Part 24

Two Weeks Later

"You said you had things I could help with when I got better. Please, dad? I'm losing my mind." Sydney begged with a groan as Jamie stretched her arm out trying to loosen the tight muscles and injured tendons of the sore left shoulder.

Jack sighed. "Sydney, it's only been two weeks, sweetheart."

The nurse read the room and put the shoulder harness back around Sydney's torso, attached the velcro, and fit the woman's arm into the sling to hold it in place. Gripping the frail wrist made the patient wince and suck a breath through her teeth, and Jamie frowned with a hand on her hip.

"I thought you said your wrist didn't hurt today," she grumbled.

The brunette shrugged with her good shoulder. "It only hurts when you squeeze it."

"Mmhmm," Jamie mumbled as she picked up the brace and slid it over the scarred fingers up to the middle of her forearm. "I know you hate it, but I also don't care."

"Jerk," Sydney mock growled with a smile, forcing a laugh from Jamie's lips.

"Be nice to your dad," the nurse ordered in a whisper before offering to help her patient back into bed from the adjacent chair, but she waved her off.

Once they were alone, Sydney turned and repeated the request to her father, and Jack felt pride bubble to the surface at the fire that had returned to her eyes.

"Dad, I'm not going to sit and hide, and they don't get to get away with it; I can still help with things."

The father quietly regarded his daughter for a moment before moving over to the wheelchair in the corner and rolling it close. He held out his hand and waited for her to accept. Her reach was tentative, and his suddenly gentle eyes and soft smile confused her. Still, she followed his lead and gave him her trust. Helping her into the chair they headed toward the exit and he felt the laser of her eyes on him in an instant.

"Dad, I...if someone sees me," she had a worried tremble in her suddenly shaky voice.

He heard the fear and understood, knowing that her brave front screaming 'I'm going to keep fighting' was a shadow puppet for the real, broken young woman inside trying to refind her place. "Trust me, sweetheart."

Jamie stopped them by the nursing station, "no," she growled, hands on her hips.

"It's time," Jack countered.

"It's time when the doc says it's time. She can't even walk, Jack."

Sydney frowned, "stop talking about me like I'm not here. What's going on?"

"I'll bring her right back up, but she needs this." He wheeled the chair past and hit the button to call the elevator, Jamie rolling her eyes.

"Right back up!"

The elevator doors began to close once the pair was inside and Jack sent the worried young woman a wink and a promise to return as soon as possible before anyone noticed, the doctor in particular.

The ride down was silent, Jack giving away no secrets on his face or in his body language, and Sydney huffed in frustration though she was curious to see what was on the bottom floor of the facility. She hadn't even known that the medical floor existed, let alone any others beneath the living and recreation quarters. The doors didn't open once the ride stopped, and Jack handed her a blank white keycard.

"Swipe to the right and put in the code 011747," his voice booming in the enclosed space.

The numbers beeped as she entered the code and a green light flashed on the panel triggering the doors to unlock and open. Stark walls greeted them, Sydney surprised and yet not as everywhere else was unpainted government-issued off-white, why not here? Jack wheeled her through the doors and she took a moment to look around. To the left stretched at least fifty feet of hallway that ended with an open door to a workout room, machines sitting unused in the dark space as the exterior lights reflected in the mirrors on the opposite wall.

She noticed another room with a closed door between the elevator and the exercise room leaving her to wonder what lay inside. Directly ahead was a conference room with large plush chairs surrounding a round cherry-oak table. It couldn't seat a large meeting but had enough space for a small group of selected officials. With this place being buried so deeply in the basement she could only imagine who had sat at the table over the years.

The white walls and tile continued to the right and obligatory military photos hung in simple black frames along the way. Jack turned the chair and began rolling in the direction she was looking, another closed door at the end of the hallway getting closer. Her eyes skimmed the hanging photos, very typical for a government facility. An aerial shot of the Pentagon, the American flag picture she'd memorized that was also hanging in her medical room, and a squadron of fighter jets flying in the clouds.

Kicking the unlatched door open with her foot, her jaw dropped. It was...her room.

Her eyes swept in a circle and she balked at the sight. This room was actually a bit larger than hers at the apartment, but everything matched. Her queen-sized bed and light wood dresser and nightstands were exactly where she remembered. Turning to the right she spotted the desk with her computer plugged in and charged, and between here and there sat her comfortable reading chair and the stand which held the lamp she'd owned for going on fifteen years. A stack of books sat binding out beside said lamp and she recognized those as well.

"I...I don't understand," she whispered.

Jack chuckled and rolled the chair over to the edge of the bed before using his toes to lock the wheels in place. "When you were unconscious we had a group pose as movers to clear out the apartment. Will and Francie needed their things but we were at a bit of a loss on what to do with yours until Kendall showed us this floor. It's called the Admiral's Apartment and it's meant for highly classified dignitaries, secret presidential hideaways, things like that. For now, until the Alliance falls, it's yours."

"All of it?" Sydney met her father's eyes as tears swirled in the brown depths.

