Ding.

A quick glance up at the seat belt light, then back to the window. The lights on the ground are thinner now; they must be nearing the Rockies, turbulence ahead.

As far as Vaughn can tell, he is the only person awake in the cabin besides the attendant. 737, half full, Weiss asleep across the aisle. The attendant had made a futile attempt to chat awhile back, leaned into his row of seats and asked if he needed anything, and did he fly a lot? I'm fine, thank you, and yes, I do, and he'd turned back to the window.

The plane bucks, slightly. It is 2:37 a.m. He is not fine, thank you.

He tries to keep his thoughts focused on Sydney. How is she? Will they make her go straight to debrief? How does she feel about him, now?

He wants to see her, but fears it at the same time. What if everything that happened today didn't change a thing? What if he destroyed things so terribly they can't ever be repaired?

And then there is —

His father's forehead, his father's face, the face from all those pictures in his mother's house, from his memories, the big red hole and the blood seeping out, pooling around the body, running in rivers down the old wood gymnasium floor.

The lights outside the window are gone, the plane pitching up and down, hard. If it were daylight perhaps he could see the mountains. Of course she'll talk to him. So much has happened.

He leans his head against the window, closes his eyes. He is exhausted, feels the dull ache of it seeping through his body. But he knows he will not sleep.

———

They're met at the gate by two junior agents from the JTF. Come with us, please, and they walk two steps behind. The airport less full now than he's used to, but nowhere near empty. Too many international flights in and out at odd hours for that.

Weiss turns to him. "How are you doing?"

"About the same, I guess. I don't know."

"You sleep at all on the plane?" Weiss had been gone until well after landing, when Vaughn finally leaned over the aisle and shook his shoulder.

"Not really."

"This way, please." One of the agents in front turns out a side security door, to a small strip of parking spaces Vaughn didn't know existed. The agents walk up to the lone car there, a big black Lincoln Towncar.

Vaughn and Weiss in the back, and they're speeding away from the airport within minutes.

"Are we going straight into debrief?" Vaughn asks.

"Not quite," answers the agent in the passenger seat. The man has yet to offer a name, and Vaughn can't remember if he is supposed to know it. "Top folks are otherwise occupied for awhile. Your debrief's been scheduled for seven. We have to take you back to the rotunda, but we can have food brought in, if you want. You can use the beds in Medical Services, too, if you want to try to get some sleep."

It occurs to him that they're under loose custody. "Thanks. Do you know anything about Agent Bristow? How is she doing?"

"In debrief, I think."

He nods, the need to see her suddenly stronger, overwhelming the fear.

———

Devlin runs the debrief.

"Agent Vaughn, we'd like you to start with how you came to be in Chicago yesterday."

It is 7:02 by Vaughn's watch. The same conference room Kendall used for their disciplinary hearing. Only three across the table now — Devlin and two men in from Langley, suited and remarkably unrumpled after what must have been an overnight flight in. The beginnings of dawn streaming through the narrow slit window near the ceiling. He sits alone; Weiss in a separate debrief.

His mind feels sluggish, ineffective — nothing close to sleep in the two hours he'd laid on a cot in Medical Services. "I had contacted Director Kendall; I wanted to transfer back to the Task Force. He said I could, as long as my relationship with Agent Bristow was over. It was, but he said they needed confirmation from Sydney, and they hadn't been able to reach her using her cell phone and pager. That was weird — I thought that was weird. I've never known Sydney to not respond. So I went looking for her."

"In Chicago?" One of the suits, who'd introduced himself as an assistant director, Counterintelligence.

"No. I wasn't able to find her. Will Tippin called me, hours after I'd heard she was missing. He told me that someone had contacted her, and told her they'd kidnapped her friend, Francie. Sydney called her mother to get a location, and her mother knew — I guess that makes sense now, considering, but anyway, Sydney recruited Will to go help her try to rescue Francie."

"She didn't contact you?"

