fic: a life without regret 28/?
Author's Note: I've finally had some inspiration for this fic again, and since I have lots to post here to catch-up to my last update over at SD-1 and I need to catch-up on what I've actually written, I figure I can kill two or even three birds with one stone. Let's just hope this trend continues. :)
Author: Gracie
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: No, I don't own it, I'm just borrowing them for a little fun. Alias and all the characters belong to Touchstone, ABC and the talented JJ. Abrams.
Timeline: To fit in with future storylines, I have changed the time of when SD-6 was brought down. Sydney is now four months pregnant and this fic begins in early November.
Summary: Sequel to No Regrets. Trying to make normal.
Sydney POV
“Oh my god,” Will gasps, setting his coffee back onto the table. “So what happened then?”
I smile at his shock over what I just told him and stir my tea. “I left him in his shock and picked out lettuce.”
“Sydney!” he chastises me and I blush.
“What?! It was his ex-girlfriend,” I emphasise, defending myself. “…and she just told him that the baby she is carrying, that was obviously conceived when they were together, was not his! Need I remind you that when this baby,” I point to my stomach, “…was conceived when they, technically, were still together?”
Will sits on what I told him for a second and looks at me. I can see the wheels spinning in his head. He pinches his eyes together as he says the next part. “So wait a second. Alice is pregnant?”
”Yes.”
“Not with Mike’s baby?”
Another yes and I laugh as he puts everything together in his head. “A baby that was conceived while they were still together? And you’re pregnant, after you two slept together while they were still together?”
”They were pretty much over anyway [i]and[/i] he broke up with her after he realized we had something together,” I take a sip of tea to cover how embarrassed I am over this entire situation.
“Jesus Syd! How long until General Hospital write this into their story,” he laughs and I join him, unable to hold it out any longer.
“What, we all need to have a little drama in our lives occasionally. Anyway, you should have seen the look on Vaughn’s face when he realized who it was I smashed into. I thought he was going to choke on his saliva.”
“You can’t tell me you weren’t as shocked as he was,” he states.
I think about it for a second and how I actually did feel when realization hit me at the store last night that Vaughn’s ex-girlfriend was pregnant, quite possibly with his baby. I remember thinking how small the space we were in felt, like the air I was breathing wasn’t quite adequate and that the seemingly perfect world that I had was actually crumbling down in front of me.
“Yeah, but it all turned out fine, so there’s no problem, is there?” I sip my tea and take another bite of the apple pie in front of me, making sure I take a generous amount of vanilla ice-cream with it. Will called me this morning to see if I would have lunch with him today and since I had no other plans there was no reason to argue with him. After all, spending the day at home by myself does get a little dragging after a while.
“What are you, my therapist?” I joke.
“No, no, just a concerned friend.”
“Riiight. So how are things with you and Francie anyway?” I ask, turning the tables.
“Good. After everything that happened on the weekend, I think we’re stronger because of it,” he smiles proudly. “And Francie is much better than she has been, I should have realized earlier that something was going on, I was stupid not to see it.”
“You’re not stupid Will; Fran was just scared about the whole situation. You couldn’t have known,” I let that settle with him before I move on. “So how did you feel about it?”
“What the baby?” he asks, referring to the pregnancy scare from Saturday. I nod as he continues. “I don’t know. It probably would have thrown a spanner in the works,” he tries to argue but I know better.
“But?” I urge him to continue, raising an eyebrow.
“But… I don’t know. Just the idea of it, you know? I just…” he shakes his head, cutting himself off. “…nevermind.”
“No, what is it, you can talk to me you know.”
He contemplates what to say, and if to say it before he continues. “It’s a baby, you know,” he says goofily. “A baby.”
I lean over the table to take his hand and squeeze it tightly. I never realized that he felt so seriously about this. “How long have you felt like this?”
“Oh this is only new,” he sighs, laughing nervously. “After what happened, it just, seemed to put everything into perspective. And then I see you and Mike together and you’re so happy and you’re bringing a baby into the world…”
“Oh Will,” I rub his hand and it’s now that I have noticed our voices have dropped a few notches. “Have you spoken to Fran about this?”
He shakes his head no and if I could reach across the table, I would smack him upside the head. Between him and Francie telling me things and not telling one another I’m surprised they’ve lasted this long.
“What?” he deadpans.
I roll my eyes. “I know more about what both of you are feeling than one another! When was the last time you really had a conversation?” He uhms and ahs and that pretty much answers my question. “Will, you need to talk to Francie.” He pulls his hand back from my grasp quickly, looking anywhere but at me.
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because, it’s just…” he trails off, not finishing his thought. Jeez, I should be getting paid for this.
“…it’s just?” I push.
“I don’t think she wants any more than what we have going now.”
“What makes you say that?” I jump in.
He shrugs and groans. “Syyyd,” he whines, but I can be persistent when I want to be. “After Charlie… he hurt her, you know?”
“Yes, yes he did. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to pursue another relationship and be happy because of it.” I know he’s not satisfied with what I just told him. “Will, what do you want?” Sometimes, men, I swear, if you don’t spell it out in plain English they just don’t get it.