"All of it." He paused and held out his hands offering to pull her up from the chair. She nodded dumbly and his arms wrapped around her waist and shoulders to lift until she got her legs beneath her, but didn't release enough to let them do much more than touch the floor. Sydney was wobbly and unstable, and though the left leg was in a sturdy brace, it wasn't able to hold any weight.

The joint had spent the better part of five days out of place before the medical team at the JTF even started working on it, so it had a long way to go to heal completely. They'd done minor surgery to repair some of the damage, and only in the last few days had a majority of the swelling gone down and the stitches been removed.

She winced as it bent, but it all faded away as soon as her backside came into contact with the comforting plush of her own bed. Her muscles stiffened a bit at the effort to sit upright, so she gave in with a sigh and flopped to her back atop the comforter. Jack sat beside her for a moment before following suit, the two ending up shoulder to shoulder staring at the ceiling.

Several minutes passed in silence and he thought she'd fallen to sleep until her quiet voice dashed the thought.

"Can I ask you a question?" She was tentative and soft, anything but confident.

"Of course," he said as he closed his eyes and relaxed.

"I know it's...what Flynn said was probably just to get a reaction, but when they offered to trade," she swallowed past the words and turned to face the man she'd never fully known, "did you call?"

His eyes reopened, his heart sunk, and Jack wanted to lie but knew it wouldn't change the outcome. It didn't stop him from wanting the words, "of course, Sydney," to leave his lips. He thought back to the moment her eyes locked with his through the camera and tears blurred his vision.

"I should have," he croaked.

Sydney shook her head, "I'm not accusing, Dad, just asking. I meant it when I said it was okay; that...I was assuring you that it was okay."

"Kendall ordered me not to, and deep down I knew it wasn't legitimate, but I also knew it would be too tempting so...I gave my phone to Michael."

"Who?" Sydney was half-joking, her father offering a segue she couldn't pass up.

Jack chuckled and reached up to wipe at his eyes, "Vaughn."

"Have I finally found the one guy you're okay with me dating?"

He chuckled and shook his head again before turning to regard her with open and honest blue eyes.

'That's a first,' she thought.

"While I still don't think anyone out there is good enough for you, he's as close as you can get," he saw the dimple on her right cheek as her smile flickered for a moment, his eyes traveling to the healing and slightly faded scar on her eyebrow.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, both retraining their eyes on the ceiling. He could tell she wanted to know more but was struggling to find the words.

"Sweetheart, you can ask me anything. I promise I'll give you a straight answer."

"How...close are you with Vaughn?"

Jack grinned, "I haven't wanted to kill him for a couple of weeks now."

"Dad," she narrowed her eyes, though a small grin tilted her lips.

The father nodded and looked back to the ceiling. "I never thought I would consider him a colleague, let alone someone I could implicitly trust, but that's what's happened. I call him son every now and again just to keep him on his toes. An eventuality for which I'm preparing myself."

"Why does Vaughn...not want to be here right now?" The words came tumbling out.

Sydney knew her father would be the best source of information at the moment as he was the one willing to hold her in conversation, more than she could say for the subject of their discussion. The Flynn voice reared its ugly head to taunt from her subconscious the moment the question left her lips.

'Vaughn doesn't want damaged goods, love.'

She tamped it down, though the seed of doubt had been sowed and there wasn't much she could do to dig it out. It had been three days since she'd seen him, and she'd learned from Weiss that he had been sent on a mission and hadn't had much time for any explanation as he went from a meeting straight to the plane.

Even before that, however, he was distant and it had been eating at her bit by bit.

"What makes you think he...doesn't want to be here?" Jack knew she had changed her mind on what to ask mid-sentence and gave away that he knew with an identical pause in just the right place.

"Where is he?"

"Sweden; intel swap."

"Why him?"

Jack turned to find her staring at him, a smile raising the side of his mouth, "because he doesn't have you or me any longer, Sydney. He's the agent that has the most experience with this operation, and he has the flexibility of being field-rated."

Sydney knew all of this, but it didn't make it any easier. "He didn't mention new intel, that's all."

"Sydney," Jack sighed and sat up, "we know you hate the 'we are just trying to protecting you' line, but it's honestly all that concerns either of us every single day. You've been awake for three weeks and able to gain some independence in half of that time. That's impressive but...your focus has to be on recovery right now."

"I do hate that," she grumbled. Her brain wanted for her to sit up, stand up, and start a fight, but her body wouldn't cooperate. Her arms that were once so easy to swing in a punch felt like they were chained to heavy weights, and her legs were the same.

"It's foolish to push yourself too quickly. After everything you've been through, please take this time to get well."

Sydney scoffed repeating his words through an exhale, "everything I've been through."

"After the...second day," he started, and Sydney immediately felt a ball of lead drop into her guts as icy tendrils began squeezing and rising within her abdomen.

"After he hurt you for the first time on camera, Vaughn became the one and only man in your life that earned my respect."

Her curiosity got the better of her. "How?"

"Because he left the room. The - the conference room where the team "strategized"," Sydney felt the strong sarcasm behind the word her father used, even without the need for his fingers to act out the bunny ears. "That day was hard because...we knew what was at stake but it hadn't yet become visceral, and that was when it all changed."

