Special Note: O.n.E. : operation : natus e is the sequel to the 8-part series Storage Room Secrets. Natus e is Latin, meaning "from birth" or "without birth". It is highly recommended that you read the prequel before beginning this fic.
Catch Phrase: The Redeemer, Vaughn and Sydney's child. The second prophecy begins… with O.n.E.
Inspiring Lyrics: "I'm sorry mama, I never meant to hurt you, I never meant to make you cry…" from "Cleaning out my closet" by Eminem
Time: just over 4 years after the ending of
Storage Room Secrets
Setting: Los Angeles, California
Recap: SD-6 still alive and kicking, both Jack and Sydney
continue to be double agents. Michael Vaughn still in deep-cover mission, which
included a wedding complete with false wedding papers and false ceremony with
attendants who believed it was a true wedding (including Will and Francie, who
were honor attendants for Sydney). You can imagine what this entails: Vaughn
and Syd live together, and over time their relationship/friendship has become
strained due to the pressures of living together under false pretense. There
are times duty and heart still war within each, which makes them question the
ethics of living together and sometimes sleeping together. After that first
time together, the words "I love you" have not passed from either
Vaughn nor Syd. The question stands: Is all life fated? If so, this cannot be
real... just a path previously set -- there are no choices... and no soulmates.
***So it begins… with an excerpt from Sydney's diary***
I've asked myself a hundred times if I've done the right thing. I've laid out a
path, constructed a plan, and everything's gone awry. I was born into a world
of lies and am still in the process of uncovering them one after another.
Following in the Bristow tradition, I too gave birth to a child... and
introduced her to a world of illusion. In fact, I've even given her a name that
means "illusion" (Maya). Of
course, born in a lie, she has two birth certificates. One that reads Maya
Christina Vaughn, and another that reads, "Maya Christina Varanelli".
There is no record of the first, and the second is the only in traceable
existence... what a tangled web we weave, indeed...
- S.
***Chapter One : R e t u r n . T o . M e***
Jack Bristow watched as his granddaughter skittered across the grass, gleefully chasing a butterfly. She was petite, like her mother, with unruly waves of impossible blonde hair, a gift from her father. Over time, those curls would darken to a shade between Vaughn and Sydney's hair color, but for now, Maya was a blessed creation of the beauty of both parents. Wide, sea-lost emerald eyes were framed with a ring of honey; she possessed pouty pink lips with rosy cheeks she tended to puff out when upset.
She tottered and giggled when she landed on her bottom, allowing the curious butterfly to circle around her halo of hair, and she squealed with delight when it landed briefly on her outstretched hand.
"Papa Jack!" she turned her big, bright eyes to him. "Look!"
He smiled and nodded. Somewhere along the line, he'd gone soft. He knew it, but didn't show it often. It was because of her, he thought. Maya made him younger. She offered life that sparkled and shimmered like it had when he was young and indulgent – willing to believe in dreams and love. So much of that hope he used to have was evident in her every breath, in every glorious thing she did. She was a child full of wonder, optimism, and innocence.
His smile faded as grim thoughts sprang from the well of memory. Thoughts of a second prophecy, of a woman coming to take this child and use her for evil. One day, the essence of everything that was Maya would be stripped and taken away ruthlessly, leaving her naked and drowning in the ocean of lies that composed all their lives.
You'll only get Maya over my dead body, Jack swore.
"Dad," Sydney leaned against the doorway, dressed in a tank top and jogging shorts. "It's almost time for her nap. You can bring her in."
Scooping up Maya and waving goodbye to the butterfly with her, Jack strode to the door, but noticed the wary look in Sydney's eyes.
"You're under 24-hour surveillance," he told her frankly. "But I know it doesn't help the worry. Just try to relax a little, enjoy spending time with your daughter."
Sydney looked to her father, then at her child.
After a beat, Jack added, "Don't make the same mistake I did. You might live to regret it."
She opened the screen and gathered up Maya in her arms, then promptly placed her on the floor. "Come on, honey, let's take a nap!"
