FLIGHT
By Dulce
Warnings: Slight AU. Takes place in a land where Sydney and Vaughn's relationship has progressed to that of good friends (with a 'maybe more' attached). Also, there is some swearing that I've blotted…not because I'm afraid to go to an R rating, but because I always like to guess when the cursing's blotted & it's obvious what should be there. I thought I'd pass on some of my fun to you guys. :)
Summary: "So slow that it hurt, I leaned down and kissed that cut corner of her mouth. Her blood was bitter on my lips, but I wanted to remember. I needed to remember this: I needed to remember her pain so that I could do what I needed to."
******************
Prologue
Sloane dialed a familiar number. On the third ring, his long-time friend-- who currently worked at the CIA as a statistical analyst, special assistant to Devlin--picked up.
"Stalingaard here."
"Yes, Joe, it's Sloane."
The other man chuckled. "Good to hear from you. I suppose you've secured this line?"
"Of course," Sloane answered. "Now give me the name of my mole."
Stalingaard drew in a long breath. "I've calculated a 99.96% probability that you'll encounter rain when you travel to Boston next week. I know, I know, it's usually snow this time of year, but I have a gut feeling that I'm right about this. Still, you should check out Bistro Somme on the corner of Fifth and Palouse. It's a good thing you secured this line, 'cause I think that Margie has your phones tapped. And if she did, you could be sure that this anniversary party of yours would be public knowledge. She'd spill the beans about it to all of her little girlfriends."
"The mole is in the room with you. Last name starts with a B, first name with an S, and this operative is female. And I'm going to be shocked to learn who it is. All right. Thank you, Joe. I appreciate your hard work. The money's been wired. If you're interested in following this up, I have another half million I'm willing to spend--"
"Of course. That's a great idea. I'd love to go golfing with you this weekend before you leave for Boston," said Stalingaard.
"Terrific," said Sloane, "we'll hammer out the details over a game at Concully's. Are you free this afternoon?"
"Yes, you too. All right. See you then, buddy."
Stalingaard hung up. He turned his chair away from his view of Los Angeles' towering glass skyscrapers in order to face the young woman waiting patiently for him in a chair on the other side of his desk.
She wore a charcoal pant-suit with a white blouse underneath the jacket. Her brown hair was neatly parted to the left. Her skin was the light tan color of sapwood; she'd just returned from a trip to Puerto Rico. Her eyes reflected a wariness of someone twice her age, a maturity, an eerily haunted look of self-possession. In his eyes and in the eyes of many other men, he was certain, she was beautiful--if not a little young to be looking so old.
"Ahem." Stalingaard adjusted his tie and said, "I'm sorry about that, Agent Bristow. An old friend of mine is celebrating his thirtieth wedding anniversary in two weeks and he needed a little guidance. Back to your…'situation'--"
"I don't have a situation, Mr. Stalingaard. I'm going to Devlin with this information. Don't worry, I'll be sure to mention just how helpful you've been."
Stalingaard smiled a sympathetic smile. His teeth were perfectly straight, perfectly white, but slightly pointed. Like a shark's, Sydney thought. "No, I don't believe that's a very good idea, Agent Bristow."
"You can't stop me." She rose to leave. "And if you were to try, there will be others to expose you."
"Oh, you don't think I can stop you? Well, I think I can. And you know what they say--if you think you can…"
Two Months Later
I hadn't eaten or slept at all in the past 48 hours; my head hurt from the beating I'd taken from Stalingaard's cronies when I went to break Sydney out, not to mention that it was allergy season; and not more than twelve hours ago, I'd thought that one of my best friends--one of my only friends-- was dead. Nope. Today hadn't been one of my better days.
I sat by her makeshift hospital bed at the London safe house and cried like a baby. No--that's not right. Not noisy, not sobbing. I had to be quiet because she was sleeping. But still…crying.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't quit. One second I'd be close to stopping and the next I'd remember what she must have gone through, and the tears would start falling even harder. If I were a smoker trying to quit, I'd say that it was hard, like that.
But if I were a smoker, I'd probably throw away my pack of cigarettes faster than I'd quit crying for her. Yeah, I know. I can still hear Davie Willis calling, "Mama's Boy, Mikey, you're nothing but a Mama's Boy!" I am. I freely admit it.
What happened was my fault. If only I had known what Stalingaard had planned, or if I'd just spoken to Devlin of my suspicions regarding Stalingaard in the first place--maybe then, none of this would have happened.
There were no monitors to show her heartbeat. Off to the left of Sydney's bed, a metal IV rack elevated a bag of fluid. When I brought her in, she hadn't been breathing. She'd stabalized within an hour of arrival, and had gone from having a tracheal tube to wearing an oxygen mask. She recooperated quickly.
The door to the room swung open. The doc left five minutes ago, and said he'd be back in an hour to check up on Sydney. "No visitors," I said, expecting it to be Weiss.
When the door clicked softly shut, I glanced up, and damn it. Stalingaard. I blinked. Through a haze of tears, I told him with my eyes just how much he wasn't welcome here. Except for meeting up with him at Sydney's break- out several hours ago, I hadn't been in active contact with Stalingaard for two days. His presence now, after all that had happened…. The sight of him made me sick. I had to literally push down the queasy feeling in my stomach.
