“Absolutely Not!
Look, Jack, that’s none of my business, and I am not going to ask
her.”
“Agent Vaughn, do I need to remind you that it is your
duty as a handler to ask difficult questions. I am well aware you have feelings for my daughter. So far you have not let them
interfere with your work, but if you are unwilling to perform your duties, I
will be forced to talk to Devlin.
I don’t think I have to tell you the doubts he has about your
objectivity. Prove that you can
handle this type of situation.”
Having laid it all out, Jack watches the younger agent’s
resolve break. It’s nothing as
noticeable as a slump in the shoulders, or a break in eye contact, but Vaughn
knows he has no other choice and nods his assent.
Jack stoically turns and exits leaving Vaughn to figure
out how in hell he is supposed to ask her this question. The government’s constant meddling in
his agent’s personal life sickens him, and he really doesn’t want to know
these details unless he’s the privileged one experiencing them.
This may be the toughest conversation they will ever
have. He knows this issue will
undeniably force them to examine their own relationship, but he is hesitant
to open himself up to the possibility that she may not feel the same
way. It is a battle he can’t
win. So he’ll slip on the armor
of his professional façade and hide behind rhetoric, hoping he will not
betray himself and somehow find the courage to get through these questions.
* * * * * *
Friction. It
was as tangible and raspy as sandpaper against soft skin, or hard leather
binds that bite into tender flesh.
Their postures were rigid, and their gazes were locked in a
glare.
The warehouse was getting dark as the sun set. His tie was loosened, the top button
undone, and his cuffs rolled up.
His hair looked like he had run his hand through it a few too many
times that day in exasperation.
She looked exhausted, drawn, with dark circles underneath
her eyes that no amount of makeup could continue to hide. After Noah’s death, she had
worked on her missions at a feverish pace that could only end in burn out
when the leads on her mother inevitably dried up. She had been easily irritated of late, as if she was
spoiling for a fight.
“Vaughn, I won’t do it - not at the current specs. It’s
too risky. If I don’t come back
with the real disk, Sloane will suspect something. He still doubts me, and Marshall will spot that fake a
mile away.” She hisses.
One of them has to give, and today it will be him. They’ve been going at it for the last
twenty minutes, and he wants to save something for the real argument he knows
they are about to have.
“Fine. I will
go back to op tech and see if they can create an undetectable tracer virus on
the disk that will activate when the files are downloaded. We’ll meet tomorrow to review the
modified specs.”
She nods a curt assent and abruptly turns to leave.
Vaughn straightens his shoulders, stealing himself, and
tries to assert a professional demeanor. “Sydney, wait, there’s something else we need to
discuss.”
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow? I think we are passed the point of objectivity for
tonight.”
“I wish it could, but this one is not coming from me. I need to go over a CIA policy
with you. There’s been a
problem recently, and handlers have been asked to rebrief their agents.”
“So what is it?”
She gives him her soft fake “everything’s alright” smile as she senses
he is stalling and just wants to get this over with. All she wants to do is go home, have
a glass of wine, and take a bubble bath. She’s bone tired and yet she can’t truly find the rest she
needs. Too many accusing eyes
haunt her dreams.
“Sydney, please understand the CIA’s utmost concern is the
welfare of our agents, and that all other female agents are being asked
this.” He shifts uncomfortably.
“Vaughn, you’re stalling. Spit it out; it can’t be that
bad.” She teases thinking he is acting like a nervous teenager on a first
date.
“The CIA requires all female field agents to actively use
contraception.” He tries to act
unbiased, but he looks away and then down at his shoes unable to meet
Sydney’s eyes. He knows this is
just too personal for both of them.
* * * * * *
“Oh.” She says in slight shock. She can feel her cheeks
start to burn but then curses herself for empathizing with him for having to
invade her privacy. She is just
not in the mood to feel sorry for him.
“The agency recommends that you use some type of long term
daily contraception like the pill, an IUD, or a hormonal implant or shot.
Condoms are not the preferred method.
If you practice high risk sex, the agency recommends that you double
up your current method with condoms to ensure maximum protection from
pregnancy and disease.”
He is reciting a well-rehearsed speech, trying to sound as
neutral and detached as possible.
He does not want to think about the overall implications of Sydney
taking birth control – that she is having sex, but not with him. He is avoiding his well-worn fantasy
of throwing her up against the chain link fence in this very warehouse and
practicing the unsafe sex he is describing. It was hard to tell which one was blushing more.
“Okay. I
understand. Are we done yet?”
She says cutting him off. She
just wants to get this conversation over as soon as possible. She doesn’t need Sex Ed 101 from her
handler.
“I’m sorry, Sydney, but I have to ask what method of birth
control you are using?”
“I’m not.”
“Sydney, I appreciate you understanding how awkward this
is, but I do need to know.”
“No, I’m not, as I’m not using anything.”
“What do you mean?” He is at first surprised and then
flash changes to an impatient tone. “You’re a responsible person. How could you take that risk? Doesn’t SD-6 have similar
protocols?” He rakes his hand
once more through his hair.
Her answer worries him as much as if they had just had sex and
discovered that the condom broke.
“Look, I stopped after Danny was killed.” She says flatly leaving the
conversation no room to go.
She played the Danny card. She’s cried her heart out to him over her father, her
friends, her colleagues, but she won’t talk about Danny – it’s the ultimate
trump, and she avoids it like the plague. The only insight he has been able to glean is from her
walk in statement, and that was the bare facts only; no details; no
emotions. She’ll shut down at
any mention of him. If it were
any other subject, he might think she was hiding something by her reactions.