Maya made a face, but dutifully followed after her mother to the room adjacent to her parents'. Her tiny bed was covered with various dolls and stuffed animals, but she refused to sleep without them. Sydney waited until she was curled in a ball around a spectacularly large and furry brown teddy Vaughn had bought her before quietly shutting the door. She looked back to her father who had stepped into the hall behind her and tried to articulate her thoughts.
"You did the best you could with me, Dad. Maybe I had a hard time admitting it in the past, but I look back now, and you did what you had to. You worked, and when Mom… when she faked her death, we both grieved. You didn't handle that with flying colors, but you did what you thought was best." She sighed heavily, walked into the pale yellow and white titled kitchen. "I'm doing what I thought is best. You know how hard it was for me to decide to keep her."
"If you gave her up for adoption, Irina could have found her easily and we might never have known."
"But keeping her with me." Sydney sat at the table and used one hand to support her head, pushing her hair off her forehead. "I mean, it's like screaming out loud, 'Here she is! Come get her'!"
Jack pursed his lips together and took a seat across from his daughter. "Maybe so, but it's the safest way to track her. Both you and Vaughn are skilled and expertly trained agents. You know what signs to look for, you know when you're being followed, when something doesn't fit. You'd be the first to notice if anything was wrong, and you'd be the first to protect her from it."
Protection. It was the word that had come to mind when she had picked up Maya from preschool earlier in the day. Sitting in the passenger seat of the car, her feet barely dangling over the edge, and her hands busily arranging the dress on the doll "Uncle Willy" gave her last Christmas, Maya proudly announced, "Mommy, today I learned about big families."
Sydney grinned and glanced at her.
Maya continued, "Mommy, how come I have papa Jack, but no nana Jack?"
Immediately, her smile froze, but for Maya's benefit, she kept it in
place. She closed her eyes briefly and
fought for words... how do you tell your four-year old that her grandmother is
a world-wide threat to humanity? Not to mention a crude, heartless bitch who
didn't give a care about her own daughter, and her only interest in her
granddaughter is to further her own purposes...
"You don't have a nana, Maya."
"Why not? Everyone else has a nana…"
"Because yours…" Sydney paused. She had to protect her daughter, as much as possible, from the world of lies she had been born into – even if it was an impossibility, she had to try. "…lives far, far away."
"So why doesn't she come see me?" On the verge of inspiration, she looked up hopefully. "Or let's go see her."
"We can't, honey. Your 'nana Jack', um, doesn't live on earth."
Maya's face fell. "Oh." She said flatly. "You mean she went to heaven."
Through clenched teeth and a plastic smile, Sydney nodded.
She had lied to her daughter to protect her, she reasoned.
So then her father spoke the truth. The best protection Maya could receive would be from her family – all trained in espionage and retaliation tactics.
Refusing to verbally agree, she stood and laid a hand on her father's shoulder momentarily. Between them, some form of affection had become easier over the years. The small gesture was meant to say thank you for all he had done for her as a child, and even now as he offered support and logic when hers was weak.
Jack waited until she had taken her hand back before he straightened the chair and cleared his throat. Some habits were hard to break. "Uh, well. Since you don't seem to need me for anything else…"
"You can stay for dinner," she offered, standing over the stove and heating a deep pot glazed with cooking oil. "I'm making Spanish rice and carne asada."
"Oh." He looked at the kitchen clock above the entrance. 4:37 pm. He still had work to do. "Thanks, but…"
She lifted a hand and stopped him there. "You've got things to take care of."
The flat and pointed tone in her voice shocked him by how much it hurt.
"I didn't mean it like that," she corrected, wiping her brow in mild frustration. "It's just I wish sometimes you would take a break. You worry just as much as I do about Maya… maybe more because you worry about me too, and I wish you wouldn't."
"I don't worry about you," he defended.
She shot him a dubious look over her shoulder before turning back to fill the pot with rice. "You know, I always knew when you were lying."
Surprisingly, Jack found himself beginning to smile until it broke into a full-blown grin, which she returned. It was a strange thing, he concluded as he left the stylish home behind, to be able to smile and joke again after so long.
{~}
An evening at home would have done Vaughn's exhausted body a world of good. Instead, he found himself buried behind mounds of printouts with junior officer Matthew Chavez in the LA headquarters.
