Setting: A week after "The Frame" 3.17. The story doesn't exactly follow the missions of the episodes following 3.17, but I might incorporate some depending on how well this fic does. Though story line still the same! (Vaughn still with Lauren and has no idea that she is Covenant)

Ship: S/V baby!!

Rated: I'm not too good with rating but I would say high PG-14 for some colorful language and some descriptive scenes.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of Alias, that all goes to the brilliant mastermind JJ Abrams, though if I did Vaughn would be shirtless in a lot more episodes!

Music fic based on: "Red Blooded Woman" Kylie Minogue, "Dip it Low" Christina Milian, "My Prerogative" Britney Spears

This is my first fic that I've written so please review, and positive criticism is welcomed, but no negative criticism 'cause it's the holidays! Happy Holidays everyone!

11:30 p.m.: In a strip club in Magadan, Russia…

Sydney sauntered down the stage advancing slowly towards the pole in the corner of the stage, as she slipped her hand up to her head to turn on her com link that was disguised as a pair of black chandelier earrings. Wearing a black leather teddy and four inch strappy stilettos, or as she called them, her "screw me heels". Sydney grabbed on to the pole, which felt like an icicle cooling off her sweaty body.

Sydney had half hoped that her audience of horny guys would be fooled into thinking that the sweat was apart of her little "routine" as Weiss had referred to it as. Though Sydney's sweaty body was a combination of the spot-like lights that were beaming down on her, and her nerves acting up and causing the constant butterflies in her stomach. Sydney knew that she had a hot body, because she never had trouble turning men's heads her way, especially Vaughn. But some how taking off her clothes in the privacy of her own home with her lover was much different then taking off her clothes at some sleazy strip club, on a pole no less!

"I'm going to kill the guys in op tech for making me were this…this non piece of clothing!" Just because they never go out so the can actually meet real women, doesn't give them any reason to make be wear this just so they can be aroused!" thought Sydney in a huff as she slid down the pole very slowly giving all the men who were close to her a wide view of her ass.

Sydney continued to shake and shimmy her assets that she was blessed with as she continued on with her routine, all the while receiving numerous cat calls and twenties slipped down her top and slid into her knickers. "Well at least I'm making a lot of money, I could instead be shaking my assets for a crowd of cheap men who only tip dollar bills" "And just think with all this money I can surely buy enough hard liquor to make me forget that this night ever happened!" Sydney thought to herself.

"Come in freelancer do you copy, this is big daddy, if you copy flash the audience."

"Weiss, shut up, I swear I'm going to kick your ass when I get off this stage!" Sydney gritted through her teeth as she swung herself around the pole.

"Sorry Syd couldn't resist! Any way we found McKean. He's at the corner of the bar to your left, do you see him?" asked Weiss.

"I see him and I'm making my way over, get ready for the brush pass," said Sydney as she dismounted the stage and slowly began making her way around all of the men surrounding the tables. As she walked through the crowd of men, some sleaze ball on her way towards McKean slapped her ass, while the other grabbed at it. Sydney quickly turned her head and slapped his hand off her forcefully, but that didn't discourage him from being aroused unfortunately, if anything he was even more aroused with her sudden act of a dominatrix role. Sydney though continued on her way, after all she had a mission to complete…

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Earlier that morning 8:00 a.m.: In the Conference room at the CIA, Los Angeles

"This is Gregory McKean, a former KGB nuclear weapons specialists and Russian Kingpin. He is currently making deals with the Covenant about a project known as "чрезвычайное опустошение" said Dixon to the fellow agents in the room which consisted of Sydney, Weiss, Vaughn, Lauren, Jack, and Marshall, as he clicked a button to display a picture of McKean on the screen behind him.

"Utter Desolation" said Sydney as an out loud thought.

"That's right. Now what this "project: Utter Desolation" entails is beyond us but we can assume with McKlean's background knowledge on the design and creation of nuclear weapons that it has something to do with nuclear weapons." said Dixon.

"Do we know who McKean has been in contact with inside the Covenant and how many times he has been in contact with them," asked Vaughn.

"Actually just last week we received these photos from one of our freelance agents" Dixon clicked a button on the little control he was holding in his hand. On the screen behind him a picture of McKean and Sark were shown talking outside of an Irish pub.