“Sydney, it’s a statistical fact that field agents are in
a higher sexually active set than the average adult. Field agents and especially double
agents thrive on the adrenaline rush of high-risk missions. The daily life and death situations
faced can put those agents in a near constant endorphin high. Some get so used to the chemical
addiction that they seek it in any way possible. The brain releases those same chemicals during sex, so
it’s not really a coincidence many field agents live up to the James Bond
stereotype.”
She crossed her arms and openly roles her eyes at him,
pissed that he is lumping her into some category.
“Agents on long term assignments display an even higher
tendency towards multiple partners. Look, the male agents get this talk too,
but the consequences for their indiscretions are just not as severe.”
With his words, something snaps inside of her from weeks
of impotent activity, and she decides that this charade has gone far
enough. Her eyes cut into him
like lasers as she takes the offensive.
“Are you accusing me of sleeping around?”
“No Syd -”
“Because I really thought you knew me better than that.”
“Sydney, if you were to get preg -”
“So the CIA is just protecting their work force, can’t
have a double agent on the inactive list for nine months?” She spits out her words, purposely
not letting him get any in edge wise.
“No! Would you stop it! It’s not who you choose to have
sex with, it’s who you don’t.
You know the circles we work in.
What makes you so effective is that you are not afraid to push the
envelope and take risks. You use
your sex as a weapon. It’s more effective than any wig or outfit you dress up
in.”
“These men that we target do no share our moral code. They fit a profile – they like guns,
cars, expensive things; and they like women. They barter in power, and sex is just another power
issue. These men don’t take no
for an answer.”
“Sydney, I worry about you.” He backs off, his voice gentler, and sees a brief flicker
of emotion in her eyes. He
thinks he is finally reaching her, but just as quickly she squelches those
feelings and presses on.
“So the CIA is planning to start pimping me out? They want me to become a swallow
agent?” She cruelly twists his words, just to watch him squirm.
“No! Syd, don’t you understand? We go out of our way to
give you every advantage, to ensure that you are not forced into an unwanted
sexual situation. But it’s the
what if’s that drive me insane.”
“Vaughn, I thought you’d know by now that I can take of
myself.”
“Of course you can - you could kick my ass in a
heartbeat. What scares me is
what if you are compromised in different way. What if you were drugged and raped? How could I live with myself knowing
that I put you in that position?”
His voice wavering as his true feelings show through.
“And taking birth control is going to prevent me from
being raped?”
“No. But it will make me feel a lot better knowing that
you are protected when you are in the field.”
“Oh well, as long as it makes you feel
better, then that makes the sick bastards like Hassan who lick my face worth
it. Vaughn, I have to say, even
my dad handled the sex talk better than this in high school.”
He looks off to the side. That last comment stung especially since Jack was the one
who forced this conversation.
He’s tired of playing nice, and she isn’t making this any easier for
him, so he decides to switch tactics.
“Sydney, what precautions did you take with Agent Hicks?”
* * * * * *
"What?" Her
eyes widen and then narrow. She feels like a teenager caught sneaking
out at night and is about to deny it when he interrupts.
"Look, I know you had sex with Noah."
"Is that why we're having this conversation? Is the 'problem' that
I was involved with another agent?"
"Don't flatter yourself. Other people have real problems besides
you." She flinches at his words.
"A double agent got pregnant. She was working in the Pastrana drug
cartel in Colombia, and the CIA's last five years of intel was
compromised. She was planted as the kingpin's moll but got emotionally
attached. When she got pregnant, she got careless."
Vaughn pauses for a moment cringing at the agent's horrific fate.
"I can't even begin to describe what that butcher did to her. We
were lucky we found her before she bled out - she will never be able to have
children again. Syd, I know you, and I know that you would not want to
put your work in jeopardy over a situation like this."
Sydney blanches and shivers almost imperceptibly as the object lesson strikes
a deep chord within her, but then she quickly regroups and faces the issue
head on.
"How do you know I slept with Noah?"
It's Vaughn's turn to pale. He still didn’t want to believe that it
could be true - he wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, but to hear
her admission really crushes him. He can't help but feel betrayed.
She stays deadly silent waiting for his explanation, and he feels the vicious
heat of her gaze, realizing that she never wanted him to find out about this.
"SD-6 knows, therefore Sloane knows, and he told your father. You really
should be more discreet." He adopts a condescending tone, wanting to
punish her for her perceived infidelity.
"Sloane knows!" She feels like someone has punched her in the gut,
and her stomach lurches threatening to disgorge its contents. She has
always been repulsed by Sloane's inappropriate attentions, but it really
shakes her that he knows about her most intimate moments.
The anger inside her stirs again as she realizes it's not just Sloane.
For Vaughn to have this information, it must have traveled through her
father, probably Devlin, and then to Vaughn and who knows else.
"So are all my private moments broadcast on some surveillance monitor
like a porn video for the intelligence community to see? If this is how
it is gonna be, then the CIA is no better than the FBI when it comes to
personal information."
She crosses her arms like a defiant child. She's sick of having her
privacy invaded and even though she knows he is not the one to blame, he is
the one standing right in front of her.
"Sydney, give us more credit than that - your father told only me - even
Devlin is out of the loop. I know you're still pissed about how the FBI
treated you, but how many times am I going to have to apologize for their
mistakes?"
By habit he feels his heart go out to her in her distress. The last
thing he wants her to feel is violated, but he's feeling used too. He is torn
between playing her confessor ready to absolve her problems and the handler
ready to guide her through the latest agenda. How could she so
desperately lean on him for support only to quickly forsake him as soon as
another man came along? She called him her guardian angel; he thought
that meant something. The sadistic impulse wins out and he presses on.
