Title: Family Portrait
Genre: Flangst-but there is a vast amount of fluff.
Timeline: Syd's missing years
Summary: Worth the agony of their separation
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Alias isn't mine
Soundtrack: Best of You, Foo Fighters
Family Portrait
Sydney sat atop the silk burgundy sheets of Julia Thorne's bed, staring at the spectrum dancing off of the metallic silver disk revolving lazily around her index finger as her thumb ran across the edge, spinning it slowly. The honed plastic slid across her skin, pleasantly burning the tender flesh as it wore a path across it. She didn't want to place the disk in the drive of the laptop that sat beside her bed. She didn't want to be Julia Thorne. Every day she felt Julia's haunting presence; every second she could feel her essence spreading, polluting her mangled heart, inching sickeningly close to overcoming her with every passing minute. The darkness that was Julia's soul was unfurling, the tendrils wrapping around her being, strangling last drop of Sydney Bristow-Vaughn from her exhausted body. She was suffocating, the poisonous fumes choking out her ever weakening resistance. She needed something to clear the fog before it enveloped her. But it wouldn't come. Nothing would come to save her. Not even him. The thought of him brought a momentary smile to her forlorn face, but it was frail and quickly perished.
"Vaughn" she breathed quietly, resting back against the headboard despite her neck's protest to the awkward angle. She wished she could attach those wonderful, pure memories to his image, but they could not salvage her condemned soul, as even the most beautiful memory she had made with him brought back the shadow of their hopeless situation that would forever haunt them. It would never be over. It was endless. She placed a hand to her forehead, the other still toying with the disk. Her fingertips massaged her temples where light blond hair grew as she tried resuscitate the memory she had buried the deepest, its grave covered without a single flower or prayer. The fragile details that wove together to capture her precious recollection were gaunt, starved through disuse, but once she brought them back into the light, they expanded and elaborated, the exhilaration and passion of that night unfolding in a bid to rescue her fading soul. She hoped that maybe this time she would be able revive it without being consumed by the guilt, the grief, and the worry. She could have chosen another memory of nights spent expressing their love, but none of the others could compare to the sheer beauty of this one. For although it had brought about the desperate plight they were ensnared in, she could never, ever hate it. Because it had brought them something else as well.
She let herself bask in the soft glow of their love, conjuring the memory of a million kisses and caresses, each one perfectly committed to her aching mind. It was in this ritual that she found her strength, her will to continue. Before this, her memories had always been enough to keep the overwhelming storm at bay, but tonight it was different. The recollections flooded her mind, reprinting and searing their images onto her irises, and she couldn't control them, couldn't stop them. Their love making faded away, replaced by the dry sob she had emitted after her fears has been confirmed, her vision placing her once more at the edge of the bathtub, the pregnancy test clutched in her hand as the realization penetrated her mind. Then the scene changed, it was the room where they had been forced to induce labor at barely seven months, the Covenant's resources too strong for them to go into hiding. The doubt, the uncertainty, the consuming fear that her child would not survive returned with the force it had possessed that very day. Then she was thrown back into reality, here and now, the hopelessness stretching before her on an interminable road of useless desires. It was never going to end. She let memory of their last meeting fill her, its utter lack of hope feeding her agony.
"I'm fine" she lied coolly, hardening her eyes to his caring stare. He let his hand travel upwards, cupping her face softly; fingertips tenderly brushing her check where tears would have fallen if she had not imprisoned them long ago. Her eyelids flickered shut as she felt herself becoming lost in the simple action. They hadn't touched like this in so long, afraid their actions would evolve. She revealed her coffee gaze to his jade one at his next words, the affectionate tone making her body beg for his loving presentation to continue.
"Sydney…please" he implored with his words and his eyes, not letting her shut herself away from him. Not after the nine months of agony while he had believed her to be dead. Not after he had been forced to send her back to her role as an assassin while he waited for ten unbearable weeks, watching their son struggle beneath an oxygen tent, surviving off of the mechanical life the tubes and monitors pumped into his tiny body. Slowly, those barriers behind the amber he loved crumbled; the rubble scattering across her loaded mind. She felt her lips inch towards his, his nose grazing hers as they leant in. she raised a hand to his chest, and just before his lips took hers, she pushed him away with a sorrowful gesture.