Anger, hot and healing, filled me. He could go jump off a ****ing bridge and drown. In fact, I ****ing hoped he would. It would save me the trouble of pushing him off.
He cleared his throat. For a moment, we stared at each other in silence. His steely blue eyes were just as cold and unforgiving as I remembered them to be. A butterfly bandage the same color as his flesh taped the skin of his cheekbone together. My ring must have cut him when I hit him.
He broke the silence between us. I couldn't push the words out of my mouth. I hated him too much to speak.
"Jesus, Mike. You look terrible," he said.
I cocked my head to one side. His voice was friendly, and his smile easy-- as if he was more to me than just my boss, as if he were my friend. The bastard. "You will address me as Agent Vaughn, sir," I spit out.
Something, some emotion, flickered across his face--anger? pity? I don't know. I couldn't read it; it went by too fast for me to catch.
"You want to fill me in on why you did what you did, Agent Vaughn?" Stalingaard said, still friendly, but his thin lips forced into their smile. It wasn't easy anymore.
"I already faxed you my report. But I assume you know what happened. Since you were there." As an afterthought, I added, "Sir."
"Oh?" he said. "Really. You faxed it to me, did you? Hmm."
Stalingaard shoved his hands into the pockets of his gray trousers and took a few steps toward me. Stiff backed, elbows bent a little too sharply, tie knotted a little too well. Even as he tried to look "casual Friday" in a plain gray suit and tie, you could tell by his posture that he was anything but. You could tell he had power.
His power made me hate him more. Or, actually, his abuse of said power.
The memory of Sydney, dying, slipped in front of my eyes, overriding reality. For a moment I saw nothing else. Sydney's eyes staring straight ahead, unseeing. Her face milky white where not swollen from the beating she'd taken, her lips slightly parted. She takes a small breath. She doesn't take another.
Suddenly I could speak. And I couldn't control a single thing I said. I listened to myself as I spoke, not hardly able to believe it was me talking. "You may have power within the agency, Stalingaard, and you may have Devlin's faith, but you aren't all-seeing. You aren't all-knowing. Nobody is. I don't blame you for not postulating this as one of the outcomes of Sydney's mission assignment. Hell, I don't even blame you for changing Sydney's mission assignment without my knowledge. But the fact that a decision you made very nearly (and purposely) got Sydney killed…that I can never ****ing forgive."
I pushed out of my chair, pointing at him. "And yeah, I sent you your damn report. I sent it right after I punched you on my way out of that warehouse. You know, I should have said something to you the minute I found you'd gone to Sydney without my consent--but I'm telling you now. You're an idiot for doing what you did--for damn near getting Sydney into something you knew she could never get out of on her own."
"Calm down, Agent," Stalingaard said. The smile slipped off of his face entirely.
I walked around Sydney's bed until I was nose-to-nose with Stalingaard. "I will not calm down! You tricked me into believing that K-Directorate had Sydney. You tricked me into exposing myself and my team to possible detection by both SD-6 and K-Directorate. And why? Why, damn it? Because you wanted to get me and Sydney out of the way at the same time. And what better way to kill two birds--than with one stone? You know that if something happened to Sydney, I'd do anything to make it right.
"Only, there's one little problem. There's so much surveillance on this girl that it puts to shame the surveillance on Cuba during Bay of Pigs--You have to make her kidnapping look real. You have to make it feel real. You can't use smoke and mirrors here to get us out of the way. To solve this little 'kink' in your plans, you hire actual K-Directorate agents to do your dirty work. Then--then, to top it all off--you send in Weathers and Mitkiovsky to take out Wallace.
"All so that you can one-up SD-6."
Stalingaard rose to my anger with equal fervor. "Bristow never had a chance of putting Wallace to sleep, even if we had ordered that as her mission! Weathers and Mitkiovsky did stand a chance. I did what I had to do, Agent. Wallace is an international assassin who had the drop on Bristow's situation with us and with SD-6. Intel showed a 93% probability that Bristow had been compromised to Wallace. He would have killed her, then you, and then your team, had I not done what I did. And don't you forget, Agent Vaughn, that SD-6 wanted Wallace alive. For many reasons we needed him dead. Now, Agent, stand down."
I didn't move. We were nose-to-nose, and Jesus, how I would love to take a swing--
"Stand. Down. That is an order, Agent," he said.
I hissed, "Never."
A rustling sounded from Sydney's bed as she came awake and fumbled to lower the oxygen mask.
"V-Vaughn?" said Sydney, her voice weak. "What…happened? How long…?"
I backed away from Stalingaard, holding eye contact with him until I reached Sydney's side. I grasped Sydney's hand in mine, careful not to jostle the IV at her elbow, and felt the tears well up again at the sight of her, finally awake.
God, was I an emotional basket case.
"Syd--Sydney?" I asked. My own voice trembled more than hers. "How do you feel?"
She had to talk around a cut lip and a swollen tongue, but eventually she managed, "Like I've just been…forced to…watch Teletubbies, for 24 hours straight…."
I laughed at the absurdity of it all, I laughed and I couldn't stop, and soon I was standing there, head bent to her palm, crying and laughing hysterically.
"'M okay, Vaughn. Fine," she tried to reassure me.
