Fic: "Rules of Engagement" (Alias, S/V, 1/10)
"Rules of Engagement"
Chapter: One
Summary: A mission to London changes Sydney's life drastically.
Category: Sydney/Vaughn drama/romance
Rating: PG-13
Canon: "The Box, Part Two"
Thanks: Thank you to Souris and to Abs for the fabulous beta-readings.
"You're going to London, I hear," Vaughn said calmly, turning from the stack of papers he was leafing through. "Nothing like London in June."
I smirked. "Someone's in a good mood," I commented, hoisting myself onto the countertop in the blood mobile. "You aren't usually this perky."
"I'm perky?" he asked, his face twisting up in disbelief. "I don't think so."
"You're definitely happy about something," I challenged, watching him try not to smile.
He failed, and a huge, brilliant grin spread across his face. "I didn't say I wasn't happy."
"Care to share?" I asked, pulling my legs up and resting my chin on my knees. "You look like Will after he's landed an important story. The proverbial cat who ate the canary."
He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the opposite counter. "There's good news. Remember that file tap we had on the SD-6 system?"
I definitely did; the tap on Marshall's computer had nearly gotten me killed a few months before. "Your brilliant idea when we picked up Schiller?"
He rolled his eyes at me and folded his arms over his chest. "Yes, my brilliant idea. Some of the tech guys were going through the stuff we got yesterday, and they noticed something we had missed before. We ended up intercepting the SD-6 monthly payroll."
"You're kidding," I answered, my eyes growing wide. I let my legs dangle over the side of the counter. "How the heck did you manage that?"
"It was sheer, pure luck," he admitted, shrugging. "But if we keep having this kind of good luck, you may be back in the private sector sooner than we'd hoped."
It was my turn to smile brightly, slowly. "I can't remember what it was like to be just a person who could walk down the street, who didn't have to worry about who was lurking behind me or bugging my phone. Can you?"
He shrugged again, pushing off the counter and pacing to the other end of tiny room. "I remember, when I was little, that my mom would never let me answer the telephone. I thought it was because my English wasn't good enough…my mom is French, and my dad was always at work, so she and I spoke French all the time at home. It never occurred to me then that it was because she was afraid of who was going to be on the other end of the line."
I swallowed hard. "Vaughn…"
He cleared his throat and changed the subject quickly. He did that every time he told me anything about his childhood or his personal life. It was as if he was almost afraid to tell me very much about himself. It made me angry; he knew everything about me, and I knew barely anything about him. "We want photographs of the drawing." He rummaged around in his files and extracted a small box. "This is the same kind of camera we gave you for Argentina." He suddenly sneezed loudly.
"Bless you." I took it from him and opened it, pulling out the camera to inspect it. "Maybe I'll have better luck with it this time."
"We'll hope so," he agreed, reaching for a tissue and wiping his nose. "Get the pictures before you get out of the museum, if you can. If this Holmes thing really does pan out, we want the vaccine, and quickly."
I nodded, clenching my jaw. "I'll do my best."
"That's all we can ask of you," he said, giving me a brittle smile. "Be careful."
"I will," I agreed, grabbing a Band-Aid and slapping it onto the inside of my elbow. "I'll call you when I get back."
He nodded distractedly, waving as I walked out of the door.
The man was infuriating, I thought as I stomped away from the blood mobile, fuming. Someday, I was going to find out more about Vaughn, whether he liked it or not. This wasn't a fair give-and-take, and he knew it as well as I did.
***
"Was Diane upset that you missed her birthday party?" I asked, watching Dixon's face as he connected wires on the device I was to use to unscramble the safe lock.
He shrugged. "I think I was more upset about it than she was."
"I'm sorry, Dixon," I said, sitting back and crossing my arms.
"Why are you sorry?" he asked, sitting back on his heels and studying my face. His brow wrinkled in confusion. "It's not your fault."
"I know, but I still feel guilty. You have a family, and I don't. Sloane should assign someone else to go with me on these things."
