He arrives at work well-sexed, if not completely well-rested, still a better start to today than yesterday, when he was neither.

He checks his messages — one new, Adam Brown asking if he's got any preferences for lunch — and decides to check bank accounts before he delves through the debriefs and access records. Better to exhaust his other options before those two, because if they fail, he won't have a clue where to go.

So he pulls bank accounts, real estate transactions, credit card statements. Pages through hundreds of them, until his eyes go dry and dull. An endless stream of numbers that might mean somebody is taking money on the side, but are more likely innocuous, and no obvious standouts.

He will try what he's been meaning to try all along this afternoon. And if that doesn't work, he may have to fly out there and question them. But that is premature; maybe something from operations or records will stand out, and he'll catch his mole that way.

His cell phone rings, interrupting his inspection of one agent's sizable credit card bill.

Sydney. "Hey."

"Hey. How are you?"

"Good," she says. A lie? "Look, I wanted to call and tell you not to come over, at least right after work. I'm going to have to go in."

"They couldn't even give you one day off?"

"They did, but they're going to release Dixon today. My dad told me. He thought I'd want to be there."

Access to Dixon has been strictly limited while he's been interrogated, so this will be her first chance to speak to him since the fall of SD-6. From what she's told him already, he is fairly sure it won't go well.

"Okay. Why don't you call me when you're done, if you want me to come over."

"I will."

———

He is still at work when she calls again, cataloging discrepancies between mission debriefs in tight scrawl on the legal pad. There are more than he'd expected, and this, finally, is progress, even if he doesn't yet know how to begin to pare everything down into a few suspects.

There is a long pause after he says hello.

"Syd? You there?"

"Yeah." Barely more than a whisper. She is distraught, but trying to hide it over the phone. "Did you still want to come over?"

"Of course. I'll be right there."

The security scripts to shut down his computer seem to take longer than usual, as do his walk to the parking deck and the short drive to her apartment.

She opens the door before he can even knock. She has been crying, her face puffy, eyes weary.

"God, Syd." She steps into his embrace as soon as he can get his arms out, sobbing in short, soft gasps against his chest.

It takes a long time, it seems, for that to slow, but when it does, he ushers her into the living room, arm around her shoulders, keeping her close. Sitting beside her on the couch, waiting.

"Dixon, he just — " She makes a fist with her hand and presses it to her mouth, as if she's trying to push back the tears. "He laid into me. How could I know and keep this from him, he said. How could I let him believe he was fighting for this country and all the while he was working against it?

"I told him that I wanted too but I couldn't," she says. "But he wouldn't listen. 'I'm a terrorist,' he kept saying. 'I'm a terrorist.' I didn't know what to say. What could I possibly say to that?"

"There was nothing you could say, Syd. He just needs time, but he'll come around," he says. "This is all fresh in his mind right now and he can't process it all yet, so he's lashing out. He'll see eventually — he has to see that there was nothing you could do, that you couldn't tell him because there were just too many risks."

"I told him that. He said that if I trusted him, I would have told him. He said I never really trusted him." She begins crying again, face in her hands. "I trusted him with my life."

"You have to give him time, Syd." Rubbing her back. "What about recruitment? I know they were considering Marshall and Dixon as long as their stories cleared."

"Marshall already signed on. I don't think he knows how to do anything else. I think Dixon's the same way, but he told them no."

She turns toward him. "I'm worried about him, Vaughn. This — finding out about SD-6, it really rocks the foundations of your life, and I wish he'd talk to me, because I know what it's like to go through that. Maybe I could help, if he'd let me in."

"Just be patient, Syd." He pulls her into a tight hug, her head resting against his shoulder, hair soft under his hands. "Dixon's lucky to have you as a friend."