After a few moments I was able to pull myself under control. I dried my cheeks with the sleeve of my USC sweatshirt. "It's good to see you made it, Syd," I whispered.
"As much as I would love to stay and continue our discussion, Agent Vaughn," Stalingaard interrupted noisily, "I'm needed at the consulate. You can see Bristow on her way, but then you're out of here. You're suspended from duty pending a Level 1A-priority investigation of your conduct here." He rubbed the bandage on his cheek. "You can leave your gun and ID with the guard at the door. Agent Bristow, get well soon."
I glared at him as he backed out of the room, unconsciously tightening my grip on Sydney's hand. She gasped.
"Oh, sorry," I said. I dropped her hand gently onto the bed.
Her eyelids drifted shut. She forced them back open. "'S'okay," she breathed.
"You get some rest, huh?" I said. I really wanted her to stay awake, but she didn't look up to much talking. Debriefing could wait.
"What 'bout--what 'bout Dixon? He okay?"
"He's fine," I quickly reassured. I pushed a strand of her hair back behind her ear. "He thinks you're on overnight interrogating Wallace and on comm blackout. You have a couple more hours before you gotta be back. Sleep."
She nodded, and then winced at the pain that tiny movement caused. Slowly, her eyes closed. I pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. I had never been so glad of anything in my life than I was that Sydney was all right.
An hour and a half later, Sydney was awake again. Her left eye was completely bloodshot and the whole left side of her face a dark blue-purple bruise. The bruise had grown uglier over the past 90 minutes. At least her jaw wasn't broken.
In the beginning, Sydney's mission had been to capture the assassin known as Wallace, obtain information on his next hit, and turn him over to the CIA. The CIA was to give Sydney a Wallace look-alike, an agent named Markos Lambert, to hand over to SD-6. Markos would infiltrate SD-6 and--as per Stalingaard's (half-assed) plan--take out Sloane.
I thought it was too much, too soon. I said to revise the plan. At first, Devlin and Sydney both agreed with me. Somehow, Stalingaard convinced them otherwise. So she went to London without me knowing she was following Stalingaard's brief and not mine--and so, when I found out, I followed and attached my team to her and her new mission.
I couldn't let her go with only Stalingaard as back-up.
The doctor on CIA payroll (a balding man named Carl Jenks who was a good friend of Weiss's) checked Sydney over the second time she woke up. She met with minimal standards, so Jenks cleared her to go back out into the field. Jenks gave her a shot of morphine. He had her wait ten minutes before pulling out her IV, just to make sure the morphine kicked in.
After he left, I retrieved a bag of clothes Agent Dorina had prepared for Sydney and plopped it onto the bed next to her. Supposedly, they matched the ones she'd left the Regency Hotel wearing. "Ready to get going?" I asked.
She nodded. "Morphine is my friend," Sydney said with a wry smile as she pushed herself to her feet. She looked at me over her shoulder. "Could you?"
It was my turn to nod. I unknotted the hospital gown for her. As I was undoing the knot at her hip, my fingers brushed against a scar just below her bandages and just above the line of her underwear. I traced the small circular scar tissue. She shivered. "Bullet wound?" I asked.
She shook her head and I finished untying the straps. I turned my back to give her privacy while she changed. "I'd rather not talk about it, actually. I never thought I'd say that to you, but…" She trailed off.
"I understand. Sometimes, talking about it hurts."
As she climbed out of the gown, she asked, "What day's it? Thursday yet? And where exactly are we?"
"Early Thursday morning. We're at a safe house not far from Brixton."
"The prison, the township, what?" she said around the rustle of clothing and the occasional grunt of pain.
"The prison. We couldn't risk transport all the way out of London. We weren't sure if your body could take the stress of moving, and…."
"And?" she said.
"And…I did something I wasn't supposed to do." I looked down at my tennis shoes. My eyes were still itchy from crying for so long.
"What? What did you do, Vaughn?"
Her voice was so tiny, so desperate, that I couldn't stop myself. I turned to her. She'd finished changing into a pair of strappy black sandals, hose, a black skirt with flare hem, and a tight black chenille tank top. Over the tank top, she wore a clingy black sweater to hide the bruises at the cleft of her elbow as a result of the IV. Under the top, large white bandages wrapped around her midsection, holding together broken ribs. Even with all of her scrapes and bruises, she looked beautiful.
"Rescued you," I whispered.
She blinked several times at my declaration. Her eyes softened. "Thank you."
Sydney stood there, trembling from the effort it had taken to get dressed. She opened her mouth to say something else and stopped, seeming to want to choose her words carefully. She settled with: "I did something I shouldn't have, too."
A sinking feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. I felt like I had when Stalingaard walked into her room, only this time there was no anger to save me. "What?" I echoed her. "What did you do, Sydney?"
She diverted her gaze as tears burned a trail down her cheek.
"Didn't trust you," she said.
I shook my head. The sinking feeling left. "Don't worry about it."
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay," I said.
"No, it's not. It will never be okay." Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. She sniffled, and then wiped the tears away. "I-I don't know why I've been acting the way I have lately. Ever since Hong Kong, I've…I don't know."
