As Simple As That (DWE; 1/2)
Title: As Simple As That
Author: dreamwrtr4life/ Dream Writer 4 Life
Rating: PG-13 for language and explicit themes
Genre: Angst . . . there’s a twinge of romance
Archived: SD-1, FanFiction.Net, and Cover Me. Anywhere else, just ask and you shall receive!
Spoilers/Timeline: set before “Getaway”
‘Shippers’ Paradise: S/V o’ course!
Summary: Vaughn accidentally stumbles upon a personal letter to him from Sydney. He must rush to Ireland to save her from quite literally going over the edge. Will he make it in time? A Dream Writer Experience.
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. Period. End of story. Wait! No, it’s not! Keep reading!
As Simple As That
Chapter One
There were fireworks, bells, whistles, music, streamers, banners, and dancing. But it was not the Fourth of July or any other special day for that matter. It was a regular, run-of-the-mill workday, unspectacular in every way. Except that she was with him, in every sense of the word. All the layers of hurt, pain, and sorrow that had built up over her short amount of years were being washed away like dirt in a hot shower. She was letting someone take care of her for the first time in years, probably since junior high. It was the most luxurious of luxuries that she usually could not afford. Nothing bad could touch her in this euphoria, this utopia that the two of them had created: only passion, release, and utter blissful happiness.
He was all around her: outside, inside, enveloping her in every way possible. His motions evoked great feelings of lust, intensity, and love, and as they moved together, she wanted to act as a mirror and reflect those feelings back at him tenfold. She clung to him desperately; she needed him to keep her down to earth. These new, intense emotions scared her to death: she had never been loved this passionately before, and it was wearing her out, draining her strength ‘til she was spent. As she lay there, breathless, his arm around her bare waist, she twisted the ring on her finger, fourth from the right on her left hand. It was wonderfully simple with complicated emotions and years of frustration behind it. But she deserved it; they deserved it.
Then the shower stopped. Everyone knows the feeling: when one steps out of the tub and realize that there are no hot towels left, so one runs (dripping and cold) to the hamper to pull out a soggy, gelid one. She was out of his warm embrace and felt naked without his arms around her. They were standing at opposite sides of their room in the warehouse; why, she did not know. She tried to call out to him, to tell him to come closer, that she needed him, but all that came out was a breeze, a hot breath. Trying instead to move towards him, she realized why they were not side by side; looking over her shoulder, she saw both her father and Danny, each holding one of her arms, struggling to keep her rooted to the spot. She stared in disbelief, about to ask what the hell was going on, why Danny was-
But Jack cut her thoughts off. “We wouldn’t want to break the rules, now, would we? That would violate Bristow tradition.” He was mocking her, pursing his lips and raising an eyebrow. Almost robotically, he snapped his head towards Danny for his judgment.
Danny’s usually warm, iridescent eyes were cold and hard, mocking in the same way her father’s had been. “And anyways, why would he want you? You’re the spawn of Satan, herself: the woman who killed his father. He would love you . . . why? Because you’re damaged goods? Because you need someone to protect you from the big, bad, SD-6 monsters? Or because no one else will?” The chilling, dark orbs (she refused to call them eyes) caught her gaze, holding it, letting his harsh words sink in. “No. The only reason he would even attempt to love you is to save you from yourself. You know what I’m talking about.” He shot her a meaningful glare, searing to her very core. “I know your plans for the next mission.”
Rage boiled up inside of her and she tore her eyes away. Across the room, he was calling out to her, but no sound issued from his perfect lips. Abruptly, something obstructed her view of him; she had to blink a few times before the image registered in her brain. It was her moth-Irina, standing there between them, looking like she owned the world, one of the last immovable forces keeping the two apart. She was a hurdle that neither of them alone could overcome at that point in time. Irina turned to her, the calmness in her voice unnerving. “Ah-ah, Sydney. He isn’t for you. We all know what you would do with him if you had the chance: you would desert him, hurt him in every way possible. Kill him from the inside out. Just like your mother.”
Another feminine figure appeared in one of the dimly lit recesses of the warehouse. She slowly walked towards Vaughn so as to join the grotesque party of hatred. Her blonde hair and petite frame were all too familiar to her. She captured one of his hands in her small one, and he turned around, confusion etched into his face. Stepping into the light so that he could get a clear view of her she pleaded, “Don’t go to her, Michael. She doesn’t deserve you. I deserve you. Me. Alice. Your girlfriend. Remember the protocol. Live by it. Your job is your life. Don’t let this Rita woman mess it up for you.” He suddenly gave up his struggle against the Forces of Fate; instead, he took Alice into his strong arms and planted a kiss onto her small lips. She wanted to scream and race over to them, tear Alice apart; her heart felt like it was being ripped out of her chest, her stomach gutted while she was still alive. Even after she closed her eyes to the scene, the images still burned into her eyelids, dancing a horrible, torturous dance over and over, interminably.
When she opened them again, she was in another familiar setting. The steel sheet for a bed, the barred windows, glass wall facing the forbidden hallway . . . yes, she knew it well: it was her mother’s holding cell. Only she was not staring in: this time, she was staring down that hallway through the three sets of locked gates. Shifting her gaze, she saw someone staring in at her. When she realized who it was, she ran towards the glass, throwing herself up on it with a dull thwack. His hands lay on the glass, sweaty palms pressed towards her. Struggling to hold back the tears, she gingerly lined up her hands with his, wanting to feel the satisfying feeling of skin on skin.
Emotions coursed through her veins: doubt, longing, emptiness, and fear of the unknown. She knew she had done something to get them into this hopeless situation, but she no idea what until she looked down and saw her swelling stomach- ‘Oh.’
Turning her gaze again, she pressed her body towards his, willing the glass to disappear. An inch of bulletproof glass. That was all that separated one from the other. So little, yet so much; so close, yet so far.
She watched his fingers curl, scratching the glass, itching to feel her as well. She watched his lips as they mouthed the three most famous last words: “I love you.” And she watched his turbulent eyes as they swallowed her up. Slowly, she sank into those twin pools of emerald green angst, feeling every emotion he was feeling. She was drowning and she could not breathe; much like she watched him do behind that damn door in Taipei. Drowning slowly, incrementally, sluggishly, until finally . . .
Sydney jumped in her bed, feeling like she had just fallen onto it from the sky. Sighing in relief, she rolled over and checked the time. 3:11. There was something magical about that time of night. No one sane seemed to be awake; those people who were about were usually eccentric, strange, mysterious. Almost like her dream.
She did not know whether she had wanted it to end or not. It certainly was one of the more straightforward dreams she had ever had. The first part . . . well, that was self-explanatory. Sydney Bristow wanted Michael Vaughn. Pure and simple as that. He was the only one who could possibly make her feel as wonderfully free and liberated as she had been. But the latter parts were what was making her shake from her head down to the tips of her toes.
The frustration and pain that she had felt in the dream warehouse came flooding back to her. Jack’s, Danny’s, and Irina’s haunting words resonated in her mind, rising in pitch until they melded into one long, unending screech of hate. She covered her ears with her hands in an attempt to stem the internal onslaught, but it did nothing. Even though Sydney knew they were fictitious words created by warped figments of her imagination, their meanings still hit home with surprisingly deadly accuracy. The gut-wrenching sight of Vaughn and Alice embracing was still emblazoned onto the backs of her eyelids and screamed out at her whenever she lowered them. But right after that heartbreaking image came the needle and thread to sew her heart back up: his lips mouthing the words she longed to hear him say. She smiled sadly, and her stomach fluttered at the mere thought. Slowly lifting herself from her bed, she strode over to the window and sat down on the sill, leaning her shoulder against the cool window in a feeble attempt to douse the fire growing within her.