"Sark" said Weiss in a mundane tone; he was really getting sick of that cocky little British punk always getting in the way of the CIA's business. Weiss was very surprised that he was still alive after all of this time, it's like that man had nine lives or something. "Why is it that all the bad guys always out live the good guys?" Weiss thought to himself.

"That is correct agent Weiss. To the best of or knowledge Sark and McKean have only met on one other occasion. Both of the meetings' purposes are currently unknown to us. However we have speculations that the meetings were about the prices for McKean's latest nuclear weapon." said Dixon.

"Do we know what his new weapon looks like, or anything about it?" asked Lauren in a vacant voice. "That stupid CIA, they don't even know what the weapon is, why is the Covenant wasting my time infiltrating the CIA, I mean they don't even know anything more about this nuclear weapon than we do," thought Lauren in a huff. "Oh well, at least my job has perks…" Lauren thought smugly to herself as she distinctively leaned in closer to her husband Michael Vaughn, all the while shooting Sydney with an evil glare, while Michael kept his focus on Dixon the whole time, ever since that whole fiasco with Sydney and getting a cup of coffee and Lauren and her dad dying he knew better than to make eye contact with either one of them. Michael knew that he had hurt Sydney after canceling on her last week even if she didn't show it, and he really felt bad about it too. But like Syd said she refused to be the other women, and Michael couldn't leave Lauren especially know that her father had just past away.

"Actually we-"Dixon started to say when Lauren's cell phone went off. Lauren looked down at the phone and quickly excused herself form the conference room. It was Sark who was calling her, and she left the room to go to a private office around the corner where she could berate Sark for interrupting her during an important meeting, so that she wouldn't cause a scene in the hallway and then expose her self.

"Anyway like I was saying we have been able to trace McKean to Magadan, Russia. More specifically to this place…" said Dixon as he clicked on the button to change the screen behind him to reveal a picture of the outside of an old building. "…a local strip club that he visits on a nightly purpose, and owns, we have come to realize that the strip club is just a cover up for McKean's private laboratory and company that he heads up in the basement of this strip club," said Dixon.

"Yes score! Hey Dixon I will go on this mission for you, and don't worry I won't enjoy myself at all. After all anything for my country is my motto!" said Weiss. Sydney tried to stifle her laughter as she placed a hand over her mouth, while Vaughn was watching her intently. Jack and Dixon just sent Weiss a cold steely glare to inform him to "shut up!" while Marshall just lightly chuckled to himself. "Just kidding guys, geez you two need to lighten up" said Weiss.

"If you are finished Agent Weiss, may I continue on?" asked Dixon making sure to stress the word "agent" more than necessary. "Yes, you may continue on, sorry sir" said Weiss as he slowly slumped down in his chair.

"As I was saying, before I was interrupted..." said Dixon as he shot another cold glare to Weiss. "Sydney, Vaughn, and as much as it pains me to say this Weiss..." said Dixon as he rubbed his forehead. "YES!" said Weiss. "Your mission will be to infiltrate the strip club and gain access to key card that will be on McKean, you will then proceed down to the basement of the building and gain access into the lab and down all the information on to a disk which you will then return to us when you arrive back. Sydney and Vaughn you will be on point and Weiss you will be surveillance. You three should head over to op tech where Marshall will go over everything that you need to make this mission a success. Your plane leaves in one hour, any questions?" asked Dixon. "None, ok then the meeting is dismissed," said Dixon.

Sydney and Weiss stood up and left the room following Marshall who had just left minutes ago, Vaughn trailed behind them.

"I can't believe you just said that in there about the strip club, you are such a pig" said Sydney in a humorous tone to Weiss.

"Oh please you know I turn you on with my pig like qualities, and just for the record, I can't believe that I didn't get my ass kicked for saying that. I thought for sure I was a goner," said Weiss as he lightly chuckled.

As Weiss and Sydney reached op tech they went in and found Marshall digging through a massive pile of gadgets, Vaughn came in a few seconds later.

"Ah, Marshall?" asked Sydney. "Yes, oh sorry guys just had to find that little piece… oh there it is!" said Marshall as he picked up a little gadget of sorts. "Um ok, so basically this mission is a grab and go mission, so the items that you guys will need aren't to complex. Here I have a state of the art cell phone right? One that you could talk to on like … hey how you doing/ you want to go out Saturday night? No? Oh...okay then thanks anyway…" babbled Marshall as the other three agents in the room shared a knowing look. "Um… Marshall?" asked Sydney. "Yes, oh… err ... right sorry, um… anyway, this cell phone is actually a digital voice copier, code scrambler, and camera disabler all in one! You see when you get down into the basement you will need to pass a vocal test and type in a code. So what you do is you turn the phone on and press 793 "send" this will connect you to me where I will be able to lace together a strand of vowels and constants to make his name, err … Gregory McKean that is and then you just have to hold the cell phone up to the little voice box and volà, you passed the vocal test. Now what's that you say... but Marshall how do we get him to say anything at all?" rambled Marshall.