"I — no. We'd had a fight the night before, over my decision to come back to the JTF. She asked Will instead." It hurts even now to say it, to think that she was so angry at him, so hurt, she asked Will instead of him. Did she actually think he wouldn't help her? "She'd gone into this school, the school where everything happened, and she hadn't come out. So Will called me."

"And you decided to fly to Chicago by yourself and conduct a rogue operation instead of contacting the CIA?"

"There were suspicions that there was a mole." He looks to Devlin, for support. Devlin's eyes are kind, but he won't provide any backup. "We didn't know who to trust. And we didn't think Kendall would authorize an operation. Which, in retrospect, I guess was right. Weiss was the only person I knew I could trust. I tried to contact Jack Bristow, but I couldn't reach him, obviously."

"So you arrived in Chicago, and then what?" Devlin, this time.

"We went in. We didn't have any intel, and the only backup we had was Will on comms, but we didn't want to waste any more time. It took us awhile to find them. They were all in the gymnasium of this school — all those people. Sloane, Derevko, Sark, they were easy enough to believe. But there were high-ranking officials from Mi5, SVR, FBI. Kendall, Jack Bristow — "

"We'll expect a complete list of who you suspect was there in your written statement," the Langley suit interrupts.

"Of course." You'll already know a lot of them from the bodies you recovered. "Obviously, the hardest one to believe was my father."

"You're certain it was your father?" Devlin asks.

"Yes. He looked just like he would, sounded like him. And there had been — I was having some doubts about his record here."

"What do you mean, doubts?"

"My father kept a journal. He would write about some of his missions. I found the journals when I was a kid and started reading them. I knew it was a security breach after I joined the Agency, that he had written some of the things he did in them, but I always thought it was harmless. It was so long ago." He pauses. "When I was transferred to Counterintelligence, my security clearance allowed me to read some files on my father that I hadn't had access to before. I found there were discrepancies between what my father said in the journals and what happened according to the official records."

"We'll need to see those journals," Devlin says.

"They're in my desk drawer at headquarters."

Devlin nods. "I'll send someone for them."

"Okay. I learned later that the JTF suspected my father was still alive, that he had been heading SD-2 up until the demise of the Alliance. I guess it shouldn't have been surprising to see him standing there, but it was still a shock."

"What were they all doing there?" Langley suit asks.

"They were — they had Sydney hooked up to some sort of Rambaldi device they'd assembled. My father explained it to me; it was supposed to bring eternal life. They turned that thing on and it did — whatever it would have done to her, and that somehow was the formula for eternal life. He said it all started with Sloane, back in the '70s. He'd found Rambaldi manuscripts on a mission and showed them to my father and Jack Bristow. Apparently they detailed some of this formula for eternal life. They made a pact to stick together, to do whatever it took to do it."

"We've heard the audiotape," Devlin says. "You'll need to go into detail in your written statement, but you can skip ahead, now."

"Audiotape?"

"Will Tippin recorded everything that came over your comm links. We've already heard what your father said. We're unclear as to how they selected Sydney Bristow as the person required to bring everything about."

"They found a Rambaldi document — they showed it to us. It contained a DNA profile. I should have told you before — when I was working with the FBI, doing counterintelligence, one of their agents told me Sydney's file had been pulled. They didn't know who. But it included her DNA profile. I didn't know who to contact — I thought there might be a mole. So I called Jack Bristow. He told me at the time that he'd had doubts that he was actually Sydney's father, and so he'd pulled her DNA profile to run a paternity test. I know now that it's because they'd asked him to, to see if Sydney was a match to the person referenced in the document. They already suspected her because of the prophecy."

"And?"

"They showed us the documents. She was a perfect match. I still don't understand that part."

"We may not ever understand it," Devlin says. "You tried to convince your father not to move forward with this — process?"

"Yes. I don't know what I was thinking. They'd been working towards this for years. Nothing I said could have convinced him. But the ones I couldn't believe were Irina and Jack, that they could just kill her like that. Obviously, I was wrong about them."