“I’m ready for the next step,” he says finally, then adds. “…I think. But what if Francie doesn’t want that?”
“Well you won’t know until you talk to her, will you?” I say mockingly, rolling my eyes to myself. I take some more pie onto my spoon, needing a sugar fix to get through this conversation.
“We’re not all like your perfect husband you know,” he says a minute or so later.
I start laughing and have to cover my full mouth as to not make a mess. “Michael isn’t all that perfect you know.”
“Oh yeah. He sets standards that no other man the whole world over can meet. Do you really think any of us have a chance with him treating you like a queen…”
“He doesn’t treat me like a queen, and,” I add, “…he’s not my husband.”
“Close enough,” he mumbles.
I ask for clarification, “What was that?”
“Nothing,” he sulks into his empty coffee mug.
“He’s not perfect Will. Especially not lately,” I wonder out loud to nobody but myself.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him staring at me to spill about what I just commented on. “Don’t think you’re not going to get out of saying anything after the drilling you just gave me.”
“I don’t know, maybe I’m imagining it,” I shrug, and then continue. “Has he been acting any differently around you, I don’t know, like he’s got something on his mind, something that is stressing him out?”
He shakes his head negatively quickly, almost too quickly. I eye him skeptically.
“What is it?” I ask, worried now because apparently I am the only one being kept out of the loop.
“Nothing, nothing,” he replies shaking his head and fiddling with his used napkin.
“Should I be worried?”
He finally looks to me and I can see now that there is something definitely going on, something that is worrying Vaughn and quite obviously Will too. It only makes me wonder how many more people know and not me. “He has a lot on his plate at the office, you know Director Kendall, he doesn’t give anyone a break, and that is just at ops, god knows what pressure they are putting on him at headquarters,” he says, covering. I can feel the tension start to build up in the back of my neck, the muscles getting tighter and tighter.
“Syd,” Will warns, snapping me back to the conversation. “Don’t worry, please,” he begs. “I was told you weren’t supposed to know unless it was entirely necessary, they’ll have my head if they find out you know something.”
“Hey, hey, it’s not you’re fault, I shouldn’t have pushed. I promise,” I smile with as much encouragement I can muster. Truth is that my insides feel as though they have been mashed to a pulp with this new found information - or lack thereof. “Don’t you have to get back,” I ask him almost tearfully. I blink quickly to hide the emotion.
Will checks his watch and realizes that it is later than he thought and hurriedly gets up, pulling out some money before I can stop him.
“Hey, this one’s on me,” he promises, leaving a pile of cash to cover the meal. I ease myself up as well, holding the side of the table until I feel stable on my legs. Honestly I feel as though they could buckle under me any second - and not only from the weight of the pregnancy. “Are you going to be okay?” he asks a second later seeing that I am struggling.
Putting on my best brave face I smile and nod reassuringly. “Yeah, I think I might go shopping for a bit, see if I can lose myself at the mall.”
“Good. Just talk to Mike, would you?” he mocks what I told him earlier.
“Yeah, yeah, stop being a smart ass,” I say hugging him. We walk outside arm in arm and we bid one another goodbye. He looks at me carefully before turning and walking away, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
What the hell is going on?
~*~*~
Opening the back of the truck, I eye all of the bags that I shoved in there back at the mall and sigh. It seems as though I took my frustrations from the curiosity that built up at lunch out on my credit card at the mall. I head to the front door first, knowing that it is going to take more than one trip from the car to the house to bring all the packages in; I set my handbag and keys on the foyer table and head back outside.
It’s dark outside now and the temperature has dropped a few degrees more, making it necessary for more layers of clothing to be worn. I can’t wait to make it inside and start a hot bubble bath to relax in while I wait for Vaughn to come home.
On my final trip, I see Vaughn’s car come down the street and pull in behind me and another car follows him; instead of parking in the driveway, the black sedan reverses and parks out the front of the house. My dad gets out of the car, looking stoic as always in his suit and tie. Seeing my father come here unexpected, with Vaughn none the less makes me realize that there is something for me to be told; and I don’t like the prospect of that at all. And knowing that my father is here makes it seem all that much worse.
Leaving the last of the bags in the back, I set my hands on my hips and wait for them to approach me. Vaughn comes up first and kisses my cheek.
“What’s going on?” I ask impatiently.
“How about we go inside, hmm?” He is so calm that it frustrates me to no end.
“How about you start talking?” this as my father come and joins us in the driveway.
I give in to their insistent looks and grumble all the way inside. I hear the back of the truck closing and them following me inside, leaving the last of the bags with the rest near the stairs. I make it to the formal lounge room and sit down, waiting for them to follow suit and for the debriefing, as I know it is going to be, to begin.
It is only in the light that I can see Vaughn properly and for the first time in days really noticing now the extra lines on his forehead, the black rings around his eyes and the grave expression marking his lips. I was stupid not to piece everything together earlier, too wound up in making everything happy families to realize this life would never be behind us.