"You're avoiding the issue. You said you weren't taking any
precautions. I have to ask did Noah use a condom?"
She just glares at him, refusing to dignify the question with an answer.
"Sydney, could you be pregnant?" Irrational panic invades his
voice as his mind begins to race to conclusions to explain her avoidance.
"No!" She says like she is swatting away an annoying fly.
"Do you know for sure?"
"Damn it Vaughn! How detailed is this going to get? I am not
sharing with you when it is my time of the month."
"That's okay, by your mood swings, I’m pretty sure I already know
when."
"Go fuck yourself."
He is still reluctant to really get into it with her, but he is surprised by
how good it feels to get under her skin. He usually ignores her faults,
just wanting to protect her and keep her confident and ready for the
inevitable next mission.
"How could you be so careless? A fling with a known assassin?
What the hell were you thinking?"
"You think this was just a fling? Vaughn, I have never been casual about
whom I have had sex with. I had a relationship with Noah; he meant
something to me. We dated for two years - that's as long as I was with
Danny. Noah was there when I joined SD-6. He trained me; he took
me on my first mission. We worked damn well together, as good as,
almost better than Dixon."
She is pacing now, increasingly agitated by his persistent accusations.
Even though her relationship with Noah ended horribly, she still values the
place he held in her life.
"If you were so good together, then why did you break up in the first
place?" He is sickened to hear her devotion to Noah and is
desperate to remind her of the truth. "Noah Hicks was a
killer. You're smart Sydney, how could you not pick up on that? You're
trained to notice these things. How could you be so naïve?"
"Don't you think this eats me up inside? I find myself
obsessing back over every little detail I can recall. I've even spent
hours comparing his case file with the Snowman's. When did he find time
to freelance missions without me? And when did he sneak one in with me
right by his side? It makes me sick to think that I could have unknowingly
been his accomplice."
"And he loved his knives. He used to spend hours methodically
sharpening out any little nick. God! I gave him knives for his
collection." She involuntarily shudders at the tainted memory. His
deception feels like a sacrilege to what she thought they had.
"Well, you were really quick to jump back into bed with him."
She advances toward Vaughn to confront him, closing the distance between them
so they are almost face to face.
"You really want to know the details? To be blunt, sex was never a
problem with Noah. We got off on your damn statistical endorphin high -
it was a challenge to see how close we could test the limits and not get
caught. He still is the best sex I've ever had."
Vivid images flash through her mind - joining the mile high club over every
continent, jeopardizing a mission to sneak into a governor's private garden,
a frenzied fuck in the dark corner of a club to kill time before a drop,
disabling the security feed at work for frantic elevator sex.
"What happened in Arkhangelsk was just sex. When we got back from
the mission, he wanted to pick up where we left off, but I was the one
holding back. I wish I could say that it was because of some instinct
about who he really was, but it was more about not leaving myself vulnerable
to get hurt again."
"Syd, how could you be so blind?" This facts of this argument
are costing him, but he continues his unwavering assault.
"God Vaughn, don't you get it? I was in love with Noah! At one
point I foolishly let myself believe that I could spend the rest of my life
with him. Do you know he offered me a way out? Just before he
left for Mackay, he gave me plane tickets to a new life when I so desperately
want to disappear."
"And it was so tempting. You don't know how close I was to going.
What if he was waiting for me to join him, so he could finally stop the
assassin business?"
"Well you had your opportunity - why didn't you run off with Noah?"
"My mother. I thought we were getting close to the truth about
her." She almost hesitates to bring the added insanity of her
mother into the argument, wishing for once she could escape her hereditary
fate.
"You're damn mother. How can you truly want to find someone who
has ruined so many lives? Just what type of relationship do you expect
to have with her when you find her." He might as well have slapped
her. He knows some part of her holds herself accountable for the
horrible actions of her mother, including his father's death.
Oddly though, her mother is the one bait tonight she will not take. She
sections that off in her mind and instead drifts back to the life Noah
offered her. Once again she realizes how enticing that dream was,
drinking endless umbrella drinks, wearing sarongs all year round, walking
barefoot in the sand. She imagines herself curling up on a deck chair
with Noah to watch the sun set. No more guns, no locks, no keys.
Just Noah. Could that life have made her happy? Could he have changed?
Vaughn sees her drifting off into neverland, and reaches out to put a hand on
her shoulder and anchor her back to him. He can't let her dream about a
fabricated life with Noah. She may see it as an escape, but it would
have been just another compounded lie to trap herself in.
"Face reality. Noah Hicks killed for a living, and you found him
out. If you didn't kill him, he would have killed you!"
"You don't know that."
Her voice wavers at the thought.
"Syd, don't kid yourself - neither do you."
"I trusted Noah with my heart. How could I have been so fooled by
his double life?" Her resolve is breaking and she is starting to
crumble.
"Like you fooled Danny with yours? Now you know what it is like to
walk a mile in Danny's shoes. Sometimes the truth hurts,
Syd."
"Damn You! You Bastard!" She slaps him with such force that
he knows it will leave a bruise. He almost doesn't know why he said it
but sometimes he just wants her to wake up to the lies she tells herself
about her life.
"You're such a hypocrite." She spits out.
"What?"
"If you think you can question my relationship with Noah."
"Syd -"
"No, let's really talk about this." Her eyes shine with tightly
controlled tears.
"Why do you get to judge who I date, when you won't come clean about
your feelings for me?"
* * * * * * *
"Whoa, Sydney, you think
this is about me?"
"I don't know Vaughn, who's fooling himself now?"
He looks off to the side, the cat obviously having caught his tongue.
