Alias fic: Price of the Fates; PG-13; 5/5
Title: Price of the Fates (5/5)
Characters: Sydney Bristow, ensemble
Rating: PG-13
Words: 772 words
Disclaimer: JJ’s characters. Although I honestly think they were better off without him in the end.
Notes: Post s5 (or is it?). This was an abandoned fic, which got resurrected for jjverse's big bang. Entire fic's bordering in 20k words.
Last chapter. Thank God. I'm sorry for spamming. I do hope you'll enjoy this story. All mistakes are mine.
previous chapters
CHAPTER FIVE
Sydney stared at the date. This was a sick, sick joke. There was no way she jumped back in time. She just lost 8 years of her life… by moving back in time. It was impossible… time travel was impossible.
‘You're going insane, Sydney Anne.’ She thought and started to walk away because she was receiving funny looks from the people around the stall.
Maybe she was in a comatose state and this was her brain’s way of coping. Or maybe this was an anesthesia-induced dream and when she wakes up, her right leg would be amputated. Or maybe she just had too much to drink and this was a nightmare.
“Tell me, Agent Bristow, do you believe in time travel?”
She walked a little bit faster. This wasn’t happening. There wasn’t any logical explanation for this. Unreal. Silly. Illogical. Impossible. She could think up of all the words that could describe her situation but it wouldn’t help her make sense of what’s happening.
The lights from the street were hurting her eyes. Sydney lowered her head and continued to walk briskly. What would she do? How could she get back to her own time? She didn’t belong here. The 29-year-old Sydney Bristow belonged here, not the 37-year-old one.
A glint of light caught her eye. Sydney looked up and found herself looking at her reflection in a window.
She gaped at her reflection.
Young. She looked young.
Sydney touched her face. She was several pounds lighter, had lesser lines on her face. Her cheekbones were a little bit more protruded than she was accustomed to.
She buried her face in her hands. Oh god, I have to think this through, she thought. And if she believed this, she had to accept that she wouldn’t see Isabelle and Jack again, not in the way she remembered them. If she had to go through everything again exactly the way she went through them nine years ago, then she had just disrupted her timeline just by walking around the city.
Sydney brought her hands to her side and shook her head. Don’t worry about this. Everything’s going to be fine.
She didn’t want to call the CIA, not yet. She had to clear her head first, and she needed a plan.
It wouldn’t start if you don’t start it.
There weren’t a lot of tourists around the area. Sydney glanced around, found what she was looking for, and then crossed the street.
A few minutes later, Sydney was on her way towards the nearest hotel.
~*~*~
Steam covered the mirrors when she stepped out of the shower. The hot water had relaxed her muscles and the shower had somehow cleared her mind. Sydney pulled a robe off the rack and wrapped it around herself and towel-dried her hair as she walked out of the bathroom.
The hotel was three-star - the best she could do with the cash she had stolen - but she wasn’t going to stay for long. Just for one night, she thought. She just had to remember what was going on in her mind when she and Vaughn met again.
She took a peek at her stomach. The three-inch long scar was quite visible, as compared to 8 years in the future. After she had given birth to her son, it seemed to have disappeared from her skin.
Focus.
She took the pad paper and pencil by the nightstand and sat on the bed.
Sydney fiddled with the pencil before she started to write an outline of what she could remember. Dredging for those memories - the painful ones she tried to learn from so that she could try to get over them as quickly as humanly possible - was a difficult process. It had to have a semblance of objectivity, like a mission debrief, to make sure she’d have the will to carry this through.
After an hour, she set down the pencil and read what she had written. Reading through it, the outline seemed callous, but it made sense. And that’s what needs to matter right now.
Sydney took a deep breath. She would do this tomorrow night. She tried to relax and read the outline again.
She then stood up and tore the paper into pieces. Sydney went back to the bathroom and flushed them in the toilet.
She knows what to do.
~*~
Vaughn?”
“We thought you were dead. They asked me to come back to… to explain.”
“Vaughn. Why are you wearing that ring?”
“Syd… since that night, you were missing. You’ve been missing for almost two years.”
