Title: Circumstance
Author: Agent Otter
Summary: "Time is the longest distance between two places." Circumstance leads Sydney to someone she thought she'd lost. S/V
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If Alias were mine there'd probably be more nudity.
Spoilers: Nothing too spoiler-tastic.
Author's note: I needed a break from all that plot mumbo jumbo in "The Art of Retrospection". So this started out as a little one-shot to get the ol' juices flowing, and it ended up being an epic. Dammit. This is completely unbeta'ed too. Sorry. I am also, for some reason, experimenting with flow and consciousness and tenses and so on. I hope it's not too annoying, I hope the effect comes together, and mostly I just hope you like it. Roll with me.

"Time is the longest distance between two places." -- Tennessee Williams

The car finally broke down just outside a town that, according to the tiny lettering that accompanied the tiny dot on her map, was called Circumstance. She was surprised that the vehicle made it that far, and she was even more surprised that she made it that far. But the outskirts of civilization weren't even within view when the car wheezed to a halt, and she stared out the windshield at the swirling white snow in the headlights. It looked like the flakes were fighting, she thought, and she wondered how far she'd have to walk to find a phone.

When she stumbled out of the car she was somewhat surprised to find that her legs didn't work as well as they used to, and she stumbled, leaning ponderously forward, one hand reaching out to stop her momentum, fingers brushing against the snow -- deep and growing deeper -- that hid the road from view. She didn't fall, then, but she managed only a few shuffling steps before balance abandoned her again. This time she fell, hard, tripped over her own feet and her reflexes just weren't fast enough anymore to catch her on the way down. The pain that blossomed in her shoulder made her dizzy, and everything softened and brightened, starting from behind her eyes.

She curses under her breath as she nearly drops her keychain, but she shifts the bags into one hand and manages to shove the appropriate key into the lock, awkwardly twisting it until the door opens. It's late, much later than she'd meant to get home, and she moves quietly to keep from waking Francie. She drops her bags in her room, then goes for water and finds herself stopped dead in the kitchen, staring at the little dining room table.

There's candles and a bottle of wine, and on top of the stove, a glass dish -- long cold, she notices -- filled with a delicious-looking lasagna, with spinach peeking out between layers of pasta and porcini mushrooms lurking among the melted cheese. She carefully slides the covered serving dish into the refrigerator.

She didn't know he could cook, and it occurs to her that there's a lot she doesn't know about him.

She finds him on the couch, slumped over on the cushions, sprawling a bit in the heat. She wakes him with a hand on his chest and her lips coaxing his mouth open before he's even really awake. His hand covers hers, and he moans into her mouth.

"I'm sorry I missed dinner," she murmurs against his lips, when they finally break for air. "My flight was delayed because of rain."

His first response is a wordless murmur, and he kisses her again as his eyes blink wearily half-open. "That's okay," he whispers. "I was pretty much just looking forward to dessert, anyway." He smiles, and she closes her eyes and leans into his warm hand as he tucks a runaway lock of hair behind her ear.

The noise was constant and irritating, and it made her head hurt. When she finally opened her eyes, it was only to locate the source of the disturbance and, hopefully, to shoot it. The snow had stopped, but she couldn't be sure when. It was dark -- still, or again? -- and she was very, very cold.

The source of all that insistent noise was kneeling in front of her, in the snow, one hand on her shoulder, giving her gentle, timid shakes and saying, "Please, lady, please, please wake up," over and over again. If she'd had to guess, she would've said he was around eight, and he was shaking, but not from the cold. He leaned closer to peer at her, saw that her eyes were open, and he let out a whoosh of relieved, sour breath that smelled like milk and fruit loops. "Are you okay?" he asked, and she wanted to answer, she really did, but her throat felt frozen shut.

It took her a long moment to realize that the next noise she heard was the approach of a vehicle, taking the path she had taken, travelling toward town. She tried to warn the boy to run, to get away before they saw him, to hide in the trees and don't make a sound. But all she managed was a hoarse croak, and then they were painted over with the broad yellow-tinged brush of headlights, and it was too late.

There was a crunch of heavier, male footsteps in the snow, and she thought, Run run run runrunrunrunrunrun but the boy only scooted to the side, and then there was someone else crouched in front of her in the snow, a larger hand on her arm, another face leaning close to inspect her.

"Oh Jesus, Sydney," the face said. "Oh God."

The only thing she could think was, crazily, I remember his eyes being greener. He was talking, still, but she had a hard time hearing him, and then she just couldn't hear anything at all.

She hears voices from the kitchen, and she wonders for a moment if it's Vaughn and Francie, chatting over breakfast, before she remembers that there is no Francie anymore, and it's nearly two o'clock in the afternoon. As she pads quietly down the hallway in her bare feet, she can hear them more clearly.

"But she needs you," she hears, and that's Will. "Jesus, Mike, you can't just bail. Not now. Not after everything we went through to get you back."

"You're not thinking on a larger scale, Will." Her father's voice. "This is about more than what he wants. Or even what she wants, for that matter. There are lives at stake, and more than just our own."

She slips into the kitchen doorway, leans against the frame and takes in the picture they make. She wonders if her father ever wears anything that's not a suit and whether that stern expression ever leaves his face. She wonders whether Will's even shaved since they returned from Turkey. She wonders how long it will take for the vivid purple bruises, heavy welts, and angry red burns to heal, scar, and fade away on Vaughn's pale skin. There's a narrow line of blood soaking through the back of his white t-shirt, but he doesn't seem to have noticed.