“For god’s sake, stop looking at me like I’m about to slip through your fingers and shatter into a thousand pieces and tell me what the hell is going on. And I know there is something going on; Will told me enough at lunch so don’t try to cover anything up.” I see them look to one another, Vaughn next to me on the love seat and my father in the single to the left of us.
“What did Will tell you exactly?” Vaughn asks gravely.
“Nothing specific, only enough to let me know there is something you’re all keeping from me. And I want to know what that is.” They still ponder their thoughts. “Michael please,” I beg. My father looks to me for the first time since he arrived and begins.
“For a while now, Kendall has been having some documents analyzed by your mother,” he states and I close my eyes. I should have known it would have had something to do with her. “She has been giving us some information about various operations and other cases that has been very helpful to our cause.
“However, in the past couple of days, she has been given some documents which have clearly outlined to her details of the takedown of the Alliance,” I look up from staring at my engagement ring and my eyes widen with fear of what is to come.
I start shaking my head before he even says anymore. “No,” I agonize, looking from one to the other and back again. The looks on their faces confirm to me what words don’t need to. “I thought she wasn’t going to find out, at least until I was ready…” I trail off. The room goes eerily silent, leaving enough space for emotions to speak a thousand languages.
Vaughn speaks again. “We tried to stop it Sydney, but Kendall, he, he overruled both of us. The information she was providing was too great.”
“So what, you trust her now?!” I bite at him.
“That’s not what I said.”
“Sydney,” my father interrupts. “She was doing all of this because she thought she needed to make some good out of the death of her daughter.”
I get up, too uptight and uncomfortable to be able to sit down any longer. I walk over to the fire place and stare at the few photos we have sitting there of times when everything was seemingly perfect. “So I needed to die to make her cooperate? We’ve been through this before Dad.” I turn around to face them and rest a hand on top of my belly. “And anyway, that doesn’t change anything with me; she doesn’t exist as far as I’m concerned.” They look at one another again and I think I could strangle them with the secret understanding of one another they have seemed to develop. “Oh god, what else is there?”
“She’s requested to see you,” this coming from Vaughn and I look at him with ample eyes, hoping he can see the fear residing there. I start pacing to the window and back again, one hand resting at the back of my waist, the other on my forehead.
“She’s really got some nerve,” I shake my head as they watch every step I take back and forth. I try to take deep breaths to calm the anger building up inside.
Back and forth.
Breathe in and out.
Count to ten.
“Well she can request, but there is no way in hell I have to go!” my voice is now higher than it was before, matching the way I feel. Suddenly the pain in my back is stronger than it was, my feet feeling more swollen than before, every ache through my body reaching new heights. I’ve never felt this pregnant before. I look to Vaughn waiting for him to agree with me but what I see in his face tells me that I have no hope of finding that there. “What else is there?” I cry.
He looks downward, unable to look at me with the rest of it. “Kendall wants you at ops first thing in a morning for a meeting he has set up with her,” my father breaks to me and my breathing halts, the pacing stops, the counting in my head pauses at six.
“What?” I whimper like a small child.
”We tried to stop it Syd, we’ve been trying since we found out, we were in meetings all day…” Vaughn tries to point out but I stop him.
“Wait a second,” I hold my finger up. “How long have you known about this?”
He stands up and looks me straight in the eye, my father watching us. “Since last week.”
I exhale a deep breath and look at him in shock. “Since last week?!” I shriek. “And you didn’t think it would be convenient to tell me?” I look from him to my father.
“We were trying to protect you!” Vaughn argues.
“Protect me? I don’t need protecting Michael,” I spit.
“We didn’t think you needed to know about it until we were sure of what was happening, we didn’t want to cause you any more pain,” his voice now matches mine.
My eyelids tighten as I try to believe the words that just came out of his mouth. “I don’t need you to make decisions on what is best for me Michael,” I seethe. “So Will knows?” I ask but don’t need an answer, putting the pieces of this mystery together. “So what, Will was the loosening up phase, you’re main course and what? Should I expect Eric any second for comic relief?” I ask incredulously.
Vaughn holds the bridge of his nose, trying to bring some calamity to what this has turned into. “Syd please,” he begs, but I turn away from him.
“Sydney, we were trying to stop it from ever reaching this point; we honestly didn’t think he would force you to go see her,” my father tries to reason, now getting up and I feel as though they are crowding me in. I walk away from them, needing some space between myself and the two men who argue they were trying to protect me.
“So I’m just supposed to go in there and see her and act like nothing has happened?” I look at them before I turn to walk out of the room and they have nothing to say. “I can’t do that and you know it,” I whisper, leaving the room and praying for this to be some horrible dream.
~*~*~
Sometime later I find myself watching the hot water run out of the faucet, the steam from the scorching heat raising into the air filling the room with a rolling mist. The bubbles have long ago disappeared but the lavender scent they gave out still permeates my senses. I don’t know how long I’ve been here for now; I’ve refilled the tub to keep myself warm three times.
My father left not too long after I left him and Vaughn in the lounge room and when Vaughn checked on me a little later we didn’t exchange any words. What is there to say really? He threw together a quick meal for our dinner and in some way I feel bad for not looking after him like I usually do, but I didn’t seem to have it in me tonight. After pushing the meat and vegetables around on the plate for twenty minutes I excused myself from the table and although I could see the pain resonating in his eyes, I didn’t care.