Hong Kong was two months ago, about when Stalingaard first transferred to our division. I hadn't seen her as much as I would have liked since Hong Kong, but when we did meet, she seemed almost distracted. I'd always credited it to stress. Hell, she's got enough weight on her shoulders to crush an elephant.
"It is okay," I reiterated. My eyes wandered to her neck. A small, thin red line marked her where they'd tried to strangle her. It was hardly noticeable. She'd put some cover-up on it before she left and no one would know she'd almost died.
"Do you want a warmer sweater or something? Or…maybe some water?" I said. "Your throat must still be sore after what they did with that piano wire."
"Don't change the subject, Vaughn. I didn't trust you and it almost got both you and me killed. I only remember bits and pieces of what happened during my," she swallowed hard, and her eyes clouded, "torture. But I know that I was captured because I went with Stalingaard's mission plan over yours. I didn't trust you. I w--"
A flurry of footsteps and raised voices in the hall outside interrupted her. As they, whoever they were, came closer, I could make out one voice above the others:
"I want to see my daughter, and now! I don't care what protocal I have to breach. Where is she? What have you done with her?"
Jack barged into Sydney's room. He saw me first, then Sydney, then the oxygen mask and IV bag sitting on the bed next to Sydney's hospital gown. "You," he growled at me. "Out."
I ignored Jack to meet Sydney's eyes one last time. "I gotta leave, Sydney," I said. "I've been suspended. I'll see you when I see you." Only, I probably won't see you ever again.
I nodded to Jack. He stared at me with cold eyes. Like always, to him, this was my fault. I've yet to do anything Jack Bristow approves of. Even this--me possibly exposing myself and Sydney in order to rescue her--he had to hate. There was no way he could approve of it. He knew, like I did, that somehow Sydney would have found a way out on her own. There was just something innately wrong with me playing the chivalrous knight and Sydney the damsel in distress. Because she wasn't. And I wasn't.
But Jack, see, Jack thought he knew what type of person I was, thought that he understood my intentions. For the most part, he did. For the most part.
I made my way out of the room. I handed my gun and ID over to the guard at Sydney's door. She called after me, but I kept on going.
Walking away from her was the hardest thing I'd ever done.
I can't be your handler anymore, I thought as I exited the building. Stalingaard screwed with us this time, and it won't happen again, I can promise you that. He manipulated you-me--us--once. Not again. My leaving the agency is the only way to insure that. And I can't detach…. I can't be detached and think logically when you're in danger. There's only one way for me to do what I have to. I can't be bound by company rules for this one.
You're my friend, Sydney. Handlers and operatives aren't supposed to be friends. There are reasons why. It's so that one doesn't get hurt when the other one goes away.
AKA, dies.
After I left the safe house, I went directly and discretely to the hotel room me and Weiss and Georges shared. Neither of them had returned from reconnaissance on Dixon. I shucked my clothes and took a shower, careful of my bruised face and the cut above my eye; redressed in a charcoal gray suit, dark blue tie, black socks and black Oxfords; tucked a passport with my picture and the name Eugene Harris into the inner pocket of my jacket; and ran a comb through my still wet hair. I packed my belongings quickly. Then I caught a taxi to the airport. I didn't allow myself to think--just do. Shower, dress, pack. Leave. No room for thought.
When I arrived at the terminal it was raining. Hard. A thick fog had rolled in. My flight was delayed half an hour, then an hour, and then two hours. I sank down into a faux-leather chair to wait it out. And just sitting there, with nothing to do to keep my hands busy, I had time to think again.
I couldn't get her face out of my head. Whiter than the snow, except where they had hit her. A red line across her throat. One breath and then none.
"Flight 51 to New York is now boarding at terminal 3. Flight 51 is now boarding."
It was either fight or flight--and since I didn't know who exactly I was fighting anymore… It was time to fly. I'd contact some people back home, make some calls. Get some intel. Make sure that Stalingaard was as far up as all of this dirty business went. After that, I'd make my move.
I didn't expect her to show up.
Suddenly, there Sydney stood, inches from me. I couldn't swallow.
She bent down to adjust her hose, pretending not to know me. She was brusque, business-like. Professional.
"Everything's going smoothly," she whispered. "Dad left. I gave Dixon the disk the agency fixed up for me on Wallace's next hit. Dixon doesn't suspect anything out of the ordinary. In fact, he's waiting for me at the gate so we can catch a flight home. I told him I had to use the ladies' room."
She straightened. I pushed myself out of my chair. The inches between us turned into centimeters, turned into millimeters, until we were so physically close that I could feel her breath on my neck. It would be a long time before we saw each other again. I was going to miss her.
"I'll don't accept that, Vaughn," she said, and I realized that I'd spoken aloud. "Don't let the darkness get to you. Remember…you've got my number."
Hesitantly, I touched her unbruised cheek. Soft and warm, like I knew it would be. My thumb wandered down to her bottom lip. The corner was crusted with blood. She winced at my touch. So slow that it hurt, I leaned down and kissed that cut corner of her mouth. Her blood was bitter on my lips, but I wanted to remember. I needed to remember this: I needed to remember her pain so that I could do what I needed to.
"I'll remember," I said in a whisper.
