He takes time off. Time that is his, but not supposed to be taken. Months of comp days, vacation time, building up over the years because he is not supposed to use them. He is supposed to be dedicated to the job. It is understood at the Agency — unwritten rule — that the extra time is for the end of one's career. It accelerates retirement.

If you make it that far.

He doesn't care — adds it to the two weeks they give him for emotional duress. He is still required to come in and meet with Barnett twice a week. On Tuesdays, his appointment is right after Will Tippin's, and he thinks Will looks like he is improving.

He briefly considers telling Barnett everything about his relationship with Christine Watkins. Explaining that this is a little bit more than coming back to find his dead partner during an overmatched operation that went wrong because his boss was working for the enemy. Explaining that there is too much to it to even begin to explain, and that is the center of the problem.

He thinks he could tell her everything and still keep his job. Something about saving the world.

That is not what he calls it. To him, it is always the big picture, and he sees her eyes — strong and alive, crystalline blue — as she says it.

He knows she existed, but her return from Russia sometimes feels like something his imagination conjured. Something to fill his nights with careful touches around the pain; mornings with a presence in the bed, occasionally a soft, lined smile.

Something to end horribly, send him spiraling downward and wondering if there an end to all of this. If he wants to find it, somewhere amidst dead blue eyes and his empty bed.

———

She makes the call because Weiss thinks he is getting worse. She knows about this, knows that strange things happen when you start to reflect. Knows that time is not the great healer it's cracked up to be.

She has thought, occasionally, that he might want to talk to her. That he left the lines of communication open out of more than some lingering thread of duty to her. Then she remembers their last real conversation and thinks she is the last person he would want to talk to.

But Sydney Bristow has known plenty of loss, and she will put the offer out there. Hope it is enough.

It has been a long time since they've met at the pier. She used to think it was the water that bothered him. Now, perhaps, other things, different reasons — memories he wanted to avoid. The Pacific is calm today, sky sunny. Nothing like his face, unshaven for days, she thinks, and marked with the long, steady pain of loss.

His hair is still wet, and she assumes he showered before coming here. Wonders if he stood there in the hot water and hoped it would beat the ache out. Stepped out into a bathroom full of steam and realized the grief was still there. Glad the water was coating the mirror, condensing and dripping down, so he could not see his reflection.

She is unsure of how to feel now. Part of her aches for him, the palpable hurt radiating from his features. Part of her feels guilt, for the jealousy and the mistrust and the words. Part of her sees Watkins's blood on his hands, Danny's blood in the bathtub — horrific, violent imagery of the sum of their losses flashing through her mind.

She wants the tornado of emotions to stop, so the debris can land and she can pick up a piece of something concrete. How to feel. What is appropriate. Because now she is grasping, and there is nothing within reach.

The setting is not very intimate, although she has made it so before, and all she can offer is "hi," several feet away from him. It feels like a much greater distance.

"Hey." Soft, like it hurts too much to conjure volume. "What did you need?" Technically, they ended their last conversation with things that should be discussed, referenced at least, but she gets the feeling he doesn't give a damn.

"I didn't need anything, Vaughn. I just wanted to say I'm sorry — " Sorry for your loss, sorry for the things I said, but I didn't trust her. And obviously there was someone out there we shouldn't have trusted, just not her. And I'm so sorry for that. " — and I wanted you to know that I'm here if you want to talk."

The words sounded much better when she planned them out in the morning, edited them on the drive here. Now that she has said them, they seem hollow, weak, wafting out away from them on the breeze that crosses the ocean.

———

If there is one thing Michael Vaughn and Sydney Bristow have in common, it is that they may never have the white picket fence.

Perhaps it is a moment of weakness, to let her off the hook. But she is offering comfort and understanding. And currently, he needs that more than anything. Currently, he is weak. No, not weak, he thinks. Tired. Exhausted from trying to try.

Out of the house with a new purpose today. Something besides meeting with Barnett, going to her bar, walking to the grocery store to buy milk and bread and whatever else his hand can knock off the shelf into the basket. And legal pads. Always more of those.

She would understand them. She could understand it all, he thinks. But he has to get it out first — pages and pages of yellow paper and all the things that swirl within him — find a filter for all this mass and sift out the things that might help him heal.

It could have been easier, he thinks. He wishes there was some condensed truth he could put out there, throw into the wind — something like I loved her. But it is not that simple, and he is fairly certain that the statement is not true. You need trust for love. But a different branch, a shifted path, and perhaps it could have been a possibility, that they could have —

"It's so complicated, I don't even know what to feel, Syd."

She looks like she understands. He still reserves part of the truth for only himself — the version of the story that includes exactly how she fits into all of this.

———

He begins burning the legal pads. Shouldn't have started them in the first place — half of the scrawl on them is classified, high-level stuff. So they go up in flames over the toilet, big flaky ashes falling into the water. Donovan watching, curious, from the doorway.

They meet again, an empty classroom at UCLA. He had class in here once, and perhaps she did too, or does currently. Scattered rows of old desks with expletives and declarations of love etched into them. This is where he tells her.

"I can't do this anymore," he says, although he has not done the this he refers to in weeks. "I'm leaving the Agency, Sydney. I'm sorry."

Her eyes flash. "Vaughn, you can't. I — "

"I don't think you should walk away like this."

"Sydney, I don't think I can do my job properly. And that's dangerous. It's dangerous to you, dangerous to Dixon." It puts him in danger, too, but he has not figured out how to feel about that. "I'm not in any condition to be what you need me to be right now." And maybe I never was.

Her hand slides across the etchings, feels warm on his. "Don't set it in stone yet, Vaughn. I didn't know Chris very well, and I'm sorry for that. But I don't think she would have wanted you to give up."

No, he thinks. You didn't know her at all. But she knew me.

He tells her he'll take some time and think about it anyway.

———

He returns for people, but Sydney is only one of them. Not even, he realizes, the important one.

The old man on the beach in Normandy. Chris in the Moscow nightclub. Chris in the second tiny room. His father. Compared to them, he decides he has sacrificed nothing. And everything.

Mostly, he returns because he has abandoned the legal pads. Shifted to sitting on the couch, thinking about the big picture and the job and the differences between them. He spins his mind through her question. Did you get it out? Did you get it out? Did you get it out?

Eventually, it becomes an answer.

He parks the black Miata outside the warehouse, walks in and feels out of practice. Odd, because so much of this is instinct and habit — checking for tails, scoping the place, flicking the switch for dim fluorescents — and so much has changed drastically.

She is not surprised to see him, knew already of his return, but smiles broadly, eyes shining. "Welcome back."

He smiles, nods. Studies her for a second.

Perhaps, he thinks, someday they will take down SD-6. Move out to the country together. Buy a little farmhouse with a white picket fence. Two point five children and Donovan as the requisite dog. The odds for this are not good.

He used to think she was his last chance.

But standards have changed, priorities shifted. And now he considers other possibilities.