Alice. It was a nice, simple, homely, wholesome name. How she hated it. That single word embodied everything that she wasn’t. Besides the fact that Alice wasn’t a hard, secretive, lithe, bust-a-cap-in-your-ass double agent, she was part of Vaughn’s personal life in a way that she could never be as long as SD-6 existed. Alice was Michael Vaughn’s girlfriend, and as much as she did not want to admit it, Sydney was jealous of her. The feeling was as alien to Syd as her line of work was to the average layman; she had always been top of her class, the best at everything she tried. The only thing that Alice could hold over Sydney’s head was the fact that she had a normal job and Sydney did not.
This message really hit home each of the two times she had seen her handler’s girlfriend. After the first time at the hospital, when Vaughn had tried to explain, her heart shattered into an uncountable number of pieces. The one person she thought would never hurt her did in one of the worst ways possible. She had walked away without a second thought. Upon seeing the two of them together again at the restaurant, the sky seemed to fall on her head. Without actual, visual proof that they existed as a couple, she could imagine Alice had not said those two fateful words. But now that illusion was gone: she was given a huge dose of life. She wanted to spit it back out.
She did not hate Alice. In fact, she thought she was a really nice girl; she meant what she had said. She just hated the idea of Vaughn having a girlfriend; it had nothing to do with the person.
The mounting frustration that had begun to grow deep inside of her was almost too much to bear. The dream had not planted the seed; it had started way before that: the moment she realized that she had feelings for Vaughn and knew she could probably never have him. The feeling was so white hot it burned her insides, craving his water to make it subside. She let out a low moan as she pressed her forehead to the window. What she really wanted to do was scream what she was feeling so that everyone could hear. Will and Francie would know what she really did for a living. Her father would know exactly how much he had hurt her by keeping Project: Christmas secret. Irina would begin to have some idea as to the extent of Sydney’s hatred for her. Sloane would know exactly how she wanted to kill him. Vaughn would finally know that she returned his feelings. She wanted to speak the uncensored, un-avoided, un-coated truth. (‘Truth. That is a word I haven’t heard for a while.’)
But she could not, and those three short, simple words grieved her most of all. If she could only speak the truth, bare her soul, wear her heart on her sleeve . . . then maybe, just maybe, it would all turn out okay.
‘Wait a second!’ she thought, sitting as straight as if an all-seeing grandmother had just walked into the room. There was a way for her to tell the truth without actually saying anything! And she could still continue with her plan for the next mission. A smile quickly lit up Sydney’s face as she shot up from the sill and zoomed to her desk, almost falling flat on her face upon tripping over a pair of weights. After rifling around in the bottom drawer, she drew out a thick stack of loose-leaf paper and a new pen. Passing her hand slowly over the first blank page, smoothing the nonexistent wrinkles, she paused for a moment and then began to write.
***
“Done?”
“Done.” Vaughn’s immaculate smile glowed, lighting up every corner of the warehouse. “Outline of the first counter-mission fully planned by me completed.” Sydney’s weak smile did not reach her eyes, but his smile became even wider, and he could not mask the pride that was shining through his skin. “This mission will be totally different than anything you’re ever done.”
Her smile widened genuinely as she caught a glimpse of his nervously tapping leg and drumming fingers. She struggled back a laugh. “Fidget much?”
His fingers stopped their musical tribute to Drumline but his leg continued to bounce like a jackhammer. “Yeah, all the time. It’s even considered a sport in three counties.”
“Which ones? Vaughnistan, Michael’s Magical Land of Make-Believe, and Disney World?”
“Exactly.” The two agents shared a silly laugh before simmering back into silence.
Sydney peered at him with thoughtful eyes. “Seriously. What makes you nervous? You never seem to sweat when we’re on a mission together.” Or together in general, she could have added.
Vaughn shivered as he remembered the last time that he was about to shoot his foot just so that it would stop moving. Those agonizing few moments as the helicopter pulled up over the mountains, hoping to whatever God was listening that Cuvee’s compound was not part of the dust that had blew into every crevice of his body for the past fifteen minutes. But slinging back to the present- “. . . when the Kings are down by more than two goals, and when you’re off on a mission by yourself and I’m stuck at headquarters sitting in front of a satellite monitor.” God, he had not even realized his mouth was moving.
Her look changed. A wave of disbelief swept away the curiosity as she slowly narrowed her eyes. “What did you say?”
Vaughn was taken aback. Her tone hinted of a scorpion’s sting. Was it something he said when he had not been paying attention to his openly flapping mouth? Replaying what he remembered, he saw nothing wrong with it. He began to stammer. “Uh . . . um . . . K-Kings?”
“No. After that,” she spat recoiling slightly and gripping her purse with white knuckles, as if preparing for the possibility of a speedy getaway. “Are you implying that I can’t take care of myself?!”
“No!” Michael sputtered in a weak defense. He had never seen her act like this before; not even when he had tried to explain about Alice. She seemed more coiled than a bedspring under a sumo wrestler, and anything could set her off. And apparently he was doing a fine job of it. “No! Never! Why would I-”
“Oh! I know! I’m not good enough to complete your first assignment! You don’t think I should be doing this at all! Well, why don’t you go and do it yourself-” Sydney’s cell phone started to beep. She cursed under her breath and started to empty her purse in search of the small and annoying object, discarding the objects onto the table carelessly. When she came across the noise-marker, she hurriedly pressed the call button and demanded harshly, “What?” Suddenly, her demeanor became remorseful. “Oh! Francie! I’m sorry for snapping at you! It’s just . . . yeah, exactly. I mean, he was so rude and insulting.” Sydney shot him a look. “What? Oh, of course. Milk? Gotcha. I’ll be home soon. Bye.” Shutting off her phone, she shoved it into her empty purse. With shaking hands (whether it was because of rage or embarrassment, he didn’t know), she quickly swept everything back into the small bag, trying to achieve the fast getaway for which she had been poised.
“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going. No need to say good luck: I know you wouldn’t mean it anyway.” With that, Agent Bristow breezed out of the warehouse without giving him a chance to say something, to counter her pessimistic remarks.
Michael Vaughn heaved a heavy sigh mixed with relief and confusion. Grinding his temples with two fingers each, he contemplated and re-contemplated their conversation. All he could come up with was “huh” and “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” His mind swam, brow furrowed, and eyes stared across the table to where she had been sitting mere moments before. It was then that he noticed the envelope. Cautiously rising from his seat, he made his way around the table to sit in her seat. It was still warm. He stared at the thick, unsealed envelope and weighed his choices. He could always open and read what might be a very personal letter like an insensitive bastard; or he could keep it and return it to her when she got home from her mission like a gentleman. After making a quick list of pros and cons he decided. ‘Insensitive bastard it is.’
Opening the flap, he delicately removed the thick wad of neatly creased loose-leaf paper. Unfolding the sheets, he spread them out on the table, smoothing the creases with his index finger. With another moment of hesitation he began.
‘Dear . . . To . . . Vaughn . . . Dear Michael,’
Indecisive. That was a good sign. But it was to him. Maybe he had made the right choice in reading this. Maybe she had purposely left this for him to read. He began again.
‘Dear Michael,
‘You have no idea how hard this is to put down on paper. I can write research papers, debriefs, anything that doesn’t have to deal with me or my emotions. If this ends up a mess . . . well, it would be only fitting. I’m just tired of lying to everyone: where I’m going, what I’m doing, what I’m feeling. It’s time to display all my dirty laundry.