"It matters what she wants," Vaughn says, and nobody stops him talking even though her father's just noticed her standing in the doorway. "And she doesn't want me here."

"You can't be here." The voice she heard was one she didn't know, and it made her want to snap awake in alarm, but just opening her eyes seemed to demand too much energy. She laid still and silent and concentrated on breathing instead.

"I won't be leaving, Eileen, so you'd better just get used to it." That voice she did know, and she badly wanted to open her eyes to see him there, but she was so tired...

"They let you stay here all through the morning shift?" He must've nodded at her question, because Eileen let out a frustrated sigh and there was a rustle of paperwork. "Honestly, Mike, you did your good deed, and I know you don't take responsibilities and such lightly, but she's in good hands. We'll take care of her, and you're just in the way. Haven't you got work today?"

"I let Eddie know I wouldn't be making it."

Sydney heard him shift, and the sensation of movement against her palm told her that he'd been holding her hand the whole time. That made her feel just a little bit better, more relaxed, and she struggled to hold on to consciousness as sleep threatened to close in on her again.

"You're coming over for Lyle's birthday, right? He'd be crushed if you missed it."

"Yeah, I'll be there. Of course I will. I've got his present already."

"Whatever it is, please just tell me that it doesn't make any noise."

"Let me guess." He chuckled, and Sydney thought, god I've missed that sound. "Steve bought him that robot toy he's been dying for."

"Complete with flashing lights and a whopping twenty different noises. I swear sometimes the house sounds like a war zone. I've got to finish my rounds, Mike, but I want you to promise me you're going to stay out of the way, and you're going to leave before five. You are not staying here all night, you hear me?"

"Yeah."

Sydney wanted to smile, but she was already falling sleep again. Liar, she thought, as if she could sense the fib through the warm pressure of his hand.

"I'll bring you some coffee when I head back this way."

There's a steaming cup of coffee in his hand, and she sends a silent thank-you to God as she crosses the warehouse floor at a dripping, squishing jog. She snatches the cardboard cup from his hands and burns her tongue on the drink, but it feels wonderful as she swallows it down, letting the warmth spread from her stomach out.

"Thank you," she says. "That's the most delicious thing I've ever tasted in my life."

He smiles, leans back to half-perch on a crate and looks her over. "For five bucks, it had better be, but I get the feeling you didn't actually taste it anyway. I wanted to get you one, but I didn't want to look suspicious, picking up two coffees on my own..."

She smiles back, hands him the nearly-empty cup. "But you did bring me one. You just didn't know it at the time. Just like I didn't know we were scheduled for a downpour today. I always forget that there are times when it actually rains here."

"For some reason I always thought you'd be totally on top of the weather report. Prepared for every eventuality, you know. Contingency plans. Or I guess I assumed you would've at least looked out the window at all those storm clouds before you decided to jog over here."

"I was distracted," she says.

"And now you're just wet."

"Well... yeah."

He looks at her for a long moment and then says, quietly, "I wish I could give you a ride home."

"Yeah," she says. They lock eyes and the look stretches on a little longer than it should, and she feels a little warmer. "But it's okay. I'll just take a really hot bath when I get home. You know, the kind that makes cold toes all tingly."

His eyes seem to darken, just a little, and she realizes she's oversharing.

"So I guess you got my drop about the mission to Copenhagen."

He nods, making a visible effort to go back to business mode. "I did," he says. "It sounds like a bit of a cakewalk. Which is exactly why I'm worried about it."

She pulls herself up to sit on top of another crate, and lets her heels thump a few times against the side of the box. "It'll be no problem. You worry about everything," she teases.

He shakes his head, unusually solemn, and says, "No. Just you."

He wasn't holding her hand anymore, but the first thing she knew when she woke was that someone was in the room with her, and it wasn't him. She swallowed down panic and managed, this time, to open her eyes.

A nurse blinked back at her, surprised, then smiled. "How are you feeling, sweetie?" the woman said. Then, quickly, "Oh, no, nevermind, don't try to talk, I'll get the doctor."

She went to a phone on the wall and said, "Doctor Janson to sixteen, please, Doctor Janson to sixteen." The sound echoed back from the hallway.

The nurse moved back toward the bed, smiling as she scribbled in Sydney's chart, took her blood pressure and checked her pulse, double-checked the IV line that ran into the needle in Sydney's arm. "You're looking much better," the woman commented, as she worked. "We were a little worried about you for awhile there. But don't worry, you're going to be fine."

Sydney wanted to ask where Vaughn had gone -- she wondered fleetingly if she'd hallucinated his presence in the first place -- but the tube down her throat kept her from talking, and she wasn't sure she could muster the words, anyway.

Doctor Janson -- "call me Charlie" -- turned out to be surprisingly young and energetic; just watching him bound cheerfully into the room made Sydney tired again. He kept up a constant stream of chatter as he eased the tube from her throat, and he took her hand and held it as he told her, very earnestly, that she was going to be just fine.

"Think you can talk, a little?" he asked, after giving her a tiny sip of tepid water to soothe her throat. "Can you tell us your name? Any allergies to any medications?"

She nodded, and said, "Sydney Haines. H-A-I-N-E-S. No allergies." She swallowed, licked her lips with a tongue that wasn't much more moist, and then asked, "Where am I?"