A light tapping on the door turns my attention to the entrance and Vaughn walks in with a teacup in his hand, his other hiding something behind his back. He makes it impossible for me to be angry with him, especially when he is as patient with me like he is tonight. I turn my head to the other side, not because I don’t want him with me, but because I don’t want him to see the pain I am going through.
“You didn’t eat much at dinner, I thought you could use a cup of tea,” he whispers.
I roll my head back toward him just as he bends down to sit next to the tub facing me. He still has his suit pants on; his grey oxford has been unbuttoned at the top with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and just from the fact that he hasn’t changed out of his work clothes like he usually does the second he walks through the door makes me realize just how wearing this has been on him as well.
“Thank you,” I whisper back to him and his lips curve upward only slightly before taking back their previous stance. “What’s behind your back?”
He smiles and his hand comes to his front showing me the yellow rubber ducky he was holding behind him. He drops it into the water around me and using his hand, starts to ‘swim’ it around the bath. “I found it when I was packing up the apartment. When I used to look after Jeannine when they lived here, it was one of the toys I kept at my place for her. When they left for New York I must have forgotten to pack it.” He starts laughing, recalling the time when he used to baby sit Jeannine a few times per week when her parents couldn’t be with her. “I always used to have trouble getting her to go to bed; usually those nights I would sit with her in the bath until she would tire herself out. We always used to make up these crazy stories about Lello,” he laughs, holding up the ducky. “When she was that age she couldn’t say yellow, it always came out as lello. It took me months to get her to say it the right way, and even then it was only every now and again.
“You see, Lello, used to have this great life, a wonderful girlfriend ducky, Brown, who he loved more than anything; they were expecting a baby ducky,” he starts off comically on some story and I start to see where he is going with it. I listen with open ears as he fiddles with the bath toy. “But then one day he made this big mistake; he assumed he was protecting [i]Brown[/i], but really he ended up making her really sad and really angry with him…”
“I’m not angry with you,” he grunts at what I say. “Vaughn,” I maintain, taking my left arm out of the water and resting it on the edge of the porcelain. “You should have told me; you shouldn’t have kept it to yourself, isn’t that what you keep telling me?”
He brings his hand up, leaving the ducky floating around in the water and takes my hand in his. “I know, I was scared, I was scared about how you would handle it.”
“And how did I handle it?”
“Pretty much the way I assumed you would. It scares me more when you don’t say anything though,” he admits.
“I’m just trying to process this the best way I know how,” I sigh. Truth is, any other time I have had to deal with situations like this, other than breaking down to Vaughn I bottle everything up and shut myself out from the world. Now I fear, I am doing both.
“I don’t want to go see her Michael,” I cry, finally letting a few stray tears slide down my face.
He scoots closer to me, bringing his hand to my face and wiping the tears away. “Shh, I know, I know you don’t.”
I open my eyes a few seconds later and study his face. “God he must really be putting the pressure on for you not to be arguing this,” I say as he closes his eyes.
“Michael, what is he holding over you?”
Shaking his head, he finally lifts the weight off of his shoulders. “He politely informed me that Devlin let it slide that you and I had a torrid love affair while I was your handler and that almost destroyed the whole operation. He threatened that he wouldn’t be so kind in hiding that from the Director and Board of Ethics.”
I hiss, “That son of a-“
“Syd, it’s no use. Your father and I have worked tirelessly.”
Sighing, I reply, “We’re never going to leave this life behind, are we? No matter what we do, how happy we think we are?”
“I’m trying Syd, honestly, I’m trying.”
“I know you are, and I don’t blame you,” I soothe. He rubs my arms lazily with his fingers, tailing up and down and back again. After a few motions of this his hand ends up in mine and he raises it to his lips.
“I bought a few things for the baby today,” I try to change the subject to something happier in a lame attempt to brighten the mood.
“Yeah?” he whispers.
“Yeah, some tiny outfits, and the summer clothes are starting to come out too; they’re pretty adorable.”
He smiles only slightly, it’s obvious that our minds are on too many things tonight. “What else?”
I fill him in on what was in all the bags that he helped bring in this afternoon, it’s a quiet conversation, both of us only talking as means to get our minds off of other things. When the water cools off again after a while he helps me out of the draining tub and wraps a towel around my body to dry me off. He helps me dress with tender movements and him still being able to be like this after the way I treated him earlier makes me tear up.
When he notices it takes him a moment to do anything but then gathers me in his arms, whispering soft words of comfort, forgetting about himself and only focusing his worry on me. I know he is letting a few stray tears fall as well, the enormity of the shadow that our past has over us making us realize that life is not as perfect as we have been making it out to be.
“I’ll be there with you, walking the same steps, as much or as little as you want,” he tells me. Right now, in this moment I know that as much as I don’t want tomorrow to happen, I’m comforted by the fact whatever does take place, I will be safe, I will be protected. My grip of him suddenly becomes tighter as I hold on to him to assure my comfort of his words.