‘First off, let me tell you that I know. I know that you have feelings for me. It showed when you tried to explain away Alice, when you told me about your father’s watch, when you wouldn’t give up on me when everyone thought my whole family and I were dead. It shows in the little things, too: your eyes, your smile. God, that smile! I could go on for hours about how it makes my heart dance and my stomach flutter. It’s making my hands shake just to think about it. There’s the smile that encapsulates your whole face: your eyes, your forehead, your cheeks, your chin, and especially your mouth. It’s amazing how no matter how wide your grin gets, you never look like a clown. Then there’s that one where you only lift up the corner of your mouth; the bashful grin. God, I love that one the most. It makes me feel that somehow I’m the most important thing in the world at that moment. I don’t know if it’s intentional, but that’s how I see it.
‘Don’t even get me started on your eyes. Here’s a secret: they were what first drew me in to you. So deep, so green, always so emotion-filled; I could always tell what you were thinking. Sometimes I just want to stare into them for hours without any interruption. Words simply cannot express how incredibly much I love the pools of sparkling, shimmering light that are dolefully called Michael Vaughn’s eyes.
‘But I can’t have you. Not until . . . well, you know when. The thing is, I don’t know if I can wait that long. These feelings . . . they’re so strong. I don’t know if I can control them for much longer. I’m not worried about breaking protocol; that can always be fixed, and I think too much power has been invested into that one little rule. But I am worried about what SD-6 would do if they found out. Would they do what they did to Will? Or would they just kill us both on the spot? I love you too much to let that happen to you. You know what they say: if you love something, let it go.
‘What I want to know is how can you love me? My life is so messed up! My family is so messed up! Just think about it for a moment. My mother, Laura Bristow, who was thought to have died years ago, suddenly resurfaces as “The Man” and turns herself in to the CIA as Irina Derevko, the woman who killed your father. Jack Bristow, my father, who is also a double agent, has recently been found to have started a secret operation called Project: Christmas, in which I unwittingly participated. He has also framed said Derevko for supplying false information and violating her agreement with the government.
‘Enter me, Sydney Bristow, the person who wants to be with Michael Vaughn more than anything else in the world and the one person who probably shouldn’t be. I have joined SD-6, tried to fix my mistake by becoming a double agent, almost got my handler killed, almost blew my cover, got my fiancé axed, planned a botched pre-meditated murder to get an antidote to save my handler, and on top of that boatload of shit, I have feelings for him. I think the rules started breaking before I was even born.
‘How can you love me when Irina Derevko is my mother? After what she did to your father, your family, to you? I hate her for what she did. She has placed a perpetual wedge between us that will never really go away. I hate myself for looking like her, because there is the chance, however remotely small, that I will someday act like her too. And I simply can’t take that risk. I just can’t. I hate myself for every single reason I hate my mother and father. Part of the reason that they make me so angry is because I see so much of myself in them; what I could become. How can you love someone who doesn’t even love herself? Promise me, Michael, that if I ever live to become like either one of them, you’ll shoot me dead on the spot.
‘Sometimes I think the world would be better without me in it. My father could take down SD-6; he’s a smart man. You would be free to love Alice or anyone you want . . . and she could be free to love you back. You wouldn’t be tied down to the possibility of being with Sydney Bristow. Will and Francie wouldn’t have to deal with all of my lies anymore. Yes, this sounds like a really good world, one that everyone would be happy in. And I could look down on you all.
‘This letter won’t end with hope, as it should. I feel that hope in the face of the impossible is necessary, but it can also cripple your perception of the real odds. We can’t be together; it’s as simple as that. If you have hope for a future with me, go right ahead. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
‘Well, I think that’s about it. If my plan succeeds, this is going to be my last mission. Thank God you won’t find this before then, otherwise . . .
‘I’ve said all I needed to say. I’m glad I got to tell the truth before my end, even though I didn’t get to say it. Remember, I love you. Nothing could ever change that. Not a book of rules or a court-martial or death. I love you. It’s as simple as that.
‘Love . . . Sincerely . . . FromLove, Sydney Bristow’
Oops.
His eyes widened. ‘I wasn’t supposed to read this!’ He reprimanded himself, cautiously refolding the papers. But he was glad he had. Now he had to take action.
Her writing needed no interpretation; the meaning was as blatantly obvious to Vaughn as if he had written it himself. He knew what he had to do but was not quite sure how to go about doing it. Showing Devlin, Weiss, or Jack the letter was completely out of the question. If - when Sydney got back, she would most definitely face a lengthy psychiatric evaluation and at least a year of therapy. Vaughn did not want that for her, did not want it as much as he didn’t want her to die. What he had to discover was a way to convince Devlin to let Vaughn follow Sydney without both her knowing and without arousing suspicion about her mental stability. He had absolutely no idea as to how to go about such a feat, but pulling things out of his ass was one of his fortes.
Pocketing the chilling correspondence with an air of resolve, Vaughn fled the warehouse and sped towards headquarters, all the while preparing for his improvisational one-man show.
***
“You have to let me go.”
“Why?”
“You just . . . do.” Vaughn’s words were slipping about in his mouth, most were confused, some lost down his throat, all of them mixed up horribly. Guess he was not as slick as he had previously thought.
“No.”
“But sir! Syd-Agent Bristow will need my help on this mission. I’m sure of it.”
“Well, then maybe you should learn to design better missions. Ones where we don’t have to send a handler after his agent.”
Ouch. That shut him up for a time. But a few moments later, he dove back in.
“Sir, I implore you to let me go. My counter-mission is a little . . . overwhelming for only one person. It probably should be divided between two agents, and I probably should have gone with her in the first place. Please, sir. If you want this mission to be successful, you should let me get on that plane instead of staying here and watching it fail.” There. The self-derogatory route should both appease Devlin’s ego and persuade him at the same time.
Devlin turned his back on the frustrated Agent Vaughn, weighing the options silently. Failed mission where SD-6 gets unfiltered information on the doings of Derevko’s former organization; or five hundred dollars out of Vaughn’s pocket.
“Fine. Go. Don’t make me sorry I did this.”
Vaughn breathed a large sigh of relief and a small smile lit up his. “Thank you, sir. You have no idea how much I appreciate this.” Without waiting for a response, he grabbed his coat and briefcase and dashed down the hall.
***
‘Damn it! The bottle’s empty! And I still have this huge bruise on my jaw to cover! Oh well. I guess I could go retro and part my hair on one side. . . .’ Sydney threw away the vacuous bottle of concealor, still reeling from the three-story fall she took not an hour ago trying to escape from about ten armed Irish security guards. Since then, she had taken a long, hot show, repaired her cuts with Band-Aids, and covered up approximately half of her bruises before discovering she needed a refill of her makeup. She did not really understand why she was attempting to hide her battle scars: she had already dead-dropped the information and was not exactly planning to go back to the States. But then, she remembered, she had to check out of the small, family-run inn without arousing suspicion. Trooping down the narrow stairs with a noticeable limp and cuts and bruises to spare would not exactly be the epitome of normal. There was always the possibility of passing the injuries off as the result of a good, old-fashioned Irish bar fight, but then again, that would mean lying . . . again.
Her head began to throb violently where the butt of a gun had connected with it, and she absently reached for her economy-sized bottle of aspirin before remembering. She tossed the bottle into the garbage can next to the empty concealor bottle before gathering the last of her belongings, trying in vain to ignore the pulsing in her brain. Making her way downstairs, she went through the usual song and dance routine of signing out and saying she had a great time. Before Sydney left, the matron of the inn recommended that she visit the cliffs about five miles up the coast. 'Perfect,’ she thought. Thanking her again, Syd left the rental car in the dirt driveway and began to walk.
