She is still there, warm and soft and curled up beside him, when he wakes. Confusing, for a moment, until his mind rushes through the previous day and he forces himself to believe that it really did happen. Twenty-four hours ago, you still thought you'd never see her again, much less...all of this. Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, how did we ever get here so fast?

Not Sydney. Catherine, he corrects himself. Catherine, or Cate, from here on out, because Sydney is a bad habit, one he'll have to break, and fast. Catherine, he thinks, sounds like some olden-day literary heroine in a fancy dress. There is a Catherine in Gatsby, he recalls, a bit part, but none prominent in any of his books thus far. Sydney, he thinks, is a name for a more modern heroine, the spy in the black catsuit with the martial arts and brains. So much more accurate, but you'll just have to get used to it. And Sydney could always play the role of Catherine, or anyone else she wanted to.

He remembers waking in the middle of the night, feeling her there. Feeling reassured. Feeling his resolution. He'd noticed the goose bumps on her arm and felt a little cold himself. The blanket in a pile on the floor beside him, and he'd picked it up, careful not to stir her, and pulled it over both of them.

It is still there, not quite enough for the cold morning, and she moves beneath it, mumbles something unintelligible and opens her eyes.

"Hi," she says, soft and sweet.

"Hey, Catherine." He's put the emphasis on the wrong syllable, and she cringes. "Let me try it again. Catherine." Better. Much better. But she still doesn't seem to approve. "Still wrong?"

"No. That was fine, Vau—Michael. It was just nice to be Sydney again."

"You're still Sydney," he says. "You're always Sydney."

"To you, anyway. Not to anyone else around here."

"But you're still the same person. Sydney is just a name."

"Easy for you to say, Mike." She shakes her head. "Michael. You got to keep yours."

"That doesn't seem to be helping you any."

She laughs, runs her fingers across his chest. "I'll get it eventually. It's just — you've always been Vaughn to me."

"Okay," she says. "This was supposed to be where you told me you would always be Vaughn." She smiles, in support of the joke, but she's worried.

"I'm not always going to be Vaughn. I'm not Vaughn now, S—Cate." Best get that clear. "You don't need Vaughn anymore. You don't need someone with that role in your life."

"I know that, Michael." She delivers it perfectly this time, but doesn't acknowledge that she's done it. "But I always wanted Vaughn to have a different role. I wanted you to be a bigger part of my life."

"But don't you worry?" Aren't you tense as hell right now, and afraid we're going to stumble through this and it isn't going to work? "I don't know anything about you. I hardly knew you back — back then. And I don't know anything about your life right now."

"I don't see how you could possibly think that," she says. "You know more about me than anyone else in my life right now. You knew more about me than anyone else in my life back then. You said it yourself, V—Michael, that you knew exactly who I used to be. And you know that's the truth. The little stuff — it isn't important. We'll pick it up as we go along. This is just like starting any relationship."

"But don't you worry about that? Or didn't you, back then? I mean, what we had in common was something you didn't even want to be involved in."

"You don't know that," she says. "We could have lots of things in common."

"Or nothing."

"Well, we have history in common, even if there's nothing else. That counts for something. Something big, especially now." She sighs. "It's going to work, Michael. It has to."

She's in the same place. She's been where you've been, maybe worse, and she knows just how much is riding on this. He turns his head to kiss her cheek, and thinks at least they have fear in common.

———

She rolls away, eventually, and he gets a long view of her bare back before she commandeers a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt from his dresser. He dresses in the same and follows her into the hallway.

She halts next to the door to the other bedroom. "What's in here?"

"Spare room." He opens the door. "Office and guest bedroom, mostly."

She walks straight toward the partially filled bookshelf, and it embarrasses him. "Are these yours, or did they buy them for you?" she asks.

"They're mine."

"Oh." She runs her index finger along the titles until she reaches the blue-and-white paperback and pulls it out. His new copy of The Great Gatsby. Old one dog-eared and likely discovered, with great amusement, by Weiss when they did whatever they did with the contents of his apartment. "This is one of my favorite books."

"Mine, too," he says. "You had a paper...do you remember how you did?"

He expects her to ask what paper, but instead she responds quietly, "I got an A." She slides the book back into the shelf. "I guess I didn't realize you were such an avid reader."