"What do you mean?"

"My father started the process, whatever it was. I knew I couldn't just stand there and watch him kill her, so I was going to go for my gun, on the floor. I was going to try to stop him. But by the time I got to the point where I could take a shot, he'd already been hit. Irina and Jack, they opened fire on the other people in the group. I guess they'd planned all along to save her. Having me and Weiss there just made the numbers a little better."

"Do you know who killed your father?"

"Derevko. She was the one aiming at him. After that, I'm not quite sure who hit who, except for the men I killed."

"Including Arvin Sloane."

"Yes. I was going to help Sydney, but Derevko, she pointed to Sloane. He was trying to escape with his wife. I don't know how she was alive; I'm guessing he faked her death. But she was bad — the cancer — and she was in a wheelchair. He was trying to wheel her out a side door. I followed. I yelled at him to freeze, but he just kept going, and I knew he was shoot to kill. So I took the shot."

"We recovered his body, as well as Emily's," Devlin says. "Based on the position of the body, the Bureau said it looked like she'd killed herself?"

"Yes. I was on my way back into the gymnasium — I heard the shot. There was no one else in the area."

Devlin scribbles a note on the file in front of him. His pen is glossy black, heavy. Expensive. "You continued on your way to the gymnasium?"

"Yeah. By the time I got back, everything was over. Derevko and Jack Bristow had taken Sydney. I saw them before I went after Sloane. Agent Weiss had been hit in the vest, so I went to assist him, and then the Bureau team came in."

Devlin nods again, scribbles a bit more on the folder. Caps his pen and looks up. "I suppose you're wondering about Francie Calfo?"

"Yes. Was she a mole in Sydney's life, all this time?"

"No. You're aware of Markovic's device, yes?" Devlin doesn't wait for a response. "We believe the woman you saw was the second double."

Oh god, Sydney. "What makes you think that?"

"Based on Agent Bristow's debrief. You know that they lured her there under the pretense that Francie Calfo had been kidnapped. Agent Bristow freed the woman she thought was her friend, and that woman sedated her. She says that when she woke, the woman told her Francie was dead, and had been for several weeks."

"You had met Francie, correct?"

"Yes." God, her best friend —

"Did you suspect anything?"

"No. I'm not even sure that I knew the real Francie, actually. I guess I did find her a little odd, but I didn't really know enough to know that it wasn't her. And I know Sydney thought she was acting strangely, but she thought it was because Francie had just started dating Will Tippin. That wasn't a coincidence, was it? Francie — whoever she was — she knew Will worked for the CIA, didn't she?"

"Yes. We've done an extensive debrief with Tippin to try to determine just how much of a breach there might have been," Devlin says. "You should also know that we sent a team to sweep Agent Bristow's apartment. They found several bugs and a surveillance camera."

"Where?"

"The camera was in her bedroom. The bugs were scattered throughout the apartment. Did the two of you ever speak of Agency operations in her home?"

He looks down at the table, cheeks hot. Somebody out there was watching them. All those moments, all those times together, not private at all. "Nothing more specific than maybe saying where we were going."

"Good. If you think of anything else that might have been overheard, we'll need you to report it," Devlin says. "Now, our obvious suspicion is that the real Francie Calfo is dead. We're searching for a body and checking local morgues for a match on a Jane Doe, but it's likely we'll never recover any remains."

"If you don't find a body, what will you do?"

"We've planned an operation that would fake Miss Calfo's death such that a body would be unrecoverable. If necessary, we'll move forward on that. It would be stupid for the double to attempt to return to her life as Francie Calfo."

Devlin glances down at the files on the table. "One final thing. Your father's remains are being transported to Los Angeles this afternoon. We'll be performing an autopsy tomorrow morning. Ordinarily, we would bury the body as a John Doe after that, but as his son, since you have a security clearance, you may make alternate arrangements, within reason. This would not include informing anyone without proper clearance of his death."