Sydney, Weiss, and Vaughn shared yet another knowing look of humor at Marshall's over excitement towards his gadgets.

"That is quite easy, because Sydney while you are doing your routine you will just need to get him to talk for thirty seconds and that will give me enough to string together the vocal password. Now for the actual code that you will need to input in to the key bar, all you have to do is attach this little wire to the cell phone and the key bar and press 523 and then just let the cell phone work its magic. Then all you need to do is slide the key card that you will get form McKean and put it into the little slot and that will give you access to the lab. Now once the door opens but before you get in to the lab you must press 4 and then pound and that will shut down all video surveillance in the lab for 3 minutes, and in that three minutes you must download all the documents on McKean's computer, and for that you will need this, "said Marshall as he handed the cell phone over to Vaughn, and picked up a little disk that looked like a regular card. "That's right my friends we are going old school on this one, you see all you have to do is use the cell phone once again to gain access to the computer to crack his password there and then all you have to do is place this card on the screen and it will download all the information that we need. Then all you have to do is just pick it up off the screen after 30 seconds and slip out the door and out of the club undetected," as he handed the card to Sydney. And the final things I have for you three are you com links. Sydney yours is in theses chandelier earrings, Weiss and Vaughn yours are in these top of the line Rolex watches," said Marshall as he handed the com links to their owners. "Any questions?" asked Marshall.

"Nope" said Sydney.

"Then I guess you three had better be heading off to your plane that leaves in twenty minutes!" said Marshall, as Weiss, Sydney, and Vaughn rushed out of op tech.

Just as Vaughn was about to say something to Sydney, he was stopped by a hand on his arm. "Love where are you going in such a rush?" asked Lauren in a sickly sweet voice. "I'm going to catch my plane and if I don't hurry I'll miss it," said Vaughn as he tried to speed up this little conversation so that he wouldn't miss his plane. "Oh, where are they sending you this time" asked Lauren as she tried to figure out where Vaughn was going so that she could find out where McKean was. "I'm going-" Vaughn started to say when Weiss turned around and said "Come on Mike we're going to be late" "I'll see you when I get back Lauren," said Vaughn as he rushed off to a waiting Weiss. "Damn! Now I have no idea where McKean and that means that the CIA will get the information. Damn it!" thought Lauren as she walked off in a huff.

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On the plane at 11:00 a.m.: Some where over the Pacific Ocean…

Sydney was reading over the mission statement, when Vaughn approached her. "Hey" said Vaughn in a soft voice. "Hey," replied Sydney not bothering to look up from the mission statements she was reading. Because she knew if she did and she looked in those deep green eyes that she would loose her common sense, and that common sense was the only thing reminding her of why she was still mad and at him for canceling their "coffee date" last week, because once again Vaughn's little innocent acts of kindness had winded up biting her in the ass and breaking her already tormented heart even more.

"Syd…" said Vaughn trying to catch her eye, as she read through the mission papers. He knew that he had really messed stuff up with her and he knew that when he had canceled on her last week, but he needed to apologize for his previous actions and give Sydney the explanation that she really disserved. Even if he couldn't be with Syd in a relationship, at very least he wanted to be friends with her again like they use to be during the times of SD-6 and their clandestine meetings, at least he thought that they use to be friends… ah yes the good old days when the only problems he had were trying to take down Sloane and keep his sexual frustration that he felt whenever he was around Sydney, hidden, anyway back to a bitch of reality… he needed to make Sydney understand that he still cared about her, but that he could never ever cheat on Lauren, not that Sydney ever would…, thought Vaughn.

"Syd…" tried Vaughn again only this time a tiny hint of pleading entered his voice. 'Don't look up Syd, he will only hurt you…but in the best kind of hurt if only I could just kiss his soft lips one more time… NO! ahh stop thinking like that, I am not nor will I ever stump down low enough to be any married man's mistress, not even Vaughn's!' thought Sydney as she berated her subconscious mind.