"Look, I know you have a crush on me; I see every once over, every
ridiculous puppy dog look. There is something between us that we don’t
address, and I am sick of tiptoeing around the subject. I offered you
hockey tickets, but you said no - you didn't even have the balls to
try."
"Syd, that's not fair. You know I wanted to go to that hockey
game, but we’ve talked about why we can’t. Protocol."
He reaches toward her in a futile attempt to placate her, but she steps out
of his reach.
"Protocol should be a
four-letter word." She spits out disgustedly, "Just because I
am the grieving fiancé doesn’t make me a vestal virgin. I have to move on with my life, and
I'm sick of being alone. How much more do I have to sacrifice for some
arbitrary set of rules?"
"So what do you want me to do? You know what could happen if we were
seen together! We would be risking our lives. You've had too much grief in your life already, and I am
not going to add on another needless risk."
"Then don't stand there expecting me to save myself for you unless you
are willing to demonstrate why.
This unrequited love thing is very appealing, but sometimes it’s just
not enough. Sure you’re cute, but a girl can get bored with all
flirting and no action."
"So, what? Boredom sent you
into the arms of Noah? I guess it's easier to retreat to the past than
to take a step forward and have the patience for something new to
develop."
"Vaughn, we're not in a relationship. We've never made any
promises to be exclusive. Hell,
you could get back together with Alice if you wanted to."
The tension crackling in
the air is tangible, and he is barely able to contain his reactions. This fight is affecting him on primal
level, and he’s pretty sure he’s having the same effect on her, by the flush
in her cheeks. He turns away and
grips the fence with white knuckles; it takes all his willpower not to turn
around and do something they may regret later.
"Yeah, you're right.
We’re not. Pardon me for thinking you're worth the wait."
"Then take the fucking
chance! If we wait the window of
opportunity may be gone. What the hell are you afraid of?"
Sick of his avoidance, she
storms towards him, jerks him around, and traps him between her and the
fence. Finally emboldened to do
what he won’t give himself permission to do, she closes the distance between
them roughly pulling his mouth to hers and kisses him. It is a violent
fevered frenzy of tongues clashing and teeth gnashing. He reacts in
kind, rotating and slamming them into the chain link fence, grabbing her
hands and pinning them above her head. He stops to look at her and absorb
the reckless expression on her face, her usually delicate features cruelly
contorted by desire.
He has held back for so long, and now that the moment is here, he is barely
able to contain the chaos inside him.
He continues the assault pressing his full length against her and
captures her mouth again, nicking her lip and tasting a metallic tang.
The metal wire bites through her thin shirt, but she doesn’t care that
tomorrow she will have a lattice of lines branded into her back. Their hips
align and she feels him hard against her, so she shimmies her hips with
anticipation, fueling his desire. Distracted by her movements, he
relaxes his grip on her hands and she uses the opportunity to drape her arms
around his neck, grabbing hold of him, so she can wrap her legs around him,
climbing him, trying to bury herself into him.
He's glad she wore a skirt today as his hands rake down physically memorizing
her body, following a trail his mind had blazed a million times. He
pushes up her skirt and delves into the tiny scrap of lace that is her
panties, ripping them in his haste. She is so so so wet, dripping, and
she yelps out when his fingers find her wetness, and he slides a thumb over
her swollen clit. She has been so frustrated and on edge that one hard
pinch is all she needs to detonate in his hand, gasping for breath like a
fish out of water, her head slumping against his shoulder. Before he can even
comprehend how quickly he gave her release, he is brutally crashed down to
earth as he feels hot wet tears soaking his shirt, and sobs racking her
body.
Though his thought process
is almost consumed by his own raw need, he cannot in good conscience continue
this attack on their senses. The last thing he wants is her tears in
this moment, so he will allow his need to go unsatisfied. He fights to
regain some semblance of control, though the bittersweet friction of her body
does not help. He unwraps her legs, peeling her off of him, and sets
her on her feet, catching her as her knees buckle under the intensity of the
moment.
She weakly allows him to
guide her back to sit on the crates. His mind is a riot of confusion
fighting to understand her reactions, and he curses himself for allowing
their relationship to be forced too soon to a physical level in a frantic moment
of lust.
She looks at him, torn and confused, as if she will break into a million
pieces at the slightest touch.
She still wants him desperately, but everything about this moment
feels off. Physically she has
finally experienced release she craved, but emotionally, her mind is still
overstimulated and as frustrated as ever. For the first time this evening she is at a loss for
words, their petty fight finally forgotten.
“Syd, that’s not the usual
response I get when I bring a woman to orgasm.”
She lets out a short laugh
in between tears, and he’s relieved that at least he has lightened the
moment.
He cups her chin in his
hand, drawing her to him and brushing her tears away from her cheeks with his
thumb, believing that they both need to maintain a physical connection to
work through this.
"I'm sorry Syd; we’re
not there yet. You're just not ready to move on, and I don’t want to be
another rebound for you. You
mean so much more to me than that. What we have is something special – I
won’t be another fuck to numb the pain.
I shouldn't have allowed this to happen."
“Um, I think I was the one
who just threw myself at you.”
He smiles at her admission,
but then looks at her seriously.
"Sydney, as much as I have tried to deny them I have feelings for
you. And yes, it hurt like hell when I learned that you were fucking
Noah. But you're so strong. Sometimes I don't think you even need
my help or could need me. There
are so many barriers between us, and I am trying to do the right thing, the
best thing for us, but I am not sure I know what that is."
His words unbalance her all over again. He has laid his intentions
bare, and it is time to try to open up to him and examine the crux of their
relationship. She owes him the
chance to refute her fears.
