[Cue the Dramatic Horns] Can this story be saved?
I started an ALIAS vignette a few weeks ago to answer a question all the Syd/Vaughn shippers seemed to be asking after seeing "The Counteragent". It should have been an easy fic to write, but RL kept interfering and, well, I still haven't got it finished. And now I'm wondering if anybody even cares any more. I'm not even sure that I care any more, since after watching "Double Agent" last week I've lost a good deal of my former sympathy for Vaughn.
You have spent your whole life trying to do the right thing. Maybe not succeeding, not always, but you try. It is what defines you.
You work for the CIA because you believe it's the right thing to do. But you are not your father, always playing by their rules. At its best, the CIA represents what is true and good and right; but it's certainly not infallible, and there are times when you cannot follow orders and keep faith with your own conscience. Still, you try to show respect for CIA protocols, even when circumventing them. Because if you're careless, you will not be there to do the right thing any more.
You date Alice because it is the right thing to do. You've known her forever, she is a good person -- sweet, gentle, with a lovely smile -- and the two of you have been "just friends" long enough. Being with her is comfortable, peaceful. She does not ask dangerous questions, or make impossible demands. If and when you feel ready to settle down, she will make a good CIA wife, the kind that would never blow your cover, never even guess that you had a cover to begin with. Not that she is stupid -- only trusting. And you've given her every reason to believe that you are worthy of her trust.
Then Sydney Bristow walks into your life with her bruised face and that ridiculous scarlet wig and a pair of haunted, shadowy eyes that seem to stare straight into your soul. Your heart lurches, your stomach turns over, and when you glance down at your father's watch it has stopped working and you know.
And from that moment on, the right thing, the only thing, is her.
*
Even so, you try to convince yourself that what you feel for Sydney is just a superficial attraction -- that once you get to know her better, those feelings will fade. After all, it would be wrong to let a temporary crush on a co-worker affect your relationship with Alice. But as the weeks pass, and your bond with Sydney deepens, she begins to infiltrate your dreams, your ambitions, your every waking thought.
It's then that you realize there must be something wrong, something missing, in your relationship with Alice -- why else would you be thinking so much about another woman? There is nothing not to love about Alice, everybody who knows Alice loves her; but obviously you don't love her any more, not in that way. And you are an honest man, so as soon as you can, as gently as you can, you break up with her.
*
She does not understand, of course. And you cannot explain, much less justify, yourself to her. The guilt you feel at hurting Alice is only slightly relieved by the conviction that you could not in good conscience have done otherwise. Until you can work through your feelings for Sydney, you are clearly unfit to be involved with anyone else.
And yet... being with Sydney is not the right thing, either. Oh, it's what you want, more than anything you want her, but the idea of an asset-handler relationship is strictly against CIA protocol, not to mention common sense, and anyway you have no reason to believe she feels the same way. You will be there for her, you'll do everything in your power to help and protect her, but beyond that... no. Just no.
*
The next few weeks are bittersweet. You feel the loneliness of your life without someone like Alice in it, but all the while you are breathing the intoxication of Sydney's nearness, and for the moment, that is enough.
Then you see Alice again.
*
She shows up at a party, at the home of a mutual friend, and although you'd planned to keep a discreet distance, her thinness and the haunted look in her eyes arrests you. She is drinking too much, which is not like Alice at all. Something is seriously wrong.
A few minutes later, in the shadowed solitude of the garden, she tells you in a soft, halting voice that her father is dying. Then she starts to cry, the sobs shaking her whole body, and you put your arms around her because she needs a shoulder so badly, and it would be cruel to offer her anything less.
"There's nobody I can talk to about this," she whispers against your collarbone, when the tears subside. "Nobody but you."
Coming from anyone else, those words would be an exaggeration, or even an outright lie. But not from Alice. For one thing, emotional manipulation just isn't her style; and for another, you know what her family is like.
"I'm here now," you tell her, your breath stirring the feathery softness of her hair. "I'm here."
By the time you leave the party, you've given Alice as much comfort as you can, without offering her false hopes. You have also promised to stand by her through this ordeal, as a friend, because that is the right thing to do.
There is, of course, no reason to mention any of this to Sydney. Why would she want to know?
*
So the days pass, and you go on meeting Sydney in the twilight of the Self-Storage warehouse, listening to her debriefings and explaining her counter-missions, like any good handler would do. And when you have to meet her anywhere else, you keep your distance and you do not look at her, because that is procedure. But all the while you are learning to love her, and it is killing you.
You are almost to the point where you can't stand it any longer, and every time you talk to Sydney you come closer to betraying yourself, when she tells you about Noah. Her ex-lover. Who, you realize with cold certainty, has just become her lover again.
It shouldn't hurt half as much as it does, since you've been telling yourself all along that Sydney does not (couldn't possibly, never will) care for you in that way. But at the same time, you'd been hanging on to the slight comfort that even if it were true you didn't have a chance with her, at least she'd never given you proof of it.
Well, now you have proof, and although the relationship with Noah -- not to mention Noah himself -- is short-lived, it hardly matters. You have learned a cruel lesson about the emptiness of dreams, and it is time to bring yourself back to reality.