"Sydney, look at me!" Vaughn said only this time his voice had more of an edge to it. Sydney slowly looked up from the mission papers only to be held a prisoner by Vaughn's strong gaze. "I think we need to talk about what happened between us last week," said Vaughn. "There's nothing to talk about Vaughn, you made it all too clear when we last spoke where you're time and affection are, case closed Vaughn it's time for you and me to move on with our lives," replied Sydney in a cold hollow voice, which made Vaughn slightly shuddered, not because of what Sydney said, but because of the fact the she had no emotion in her voice when she said it.

"Is that what you think Syd, that I don't care about you?" replied Vaughn. "Honestly Vaughn, yes that is what I think, I mean just look at the past few months if you need proof of what I think…hell look at the past week if you need proof, "said Sydney as her voice dissipated towards the end of her sentence.

"Syd, how can you even think that I don't care about you I broke into the Vatican for you, I put my ass out on the line for you when you needed an ally, and I comforted you when your world was falling down around you, now I realize that things have changed somewhat but-" said in a raised voice Vaughn.

"You're absolutely right Vaughn, things have changed, our situation has changed, and more importantly so have you. And you're right you use to be my confident, my ally, my guardian angel…but this year you haven't been there for me when I needed you the most, when I was falling and needed to be caught, when I needed a shoulder to cry on…when I needed my guardian angel," said Sydney as her voice cracked at the end of her sentence.

"Syd…" whispered Vaughn. "No, Vaughn let me finish I have to say this cause it's eating me up inside. You haven't been there for me and I have gotten use to it, you might even say that I had started to accept things and then you happened and you invited me out to coffee, and I told you that I was hopeful. Vaughn I told you not to hurt me, you even promised that you would never do anything to hurt me, and then you called me and canceled on me, and I get that you had to be with your wife and comfort her, I get that and I can live with that, but you have to know and understand that what you are doing to me is killing me. I can't be apart of your little games any more, you throwing me a bone every once in a while is torturing me Vaughn, and I don't know how much longer I will last if things continue on this way…if we continue on this way. So please Vaughn just let me go, just let me off the hook Vaughn I can't be you sick little game of pleasure anymore," said Sydney in a raised voice with tears flowing rivers down her cheeks.

Vaughn sat across from Sydney stunned, he sat that way with his eyes wide and his hands folded in his lap for about five minutes. All the while Sydney had gotten up and walked to the little plane bathroom and locked the door behind her. 'Dammit Sydney! Look at yourself you are crying over a boy. You're stronger then this, I know you are… now shape up you wimp and get a hold of yourself,' said Sydney to herself as she splashed her face with cold water and wiped away any remnants of her sob fest.

After about five minutes Vaughn snapped out of his trance and glanced around the cabin to see where Sydney had gone. He got up and walked over to the bathroom door and knocked on it. "Sydney open up we are not done talking," said Vaughn in a calm voice as he tried to jimmy the door handle to see if she really had locked it. "Yes, we are Vaughn I have nothing more to say to you!" said Sydney through the door, making no attempt to open it. "Dammit Sydney open this door right now! I can't believe that you think so little of me that you would actually think that I would some how be amused by seeing you suffer. Do you think that you were the only one who has been hurting this year? It has been killing me this year to see you suffering and to know that I can't comfort you, to see you crying and to know that can't be there to let you cry on my shoulder. So don't you dare tell me that I don't care about you!" shouted Vaughn.

Sydney stood motionless in the bathroom hand on the door handle. Her heart telling her to open the door and apologize for her behavior, but her mind berating her heart and stubbornly not allowing her heart to win this inner conflict, which left her standing with her hand on the door handle.

Weiss poked his head in and said, "Um…guys?, I hate to interrupt but, I just thought you two should know that we will be landing in about 15 minutes, so you guys should get yourselves together." Weiss began getting himself ready for landing.

Sydney opened the door and walked by Vaughn but no before he grabbed her arm. As she whipped around she was about to scream at him but he cut her off before she even had time to open her mouth, "We aren't finished with this conversation" said Vaughn in a stern voice. Sydney just turned her head and went to gather up her things for landing as Vaughn began to do the same.

Sydney choose a seat next to Weiss and away from Vaughn to strap her self into as the "fasten your seat belt sign" came on. She could think about Vaughn and her screwed up life later right now she had to get her head into the game…

Tbc…

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