"I wasn't. I — after you left, they told me to go away for a little while, lay low. I had a lot of time on my hands, and I don't know, I guess I was just trying to connect with you, so I started buying books. I know that probably sounds absurd."

She shakes her head. "One evening last winter, I didn't have any work to do and I just sat down on the couch, channel surfing. I came across a hockey game, and I stopped and watched the whole thing. I don't even know why. At the time — at the time I was still pretty damn angry at you."

This hurts, and she knows it. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought that up."

"No. That's how you were feeling, and it was my fault. Syd — " Damn it. " — Cate, if you want to talk about it, we should talk some more."

"Michael, you've said everything you needed to say." The anger is gone, he thinks. But there are tears in her eyes, and there's still hurt down there somewhere. He tells himself he's just going to have to make sure she never has a reason to dredge it up. We didn't exactly get here on an ideal path. But maybe, somehow, all of this is going to work out.

———

He tells her to shower first, he'll fix breakfast; scrambled eggs, toast and whatever else he can rouse out of his refrigerator.

She showers quickly, pads into the kitchen in socks and her clothes from yesterday, wet hair hanging in her face. A little half-laugh at the eggs.

"Something wrong?" Not that you're a real culinary genius, but they seem pretty normal, as scrambled eggs go.

"No, it's just — Will. I've never seen anyone not be able to scramble eggs, but he always found a way. He'd burn them, turn them funny colors — " She's laughing now, and he joins her. Knows Will Tippin well enough to imagine him, spatula poised and failing miserably. " — he was always a hazard in the kitchen, unless Francie was around to supervise."

She turns serious. "I can't tell you how great it is to be able to talk about them again. I think it's been a year since I've said their names."

"I know what you mean. I've got a couple million drunken Weiss stories going to waste right now."

"Tell them to me sometime."

"I will." Today, even, if you want. "Do you have to be anywhere today?" Please say no.

"No. But I — this is finals week, and I've got a paper due Tuesday and two exams Wednesday, so I really should study."

"Oh." He stares at his plate for a moment. "I was just thinking, I owe you dinner. Maybe later in the week — "

"I think you owe me a lot of dinners," she smiles. "I can take a study break. I'm sorry. I procrastinated all of this work — I didn't anticipate anything like this, like us, happening."

"I don't see how you could have." Probably better, anyway. We both need some time to process all of this. This has already been the most time you've ever spent alone with her. "What time?"

"Seven o'clock okay?" He nods. He'll take the rest of the day to process, and he'll need it.

———

He lets her pick the restaurant, not familiar enough yet with much in the area beyond pizza and groceries. The roads have mostly been cleared of the snow, he's pleased to note. Not a whole lot of winter driving under your belt. Maybe it's time to sell the big black boat and get an SUV.

"Left at the light," she says, and he glances over at her. Wearing makeup, now, lipstick and eyes smoked out with something dark. He still thinks she looks beautiful without anything, head on his shoulder in the morning. But there had been makeup, before that, before it was washed off by snow and tears, and so the stuff now is good, he decides.

She's bundled up in the wool coat again, but below that there's a low-cut red sweater, black skirt, tall black boots. Altogether more than enough to make him think wow and finally manage something more coherent when she answered the door to her apartment. It made her blush, so he thinks it was sufficient.

The restaurant is small, homey, and not so far from the little Italian place back in Los Angeles. Table for two, candlelight, bottle of wine, and maybe they've got this in common as well, he thinks.

"It doesn't look like much," she says. "But the food's really good."

"It's great," he reassures. "Actually, it reminds me of this place in L.A. near my apartment. I wanted to take you there sometime — you know, if it was ever possible."

"I think everyone has a place like that in L.A. It's one of the reasons I miss it."

"Me too. I used to like to go down to — "

"Waitress," she whispers, just before their waitress — young, brunette, hair wisping out of her ponytail — approaches from behind him. She scribbles down their orders — chicken marsala for her, eggplant parmesan for him — in quick pencil shorthand, pours their wine, and hustles off.

Alone, again. Sydney pulls a tube of lipstick from her purse — bugkiller — and twists it until it beeps. She sets it on the table. "So when were you in Rome?"

Which she wants to know because — oh. "I was assigned to Station Rome most of my first year after training. I didn't know Italian, at first, but I didn't really need to. I was officially a gofer for the ambassador there."

"And unofficially?"