"He left?" Sydney's voice was an emotional squeak.

Jack nodded. "We felt it in our stomach every time he broke your skin with that damn knife; it made us sick. Will left first but Vaughn...he tried. His usual nervous ticks," the father paused with a swallow, "tapping his pen or fidgeting with the bronze coin were abandoned because every ounce of his energy was focused on the screen, same as mine."

"Dad, I-"

"He lasted ten...maybe twelve before his heart wouldn't let him watch any longer. One of my biggest regrets was not following his lead."

Sydney bit at her lip in an attempt to staunch the fear bubbling up from her stomach like bile. "I can't...don't make me go back there," she begged.

Jack focused his sympathetic gaze on his daughter but continued. "He is the only man you've ever dated that stood up to me with his shoulders squared, the only man that tried everything he could try, and the only man I've ever seen more broken than myself. Go easy on him, sweetheart. We all know to go easy on you despite the fact that you hate it, but I've been the only one going easy on him. He needs your understanding more than you know."

Sydney nodded with a sniffle as she took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm her panicked soul. Jack lifted his arm over her head to pull her close and she buried her sniffling face into his shoulder as he held her. A few minutes passed and her breathing evened out, Jack knowing instantly that she'd fallen asleep. Extracting himself as quietly as possible he rose with a small stretch and moved to the desk. Writing a note explaining for her to call him when she woke he stuck it to the side of the phone on the nightstand.

It felt like she was five and he was tucking her in for an afternoon nap, finding her somewhere in the house in a crumpled and awkward position after trying to avoid said nap until her body gave in wherever she was hiding. She was nearly fifteen pounds underweight, a lot of it muscle that had receded after almost two months with little to no movement, so lifting her up to the pillow was easy even though he was so much older than the last time he'd done this particular action.

Seeming to sense that it was her own pillow, she turned her head and buried it in the soft plush with a small sigh. Draping the blanket atop Jack left quietly. He knew he'd get an earful from Jamie and Doc Greene, but if she had earned just one thing after her entire life had been uprooted, it was a nap in her own bed.

Sydney's eyes opened to soft lamplight. For a moment everything felt, smelled, and seemed familiar, but the ceiling wasn't that of her apartment. Nor was it the medical room or the dingy cement cell she'd been kept in for nearly a week. Looking around as her brain reoriented, she spotted Vaughn sitting in her reading chair with one of her books in his hand as the other propped his head up on its fist.

"Hey," she whispered, catching his attention.

Turning with the soft smile just for her, "hey. Good nap?"

"Kinda like waking from a miracle. The real world is still there, but for a little while I just didn't care." She turned to look back at the ceiling giving her back a little stretch. It ended with a wince as her body reminded her again that everything wasn't back to normal.

Michael chuckled and closed the book, placing it with the others on the pile. He stayed put, however, keeping his ankles crossed and legs stuck out while regarding her with tired eyes.

"How was Sweden?"

"It went well. We have all of the directors and partners' information and started to compile a list of highest-level agents."

Sydney nodded, "it sounds like you're making good progress. Anything I can help with?"

Michael shook his head. "Not yet. We'll get you back in soon."

She frowned and turned her head to glare over at him. "You know I hate being excluded," she started.

"You know this isn't about exclusion," he countered.

"It sure feels like it."

Vaughn sighed and looked toward the other side of the room. "You've gotta give it time."

"I can read files and help sort intel, Vaughn. I sit on my ass all day and," she paused with a frustrated grumble, "I just want to get one thing back."

Michael nodded. "I know. I'm sorry, I really am. None of this is fair."

Sydney's face was a mask of emotion, but anger was at the forefront. Vaughn chanced a glance and saw the frown marring her face, a sight that had become all too common each moment he spent with her the last week or so. He sighed and sat up to set his elbows on his knees and sort through the thoughts in his sleep-deprived brain.

"Believe me when I say I can't wait for you to be well enough to help with things, Syd, but we're going to follow the rules. Both docs say you aren't ready."

"If you don't want to do this anymore, you don't have to." The words were a strangled whisper and Vaughn tilted his head to hear her better. She was still avoiding his gaze.

"Do what?"

"Us."

Vaughn huffed angrily, "don't hit me with that, Sydney, that's not fair."

"You've barely said one word to me in almost a week, Vaughn, what am I supposed to think? We even had a whole conversation about it, yet nothing has changed."

Michael rose, his legs twitching with the urge to run away. Sadness and anger bubbled together in his stomach, so he tried to focus on which emotion would help him out of the current situation more. "I'm the only one doing this right now, Syd. You can't blame me for having a mission."

"It's not blame, Vaughn, I'm just saying that," she paused mid-sentence as if deciding how to break bad news, "I'm giving you an out."

Sydney couldn't meet his eyes but could feel his stare.

"Do you want me to take that out?"

'No!' Her brain yelled, but she just stayed silent not trusting her voice.

"Syd." No response but he could see her chin quiver. "Sydney. If you want me gone, you'll have to tell me to go."

"You know I don't want that," she sniffled.