"We can't, not after Eli" she whispered, pulling back. She hated being so close to him, but yet so far, but there was too much risk. They wouldn't take the chance, no matter how small, of endangering another child out of their need to feel. She shifted her head carefully towards his hand, her lips nearly touching his warm palm as she spoke, her soft voice cracking as the emotions and longings she had concealed for nearly three years rushed forwards, liberating themselves.
"I wanna go home. I want to see my son. I want to teach him how to ride a bike, to bake him cookies, to watch you two play hockey. I want to be with you when you tuck him into bed every night. I want to have a home with you, to be able to kiss you and hold and make love to you without worrying that we'll conceive another child; that we'll have to put another one of our children through what Elijah's been through. I don't want to be afraid to have a baby with you. To watch our family build and grow. But I'll never get to do that. I'll never be just his mom or your wife." She stopped, the anguish in her tone freezing them to the spot as the cruelty of their situation claimed them with icy fingers.
"We'll never be a family."
She pulled away from him, wanting all warmth; all comfort to leave her body, abandoning it until it was as cold as her heavy heart felt. His lips parted to speak, and she knew what was going to come out of them. She could already foresee the coming of foolishly hopeful remarks that this trying time would soon be over. Instead came a dark whisper carrying enticing words and alluring possibilities he had not voiced in years.
"Come away with me. We'll hide away where no one can find us. Just the three of us."
His earnest eyes searched hers, silently demanding her to accept his appealing proposal. She tore away her gaze, needing to reconstruct those protecting barriers.
"You know we can't do that."
He turned her head to face him once again, not letting her fend off his offer so simply. "Think about it Sydney" he begged, forcing beautifully naïve images to flood her mind.
"Just me, you, and Elijah. Don't you want that?" He knew he was pushing her, challenging her. He wouldn't let her escape without a heated brawl, and she wasn't backing down.
"You know I want that more than anything. But we can't have it, not while the Covenant still exists. I'm not going to let them get away without paying for what they've done. I'm not going to let you spend the rest of your life in hiding. I don't want that for you, and I don't want that for him." Why did they always have to save the world? Why couldn't they once, just once, leave it for someone else?
"But Syd-" he began, but she interjected, "Vaughn, you know there's no other choice." He hated it, hated their condition, hated that she was right. They couldn't escape. They were prisoners in this game, and they would have to win of be trapped on this level forever.
"Of course I know, damn it!" he shouted angrily, furious at this stalemate. He looked back at her, seeing the alarm and pain in the expression created by her beautiful features.
"I'm sorry, Syd. I didn't mean to yell, I just…" She reached out, taking his hand and squeezing it gently in a sign of reconciliation. "I know."
He sighed despairingly, looking down at the evergreen threads of the cushion between them as though the spotless fibers held the words he was searching for. "It's just…every time I'm with Eli, as amazed as I am watching him grow up, I can't help thinking that because of them, you're missing it. And I know our work is helping bring them down, but Syd: it's been over three years. How long is Elijah going to grow up without his mother? How much longer are we going to have to live separately?"
He paused, shaking his head sadly as he wondered aloud. "How much longer can we live like this?"
They sat there, their eyes never parting.
"I don't know." The words escaped her, staining the silence with their gloomy essence. They soaked the air, coating the couple and their surroundings with the suffocating truth they contained. It was indefinite, interminable; this would not pass. They would spend every day until the end of their lives, hoping and losing hope, praying and losing faith, dying but being forced to live. They would be caged in a never ending struggle, desperate for just one day together, free of fear. But that day would not come, they were sure. Her earlier words etched themselves in their minds, darkening their souls and bruising their bodies.
'We'll never be a family.'
The pen slid across the paper, its ink rolling over the tiny metal ball and onto the page, forming a scarlet 89%. Vaughn sighed, leaning back against the chair that resisted relentlessly against his exhausted form. He didn't want to grade another paper. He didn't want to continue the façade of teaching to distract suspicion while he wasn't performing his duties as her handler. He didn't want to do anything. He wanted her. He just wanted his wife. He rested his elbow on the table, setting his chin atop his curled fingers and allowing the memories, a concoction of the darkest and sweetest times, to fill him.