Rubbing his eyes, trying to stay awake, Vaughn sighed and swallowed more of the god-awful coffee Matt had made.
"You make one hell of a cup of coffee," he choked out.
Matt grimaced. "I know it's strong, sorry. You should have told me you like it watered down."
"No," Vaughn set the cup down. "I just hate coffee that's packed with a punch. I only need enough to get by, not enough to stay up the rest of the week."
"Oh, come on," Matt tossed another folder aside. "Take it like a man, Mike. It'll put some hair on that chest of yours."
Laughing, Vaughn raised a brow and added more hazelnut-flavored creamer to his cup. "I've got a decent amount of chest hair, thank you very much."
Matt shrugged. "Maybe I'll ask Sydney one day."
Abruptly, Vaughn stopped laughing. Eyes cast downward, he rummaged through the printouts until he found the stack he was looking for, and placed it inside another folder. Saying nothing made the silence even more awkward for Matt, who stood to his left, trying to think of something else to say.
"Hey, sorry. I didn't…"
"Yeah… no, it's fine."
"Okay… um, I mean, it's not my business or anything, but…." Hesitatingly, Matt filed another stack of papers and eyed the man who had become his friend and mentor. "You know what? Never mind. Forget I said anything."
Vaughn stopped studying the files and set aside the new folder he put together on the latest missions regarding SD-6 and KGB activities. Vaguely, he fidgeted with the wedding band wrapped around his finger, twisting it around restlessly. To his right was a picture of the "family": Sydney, himself, and Maya.
The sunlight filtered through the shade of the surrounding massive oak trees and delicately splayed its rays over them. Though they were both laughing at the incredibly "constipated" look Maya had on her face, there was a safe distance between them evident even in the photograph. They both took joy and pride in their daughter, and both loved her with the core of their being… but the prophecy had done more than bring them a beautiful child… it had created a rift between them.
What life had been like before the prophecy was drastically different from what it had become. Easy, laughing friendship was wrecked by a star-crossed destiny. Companionable and comfortable kisses and minor flirtations were natural. But now, they were forced to face the overwhelming evidence that fate had dealt them this hand and dictated their lives – down to the very detail of their daughter. It made both Sydney and Vaughn uncomfortable, uneasy with the lack of choice. What they felt for each other… or what they had felt… had it been real? Was it of their own making, not predestination? Was it love? Did it truly exist?
Previously, Vaughn thought he had the answers to such questions. What he felt was real, tangible love. He was in control of his destiny, perhaps not necessarily who he fell in love with, but surely how he handled the situation. An age-old prophecy shattered those certainties, and left Vaughn feeling robbed, hollow, and unsure.
In response, he withdrew from his relationship with Sydney. Maybe she wasn't what he thought she was, maybe she wasn't the woman he was in love with, maybe it was kind of like a magical spell or curse that had caused them to sleep together and to say the words "I love you".
And maybe not.
"Just ask, Matt." Vaughn stared just past the framed photograph, blinked, and faced him.
He jerked his head up and looked blankly at Vaughn. "Ask what?"
"You're question about Sydney – about me and Sydney."
"Oh." He cleared his throat loudly. "Um… no, it's okay. I don't need to know, it was kind of a stupid question anyway."
"I was always taught there was no such thing as stupid questions, just stupid answers. Or something like that." He shrugged carelessly.
"Well," Matt looked down and away before he continued. "It's just that you were so in love with her four years ago. I only wondered if you still are."
Pondering the answer to that, Vaughn glanced at a file sitting before him, flipped it open to a page with her snapshot and physical description on it.
Moments passed, and Matt added, "I told you it was a stupid question. It's none of my business, Mike. I really don't need to know – I was just curious, I guess."
Vaughn looked up, his eyes clear and sharp, contrasting with his tanned skin and sun-kissed hair. "The answer is I don't know."
{~}
Yawning, Vaughn entered the house, hung his keys on the ring holder and slipped out of his coat. Bemusedly, he spotted a large, single candle burning in the middle of the coffee table, the air in the living room becoming scented with vanilla bean and spice. Sydney always did like to light candles when she wanted to relax.