"Then why are you asking?" While he wanted to go with sadness as default, his brain decided that the anger was more pressing and led with it. "What more could I possibly do for you right now that I'm not doing already? Jesus, Syd, you have to stop giving up."

Now she was mad, and her flashing brown eyes met his angry green glare. All she could send was a glare, however, and she knew she didn't make much of an imposing figure at just over 100 pounds lying unmoving on her back in a comfortable bed. It wouldn't stop her from fighting back, however.

Pushing with her right arm, the muscles shaky, she attempted to sit up. The left was useless as it was cinched to her midsection, but she managed to get enough purchase against the soft sheet to push her torso up at an angle and allow her hips to scoot back.

Pain flared up from her knee making her stop with a grimace, Michael stepping forward and reaching to help. He stopped at her sudden glare.

"Don't. I'm mad at you and I don't want your help," her order was a growl.

"Fine," he sighed angrily and crossed his arms over his chest, though he stayed at arms length just in case.

Through pushing with her exhausted right arm and inching backward with her hips, each inch setting off her knee, she made it upright enough against the headboard to feel as though she was actually in the fight. She went almost limp for a moment as she took several deep breaths trying to calm her pounding heart.

"When...did I ever give up?"

This flared his anger and he kept his arms crossed defensively over his chest. "A year ago you dragged me to the warehouse and said you wanted to give up. Before Cole infiltrated SD-6 you said you were done and were going to tell Sloane you were quitting. In the room with Flynn, you-" he stopped, swallowing the end of that sentence as he dropped his arms to his sides. He broke eye contact as hers went from a flashing near-black to a wounded chocolate brown.

"I didn't give up, Vaughn, I died. You know, I didn't ask to be rescued. There was no reason for you to not leave me there."

She saw how much her words stung as he physically took a step back with anguish on his face and his eyes falling to the floor. He once again convinced himself to not walk through that door and leave her down here as he knew she had no way of getting back upstairs on her own.

The two had never felt so far apart. Fighting one another had always been a part of their connection, but this wasn't fighting with each other, it was fighting borne from frustration and residual anger over everything that had transpired outside of their control.

"Vaughn, I - I'm sorry. I don't want to fight, I don't. I'm sorry."

Michael sighed and "No, I'm sorry. I'm just...tired. I think I have four hours of sleep across the last three days, and the last thing you need is for me to pick a fight." He rubbed his fingers over his eyes as he tried to push down the welling of emotion.

"I picked the fight," she whispered, weariness creeping in and making her feel heavy. "I'm sorry. I don't want you to go, I just...I don't know how to get you to want to stay. I lost control of everything, and I don't know how to get it back."

Vaughn moved to the edge of the bed and held out his hand, Sydney twining her fingers through his with a small squeeze. "I should be working with you on that instead of leaving you to do it on your own," he admitted.

"We have a lot to figure out."

At her simple yet loaded statement, Michael felt the weight behind those words. They had a lot to figure out, but in all honesty, it was almost all on him. In his mind, at least. He desperately wanted to ask her a hundred things, almost all of them seeking to clarify taunts Flynn had shot at him during the three meetings he'd been forced to hold with the man. Stopping in to talk with Irina each time was for once a breath of fresh air, though there was tension there too, and he knew he'd have to have a serious conversation with her about his father at some point.

'One life-altering thing at a time.' It was all starting to pile up on his soul and petty arguments like these added rather than reduced the weight.

"I'm sorry," he said softly as he brushed the back of her hand with his thumb. "Let me help you back upstairs, and we can keep talking," he offered.

Sydney shook her head, backpedaling when she saw the surprised look on his face. "Please don't judge after I complained, but I'm exhausted. Which is stupid because I just slept, but I am."

Vaughn laughed and leaned forward to slide one arm behind her shoulders as the hand wrapped around hers stayed strong to pull her away from the headboard. Holding her upright he gently maneuvered her legs off the edge of the bed, mindful of the left where he gripped the outer metal edge of the brace. Once she was ready, which she confirmed with a nod, he pulled her to her feet.

The moment wasn't lost on either of them and though the left arm was fastened to her middle in the sling, she forced the weak muscles of her right to lift and clutch the collar at the back of his neck as she buried her face in his throat. All Vaughn wanted to do was stand and hug her for the rest of the night. The lump of her left arm between them didn't stop him from keeping a tight hold around her waist and back, and he pressed several small kisses to the top of her shoulder around the strap of the camisole and sling.

It was there that his eyes spotted two scars, healed punctures from Flynn's knife, and while he tried to stay in the moment of finally being able to hold her after so long, he had to look away and tamp down the angry fire that flared in his belly. Luckily, her legs trembled a bit and her right arm had used the last of its energy to grip his shirt, and she lowered it as he reached for the wheelchair to slide her back into the seat.

"It'll get better, Syd," he promised and stood tall.

"Yeah," she whispered but had seen the way his eyes weren't meeting hers. They instead swept down her arms settling for a moment before moving again, and she knew he wasn't able to unsee the scars Flynn had left on her skin with each one letting him relive everything, same as her each time her own gaze would spot one. "Could...you do me a favor?"