***
She knew she was at the right place when she got there, just like the woman had said. The overcast sky did nothing to dull the effect her current setting had upon her. To her right appeared the endlessly rolling hills of greener-than-green grass. They were like wrinkles on the bedclothes back in her apartment. . . . ‘At home. . . .’ The wind brought the taste of salt and the sweet smell of the sea. The beauty of the scent of fish, seaweed, and saltwater had never been lost on her; in fact, it was one of her most favourite odors. It was mellow, yet strong, and the wind allowed it to caress her skin, weave through her hair, make her eyes water. . . .
And out to her left was the sea. Roaring, swelling, diminishing, whispering, then repeating the cycle again. The waves careened ferociously onto the craggy rocks about two hundred feet below her perch. Sound reverberated around the orifices and ledges below, echoing back up to her ears as the second sweetest sound in the world. Second by a long road. Now, if only she could hear the first-
But no. She had to put all thoughts of friends, family, life, and especially Him out of her mind. If she was going to do this. Was she? ‘No! There can be no second thoughts now, Sydney Bristow! You cannot go back.’ Dropping her bags on the side of dirt path, she stepped cautiously to the edge, peering over it with wide eyes as if looking upon something forbidden. She slowly lowered herself to sit on the ledge, legs dangling over, as she contemplated the quickest, cleanest, and most efficient way to do this.
Her first thought was the gun in her bag. Barrel in her mouth, slight pressure on the trigger, and Sydney would be gone before she ever felt a hint of pain. Messy, yes; but precise, quick, and no margin of error. But it was not enjoyable. She wanted her last few moments to be happy and peaceful, a complete contrast to her life.
‘Listen to yourself think, Syd!’ her heart reasoned, always the devil’s advocate. ‘Can you really be thinking of this? You’re so young, have so much to live for. Vaughn, for one.’
‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong,’ her mind replied, stepping in with its two cents. ‘I have nothing to live for. I can’t tell anyone the truth. Without truth, you can’t build a real relationship with anyone. And without that, what have you got? Money? Greed? Power? It’s all nothing compared to the feeling of being loved. And apparently I‘m not meant for that. I might as well end the suffering now before I turn into a cynical old maid with a hundred cats and a wooden leg.’
Somehow the two stopped arguing and she was able to turn back to her plan. The only other option, she guessed, was to jump and let the rocks at the bottom do the rest. . . . Yes. It was perfect. She would vault off the cliff and soar to meet her doom. Slow, yes; painful, too; dirty, most definitely. Margin of error: pretty big. But Sydney would get to fly: that whimsical feeling of weightlessness as the stomach plummets to one’s shoes. It would be a wonderful end!
Sydney had been thinking so long and so hard that she had not noticed the sky grow dark, laden with heavy rain clouds. She raised herself from her seat gracefully and strode back towards the path. Her plan was to get a running jump, but . . . oh, no. This was not in the plan. . . .
She was crying. Stinging tears flowed in the same torrents as countless times before as her sob-wracked body shook incoherently. And she was angry with herself for weeping. She was strong, needed to be. She wanted to do this; it was not as if she had a gun to her head. . . .
Then the rains came. Water mixed with her salty tears. Lightening flashed and thunder boomed, but it did not matter: she did not see it or hear it. All she saw was the muddy ledge and the dark, foreboding sea beyond. The deluge seeped through her clothes almost immediately and chilled her to the core; the sobs were not the only thing making her shake now.
Before she lost her nerve, Sydney began to run in lop-sided strides towards her perdition. Thirty feet. . . . Closer . . . twenty-five. . . . Nothing was going to stop her now . . . twenty. . . . ‘Oh God, oh God . . .’ fifteen. . . . About ten feet from her destination, an animal slammed into her side, knocking her into the soft, argillaceous ground. She screamed in terror and flailed about, but it kept a firm grip around her waist. Finally getting a grip, she flipped it onto its back and struggled to a standing position. A bolt of lightening revealed the bewildered face of-
“Vaughn?” She was not quite sure what she was seeing: her vision was so clouded with rain. The man blinked as he wiped mud from his face with his sleeve. When he nodded, she collapsed onto the ground next to him, splattering even more sodden earth onto his clothes. Bitter wails escaped her throat, but she did not fight as he wrapped his arms around her cold, wet body. His embrace was tight and lasting; he felt like he was never going to let go, and she realized did not want him to let her go. The pair sat there together, rocking back and forth in the filth, trying to establish some level of comfort.
“I’m so sorry, Vaughn!” she managed to choke out, gripping his jacket tightly to her own chest. “I didn’t really want to be so mean to you before I left. I just thought . . . that then it wouldn’t be as hard for you when you got the news of my . . . if you were angry at me. . . .” She trailed off into moans again. When her sobs had finally declined from a dull roar, a flurry of confusion washed over her. Turning to him while still in his arms, she demanded, “How? How did you know?”
A look of embarrassment fluttered across his features. “You left the letter when you stormed out of the warehouse. I read it.” Opening his coat to show her the inside, she saw a familiar envelope protruding from a pocket. Seeing her face still awash in befuddlement, he added, “The old woman at the inn told me where you might be. I had to tell her about twenty times that I was Breena Calhoun’s husband.”
She snuggled up closer to him, practically climbing into his lap and nuzzling her head into the crook of his neck. They fit perfectly, every single contour. Leaning up to whisper in his ear, she said, “You read all of it?”
“Yes,” he replied firmly. Her breath caught, and that flight instinct almost kicked in before he continued. “Yes, Sydney. I read all of it. And I want you to know . . . yes.” Her brow furrowed, unwilling to let herself want to hope, and he bit his lip before continuing.
“Yes, I do hate Irina Derevko for what she has done. But she isn’t you. You will never become her, make her mistakes. You know the pain that her actions have caused; you have a soul.
“I know that, right now, your life is a living hell. Your father, your mother, Sloane, Sark . . . us. But I also know that I love you and you love me. What else do we need? With that, we can get through anything any of those assholes can possibly throw at us. You can lean on me; I won’t fall. Not with the possibility of your love shining through on the other side.
“The world would not be a better place without you. Jack is old; he wouldn’t be able to take down SD-6 alone. Will knows what you’re going through, now: he’ll help you bear the burden and try to make it easier. Maybe one day it’ll be safer, and Francie will know too. As for me . . . I don’t want to love Alice or any other woman. My heart has been saved for you and you alone, Sydney Bristow. You’ve got it under lock and key.
“And if you need it, Sydney, I’ll give you the help you need to be able to love yourself. God, if you could only see you how I see you!” He paused, brushing away a tear, stemming it in its course. “Then you wouldn’t run out of things to love about yourself.”
Vaughn took a brief respite again, caressing her tear-stained cheek with his hand. Sydney leaned into the gesture, nuzzling his palm with her eyes closed. Even in the torrential rain, hair, clothes, and skin braided with mud, shirt and pants clinging unevenly to her like a second skin . . . even now she still looked like the most heavenly creature on Earth to him. And that knowledge did more to warm her than a fire or even his words ever could. Bringing her face closer to his so that it was centimeters away, their hot breath clashing together like swords, he swore:
“I love you, Sydney Bristow. It’s as simple as that.”
With that, Michael Vaughn seized his love’s supple lips with his own, claiming her without words. She responded, pouring her mind, body, and soul through her mouth so that he could take it and keep it forever. How long that ethereal kiss in the rain lasted, neither of them knew. But they hoped that the blithe, blissful, happy feeling that followed would never, ever end.
