Nightmare

Rating: PG

Post "The Telling," AU, Sequel to "Bad Dream" and "Sweet Dreams"

S/V

Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, they belong to JJ Abrams and Bad Robot Productions.

Synopsis: Sydney and Vaughn aren't spies, they've never been spies. But she's having nightmares again…

"You've been missing for almost two years."

Sydney Vaughn sits up with a jolt, putting a hand over her racing heart. Nononononono, the dreams couldn't be back, they couldn't be…

"What's the matter, sweetheart?" her husband asks drowsily, stirring beside her.

"Oh, Michael," she cries, collapsing into tears. "The dreams…the spy dreams…they're back."

"But you haven't had one of those for years." Michael is wide awake now, sitting up and placing a comforting arm around her shoulders.

"I--" She stops short, shaking her head. It was true; she'd stopped having the dreams years ago, after that wonderful one where they took down SD-6, where they were going to get to be together, where she knew that Michael would love her no matter what…

Now she isn't so sure.

"Talk to me, sweetheart," Michael says, squeezing her shoulders. "Tell me what's got you so upset."

"It-- it started out pretty great," Sydney says, wiping her tears away with a feeble smile. "We were spies, and we were having amazing sex, going out on missions, making plans for a weekend in Santa Barbara--"

"Sounds amazing," he says, tucking a few stray strands of hair behind her ear.

"It was, at first," she confesses. "But then-- oh, Michael." She collapses against him, letting him hold her even more tightly.

"Shh, baby, it's okay," he whispers soothingly. "Whatever it was, it's okay. It was just a bad dream"

"A nightmare," she whispers. "Michael-- I-- I collapsed on my own bedroom floor after a fight, and when I woke up, I was in an alley in Hong Kong, and I didn't know how long I'd been there or how I got there, and I made it to a CIA safe house…"

He doesn't say anything, only rubs her back comfortingly.

"And you walked in." She pulls away from his chest and looks up at him. "And you acted so awful, Michael, so sad, just not like yourself at all. You said you thought I was dead, and then--" she takes a deep breath, steeling herself to go on. "Then you rubbed your face, and I saw that you were wearing a wedding ring--"

"I thought we weren't married, in your dreams."

"We're not," she says firmly. "And then you told me-- you told me that I'd been missing for almost two years. I was missing, and you married someone else, Michael!"

"Are you sure?" he asks, beginning to look as concerned about this as she is.

"You were wearing a ring!" she cries.

"Sydney, calm down," he says, fear glowing in his green eyes. "Is there any way-- could I have been married to you, and you just didn't remember it?"

"I don't think so, Michael. Not with the way you were acting."

"Well, relax, sweetheart." He takes her hand, her left hand, and as he brings it to lips she sees that they are both wearing wedding rings, and that hers is welded to the beautiful engagement ring he'd given her when he'd asked her to be his wife nearly a decade ago. "It was just a dream."

"Yeah," she says wearily, taking her hands from his and climbing out of bed. "Go back to sleep, Michael. I'm going to go check on Gracie," she says, naming their third child, their youngest, their baby. Sydney had learned she was pregnant with her just before Michael had gotten the job offer, the partnership at the big New York City law firm. Sydney had been reluctant to move, reluctant to leave their friends and her father and his mother, but they'd both agreed that the opportunity was too good to pass up, not to mention the money. Besides, moving meant that Sydney got to decorate their new house, their newest version of suburban paradise, fill it with new furniture, fill the closet with new winter clothes, the kind she hadn't needed in LA. The two of them had been blessed in so many ways. She felt almost deliriously happy, most of the time.

She would have given anything not to have had that dream.

"Hello, Gracie," she whispered down at the child in the crib before her. It was barely morning, but the baby girl's green eyes were wide open; she lay there, solemnly staring up at her mother. She was such a good baby.

Sydney lifted her from the crib and settled down in the rocking chair, staring down at the beautiful child. Gracie's older brother had his mommy's dark hair and daddy's green eyes, while her sister was the opposite, with Mommy's eyes and Daddy's hair. Grace was all Michael, a tiny, female version of Michael, with sandy blonde hair and those amazing green eyes.

"You're my whole life, Gracie, do you know that?" she cooed to the girl. "You and your brother and your sister and your daddy."

Maybe that was why the dream had scared her so much.

She'd been a teacher once, but she'd quit after their son was born, their first child. Michael had just been made partner at the law firm he'd worked for in Los Angeles, and they'd known they'd be able to live comfortably without her salary. Besides, her own mother had died when she was a little girl, and her father had never been around. The idea of being a stay-at-home mommy had appealed to her. She'd never had a family, not really, and she wanted to devote her entire life to hers.

But what if she lost them?

Michael was an amazing husband-- attentive, loving, indulgent. In her dreams, he'd been the only person he could count on, and in life, she depended on him for so much. She'd hated the way she'd felt in her dream when she'd seen that wedding ring on his finger. Lost. Alone. As if she was about to face something awful, and she was going to have to face it all by herself.

"Syd?"

Sydney looks up at the doorway, offering her husband a shaky smile.

"That dream really shook you up, didn't it?"

She nods, afraid that she'll start crying if she tries to speak.

"Come here, baby."

She stands on shaky legs and deposits the baby back in her crib, then lets her husband take her in his arms.

"The dream ended," he whispers. "With me telling you you'd been missing for two years?"

"Yes," she says softly, a single tear rolling down her cheek.

"Syd…that can't be the end of the story," he says, wiping the tears from her cheek with a tender hand. "There has to be some explanation."

"Maybe," she says, her voice unsteady.

"There has to be."

She looks up at him, feeling more afraid than she can ever remember feeling. "Promise me you'll never leave me, Michael. I don't think I can do this without you."

"Sydney, I promised you that when I married you," he said, furrowing his brow in concern. "Of course I'll never leave you."

She lets him hold her close to him, and though she knows he thinks he is telling her the truth, she knows that he cannot see the future. He could walk out onto a busy New York street and get hit by a bus. He could go to the doctor for a routine checkup and learn he had some deadly disease.

He loves her, and he would never leave her on purpose, she knows that much.

But she fears that her nightmares won't stop any time soon.