This snapped him out of whatever trance he'd been in, and he looked back up to her face seeing some pain but nothing else. She was compartmentalizing with him - or maybe for him, he wasn't sure. Either way, he hated that fact. He'd spend the better part of 18 months earning her trust and now he felt like he'd lost it in less than a few weeks.

"Sure," he said tightly.

"Could you grab some long-sleeved shirts from my dresser? It's cold up in the medical room sometimes."

"Of course." He moved to the dresser and searched through a couple of drawers. Settling the soft cotton shirts onto her lap they quietly made their way to the elevator and back upstairs.

They both had apologized, but everything still felt wrong and neither had a clue how to fix things.

...

Two Weeks Later

Vaughn sat at the desk with a hand over his tired eyes, the open laptop and scattered files ignored as he leaned back in the chair with the other arm hanging down.

"You've been avoiding me." Her voice was quiet and non-threatening, but he jumped all the same as he thought he was alone with his oppressive thoughts.

His heartbeat settled down and he sent a soft smile in her direction though it didn't reach his eyes. She leaned against the doorframe of his room with her own arms hanging low leaving her stance open.

Anyone else would have thought her relaxed, but he saw the tightness in her shoulders, the minute furrow on her brow, and the sheen of effort shadowed by a small amount of pain in her eyes. The ends of the long-sleeved shirt were bunched in her hands hiding her fingers from his sight and giving her fabric with which she could fidget.

"You're not supposed to be this far out of bed," he said with a gentle grumble, side-stepping her greeting intentionally.

Sydney was still willow thin, though she'd gained about four pounds between physical therapy and Francie's cooking since she'd left the medical ward almost around a week ago. She was wearing the bulky wrist brace, Michael figuring that the fingers and forearm must have been giving her serious pain for her to keep it on since she hated the thing. His gaze moved down and gave the leg brace a once-over, her pajama pants bunching from mid-thigh to mid-calf beneath the velcro straps. It didn't keep the healing knee from bending, just giving it extra support so there weren't any setbacks.

"Desperate times," her explanation for why she was breaking the rules. Not only was she disobeying the doctor, but she wasn't supposed to leave the lower floor on account of her being "dead". If anyone that wasn't in on the secret spotted her, it could get out to all the wrong people.

Vaughn hadn't meant to make her worry, nor did he want her to feel bad, but he needed more time. He just wasn't ready.

"It's not you, Sydney. I promise it's not. I needed a couple days to sort out my brain, that's all." His voice was tired, but the softness that he reserved just for her was present.

"It's been two weeks, Vaughn. Yeah, I...I thought you just needed to figure things out, but after a week you went to London for a meet, and three days later you went to Japan for the intel swap. After you got back the first time I see you is at a meeting and you snap at me and...leave. You left for two days without telling me." Sydney sighed and let the accusation land. It was also a pause so she could catch her breath.

"I'm not sure how this isn't about me, Vaughn." He figured this was the moment where she would cross her arms over her stomach in classic Sydney defense posture, but they remained at her sides. She also didn't move from the doorframe, leaning against it heavily to take the weight off of her braced left leg.

She surprised him further by giving a slight negative shake of her head when he reached out a gentle hand beckoning her to take it and come in, perhaps to even close the door behind her so they could have privacy for the conversation he didn't want to have - a conversation he'd been avoiding. That surprised him, and she saw the emotion flit across his face in the dim lamplight.

She shrugged with her right shoulder, awkward against the wood frame, the left still sore from physical therapy earlier that day, "I don't need you to make excuses, Vaughn, I need you to seriously consider if you really don't want to take that out." Pushing off the frame she limped down the hallway, the ding of the elevator bouncing to his ears. His eyes stared at the empty space for several long minutes after her exit, looking but not seeing. He also didn't rise and follow her like his heart was screaming at him to do.

No. He stayed in that chair going over his reasons for avoiding her. As much as he hated to admit it, he was avoiding her. Things felt awkward, conversations were stilted, and in the few moments they'd chanced at being alone, hardly any words were spoken deeper than small talk.

Even though she was now free from the medical wing and had her own room away from prying eyes, mostly through the necessity to limit the number of people that knew she was alive, he'd never stayed. He chose for them long sleepless nights separated by a whole floor, which he knew was unfair.

Vaughn knew that almost everything he was doing was unfair, but he didn't know how to get past the things that Flynn had said. The man in the holding cell knew things he shouldn't know; things about her that told him almost everything while leaving out the subtlety of the truth.

His mind and soul had been whipped back and forth at break-neck speed over the last two and a half months, and nothing seemed to make sense any longer. The psychologist hadn't helped when he'd asked the hard questions. She'd hit behind the phrase, 'that's her place to tell you', which made him frustrated and snappy.

'If none of this is something she could avoid, is any of it Sydney's fault?'

That was the hard question. How far back could he go for an answer?

Did she get caught? Yes.

Did they know which mission exposed her? Not yet - Sloane was keeping that information close to the vest, the asshole.

Was it her fault or his?

Neither?

Should he feel guilty for what he got her into, or should he be angry at her for being reckless and getting herself into trouble?

Or was it neither?

What had Flynn done after the streams ended?

Everything circled back to that one point.