As long as Michael Vaughn is with me, I know that I can jump over any hurdle.
TBC
Author: Gracie
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: No, I don't own it, I'm just borrowing them for a little fun. Alias and all the characters belong to Touchstone, ABC and the talented JJ. Abrams.
Timeline: To fit in with future storylines, I have changed the time of when SD-6 was brought down. Sydney is now four months pregnant and this fic begins in early November.
Summary: Sequel to No Regrets. Trying to make normal.
Sydney POV
“Oh my god,” Will gasps, setting his coffee back onto the table. “So what happened then?”
I smile at his shock over what I just told him and stir my tea. “I left him in his shock and picked out lettuce.”
“Sydney!” he chastises me and I blush.
“What?! It was his ex-girlfriend,” I emphasise, defending myself. “…and she just told him that the baby she is carrying, that was obviously conceived when they were together, was not his! Need I remind you that when this baby,” I point to my stomach, “…was conceived when they, technically, were still together?”
Will sits on what I told him for a second and looks at me. I can see the wheels spinning in his head. He pinches his eyes together as he says the next part. “So wait a second. Alice is pregnant?”
”Yes.”
“Not with Mike’s baby?”
Another yes and I laugh as he puts everything together in his head. “A baby that was conceived while they were still together? And you’re pregnant, after you two slept together while they were still together?”
”They were pretty much over anyway [i]and[/i] he broke up with her after he realized we had something together,” I take a sip of tea to cover how embarrassed I am over this entire situation.
“Jesus Syd! How long until General Hospital write this into their story,” he laughs and I join him, unable to hold it out any longer.
“What, we all need to have a little drama in our lives occasionally. Anyway, you should have seen the look on Vaughn’s face when he realized who it was I smashed into. I thought he was going to choke on his saliva.”
“You can’t tell me you weren’t as shocked as he was,” he states.
I think about it for a second and how I actually did feel when realization hit me at the store last night that Vaughn’s ex-girlfriend was pregnant, quite possibly with his baby. I remember thinking how small the space we were in felt, like the air I was breathing wasn’t quite adequate and that the seemingly perfect world that I had was actually crumbling down in front of me.
“Yeah, but it all turned out fine, so there’s no problem, is there?” I sip my tea and take another bite of the apple pie in front of me, making sure I take a generous amount of vanilla ice-cream with it. Will called me this morning to see if I would have lunch with him today and since I had no other plans there was no reason to argue with him. After all, spending the day at home by myself does get a little dragging after a while.
“What are you, my therapist?” I joke.
“No, no, just a concerned friend.”
“Riiight. So how are things with you and Francie anyway?” I ask, turning the tables.
“Good. After everything that happened on the weekend, I think we’re stronger because of it,” he smiles proudly. “And Francie is much better than she has been, I should have realized earlier that something was going on, I was stupid not to see it.”
“You’re not stupid Will; Fran was just scared about the whole situation. You couldn’t have known,” I let that settle with him before I move on. “So how did you feel about it?”
“What the baby?” he asks, referring to the pregnancy scare from Saturday. I nod as he continues. “I don’t know. It probably would have thrown a spanner in the works,” he tries to argue but I know better.
“But?” I urge him to continue, raising an eyebrow.
“But… I don’t know. Just the idea of it, you know? I just…” he shakes his head, cutting himself off. “…nevermind.”
“No, what is it, you can talk to me you know.”
He contemplates what to say, and if to say it before he continues. “It’s a baby, you know,” he says goofily. “A baby.”
I lean over the table to take his hand and squeeze it tightly. I never realized that he felt so seriously about this. “How long have you felt like this?”
“Oh this is only new,” he sighs, laughing nervously. “After what happened, it just, seemed to put everything into perspective. And then I see you and Mike together and you’re so happy and you’re bringing a baby into the world…”
“Oh Will,” I rub his hand and it’s now that I have noticed our voices have dropped a few notches. “Have you spoken to Fran about this?”
He shakes his head no and if I could reach across the table, I would smack him upside the head. Between him and Francie telling me things and not telling one another I’m surprised they’ve lasted this long.
“What?” he deadpans.
I roll my eyes. “I know more about what both of you are feeling than one another! When was the last time you really had a conversation?” He uhms and ahs and that pretty much answers my question. “Will, you need to talk to Francie.” He pulls his hand back from my grasp quickly, looking anywhere but at me.
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because, it’s just…” he trails off, not finishing his thought. Jeez, I should be getting paid for this.
“…it’s just?” I push.
“I don’t think she wants any more than what we have going now.”
“What makes you say that?” I jump in.
He shrugs and groans. “Syyyd,” he whines, but I can be persistent when I want to be. “After Charlie… he hurt her, you know?”
“Yes, yes he did. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to pursue another relationship and be happy because of it.” I know he’s not satisfied with what I just told him. “Will, what do you want?” Sometimes, men, I swear, if you don’t spell it out in plain English they just don’t get it.
“I’m ready for the next step,” he says finally, then adds. “…I think. But what if Francie doesn’t want that?”