"You're in Circumstance Hospital. We admitted you early this morning; you were found out on the highway, passed out near your car. We dug a bullet out of your belly. You're a very lucky girl. It missed all the major organs -- came too close for comfort to the liver, though -- and it stopped before it could hit the spinal cord. We managed to get it out clean, and we've given you a transfusion; you lost a lot of blood. You were out in the cold for awhile, but luckily nothing too serious as far as exposure goes. The sheriff's going to be by later to ask you about what happened, but right now I want you to rest and regain your strength, okay?"

She nodded, weakly. "There was someone here earlier," she rasped. "I think. Holding my hand."

Janson smiled, scribbling something on his clipboard. "That'd be Mike," he said. "It was one of his peewees who found you; he brought you in. Eileen made him go up the road for dinner, but I'm sure he'll be back in no time. You should rest, you can talk to him when you're feeling stronger. I'll be in to check on you a little later. You need anything to help you sleep?"

She shook her head, and her eyelids were already drooping as he walked out the door. "Peewees?" she managed to murmur to the nurse -- Eileen, she guessed -- who had moved closer again to position an emergency call button near Sydney's hand.

"Peewee hockey," Eileen replied, giving Sydney's arm a warm little squeeze. "Mike's the coach. A couple of the kids found you when they were walking out to the lake for morning practice. You were pretty lucky they practice out there; nobody uses the highway much on that side of town; usually they're heading out the other way to get to the interstate..."

Sydney tried to listen, to stay awake and learn all about Circumstance and Eileen and everything else in Vaughn's life. She didn't even know what his name was anymore. She did know that he was in danger with her there, but it seemed like something that she should worry about later. Keeping her eyes open seemed less important, too, and Eileen's voice faded away.

She finds him, finally, at the rink. There's no stick or puck today, just skates, and he's doing steady circuits around the perimeter, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, head down as he watches the ice streak by beneath his feet.

She sits down in the penalty box to watch him, and he makes three full circuits before he even notices she's there. She gives him a weak smile as he passes by, and he returns it even more half-heartedly, but he continues his laps, shoulders hunched, for another ten minutes. She doesn't mind. She sits, and waits, and watches him skate, and wishes he was doing it with the energy and enthusiasm she'd seen him display just a few days ago, the last time they'd been on the ice. She's kissed him then, and she'd give anything to touch him now.

He finally coasts to a stop in front of the box, then clambers in, swinging around and dropping himself onto the bench next to her with a familiarity born of a frequent visitor to the penalty box.

They don't talk for awhile, but then she says, "You met with Yeager again?"

He nods. "They've revoked my field rating," he says. "Your father protested it but there's nothing he can do right now. My clearance has been downgraded more permanently. They may remove me as your handler."

She bites her lip a little, nervously tucks her hair behind her ear. "We won't let them."

He sighs. "I know." And there's quite for another minute or two, and then he reaches over and covers her hand with his. "Talk to me."

The contact makes her want to sob with relief, but she swallows around the lump in her throat and says, "Talk about what?"

He pauses, as if he's not sure that he really wants to say it, but then he says, "The first time you went skating. Tell me about that."

She looks at him sharply, but he's still staring at the ice. His jaw is clenched tightly. She thinks, He tries so hard for me, and then she says, "No."

He finally looks at her, frowns, squeezes her hand a little tighter. "Syd?"

"No," she repeats. "Tell me about the first time you went skating."

His smile this time is wide and genuine, and she thinks, We'll be fine. Oh, please, let us be fine. But she's not quite sure that they can go back to where they were.

The next time she woke up, she felt infinitely better; her mind was clearer, and there was only a slight delay each time she tried to move, as her brain attempted to communicate with her still-sluggish body. She still hurt all over, but she decided to take her small victories and run with them.

Vaughn was back, and so was Eileen; he sat next to the bed, and she'd pulled up a chair near the foot. They both held coffee as they talked in quiet voices, and neither noticed when Sydney woke.

"We gave them both citations," Vaughn was saying. "Your brother had all the permits he needed to be ice fishing this time of year, but I've had to revoke them already. I swear to you, Eileen, if he keeps using two lines like he's doing, going over quota, fishing without a license... this is going to get a lot more serious than a couple of tickets."

"I know," Eileen replied, frowning down at her coffee mug. "He's a good guy, but he just... well, you know. Not a lot of respect for law and order."

"I hate to sound like some law enforcement cliche, but maybe a night in holding would do him good. He's headed for a lot more than that if he keeps it up. I'd hate to have to take this to a judge."

"He's too delicate for prison," Eileen said, laughing. She glanced guiltily at Sydney, afraid that she'd woken the sleeping patient, and that was when she realized that Sydney was awake already.

"Lord, Sydney, you nearly scared me out of my skin!" she said, standing to check the patient's pulse. "That's an eerie habit you have of lying there awake and not saying a word."

Sydney nodded weakly but she wasn't paying much attention to the nurse; her head had lolled to the right, and her eyes had met Vaughn's. He smiled at her, hesitantly, and swiped a hand self-consciously through his hair. She had wondered if, going into protection, they would've changed his hair or given him colored contacts or otherwise disguised him, but they -- or he -- must have decided it would be too much trouble, because he looked just like she remembered him.

"Oh! Sydney, this is Mike Niemans," Eileen introduced. "He's been sitting here pretty much constantly since we brought you in, so try not to break his heart all at once." She chuckled at her own joke, but neither of them were really listening.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she responded, and with the same easy wordless communication they'd perfected before, they decided together that pretending they didn't know each other would be too much work.