That night you pick up the phone, and call Alice.
...and that's all I've got so far.
Probably nobody does care, right? Not after all that S/V schmoopiness last week. Poor Alice McPlotdevice, we hardly knew ye...
You have spent your whole life trying to do the right thing. Maybe not succeeding, not always, but you try. It is what defines you.
You work for the CIA because you believe it's the right thing to do. But you are not your father, always playing by their rules. At its best, the CIA represents what is true and good and right; but it's certainly not infallible, and there are times when you cannot follow orders and keep faith with your own conscience. Still, you try to show respect for CIA protocols, even when circumventing them. Because if you're careless, you will not be there to do the right thing any more.
You date Alice because it is the right thing to do. You've known her forever, she is a good person -- sweet, gentle, with a lovely smile -- and the two of you have been "just friends" long enough. Being with her is comfortable, peaceful. She does not ask dangerous questions, or make impossible demands. If and when you feel ready to settle down, she will make a good CIA wife, the kind that would never blow your cover, never even guess that you had a cover to begin with. Not that she is stupid -- only trusting. And you've given her every reason to believe that you are worthy of her trust.
Then Sydney Bristow walks into your life with her bruised face and that ridiculous scarlet wig and a pair of haunted, shadowy eyes that seem to stare straight into your soul. Your heart lurches, your stomach turns over, and when you glance down at your father's watch it has stopped working and you know.
And from that moment on, the right thing, the only thing, is her.
*
Even so, you try to convince yourself that what you feel for Sydney is just a superficial attraction -- that once you get to know her better, those feelings will fade. After all, it would be wrong to let a temporary crush on a co-worker affect your relationship with Alice. But as the weeks pass, and your bond with Sydney deepens, she begins to infiltrate your dreams, your ambitions, your every waking thought.
It's then that you realize there must be something wrong, something missing, in your relationship with Alice -- why else would you be thinking so much about another woman? There is nothing not to love about Alice, everybody who knows Alice loves her; but obviously you don't love her any more, not in that way. And you are an honest man, so as soon as you can, as gently as you can, you break up with her.
*
She does not understand, of course. And you cannot explain, much less justify, yourself to her. The guilt you feel at hurting Alice is only slightly relieved by the conviction that you could not in good conscience have done otherwise. Until you can work through your feelings for Sydney, you are clearly unfit to be involved with anyone else.
And yet... being with Sydney is not the right thing, either. Oh, it's what you want, more than anything you want her, but the idea of an asset-handler relationship is strictly against CIA protocol, not to mention common sense, and anyway you have no reason to believe she feels the same way. You will be there for her, you'll do everything in your power to help and protect her, but beyond that... no. Just no.
*
The next few weeks are bittersweet. You feel the loneliness of your life without someone like Alice in it, but all the while you are breathing the intoxication of Sydney's nearness, and for the moment, that is enough.
Then you see Alice again.
*
She shows up at a party, at the home of a mutual friend, and although you'd planned to keep a discreet distance, her thinness and the haunted look in her eyes arrests you. She is drinking too much, which is not like Alice at all. Something is seriously wrong.
A few minutes later, in the shadowed solitude of the garden, she tells you in a soft, halting voice that her father is dying. Then she starts to cry, the sobs shaking her whole body, and you put your arms around her because she needs a shoulder so badly, and it would be cruel to offer her anything less.
"There's nobody I can talk to about this," she whispers against your collarbone, when the tears subside. "Nobody but you."
Coming from anyone else, those words would be an exaggeration, or even an outright lie. But not from Alice. For one thing, emotional manipulation just isn't her style; and for another, you know what her family is like.
"I'm here now," you tell her, your breath stirring the feathery softness of her hair. "I'm here."
By the time you leave the party, you've given Alice as much comfort as you can, without offering her false hopes. You have also promised to stand by her through this ordeal, as a friend, because that is the right thing to do.
There is, of course, no reason to mention any of this to Sydney. Why would she want to know?
*
So the days pass, and you go on meeting Sydney in the twilight of the Self-Storage warehouse, listening to her debriefings and explaining her counter-missions, like any good handler would do. And when you have to meet her anywhere else, you keep your distance and you do not look at her, because that is procedure. But all the while you are learning to love her, and it is killing you.
You are almost to the point where you can't stand it any longer, and every time you talk to Sydney you come closer to betraying yourself, when she tells you about Noah. Her ex-lover. Who, you realize with cold certainty, has just become her lover again.
It shouldn't hurt half as much as it does, since you've been telling yourself all along that Sydney does not (couldn't possibly, never will) care for you in that way. But at the same time, you'd been hanging on to the slight comfort that even if it were true you didn't have a chance with her, at least she'd never given you proof of it.
Well, now you have proof, and although the relationship with Noah -- not to mention Noah himself -- is short-lived, it hardly matters. You have learned a cruel lesson about the emptiness of dreams, and it is time to bring yourself back to reality.
That night you pick up the phone, and call Alice.
...and that's all I've got so far.
Probably nobody does care, right? Not after all that S/V schmoopiness last week. Poor Alice McPlotdevice, we hardly knew ye...