"You can do whatever you want with the remains," he says. "I guess — I would like to know where and when the burial would be, though."

Devlin nods. "We'll have someone contact you with that information. Now, I believe we've covered everything we needed to cover here. Is there anything else you'd like to discuss or bring to the Agency's attention?"

"No, sir. Nothing I can think of."

"Okay. Given the magnitude of the news about your father, and his subsequent death, we've decided to place you on one month's bereavement leave, effective after you turn in your written report. You will be required to attend counseling three times a week during this period. We have approved your prior request for transfer back to the Joint Task Force, if you still want it."

"Yes, I'd still like the transfer."

"Good. You'll be credentialed immediately for the building, then, and you can schedule your counseling appointments with Dr. Barnett here. You'll begin working here full-time when you return."

"Okay."

"I believe that's it, Agent Vaughn. We'll expect a much more thorough report in your written statement." He pauses. "Aside from former AD Kendall and Jack Bristow, we've identified at least four ranking officers of the CIA and two from the FBI who were involved in this Rambaldi conspiracy. Our investigation into such a massive breach will be ongoing, and we will expect you to return for future interviews as necessary."

"Of course."

He stands slowly, through a wave of fatigue, and returns to the rotunda, full already. He scans the place, looking for Sydney, but finds only Weiss, hunched over a computer monitor across the circle. She's probably long gone.

The desk next to Weiss' is unoccupied. He takes its chair and rolls it over. Sits, weary.

"Hey, how are you holding up?" Weiss asks.

"I don't even know anymore."

"Is your debrief over, or are you just on break?"

"It's over. And apparently I'm on a one-month break."

"Good. It's all — they told you about Francie, right?"

"Yeah. I don't know how Syd's going to deal with that. She's got to be — is she still here?"

"No. Marshall told me they released her and Will around midnight."

"I should go see her."

"You're not going anywhere by yourself, Mike. You want to go see Syd, I'll drive you, and I'll stay as long as you want me to, but there's no way you should be driving right now."

Vaughn nods. "I've got to do my written report before I can leave."

"I'm about done with mine, so just let me know when you're ready to go."

"Okay."

———

It is nearing noon by the time he follows Weiss out to the parking garage, new ID badge in hand.

"I had them take your car back to your apartment," Weiss explains as Vaughn climbs into the passenger side of his car. Government sedan, nearly the same model as Vaughn's, dark blue instead of green.

Weiss drives almost leisurely, a contrast to their race through Chicago. The sun is bright, nearly blinding; his sunglasses left in the overhead compartment in his car. He shades the sun with his hand, but it's a poor substitute.

Weiss puts the car into park in her driveway, turns it off.

"I don't know how long this is going to take," Vaughn says. "We didn't leave things very well, the last time we talked."

"A lot has changed since then."

"I know. I'm not sure if it makes a difference, though."

Out of the car, up the front walk, gathering himself. You're here for her, if she needs you. And if she doesn't, if she's still angry, then you leave. It's her choice. But you've at least got to try. You've got to be here.

He knocks on the door and waits, running a hand over the stubble on his chin. He must look like hell; they'd been able to shower at Medical Services, but he's still wearing the black pants and jacket from yesterday, and surely there are bags under his eyes, fatigue on his face.

It takes a long time for the door to open, Will Tippin on the other side.

"Hi." Will's face and eyes are red, his voice hoarse. Francie was just as good a friend to Will, he realizes, and then maybe a girlfriend, maybe not. Will won't ever know if the person he started dating was really Francie.

What a horrible way to lose a friend. "Hi. Is Sydney here? Can I see her?"

"She's sleeping now. You can wait for her, though, if you want."

Vaughn shakes his head — this must be a dismissal. "No, that's okay. I'll, uh, I'll come back later. Tell her to call me if she needs me."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

He spins around before Will can even close the door, before the tears in his eyes become too obvious. He knew this might — probably would — happen, and still it hurts.