He put his coffee on the bedside table and then reached out his hand, hesitantly, to brush her hair back from her face. She smiled at him, and he lingered, his fingers brushing over her cheek, then his palm rested there, loaning her the warmth from the coffee mug.

"I wish you'd stop making me worry," he murmured.

"Sorry," she rasped back.

"You two know each other?" Eileen stood at the other side of the bed, watching the two of them with a bewildered look on her face. "Mike, you could've said something."

"Could we have a minute, Eileen?" Mike asked, casually shooting her a look that Sydney knew from experience could make almost any woman crumble.

"Yeah, okay," the nurse replied, heading for the hallway. "I'll see if Dr. Janson wants to look in on you while you're awake, Sydney. Be right back."

For a moment after she left, neither of them could speak. Mike found his voice first, though, and said, "What happened?"

"I was sent on a recovery op to a church in Piblington. They wanted me to meet with someone who'd recently retired there," Sydney said. "He became a minister, of all things, but he used to be a hired assassin, and about twenty years ago, he worked for Sloane. Kendall thought he had documents we could use. I guess Sloane did, too, but his team beat me to it. I had the misfortune of walking into the church when they were walking out. I nearly got away, but one of them surprised me. I got to the car and I drove as far as I could before it ran out of gas."

"You knew I was in Circumstance?" he asked.

"No. I never asked them where they sent you; it was safer if I didn't know. It's just coincidence, I guess... though I'm glad you're here now."

He ran his fingers through his hair again and let out a nervous puff of breath. "So how do you want to deal with this? What's your extraction procedure? I saw on your chart that you're using an alias."

She nodded. "I'll need to call in," she said. "But as far as extraction... well, I guess it's a lot more complicated. If they can track me here, you're in danger. They'll have to extract us both, then relocate you again."

The look on his face was positively stormy, but he could only open his mouth then snap it shut again as Dr. Janson entered, followed by Eileen and an older man in a brown police uniform.

"Sydney, this is Sheriff Townsend. He'd like to ask you some questions, but if you're not up to it--"

"It's fine," Sydney said, with a wan smile. Mike's hand slipped into hers and she gave it a light, reassuring squeeze. Janson smiled and stepped out again, pulling Eileen along with him.

"I appreciate it," Townsend said, as he pulled up a chair at her bedside. He sat slowly and took out a notepad, then gave a nod to the man sitting on the other side of the bed. "How you doin', Mike? Those fellas up at the Haggerty cabin still giving you trouble?"

"Doing alright, Jerry," Mike answered. "And no, they're all sorted out; everything's fine up there."

Townsend nodded, slowly and deliberately, as he uncapped his pen, and muttered, "Good, good. That's great." When he looked at Sydney, she got the distinct impression that the small-town sheriff routine was an act for her benefit. His eyes were sharp and he didn't strike her as a pushover.

She spun him a story about a late-night pit-stop at a rest station, and a completely random carjacking attempt by a stranger whose face she never did quite see. She wasn't entirely sure he was buying it, but he nodded and made concerned noises in all the appropriate places.

"I'd like for you to come in and make a formal statement when you're feeling up to it," he said, after he'd snapped his notebook shut and tucked it away in his pocket again. "But that can wait until you're recovered. So, Eileen tells me you know our Mike, here, and I can see plainly that's the case."

"We met in college," Mike supplied. "She was a freshman at UConn when I was a senior."

"Funny the places you run into old friends, huh?" Townsend rose with the same deliberate care he'd shown when sitting down, and carefully placed his chair back in the corner. "I'll let you get your rest, Sydney, but you feel free to come by or call if you remember anything else that may be helpful, alright? My office is just across the street."

"Thank you," Sydney answered, with a smile. Townsend gave her one in return as he exited, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

"I need to call in," she said, a few minutes after the sheriff had left the room. "Weiss must be going crazy."

Mike nodded and handed her a cell phone that he dug from his pocket. "It's secure," he said.

It seemed to take an eternity for Weiss to answer his phone, and Vaughn watched her as she listened to it ringing. There was a question in his eyes, but he was holding his tongue as she made the call.

Finally there was a breathless, "Weiss," on the other end of the line, and she resisted the urge to smile as she answered, "This is Sydney."

"Jesus Christ, Sydney, where the hell have you been?" Weiss exclaimed, loud enough that Vaughn raised an eyebrow at the noise. "You were supposed to check in six hours ago!"

"I ran into trouble," she answered. "I'm in Circumstance."

"'In circumstance'?" Weiss repeated. "What is that, some kind of female thing? What's that supposed to mean?"

Sydney sighed, wishing with all her might that she could reach physically through the phone line and smack her handler upside the head. "No, Weiss, I mean I'm in a place called Circumstance."

A long moment of silence, then, "Okay, we're going to extract you immediately. What are you doing there? We've got to get you out of there before anyone sees you. Jesus. Has anyone seen you?"

"Actually, I sort of got shot. So the doctor's seen me. And the nurse. And the sheriff. And some peewee hockey players." She paused. "And Michael."

"Oh. Well, shit. We'll extract you both. Okay. No problem. Right? Wait, you got shot? Are you okay?"

"Sure; it's pretty painful but I'll be fine. But I think people are going to notice if I just disappear before I've even fully recovered. This seems like a pretty small place; I'm guessing everybody knows everybody else's business." She looked to Vaughn for confirmation and he nodded with a fond half-smile on his face. "And I don't think Mike really wants to move again."