The swirling questions kept him up at night and invaded every short conversation they attempted to have.

That, however, wasn't what he desperately wanted to know. He had narrowed everything down one real question, but he was too afraid to ask. Instead, he'd let it eat him from the inside out because not really knowing was to him, more merciful than otherwise.

Yeah, he'd been avoiding her.

'Not really her; the situation. If there wasn't this damn shadow over everything between us, I'd be down there every waking moment.' His brain reminded him that it really was just the conversation they were supposed to have that he was trying to avoid. Truthfully, he missed her terribly and these last two weeks had been a near eternity of loneliness.

Vaughn's absence and the reason behind it were unfortunately and painfully obvious. After everything had come to a head, and for the first time in two and a half months, he'd gone home and slept in his own bed instead of staying in the JTF building. Even Weiss had glared when he'd figured it out, and if Weiss realized it, Sydney already knew.

Closing the lid on the laptop he rose with a harsh sigh from the uncomfortable office chair, his fingers at the lamp to kill the light when a deep voice made him jump with another surprise.

"I was wondering how long you were going to sit there," Jack grumbled quietly.

"I think you gave me a damn heart attack!"

"It wasn't easy, but it was worth clearing up a lot of things we thought the other assumed," the father offered, calling him out on having been M.I.A. for the last two days after the psychologist had hit them all with mandatory talk about things with Sydney orders. He'd wanted to run just like Vaughn, though he had nowhere to go.

"I don't want to talk about it at all, Jack. Can't we just be happy it's over and that she's okay and that everything will be fine?" Michael finally vented his frustration.

Jack leaned his shoulder against the door in the same spot Sydney had been minutes earlier. "I don't need to remind you that it'll be good for her to hear things from your point of view, do I? There are hurdles here we all have to jump. This one makes things easier for her. You shouldn't be avoiding this."

Shame leaked into his soul. "I don't want to feel that hurt again, and I don't want to share it. She doesn't deserve my shit on top of her own, Jack."

The older man nodded. "What if it's already there?"

Vaughn sighed. "I don't know what to do about that."

"Michael, what are you afraid she will tell you that you don't already know?"

'How many times he raped her,' he thought.

"I don't know," he said aloud, his mind poking him with what he really wanted to ask over and over until it made him slightly queasy.

"You'd better figure it out, son, or we'll be having a different conversation." It was and wasn't a threat, but Vaughn knew exactly what the elder meant. 'If you don't fix things with my daughter, you're out. She'll end it before I will, but not much before.'

With a push Jack left his spot and went back to his room, the door closing silently behind him. Peeking out the corridor was suddenly a mile long, much longer than Vaughn remembered, but he could see the elevator door at the end if he squinted.

His heart pounded in his brain as he got closer and he was on autopilot pushing the button for the lowest floor. His stomach jerked as the elevator dropped, and it brought back the nauseous state with a vengeance. Once it stopped, shaking fingers entered the code and swiped the card allowing the doors to open. He fingered the keycard on his trek to the door on the right at the end of the hallway and hoped that she hadn't locked him out. If the light flashed red after swiping the card in the access panel he was screwed for the night.

The light strobed green three times, the click of the disengaging lock echoing in the silence of the hallway, and Michael felt the cool metal of the handle in his palm as he twisted and pushed the heavy door open enough to slip through. Though it felt presumptuous, he hit the 'lock' button on the inside panel ensuring that anyone coming to see Sydney would get the flashing red light: the CIA's answer to the 'do not disturb' door hanger.

"Syd?"

She didn't answer. His eyes adjusted, some kind of light always on in her room. He spotted the source, the desk lamp pointed at the wall across from the bed. She told him one night when he reached to turn it off before leaving that the darkness mixed with the unfamiliarity in the room made it feel too much like she was back there, so the light stayed on and Michael had gotten used to that fact.

She was laying on the comfortable bed above the blankets facing the ceiling, wide awake. Instead of making a path directly to her side, he grabbed the back of the office chair and rolled it to within a few feet before settling heavily onto the padded seat. He leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees and folded his hands together. The body language wasn't exactly open, but it wasn't closed, and from her periphery she saw that he was making an effort.

'Talking to me shouldn't take this much effort.'

Vaughn wanted to start the conversation just to get it over with, but he realized that it would be a disservice to the things that definitely needed to be said between them.

When he'd cautioned her against making rash decisions a few days ago, her fighting him not abnormal in their history, he'd hurt himself twice when saying, "whatever got you caught was probably a rash decision - let's not do that again."

The first was his heart slapping his brain the moment the words left his mouth; the second was the pain he felt when the tragic hurt hit her face. He should have felt it three times with her fist nailing him in the jaw, but instead, she'd limped quietly out of the conference room seeking solace behind the security door and leaving him to bear the glares of Jack, Will, and Kendall as they'd all been present for his blunder.

The light had flashed red that night.

That wasn't the only time he'd snapped in the last two weeks, but it had been the worst of the incidents. The very next day the psychologist challenged everyone that knew that Sydney Bristow was alive to have a one-on-one conversation about the time she'd spent in that room and the fact that they'd all watched. They had to air their experiences versus hers and figure out what was truth versus misunderstanding and assumption. She'd tacked on the word mandatory when Michael had scoffed in refusal.

