Stranger

Author: Pharo

Disclaimer: 'Alias' belongs to J.J. Abrams, Bad Robot, Touchstone, and ABC.

Summary: When truths are lies, how do we know who we are?

Spoilers: "Almost Thirty Years".

Feedback: pharo@newyork.com

'months went by with us pretending when it all had turned from green to red, I took a chance and left you standing, lost the will to do this once again…' -Default, 'Wasting My Time'

You almost tell Francie for the tenth time since you've found out. If you were to talk just a little faster it might slip out of you. It's nothing she says that induces this type of stupidity from you, but it is more of a need on your part to have a little room to open up. The lies constrict your chest and lungs. You now know how it feels to be a drowning man. To know that air is out there, but not be able to reach it.

You need a dose of truth. It's not like you're constantly lied to either. Francie tells you the truth. She confesses that she purposely rents Notting Hill, knowing that you'll hate every moment of it. She tells you that she'll let you rent a movie next week in the hopes that you won't seek vengeance for her pick. You smile and think of how simple Francie's lies are. It would be so easy to get wrapped up in her life, but you never chose that path.

"Sometimes I wish I didn't know so much," it slips out of you.

In between laughs, she manages to say, "you're no Einstein, Will." You laugh with her, not because the context is funny, but because it feels nice to be around someone who leads an unsuspecting life. The fact that you know that your secret is still safe for the time being provides more comfort than you can imagine.

Finally, after the laughter ends and she's taken enough deep breaths to gain composure, you start talking again.

"I mean, do you sometimes think it'd be better off if you didn't know about Charlie?"

The gleam fades from her face and you think that maybe you should've refrained from the attempt to make your lives analogous.

"No, I don't."

Her eyes speak otherwise. They tell a tale of sadness and expose nights when she can't sleep because there are too many tears to overcome.

"What's this about Will?" she asks, looking at you like she looks at Sydney when she comes back from her umpteenth trip in a month.

"I, uh, I think I might get back together with Jenny," you say, your mind whizzing with excuses and somehow choosing that one.

"Oh."

"What? Don't you like her? Because I won't if you don't—"

You want her to tell you that she doesn't like Jenny. You want her unawareness to make the lies insignificant.

"Will, it's not that. I just…I don't think it could work out between you two," she says in a low whisper, avoiding your eyes.

Funny, you don't think so either.

"Why?" you still ask.

"You aren't right for each other," she says. "She's not Sydney."

"What does Sydney have to do with anything?"

But you already know the answer to that. Sydney has to do with everything. She's the secretive looks and the scramble for the phone when you go to answer it—the constant missions and persistent lies that now fill your brain.

You stop listening to Francie as she goes off on another one of her speeches. You roll your eyes and say, "you're crazy", at the appropriate moments (the way certain words roll off her tongue clue you into which portion of the conversation she's up to).

You've avoided Sydney for days now. You're scared because you don't see her anymore. You look at her and you don't even know who you're looking at. Every time she comes back from one of her "trips" (you wonder doesn't crack under the stress and mess up destinations), you make up something you have to do and manage to leave.

Your mind paces night and day trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle that has missing pieces. You have a million and one questions spinning around in your head and no answers for any of them. All of them lead up to that one question that seems to echo off the walls of your brain: who is Sydney Bristow?

***

"I need answers Jack," you ask after you leave her house one night.

"I told you never to contact me," he says in his cold manner of speaking.

You wonder if they were all as unattached as he is. Is it some sort of qualification that they have to meet in order to be spy material? You wonder if she is like that too.

"I need to know."

He lets out a sigh of exhaustion, of years of hearing the words that you have just said and not being able to answer them.

"There are rules, Mr. Tippin. Three seconds out of the elevator onto a floor lively with men and women in dark-colored suits and manila folders off to the sides of the computers and you too would know that there are rules. The air is heavy with rules: silent ones that they we know exist, but aren't detectable to our ears; loud ones that scream in our minds but can't be heard by people like you."

"I can't live like this, man," you reply futilely.

"You have no choice, Mr. Tippin. This is not negotiable," he declares with an air of finality that tells you that the conversation is over.

He leaves you alone in the dismal warehouse with an overhead light that suddenly seems to be too bright to belong in the same vicinity as the musty, brown crates and steel-gray chain-link fences. You think now that it must be in some universal contract to make warehouses as morose as possible. You realize that you think a lot in terms of incumbency rather than free will. You want to believe that Sydney was forced into her life, that she didn't have a choice in the matter, and that she's always been against these decisions of whether to lie or not. You know in the back of your mind that you're just searching a way out for Sydney so that she can be the best friend she's always been in your eyes.