"Oh God, Sydney, don't tell me he's there with you right now. Kendall's going to think I told you where he was! I'm going to get the lecture of the century!"

"Sorry. I'm using his phone. Do you want to talk to him?"

"No, but next time you check in we'll all have a chat. I have to go meet with Kendall and figure out what we're going to do with you, Bristow. I swear you live to give me ulcers. Just hang in there, concentrate on recuperating, and we'll keep an eye on things. Hopefully if there's any trouble we'll be able to spot it before it comes your way."

She could still hear him muttering to himself as he hung up the phone, and she handed the cell back to Mike with a small smile. "Thanks," she said. "When do you think I can get out of here?"

He gave her a stern look, but he couldn't seem to resist picking up her hand again and holding it gently between both of his. "You were shot. Take it easy."

"Good advice," said Eileen, from the doorway. She stepped inside with a smile and picked up Sydney's chart from the foot of the bed. "You seem to be recovering well, but I wouldn't expect to be out of here before the end of the week."

Sydney groaned, tipping her head back against the pillows in an exaggerated show of frustration. Once she was there, though, she found the position to be incredibly comfortable, and was disinclined to move again.

"You need to sleep," Mike said, before Eileen even had a chance to express the same sentiment. He stood, dropping her hand and running feather-light fingers up the inside of her arm. The contact seemed to startle him, a little, as if he wasn't quite sure why he'd done it. He frowned and said, "See you tomorrow," then walked out the door.

Eileen followed, and Sydney could hear them outside the door for just a moment before she slipped into sleep.

"How do you know her?" Eileen asked in a hushed tone of voice.

There was a pause before Vaughn's very quiet answer drifted to Sydney from the hallway. "She's the one that got away."

He finds it hard to touch her, at first, and she finds it harder to touch him. She's paralyzed by her fear that even the lightest touch will aggrevate a wound or make him flinch. He's terrified that he may have forgotten how to feel anything at all. So there's little contact between them, and then he has to go, anyway, and it's easier for them both this way, if they continue with the almost-touches and uncomfortable looks until it's time to meet the plane that will take him away.

On the tarmac at the Burbank Airport, he kisses her, and it feels so marvelously close to right that she clutches at his jacket and tries it again. The second kiss is better, and she thinks that maybe, if they try it just one more time, that will be it, and they'll have each other back again.

But the decision is made -- she's made it for him, really, and he's just broken enough not to argue -- and he rests his forehead against hers for a moment, eyes closed and looking so bone-deep weary that she can't help but think that she's made the right choice, that this is better for him and her and everyone.

"I love you," he whispers.

"I love you, too," she says. "Don't ever forget that."

He nods, gives her a not-quite-kiss on the corner of her mouth, and then turns and walks up the stairs into the little airplane. He doesn't look back, and she's glad, because if he had, they both might've lost their resolve. She goes back to the passenger lounge to stand and watch as the plane takes off, and she wonders for awhile where he's going, who he'll be, what his life will be like, if he'll miss her, who he'll meet and fall in love with and sacrifice for. She wonders whether he'll be happy, and some selfish part of her hopes that he can't be, without her.

An hour after his plane has vanished from sight, she leaves the airport, and she manages to not even cry until she's almost home, but then she has to pull over on Los Feliz Boulevard and sob for awhile with her head against the steering wheel. When she gets home, her father is waiting, and she breaks down in his arms.

She made them let her out much earlier than they wanted to, and she had sheer tenacity to thank for it. She spent a few quiet, uneventful days in the hospital pestering the small staff with constant pleas to leave. She saw Vaughn only rarely; his work and life couldn't be put off any longer, and he stopped by only twice in three days, when he was returning from work. He wore a Park Ranger uniform in shades of brown both times, and he smelled of soil and snow.

She hadn't expected to see him the day they released her, but he turned up that morning, dressed casually this time, and ignored her weak protests as he led her outside to his truck -- also with the Parks Service logo emblazoned on the doors -- and helped her into the passenger side.

"You're staying with me until you're extracted," he said, offering no alternatives. "It's safer and it's smarter, Sydney, so don't argue with me."

She didn't. Instead, she took in her first real view of the town as they rolled through. It was small, but not absolutely tiny; they drove past a high school, a shopping district, and even a Starbucks. Everything was covered in a fresh layer of snow that had fallen during the night, and there were a few people out in front of the shops with shovels, others digging out their cars. A couple of mothers with bundled-up babies in their arms chatted on a street corner, and an old man walked his old dog with aching slowness across the crosswalk in front of them.

"Usually it's a little busier out here," Vaughn said, as if her thoughts had flashed across her forehead. "But this time of the morning, the kids are in school and most everybody else is at work. A lot of people commute to the Boeing factory; it's only about twenty miles."

"I like it," she commented. "It seems peaceful."

"Just wait until the kids are out of school. I miss Los Angeles a lot," he admitted, "but this is a pretty good place. And you'd think the small-town feel would be dangerous, with everybody wanting to know everybody else's business, but it's actually been an asset. Everybody notices when there's anything out of the ordinary, and the gossip mill around here puts the efficiency of the world's intelligence agencies to shame."