"Sloane assigns who he wants where he wants," Dixon reminded me, and I nodded. "It's part of the job. And you know what, kiddo? I'm glad that we're always sent out together. You're like another child to me, Syd. A daughter."
I could feel myself tearing up. "Thank you," I croaked, swiping furiously at my cheeks. I pulled at the blonde wig I was wearing. "That means a lot to me."
"I know it does," he replied, focusing on the descrambler again. "It's true."
I sighed as the van came to a stop, dropping my purse on the floor of the van; I wouldn't be needing it inside. "I guess we're here."
"Be careful, Sydney," he admonished, and I nodded.
"You, too." I took the descrambler from his outstretched hands, smiling. "See you soon."
"I'll be here," he promised.
I opened the door of the van, hopping out and scanning the surrounding area quickly. The sky was bright blue, and green trees and red flowers dotted the street beside Blythe House. I adjusted my bag, mentally replaying the instructions I'd gotten for the mission.
Philip C. Holmes, a noted botanical artist in the nineteenth century, did covert medical research for years that had only recently been discovered by scientists in northern France, Sloane had informed me. His parents had died of the pneumonic plague when he was fourteen, and he had worked on a botanical cure for the disease from that time until his death in 1867. Holmes wrote in one of the discovered journals that the government found out what he was doing and tried to retrieve the formula from him, but he resisted, wondering if they would use it against their enemies. He was successful in creating a vaccine and coded the information into several of his natural drawings. The one Sloane wanted was the property of the British Museum and was kept off-site in Blythe House, which housed special, private collections. I assumed that Sloane was either planning to use the plague in a possible biological attack or was suspecting an attack on SD-6 in the future. I wasn't certain why he wanted a botanical cure for a disease that I knew could be treated to some degree by antibiotics, but when Vaughn expressed the CIA's interest in the cure as well, I stopped questioning it.
Dixon's voice came over my ear piece. "Syd, are you in yet?"
I crept around to the back entrance, working to open the door to the basement of the house. "I'm getting there," I murmured. "I'm at the basement entrance now."
"Watch out for possible personnel in the basement," he warned.
I frowned. "I thought we were sure that no one was going to be here," I reminded him, successfully opening the door and slinking inside. "I thought they were all supposed to be at the parade." Sloane had scheduled the mission to coincide with the Queen's official birthday celebration, assuming that most of the tourists would be out watching the celebrations at Buckingham Palace.
"They should be," he replied. "Just be on your guard."
I detached a flashlight from my belt, shining the beam around the dim room. "I always am," I whispered back, searching the room thoroughly. It was dusty and damp, with strange-looking old machinery in one corner and several old tables and chairs piled up in another. I found the narrow, rickety staircase and ascended it slowly and quietly, turning off my flashlight as I reached the door at the top.
I held my breath and carefully let the door swing open, my eyes sweeping the room. Sunshine glimmered brightly through the huge, plate-glass windows that surrounded the space, illuminating the crimson carpeting and pale walls. There didn't seem to be anyone there; I stepped carefully into the light, glancing around.
The safe was down a narrow corridor and to the left, I remembered from Marshall's map. He'd given me a code-scrambling card to slip into the lock, saying, "So, I got this idea from a Bond movie, but it works much better than that card did, because it was actually a prop, and, well...now, this thing works the same way that the one for Samba Island did…remember that one? That was the same one with the sunglasses and the…anyway, just slip this baby into the key card slot, and bingo! You're in." I slid the card in the lock, and bingo! I was in.
As the door swung open with a slight squeak, I saw the safe looming behind it, large and silver. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath, then moved inside the door, closing it behind me with a soft click. I flipped on my flashlight and pulled out the lock descrambler, sticking it to the metallic safe and pressing my ear to the door. As if by magic, I could hear the tumblers of the lock moving inside and the loud click that signaled the opening of the lock. I turned the wheel on the front of the door and pulled, and the door swung open with a loud groan. Apparently this wasn't an often-used safe.
Inside was a jumble of boxes and shelves. I moved quickly and efficiently, turning on my ear piece. "Dixon, I'm in the safe," I informed him.