I never thought that by walking away, I was doing exactly what Stalingaard planned.
to be continued… :)
By Dulce
Warnings: Slight AU. Takes place in a land where Sydney and Vaughn's relationship has progressed to that of good friends (with a 'maybe more' attached). Also, there is some swearing that I've blotted…not because I'm afraid to go to an R rating, but because I always like to guess when the cursing's blotted & it's obvious what should be there. I thought I'd pass on some of my fun to you guys. :)
Summary: "So slow that it hurt, I leaned down and kissed that cut corner of her mouth. Her blood was bitter on my lips, but I wanted to remember. I needed to remember this: I needed to remember her pain so that I could do what I needed to."
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Prologue
Sloane dialed a familiar number. On the third ring, his long-time friend-- who currently worked at the CIA as a statistical analyst, special assistant to Devlin--picked up.
"Stalingaard here."
"Yes, Joe, it's Sloane."
The other man chuckled. "Good to hear from you. I suppose you've secured this line?"
"Of course," Sloane answered. "Now give me the name of my mole."
Stalingaard drew in a long breath. "I've calculated a 99.96% probability that you'll encounter rain when you travel to Boston next week. I know, I know, it's usually snow this time of year, but I have a gut feeling that I'm right about this. Still, you should check out Bistro Somme on the corner of Fifth and Palouse. It's a good thing you secured this line, 'cause I think that Margie has your phones tapped. And if she did, you could be sure that this anniversary party of yours would be public knowledge. She'd spill the beans about it to all of her little girlfriends."
"The mole is in the room with you. Last name starts with a B, first name with an S, and this operative is female. And I'm going to be shocked to learn who it is. All right. Thank you, Joe. I appreciate your hard work. The money's been wired. If you're interested in following this up, I have another half million I'm willing to spend--"
"Of course. That's a great idea. I'd love to go golfing with you this weekend before you leave for Boston," said Stalingaard.
"Terrific," said Sloane, "we'll hammer out the details over a game at Concully's. Are you free this afternoon?"
"Yes, you too. All right. See you then, buddy."
Stalingaard hung up. He turned his chair away from his view of Los Angeles' towering glass skyscrapers in order to face the young woman waiting patiently for him in a chair on the other side of his desk.
She wore a charcoal pant-suit with a white blouse underneath the jacket. Her brown hair was neatly parted to the left. Her skin was the light tan color of sapwood; she'd just returned from a trip to Puerto Rico. Her eyes reflected a wariness of someone twice her age, a maturity, an eerily haunted look of self-possession. In his eyes and in the eyes of many other men, he was certain, she was beautiful--if not a little young to be looking so old.
"Ahem." Stalingaard adjusted his tie and said, "I'm sorry about that, Agent Bristow. An old friend of mine is celebrating his thirtieth wedding anniversary in two weeks and he needed a little guidance. Back to your…'situation'--"
"I don't have a situation, Mr. Stalingaard. I'm going to Devlin with this information. Don't worry, I'll be sure to mention just how helpful you've been."
Stalingaard smiled a sympathetic smile. His teeth were perfectly straight, perfectly white, but slightly pointed. Like a shark's, Sydney thought. "No, I don't believe that's a very good idea, Agent Bristow."
"You can't stop me." She rose to leave. "And if you were to try, there will be others to expose you."
"Oh, you don't think I can stop you? Well, I think I can. And you know what they say--if you think you can…"
Two Months Later
I hadn't eaten or slept at all in the past 48 hours; my head hurt from the beating I'd taken from Stalingaard's cronies when I went to break Sydney out, not to mention that it was allergy season; and not more than twelve hours ago, I'd thought that one of my best friends--one of my only friends-- was dead. Nope. Today hadn't been one of my better days.
I sat by her makeshift hospital bed at the London safe house and cried like a baby. No--that's not right. Not noisy, not sobbing. I had to be quiet because she was sleeping. But still…crying.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't quit. One second I'd be close to stopping and the next I'd remember what she must have gone through, and the tears would start falling even harder. If I were a smoker trying to quit, I'd say that it was hard, like that.
But if I were a smoker, I'd probably throw away my pack of cigarettes faster than I'd quit crying for her. Yeah, I know. I can still hear Davie Willis calling, "Mama's Boy, Mikey, you're nothing but a Mama's Boy!" I am. I freely admit it.
What happened was my fault. If only I had known what Stalingaard had planned, or if I'd just spoken to Devlin of my suspicions regarding Stalingaard in the first place--maybe then, none of this would have happened.
There were no monitors to show her heartbeat. Off to the left of Sydney's bed, a metal IV rack elevated a bag of fluid. When I brought her in, she hadn't been breathing. She'd stabalized within an hour of arrival, and had gone from having a tracheal tube to wearing an oxygen mask. She recooperated quickly.
The door to the room swung open. The doc left five minutes ago, and said he'd be back in an hour to check up on Sydney. "No visitors," I said, expecting it to be Weiss.
When the door clicked softly shut, I glanced up, and damn it. Stalingaard. I blinked. Through a haze of tears, I told him with my eyes just how much he wasn't welcome here. Except for meeting up with him at Sydney's break- out several hours ago, I hadn't been in active contact with Stalingaard for two days. His presence now, after all that had happened…. The sight of him made me sick. I had to literally push down the queasy feeling in my stomach.