TBC . . .
Author: dreamwrtr4life/ Dream Writer 4 Life
Rating: PG-13 for language and explicit themes
Genre: Angst . . . there’s a twinge of romance
Archived: SD-1, FanFiction.Net, and Cover Me. Anywhere else, just ask and you shall receive!
Spoilers/Timeline: set before “Getaway”
‘Shippers’ Paradise: S/V o’ course!
Summary: Vaughn accidentally stumbles upon a personal letter to him from Sydney. He must rush to Ireland to save her from quite literally going over the edge. Will he make it in time? A Dream Writer Experience.
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. Period. End of story. Wait! No, it’s not! Keep reading!
As Simple As That
Chapter One
There were fireworks, bells, whistles, music, streamers, banners, and dancing. But it was not the Fourth of July or any other special day for that matter. It was a regular, run-of-the-mill workday, unspectacular in every way. Except that she was with him, in every sense of the word. All the layers of hurt, pain, and sorrow that had built up over her short amount of years were being washed away like dirt in a hot shower. She was letting someone take care of her for the first time in years, probably since junior high. It was the most luxurious of luxuries that she usually could not afford. Nothing bad could touch her in this euphoria, this utopia that the two of them had created: only passion, release, and utter blissful happiness.
He was all around her: outside, inside, enveloping her in every way possible. His motions evoked great feelings of lust, intensity, and love, and as they moved together, she wanted to act as a mirror and reflect those feelings back at him tenfold. She clung to him desperately; she needed him to keep her down to earth. These new, intense emotions scared her to death: she had never been loved this passionately before, and it was wearing her out, draining her strength ‘til she was spent. As she lay there, breathless, his arm around her bare waist, she twisted the ring on her finger, fourth from the right on her left hand. It was wonderfully simple with complicated emotions and years of frustration behind it. But she deserved it; they deserved it.
Then the shower stopped. Everyone knows the feeling: when one steps out of the tub and realize that there are no hot towels left, so one runs (dripping and cold) to the hamper to pull out a soggy, gelid one. She was out of his warm embrace and felt naked without his arms around her. They were standing at opposite sides of their room in the warehouse; why, she did not know. She tried to call out to him, to tell him to come closer, that she needed him, but all that came out was a breeze, a hot breath. Trying instead to move towards him, she realized why they were not side by side; looking over her shoulder, she saw both her father and Danny, each holding one of her arms, struggling to keep her rooted to the spot. She stared in disbelief, about to ask what the hell was going on, why Danny was-
But Jack cut her thoughts off. “We wouldn’t want to break the rules, now, would we? That would violate Bristow tradition.” He was mocking her, pursing his lips and raising an eyebrow. Almost robotically, he snapped his head towards Danny for his judgment.
Danny’s usually warm, iridescent eyes were cold and hard, mocking in the same way her father’s had been. “And anyways, why would he want you? You’re the spawn of Satan, herself: the woman who killed his father. He would love you . . . why? Because you’re damaged goods? Because you need someone to protect you from the big, bad, SD-6 monsters? Or because no one else will?” The chilling, dark orbs (she refused to call them eyes) caught her gaze, holding it, letting his harsh words sink in. “No. The only reason he would even attempt to love you is to save you from yourself. You know what I’m talking about.” He shot her a meaningful glare, searing to her very core. “I know your plans for the next mission.”
Rage boiled up inside of her and she tore her eyes away. Across the room, he was calling out to her, but no sound issued from his perfect lips. Abruptly, something obstructed her view of him; she had to blink a few times before the image registered in her brain. It was her moth-Irina, standing there between them, looking like she owned the world, one of the last immovable forces keeping the two apart. She was a hurdle that neither of them alone could overcome at that point in time. Irina turned to her, the calmness in her voice unnerving. “Ah-ah, Sydney. He isn’t for you. We all know what you would do with him if you had the chance: you would desert him, hurt him in every way possible. Kill him from the inside out. Just like your mother.”
Another feminine figure appeared in one of the dimly lit recesses of the warehouse. She slowly walked towards Vaughn so as to join the grotesque party of hatred. Her blonde hair and petite frame were all too familiar to her. She captured one of his hands in her small one, and he turned around, confusion etched into his face. Stepping into the light so that he could get a clear view of her she pleaded, “Don’t go to her, Michael. She doesn’t deserve you. I deserve you. Me. Alice. Your girlfriend. Remember the protocol. Live by it. Your job is your life. Don’t let this Rita woman mess it up for you.” He suddenly gave up his struggle against the Forces of Fate; instead, he took Alice into his strong arms and planted a kiss onto her small lips. She wanted to scream and race over to them, tear Alice apart; her heart felt like it was being ripped out of her chest, her stomach gutted while she was still alive. Even after she closed her eyes to the scene, the images still burned into her eyelids, dancing a horrible, torturous dance over and over, interminably.
When she opened them again, she was in another familiar setting. The steel sheet for a bed, the barred windows, glass wall facing the forbidden hallway . . . yes, she knew it well: it was her mother’s holding cell. Only she was not staring in: this time, she was staring down that hallway through the three sets of locked gates. Shifting her gaze, she saw someone staring in at her. When she realized who it was, she ran towards the glass, throwing herself up on it with a dull thwack. His hands lay on the glass, sweaty palms pressed towards her. Struggling to hold back the tears, she gingerly lined up her hands with his, wanting to feel the satisfying feeling of skin on skin.
Emotions coursed through her veins: doubt, longing, emptiness, and fear of the unknown. She knew she had done something to get them into this hopeless situation, but she no idea what until she looked down and saw her swelling stomach- ‘Oh.’
Turning her gaze again, she pressed her body towards his, willing the glass to disappear. An inch of bulletproof glass. That was all that separated one from the other. So little, yet so much; so close, yet so far.
She watched his fingers curl, scratching the glass, itching to feel her as well. She watched his lips as they mouthed the three most famous last words: “I love you.” And she watched his turbulent eyes as they swallowed her up. Slowly, she sank into those twin pools of emerald green angst, feeling every emotion he was feeling. She was drowning and she could not breathe; much like she watched him do behind that damn door in Taipei. Drowning slowly, incrementally, sluggishly, until finally . . .
Sydney jumped in her bed, feeling like she had just fallen onto it from the sky. Sighing in relief, she rolled over and checked the time. 3:11. There was something magical about that time of night. No one sane seemed to be awake; those people who were about were usually eccentric, strange, mysterious. Almost like her dream.
She did not know whether she had wanted it to end or not. It certainly was one of the more straightforward dreams she had ever had. The first part . . . well, that was self-explanatory. Sydney Bristow wanted Michael Vaughn. Pure and simple as that. He was the only one who could possibly make her feel as wonderfully free and liberated as she had been. But the latter parts were what was making her shake from her head down to the tips of her toes.
The frustration and pain that she had felt in the dream warehouse came flooding back to her. Jack’s, Danny’s, and Irina’s haunting words resonated in her mind, rising in pitch until they melded into one long, unending screech of hate. She covered her ears with her hands in an attempt to stem the internal onslaught, but it did nothing. Even though Sydney knew they were fictitious words created by warped figments of her imagination, their meanings still hit home with surprisingly deadly accuracy. The gut-wrenching sight of Vaughn and Alice embracing was still emblazoned onto the backs of her eyelids and screamed out at her whenever she lowered them. But right after that heartbreaking image came the needle and thread to sew her heart back up: his lips mouthing the words she longed to hear him say. She smiled sadly, and her stomach fluttered at the mere thought. Slowly lifting herself from her bed, she strode over to the window and sat down on the sill, leaning her shoulder against the cool window in a feeble attempt to douse the fire growing within her.