Maybe Will is better for her now. They both knew Francie — they can grieve her together. Vaughn can't even be sure he met the real Francie.

Weiss waits to start the car when he gets back inside. "You want to talk about it?"

"Will said she was sleeping. I don't know if that was the truth or not. I didn't want to push it."

Weiss shakes his head. "You want to go home?"

"Yeah, home."

———

It takes 15 minutes of blinding sun to get to his apartment.

Weiss puts the car in park on the street, only speaks when Vaughn is about to get out, door hovering half-open. "You going to be okay?"

"Yeah. I mean, obviously I have a lot to sort through, with my father, but I'll deal."

"And Sydney?"

"I don't know."

"It'll work out, Mike. It might just take some time," Weiss says. "I'll call you later to check up."

"Okay." Vaughn rises, starts to walk away, turns at the sound of his name.

"Mike?"

"What?"

"You're going to get through this, you know."

"Yeah, somehow."

He longs especially now for Donovan's scamper to the door when he walks into the apartment. Instead, nothing but empty rooms in a place that feels foreign after everything that's happened.

He lets keys slip from his hand, clunk on the floor. Wanders, directionless, into the kitchen. It's been so long since he's slept, he knows he should try to go to bed. But he no longer feels tired — just disconnected, stiff.

Perhaps he'll have a drink instead. Ice, tumbler, a fairly substantial pour of Jameson, pulled from his moderately sparse liquor cabinet. Something he'd picked up from his father, sitting in front of the fireplace at the old house with his little tumbler of whiskey. That thought very nearly makes him throw the bottle across the room, but he does not. There would be a mess, then, to clean up, and he may need the alcohol.

Living room, television on, volume low. He slumps down into the couch, sips his drink dully.

———

He wakes to his cell phone ringing, still in his pants pocket. Checks his watch, estimates he'd dozed for maybe an hour after sitting there for three or four, waiting for sleep to come, working his way through another drink.

Fumbling through the zipper on the cargo pocket to his pants — he really needs to change — and pulling out the phone. The caller ID is "uknown," a deliberate misspelling, code for the CIA's phone software.

He hasn't had a call from there in months.

He hits the send button, listens through a series of tones, programmed to indicate a meeting place and time. Pier, 1900 hours, he translates. The software disconnects.

The access code was Sydney's. But why use the phone system, the meet codes? Why not just call him?

He is still exhausted — that hour on the couch seems to have made things worse instead of better — and still feeling the whiskey. But he doesn't want to call Weiss; needs to go alone for this.

He heads upstairs to change.

———

He arrives 15 minutes early. This was customary, back when he was her handler. Get there early, sweep for bugs in the warehouse, scope for surveillance if they were meeting in public.

He is here early this time to prepare, to stand here at the railing and stare out over the ocean and wonder what he can possibly say to her. It is chilly, even for February — or maybe it's March, now, he's lost track of the calendar — seeping through the jeans and turtleneck he'd changed into, the wool coat he'd grabbed on his way out the door.

The cold has kept the place largely uncrowded, a few young couples, one family walking along, far from his spot on the railing. Not like some of the times they'd met here and he'd been so tense — so many people, any one of them could have been Security Section.

They should have come down here and walked sometime, here in the nicest of their old meeting places. Strolled along hand-in-hand and watched something like the sunset beginning on the horizon now, smelled the salt air, listened to the gulls, the distant screams from the roller coaster.

He glances down at his watch. 6:56. What will you say to her? What can you say, really?

Footsteps on the wood behind him. He turns, and —

Irina Derevko, not Sydney, approaching. Of course. You should have figured.

She wears a long, thin black coat. The cut, the drape, the fabric all suggest that it wasn't cheap. Her hands deep in the pockets, until she's a few steps away and one hand comes out, pulls the coat open. Reveals the other hand pointing a gun at him through a slit cut in the pocket.