Anger, hot and healing, filled me. He could go jump off a ****ing bridge and drown. In fact, I ****ing hoped he would. It would save me the trouble of pushing him off.
He cleared his throat. For a moment, we stared at each other in silence. His steely blue eyes were just as cold and unforgiving as I remembered them to be. A butterfly bandage the same color as his flesh taped the skin of his cheekbone together. My ring must have cut him when I hit him.
He broke the silence between us. I couldn't push the words out of my mouth. I hated him too much to speak.
"Jesus, Mike. You look terrible," he said.
I cocked my head to one side. His voice was friendly, and his smile easy-- as if he was more to me than just my boss, as if he were my friend. The bastard. "You will address me as Agent Vaughn, sir," I spit out.
Something, some emotion, flickered across his face--anger? pity? I don't know. I couldn't read it; it went by too fast for me to catch.
"You want to fill me in on why you did what you did, Agent Vaughn?" Stalingaard said, still friendly, but his thin lips forced into their smile. It wasn't easy anymore.
"I already faxed you my report. But I assume you know what happened. Since you were there." As an afterthought, I added, "Sir."
"Oh?" he said. "Really. You faxed it to me, did you? Hmm."
Stalingaard shoved his hands into the pockets of his gray trousers and took a few steps toward me. Stiff backed, elbows bent a little too sharply, tie knotted a little too well. Even as he tried to look "casual Friday" in a plain gray suit and tie, you could tell by his posture that he was anything but. You could tell he had power.
His power made me hate him more. Or, actually, his abuse of said power.
The memory of Sydney, dying, slipped in front of my eyes, overriding reality. For a moment I saw nothing else. Sydney's eyes staring straight ahead, unseeing. Her face milky white where not swollen from the beating she'd taken, her lips slightly parted. She takes a small breath. She doesn't take another.
Suddenly I could speak. And I couldn't control a single thing I said. I listened to myself as I spoke, not hardly able to believe it was me talking. "You may have power within the agency, Stalingaard, and you may have Devlin's faith, but you aren't all-seeing. You aren't all-knowing. Nobody is. I don't blame you for not postulating this as one of the outcomes of Sydney's mission assignment. Hell, I don't even blame you for changing Sydney's mission assignment without my knowledge. But the fact that a decision you made very nearly (and purposely) got Sydney killed…that I can never ****ing forgive."
I pushed out of my chair, pointing at him. "And yeah, I sent you your damn report. I sent it right after I punched you on my way out of that warehouse. You know, I should have said something to you the minute I found you'd gone to Sydney without my consent--but I'm telling you now. You're an idiot for doing what you did--for damn near getting Sydney into something you knew she could never get out of on her own."
"Calm down, Agent," Stalingaard said. The smile slipped off of his face entirely.
I walked around Sydney's bed until I was nose-to-nose with Stalingaard. "I will not calm down! You tricked me into believing that K-Directorate had Sydney. You tricked me into exposing myself and my team to possible detection by both SD-6 and K-Directorate. And why? Why, damn it? Because you wanted to get me and Sydney out of the way at the same time. And what better way to kill two birds--than with one stone? You know that if something happened to Sydney, I'd do anything to make it right.
"Only, there's one little problem. There's so much surveillance on this girl that it puts to shame the surveillance on Cuba during Bay of Pigs--You have to make her kidnapping look real. You have to make it feel real. You can't use smoke and mirrors here to get us out of the way. To solve this little 'kink' in your plans, you hire actual K-Directorate agents to do your dirty work. Then--then, to top it all off--you send in Weathers and Mitkiovsky to take out Wallace.
"All so that you can one-up SD-6."
Stalingaard rose to my anger with equal fervor. "Bristow never had a chance of putting Wallace to sleep, even if we had ordered that as her mission! Weathers and Mitkiovsky did stand a chance. I did what I had to do, Agent. Wallace is an international assassin who had the drop on Bristow's situation with us and with SD-6. Intel showed a 93% probability that Bristow had been compromised to Wallace. He would have killed her, then you, and then your team, had I not done what I did. And don't you forget, Agent Vaughn, that SD-6 wanted Wallace alive. For many reasons we needed him dead. Now, Agent, stand down."
I didn't move. We were nose-to-nose, and Jesus, how I would love to take a swing--
"Stand. Down. That is an order, Agent," he said.
I hissed, "Never."
A rustling sounded from Sydney's bed as she came awake and fumbled to lower the oxygen mask.
"V-Vaughn?" said Sydney, her voice weak. "What…happened? How long…?"
I backed away from Stalingaard, holding eye contact with him until I reached Sydney's side. I grasped Sydney's hand in mine, careful not to jostle the IV at her elbow, and felt the tears well up again at the sight of her, finally awake.
God, was I an emotional basket case.
"Syd--Sydney?" I asked. My own voice trembled more than hers. "How do you feel?"
She had to talk around a cut lip and a swollen tongue, but eventually she managed, "Like I've just been…forced to…watch Teletubbies, for 24 hours straight…."
I laughed at the absurdity of it all, I laughed and I couldn't stop, and soon I was standing there, head bent to her palm, crying and laughing hysterically.
"'M okay, Vaughn. Fine," she tried to reassure me.