“Well you won’t know until you talk to her, will you?” I say mockingly, rolling my eyes to myself. I take some more pie onto my spoon, needing a sugar fix to get through this conversation.
“We’re not all like your perfect husband you know,” he says a minute or so later.
I start laughing and have to cover my full mouth as to not make a mess. “Michael isn’t all that perfect you know.”
“Oh yeah. He sets standards that no other man the whole world over can meet. Do you really think any of us have a chance with him treating you like a queen…”
“He doesn’t treat me like a queen, and,” I add, “…he’s not my husband.”
“Close enough,” he mumbles.
I ask for clarification, “What was that?”
“Nothing,” he sulks into his empty coffee mug.
“He’s not perfect Will. Especially not lately,” I wonder out loud to nobody but myself.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him staring at me to spill about what I just commented on. “Don’t think you’re not going to get out of saying anything after the drilling you just gave me.”
“I don’t know, maybe I’m imagining it,” I shrug, and then continue. “Has he been acting any differently around you, I don’t know, like he’s got something on his mind, something that is stressing him out?”
He shakes his head negatively quickly, almost too quickly. I eye him skeptically.
“What is it?” I ask, worried now because apparently I am the only one being kept out of the loop.
“Nothing, nothing,” he replies shaking his head and fiddling with his used napkin.
“Should I be worried?”
He finally looks to me and I can see now that there is something definitely going on, something that is worrying Vaughn and quite obviously Will too. It only makes me wonder how many more people know and not me. “He has a lot on his plate at the office, you know Director Kendall, he doesn’t give anyone a break, and that is just at ops, god knows what pressure they are putting on him at headquarters,” he says, covering. I can feel the tension start to build up in the back of my neck, the muscles getting tighter and tighter.
“Syd,” Will warns, snapping me back to the conversation. “Don’t worry, please,” he begs. “I was told you weren’t supposed to know unless it was entirely necessary, they’ll have my head if they find out you know something.”
“Hey, hey, it’s not you’re fault, I shouldn’t have pushed. I promise,” I smile with as much encouragement I can muster. Truth is that my insides feel as though they have been mashed to a pulp with this new found information - or lack thereof. “Don’t you have to get back,” I ask him almost tearfully. I blink quickly to hide the emotion.
Will checks his watch and realizes that it is later than he thought and hurriedly gets up, pulling out some money before I can stop him.
“Hey, this one’s on me,” he promises, leaving a pile of cash to cover the meal. I ease myself up as well, holding the side of the table until I feel stable on my legs. Honestly I feel as though they could buckle under me any second - and not only from the weight of the pregnancy. “Are you going to be okay?” he asks a second later seeing that I am struggling.
Putting on my best brave face I smile and nod reassuringly. “Yeah, I think I might go shopping for a bit, see if I can lose myself at the mall.”
“Good. Just talk to Mike, would you?” he mocks what I told him earlier.
“Yeah, yeah, stop being a smart ass,” I say hugging him. We walk outside arm in arm and we bid one another goodbye. He looks at me carefully before turning and walking away, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
What the hell is going on?
~*~*~
Opening the back of the truck, I eye all of the bags that I shoved in there back at the mall and sigh. It seems as though I took my frustrations from the curiosity that built up at lunch out on my credit card at the mall. I head to the front door first, knowing that it is going to take more than one trip from the car to the house to bring all the packages in; I set my handbag and keys on the foyer table and head back outside.
It’s dark outside now and the temperature has dropped a few degrees more, making it necessary for more layers of clothing to be worn. I can’t wait to make it inside and start a hot bubble bath to relax in while I wait for Vaughn to come home.
On my final trip, I see Vaughn’s car come down the street and pull in behind me and another car follows him; instead of parking in the driveway, the black sedan reverses and parks out the front of the house. My dad gets out of the car, looking stoic as always in his suit and tie. Seeing my father come here unexpected, with Vaughn none the less makes me realize that there is something for me to be told; and I don’t like the prospect of that at all. And knowing that my father is here makes it seem all that much worse.
Leaving the last of the bags in the back, I set my hands on my hips and wait for them to approach me. Vaughn comes up first and kisses my cheek.
“What’s going on?” I ask impatiently.
“How about we go inside, hmm?” He is so calm that it frustrates me to no end.
“How about you start talking?” this as my father come and joins us in the driveway.
I give in to their insistent looks and grumble all the way inside. I hear the back of the truck closing and them following me inside, leaving the last of the bags with the rest near the stairs. I make it to the formal lounge room and sit down, waiting for them to follow suit and for the debriefing, as I know it is going to be, to begin.
It is only in the light that I can see Vaughn properly and for the first time in days really noticing now the extra lines on his forehead, the black rings around his eyes and the grave expression marking his lips. I was stupid not to piece everything together earlier, too wound up in making everything happy families to realize this life would never be behind us.
“For god’s sake, stop looking at me like I’m about to slip through your fingers and shatter into a thousand pieces and tell me what the hell is going on. And I know there is something going on; Will told me enough at lunch so don’t try to cover anything up.” I see them look to one another, Vaughn next to me on the love seat and my father in the single to the left of us.