His home turned out to be a small two-bedroom cabin, on a slow ten-minute drive from the center of town and huddled next to its own narrow access road. There was a young mutt -- at least 25% German Shepherd, and only God knew what else -- loitering on the porch like some sort of canine hood, and it sauntered down the steps to meet them as Vaughn pulled the truck up next to the house and parked.

"That's Clancy," Vaughn said, as Sydney opened her door and was greeted by the casual inspection of a wet nose. "My boss, Ed, got him to train as a search and rescue dog. As it turned out he wasn't really interested in searching or rescuing or anything else that involved any kind of work, so I ended up with him." He gingerly helped her down from the high cab of the truck and led her inside.

The house existed in a state of mild disorder, and he swept aside a few issues of Sports Illustrated as he settled her in on the couch, pulling a woven red throw down over her body and ordering her to rest while he made breakfast. She ended up turning on CNN and basking in the smells of hot french toast that drifted in from the kitchen, which was separated from the living room only by a bar-style counter. Clancy played hard to get for awhile, but eventually clambered up to lay next to her on the couch, with his head in her lap. It all felt wonderfully domestic and achingly familiar, except that this was the wrong house and the wrong dog and entirely too late.

He brought the french toast, eggs and sausage out to her and they sat in silence as they ate. The food was good, but she hardly tasted it as she snuck glances at him -- sitting all the way on the other end of the couch -- and tried to pretend her focus was on the television. When she sat her half-empty plate on the coffee table, Clancy eyed it hungrily, but stayed put, as if he were debating whether the leftovers would be worth trying to steal.

"Do they have a plan for getting you out yet?" he asked, conversationally, when they'd both finished their meals.

"No, but I spoke to Weiss yesterday. He said they'll have me out soon."

"Good." Silence, long and heavy, stretched out between them, and then he said, "So how is everybody?"

"Will's been writing again," she answered, with a soft, fond smile. "Novels, and under a pen name, but it's good to see him so enthusiastic about something again. My father is... well, my father. We're getting closer all the time, but it's slow going. Weiss is a good guy... a good handler. Not as good as my last one, though." She tried to smile at him, but the grin turned into a yawn.

"I haven't got a guest bedroom," Vaughn said, collecting the dishes from the coffee table. "But my bedroom is that door there. You should get some rest. I know you're feeling stronger but it's going to take some time."

She nodded tiredly as he walked back to the kitchen, and she rested her head on the back of the couch for a moment until she could summon the strength to get up and walk to the bedroom. It never came, and she didn't want to disturb the dog, anyway, and the couch was very, very comfortable.

He knows better than to sneak up on her, so she hears him close the door, first, then his footsteps approaching just before his arms wrap around her stomach and his chin comes to rest on her shoulder.

"Hi," she says, smiling even though he can't see her face.

"Hi," he answers. His lips press against her neck, then her shoulder, and one hand slips underneath her blouse to stroke at the flat muscles of her abs. The other slips lower, gathering up the material of her skirt little by little, inching it up her thighs.

When she turns her head, he stretches over her shoulder to plant a kiss at the corner of her smiling mouth, and his body presses tighter against her back. "What are you doing?" she murmurs.

"I'm about to fuck you on your new desk in your new office," he whispers back. The hem of her skirt is officially reaching dangerous territory.

She can't control the laugh that bursts from her lips. "You're not serious. You want to have sex in the middle of Joint Task Force headquarters. I'm sure there's surveillance. And anyone could just walk in."

"I don't care." His hand slips under the skirt now, fingers stroking the inside of her thigh, making her moan a little when those brushes stray higher.

"My dad could walk in," she manages to gasp, but his hands are too busy and she isn't able to think about anything anymore.

He spins her around to face him and kisses her hard, pushing her back against the desk -- unmarred, as yet, by the paperwork that she's sure will soon bury it -- and lifting her up to sit on the edge of it. Her skirt bunches around her hips, and she thinks that if they're about to end their careers for an office tumble, she might as well help. Her hands go to his waist to unbuckle, unbutton, and unzip, and her nails scrape teasingly over the front of his boxers before her hand delves inside.

His groan is breathless against her ear, and she thinks somewhat distantly that there is nothing better in the world than his hand on her thigh and his hot breath rushing across her neck.

She woke in the bedroom, wrapped up in the smell of him in the comforter and the pillows. It was dark, but the door was open part-way, admitting the irregular flickering light of the television and the low murmur of what sounded like sports commentary. Sydney sat up slowly, willing the fuzziness in her head to go away as she stood and moved out into the living room.

Clancy lay sprawled out on the floor in front of the television, dozing with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Vaughn, however, wasn't in the room at all. She found him, instead, in the bathroom, bent over the sink, wearing nothing but a towel .

The scars took her by surprise, and she couldn't help the little gasp that startled him, or the hand that reached out to trace over the patterns with shaking fingers.

"What did you think, Syd?" he asked softly. His hands gripped the edge of the sink and he stared at her reflection in the mirror. "Did you think the scars would just fade to nothing once I was away from you? Some things just don't disappear, no matter how much time and space you give them."

She almost felt like crying -- almost -- but she knew he wouldn't want her to. She kissed him instead, long and hard, pressing him back against the sink. After a surprised pause he responded just as voraciously, wrapping her in his arms, his tongue flickering against her teeth. They stayed locked like that for a few forever minutes, and then his fingers curled around her biceps and gently pushed her away.

"You're leaving soon," he whispered. "And I'm not going to put either of us through that again. We made it easier the first time."