So, instead of being an adult and working through what was clearly a lot of pent up anger, pain, and hostility, he'd made ten excuses and spent two days away from the office in the hopes that everything would just go away.

It hadn't. In fact...it had gotten worse.

"You want to know what my biggest fear and my only tether was while I sat in that chair?" Her quiet question broke his concentration.

'No.' He thought, though he just nodded, not trusting his voice to keep from saying exactly what he was thinking.

Her sigh was watery, "that you were watching."

Vaughn didn't respond. Not because he didn't want to, but because he had no idea what to say. She didn't wait, however, and continued without needing his participation to have this conversation. Her voice was a strange monotone. There was emotion behind her words, but not in how she spoke.

"After that first session, I thought it would be pretty easy. I figured I could buy you all the time you needed because when you found me, which I knew you would, I'd be able to walk out of that room with my chin up." She swallowed and Michael stared at the side of her face, his focus on the harsh shadow created by her cheekbone above the faint scar on her left cheek.

Every time he saw it the unbidden images of Flynn holding her face crowded into his mind. He wasn't able to stop them and even now saw the Brit's left hand pull her chin down to open her mouth, stretching the cheek as his other hand sunk the blade slowly into and through the thin skin. Her blood mixed with her tears and the wound leaked a red river down her jaw to drip onto her chest.

He averted his gaze to the floor before his anger marched him up to the holding wing and into Flynn's cell where he longed day in and day out to beat the murderer to a pulp. He'd start a queue, of that he was sure.

"Tell me one honest thing, Vaughn." Sydney kept her gaze on the ceiling but threw out her challenge after he stayed quiet at her admission. She could feel his focus, like two green lasers fixed on the side of her face, and she recalled all the times in the last few weeks that he'd broken eye contact when she'd caught him staring.

Michael wanted desperately to tell her that she wasn't the reason for his anger, sadness, or worry, but his mouth wasn't keen on forming words at the moment.

Sydney rolled her eyes. "Well, I'll be honest if all you want to do is listen."

"I don't want to do either. I just...I want to go back." He surprised himself with the honesty of his statement.

She kept her voice low, though he saw a slight furl in her brow. "Back to what?"

"Back to before; back to the hotel or - or...or the cabin."

"Well we can't," she grumbled, the first hint of emotion that affected her voice. "So now what? If we can't go back, and you won't go forward, where do we go?"

"I don't know, Sydney. I...I don't know."

She finally looked in his direction, his gaze moving up as their eyes met in the low light. A single tear dropped from the corner of her eye and dripped off the bridge of her nose as his threatened to spill free pooling in the lower lids.

"You waited so long for me to wake up, but you realize I'm not the same, everything's different, and you hate looking at me."

"No I don't," he said sharply, accentuating his point by forcing his look to stay with hers.

"It's all you can think of, isn't it? You see a scar and because of him, you get to replay how I got it over and over again. While I get to feel it...endlessly, you can't unsee them, and I don't know which is worse."

He knew she was right but didn't want to admit it. Yes - every single time he spotted a mark on her skin his brain reminded him of how the injury was obtained. Some he hadn't been privy to the origin, like the faint one on her right eyebrow, but he'd seen the aftermath. "I'm not angry at you, Sydney, I-"

"I can't make them go away any faster. I...I try to at least cover them up but...you don't look at me the same way you used to, and," she swallowed, "it kills me that he took that away from me along with almost everything else."

It was Vaughn's turn to look perplexed, but the realization hit him that she hadn't worn a camisole or tank top once since she'd asked him to grab her long-sleeved shirts, and the short shorts she preferred to sleep in had been replaced with a pair of long, soft, cotton pajama pants, the bottoms dragging on the floor with each wobbly step she took. The long-sleeved shirts draped over her figure looking a whole size too large, and she always tugged the sleeves down to ball into her hands when he was nearby.

He'd thought it a nervous tick, but apparently she'd just been hiding her scarred fingers from his gaze.

"Sydney, I don't-"

"Yes you do," she interrupted, her head turning back to face up at the ceiling. It reminded him too much of when she slept for those long days and nights, still and prone with tubes draining fluids to and from her broken body.

"You have to get over it, Vaughn."

This made him angry. "I have to get over watching you die?"

She flinched at the rage she heard behind those words. "I wanted you to leave me there. I didn't want you to find me because I knew that everything would be different. The entirety of my life would be different and...I didn't want to deal with that much change."

"But if I had made it out...you," she almost growled the word, her once emotionless voice now strangled by the tightness in the back of her throat, "you were supposed to be the same. That's not fair."

"You didn't want me to find you?"

She scoffed that he was stuck at the top of her statement instead of paying attention to where she demanded his focus.

Sydney turned her head to face him, her watery eyes glinting in the low light.

"Why did you watch?" Her voice was a sad whisper.

"You wanted me to leave you there?" He countered, his soft voice pained.

She looked back up to the ceiling and sighed.

"Sydney...why didn't you want me to find you?"