“What did Will tell you exactly?” Vaughn asks gravely.
“Nothing specific, only enough to let me know there is something you’re all keeping from me. And I want to know what that is.” They still ponder their thoughts. “Michael please,” I beg. My father looks to me for the first time since he arrived and begins.
“For a while now, Kendall has been having some documents analyzed by your mother,” he states and I close my eyes. I should have known it would have had something to do with her. “She has been giving us some information about various operations and other cases that has been very helpful to our cause.
“However, in the past couple of days, she has been given some documents which have clearly outlined to her details of the takedown of the Alliance,” I look up from staring at my engagement ring and my eyes widen with fear of what is to come.
I start shaking my head before he even says anymore. “No,” I agonize, looking from one to the other and back again. The looks on their faces confirm to me what words don’t need to. “I thought she wasn’t going to find out, at least until I was ready…” I trail off. The room goes eerily silent, leaving enough space for emotions to speak a thousand languages.
Vaughn speaks again. “We tried to stop it Sydney, but Kendall, he, he overruled both of us. The information she was providing was too great.”
“So what, you trust her now?!” I bite at him.
“That’s not what I said.”
“Sydney,” my father interrupts. “She was doing all of this because she thought she needed to make some good out of the death of her daughter.”
I get up, too uptight and uncomfortable to be able to sit down any longer. I walk over to the fire place and stare at the few photos we have sitting there of times when everything was seemingly perfect. “So I needed to die to make her cooperate? We’ve been through this before Dad.” I turn around to face them and rest a hand on top of my belly. “And anyway, that doesn’t change anything with me; she doesn’t exist as far as I’m concerned.” They look at one another again and I think I could strangle them with the secret understanding of one another they have seemed to develop. “Oh god, what else is there?”
“She’s requested to see you,” this coming from Vaughn and I look at him with ample eyes, hoping he can see the fear residing there. I start pacing to the window and back again, one hand resting at the back of my waist, the other on my forehead.
“She’s really got some nerve,” I shake my head as they watch every step I take back and forth. I try to take deep breaths to calm the anger building up inside.
Back and forth.
Breathe in and out.
Count to ten.
“Well she can request, but there is no way in hell I have to go!” my voice is now higher than it was before, matching the way I feel. Suddenly the pain in my back is stronger than it was, my feet feeling more swollen than before, every ache through my body reaching new heights. I’ve never felt this pregnant before. I look to Vaughn waiting for him to agree with me but what I see in his face tells me that I have no hope of finding that there. “What else is there?” I cry.
He looks downward, unable to look at me with the rest of it. “Kendall wants you at ops first thing in a morning for a meeting he has set up with her,” my father breaks to me and my breathing halts, the pacing stops, the counting in my head pauses at six.
“What?” I whimper like a small child.
”We tried to stop it Syd, we’ve been trying since we found out, we were in meetings all day…” Vaughn tries to point out but I stop him.
“Wait a second,” I hold my finger up. “How long have you known about this?”
He stands up and looks me straight in the eye, my father watching us. “Since last week.”
I exhale a deep breath and look at him in shock. “Since last week?!” I shriek. “And you didn’t think it would be convenient to tell me?” I look from him to my father.
“We were trying to protect you!” Vaughn argues.
“Protect me? I don’t need protecting Michael,” I spit.
“We didn’t think you needed to know about it until we were sure of what was happening, we didn’t want to cause you any more pain,” his voice now matches mine.
My eyelids tighten as I try to believe the words that just came out of his mouth. “I don’t need you to make decisions on what is best for me Michael,” I seethe. “So Will knows?” I ask but don’t need an answer, putting the pieces of this mystery together. “So what, Will was the loosening up phase, you’re main course and what? Should I expect Eric any second for comic relief?” I ask incredulously.
Vaughn holds the bridge of his nose, trying to bring some calamity to what this has turned into. “Syd please,” he begs, but I turn away from him.
“Sydney, we were trying to stop it from ever reaching this point; we honestly didn’t think he would force you to go see her,” my father tries to reason, now getting up and I feel as though they are crowding me in. I walk away from them, needing some space between myself and the two men who argue they were trying to protect me.
“So I’m just supposed to go in there and see her and act like nothing has happened?” I look at them before I turn to walk out of the room and they have nothing to say. “I can’t do that and you know it,” I whisper, leaving the room and praying for this to be some horrible dream.
~*~*~
Sometime later I find myself watching the hot water run out of the faucet, the steam from the scorching heat raising into the air filling the room with a rolling mist. The bubbles have long ago disappeared but the lavender scent they gave out still permeates my senses. I don’t know how long I’ve been here for now; I’ve refilled the tub to keep myself warm three times.
My father left not too long after I left him and Vaughn in the lounge room and when Vaughn checked on me a little later we didn’t exchange any words. What is there to say really? He threw together a quick meal for our dinner and in some way I feel bad for not looking after him like I usually do, but I didn’t seem to have it in me tonight. After pushing the meat and vegetables around on the plate for twenty minutes I excused myself from the table and although I could see the pain resonating in his eyes, I didn’t care.
