Rating: PG
Spoilers: "The Confession", maybe "Q&A"
Summary: Sydney goes looking for her mother's yearbook . . .
A/N: I guess it's an AU . . . takes place in 1998, when Sydney is just about to graduate from UCLA's undergrad program.
Sydney was in the library when the thought struck her. Why not find Mom's yearbook and look her up? She'd never seen her mother's graduation photos and as she was nearing her own, she was really interested in taking a peek at her mother's. It was kind of curious that her mother, the woman who had a picture of every big occasion in her family's life wouldn't have her college senior portrait or yearbook.
Leaving her research on the Borgia family – it was for a paper she was writing in Renaissance Civ. – she made her way up to the circulation desk where a tall, blonde guy was reading a magazine.
"Excuse me," she said when he didn't look up at her approach.
He closed his magazine and raised his towhead. "Yes?" he asked in a tone that implied he didn't really care.
"Where do you keep the yearbooks?" she asked.
"This floor, Delorme Room, bookcase by the window," he answered, pointing the way.
"Thanks . . . Will," she said, reading his name off of his nametag. Will smiled briefly at her.
Sydney wandered down the hall in the direction Will had pointed out. The Delorme room was named for a graduate of the class of '47 who had given massive amounts of money to the school just for the purpose of having a room decorated in Louis XIV reproductions. Or at least that was her best explanation for it. She found the section where all the yearbooks were stored, starting with 1919, the year UCLA opened as the Southern branch of the University of California. Sitting on the floor in front of the bookshelves, Sydney followed the chronological procession, 1919, 1920, 1921 . . . The oldest volumes were large and dusty, the newer were shiny and clean.
When she reached the Seventies, she paused. She didn't know the exact year her mother had graduated from UCLA's education program, but she knew it was shortly before she was born. She pulled the blue book with "Bruins – 1973" stamped on it in gold. Joe Bruin, the school's mascot stared up at her from the cover. Sydney wiped the dust off, and the gold lettering shone.
Tucking her shoulder length hair behind her ear, she opened the massive edition and scanned the table of contents for the senior class section. Pages four to seven. She flipped to page four and began looking for the M's. Her mother's maiden name was Mitchell – Laura Irene Mitchell. A good American name, her mother had always said.
In vain Sydney scanned the M's page, looking for her mother's face. Why wasn't she there? Had she pulled the wrong year? Sydney closed the volume and placed it back in its proper spot. She paused to think. Her mother had supposedly graduated early, being fantastically smart. If her mother had been born in 1953 . . . Sydney did some quick calculations and pulled the '72 edition of The Bruin.
She found the M's and pored over it. No Laura Irene Mitchell. Maybe she'd already been married to Dad by the time she graduated, Syd thought. She flipped to the B's. There was a Laurie Briston, but no Laura Bristow. Syd pulled the '71 and '70 editions and checked both the B's and the M's in them. No Laura Bristow. Not even a gray square with the words 'Picture Not Available'. Sydney replaced the volumes on the self and sat back, puzzled. Why wasn't her mother in the yearbook? She had graduated . . .
Inspiration struck Sydney. She walked back to the circulation desk where Will was still reading his magazine, looking bored as all hell. He looked up this time when he heard her approach.
"Find what you were looking for?" he asked.
"No . . . I was wondering, is there any way to look up alumni? Maybe ones who graduated a semester early?"
"Yup," he replied, "the Graduate Directory . . . here, come're and I'll show you."
Sydney followed him over to the computer that was at the Information desk. "It's pretty new, since everything has been moved to computers and the Internet," Will explained. He typed 'graduate directory' into the search box and soon they were presented with a blue and white screen asking for an alumni name.
"Who are we looking for?" he asked.
"Laura Irene Mitchell," Sydney told him. "My mom."
"Okay," he said. "Laura . . . Irene . . . Mitchell," he murmured as he typed the words in, then hit enter. In a few seconds the search turned up no results.
"Try Laura Bristow," Sydney prompted, "She and my dad might have already been married."
Will replaced Mitchell with Bristow and hit enter again. Again there were no results. "Are you sure you have the right name?" he asked.
"Yes," Sydney insisted. "I know my mother went to school here in the early Seventies. I'm sure of it."
"Well, there's no record of her," Will replied. He shrugged offhandedly. "Sorry."
"It's okay," Sydney said. "I'll just ask my dad, I'm sure he knows." She shrugged and went back to her study of Pope Alexander VI. Will watched her walk away and the fledgling reporter in him was arguing not to give up the search. There had to be some record of Laura Bristow, and he was going to find it.
It would be years later that Sydney would learn the truth about her mother, that her degree from UCLA and her job as a teacher was all just a cover planted by the KGB.
A/N: Anybody catch the in-jokes?
1) Leaving her research on the Borgia family . . . Pope Alexander VI, Rambaldi's patron, was Rodrigo Borgia.
2) This floor, Delorme Room, bookcase by the window . . . Delorme is Vaughn's mother's maiden name.
3) "Thanks . . . Will," . . . Sydney and Will met about three years ago, which would be about the time she was graduating from college.
4) The Delorme room was named for a graduate of the class of '47 . . . Again, reference to Vaughn, his French ancestry, and a Page 47 reference.
5) Laura Irene Mitchell . . . Laura's real name (according to spoilers) was Irina Derevko.
6) her study of Pope Alexander VI . . . another Rambaldi reference.
7) the fledgling reporter in him . . . reference to Will's career.
8) It would be years later that Sydney would learn the truth about her mother . . . reference to "The Confession".