Alice. It was a nice, simple, homely, wholesome name. How she hated it. That single word embodied everything that she wasn’t. Besides the fact that Alice wasn’t a hard, secretive, lithe, bust-a-cap-in-your-ass double agent, she was part of Vaughn’s personal life in a way that she could never be as long as SD-6 existed. Alice was Michael Vaughn’s girlfriend, and as much as she did not want to admit it, Sydney was jealous of her. The feeling was as alien to Syd as her line of work was to the average layman; she had always been top of her class, the best at everything she tried. The only thing that Alice could hold over Sydney’s head was the fact that she had a normal job and Sydney did not.
This message really hit home each of the two times she had seen her handler’s girlfriend. After the first time at the hospital, when Vaughn had tried to explain, her heart shattered into an uncountable number of pieces. The one person she thought would never hurt her did in one of the worst ways possible. She had walked away without a second thought. Upon seeing the two of them together again at the restaurant, the sky seemed to fall on her head. Without actual, visual proof that they existed as a couple, she could imagine Alice had not said those two fateful words. But now that illusion was gone: she was given a huge dose of life. She wanted to spit it back out.
She did not hate Alice. In fact, she thought she was a really nice girl; she meant what she had said. She just hated the idea of Vaughn having a girlfriend; it had nothing to do with the person.
The mounting frustration that had begun to grow deep inside of her was almost too much to bear. The dream had not planted the seed; it had started way before that: the moment she realized that she had feelings for Vaughn and knew she could probably never have him. The feeling was so white hot it burned her insides, craving his water to make it subside. She let out a low moan as she pressed her forehead to the window. What she really wanted to do was scream what she was feeling so that everyone could hear. Will and Francie would know what she really did for a living. Her father would know exactly how much he had hurt her by keeping Project: Christmas secret. Irina would begin to have some idea as to the extent of Sydney’s hatred for her. Sloane would know exactly how she wanted to kill him. Vaughn would finally know that she returned his feelings. She wanted to speak the uncensored, un-avoided, un-coated truth. (‘Truth. That is a word I haven’t heard for a while.’)
But she could not, and those three short, simple words grieved her most of all. If she could only speak the truth, bare her soul, wear her heart on her sleeve . . . then maybe, just maybe, it would all turn out okay.
‘Wait a second!’ she thought, sitting as straight as if an all-seeing grandmother had just walked into the room. There was a way for her to tell the truth without actually saying anything! And she could still continue with her plan for the next mission. A smile quickly lit up Sydney’s face as she shot up from the sill and zoomed to her desk, almost falling flat on her face upon tripping over a pair of weights. After rifling around in the bottom drawer, she drew out a thick stack of loose-leaf paper and a new pen. Passing her hand slowly over the first blank page, smoothing the nonexistent wrinkles, she paused for a moment and then began to write.
***
“Done?”
“Done.” Vaughn’s immaculate smile glowed, lighting up every corner of the warehouse. “Outline of the first counter-mission fully planned by me completed.” Sydney’s weak smile did not reach her eyes, but his smile became even wider, and he could not mask the pride that was shining through his skin. “This mission will be totally different than anything you’re ever done.”
Her smile widened genuinely as she caught a glimpse of his nervously tapping leg and drumming fingers. She struggled back a laugh. “Fidget much?”
His fingers stopped their musical tribute to Drumline but his leg continued to bounce like a jackhammer. “Yeah, all the time. It’s even considered a sport in three counties.”
“Which ones? Vaughnistan, Michael’s Magical Land of Make-Believe, and Disney World?”
“Exactly.” The two agents shared a silly laugh before simmering back into silence.
Sydney peered at him with thoughtful eyes. “Seriously. What makes you nervous? You never seem to sweat when we’re on a mission together.” Or together in general, she could have added.
Vaughn shivered as he remembered the last time that he was about to shoot his foot just so that it would stop moving. Those agonizing few moments as the helicopter pulled up over the mountains, hoping to whatever God was listening that Cuvee’s compound was not part of the dust that had blew into every crevice of his body for the past fifteen minutes. But slinging back to the present- “. . . when the Kings are down by more than two goals, and when you’re off on a mission by yourself and I’m stuck at headquarters sitting in front of a satellite monitor.” God, he had not even realized his mouth was moving.
Her look changed. A wave of disbelief swept away the curiosity as she slowly narrowed her eyes. “What did you say?”
Vaughn was taken aback. Her tone hinted of a scorpion’s sting. Was it something he said when he had not been paying attention to his openly flapping mouth? Replaying what he remembered, he saw nothing wrong with it. He began to stammer. “Uh . . . um . . . K-Kings?”
“No. After that,” she spat recoiling slightly and gripping her purse with white knuckles, as if preparing for the possibility of a speedy getaway. “Are you implying that I can’t take care of myself?!”
“No!” Michael sputtered in a weak defense. He had never seen her act like this before; not even when he had tried to explain about Alice. She seemed more coiled than a bedspring under a sumo wrestler, and anything could set her off. And apparently he was doing a fine job of it. “No! Never! Why would I-”
“Oh! I know! I’m not good enough to complete your first assignment! You don’t think I should be doing this at all! Well, why don’t you go and do it yourself-” Sydney’s cell phone started to beep. She cursed under her breath and started to empty her purse in search of the small and annoying object, discarding the objects onto the table carelessly. When she came across the noise-marker, she hurriedly pressed the call button and demanded harshly, “What?” Suddenly, her demeanor became remorseful. “Oh! Francie! I’m sorry for snapping at you! It’s just . . . yeah, exactly. I mean, he was so rude and insulting.” Sydney shot him a look. “What? Oh, of course. Milk? Gotcha. I’ll be home soon. Bye.” Shutting off her phone, she shoved it into her empty purse. With shaking hands (whether it was because of rage or embarrassment, he didn’t know), she quickly swept everything back into the small bag, trying to achieve the fast getaway for which she had been poised.
“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going. No need to say good luck: I know you wouldn’t mean it anyway.” With that, Agent Bristow breezed out of the warehouse without giving him a chance to say something, to counter her pessimistic remarks.
Michael Vaughn heaved a heavy sigh mixed with relief and confusion. Grinding his temples with two fingers each, he contemplated and re-contemplated their conversation. All he could come up with was “huh” and “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” His mind swam, brow furrowed, and eyes stared across the table to where she had been sitting mere moments before. It was then that he noticed the envelope. Cautiously rising from his seat, he made his way around the table to sit in her seat. It was still warm. He stared at the thick, unsealed envelope and weighed his choices. He could always open and read what might be a very personal letter like an insensitive bastard; or he could keep it and return it to her when she got home from her mission like a gentleman. After making a quick list of pros and cons he decided. ‘Insensitive bastard it is.’
Opening the flap, he delicately removed the thick wad of neatly creased loose-leaf paper. Unfolding the sheets, he spread them out on the table, smoothing the creases with his index finger. With another moment of hesitation he began.
‘Dear . . . To . . . Vaughn . . . Dear Michael,’
Indecisive. That was a good sign. But it was to him. Maybe he had made the right choice in reading this. Maybe she had purposely left this for him to read. He began again.
‘Dear Michael,
‘You have no idea how hard this is to put down on paper. I can write research papers, debriefs, anything that doesn’t have to deal with me or my emotions. If this ends up a mess . . . well, it would be only fitting. I’m just tired of lying to everyone: where I’m going, what I’m doing, what I’m feeling. It’s time to display all my dirty laundry.