A light tapping on the door turns my attention to the entrance and Vaughn walks in with a teacup in his hand, his other hiding something behind his back. He makes it impossible for me to be angry with him, especially when he is as patient with me like he is tonight. I turn my head to the other side, not because I don’t want him with me, but because I don’t want him to see the pain I am going through.
“You didn’t eat much at dinner, I thought you could use a cup of tea,” he whispers.
I roll my head back toward him just as he bends down to sit next to the tub facing me. He still has his suit pants on; his grey oxford has been unbuttoned at the top with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and just from the fact that he hasn’t changed out of his work clothes like he usually does the second he walks through the door makes me realize just how wearing this has been on him as well.
“Thank you,” I whisper back to him and his lips curve upward only slightly before taking back their previous stance. “What’s behind your back?”
He smiles and his hand comes to his front showing me the yellow rubber ducky he was holding behind him. He drops it into the water around me and using his hand, starts to ‘swim’ it around the bath. “I found it when I was packing up the apartment. When I used to look after Jeannine when they lived here, it was one of the toys I kept at my place for her. When they left for New York I must have forgotten to pack it.” He starts laughing, recalling the time when he used to baby sit Jeannine a few times per week when her parents couldn’t be with her. “I always used to have trouble getting her to go to bed; usually those nights I would sit with her in the bath until she would tire herself out. We always used to make up these crazy stories about Lello,” he laughs, holding up the ducky. “When she was that age she couldn’t say yellow, it always came out as lello. It took me months to get her to say it the right way, and even then it was only every now and again.
“You see, Lello, used to have this great life, a wonderful girlfriend ducky, Brown, who he loved more than anything; they were expecting a baby ducky,” he starts off comically on some story and I start to see where he is going with it. I listen with open ears as he fiddles with the bath toy. “But then one day he made this big mistake; he assumed he was protecting [i]Brown[/i], but really he ended up making her really sad and really angry with him…”
“I’m not angry with you,” he grunts at what I say. “Vaughn,” I maintain, taking my left arm out of the water and resting it on the edge of the porcelain. “You should have told me; you shouldn’t have kept it to yourself, isn’t that what you keep telling me?”
He brings his hand up, leaving the ducky floating around in the water and takes my hand in his. “I know, I was scared, I was scared about how you would handle it.”
“And how did I handle it?”
“Pretty much the way I assumed you would. It scares me more when you don’t say anything though,” he admits.
“I’m just trying to process this the best way I know how,” I sigh. Truth is, any other time I have had to deal with situations like this, other than breaking down to Vaughn I bottle everything up and shut myself out from the world. Now I fear, I am doing both.
“I don’t want to go see her Michael,” I cry, finally letting a few stray tears slide down my face.
He scoots closer to me, bringing his hand to my face and wiping the tears away. “Shh, I know, I know you don’t.”
I open my eyes a few seconds later and study his face. “God he must really be putting the pressure on for you not to be arguing this,” I say as he closes his eyes.
“Michael, what is he holding over you?”
Shaking his head, he finally lifts the weight off of his shoulders. “He politely informed me that Devlin let it slide that you and I had a torrid love affair while I was your handler and that almost destroyed the whole operation. He threatened that he wouldn’t be so kind in hiding that from the Director and Board of Ethics.”
I hiss, “That son of a-“
“Syd, it’s no use. Your father and I have worked tirelessly.”
Sighing, I reply, “We’re never going to leave this life behind, are we? No matter what we do, how happy we think we are?”
“I’m trying Syd, honestly, I’m trying.”
“I know you are, and I don’t blame you,” I soothe. He rubs my arms lazily with his fingers, tailing up and down and back again. After a few motions of this his hand ends up in mine and he raises it to his lips.
“I bought a few things for the baby today,” I try to change the subject to something happier in a lame attempt to brighten the mood.
“Yeah?” he whispers.
“Yeah, some tiny outfits, and the summer clothes are starting to come out too; they’re pretty adorable.”
He smiles only slightly, it’s obvious that our minds are on too many things tonight. “What else?”
I fill him in on what was in all the bags that he helped bring in this afternoon, it’s a quiet conversation, both of us only talking as means to get our minds off of other things. When the water cools off again after a while he helps me out of the draining tub and wraps a towel around my body to dry me off. He helps me dress with tender movements and him still being able to be like this after the way I treated him earlier makes me tear up.
When he notices it takes him a moment to do anything but then gathers me in his arms, whispering soft words of comfort, forgetting about himself and only focusing his worry on me. I know he is letting a few stray tears fall as well, the enormity of the shadow that our past has over us making us realize that life is not as perfect as we have been making it out to be.
“I’ll be there with you, walking the same steps, as much or as little as you want,” he tells me. Right now, in this moment I know that as much as I don’t want tomorrow to happen, I’m comforted by the fact whatever does take place, I will be safe, I will be protected. My grip of him suddenly becomes tighter as I hold on to him to assure my comfort of his words.
As long as Michael Vaughn is with me, I know that I can jump over any hurdle.
TBC