The structure emerges at six weeks. Up at six. At work by 7:50. Home just after five. Physical therapy Tuesday and Thursday nights, grocery shopping at the Kroger Wednesdays. He's never had an eight-to-five job, and the regularity of it startles him.

Peter lets him take the analysis today, and he sits at the table with a pile of satellite photos, pen and a legal pad. He was cleared at least five levels higher than these photos at his old job, but he'll work diligently. Scour the mundane and hope that something he does makes some progress somewhere, preferably on the SD-6 case. Peter, it seems, is past that feeling.

"I've been to 23 sports bulletin boards so far this morning, and no terrorist activity," he says. There's no such thing as a long silence in the same room as Peter, Vaughn has learned. "But I am going to have the best fantasy basketball team ever. Oh, yes, I am."

Vaughn laughs, although he's still not sure if he finds it funny. "Is this all a joke to you?"

"Pretty much. Give it enough time and it'll be a joke for you too."

Maybe, he thinks. Maybe, when there is enough distance from the stress of his old job, the sleepless nights and 2 a.m. phone calls.

There is still some of that left in Peter, he suspects, masked by the humor. He asked, a few weeks in, what Peter's real name was, thought maybe in the safe stark white of work he would rather be whomever he had been. He got an abnormally blunt response. "My real name is Peter Hayes."

He's tried again, sporadically. Pried a few things loose — knows Peter is 31 years old and six years into the protection program, and little else. Not enough to determine whether a bad ending or a good thing left behind is the reason for Peter's steadfast adherence to his current identity.

He'll keep trying, he thinks, until they're deep enough into a friendship for the truth. For now, he laughs at the jokes and takes his pointless job seriously.

"Hey, Mike, we're breaking for lunch in 15. Hope you don't mind, but I invited a friend of mine. Lisa Tucker. She works in marketing at State Farm. Smart, funny. Hot."

Here it is. You knew this was coming. He's been hinting at it for a good week, now. And you knew you wouldn't be ready. "Are you trying to set me up?"

"Only if you two click." Peter leans back in his chair and grins. "Otherwise, I just invited my friend to lunch."

And why didn't the two of you click? Why have you been itching to set me up when you're alone? "Peter, look. I appreciate the thought, but I don't think I'm ready to — I'm just getting settled into this life."

"Just go to lunch, Mike, and give it a try."

———

They snag Helen from the dingy front office and venture further downtown than usual. A tiny seafood place, faux netting and driftwood everywhere, and it has got to be too far from a coast to have anything fresh, he thinks, but says nothing. Lisa is there already, waiting for them at a table in the back. Tall and fit in a newish suit, blue eyes and blond hair pulled back in a clip. She has a nice smile.

"Lisa, how are you?" Peter asks. He doesn't wait for an answer. "You know Helen already, and this is Michael Henderson."

"Hi. Nice to meet you." Her smile widens a bit, and her handshake is firm. As much a prospect as anyone else has ever been. Except Sydney. She just skipped that stage and went straight from nothing to everything.

He sits with the rest of the group and realizes he's only a few minutes in and already thinking about Sydney. Just great. New personal record. This is going to go well.

Their waitress arrives and Lisa recommends the salmon, which sounds about as safe as anything on the menu, and gives him a chance to order it and smile at her and tell himself this could work.

"So, Mike," Peter says. "Lisa here's probably too modest to tell you this, but she can thump me pretty well in a game of one on one."

Lisa's pale cheeks flush a little, and she takes a sip of water. "Yeah. I played ball in college. Illinois State."

The plot thickens. Knows sports, plays sports. Maybe there's hope for you yet. "What position?" Vaughn asks.

"Power forward." She smiles again.

"She started, what, sophomore, junior and senior years, Lis?" Peter asks.

"Yeah. So where did you go to school, Mike?"

"UCLA." He's glad she picked this topic, he thinks. The only safe one he can think of, because it's the only thing he has any real details on. No amusing stories, anecdotes, from this life yet. No family to discuss, and he suspects she already knows more about the few friends he has than he does. You were right, this was too damn early. But Lisa might be worth making a go of it.

"PAC-10. Serious conference," she says. "Did you play anything?"

"Just intramural hockey." Fuck. Michael Vaughn played intramural hockey. Michael Henderson played nothing. Michael Henderson has nothing to talk about. He glances at Peter, suddenly tense.

Someone's cell phone rings — Lisa's, he realizes after a moment — and saves him. "I'm really sorry," she says, blushing again and fumbling through her purse. Phone to her ear and "hello," she stands and walks a few feet away from the table.

"Relax, Mike," Peter says, when she's out of earshot. "Little slip. You're going to have those. Lisa's not going to run a background check on your intramural sports career." He grins, then turns curious. "So, what do you think? You going to ask her out?"

He doesn't hesitate, needs no time to think about it. "Yeah. I think so."

"I knew it. Did I not tell you, Helen?"

Helen looks amused. "Yes, Peter, you did."

