, we haven't discussed names and I was just so sick of calling him or her an 'it'. Besides, Boo sounds kind of cute."
Vaughn smiled shrewdly. "You do realize that this kid is going to be saddled with that nickname for the rest of its life."
"That won't happen."
"Oh yes it will. I've seen it before."
"With who?" Sydney demanded.
"Alexis."
"Weiss's sister?" Sydney frowned. She had only ever heard Alexis being called by her first name. "What's her nickname?"
"The Oops."
"What? Why on Earth would two parents call their child 'The Oops'?"
Vaughn laughed. "Think about it Syd. There is eleven years between Weiss and his sister, with no siblings in between…"
Sydney's eyes widened as recognition dawned on her face. "Oh my god! Are you serious?"
Vaughn nodded. "It started as a joke and the name just stuck." He paused. "Though it took a while for me and Weiss to actually get the joke behind it."
"And does Alexis know why?"
"Of course she does." Vaughn replied. "And of course she is completely mortified by it."
"Well, I would be too. The Oops." Sydney shuddered. "And if, by chance, our nickname sticks, Boo is a whole lot better than The Oops."
"Says you." Vaughn grinned. "Me, I couldn't imagine anything worse than being a sixteen year old guy and having my mother call me Boo in front of my mates."
Sydney laughed. "I don't care. I am not calling our child 'it'."
"Fine," Vaughn leaned back in his seat,a small smile playing on his lips, as he silently reserved the right to tell Sydney 'I told you so.'
A/N: I just had to put this little note here. I hope that you are all happy with how the Francie situation eventuated. It was in my orginal plan, before I even started writing this fic, to kill off Francie in the accident. However, as I started writing, I found that I just couldn't bring myself to do it, so the plot changed. So again, I hope that you all approve (and in reading your reviews, I think you will. If I had killed her, I wouldn't have been surprised to find you on my doorstep, with burning pitchforks in hand!). Anyway, another thank you for reading, and I will see you next chapter.