"Good girl," the answer came. "The box number is 1215."
I searched through a pile of flat metal boxes with fading labels that were peeling at the edges. Finally I found box 1214, but under that was box 1217.
"Dixon, it's not in the right place. You don't think that K-Directorate…"
"No, I don't think that," he reassured me. "Try a different place."
I rifled through three more stacks, finally coming upon box 1216. I clenched my teeth, lifting it to reveal the box underneath it…1215. "Found it," I whispered, reaching into my bag for Vaughn's CIA camera.
"Sydney…" he said uncertainly.
"Dixon?" I asked, dropping the camera back into the bag. "Dixon, what's going on?"
Suddenly, I heard shouting voices on the other end of the ear piece. "Dixon, can you hear me?" I asked, unable to keep the panic from rising in my voice. I flashed back to the Argentina mission…it couldn't be happening again…
"Syd, get out of there," he instructed quickly. Bile rose in my throat; I could hear gunfire behind him.
"Dixon?" I called out again.
"Get out, Sydney!" he ordered again, and then the line went dead.
I sucked in a lung-full of air, exhaling slowly. I had to get out of there. I had to get the box out of there… I had to get to Dixon. I stood and crammed the box into my bag. Abandoning the mess I'd made out of the other stacks, I raced out of the safe, forgetting to grab the descrambler as I left. My heart picked up and raced so hard that I thought it would pound out of my chest. I vaulted down the basement staircase and out into the fresh spring air. Only then did I catch the heart-stopping sight of our van, riddled with bullet holes, exploding in a blaze of flame and twisted metal.
I had to cram my fist into my mouth to keep from screaming. My first instinct was to run and try to help Dixon, try to see if he could possibly be alive, but I knew better than that. I had to get out of there, I knew, and I ducked behind a shrub. I had to tell Vaughn what had happened, tell him that I was alive - but that Dixon, one of my best friends and my surrogate father, probably wasn't - and that I had the sketch, but I couldn't call him…
My hand brushed the camera box in my bag. Wide-eyed, I pulled the camera out and turned it over in my hand. I held it up to an open space in the shrubbery, snapping a picture of the burning van with trembling hands. With one last look at the flames that consumed the van - and in return, my friend - I crawled around to the other side of the street, hurdling a fence, and taking off into a part of the city that I'd never seen before.
I ran faster and more desperately than I ever could remember having run before. My feet were beginning to hurt; every time the soles of my shoes slapped the asphalt of the road or concrete of the sidewalk, I winced in pain. I caught sight of a public bathroom and slowed, gasping for breath. I slipped inside, ripped off my wig, and changed into the white T-shirt and blue jeans that I always carried with me, just in case. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and jammed a pair of lens-less glasses onto my face. Pulling out a camera, I prepared myself to look like a regular tourist.
For the millionth time I was thankful that the agents at SD-6 had trained me as well as they had; I may have been duped from the beginning, but damn it, I was a good spy. I was prepared to go out into the city on my own; I could pretend that I was from another country, that I spoke another language. I knew what I was doing.
The one thing I wasn't sure how to do was deal with what had happened at Blythe House. How was I supposed to act like it didn't matter? I swallowed hard, running a hand over my face, then pressed Vaughn's mini-camera snugly into the palm of my hand. He had to be getting the pictures; he'd send someone. He'd send someone, and then we'd find Dixon. He couldn't be dead; he had to have gotten out of that van alive. I ignored the voice of reason that noisily reminded me of the high chances he hadn't gotten out. I couldn't accept that. I wouldn't lose another person.
I shook my head furiously, drawing in cleansing breaths, and stashed the wig and my other clothes in the trash can. I started to leave the rest rooms, the bright sunlight blinding me. I caught sight of a street sign as I passed through a crosswalk and turned my palmed camera toward it, snapping a quick picture. I glanced around at the scenery, taking a general picture of the landscape with the CIA camera and then a tourist shot with my Nikon. I smiled gently at an old woman who walked past, then pretended to be very interested in the park across the street.
I must have wandered around the city for hours, unsure of my surroundings, snapping pictures at random. He had to find me. Someone had to be here soon.