"Vaughn, you see this superwoman every day, and I see how you worship
that image, but she isn't real. Some days I don't even think I am
real."
"Syd, I see the real you. I see the strong decisive woman who can
kick ass. I see the devoted roommate who is torn every time she must
deceive her friends. And I see the fragile girl who needs protection
and assurance. I see through all of your disguises; I am captivated by
the real you.”
He is not sure if he is
ready to take the next step, but he realizes he has to be the one to make the
next move. “I’ve fallen for you, hard. I think I am in love with you."
His words cut like a knife through her soul. Of course Vaughn means the
world to her, and she would do anything to protect him, but is she in love
with him? She just doesn’t know.
It is a tantalizing idea, but she has not allowed herself to explore
love again until this moment.
"Vaughn, I just don't
know what to say. You mean so much to me, but I don't know if I am able to
say those words. I don't even know if that is what I feel. All I know is I couldn’t bear to lose
you."
Her words do not surprise
him. He knew this would be a big
step to consider, but he is comforted by the affirmation of the place she
holds in his life.
"It's okay, love takes time; we can wait. We will work through
this."
"The last two guys I loved, I killed."
"Syd that's not what happened."
"No, but the day they fell in love with me, I might as well have signed
their death warrants."
He holds her tightly to him, never wanting to let her go. He would do
anything to erase the pain she has suffered. Gradually, he feels the
tension in her abate as she once again allows him to be her strength.
He'll accept this as a start.
"Sydney, I know it's getting late, and I don't want to leave us like
this, but you need to go home and get some sleep. We do need to finish
our other conversation, so you can leave."
She knows their conversation is no longer about cutting each other with
barbed retorts. His voice is
filled with concern, and he is truly asking her permission to proceed, but
she hedges again. "Vaughn, please don't make me talk about this
tonight. I'm too drained."
He sees the contradiction in her plea and knows he must press forward.
Her guard is finally down in this rare instant, and he is not sure when they
will share another moment like this. He also realizes her earlier rage
only served as a misdirection to avoid certain truths.
"Sydney, something about this is obviously bothering you. It
really set you off. You need to
talk about this."
"You and your damned persistence," she snaps. She sees the
confusion cross his face, and realizes she has to stop punishing him and let
him in.
She takes a deep breath and
answers in a pained voice, "Don't you understand what this is really
about? It all goes back to Danny. I wouldn't be here; I wouldn't even
be a double agent if it weren't for your damn precautionary measures.”
* * * * * *
“Go on.” He
prods, knowing that he has almost unlocked the door.
“You won’t understand.”
“Please, I want to try.”
“Danny wanted kids.” She says simply.
Once again he is reminded how she should be the girl next
door. All she ever wanted were
the safety and normalcy that were denied to her in her childhood. But this is another contradiction;
she was always destined to be so much more than a PTA mom.
“Some people graduate from college and can’t wait to get
married and have kids. But that
wasn’t me. I was so focused on my career; I thought I was making a difference
in the world. Maybe by
succeeding in a man’s world, I was just subconsciously trying to prove
something to my father.”
“When Danny came along, he really blew me away. He symbolized the normal life I
craved. He didn’t put too many
demands on my time – as a resident, he worked just as many insane hours as I
did. He may not have liked my
business trips, but he couldn’t complain without being hypocritical. We were comfortable; we had a status
quo.”
It surprises him to hear her finally breach the subject of
her fiancé. He just assumed that
she had canonized her relationship with Danny, and any competition with his
memory would have an uphill battle. In all their meetings, he had rarely
dared to mention her fiancé, learning quickly that some subjects were taboo.
Vaughn watches her as she takes a slow steady breath,
trying to ward off the tears and attempting to steel herself against the
story ahead.
“But everything changed when he proposed. I can still see that goofy grin on
his face when he got down on his knees in the middle of the quad. We were so foolish in love. It was such a high – one you even
think that you will never come down from, but eventually you do.”
Her mind wanders back to those few blissful days with
silent tears threatening to spill over.
Danny had to run to a shift immediately after he proposed, so they had
to wait until the next day to celebrate. They went to a swank hotel downtown and toasted their
future with a champagne breakfast.
When they finally got back to her house, they made slow sweet love all
the lazy morning.
Danny was such a tender lover. Her heart catches in her throat as her body remembers
Danny’s long slow strokes inside her.
The complete opposite of the all-consuming fire she had with
Noah. That would have been more
aptly described as fucking. Noah
took sex at such a frantic pace that they were more often than not left raw
from their release.
She is jolted out of her reverie as Vaughn takes her hand
between his coaxing her to go on.
Another boy who wears his heart on his sleeve for her. She wonders what type of lover would
Vaughn be.
“Later in the week, I was studying and he was off
shift. It was a warm sunny
afternoon, such a perfect day.
It was so easy to think that we would be young forever, but I had to
spoil it. I hated the idea of
starting off a marriage with a lie.
It had always bothered me that part of my life was hidden from
Danny. I mean how are you
supposed to pledge yourself to another in marriage when you can’t be honest
about what you do at work every single day?”
“We were lying down on the couch lost in each other,
oblivious to the outside world.
He placed his hand on my stomach and mused how one day there would be
a baby in there. The look of reverent wonder on his face was more than I
could bear. I was so dizzy, I
thought I would lose it.”
“His words opened my eyes, and in that moment, I knew I
couldn’t deceive him any more.
We hadn’t really discussed kids.
I wouldn’t even let myself think about kids as long as I was still a
field agent; they were the last thing on my mind. But the sincere longing in his eyes told me how much he
wanted a family with me. I think
he wanted to redeem our own sad childhoods, to make up for the death of his
brother and the loss of my mother.”