She bit her lip and nodded, taking a careful step back, trying to hide the faint glimmer of tears in her eyes, and said, "What're you doing up so early?"

"Hockey practice this morning." His hair had been nearly combed, but he ran a hand through it and it stuck up every which way again. "You should go back to sleep; I'll be back in a few hours."

She bit her lip again, then told herself to stop. She couldn't seem to get her tells under control with him, probably because she'd never had to hide anything from him. She realized, from the twisting ache in the pit of her stomach, that she missed that. "Can I come with you?" she asked.

"Come with me? To hockey practice? I... why?"

She shrugged, one shouldered, and couldn't meet his eyes. "I'd like to watch. And get some air. And just, you know... get out."

He leaned back against the sink, pinning her with an examining eye, and said, "You don't really have the clothes to be sitting around in the cold." She started to protest, but he continued, cutting her off. "But you can borrow some of mine. I can leave the truck running so you'll have the heater, and we'll bring Clancy along. He's actually a pretty good heater."

His smile was faint, but it was there. His good mood hadn't faded by the time they'd dressed and headed out onto the rural route where he'd originally found her. Heat poured from the vents, and Clancy had already gone back to sleep, curled up on the seat between them with his head in Sydney's lap. Vaughn parked the truck in the snow at the edge of the lake and left it running with the headlights pointed out over the ice. He retrieved his skates from behind his seat and pulled them, then gave her a smile and jumped out of the truck.

"Let me know if you're too cold or you're not feeling up to this, okay?"

She nodded her assent and said, "I think I can handle sitting here," she said with a smile. "Go get 'em, tiger."

On the ice by himself, he skated with the same effortless grace that she remembered. But she'd never seen him with children before, and as his peewees arrived in ones and twos -- some of them dropped off by bleary-eyed parents, some having walked the short distance from town -- she found herself fascinated by their interaction. She couldn't hear what he said to any of them, but he instructed his pupils with what seemed to be limitless patience, and it was clear that the whole little clutch of them adored their coach. When one of the smaller ones took a spill, Michael had him smiling again within moments.

She'd wondered sometimes, before -- before Turkey, before Yeager and review boards and even before the fall of SD-6 -- what it might be like to have children with Michael Vaughn. She'd always suspected he'd be a great father, but she liked to imagine what their children would look like. Would they have their father's eyes and her hair? His dimples and her cheekbones? His love for hockey and hers for literature?

But she hadn't thought about that in some time, because that was something she'd given up. She'd done it for him, and for her, and for other agents who would've been put into the line of fire if they'd tried to make things work.

Hot air blasted from the vents and warmed her face, and the peewees' skating drills soon turned hypnotic. Clancy shifted and snuggled his head in against her abdomen, and she stopped fighting the pull of sleep. She wondered, as she drifted away, if she might dream of the children they'd never had.

She hasn't known him long, but it doesn't take an intimate acquaintance to see that Michael Vaughn is extremely pissed off. The bloodmobile isn't large enough to truly contain the force of his ire, and there isn't really room to pace like he wants to, either. When she opens the back doors and steps inside, she finds him standing at the opposite end of the van, bent over a bit to keep from hitting his head on the roof, hands on his hips, and an incredibly lethal expression on his face.

The truck is soundproofed, but he has to wait until she's secured the doors before he explodes. "What the fuck was that?" he barks, the moment he hears the latch click into place.

"I was doing what I felt was necessary to complete the mission," Sydney replies, between gritted teeth. "And with all due respect, Agent Vaughn, I think I'd know that better than you would."

"The hell you do!" He turns away to pace, finds himself confronted by close quarters on all sides, and curses under his breath. "If you were so hot about keeping me on as your handler because you thought a more junior agent would be easier to push around, you'd better think again. It is my job to assess your situation, Sydney, and assess the risk and the benefit, and frankly I think I'm pretty damn good at what I do. When I told you to abort the countermission, I meant it."

"It worked out," she argues, throwing her bookbag onto one of the counters. "I completed the mission, I got us the intel. I made the right call!"

"It's not your call to make!" His voice is a little too loud, too sharp in the confines of the truck. He looks at the floor and continues in a calmer, lower tone. "There are going to be times in the field, countless times, where you'll need to make split-second decisions and I will back you one hundred percent on the decisions you make. But this was not one of those times. You didn't have all the information I had, Sydney, and I couldn't relay it all to you. I assessed the situation and decided that that particular countermission was not worth your life. I ordered you to abort, and you didn't. You were about two seconds away from caught, and I refuse to let that happen to you. Not on my watch, and my watch runs twenty-four hours a day. So get used to it."

"My priority is bringing down SD-6, Vaughn," she answers. "That's going to mean taking risks."

"My priority is your safety," he retorts. "And that's going to mean trusting me when I tell you not to take them."

She spent most of that Saturday sleeping, curled up in Michael's bed with the dog warming her feet. On Sunday, Mike took her to Lyle's birthday party. Lyle was, he explained during the car ride over, Eileen's son, and a member of Michael's hockey team. Sydney had been worried about the party ever since Mike had invited her to come; she feared it would be awkward, or that she'd be bombarded with questions, but instead she was greeted with warmth and a subtle acceptance, and though clearly the thought of her bleeding out in the road was on people's minds, they didn't mention it. She drank apple juice and carried on longer conversations about lizards and the finer points of ice hockey with Andy and Clive, the two boys who had discovered her in the snow, and she gave them each a gentle kiss on the cheek that they pretended to hate.