Chapter: One
Summary: A mission to London changes Sydney's life drastically.
Category: Sydney/Vaughn drama/romance
Rating: PG-13
Canon: "The Box, Part Two"
Thanks: Thank you to Souris and to Abs for the fabulous beta-readings.
"You're going to London, I hear," Vaughn said calmly, turning from the stack of papers he was leafing through. "Nothing like London in June."
I smirked. "Someone's in a good mood," I commented, hoisting myself onto the countertop in the blood mobile. "You aren't usually this perky."
"I'm perky?" he asked, his face twisting up in disbelief. "I don't think so."
"You're definitely happy about something," I challenged, watching him try not to smile.
He failed, and a huge, brilliant grin spread across his face. "I didn't say I wasn't happy."
"Care to share?" I asked, pulling my legs up and resting my chin on my knees. "You look like Will after he's landed an important story. The proverbial cat who ate the canary."
He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the opposite counter. "There's good news. Remember that file tap we had on the SD-6 system?"
I definitely did; the tap on Marshall's computer had nearly gotten me killed a few months before. "Your brilliant idea when we picked up Schiller?"
He rolled his eyes at me and folded his arms over his chest. "Yes, my brilliant idea. Some of the tech guys were going through the stuff we got yesterday, and they noticed something we had missed before. We ended up intercepting the SD-6 monthly payroll."
"You're kidding," I answered, my eyes growing wide. I let my legs dangle over the side of the counter. "How the heck did you manage that?"
"It was sheer, pure luck," he admitted, shrugging. "But if we keep having this kind of good luck, you may be back in the private sector sooner than we'd hoped."
It was my turn to smile brightly, slowly. "I can't remember what it was like to be just a person who could walk down the street, who didn't have to worry about who was lurking behind me or bugging my phone. Can you?"
He shrugged again, pushing off the counter and pacing to the other end of tiny room. "I remember, when I was little, that my mom would never let me answer the telephone. I thought it was because my English wasn't good enough…my mom is French, and my dad was always at work, so she and I spoke French all the time at home. It never occurred to me then that it was because she was afraid of who was going to be on the other end of the line."
I swallowed hard. "Vaughn…"
He cleared his throat and changed the subject quickly. He did that every time he told me anything about his childhood or his personal life. It was as if he was almost afraid to tell me very much about himself. It made me angry; he knew everything about me, and I knew barely anything about him. "We want photographs of the drawing." He rummaged around in his files and extracted a small box. "This is the same kind of camera we gave you for Argentina." He suddenly sneezed loudly.
"Bless you." I took it from him and opened it, pulling out the camera to inspect it. "Maybe I'll have better luck with it this time."
"We'll hope so," he agreed, reaching for a tissue and wiping his nose. "Get the pictures before you get out of the museum, if you can. If this Holmes thing really does pan out, we want the vaccine, and quickly."
I nodded, clenching my jaw. "I'll do my best."
"That's all we can ask of you," he said, giving me a brittle smile. "Be careful."
"I will," I agreed, grabbing a Band-Aid and slapping it onto the inside of my elbow. "I'll call you when I get back."
He nodded distractedly, waving as I walked out of the door.
The man was infuriating, I thought as I stomped away from the blood mobile, fuming. Someday, I was going to find out more about Vaughn, whether he liked it or not. This wasn't a fair give-and-take, and he knew it as well as I did.
***
"Was Diane upset that you missed her birthday party?" I asked, watching Dixon's face as he connected wires on the device I was to use to unscramble the safe lock.
He shrugged. "I think I was more upset about it than she was."
"I'm sorry, Dixon," I said, sitting back and crossing my arms.
"Why are you sorry?" he asked, sitting back on his heels and studying my face. His brow wrinkled in confusion. "It's not your fault."
"I know, but I still feel guilty. You have a family, and I don't. Sloane should assign someone else to go with me on these things."
"Sloane assigns who he wants where he wants," Dixon reminded me, and I nodded. "It's part of the job. And you know what, kiddo? I'm glad that we're always sent out together. You're like another child to me, Syd. A daughter."