‘First off, let me tell you that I know. I know that you have feelings for me. It showed when you tried to explain away Alice, when you told me about your father’s watch, when you wouldn’t give up on me when everyone thought my whole family and I were dead. It shows in the little things, too: your eyes, your smile. God, that smile! I could go on for hours about how it makes my heart dance and my stomach flutter. It’s making my hands shake just to think about it. There’s the smile that encapsulates your whole face: your eyes, your forehead, your cheeks, your chin, and especially your mouth. It’s amazing how no matter how wide your grin gets, you never look like a clown. Then there’s that one where you only lift up the corner of your mouth; the bashful grin. God, I love that one the most. It makes me feel that somehow I’m the most important thing in the world at that moment. I don’t know if it’s intentional, but that’s how I see it.
‘Don’t even get me started on your eyes. Here’s a secret: they were what first drew me in to you. So deep, so green, always so emotion-filled; I could always tell what you were thinking. Sometimes I just want to stare into them for hours without any interruption. Words simply cannot express how incredibly much I love the pools of sparkling, shimmering light that are dolefully called Michael Vaughn’s eyes.
‘But I can’t have you. Not until . . . well, you know when. The thing is, I don’t know if I can wait that long. These feelings . . . they’re so strong. I don’t know if I can control them for much longer. I’m not worried about breaking protocol; that can always be fixed, and I think too much power has been invested into that one little rule. But I am worried about what SD-6 would do if they found out. Would they do what they did to Will? Or would they just kill us both on the spot? I love you too much to let that happen to you. You know what they say: if you love something, let it go.
‘What I want to know is how can you love me? My life is so messed up! My family is so messed up! Just think about it for a moment. My mother, Laura Bristow, who was thought to have died years ago, suddenly resurfaces as “The Man” and turns herself in to the CIA as Irina Derevko, the woman who killed your father. Jack Bristow, my father, who is also a double agent, has recently been found to have started a secret operation called Project: Christmas, in which I unwittingly participated. He has also framed said Derevko for supplying false information and violating her agreement with the government.
‘Enter me, Sydney Bristow, the person who wants to be with Michael Vaughn more than anything else in the world and the one person who probably shouldn’t be. I have joined SD-6, tried to fix my mistake by becoming a double agent, almost got my handler killed, almost blew my cover, got my fiancé axed, planned a botched pre-meditated murder to get an antidote to save my handler, and on top of that boatload of shit, I have feelings for him. I think the rules started breaking before I was even born.
‘How can you love me when Irina Derevko is my mother? After what she did to your father, your family, to you? I hate her for what she did. She has placed a perpetual wedge between us that will never really go away. I hate myself for looking like her, because there is the chance, however remotely small, that I will someday act like her too. And I simply can’t take that risk. I just can’t. I hate myself for every single reason I hate my mother and father. Part of the reason that they make me so angry is because I see so much of myself in them; what I could become. How can you love someone who doesn’t even love herself? Promise me, Michael, that if I ever live to become like either one of them, you’ll shoot me dead on the spot.
‘Sometimes I think the world would be better without me in it. My father could take down SD-6; he’s a smart man. You would be free to love Alice or anyone you want . . . and she could be free to love you back. You wouldn’t be tied down to the possibility of being with Sydney Bristow. Will and Francie wouldn’t have to deal with all of my lies anymore. Yes, this sounds like a really good world, one that everyone would be happy in. And I could look down on you all.
‘This letter won’t end with hope, as it should. I feel that hope in the face of the impossible is necessary, but it can also cripple your perception of the real odds. We can’t be together; it’s as simple as that. If you have hope for a future with me, go right ahead. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
‘Well, I think that’s about it. If my plan succeeds, this is going to be my last mission. Thank God you won’t find this before then, otherwise . . .
‘I’ve said all I needed to say. I’m glad I got to tell the truth before my end, even though I didn’t get to say it. Remember, I love you. Nothing could ever change that. Not a book of rules or a court-martial or death. I love you. It’s as simple as that.
‘Love . . . Sincerely . . . FromLove, Sydney Bristow’
Oops.
His eyes widened. ‘I wasn’t supposed to read this!’ He reprimanded himself, cautiously refolding the papers. But he was glad he had. Now he had to take action.
Her writing needed no interpretation; the meaning was as blatantly obvious to Vaughn as if he had written it himself. He knew what he had to do but was not quite sure how to go about doing it. Showing Devlin, Weiss, or Jack the letter was completely out of the question. If - when Sydney got back, she would most definitely face a lengthy psychiatric evaluation and at least a year of therapy. Vaughn did not want that for her, did not want it as much as he didn’t want her to die. What he had to discover was a way to convince Devlin to let Vaughn follow Sydney without both her knowing and without arousing suspicion about her mental stability. He had absolutely no idea as to how to go about such a feat, but pulling things out of his ass was one of his fortes.
Pocketing the chilling correspondence with an air of resolve, Vaughn fled the warehouse and sped towards headquarters, all the while preparing for his improvisational one-man show.
***
“You have to let me go.”
“Why?”
“You just . . . do.” Vaughn’s words were slipping about in his mouth, most were confused, some lost down his throat, all of them mixed up horribly. Guess he was not as slick as he had previously thought.
“No.”
“But sir! Syd-Agent Bristow will need my help on this mission. I’m sure of it.”
“Well, then maybe you should learn to design better missions. Ones where we don’t have to send a handler after his agent.”
Ouch. That shut him up for a time. But a few moments later, he dove back in.
“Sir, I implore you to let me go. My counter-mission is a little . . . overwhelming for only one person. It probably should be divided between two agents, and I probably should have gone with her in the first place. Please, sir. If you want this mission to be successful, you should let me get on that plane instead of staying here and watching it fail.” There. The self-derogatory route should both appease Devlin’s ego and persuade him at the same time.
Devlin turned his back on the frustrated Agent Vaughn, weighing the options silently. Failed mission where SD-6 gets unfiltered information on the doings of Derevko’s former organization; or five hundred dollars out of Vaughn’s pocket.
“Fine. Go. Don’t make me sorry I did this.”
Vaughn breathed a large sigh of relief and a small smile lit up his. “Thank you, sir. You have no idea how much I appreciate this.” Without waiting for a response, he grabbed his coat and briefcase and dashed down the hall.
***
‘Damn it! The bottle’s empty! And I still have this huge bruise on my jaw to cover! Oh well. I guess I could go retro and part my hair on one side. . . .’ Sydney threw away the vacuous bottle of concealor, still reeling from the three-story fall she took not an hour ago trying to escape from about ten armed Irish security guards. Since then, she had taken a long, hot show, repaired her cuts with Band-Aids, and covered up approximately half of her bruises before discovering she needed a refill of her makeup. She did not really understand why she was attempting to hide her battle scars: she had already dead-dropped the information and was not exactly planning to go back to the States. But then, she remembered, she had to check out of the small, family-run inn without arousing suspicion. Trooping down the narrow stairs with a noticeable limp and cuts and bruises to spare would not exactly be the epitome of normal. There was always the possibility of passing the injuries off as the result of a good, old-fashioned Irish bar fight, but then again, that would mean lying . . . again.
Her head began to throb violently where the butt of a gun had connected with it, and she absently reached for her economy-sized bottle of aspirin before remembering. She tossed the bottle into the garbage can next to the empty concealor bottle before gathering the last of her belongings, trying in vain to ignore the pulsing in her brain. Making her way downstairs, she went through the usual song and dance routine of signing out and saying she had a great time. Before Sydney left, the matron of the inn recommended that she visit the cliffs about five miles up the coast. 'Perfect,’ she thought. Thanking her again, Syd left the rental car in the dirt driveway and began to walk.