Michael hovered near her side all evening, watching her carefully for signs of fatigue. It didn't take long to find them -- she started fading about the same time that the younger kids did -- and he said their goodbyes while she waited, nearly falling asleep in her chair. When he came back, he smiled at her drooping eyelids and reached down to take her hands, helping her up and leading her toward the door.

"I like your friends," she murmured sleepily as he led her toward the truck.

He put his arm around her shoulders, holding her close to ward off the cold, and said, "I'll bet you'd like to sleep even more. What would you say to Belgian waffles for breakfast?"

But when they got back to his house, she didn't sleep; she lay awake in bed and thought about how he tasted. She imagined walking out into the living room, finding him on the couch; straddling his slender hips and leaning in to kiss him. She imagined his silhouette appearing in the bedroom door, then crossing the room and falling into her arms.

She remembered how he looked when they found him Turkey, and she imagined the same thing happening again, because she was too weak to leave him a second time. She could almost feel the blood, wet and sticky on her fingers, and she hugged her knees to her chest.

"You alright?"

The voice from the doorway snapped her out of her trance, but she couldn't find her voice to answer him.

"Sydney?"

Last time, it had taken two hours in a steaming shower just to scrub every last trace of blood from her hands.

A sob broke loose, and he moved from the doorway and into the room, and that was so, so much worse. "I'm not strong enough," she gasped, as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

He was ruffled by sleep, but alert, and he reached out to grasp her hand. "Not strong enough for what?" he asked.

She turned her hand over, grasping his in return, and pulled him closer, until their lips met in the middle. She kissed with an intensity born of desperation and denial, as if she were trying to crawl inside his soul and find sanctuary there. Her hands found the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it up, and she broke their kiss only long enough to tug the material off his body.

There was a flash of panic in his eyes when they rolled entirely onto the bed, and she imagined she could see his thoughts there, scrolling past like an electronic stock ticker. His eyes said Please Sydney please don't do this to me again I'm too weak and I can't lose you twice. But she was weak, too; she was weaker, and she couldn't be strong, not even for him.

She kissed him again and her fingers absently traced some of the lines and patterns and marks that marred his skin. "I'm not that strong," she whispered to herself.

His hands captured hers, held her fingers pinned to his chest, and he caught her eyes, too, made them prisoners. He murmured, "The scars won't disappear, but we can. Stay with me."

She couldn't say no. She wasn't that strong.

The beach in Santa Monica is busy on a Saturday afternoon, and jogging on the bicycle path that snakes through the sand is a task that requires sharp reflexes. She dodges a couple standing shakily on in-line skates, and darts around a clutch of tourists on rented bikes. Coming over the rise of a footbridge, she's nearly run over by another group of skaters, and she wonders if using her sidearm in this case would be considered unauthorized use of deadly force.

Her legs carry her past restaurants and beachside apartments precariously perched on hillsides that look like they need only the smallest earthquake to send them sliding right into the Pacific. The crowd thins out the further north she goes as she leaves behind the good swimming beaches and the multitude of tourist-trap equipment-rental shops and overpriced food stands that congregate around the Pier.

She finally slows as she approaches a steep hill; she knows that the path continues over that rise, past parking lots and stretches of desolate, deserted beach where the surf is too rough and the rocks too numerous for most of the swimmers and surfers that populate these beaches. But her run for the day stops here. She drops down to sit on the nearest bench, pausing to breathe and taking a long drink from the water bottle she carries with her. She's only been waiting for a few moments when he appears at the top of the rise, jogging down; when he reaches the bench, he sits next to her and takes a long swig of his own water. His gray t-shirt is stained with sweat, just like her halter top, and it's obvious he's been running for some time.

"What's up?" he asks her, once he's treated his parched throat.

"Nothing," she replies, with a smile. "I just thought you could use the exercise."

He chuckles, squeezes out some of the water from his bottle onto his head to cool himself off. "Takin' up comedy, Bristow? I'll let Devlin know you can't go on your next mission because you're playing the Laugh Factory instead."

She laughs and leans back, throwing one arm across the back of the bench and tilting her face back to let the sun warm it. "I just needed someone to talk to," she says.

"I'm here. Tell me." He regards her intently, enjoying one of the rare meetings where he's allowed to look her in the face. There's nothing suspicious about this encounter; what guy doesn't try to pick up women on this beach?

She grimaces, thinks about the mess that is her personal life, wonders if she should dump all that on him at all. Thinks that maybe she didn't need to talk so much as just be, to exist for a moment in the presence of someone to whom she did not lie. The only person who held all her truths. "Let's just watch the ocean for a little while first."

He knows they don't have much time here. She knows it too. But they sit and watch the wheeling seagulls, and the blinding brilliance of the mid-afternoon sun on the water, and they are content with the silence between them.

Before dawn, she slipped from the bed, took Michael's cellular phone from the nightstand, and moved quietly into the living room. She made three calls that night. In the morning, they went to the post office and picked up her new identity. It came neatly packaged with all the essentials, and a note from Weiss that said, Don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Michael Niemans was waiting by his truck when Sydney Haines emerged from the post office to meet him, and he smiled at her, and she smiled at him, and she thought that maybe, if they tried it just one more time, that would be it, and they'd have each other back again.

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I love Feedback. Me and Feedback are like this ||. In fact, I'm thinking about proposing to Feedback. You're all invited to the wedding.