After a few moments I was able to pull myself under control. I dried my cheeks with the sleeve of my USC sweatshirt. "It's good to see you made it, Syd," I whispered.
"As much as I would love to stay and continue our discussion, Agent Vaughn," Stalingaard interrupted noisily, "I'm needed at the consulate. You can see Bristow on her way, but then you're out of here. You're suspended from duty pending a Level 1A-priority investigation of your conduct here." He rubbed the bandage on his cheek. "You can leave your gun and ID with the guard at the door. Agent Bristow, get well soon."
I glared at him as he backed out of the room, unconsciously tightening my grip on Sydney's hand. She gasped.
"Oh, sorry," I said. I dropped her hand gently onto the bed.
Her eyelids drifted shut. She forced them back open. "'S'okay," she breathed.
"You get some rest, huh?" I said. I really wanted her to stay awake, but she didn't look up to much talking. Debriefing could wait.
"What 'bout--what 'bout Dixon? He okay?"
"He's fine," I quickly reassured. I pushed a strand of her hair back behind her ear. "He thinks you're on overnight interrogating Wallace and on comm blackout. You have a couple more hours before you gotta be back. Sleep."
She nodded, and then winced at the pain that tiny movement caused. Slowly, her eyes closed. I pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. I had never been so glad of anything in my life than I was that Sydney was all right.
An hour and a half later, Sydney was awake again. Her left eye was completely bloodshot and the whole left side of her face a dark blue-purple bruise. The bruise had grown uglier over the past 90 minutes. At least her jaw wasn't broken.
In the beginning, Sydney's mission had been to capture the assassin known as Wallace, obtain information on his next hit, and turn him over to the CIA. The CIA was to give Sydney a Wallace look-alike, an agent named Markos Lambert, to hand over to SD-6. Markos would infiltrate SD-6 and--as per Stalingaard's (half-assed) plan--take out Sloane.
I thought it was too much, too soon. I said to revise the plan. At first, Devlin and Sydney both agreed with me. Somehow, Stalingaard convinced them otherwise. So she went to London without me knowing she was following Stalingaard's brief and not mine--and so, when I found out, I followed and attached my team to her and her new mission.
I couldn't let her go with only Stalingaard as back-up.
The doctor on CIA payroll (a balding man named Carl Jenks who was a good friend of Weiss's) checked Sydney over the second time she woke up. She met with minimal standards, so Jenks cleared her to go back out into the field. Jenks gave her a shot of morphine. He had her wait ten minutes before pulling out her IV, just to make sure the morphine kicked in.
After he left, I retrieved a bag of clothes Agent Dorina had prepared for Sydney and plopped it onto the bed next to her. Supposedly, they matched the ones she'd left the Regency Hotel wearing. "Ready to get going?" I asked.
She nodded. "Morphine is my friend," Sydney said with a wry smile as she pushed herself to her feet. She looked at me over her shoulder. "Could you?"
It was my turn to nod. I unknotted the hospital gown for her. As I was undoing the knot at her hip, my fingers brushed against a scar just below her bandages and just above the line of her underwear. I traced the small circular scar tissue. She shivered. "Bullet wound?" I asked.
She shook her head and I finished untying the straps. I turned my back to give her privacy while she changed. "I'd rather not talk about it, actually. I never thought I'd say that to you, but…" She trailed off.
"I understand. Sometimes, talking about it hurts."
As she climbed out of the gown, she asked, "What day's it? Thursday yet? And where exactly are we?"
"Early Thursday morning. We're at a safe house not far from Brixton."
"The prison, the township, what?" she said around the rustle of clothing and the occasional grunt of pain.
"The prison. We couldn't risk transport all the way out of London. We weren't sure if your body could take the stress of moving, and…."
"And?" she said.
"And…I did something I wasn't supposed to do." I looked down at my tennis shoes. My eyes were still itchy from crying for so long.
"What? What did you do, Vaughn?"
Her voice was so tiny, so desperate, that I couldn't stop myself. I turned to her. She'd finished changing into a pair of strappy black sandals, hose, a black skirt with flare hem, and a tight black chenille tank top. Over the tank top, she wore a clingy black sweater to hide the bruises at the cleft of her elbow as a result of the IV. Under the top, large white bandages wrapped around her midsection, holding together broken ribs. Even with all of her scrapes and bruises, she looked beautiful.
"Rescued you," I whispered.
She blinked several times at my declaration. Her eyes softened. "Thank you."
Sydney stood there, trembling from the effort it had taken to get dressed. She opened her mouth to say something else and stopped, seeming to want to choose her words carefully. She settled with: "I did something I shouldn't have, too."
A sinking feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. I felt like I had when Stalingaard walked into her room, only this time there was no anger to save me. "What?" I echoed her. "What did you do, Sydney?"
She diverted her gaze as tears burned a trail down her cheek.
"Didn't trust you," she said.
I shook my head. The sinking feeling left. "Don't worry about it."
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay," I said.
"No, it's not. It will never be okay." Her forehead wrinkled in confusion. She sniffled, and then wiped the tears away. "I-I don't know why I've been acting the way I have lately. Ever since Hong Kong, I've…I don't know."
