This is finished now, so I'll be updating and tidying to make sure everything expires at the same time. Thank you so much to everyone who read and reviewed, and encouraged me to keep going with it!
Disclaimer: None of the Alias characters here, or the backstory events referred to, are mine. They belong to J.J. Abrams, or someone associated with the television show. You already knew that.
Alias: Elusive
Chapter One: Patterns
There was a pattern to these nights. Vaughn blinked slowly, tried to focus on the line of empty shot glasses in front of him. A pattern. First, the drinking. Counting as they went down… one, then two, and it didn't begin to touch the empty place inside until at least five or six. He always lost count before it started feeling better.
Better. Numb, at least.
The wooden countertop felt sticky under his fist.
"Un autre, s'il vous plait," he asked the man behind the bar.
"What're you, French?" the man asked. Right. Not France. Here, home. France was… last week? Was that right? Vaughn had trouble with days. They slipped away from him. He'd been in France, on leave, and now he was back, but still on leave. Failed the psych consult. Not coping, they said. Not accepting.
The man was still speaking. "…cut off."
But that was good, because it meant he was drunk. That was part of the pattern, too. And it meant that soon, maybe, he'd get to the place where he saw her. It had happened once, in France.
He tried to tell the bartender, now. It seemed important that the man understand. "She was there," Vaughn said, forming his words carefully, trying not to slur. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. "In a wig, but it was her. I'd know her… anywhere. I'm her handler." He glanced around the dimly lit bar as if to illustrate his point, as she might walk in any moment. The motion made his head spin, so he lowered it to the bar. Old wood and stale beer, that was the smell. The last thing he knew, before the dark washed over, was Syd's voice in his ear.
- - -
"Easy, there." Will Tippin's voice behind him, and Vaughn felt himself pulled up, lifted to his feet. His head lolled forwards, didn't want to lift high enough for him to meet Will's eyes.
Maybe just as well.
"Jusht… just need a minute," he said. The ground tilted beneath his feet and darkness reached for him, but fell back. His knees didn't want to work.
"Ain't got all night," a strange voice growled. The bartender.
Will shifted so Vaughn's weight fell more across his shoulders. An awkward stretch, but Vaughn figured he was in no state to protest.
"Let's get you out of the nice man's bar and home to bed," Will said.
Vaughn tried to nod.
Outside, in the alley beside the bar, he fell to his knees and threw up what felt like an unrealistic amount of fluid. It burned, coming up. Took a moment, but then he was able to stand, lean his weight against the brick wall. He wiped his forehead with his coat sleeve. Spat.
"Better?" Will asked.
He closed his eyes. "Better," he said, unwilling to admit otherwise. Something inside him knew that, when his mind cleared, he'd be ashamed that Will had seen him like this. Two breaths before he continued, and he was aware of the other man waiting the whole time. "How did you know?"
"Where you were? Or that you were about to land your ass in jail to sleep it off?" Will's voice was sharp. "Answer's the same, either way. Weiss called me. You seriously think there's a second passes, they don't know where you are? You can switch bars all you want." Will paused. "But honestly? Your regular one's better."
Vaughn felt the corner of his mouth twitch up. Not a smile, but the closest he'd been in… months, anyhow.
He felt Will's gaze on him.
"Let's go," Will said.
- - -
Streetlights flashed past as Will headed up the highway. Vaughn had rolled his window down, the less-than-fresh air the best way he knew to fight the nausea. Damned if he was going to ask Will to pull over.
Felt like a long time before they reached his house, and not a word spoken the entire drive. Something low and sad on the radio. His head felt light, but things were clearer than they had been in a while. Clear, sharp… he felt like he might cut himself on the sharp edges of light from passing car-beams. His senses were stretched thin, not dulled like they usually were, and he knew it was because of Will, because he was struggling to keep himself awake and aware and not show weakness in front of Syd's best friend.
Will pulled up in front of Vaughn's apartment building. "You okay to get in?" Will had already turned off the car, probably figuring on Vaughn needing a hand.
"Fine," Vaughn said. He paused, staring at the dashboard. Plastic, brown whorls, meant to look like wood. Not even close. "Thanks," he said.
"I didn't do it for you." Irena's voice.
Vaughn's head snapped up, but it was only Will in the car with him, and the words that hung between them were just words. Will's words.
"I did it for Sydney," Will continued, his knuckles tight on the steering wheel even though the car was at rest. He glanced at Vaughn, then away. Will's eyes were piercingly bright in the dim light. Not like hers. Hers were shadows you could fall into. "She wouldn't want… wouldn't have wanted to see you like that."
My guardian angel. Sydney's voice again, but this time only memory, not a hallucination. Vaughn angled his face away from Will, said nothing. Fumbling, he unfastened his seatbelt.
He heard Will's frustrated exhalation. Time to go.
Will spoke. "I mean, look at you. You're lost, man. It's not—you're not the only one who misses her."
Missing her. But it went so far beyond that.
He didn't mean to answer Will. Didn't have the language to even begin to explain. But when he looked, Will's eyes were on him, and the awareness in them unsettled him. Will had lost, too. Lost Sydney. Lost a lot of things.
And maybe Vaughn owed him for some of that.
"I saw her," he said, words coming slowly. "I know it sounds crazy. It might… I might be. I don't know. But I saw her, in France. I'm sure of it. I followed her out of the bar, into the street, but she was gone." Cars rushing by, rain on his face as he turned, searching. Calling her. He laughed, harsh and sudden. "Got knocked over by a cab for my trouble. I wasn't exactly… sober at the time."
Will swallowed, jaw tightening. Pity on his face, and something else.
And suddenly Vaughn was tired, so tired. He wiped his hand over his eyes. "It's late," he said. He pushed the car door open.
Will, staring, didn't move while Vaughn pulled himself to his feet. Unsteady, but standing, which was something. Vaughn closed the door, let his hand drop on the car roof in a farewell gesture.
He made it as far as the front door before he heard the car door slam. Will's footsteps, bounding up the stairs behind him. Vaughn paused, fingers wrapped around the cold keys in his pocket.
"If you're sure," Will said, "And I'm not saying you're right. I'm not saying it's possible, but I've seen a lot of impossible over the past year or two." He fixed his stare on Vaughn again. "If you really believe you saw Sydney in France, then what the hell are you doing here?"