“I just couldn’t stand it any more – I knew I would
eventually break his heart. I
couldn’t not tell him. I
couldn’t just string him along and avoid any talks of having a family. It was the one thing he would have
questioned above all else. He
might overlook my frequent business trips, and the little white lies about my
cuts and bruises, but if I lied to him about why I couldn’t, why I wouldn’t
have kids, it would not have worked.
I could never have fooled him about that.”
It tears her apart inside to remember how clueless Danny
was at that moment. The trusting
look on his face was more than she could bear. For him the world would go about at its usual place,
except that it was newly enriched by his fiancé. When she pulled him towards the bathroom, he just thought
he was in for some shower sex with his fiancé. But she had to go and crush his world and he did not take
it well. It was more than a slap
in the face that he felt so betrayed by her. He knew her better than anyone, but she was still in
denial about how much of her life she compartmentalized away from him.
“The thing I keep wondering when I really want to depress
myself – would our marriage have lasted for more than five years or even
two? I think I either would have
slipped up or grown distant to protect myself. He would have gotten tired of waiting and hearing me say
no. Our marriage would have
rotted before it ever had a chance to flourish.”
Vaughn is acutely aware of the connection she had with
Danny, a history full of love and devotion. Part of him is jealous that another man knew Sydney before
him when she was still trusting and innocent. And part of him wants to run away as fast as he can. He
had never even considered spending the rest of his life with just one woman
until she came along.
“And then I had to go to Taipei. He must have been really drunk when he left that
message. The one thing - the one
thing, I tried to drill into his head, was how closely we were being
watched. How could he have been
so careless? Part of me wonders
if that was his way of forcing the issue of kids. He said that he could accept my double life, but we still
had to talk about kids.”
His words on her answering machine were so ironic. He talked about the world being a
nightmare, but neither of them could have suspected the depths of the real
nightmare. Danny was hurt
because he thought he was the one left in the dark. But she was in the dark too. She knows that she is baiting herself, but it is so hard
not to think of the “what if’s.”
“God! Was
this his way of punishing me?
What was Danny thinking?
Damn him! Damn him for
not taking me seriously! Damn him for condemning me to this double life! Damn him for leaving me to handle
this mess on my own!”
She is gasping and choking on her sobs, and he is shocked
by the ferocity and anger in her emotions. Vaughn knows she blames herself for Danny’s death, but he
has never heard her utter an ill thought towards Danny until now. He is beginning to feel like a broken
record, but all he knows to do is to take her once again in his arms, and
hold her through these primal emotions, urging her to continue.
When she slows down to gasps, she picks up where she left
off, but the tone of her voice is different. She rushes through the last part of the story – Danny’s
blood on her hands, her confrontation with Sloane, her terror when Sloane
tried to name her as an accomplice to his crime. She has it down just a little too pat, the delivery almost
too perfect. Pitch perfect in
fact, and he has a sickening feeling that there is still more to this story.
She’s given a good performance but he knows she is holding something else
back.
He debates whether or not to continue to pick at the wound
that has never fully healed, but he knows that she needs this
confession. They have come this
far; he can’t stop now.
“I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through all that. But Syd, you’re not fooling me – I
know there is more bothering you.
What are not telling me?”
* * * * * *
“What are you talking about?”
“Come on Syd.
I know you. I know how to
read you. I haven’t spent all
this time as your handler and learned nothing.”
“I’ve told you all there is to tell.”
He is surprised by the fear in her eyes. Her voice is low and hoarse; she is
literally shaking.
“You’ve given me a bone about Danny but there is more
here. Look, I’ve never seen you
this upset.” He pauses, “Syd,
you know you can trust me.”
“No. Stop it.
This isn’t fair.” She shivers in
his arms. “If I admit this, it
will make it real.”
“We are not leaving here until you talk.” His voice forces her to look at him.
He can see big cracks forming in her mask of control. She is still in denial, but he knows
he is finally breaking through.
He rubs her back the way you would comfort a sick child, but she has
had enough of him fussing over her, so she struggles against him. He tries to meet her gaze, but she
flails in his arms, so he finally gives in and lets her shove him away.
Her reactions make him break out in a cold sweat. He doesn’t know where this is going,
but her wounded posture tells him what she is about to reveal is even worse
then the death of her fiancé.
For a moment, he wonders if some secrets shouldn’t be explored,
thinking back to the unholy connection of his father and her mother.
She distances herself from him and starts to pace, her
arms crossed in front of her.
She reminds him of a cat, tense and every hair standing on end. Her face is deathly pale, and she
acts like a cornered animal, ready to bolt at any sudden motion. He looks her straight in the eye,
silently reassuring her that he won’t walk away from this and he won’t let
her walk away either.
To avoid his gaze, she finally settles at the fence
looking longingly for the world outside her cage. Just when he thinks she won’t say anything at all, she
adopts her father’s poker face, and stiltingly begins with a voice icy cold
and devoid of emotion. “It’s
funny, the ways you can deceive yourself, the things you don’t notice, and
the things you just flat out ignore because you don’t want to know.”
“After Danny’s murder, on the outside I looked in control
– agent training had served me well.
But inside, I was plagued by horribly intense flashbacks. Some days I retreated into my own
world ignoring almost everything else.
For those first two weeks after the funeral, the only reason I
actually got out of bed was class.
There was comfort in that routine, and I naively thought that if I
just ignored SD6 long enough, they might cut their losses and forget about
me. I stayed in a daze for
weeks; nothing made sense.”