He tenses. The FBI took both of his guns for ballistics analysis, trying to determine who had shot who as best they could. He hadn't thought to ask for a replacement, hadn't thought he would need one this soon.

She stops a few feet away from him, standing against the rail, eyes briefly down to the gun. "I'll make this easier for you, Mr. Vaughn. No moral dilemma."

No need to feel as if he should try to apprehend her, he realizes, relaxing slightly. She has no intentions of shooting him — probably — but now he can say he was held at gunpoint, unarmed.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you knew our meet protocol," he says. He realizes he no longer holds the same hate for her, no longer has a reason to want to kill her. Yes, she killed his father, but he was about to do it himself. She saved him from that, and maybe he should even be grateful. "Why are you here?"

She is silent for a long while, staring out over the water, hair whipping in the wind, looking a lot like Sydney. He has never allowed himself to think that about her, before now.

"When I first came to America, first began my assignment, I used to go to the ocean all the time," she says. "A young, homesick girl. When Jack was away on missions, I would drive out to the beach at Ocean City, stare out over the water and think, 'my country is somewhere over there.'"

The words startle him. She hasn't been a woman with a country for a very long time.

"It surprised me," she continues. "How quickly my family became a home. What William — what your father did to me back then, forcing me to tell Jack, to join them — I didn't see it as blackmail, although I suppose that's what it was. I saw it as a chance to live with my family forever. I would have sacrificed everything for that. Easily a country I hardly knew."

"You still left them." Same as he did. Only she came back, eventually.

"I had no choice. My handlers knew the FBI was drawing closer to my identity. They ordered an extraction. If I had tried to stay, they would have killed us all."

"But you stayed true to this pact."

"Yes, I did. Up until the end."

"When they wanted you to kill Sydney."

"Jack and I developed a plan when the group first thought she might be the subject Rambaldi required. We were concerned that the group would notice we began working against them, but they were too blinded by their own greed."

"And that was your plan? You were outnumbered. What if they killed you before you could save her? Wouldn't it have been safer to send her away? Someplace safe?"

"You know my daughter very well, Mr. Vaughn. Do you think she would have willingly gone into hiding?"

He recalls the times he'd tried to get Sydney to at least consider witness protection. "No."

"Of course not. And even if she did, Jack and I knew they would blame us, kill us, and then spend the rest of their lives hunting her down. With their combined resources, it would have just been a matter of time. No — we decided we had to make a stand."

"Thank you for that," he says. "For saving her life." He looks her straight in the eyes, something that had made him sick before, all those months ago. Going to her and believing she'd been the one who killed his father, drastically changed his life, put the hole in his family. But she wasn't any of that.

"You thought I was willing to kill her, didn't you?"

"I didn't know what else to think."

"I've killed people as part of this quest. Those other agents, besides your father — they were not all ordered by the KGB. I would have killed again, if it were anyone other than my daughter up there — or Jack."

"If it were me, and the roles were reversed — if it were Sydney asking you to spare someone she loved, would you do it?"

"You compare me to your father. Don't." She pauses, appears to be considering the question anyway. "I don't think any of us can answer that question until we're in that situation."

Silence.

He thinks through all the things he should ask, all the things he wants to know. This may be his only chance for answers.

"There were discrepancies between my father's journals and his mission debriefs. Do you know anything about that?"

"Yes," she says. "After your father was assigned to Station Paris, it was much more difficult for all of us to communicate. Jack and I began to take vacations in Europe; I started work on a research paper that would have required some study in London. We would take the train, go and have tea with your parents. At some point, I would find a way to slip upstairs and read your father's journal. If he had anything, he would indicate it there."

"'I think I'll take Michael to the park tomorrow.'"

"That was code for a dead drop. Your town's park had an old apple tree with a section in the trunk William had hollowed out. He would leave things for us there."

"I lived 35 years thinking he was a good man — the most just man I'd ever heard of. And now I find out that every good memory, every just thing he ever did, wasn't that at all."