He was going to be a father. If the Covenant found out, she and their baby would be killed. He and Sydney were finally married. It had been in that safehouse basement, just before she delivered, her life and Elijah's hanging in the air tantalizingly close, but just out of his grasp.
He stood, almost toppling the wooden chair as he rose, walking towards the living room. Sometimes he just needed confirmation that he was there, that he had made it, and his mind wasn't just projecting the image of the one he loved in a desperate attempt to quell his loneliness. It had a nasty inclination to do that.
Eli sat at his little table, papers strewn across the blue plastic surface, crayons scattered among them. His pudgy left fist held a purple crayon which was darting furiously across a scribble of yellow and orange. At the sight of his father, his emerald eyes lit up, his hands dashing through the air to convey his message. Vaughn interpreted silently, a smile forming as Eli finished.
'I drew Donnie'
Vaughn crouched to observe the picture as his son beamed proudly at the matrix of colors. 'Looks just like him' he confirmed with the appropriate gestures, his hands quickly and efficiently performing the motions. Eli's tiny pearly teeth were revealed as he clapped eagerly at his father's approval.
'Time for bed' Vaughn signed, and lifted the giggling toddler into the air, gently carrying him over his shoulder, leading him into his dinosaur themed room as he readied him for sleep. A brush of the small boy's teeth and a pair of Batman pajamas later, Vaughn carefully tucked his son beneath the comforter, placing a soft kiss to his forehead, as his hand formed the simple gesture for those three powerful words. He knelt beside the bed, watching as Elijah gently slipped into the dream realm. He brushed back a few strands of copper hair before whispering what his earlier action had been meant to say.
"I love you."
He knew even if he was awake, his son would never hear them, but he whispered them anyway, every night. He felt anger rise within him at the thought of all the Covenant had robbed from his child. Nearly his life, then his hearing, and finally his mother. "It's not fair!" he protested furiously into the silence, his anger growing at the thought that his words should have woken the boy.
"She should be here" he finished more quietly, his body shaking as the anger, frustration and injustice overcame him, threatening to push him over the edge and make everything they had strived for during the past three years a waste. His memory conjured the recollection of their last meeting, yearning for the anguish it would supply; unknowingly accessing the replay of events in the same instant she did so many miles away.
He lowered himself beside the bed, his back causing the boyish pattern of prehistoric creatures that lived upon the bedspread to sway. He felt the inevitable despair begin to brew, the arrival of the churning clouds that engulfed his mind as the memory dissolved, the pieces falling neatly back into the steely gray box he locked them away in. Wicked, twisted vines of doubt and pessimism crept sinisterly through his thoughts, waiting to entice his desires for the future into the open, then strangle every last drop of hope from them. Their darkness took hold of what little faith he had left, injecting it with toxic words and malicious uncertainty.
'Give up', they hissed venomously. 'This is a losing battle'. Then came the last attack, the wound inflicted deeper and more lethal, the poisonous spikes driving deeper into his mutilated heart. 'Is this even worth it?' the doubt questioned cynically, the query spreading into and decaying his dying belief. What were they fighting for? They had been at battle for so long, they had forgotten the cause. 'Was anything worth the agony of their separation?' The thought of al that could and had gone wrong consumed his mind, and his faith in their cause began to falter.
Then, he heard Eli stir in his sleep, rolling to his side where he slumbered beneath the comforter. Vaughn looked back at him, and stared. He was sleeping. Just sleeping. His chubby face had a tiny grin, even out of consciousness, and a rebel lock of brown hair curled around his ear. He was so…innocent. Now Vaughn could recall what they were fighting for, the drive behind their selfless lives. It was so that moments like this could still exist, so that somewhere there were some last remains of serenity.
He climbed slowly onto the bed and he wrapped his arms around his tiny sleeping child. He now remembered the source of his strength; the cause for their sacrifice. Just before he joined Elijah in his first restful sleep in many nights, he recalled the contents of the disc he had sent to her. He smiled fondly, needing to believe that it would be enough to restore her will and tie her to the extraordinary reservoir of strength they had invested in the beautiful boy that lay asleep in his arms.