“But Francie saw through my bluff and wouldn’t leave me
alone. I was depressed and
hovering on the edge of exhaustion but couldn’t find sleep because of
nightmares. She was convinced that
I was suffering from post traumatic stress and insisted that we get an
apartment together. I know I was
her project, but she is very good at taking care of people. She would bring home plates from her
latest catering jobs and force me to actually eat something.”
He feels a knot developing in his throat as he follows her
story. He is beginning to regret
forcing this issue, because of the obvious pain this is causing her. But he can’t just leave her stranded
on this emotional cliff and run away; he knows he owes it to her to see this
through.
“There were days when the flashbacks were so strong; I
would get physically sick in reaction to them. I would be back there in that night, walking into my
house, fear wrapping around my throat like a fist guiding me towards the
inevitable. The stench of the
blood was all around me – it hung in my consciousness for weeks. Any little detail, even the color
red, could set off that memory – always with the same results – my mind, my
very body railing at the injustice of it all. And I would puke my guts out over and over again.”
She shudders gripped in the terror that still haunts her
the most – that phantom day that should have been her happiest. She’s wearing a white gown and starts
the slow march to the altar.
Halfway down the aisle she realizes that her pristine gown is
splattered in blood. When she
finally comes to face her groom, he is staring at her with lifeless eyes and
a bullet in his head. “You
killed me,” he accuses. She
covers her mouth, choking back the dream. The pungent metallic smell of blood fills her nostrils
even now.
Vaughn wants to go over to her, to stop her fidgeting, but
he knows she will just push him away again. There are some demons you must face alone.
“I just thought it was my grief and guilt manifesting
itself on a physical level. But
I was wrong. I was so out of
touch that I did not realize what was happening with my own body, a fact that
would have soon become undeniable.”
“But I wasn’t allowed to wallow in self-pity for
forever. Word came in that the
Mueller device was functional, so Sloane wanted me back and that is when the
whole horrible truth came out.
There was no way I could ever respect Sloane again.”
“When I finally woke up and went to the CIA, it was like
the fog had lifted. I had my energy and focus back – who knew that there was
an actual biological reason for that.
It had been twelve weeks.
They say after twelve weeks, you shake off your troubles and fatigue
and start to live again. I still
didn’t have a clue what was really going on.”
“I put my body through hell on a daily basis. Between the stress, the excessive
physical activity, and the random torture, it’s not unusual for me to skip a
month or even two. Certainly
nothing to be alarmed over. I
should have felt it, but I just thought the tightness in my stomach was due
to three months of inactivity.”
Vaughn is surprised that after his earlier crass joke
about her time of the month, she is actually discussing these personal
details. Her story seems to
unfold in slow motion, and he feels about three steps behind unable or
unwilling to grasp the destination.
“It had been sixteen weeks when it all came crashing
down. I had just returned from
the mission in Morocco. The next
morning, I woke up with the worst cramping I have ever had. I knew something was just not
right. It felt like something
inside me was trying to tear its way out. That’s when it all clicked into place.”
Slowly Vaughn catches up to the truth. The fatigue, the nausea, the hormones
– all add up, and he finally understands her evasiveness.
“I took a bus to the county hospital and checked in under
an alias. My body rejected
it. It could have been any
number of reasons – the drugs in Taipei, the constant stress of every deception,
a kick to the stomach on the mission.
I just wasn’t taking care of my body.”
She pauses, eyes uncharacteristically dry, and seems to
stray off to a different world for a moment. When she finally continues, it is without any of the
maternal instincts you would usually expect from a woman in those
circumstances.
“It was about the size of a fist. I was so out of tune with my body
that I had no idea something was growing in me. It might as well have been a tumor. It is too surreal to think that
it had fingerprints, a gender, vocal chords.
Vaughn just looks at her, so at a loss for words, that he
can’t even begin to form a response.
He can’t think of anything that could heal this pain, and his eyes are
drawn to her as she unconsciously smoothes a nervous hand over her
stomach. He is bombarded with
strong emotions, but what they are he can’t quite identify – Guilt? Hurt?
Relief? Jealousy? Frustration? This is another first in an increasingly long
laundry list that he can’t share with her – first kiss, first love, first
time, first fiancé, first pregnancy.
Will he ever be her first anything?
“What would I have done if it had survived? Is it wrong to say that I am glad I
don’t have Danny’s child as a symbol of my failure? I just don’t think I could have handled a constant
reminder of how I played with fire and got burned. But then what if that was my escape, my only salvation
from this life. Did I miss my
chance?”
She is spiraling down a dangerously destructive path, and
he realizes it is time to take charge of the situation and distract her. Inevitably, he falls back on the only
sure role he knows – his duty as a handler. He needs to analyze the flow of information from an
objective point of view. This
information is a liability; one Sloane can never know.
“Syd, who else have you told?”
“No one.”
“Not even Francie or Will?”
“No! I didn’t
want their pity. It’s bad enough
seeing Danny’s death in their eyes.
And if I told them I just might have lost my mind.”
“What about Dixon?
He is your partner; he must have noticed something.”
“You saw me as often he did during that time. You didn’t know.”
Earlier, he would have taken that comment as a cheap shot,
but he knows she is only stating the truth.
“What about your father?”
The frown once again mars her face. Her breath hitches, and she looks
away. “I almost told him, but he
made himself unavailable.”
Vaughn racks his brain trying to think when she would have
tried to meet with her father in those early days. There were very few times she had tried to reestablish
that connection, and each time would leave her heartbroken with
disappointment. After the night
Jack stood her up for dinner, she stopped giving her father second
chances. And then it dawns on
Vaughn; that was the time.
“That night at the pier. You came to me.”
