Title: Love Gone Wrong
Author: Tamara
Email: tamara@bitchenvy.com
Rating: R -for sexual content and angst galore.
Summary: Holding on to something that isn't yours to keep.
Distribution: If you want it, email me.
Disclaimer: Sydney and Vaughn aren't mine. They belong to JJ Abrahms, bless his soul.
A/N: I can't seem to stop writing post-finale fic, no matter how hard I try. Here's yet another one.

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She blamed the first time on him.

It was the middle of the night, still and silent, the only light coming from the faint glow of the moon shining in through the bedroom window. Sleep had not come easy in the weeks since her return, something that had once been so precious, so welcome, alluding her with astonishing ease. After she’d tossed and turned for hours, unable to do anything but stare up at the ceiling, counting the minutes as they crept slowly by, she’d picked up her phone and dialed his number.

He answered on the third ring, and the low, gravelly quality of his voice sent waves of awareness skittering down her spine, as it had in the past when he would lean over her in bed, the warmth of the sun shining down on them, and whisper "good morning" in her ear. Her heart skipped a beat, her lungs seized, her breath catching in her throat, and her skin felt tight, her body clenching in need. When he told her to meet him in the park in twenty minutes, she had wasted no time getting out of bed. She threw on the first thing she could find, a button-down blue oxford shirt over the white baby t-shirt she’d found among the belongings her father had put in storage, and a pair of navy blue leggings she’d taken off hours before when she’d slipped between the sheets of Will’s guest bed, uncomfortable and unfamiliar even after twenty-eight days.

When she got to the park, ten minutes later, she wasn’t at all surprised to see him sitting there, waiting for her.

To her credit, she did her best to resist him, tried everything in her power to not let his presence affect her. She tried ignoring him, pretending she hadn't called him, pretending he hadn't come to her, even though things had changed between them. But their silence spoke volumes, saying all the things they'd left unspoken, all the words they longed to hear. And just when she couldn’t fight it anymore, when the feel of his warmth beside her brought memories of what waking up next to him felt like, when the scent of him was rushing straight to her brain, making her want to press up against him, his scent mingling with hers so when she went home alone, he would still be with her, when the thought of touching him, of taking his hand in hers, slipping her fingers through the spaces between his, and simply pressing their palms together, of being touched by him, in all the ways he had touched her before, he said...

"I miss you."

She did the only thing she could think of, the one thing that had been running through her head constantly from the moment he’d walked through the doors of the shoddy safe house in Hong Kong, when she looked into his eyes and saw pain and heartache and resignation in his stunning green eyes.

She slowly, hesitantly brushed her lips against his.

For a moment, one brief painful moment, he was utterly, completely still, so still she wondered if she’d made a mistake, if kissing him, wanting to be close to him, was something she’d lost the right to the night she disappeared without a trace. And when she started to pull away, trying with all her strength to keep the tears from falling, he responded, increasing the pressure of his lips against hers almost imperceptibly.

It was all the encouragement she needed. When she wrapped her arms around him, her hands tangling in his hair, bringing his lips hard down on hers, he deepened the kiss, coaxing her mouth open with his tongue. And as she tasted the unique flavor of him, something that she had never been able to describe but had not been able to live without once she’d discovered it, she knew that there was no way in the world she would ever be able to go on if she did not make love to Michael Vaughn one last time.

And when his hands went to her waist, pulling her up and over him, settling her on his lap, when his hands moved underneath the hem of her t-shirt, his thumbs stroking her nipples as his hands cupped her breasts, when he pulled her tight against him, pressing his hard length against her warm, wet center, making her feel just how much he wanted her, how much she affected him, reminding her that nothing, nothing, had ever felt as good as the way he felt inside her, filling her, making her whole, she knew that he felt exactly the same way.

And so, four weeks to the day she returned from the dead, Sydney Bristow and Michael Vaughn made love under the light of the full moon on their favorite bench in the middle of their favorite park.

It was supposed to be one last time, one more perfect moment to remember when she was lying alone in bed at night, wishing he was there, wanting him with her again. One last perfect moment between them that he would think about when he was lying in bed next to the woman to whom he pledged his life, wishing things had turned out differently. One last time for them to remember, without regret, that what had been between them was real and they had loved each other.

Unfortunately, one night just wasn’t enough.

That first time was his fault.

But every other time after that, when they met in the middle of the night, between twilight and dawn, in hotel rooms in distant cities, in those short hours between the end of the mission and the long journey back home, when she lied to her friends and he lied to his wife, all those times she blamed herself.

Because resisting him was impossible.

But not nearly as impossible as letting him go.