Summary: Bowling and all you can eat hot dogs after ten. Weiss and Nadia get talking over a game of ten pin. Set during Welcome to Liberty Village (4.5).
A/N: I do not own Alias.
Give It Time
Nadia let out a quiet 'Yes!' and gave a small pump of her fist as she watched all the skittles tumble down. She turned to Weiss, giving him a small curtsey, her expression clearly asking 'Well, what do you think?'
Weiss gave a grin as he picked up his own ball. "I have to admit, you're better than I expected."
Nadia smiled as she sat down. "It must be the all you can eat hotdogs fuelling me."
"Must be," he replied before turning around and lining up his shot. When only three of the pins fell, he let out a loud cough. "Uh, that was just a warn up shot."
Nadia did not reply, and instead just observed him as he went about his second shot. Weiss wasn't like the typical guys that she went for, but there was just something that drew her towards him. He was so funny and friendly and when she was around him she felt so safe and so comfortable. Then there was the fact that she had only ever heard Sydney sing his praises- never a bad word about him. If her sister was able to put so much faith in this man, then maybe she should as well.
"All right!"
Nadia let out a small laugh. Weiss's second bowl had toppled over the rest of the pins- he had managed the spare. And to celebrate that, he was almost dancing as he headed back over to the seats.
"Did you see that?" he asked. "Oh yeah, oh yeah. Who is the man?"
Nadia just shook her head, her laughs growing louder.
"And what," Weiss asked placing his hands on his hips, "is so funny, Miss Santos?"
"You," she replied bluntly. "You are jumping around like a little boy."
"A little boy?"
"Yes, a little boy."
"May I remind you that I am anything but a little boy. I am Eric Weiss, secret agent man, always willing to save the world, always able to stop the bad guy…most of the time, and a man who always lives life on the edge."
Nadia raised an eyebrow. "On the edge, hey?"
"Always," Weiss replied in a mock-serious tone.
"Well, I suppose that you have the war wounds to prove that," Nadia said lightly, pointing to the faint scar on his neck.
"Oh yeah," Weiss sobered a little as his hand automatically went to the slightly puckered skin on his neck. He wished that Nadia hadn't brought it up. He could just imagine discussing how he had received the injury. The epitome of awkward.
Nadia registered the change in his demeanour, could see the discomfort in his eyes. She may as well ease him. "Eric."
"Yeah."
"I know how it happened."
Weiss's eyebrows piqued in surprise. "You do?"
She nodded. "Sydney told me. We were discussing our mother and it came up."
"Oh," Weiss paused. "Well, this isn't as awkward as I had been imagining."
Nadia gave him a small smile. "To be honest, I was a little surprises when you were willing to associate with me, when you expressed an interest in friendship."
Weiss sat down, his face pensive. "That thought never crossed my mind. To me, you weren't Irina Derevko's daughter, you were Syd's little sister, and that automatically placed you pretty high in my books." He leaned back in his seat. "We are not our parents. I mean, look at Syd and Vaughn…you do know about what happened to his father?"
"Yeah, and again I found that so hard to fathom. To form a relationship with the daughter…"
"It may seem that way, but the truth of the matter is they were long gone before they discovered the truth about Derevko."
Nadia's expression piqued with interest. "You've known them a long time, right?"
"Vaughn since college and Sydney since the day she walked in to the CIA. Why?"
"I was just wondering about the two of them. I only really know the basics. Sydney and I have been filling each other in on so many things, it's a little hard to go into details."
"Well, what do you want to know?"
Nadia shrugged. "Anything. What were they like before? I mean, Vaughn is obviously a large part of who Sydney is. How did it happen?"
"I don't know it happened, exactly," Weiss replied. "I was never there for their meetings back in the handler asset days. But it wasn't long before it became apparent to myself, and others, that Vaughn was perhaps investing a little too much in Sydney."
"How so?" Nadia asked, almost eagerly.
"He may not have voiced it, but I knew that she was occupying his mind all the time. His concern for her safety continued to grow until the point that it could have jeopardized what we were trying to do in SD-6."
"What happened when they found out about our mother?"
"Not what I expected…if anything, it brought them closer together. They were both victims of the same woman. They grew closer and closer, all the while neither of them would admit was happening. They couldn't. They knew how dangerous it was…but I suppose you can't help your emotions."
"You didn't like what was going on, did you?" Nadia asked, surprising Weiss at how astute her perceptiveness was.
"No, I didn't," Weiss replied truthfully. "But every time I tried to talk to Vaughn, he would shut me down. And I just couldn't get past the thought that what was going on between them was wrong. He was way too emotionally involved, in my opinion."
A faint smile crossed Nadia's face, as she registered the protective tone of Weiss's voice. "Well," she started, "Things obviously changed. What altered your opinion?"
"I got shot," Weiss replied, looking her in the eyes. "Being close to death forces you to re-evaluate things, to look at you life, and other's lives, differently. So when I finally got out of the hospital and saw they were still obviously pining away for each other, I was the one who encouraged Vaughn to take that first step."
"So, should we add matchmaker to that list you rattled off before?" Nadia asked, her tone light and joking.
"Nah," Weiss waved his hand. "I wasn't doing any matchmaking. They were already matched and made."
"Were they happy?"
Weiss nodded. "Unbelievably so. If there is anything to be sure about in this world, it's that Sydney Bristow and Michael Vaughn are meant for each other." He let out a soft laugh. "But, surely you know that. You're seen the two of them together."
Nadia leaned back in her seat. "Yeah…but…"
"What?"
"I don't know. I can see that they really care about each other, but the picture you just created is one of a couple madly in love and when I look at the two of them, I just don't see it."
"It's there, Nadia. Just give it time."
"Really?"
"Yeah," Weiss paused. "Look, Syd and Vaughn's relationship- whatever status is might be in, has always been so intense. When they were first thrown into each other's lives, it wasn't long before it was filled with all that tension and forbidden fruit. And then suddenly, they were in this full on relationship. Incredible, but full on. And after those two years, they were back to all that tension. The wanting to be together, but not allowed to be. The two of them never really had the chance to sit back and let things evolve. To let them build up to a good thing slowly. And I think that is what they are doing now."
Nadia tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Do you think they will ever go back to the way they were?"
"No," Weiss replied. "After what they have been through, they can never go back to who they were. But that doesn't mean that they can't have as strong a relationship as the people they are today. As I said before, they're made for each other."
Nadia stood up. "I hope so. They deserve to be happy."
Weiss nodded. "Yeah, they do."
"And they're probably going about it the right way," Nadia said, as she picked up a bowling ball. "Going slow and all of that."
Weiss suspected that she was not only speaking about Sydney and Vaughn. "Yeah, they are."
Nadia shot him a small smile and then walked up to the lane. Weiss watched, running a hand through his hair, as she took her time lining up her shot and then released the ball.
A strike.
Weiss hid a smile. That's all they were doing. Taking their time, lining up their next shot until the day they were ready for their own strike.
'Just give it time,' he thought. 'Give it time.'