———

He waits until lunch is over, asks Lisa on the way out if she would like to see a movie sometime. Safer, that way, he thinks. Dinner means more stilted conversation and longing for background he doesn't have anymore.

"I'd like that," she says. "Or, actually, what about a game? I haven't had much of a chance to see my team this season, but I was going to go Friday night."

The structure, thus far, falls apart on Friday night, when he does the requisite exercises for his shoulder and then sits on the couch. Book in his hand and game of some sort on the television, and not much else.

"Friday night would be great."

———

The problem with basketball games versus movies, he decides, is that silence isn't expected here. The arena is small, not even half-full, and they sit on wooden roll-out bleachers three rows from the floor. She looks good, relaxed, like she's comfortable here, he thinks. Jeans that fit just right, Nikes and a long sleeve t-shirt. Her hair hangs loose and wavy around her face, perhaps prepared for his benefit, because it doesn't quite match the rest of her image.

He likes her, he decides. Smart. Attractive. Fun. Common interests. If only you'd met her in L.A. If only she was from your old life. If only you could be your real self instead of some persona from a packet.

Because like isn't enough once she's detailed the team's prospects for the season — poor — and she's complained about a foul and they've talked — gingerly, on his part — about the differences between the women's and men's game in college ball.

"So, tell me about yourself," she says, still half-focused on the game. This is appropriate, now, because Peter kept the conversation square on her during lunch. Probably good, he thinks, since he knows even less about marketing insurance than he does selling insurance. But it means she'll try to even things out, now.

"There's not a whole lot to tell." Not a lot to tell because you're not supposed to be interesting, not supposed to be memorable. "I've been at Baxter for a little while, same thing with Bloomington."

"Oh," she says. "I was born and raised here. I like the city."

Yeah, Lisa, it's nice, but it's no Los Angeles. "I was born in Chicago."

"I love Chicago," she says. "It's so, I don't know — alive."

Never been there, myself. Maybe it's time to go, if only to help out the cover story. "I actually wasn't there very long. We moved around a lot when I was a kid."

"Oh." Don't ask about the parents. Please don't ask about the parents. "So, your family, where do they live now?"

"I — actually, I was an only child, and my parents died in a plane crash when I was 17." Of all the lies he's told so far, this one pulls at him the most. Maybe because it feels too fabricated to be real, and he knows what real is. Maybe because of the mother who's still alive and thinks he isn't.

"Oh." She turns to face him. "I'm sorry. I didn't think to — "

"Don't worry. There wasn't any way for you to have known. It was a long time ago." A long time ago that never happened. And a good way to get the focus the hell away from you. "Why don't you tell me about your family?"

"Well, we're pretty normal, compared to — " He nods, and thinks that if the cover story did this to fairly self-assured Lisa, he might well be doomed. " — I mean, well, there's my mom and dad. Three brothers, all older. They're how I learned to play. We used to have some pretty mean games in the driveway."

"I can imagine," he says. "So did you look at other schools, for college, or did you want to stay local?"

"I had a couple other offers, but yeah, I guess I wanted to stay close to home if I could. What about you? Were you living in California when you applied for schools?"

Back to him, again, and this feels much less like a date than an exam. Time to break out your number two pencil and figure out just how much of that packet you really know. "Yeah. Plus I liked the school. And the city."

"I've never been to Los Angeles," she says.

"It's a great city, if you know where to go." As are Rome, and Paris, and New Delhi. London, Dublin, Berlin, Moscow, Amsterdam. And I can't ever tell you that I've been to them. Or why.

———

He drives her back to her apartment, walks her to her door and waits for her to make the next move, to see if she thinks this went as badly as he did. But she just stands there, pretty blond poker smile on her face, and he's not sure what she wants or what he wants.

He could tell her he had a great time tonight, tell himself he wants a future with her. But he's tired of lying. This is how Sydney must have felt, this false life, all the time.

Lisa puts her hand on the doorknob. Fuck it. You have to keep trying. He leans in and kisses her, softly, and she responds, but it's nothing special. Nothing to suggest there's going to be anything more.

She doesn't invite him in, and he wouldn't have said yes, anyway. He tells her good night and walks away.

Because maybe, he thinks, it has more to do with Sydney than the lies. He could have tried harder, asked her for another date, thought of more interesting lies. Hometown Lisa, pretty but normal, who, he suspects, couldn't even fathom flying to his favorite cities and doing the things Sydney Bristow did regularly.

It might have even worked, until he added too many items to the list of things not-Sydney about her, and it overwhelmed him. If he'd wanted it bad enough, he thinks, he would have found a way.

———

He returns to his apartment and starts his computer. His first contact report is required now, according to his packet. A lengthy email to his Aunt Margaret — one of the few relatives he has left, apparently, describing Lisa Tucker and his date with her in detail.

He concludes the email by telling Aunt Margaret that Lisa is a great woman, but he just doesn't think she's right for him.

Aunt Margaret, he knows, will still run a background check on her, just in case.