Kicking off his shoes, he undid the buttons on his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. There was something about tonight that called to him, made him want to pull out a glass of white wine, sit and think. Retrieving a thin-stemmed wine glass from the cupboard, Vaughn filled it with '99 Puligny-Montrachet Les Chaps Canet.
He settled into the straw-colored sofa and lazily stretched one arm out over the couch and the other upon the armrest. Using the remote, he programmed the stereo system to softly play Tchaikovsky in the background. His shirt fell open exposing his white undershirt, giving him the appearance of a casual businessman or sexy J. Crew model. Slowly, he swirled his wine and took a sip, savoring it as it's light and fruity taste rolled over his tongue and silkily slid down his throat. Damn good French wine, he thought.
Maybe it was his posture that made him look appealing. There had to be an explanation for the instantaneous desire that had lanced through her when she stepped into the room and found him just like that. Legs carelessly crossed at the ankles, propped up on the coffee table, wine in hand, and a brooding expression on his face… Sydney felt the almost irrational impulse to curl up in his arms, rest her head on his shoulder, hold him around his waist and offer silent support through whatever was on his mind.
But she didn't. Instead, she turned back to check on Maya, but hesitated mid-step. God, it's been so long, she achingly looked back. Did it really have to be this way?
Biting her lip, she turned aside and opened the door to Maya's room and peered in. Tip-toeing to avoid waking her, Sydney crept up to the bedside and watched her daughter sleep. She knelt on the carpet and let her hand brush aside Maya's brow-length bangs. The moonlight fell across the bed in such a way that Maya seemed to glitter and glow, almost like an angel in the mist of night. Her curls were spread out over her pillow, her chin tucked to the left toward the same teddy she fell asleep with earlier. It was her favorite, Sydney knew, because it was from her daddy.
She planted a kiss upon Maya's forehead and straightened, studying her a moment more.
She never heard Vaughn come up behind her, but refrained from jumping when he spoke.
"She's beautiful, isn't she?"
Because it pained her, she didn't face him. "Yes, she is."
He moved closer… just behind her now. She tensed, her back ramrod straight, eyes darting to her right, where she could see his wine glass in her peripheral vision. It had been quite some time since he had stood that close to her. In response, her pulse jumped, vibrated with life and uncertainty.
"She's ours, Syd," he whispered, laying a hand on her shoulder. She turned toward it, wanting so much to drop her cheek and let him caress it. "Ours. No one can take her from us… not even Irina."
Unsure of himself, Vaughn thought to take his hand off her. Instead, he let it slide down the length of her arm and rest at the crux of her elbow.
And slowly, he drew her closer, silently wrapping his arms around her and swaying rhythmically side-to-side with her.
Relief swamped her, swirled low in her belly and settled with hunger. Not for food, she realized as she leaned her forehead against his cheek, but for him. Emotions ran thick and constricted her throat, tightening it into a knot of mixed pain and longing.
"I've missed you," she mumbled.
He pressed a kiss to her temple, and set his wine glass on top of the dresser, where Maya wouldn't be able to reach it. Linking his hand with hers, he tugged gently.
"Come on. Let's go to bed."
Together, Sydney and Vaughn shut the door and slipped into their own bed. And in silence, they united, linking body and memory, heart and destiny. Questions set aside for the night, and fears hushed until the morning, the world melted away and they remembered what it was like to be young and in love.
While neither would analyze their feelings until later, both let the tension and worry slip away with every soft moan and tender touch that spoke volumes despite their lack of verbal communication. Sometimes, Vaughn thought as he tugged her tank top up over her head, a kiss is better understood than words.
Sydney straddled his legs and ran her hands up the length of his muscled chest and defined abs. One moment is all I need. A moment to be.
{~}
When dawn came, the only signs of forced entry the couple would find would be an open window and slashed screen. In the intruder's rush, the wine glass had been knocked down, the wine spilt onto the carpet, and the child's teddy bear flung and trampled among her other stuffed animals. And their daughter, soundlessly asleep through most of the night, would no longer be in the warmth of her own bed, but elsewhere – far, far away.