"I know exactly what you want to know, and I know why it's so hard for you to ask. But...you have to ask," she answered, immediately diffusing his anger and changing the direction of the conversation.

She attempted to sit up, though the tight muscles of her back protested with sharp resistance at the same time as her left arm gave out despite the brace. His hand cupped her elbow as he jumped in to help, her reaction to flinch and pull back slightly, and she cursed her sensitivity again.

"I'm sorry, I...let me help," his voice was back to soft reserved love, though she could see confusion, sadness, and unresolved anger wrinkling his brow and pressing his lips into a thin line.

Once she was seated on the edge of the bed, her right hand massaging her upper left arm at the aching stiffness still hiding in the joint, she settled her breathing down. She hated the fact that simply sitting up put her out of breath. Vaughn moved back to sit in the chair and though only a few feet separated them, it felt like a mile.

"You need to ask what happened after the camera turned off," she ordered, brown boring into green as the hurt flashed and he broke eye contact.

Michael felt her words yank the scab off his heart and restart the bleeding he'd been trying to staunch. He had hoped that she would, at worst, prod at the wound, or opposite to that, try and heal it, but he wasn't getting away that easily.

He shook his head and stood, his body pushing him to flee from the conversation. "I...I don't wanna know."

"Yes you do," she countered. "Ask me."

Another shake accompanied a green glare as tears spilled over his lids trekking shiny tracks down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Sydney," his voice was pinched and she could see that the facade that he'd been holding for over a month was finally beginning to crumble. She'd talked about it with Sarah, the psychologist encouraging her to poke and prod at him until he got honest with his feelings and how they were affecting her. She hadn't had the guts until tonight.

"Why are you sorry? You didn't do any of that to me, Vaughn."

"I just...I sat and watched. I tried," he swallowed and began to pace, "I tried to not watch but...but that was worse because then I was...I was in my own head making up what he was doing and I," shuddering breath, "so I watched so I'd know; so I'd know."

"So you'd know what?"

"How he hurt you. So I c-could do it to him when I found him." He continued moving back and forth, and she was sure he didn't realize any of that was happening. "But that's...that's not what happened. I didn't find you, and I'm sorry."

"You did find me."

"He killed you," he moaned, the pacing stopping as both hands gestured toward her with palms facing up, anguish on his face as more tears fell to cast darkened spots on his rumpled blue button-up shirt.

"I'm sitting right here," she said softly.

This stopped his downward spiral and his arms fell limply to his sides. His head throbbed with a sudden headache as harsh emotion clogged his breath in his throat and put a pressure that hurt his teeth into the roof of his mouth, but he saw that she was right.

"Come here," she asked and pointed to the floor in front of her, and he obeyed.

Vaughn knelt down and hung his head low as a muffled sob snuck out from behind his lips. He loosed a relieved sigh as the fingers of her right hand softly ran through his hair. The only sound was his sniffling, the back of his left hand wiping at his nose as his breaths came in sobbing pants while trying to get everything under control.

"Ask me, Michael. Just ask," she whispered.

"Did he..." he couldn't look up, his eyes squeezed shut terrified of what she'd say.

He didn't know why he was so scared over this one fact. It's not like he'd stop loving her, he just had to know.

"Did...did he-"

"No," she interrupted, mercifully not requiring him to finish the sentence. Her hands cupped his jaw tilting his face upward and forcing him to meet her eyes. "No," she repeated.

That's what broke him. For whatever reason, the relief of that single word filled him with emotion at the same moment it was all sucked out, and he couldn't stop everything stacked atop his soul from crashing all at once. He dimly felt her pull at his shoulders, so he scooted forward on sore knees between her legs and buried his face in the soft shirt over her abdomen as he cried.

Long minutes passed until he'd drained himself near limp, Sydney struggling with the weak muscles of her back, arms, and legs to continue holding his shaking frame.

"Hey," she said softly, pulling back a bit and feeling for the first time his hands wrapped around and clutching the back of her shirt. "I...I can't sit up any longer, I'm sorry."

Vaughn nodded and rocked back onto his heels, his eyes swollen and face red. His hands delicately undid the velcro straps of the leg brace to slip it off for the night as hers undid the one around her forearm, tossing it onto the abandoned office chair.

Standing with a groan and leaning down to rub his sore knees, he reached down and slowly wrapped his arm around her, lifting up enough to get the blankets pulled down as Sydney clung to his shoulders.

Once the blankets were low at the end of the bed, he set her back down. "Do you want to change into something else?" His voice was raw, the back of his throat sore, and the occasional hiccup and sniffle broke through despite the fact that he was trying to take care of her.

She shook her head, her eyes taking in the slumped form waiting for her to tell him what to do next.

"You don't have to ask to stay," she whispered.

Michael breathed a sigh of relief as he quickly undressed to his undershirt and boxers before sliding in beside her and hauling the blankets over them.

The moment their bodies came together, the familiarity and comfort hit them and forced a relieved sigh from each chest.

"I'm sorry I stayed away. I was just...selfish." His apology was whispered into her hair as she tucked herself into him with her nose against his throat.

He felt her head shake, "not selfish, just broken."