I could feel myself tearing up. "Thank you," I croaked, swiping furiously at my cheeks. I pulled at the blonde wig I was wearing. "That means a lot to me."
"I know it does," he replied, focusing on the descrambler again. "It's true."
I sighed as the van came to a stop, dropping my purse on the floor of the van; I wouldn't be needing it inside. "I guess we're here."
"Be careful, Sydney," he admonished, and I nodded.
"You, too." I took the descrambler from his outstretched hands, smiling. "See you soon."
"I'll be here," he promised.
I opened the door of the van, hopping out and scanning the surrounding area quickly. The sky was bright blue, and green trees and red flowers dotted the street beside Blythe House. I adjusted my bag, mentally replaying the instructions I'd gotten for the mission.
Philip C. Holmes, a noted botanical artist in the nineteenth century, did covert medical research for years that had only recently been discovered by scientists in northern France, Sloane had informed me. His parents had died of the pneumonic plague when he was fourteen, and he had worked on a botanical cure for the disease from that time until his death in 1867. Holmes wrote in one of the discovered journals that the government found out what he was doing and tried to retrieve the formula from him, but he resisted, wondering if they would use it against their enemies. He was successful in creating a vaccine and coded the information into several of his natural drawings. The one Sloane wanted was the property of the British Museum and was kept off-site in Blythe House, which housed special, private collections. I assumed that Sloane was either planning to use the plague in a possible biological attack or was suspecting an attack on SD-6 in the future. I wasn't certain why he wanted a botanical cure for a disease that I knew could be treated to some degree by antibiotics, but when Vaughn expressed the CIA's interest in the cure as well, I stopped questioning it.
Dixon's voice came over my ear piece. "Syd, are you in yet?"
I crept around to the back entrance, working to open the door to the basement of the house. "I'm getting there," I murmured. "I'm at the basement entrance now."
"Watch out for possible personnel in the basement," he warned.
I frowned. "I thought we were sure that no one was going to be here," I reminded him, successfully opening the door and slinking inside. "I thought they were all supposed to be at the parade." Sloane had scheduled the mission to coincide with the Queen's official birthday celebration, assuming that most of the tourists would be out watching the celebrations at Buckingham Palace.
"They should be," he replied. "Just be on your guard."
I detached a flashlight from my belt, shining the beam around the dim room. "I always am," I whispered back, searching the room thoroughly. It was dusty and damp, with strange-looking old machinery in one corner and several old tables and chairs piled up in another. I found the narrow, rickety staircase and ascended it slowly and quietly, turning off my flashlight as I reached the door at the top.
I held my breath and carefully let the door swing open, my eyes sweeping the room. Sunshine glimmered brightly through the huge, plate-glass windows that surrounded the space, illuminating the crimson carpeting and pale walls. There didn't seem to be anyone there; I stepped carefully into the light, glancing around.
The safe was down a narrow corridor and to the left, I remembered from Marshall's map. He'd given me a code-scrambling card to slip into the lock, saying, "So, I got this idea from a Bond movie, but it works much better than that card did, because it was actually a prop, and, well...now, this thing works the same way that the one for Samba Island did…remember that one? That was the same one with the sunglasses and the…anyway, just slip this baby into the key card slot, and bingo! You're in." I slid the card in the lock, and bingo! I was in.
As the door swung open with a slight squeak, I saw the safe looming behind it, large and silver. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath, then moved inside the door, closing it behind me with a soft click. I flipped on my flashlight and pulled out the lock descrambler, sticking it to the metallic safe and pressing my ear to the door. As if by magic, I could hear the tumblers of the lock moving inside and the loud click that signaled the opening of the lock. I turned the wheel on the front of the door and pulled, and the door swung open with a loud groan. Apparently this wasn't an often-used safe.
Inside was a jumble of boxes and shelves. I moved quickly and efficiently, turning on my ear piece. "Dixon, I'm in the safe," I informed him.
"Good girl," the answer came. "The box number is 1215."
