The awful bustier is the last thing she zips up, and she turns around to see him curled on his side like a satisfied cat under the sheets. She's not sure when they got under the covers, but she knows she's been gone much longer than she intended to be. The lamp on the bedside table is on, and the room is aglow with a pleasant, golden light.
"Listen," she starts, but he interrupts her.
"Don't," he shakes his head a little. "Don't make this anything more than it is."
"And what is that," she doesn't look at him, afraid of what he'll say.
"A partnership," he smiles lazily and closes his eyes. "What else would it be?"
Outside in front of the hotel, she flicks the comm on. "Boy Scout, this is Phoenix, do you copy?"
"Phoenix, we copy—where are you?" She can hear the relief and the exasperation simultaneously in Vaughn's voice, just like it used to be. She feels strange hearing his worry, a feeling she can't pinpoint as any one emotion.
"I'm nearby, I'll meet you at the rendezvous point—give me ten minutes."
She hails a cab and settles back in the seat as the cabbie tears through the crowded, narrow streets. She is sleepy, but watches the slender, chic couples swaying in the night on the sidewalks, waiting to get into nightclubs and bars. Absently she twirls her finger in the long ringlets, the hair extensions that take her hair nearly to her waist. She tries to forget how it felt to have him brush her hair off her back, how firm his hands were and—
Stop it, stop it, she thinks. He killed your best friend. He had Will tortured. You are weak, and stupid, and desperate, and you let him take advantage of it. All of it.
"Señorita?" the cab has pulled to the curb but she hadn't even noticed.
"Gracias," she tosses some money over the seat at the guy, and gets out of the cab. Vaughn is already waiting outside the van. His brow is creased with worry, and his mouth is set in a hard line. She shakes her head at him and climbs into the back next to Weiss.
Vaughn slams the sliding door of the van shut so hard that the body rocks a little, and he just glares at her as he climbs up into the driver's seat and peels away from the curb. Weiss won't look at her, but he's wearing his typical hang-dog expression. He raises his eyebrows like, 'I told you so,' still without looking at her.
"Where have you been? We were worried sick," Vaughn's voice is low, tight.
"We made a deal—" she starts, but Vaughn won't even let her explain.
"A deal with Sark? Perfect. Maybe we can phone up Sloane while we're at it, and get him back in on the action, too," Vaughn's naked sarcasm is hard for her to bear without slapping him up alongside his head, "He might even know where your mom is—"
"Mike, Jesus!" Weiss exclaims, "Why'd you have to go there?"
"He wants to help us," she cannot believe she is defending Sark, but the words are coming out of her mouth and she hears them like she's watching herself on TV, "I've got a decoy of the weapons agent to switch out for the real one, so that the Covenant doesn't get the weapon." She draws the slender silver canister from her jacket pocket, and holds it up so that Vaughn can see it in the rearview mirror. "We can put a tracking device on it and see where the Covenant takes it… Vaughn," she pleads, "I have to know where I've been."
He sighs deeply and doesn't respond. Weiss takes the cylinder, looking it over. Her stomach is churning, the way it always did when she and Vaughn argued. Some things never change.