Author: Dazzling

Email: glitter_and_glam@hotmail.com

Disclaimers: JJ is God. I am not.

Timeline Etc: Set after ATY. Sydney POV.

Reviews & Feedback: First Alias attempt…please?

SLOW BURN

"Today my heart is big and sore

It's trying to put right through my skin
Won't see you anymore
I guess that's finally sinking in."

Guilt. It drives you insane. Engulfs you, drags you down, smothers you. I've been guilty of a lot of things in my life, and felt guilty about even more. I eventually learned to live with it, to separate myself from it, to stop beating myself up over things that I couldn't control even if I tried. But the guilt has never made me feel like this.

I've never woken up from a nightmare, sweating, panting, screaming the name of the enemy I killed. I've never really dreamt about them, nightmare or not. But then, he wasn't an enemy. He was the farthest thing from it. My handler, my comfort, my shoulder to cry on, my guardian angel. He was all of these things, and I killed him. Just like I killed them all.

They tried to convince me otherwise, of course. Said that he should never have tried to save me, that he should have reacted sooner, that he should have run faster, that he never should have come in the first place. It's always about what he should have done. I know him, though – knew him, I suppose – and he wouldn't have been Vaughn if he hadn't come rushing to me.

Hindsight is another slow burn. It's easy to judge him in hindsight. But those who do never tried with all their might to keep the door from slamming shut. They never saw his face before it all went black, eyes horrifyingly calm, because he knew. Hindsight doesn't do anyone any good, but like the guilt, for some reason, it calms me. They make the pain unbearable, but I figure that I deserve it. I let him die.

I wonder if he was disappointed in me. He'd saved me from so much, and yet I couldn't do him this one justice. I wonder if, in the moments that the door closed, he hated me. Hated the fact that I hadn't stopped it. That I hadn't grabbed his arm and dragged him along with me. Hadn't made it alright again, like I was so used to doing. I wouldn't blame him. I hate myself.

So much so that I never attended his memorial. The CIA gave him the full service, sent someone to apologize to his mother before lowering his casket into the ground. I never threw flowers on top of it. They paid for, so I'm told, a nice white marble headstone, plus a place on the agent's wall. I still haven't seen them. They closed his file. I didn't help them. They told me he was dead. I didn't need to hear it to know it was the truth. I felt it.

I guess I'll never mourn him properly. I can't. And I guess I'll never know if I loved him. I'm pretty sure I did. Still do. I just never gave either of us enough time to figure it out. I'll never know if he loved me, either. But somehow, once again, I'm pretty sure that he did. He died for me.

And now I'm finding myself hating him almost as much as myself. Hating him for not doing everything I criticized them for saying he should have. Hating him for never being the fastest runner. I hate him for caring about me so much. He should have known that anyone who has ever cared about me has died. And so my old friend hindsight comes back again, and I can't decide who I'm angrier at. Him, for dying and leaving me here alone, or myself, for letting it happen.

And now he's gone. The world will keep spinning, because it always does. I will be okay, because I always am. But I will never truly forgive myself, because I can't. Because he's gone. Because I never said goodbye.

"And I wonder where you are
And if the pains ends when you die
And I wonder if there was
Some better way to say good-bye."

- 'Goodbye', by Martina McBride

FIN