"People are rarely who we think they are."

He wraps his hands around the railing, looks down at the water. "What about Jack?"

"I imagine Jack will resurface at the CIA shortly, with a tale of how he was working to thwart our plans all along."

"Would that be the truth?"

She smiles, a long, thin Cheshire cat thing, then her face sobers. "How is Sydney? She was sleeping when we left her at the hospital."

"She checked out fine with the doctors. She was asleep when I went to see her — "

"Something happened between the two of you, didn't it? You had a falling out?"

He nods.

"I thought it was strange that she came without you," she says. "But then, I had wondered what the professional separation would do to the two of you. It drove you crazy, didn't it? Watching her go off on missions when you weren't there to protect her."

He says nothing. She must know the answer is yes.

"Only a fool would push her away because he was afraid of losing her."

"It isn't that simple."

She glances out over the ocean for a moment, then turns back to face him. The wind snaps a section of hair across her face, and she reaches up, tucks it behind her ear.

"She doesn't need your protection, Mr. Vaughn. She needs your support."

And then she is walking away. Turning after a few steps, some item from her agenda overlooked, perhaps.

"Do know this. He loved you and your mother very much."

That only makes it worse, he thinks, watching her walk away, both hands in her pockets, only makes it harder.

And yet somewhere, deep down, he still feels it is the truth.

———

He gets into his car, decides he will go see Sydney, and this time if Will says she is sleeping, he will wait, because Irina is right. He needs to at least talk to her, offer to be there for her. And if she turns him down, asks him to leave, at least he'll have tried. At least he will know.

Weiss calls a few minutes into I-10, asks how he's doing.

"I don't know. About the same, I guess."

"Where are you?"

He could lie, say he's at home. He'd rather not. "On my way over to Syd's."

"Have you been asleep since I dropped you off? Because otherwise, I thought I said you shouldn't be driving."

"I'm fine. I'm almost there."

"Do me a favor and stay over there."

"I'll try."

"I'm serious. You call me if you need anything. Even if it's just another ride home."

"Okay. Goodbye."

"Bye."

He hits end, places the phone back in his coat pocket. Turns on the radio, flipping stations, looking for a distraction. Maybe this is a mistake; surely she would have called if she wanted to see him.

No. You have to see this through.

Her street is dark, quiet now. Cars lined up along the street, everyone inside for a nice Sunday evening at home.

She'll know he's coming, if she's really awake — see his headlights down the street, pulling into the driveway. He takes his time putting the car in park, turning it off, getting out. Hits the lock button on his keys just once, so the alarm won't chirp, won't reveal his presence any more than everything else already has. Any time she has to know he's coming is time she can think of ways to tell him to leave.

Up to the door. He puts his keys in his coat pocket. Deep breath, firm knock. Waiting —

The door eases open, reveals Sydney, standing there in pajamas.

"Syd — hi."

"Hi." She reaches up, runs her fingers through her hair, righting a section that's flipped over to the wrong side. "Will said you stopped by. He's out for a walk now — I think he's still in shock."

"I guess maybe we all are." It seems inadequate as soon as he says it, and he stands, uneasy, pushes his hands deep into his pockets.

"Would you like to come in?"

"Do you want me to come in?"

She nods, and presses her lips together, blinks a little too fast. Steps away from the door to let him inside.

"Would you like something to drink, or anything?"

It's an absurd display of hospitality, given everything, but then nobody's really sure what to say or do here. "Sure. Why don't you go sit down, and I'll put some tea on?"

"Okay."

———

The kitchen is trashed.

A gallon of milk, three-quarters full, sits warm on the counter. It can't have been there for long — they must have got in sometime last night, not long enough to do this, but obviously they have. He puts the milk back in the refrigerator and fills the teapot with filtered water from the fridge.

There are dirty dishes strewn across the counter, the sink, filled with hardly eaten food. A half-empty liter of Absolut sits front and center. Beside that a wine glass which someone — not Sydney, is it? — has commandeered as an ashtray. Full to the brim with cigarette butts. It smells like smoke.