He is quietly amazed that she even so early in their partnership she
had chosen him in her darkest moment, daring to hope that he could pull her
through. “Syd, I knew you were
hurting that night, but I had no idea.
Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you really have wanted to have know?”
“But Sydney, you shouldn’t have had to do this alone. I could have helped.”
He remembers back to the beginning of their
partnership. He told her he had
an instinct, and he did. Somehow
he knew that she would be the most amazing thing in his life. And while his instinct also told him
that nothing with her would come easy, somehow he felt that they were
destined to be together.
“Vaughn, you were there for me. You listened and even though I couldn’t speak about it,
you were there. You were my angel.”
Her guardian angel he wryly thinks. Is he always doomed to be her silent
protector? To look but not to
touch? To never experience
her? After his brief glimpse of
heaven today, he knows that he won’t be satisfied sitting on the sidelines
forever. He wants to be her
partner, to share all of her life.
“Syd, I’m so sorry.”
He tries to comfort her but she won’t allow it. “I don’t
want your sympathy or pity. It
happened. Nothing can change
that. The only thing left to do
is move on.”
He hates the resignation in her voice. Where is her
determination to press on? He
can’t let her falter.
"You
can't let this darken you. It's crucial that you hold onto hope, that you
believe things will get better. Sydney, I am responsible for you. You may be
exhausted, but I won't let you fail. Take my strength."
She
finally allows herself to sink back into his embrace, resting her head on his
shoulder, and releasing a deep sigh. Far away an insistent beeping attempts
to bring them back to task. Both are too lost in a dangerous trap of
introspection to notice, but the outside world refuses to allow them their
solitude. After a few minutes, the beeper goes off again and slowly worms its
way into their consciousness.
Vaughn
whispers into her ear, “Where is the ocean when you need it?"
She lets out a short clipped laugh and inhales the scent
of him, unwilling to let the outside world break them apart.
Vaughn finally reaches into her pocket and gently extracts
her beeper. “Sloane.”
“Who else?” She looks up at the ceiling and shuts her
eyes.
He finds her bag and gets out a tissue, powder, and
lipstick and helps her straighten up her face. He blots away the dark streaks under her eyes, and
delicately applies the powder, leaving her wondering when he moonlighted as a
makeup artist. He stares into
her eyes with an undisguised longing to make things right.
“You are strong, Syd. You can do this. One day you will
have your revenge on Sloane and I will be there with you – I promise.”
Even as he is rallying her, silent doubts persist in the
corner of his mind. Sometimes it
feels like there is just too much against them, too much to overcome. His life would be so much easier if
he had never met her, if he didn’t care. But his father would still be dead, and he would still
face life and death situations defending his country. He could even be worrying over
another agent. But he wouldn’t
have that beautiful and trusting look that she saves just for him. Despite her fears and everything that
has happened to destroy her faith, she still trusts him.
“Sydney, thank you for trusting me with this. Things will get better. You have to believe that; you have to
hold onto hope that there will be a time for us. I honestly don’t know if we are star-crossed lovers doomed
before we start, or if we are fated to be together to right hereditary
wrongs. But we do have a say in
this life. We have to hope, we have
to live, we have to believe that we will have that chance to find out what we
are to each other.”
She gives him a sad smile knowing that he is desperately
trying to convince both of them that this is true. But they both know that there are no such guarantees.
Finally sensing her acquiescence, he leans forward and
places a chaste kiss on her lips drawing comfort at their soft warm
feel. It is so different than
their violent first kiss, and in that moment he knows there is no more
confusion in her eyes.
When she pulls away, she licking her lips lingering over
the taste of him. After a
minute, she puts on her game face and exits the warehouse. A stranger on the street would never
know the anguish she has just confessed.
* * * * * *
“Agent Vaughn, I trust you have addressed the issue with
Sydney?”
Vaughn had been staring bleary-eyed at his computer
screen, but anxiously stands at Jack’s interruption, awkwardly bumping into
the desk.
“Yes, we talked.”
“And she is protected?”
“Yes.” Vaughn glares at Jack not caring to elaborate.
Their eyes lock for a moment, each trying to decide if
they want to push this conversation further and calculating just what the
other knows.
“Good.” Jack turns to leave treating the whole matter as
nothing more than one of a dozen daily briefings.
Vaughn knows he is acting emotionally, but he cannot stand
to let Jack off so easily, to allow him to effectively wash his hands of his
daughter’s emotional anguish.
“Jack. Sydney is still profoundly affected by her fiancé’s
death. She hasn’t really talked
to anyone about everything that happened.”
Vaughn pauses looking for Jack to acknowledge what Danny’s
death cost her, but he finds himself nervously continuing when he is only met
with silence. “She needs her
father.”
“Agent Vaughn, my daughter still does not trust me. She does not look for my parental
guidance nor would she accept it if I tried. It’s better for her to talk to someone she trusts.”
“I’m worried.
If she succeeds on this quest to find her mother and is confronted
with the reality of who Irina Derevko is . . .”
Jack’s expression remains stone cold, but his eyes look
briefly vulnerable at the mention of his wife. Vaughn guesses that Sydney will not be the only one to
fall apart if her mother resurfaces.
“Vaughn, do your duty and take care of Sydney.”
This time Jack won’t let the conversation go any further.
He exits leaving Vaughn to wonder how Jack could be so emotionally distant
when it comes to his daughter.
And yet, a lingering doubt persists in Vaughn. It seems strange that Jack would
place Sydney under this scrutiny but not know what secrets the scrutiny would
stir up. Or is it? Did Jack know he had handed Vaughn
the key to Pandora’s Box?
FINI
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