***
She knew she was at the right place when she got there, just like the woman had said. The overcast sky did nothing to dull the effect her current setting had upon her. To her right appeared the endlessly rolling hills of greener-than-green grass. They were like wrinkles on the bedclothes back in her apartment. . . . ‘At home. . . .’ The wind brought the taste of salt and the sweet smell of the sea. The beauty of the scent of fish, seaweed, and saltwater had never been lost on her; in fact, it was one of her most favourite odors. It was mellow, yet strong, and the wind allowed it to caress her skin, weave through her hair, make her eyes water. . . .
And out to her left was the sea. Roaring, swelling, diminishing, whispering, then repeating the cycle again. The waves careened ferociously onto the craggy rocks about two hundred feet below her perch. Sound reverberated around the orifices and ledges below, echoing back up to her ears as the second sweetest sound in the world. Second by a long road. Now, if only she could hear the first-
But no. She had to put all thoughts of friends, family, life, and especially Him out of her mind. If she was going to do this. Was she? ‘No! There can be no second thoughts now, Sydney Bristow! You cannot go back.’ Dropping her bags on the side of dirt path, she stepped cautiously to the edge, peering over it with wide eyes as if looking upon something forbidden. She slowly lowered herself to sit on the ledge, legs dangling over, as she contemplated the quickest, cleanest, and most efficient way to do this.
Her first thought was the gun in her bag. Barrel in her mouth, slight pressure on the trigger, and Sydney would be gone before she ever felt a hint of pain. Messy, yes; but precise, quick, and no margin of error. But it was not enjoyable. She wanted her last few moments to be happy and peaceful, a complete contrast to her life.
‘Listen to yourself think, Syd!’ her heart reasoned, always the devil’s advocate. ‘Can you really be thinking of this? You’re so young, have so much to live for. Vaughn, for one.’
‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong,’ her mind replied, stepping in with its two cents. ‘I have nothing to live for. I can’t tell anyone the truth. Without truth, you can’t build a real relationship with anyone. And without that, what have you got? Money? Greed? Power? It’s all nothing compared to the feeling of being loved. And apparently I‘m not meant for that. I might as well end the suffering now before I turn into a cynical old maid with a hundred cats and a wooden leg.’
Somehow the two stopped arguing and she was able to turn back to her plan. The only other option, she guessed, was to jump and let the rocks at the bottom do the rest. . . . Yes. It was perfect. She would vault off the cliff and soar to meet her doom. Slow, yes; painful, too; dirty, most definitely. Margin of error: pretty big. But Sydney would get to fly: that whimsical feeling of weightlessness as the stomach plummets to one’s shoes. It would be a wonderful end!
Sydney had been thinking so long and so hard that she had not noticed the sky grow dark, laden with heavy rain clouds. She raised herself from her seat gracefully and strode back towards the path. Her plan was to get a running jump, but . . . oh, no. This was not in the plan. . . .
She was crying. Stinging tears flowed in the same torrents as countless times before as her sob-wracked body shook incoherently. And she was angry with herself for weeping. She was strong, needed to be. She wanted to do this; it was not as if she had a gun to her head. . . .
Then the rains came. Water mixed with her salty tears. Lightening flashed and thunder boomed, but it did not matter: she did not see it or hear it. All she saw was the muddy ledge and the dark, foreboding sea beyond. The deluge seeped through her clothes almost immediately and chilled her to the core; the sobs were not the only thing making her shake now.
Before she lost her nerve, Sydney began to run in lop-sided strides towards her perdition. Thirty feet. . . . Closer . . . twenty-five. . . . Nothing was going to stop her now . . . twenty. . . . ‘Oh God, oh God . . .’ fifteen. . . . About ten feet from her destination, an animal slammed into her side, knocking her into the soft, argillaceous ground. She screamed in terror and flailed about, but it kept a firm grip around her waist. Finally getting a grip, she flipped it onto its back and struggled to a standing position. A bolt of lightening revealed the bewildered face of-
“Vaughn?” She was not quite sure what she was seeing: her vision was so clouded with rain. The man blinked as he wiped mud from his face with his sleeve. When he nodded, she collapsed onto the ground next to him, splattering even more sodden earth onto his clothes. Bitter wails escaped her throat, but she did not fight as he wrapped his arms around her cold, wet body. His embrace was tight and lasting; he felt like he was never going to let go, and she realized did not want him to let her go. The pair sat there together, rocking back and forth in the filth, trying to establish some level of comfort.
“I’m so sorry, Vaughn!” she managed to choke out, gripping his jacket tightly to her own chest. “I didn’t really want to be so mean to you before I left. I just thought . . . that then it wouldn’t be as hard for you when you got the news of my . . . if you were angry at me. . . .” She trailed off into moans again. When her sobs had finally declined from a dull roar, a flurry of confusion washed over her. Turning to him while still in his arms, she demanded, “How? How did you know?”
A look of embarrassment fluttered across his features. “You left the letter when you stormed out of the warehouse. I read it.” Opening his coat to show her the inside, she saw a familiar envelope protruding from a pocket. Seeing her face still awash in befuddlement, he added, “The old woman at the inn told me where you might be. I had to tell her about twenty times that I was Breena Calhoun’s husband.”
She snuggled up closer to him, practically climbing into his lap and nuzzling her head into the crook of his neck. They fit perfectly, every single contour. Leaning up to whisper in his ear, she said, “You read all of it?”
“Yes,” he replied firmly. Her breath caught, and that flight instinct almost kicked in before he continued. “Yes, Sydney. I read all of it. And I want you to know . . . yes.” Her brow furrowed, unwilling to let herself want to hope, and he bit his lip before continuing.
“Yes, I do hate Irina Derevko for what she has done. But she isn’t you. You will never become her, make her mistakes. You know the pain that her actions have caused; you have a soul.
“I know that, right now, your life is a living hell. Your father, your mother, Sloane, Sark . . . us. But I also know that I love you and you love me. What else do we need? With that, we can get through anything any of those assholes can possibly throw at us. You can lean on me; I won’t fall. Not with the possibility of your love shining through on the other side.
“The world would not be a better place without you. Jack is old; he wouldn’t be able to take down SD-6 alone. Will knows what you’re going through, now: he’ll help you bear the burden and try to make it easier. Maybe one day it’ll be safer, and Francie will know too. As for me . . . I don’t want to love Alice or any other woman. My heart has been saved for you and you alone, Sydney Bristow. You’ve got it under lock and key.
“And if you need it, Sydney, I’ll give you the help you need to be able to love yourself. God, if you could only see you how I see you!” He paused, brushing away a tear, stemming it in its course. “Then you wouldn’t run out of things to love about yourself.”
Vaughn took a brief respite again, caressing her tear-stained cheek with his hand. Sydney leaned into the gesture, nuzzling his palm with her eyes closed. Even in the torrential rain, hair, clothes, and skin braided with mud, shirt and pants clinging unevenly to her like a second skin . . . even now she still looked like the most heavenly creature on Earth to him. And that knowledge did more to warm her than a fire or even his words ever could. Bringing her face closer to his so that it was centimeters away, their hot breath clashing together like swords, he swore:
“I love you, Sydney Bristow. It’s as simple as that.”
With that, Michael Vaughn seized his love’s supple lips with his own, claiming her without words. She responded, pouring her mind, body, and soul through her mouth so that he could take it and keep it forever. How long that ethereal kiss in the rain lasted, neither of them knew. But they hoped that the blithe, blissful, happy feeling that followed would never, ever end.
TBC . . .