He places the teapot on a burner and turns on the stove, then starts on the mess; he can at least get all the dishes in the sink, not that they'll likely notice. The teapot whistles soon enough, and he pulls two clean mugs from the cabinet, searches until he finds two packets of her favorite green, and makes their tea.

He takes careful steps through the living room, watching the mugs to make sure the tea doesn't splash over the brims. He sets both of them coffee table, sits down next to her. A good two feet between them on the couch, both of them facing forward.

He looks at her, and waits. Should he speak first?

She turns toward him, finally. "I thought I saved her," she whispers. "I went into the school; they had her in one of the rooms, tied to this chair — "

"We saw it, the chair."

She nods. "She was sitting there, and she seemed so frightened, and I remember thinking, 'how could I do this — how could I drag another innocent into this life?'" She is fighting tears already. It would be bold, so bold, to grab her hand now, but he should.

He does; she doesn't resist. "I took my knife, cut the ropes, the gag they had on her mouth. I told her she was safe now, and I was so sorry. She didn't say anything — she just stood up and hugged me. And then she stabbed me in the back with a syringe full of barbiturates."

"Oh god, Syd." He squeezes her hand.

"I woke up strapped to that — thing. Francie, or who I thought was Francie, she was standing there in front of me. She told me I was too late to save my friend, that Francie had been dead for weeks. 'It is impressive to see such loyalty' — that's what she said to me. She said they never doubted I'd come for her. It was all a trap, to get me there — to kill me. She's been dead for weeks, Vaughn, for weeks. I dragged her into this world, just by being her friend, and I didn't even know she was killed, and replaced by some impostor, and — "

"Sydney, you can't blame yourself for what happened."

"No, I can. If I hadn't become a part of this world, none of the people I loved would have died."

"You can't honestly believe that, Syd. You saw all of those people in that room — your mother, your father. You would have been a part of this whether you chose to or not. You want to blame someone, blame Arvin Sloane." Blame my father.

"They told me that he's dead," she says. "That you killed him."

"Yes." He's dead, Sydney, and it's too late, but he's never going to hurt you again. "So is Emily."

"They told me that, too. I hadn't — I barely knew she was alive. I don't understand how someone as good as her could love him, could kill herself over him."

"I think it was as much about her future as it was her husband, Syd. She didn't have much time left, and it wasn't going to be good time."

She is silent for awhile. "It doesn't feel like I thought it would."

"What?"

"His death. Revenge, I guess," she says. "I wanted revenge, I spent all this time trying to bring Sloane to justice, and all it did in the end was bring more death, ruin more lives."

"Sydney, I told you. You can't blame yourself for this."

She looks straight into him, her chin quivering as the first tears roll down her cheeks, as if to say I can't not blame myself for this.

He slides closer, tentatively pulls her to him, her face pressed tight against his shoulder. Murmuring into her ear, repeating: "It's not your fault, Sydney. It's not your fault."

They stay like this for so long it frightens him; he's never seen her cry like this before, seen her lose control completely instead of sucking it up after a few minutes, wiping her eyes dry and faking a smile. Compartmentalizing, she calls it.

There is none of that here. Still sobbing softly in short little gasps, her arms tight around his back, trying to pull him as close as she possibly can. He should have come here earlier. He should have waited the first time.

Her hands slip from his back a bit, her weight against his chest even firmer. If they were still together, he would be sure she wanted him to lay back, lay there on the couch and hold her. But could she want that here, now, after everything?

There are two thick pillows stacked against the arm of the couch, not too far away. He leans back, just a bit, and she follows, and it was what she wanted, and it is okay. She is upset, tired. They are both tired.

Further, further, until his back sinks into the pillows and she settles, still crying, with her head resting on his chest.

His arms tight around her, still whispering. "It's not your fault, Syd. It's not your fault."