Hong Kong was two months ago, about when Stalingaard first transferred to our division. I hadn't seen her as much as I would have liked since Hong Kong, but when we did meet, she seemed almost distracted. I'd always credited it to stress. Hell, she's got enough weight on her shoulders to crush an elephant.
"It is okay," I reiterated. My eyes wandered to her neck. A small, thin red line marked her where they'd tried to strangle her. It was hardly noticeable. She'd put some cover-up on it before she left and no one would know she'd almost died.
"Do you want a warmer sweater or something? Or…maybe some water?" I said. "Your throat must still be sore after what they did with that piano wire."
"Don't change the subject, Vaughn. I didn't trust you and it almost got both you and me killed. I only remember bits and pieces of what happened during my," she swallowed hard, and her eyes clouded, "torture. But I know that I was captured because I went with Stalingaard's mission plan over yours. I didn't trust you. I w--"
A flurry of footsteps and raised voices in the hall outside interrupted her. As they, whoever they were, came closer, I could make out one voice above the others:
"I want to see my daughter, and now! I don't care what protocal I have to breach. Where is she? What have you done with her?"
Jack barged into Sydney's room. He saw me first, then Sydney, then the oxygen mask and IV bag sitting on the bed next to Sydney's hospital gown. "You," he growled at me. "Out."
I ignored Jack to meet Sydney's eyes one last time. "I gotta leave, Sydney," I said. "I've been suspended. I'll see you when I see you." Only, I probably won't see you ever again.
I nodded to Jack. He stared at me with cold eyes. Like always, to him, this was my fault. I've yet to do anything Jack Bristow approves of. Even this--me possibly exposing myself and Sydney in order to rescue her--he had to hate. There was no way he could approve of it. He knew, like I did, that somehow Sydney would have found a way out on her own. There was just something innately wrong with me playing the chivalrous knight and Sydney the damsel in distress. Because she wasn't. And I wasn't.
But Jack, see, Jack thought he knew what type of person I was, thought that he understood my intentions. For the most part, he did. For the most part.
I made my way out of the room. I handed my gun and ID over to the guard at Sydney's door. She called after me, but I kept on going.
Walking away from her was the hardest thing I'd ever done.
I can't be your handler anymore, I thought as I exited the building. Stalingaard screwed with us this time, and it won't happen again, I can promise you that. He manipulated you-me--us--once. Not again. My leaving the agency is the only way to insure that. And I can't detach…. I can't be detached and think logically when you're in danger. There's only one way for me to do what I have to. I can't be bound by company rules for this one.
You're my friend, Sydney. Handlers and operatives aren't supposed to be friends. There are reasons why. It's so that one doesn't get hurt when the other one goes away.
AKA, dies.
After I left the safe house, I went directly and discretely to the hotel room me and Weiss and Georges shared. Neither of them had returned from reconnaissance on Dixon. I shucked my clothes and took a shower, careful of my bruised face and the cut above my eye; redressed in a charcoal gray suit, dark blue tie, black socks and black Oxfords; tucked a passport with my picture and the name Eugene Harris into the inner pocket of my jacket; and ran a comb through my still wet hair. I packed my belongings quickly. Then I caught a taxi to the airport. I didn't allow myself to think--just do. Shower, dress, pack. Leave. No room for thought.
When I arrived at the terminal it was raining. Hard. A thick fog had rolled in. My flight was delayed half an hour, then an hour, and then two hours. I sank down into a faux-leather chair to wait it out. And just sitting there, with nothing to do to keep my hands busy, I had time to think again.
I couldn't get her face out of my head. Whiter than the snow, except where they had hit her. A red line across her throat. One breath and then none.
"Flight 51 to New York is now boarding at terminal 3. Flight 51 is now boarding."
It was either fight or flight--and since I didn't know who exactly I was fighting anymore… It was time to fly. I'd contact some people back home, make some calls. Get some intel. Make sure that Stalingaard was as far up as all of this dirty business went. After that, I'd make my move.
I didn't expect her to show up.
Suddenly, there Sydney stood, inches from me. I couldn't swallow.
She bent down to adjust her hose, pretending not to know me. She was brusque, business-like. Professional.
"Everything's going smoothly," she whispered. "Dad left. I gave Dixon the disk the agency fixed up for me on Wallace's next hit. Dixon doesn't suspect anything out of the ordinary. In fact, he's waiting for me at the gate so we can catch a flight home. I told him I had to use the ladies' room."
She straightened. I pushed myself out of my chair. The inches between us turned into centimeters, turned into millimeters, until we were so physically close that I could feel her breath on my neck. It would be a long time before we saw each other again. I was going to miss her.
"I'll don't accept that, Vaughn," she said, and I realized that I'd spoken aloud. "Don't let the darkness get to you. Remember…you've got my number."
Hesitantly, I touched her unbruised cheek. Soft and warm, like I knew it would be. My thumb wandered down to her bottom lip. The corner was crusted with blood. She winced at my touch. So slow that it hurt, I leaned down and kissed that cut corner of her mouth. Her blood was bitter on my lips, but I wanted to remember. I needed to remember this: I needed to remember her pain so that I could do what I needed to.
"I'll remember," I said in a whisper.
I never thought that by walking away, I was doing exactly what Stalingaard planned.
to be continued… :)