I searched through a pile of flat metal boxes with fading labels that were peeling at the edges. Finally I found box 1214, but under that was box 1217.
"Dixon, it's not in the right place. You don't think that K-Directorate…"
"No, I don't think that," he reassured me. "Try a different place."
I rifled through three more stacks, finally coming upon box 1216. I clenched my teeth, lifting it to reveal the box underneath it…1215. "Found it," I whispered, reaching into my bag for Vaughn's CIA camera.
"Sydney…" he said uncertainly.
"Dixon?" I asked, dropping the camera back into the bag. "Dixon, what's going on?"
Suddenly, I heard shouting voices on the other end of the ear piece. "Dixon, can you hear me?" I asked, unable to keep the panic from rising in my voice. I flashed back to the Argentina mission…it couldn't be happening again…
"Syd, get out of there," he instructed quickly. Bile rose in my throat; I could hear gunfire behind him.
"Dixon?" I called out again.
"Get out, Sydney!" he ordered again, and then the line went dead.
I sucked in a lung-full of air, exhaling slowly. I had to get out of there. I had to get the box out of there… I had to get to Dixon. I stood and crammed the box into my bag. Abandoning the mess I'd made out of the other stacks, I raced out of the safe, forgetting to grab the descrambler as I left. My heart picked up and raced so hard that I thought it would pound out of my chest. I vaulted down the basement staircase and out into the fresh spring air. Only then did I catch the heart-stopping sight of our van, riddled with bullet holes, exploding in a blaze of flame and twisted metal.
I had to cram my fist into my mouth to keep from screaming. My first instinct was to run and try to help Dixon, try to see if he could possibly be alive, but I knew better than that. I had to get out of there, I knew, and I ducked behind a shrub. I had to tell Vaughn what had happened, tell him that I was alive - but that Dixon, one of my best friends and my surrogate father, probably wasn't - and that I had the sketch, but I couldn't call him…
My hand brushed the camera box in my bag. Wide-eyed, I pulled the camera out and turned it over in my hand. I held it up to an open space in the shrubbery, snapping a picture of the burning van with trembling hands. With one last look at the flames that consumed the van - and in return, my friend - I crawled around to the other side of the street, hurdling a fence, and taking off into a part of the city that I'd never seen before.
I ran faster and more desperately than I ever could remember having run before. My feet were beginning to hurt; every time the soles of my shoes slapped the asphalt of the road or concrete of the sidewalk, I winced in pain. I caught sight of a public bathroom and slowed, gasping for breath. I slipped inside, ripped off my wig, and changed into the white T-shirt and blue jeans that I always carried with me, just in case. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and jammed a pair of lens-less glasses onto my face. Pulling out a camera, I prepared myself to look like a regular tourist.
For the millionth time I was thankful that the agents at SD-6 had trained me as well as they had; I may have been duped from the beginning, but damn it, I was a good spy. I was prepared to go out into the city on my own; I could pretend that I was from another country, that I spoke another language. I knew what I was doing.
The one thing I wasn't sure how to do was deal with what had happened at Blythe House. How was I supposed to act like it didn't matter? I swallowed hard, running a hand over my face, then pressed Vaughn's mini-camera snugly into the palm of my hand. He had to be getting the pictures; he'd send someone. He'd send someone, and then we'd find Dixon. He couldn't be dead; he had to have gotten out of that van alive. I ignored the voice of reason that noisily reminded me of the high chances he hadn't gotten out. I couldn't accept that. I wouldn't lose another person.
I shook my head furiously, drawing in cleansing breaths, and stashed the wig and my other clothes in the trash can. I started to leave the rest rooms, the bright sunlight blinding me. I caught sight of a street sign as I passed through a crosswalk and turned my palmed camera toward it, snapping a quick picture. I glanced around at the scenery, taking a general picture of the landscape with the CIA camera and then a tourist shot with my Nikon. I smiled gently at an old woman who walked past, then pretended to be very interested in the park across the street.
I must have wandered around the city for hours, unsure of my surroundings, snapping pictures at random. He had to find me. Someone had to be here soon.