~*~
And so it begins. Again.
FIN (Or is it?)
Characters: Sydney Bristow, ensemble
Rating: PG-13
Words: 772 words
Disclaimer: JJ’s characters. Although I honestly think they were better off without him in the end.
Notes: Post s5 (or is it?). This was an abandoned fic, which got resurrected for jjverse's big bang. Entire fic's bordering in 20k words.
Last chapter. Thank God. I'm sorry for spamming. I do hope you'll enjoy this story. All mistakes are mine.
previous chapters
CHAPTER FIVE
Sydney stared at the date. This was a sick, sick joke. There was no way she jumped back in time. She just lost 8 years of her life… by moving back in time. It was impossible… time travel was impossible.
‘You're going insane, Sydney Anne.’ She thought and started to walk away because she was receiving funny looks from the people around the stall.
Maybe she was in a comatose state and this was her brain’s way of coping. Or maybe this was an anesthesia-induced dream and when she wakes up, her right leg would be amputated. Or maybe she just had too much to drink and this was a nightmare.
“Tell me, Agent Bristow, do you believe in time travel?”
She walked a little bit faster. This wasn’t happening. There wasn’t any logical explanation for this. Unreal. Silly. Illogical. Impossible. She could think up of all the words that could describe her situation but it wouldn’t help her make sense of what’s happening.
The lights from the street were hurting her eyes. Sydney lowered her head and continued to walk briskly. What would she do? How could she get back to her own time? She didn’t belong here. The 29-year-old Sydney Bristow belonged here, not the 37-year-old one.
A glint of light caught her eye. Sydney looked up and found herself looking at her reflection in a window.
She gaped at her reflection.
Young. She looked young.
Sydney touched her face. She was several pounds lighter, had lesser lines on her face. Her cheekbones were a little bit more protruded than she was accustomed to.
She buried her face in her hands. Oh god, I have to think this through, she thought. And if she believed this, she had to accept that she wouldn’t see Isabelle and Jack again, not in the way she remembered them. If she had to go through everything again exactly the way she went through them nine years ago, then she had just disrupted her timeline just by walking around the city.
Sydney brought her hands to her side and shook her head. Don’t worry about this. Everything’s going to be fine.
She didn’t want to call the CIA, not yet. She had to clear her head first, and she needed a plan.
It wouldn’t start if you don’t start it.
There weren’t a lot of tourists around the area. Sydney glanced around, found what she was looking for, and then crossed the street.
A few minutes later, Sydney was on her way towards the nearest hotel.
~*~*~
Steam covered the mirrors when she stepped out of the shower. The hot water had relaxed her muscles and the shower had somehow cleared her mind. Sydney pulled a robe off the rack and wrapped it around herself and towel-dried her hair as she walked out of the bathroom.
The hotel was three-star - the best she could do with the cash she had stolen - but she wasn’t going to stay for long. Just for one night, she thought. She just had to remember what was going on in her mind when she and Vaughn met again.
She took a peek at her stomach. The three-inch long scar was quite visible, as compared to 8 years in the future. After she had given birth to her son, it seemed to have disappeared from her skin.
Focus.
She took the pad paper and pencil by the nightstand and sat on the bed.
Sydney fiddled with the pencil before she started to write an outline of what she could remember. Dredging for those memories - the painful ones she tried to learn from so that she could try to get over them as quickly as humanly possible - was a difficult process. It had to have a semblance of objectivity, like a mission debrief, to make sure she’d have the will to carry this through.
After an hour, she set down the pencil and read what she had written. Reading through it, the outline seemed callous, but it made sense. And that’s what needs to matter right now.
Sydney took a deep breath. She would do this tomorrow night. She tried to relax and read the outline again.
She then stood up and tore the paper into pieces. Sydney went back to the bathroom and flushed them in the toilet.
She knows what to do.
~*~
Vaughn?”
“We thought you were dead. They asked me to come back to… to explain.”
“Vaughn. Why are you wearing that ring?”
“Syd… since that night, you were missing. You’ve been missing for almost two years.”
~*~
And so it begins. Again.
FIN (Or is it?)