Walls
Author: Pharo
Disclaimer: 'Alias' belongs to J.J. Abrams, Bad Robot, Touchstone, and ABC.
Summary: Certain people are meant to take certain chances.
Spoilers: "The Prophecy".
Feedback: pharo@newyork.com
Author's Notes: My e-mail address has changed so please update and if you need to contact me, send it there.
'into this night I wander, it's morning that I dread, another day of knowing of the path I fear to tread…'
---Sarah McLachlan, 'Possession'She paces the length of the cell---it's more of a cage if you want my opinion---for the fifth time in the last minute. Back and forth, right to left, over and over again for the last ten minutes is enough to make anyone insane. At certain intervals, she stops the routine to look at me and I almost think that maybe she'll say something, but she just stares and then resumes pacing.
"It's ironic," she finally says.
"What is?" I ask, looking up at the unexpected sound of her voice.
"The CIA places documents that people risk their lives for in the hands of wack jobs."
I don't have to tell her that they can most likely hear our conversations. We know enough about surveillance to know that. There are probably some agents in their twenties sitting at the watch room. They're all drinking their cups of coffee and wondering how they got stuck doing observation when they'd pictured something so much greater like what Bond did. Maybe, if we're lucky enough, they're so preoccupied with thoughts of glory that they're not even paying attention.
"They prefer eccentric," I reply, much against my better judgement.
"If they had ever put their lives on the line," she responds as she sits down, "they'd have the right to be 'eccentric'."
A ghost clad in a long, white, tattered robe seems to pass across her eyes for a second, resulting in the anger that flashes over the dark brown pools for a moment. Is it Danny's life she's thinking of or her mother's? Or is it both of them?
"I really don't want to be here," she remarks and I have half the mind to tell her that it wasn't part of my evening plans either, but instead I nod.
"It's better than the truck," I say.
The truck was small and cold with drafts coming through small openings that wouldn't otherwise be noticed. The metallic benches were cold and uninviting. I would ride the whole ride standing if one of the agents hadn't motioned for me to sit down with his gun.
Two agents standing guard, the blonde nutcase who pretended to be Martha Stewart, and two other agents in the front made the twenty minute drive with us to the location of our current prison. They didn't call it imprisonment, though. They called it "confinement until Intel is verified".
"I have a paper due in three days."
"I'd write you up a note, but---"
"Sydney was unable to do her paper because she was in jail on charges of being prophesized to destroy the world," she says, pretending to read a letter. "If you'd be so kind as to accept her late paper, we would be willing to show our gratitude by clearing all your parking tickets. Yours truly, Agent Michael Vaughn of the CIA."
I shrug. It doesn't seem that far-fetched, considering that it's the truth.
I open my mouth to say something when the 'whoosh' of the electronic, silver doors sounds. It's the only other color in the room besides the stark white that seems to swallow us hole.
"Agent Bristow. Agent Vaughn," the head of the D.S.R. greets as she enters our cell. "I hope this isn't too much of an inconvenience for you both."
She reminds me so much of Haladki that I want to wipe that smirk off her face just as badly.
"It's 2:20 in the morning and we're seated in a padded room, waiting for you to realize that you're all morons. I didn't do anything wrong."
"Yet," the director adds, " and we'd like to keep it that way. Your patience will be rewarded, Agent Bristow."
She plasters a fake smile on her face. I wonder if Sydney is thinking about sitting on her hands so she won't lunge at her either.
"Do I get a cookie?" she asks mockingly. Her fists clench and unclench at her sides.
I snicker. If they thought this would be easy, they obviously don't know anything about her. She reminds me of a tiger about to pounce.
"You get the satisfaction of knowing you've served your country well," says the director in all seriousness.
Obviously this lady got skipped over when it came to people-person skills.
"Verification will commence tomorrow."
"As much as I'd love to, I've got this paper to do, so if you'd just let me go…"
I look at her face and no matter how nonchalant she wants to act about it, she looks scared out of her mind. Her eyes are wide with fear. She tries to steady her hands by placing her palm flat against her leg, but I can still see it shaking.
"Verification will commence tomorrow," the director says in her 'that's-the way-it-will-be' tone.
She looks around one more time and then leaves the way she entered.
"We'll get of here," I say once the woman is gone.
"We have to get out of here now."
"You know we can't. They've got people all around the perimeter, guarding the doors, not to mention the surveillance guys listening to us right now," I say, pointing up at a random corner of the room. "Everywhere."
"I can't stay in here."
She gets up and starts pacing again.
"Sydney---"
She's scaring me.
"I can't be in here. Not now," she repeats and then twirls around to face me. "Vaughn, please don't make me stay in here."
"Syd, calm down. Come on, just calm down. You've been in bigger jams than this before."
"What if I can't get out of this one?" she whispers, barely audible. "What if I am what they say I am?"
"You're not."
She runs her hands up and down her arms to get them warm. Funny, the room isn't even that cold.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"At least one of us is."
"You're not?" I ask.
She shakes her head, blinking furiously. Is she going to cry? If she cries, it's all over.
"What if I'm like my mother?"
"Stop, ok. Just stop for a second," I say, holding up my hand like a traffic conductor.
"What if I---I might kill you."
"You won't."
"Do you know that for sure?"
I pause.
"No one knows anything for sure," I state, leaning back against the padded wall to stare at yet another padded wall.
Wall after wall. Our lives are walls that people have to break through to see us for who we are. It's just a matter of how many walls people are willing to break through to see it. I wonder if anyone will break through these walls and see us. Jack? Devlin? Langley? Haladki? Anyone?
"They want you to doubt yourself. That's all they can even remotely hope for because, other than that, they've got nothing on you."
Whoever knew that nothing could be worth so much.
"You're wrong sometimes," she says simply.
She's right. It's my fault we're in this mess anyway. Another brilliant idea by Agent Vaughn to practically send out Agent Bristow's death certificate to the CIA…
"I'm not wrong about this."
I can't afford to be wrong about this. Wrong on this equals dead.
"Seven years ago, I wouldn't even think twice about something like this happening to me. Two years, I'd have no doubt that's what you're saying is all it is. At this very second, I have a hard time believing what you believe in me."
I sigh.
"Forget seven years ago. You'll never get it back. Long after all this 'spy crap' is over and you're a normal person again, it'll stick with you."
"It can't."
I laugh. Wouldn't if be ideal if it didn't?
"But it does. The seemingly distant memory of a time not so long ago when you were the one doing the impossible missions that, in the process, left non-healable scars in your soul. The realization that you've missed out on the key events in the lives of those that, at a time when you actually knew them, you held with the highest care. Once you're in, they take everything you have and the stuff that you do have left is just not what it could've been had things been different."
"So what are we supposed to do?"
"Forget the past," I reply.
It sounds much easier than it actually is.
"The future is too bleak to do that."
"Maybe you'll be one of the few that defy it. Maybe your life will be different."
I truly hope it is.
"No guarantees?" she asks with faint hope of the affirmative.
"No prophecies, if that's what you mean. That's why we take chances."
"It's a pretty big chance, don't you think?"
"Somebody has to do it."
I look at her and see a person taking the chance perfectly. A woman who doesn't realize all the good that she does everyday. Someone who doesn't see what I see.
"Will I be ok, Vaughn?" she asks.
"No," I say, shaking my head. "You'll always exceed that."
The world is better off because the person taking the chances is someone like Sydney Bristow.