"A middleman, mostly. I picked up dead drops, did a few brush passes, moved intel when it was important enough to hand-deliver. Odds and ends." And round about that time, you were well on your way to becoming a field operative for SD-6.

"Where did you go after that?"

"They had an opening in New Delhi. Same basic deal there for two years. Then Paris, which is where I think they wanted me to go in the first place — fluency in the language and all that. I worked a couple surveillance operations there, but they pulled me back to L.A. after six months." He pauses. "I worked a desk there for awhile — reports and analysis, mostly. And then they assigned me to you."

She smiles, sips her wine. "I miss it. You wouldn't think I would, but I do."

"Really?"

"Yeah," she says. "I used to think, if we ever took them down, I'd want to retire and get away from that life as fast as I possibly could. But, you know, it gets in you. I think now if it was safe and I could go back, I'd still want to work for the Agency."

"Don't get your hopes up. The odds of that are — "

"I know, I know," she says. "Next to impossible. I guess I miss the missions, the challenges. I think I realized that once I got here — that it was the lies that bothered me, not everything else."

"Because you had to come here and tell more lies?" She nods, and he takes a sip of wine, smiles at her. "So, Catherine, what have you been doing since you've been here?"

"School and work, mostly. It's not too exciting, especially since I've already done a lot of the coursework. But another semester and I'll be almost done."

"That's great." He'll be able to attend her graduation, he thinks. Walk up to her after it's over and tip her cap back, kiss her hard and tell her for the umpteenth time just how amazing she is.

"I try to get out when I don't have too much work. That's what I was doing yesterday." Until fate or Jack Bristow intervened. "I run a lot, too."

"I could tell."

She laughs. "I don't know what I'm going to do, with the snow now. I got a treadmill last winter, but it's not the same."

"Peter, the guy I work with, got me to join his gym. Mostly to play basketball there, but there's a track. Maybe you should come with me sometime, see if that works better."

"I think I will."

They've been talking so fast and it has flowed so well — in his estimation — that the first silence is a surprise. And this, he thinks, is what he feared — that it would come and be scary and uncomfortable. But it's not. It's her smiling in the candlelight, and history, and knowing, and just being here, with her.

He's spent years wanting this moment, this time, he realizes, and fearing it at the same time. Fearing that it would come, and it would be wrong, and then what would he be left with? But somewhere deep down, you must have thought it could be perfect, or you wouldn't have wanted it in the first place.

And it is, he thinks, or it's damn close. And maybe there's nothing to be afraid of.

———

He takes her home, hours later, after the conversation picks up and she scoffs at her schoolwork. Walks with her up to her apartment door, and the building, he notices, is just like his, although her place is on the first floor.

"Good night, Catherine." He slips an arm around her waist, fully intends to hold himself to one kiss, short and sweet. But she is greedy, hand around his neck, bringing him back when he starts to pull away.

"Come inside with me," she whispers, breathless.

He wants to — so badly — but last night, he thinks, was too fast, even if it all worked out. "You've got work to do. I can wait." I can wait a long time, when there's hope.

Her hands slip from his neck. "Will you come over tomorrow, or call me, just to — "

"Just to be sure this is really real?"

"Yeah." She smiles, lets one hand linger on his chest.

"Of course."

"Good night, then, Michael."

"Good night."

———

He returns to his apartment and starts his computer. Another lengthy email to Aunt Margaret.

This time, he tells her he thinks he's found the one.

———

Peter pounces as soon as he's through the door the next morning.

"As your gift to mankind, you really do need to share that pickup line," he says, leaning back as far as his chair will allow and peering around his computer monitor. "Your coat's on the couch, by the way."

Vaughn laughs, but says nothing.

"Seriously," Peter says. "I know we had that little pep talk and I said to move on, but holy shit, Mike. You move on like a bullet train. One night stand, or you think there's a future with mystery woman?"

God, I hope so. "It wasn't any woman. It was the woman."

"The woman? As in your agent the woman?" Vaughn nods. "How the hell is that possible?"

"I told you she's in the protection program, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, obviously they cluster agents, because we're both here."

"So this was like the greatest coincidence of all time?"

"I don't think so," Vaughn says. "Her father was CIA, too. I think he pulled some strings."

Peter shakes his head. "Man, do you have any idea how lucky you are?"

"I'm just beginning to figure it out."