You fatuously look up into the light (as if searching for answers) and for a moment after you think that maybe you've just become blind. It's a slight second really, but you can already feel the tears begin to form from the exposure. Quickly you look back down at the floor and struggle to blink away the white and yellow dots that flicker in your range of vision. Slowly, they go away like dying stars fading into the black shadows once more.

You are a dying star being tugged one way, but pulling in refusal at the other direction. You feel that at any given moment, you are susceptible of being torn.

***

Lately, you think about joining a secretive branch of the government also. Months after the ordeal and you still get paranoid when people look at you differently. You quickly feel your face for the bruises that have long since healed and the cuts that have closed up completely.

"What's wrong? Is it—I cut myself shaving today," you quickly reply in attempts to cover up what has long been concealed.

"Funny, I didn't notice," Litvack or some other unsuspecting co-worker replies at these moments with the look of not really caring that you lack the skill to shave properly. "Now where's the article, Will?"

That's another thing you hear to often as of late. You lack the passion to do your work in a way that would inspire someone. These days, you merely settle for someone wanting to read it after seeing that you've written it. You know that. You don't need Litvack or Abby or hell, even the kid from the mail office who does maintenance on weekends to tell you that. Your work has been slipping and you can't find it in yourself to care.

"Your work is starting to suck, man," the buck-toothed teenager tells you one day. "Like this recent stuff is terrible."

"The day you get a degree in journalism, man, you can tell me how to do my job. Until then, just stick to giving me my mail," you burst out angrily.

You hear him mumble "just a suggestion" as he walks on to a different cubicle. People at work sneak quick glances at you for the next hour until you decide to take the rest of the day off.

"Abby, I'm going home," you declare, gathering your stuff.

"Will, please—" she begins to entreat.

"I'll e-mail the article in," you say, not waiting for her answer.

You think that with all the lies Abby is forced to tell Litvack when explaining your absences, she must be getting as good as Sydney.

You find a note on your table when you get home. Choppy letters written with what seems like a blunt pencil that undeservedly marked crème-colored stationary with roses on the four corners.

at the track.

-s.

You fold the paper in half so that you no longer have to look at the handwriting. You want to crumble it up and call her to ask who the hell she thinks she is; who she thinks you are. Instead, you put it in a drawer and grab your keys.

***

"Sydney," you acknowledge her presence and wonder if you'll ever be able to call her 'Syd' again.

"Will, thanks for coming."

You think next she'll offer you a non-existent seat to talk about job opportunities or something equally interview-like.

"I haven't seen you in awhile."

"Been busy," you say, your voice terse like her notes.

"I've been worried."

"About?"

"You, Will. You," she says in what sounds like desperation to you.

"I haven't told anyone if that's what you mean," you say flatly.

"No, Will. That's not…that's not it," she says sadly. "I miss you."

You laugh bitterly as you think of the fountain of lies being let loose on you once again. She doesn't miss you. She misses what you stand for. She misses old Will who was too naïve to know better than to believe his friends. She misses unsuspecting Will who can provide a normal relationship.

"I nearly died because of you. Died, Syd, died," you repeat again. That's all you can do really.

"I'm sorry they—"

"You, Syd. You," you say quietly.

"I tried to get there, to stop them, Will. Really, I did."

She might as well have killed you.

"God, Syd. You didn't even call. Didn't visit or send a card or, God, even leave a damn message on my voicemail. A two second message that said, 'hope you feel better' or 'I'm sorry for not being there' or hell, even 'Will, are you still alive?'."

Your breaths are heavy now and the air seems a little cooler. You shut your eyes and know that her mind is thinking of excuses, churning them out at accelerating speeds and apply them to possible responses. She's doing her spy thing again, be it intentionally or not.

You know that she'll probably spin the Danny story again.

"Danny. Is. Dead," you say before she can. "How long before the same happens to me? Or to Francie?"

"Don't do this, Will. Please," her voice is smaller now.

You wonder if they'll kill you like that killed that CIA guy, Vaughn: from afar. Or are they going to '86 you personally like they did to Danny. You wonder if at the end of it, Sydney will mourn for you. I4f she'll actually quit "the bank" and get a normal, boring job like the rest of the population.

You can just hear the inane reasons they'd give for your early demise.

"Oh foolish Will. He didn't know how to swim…" "Will didn't see the car. It was so dark." "The injuries were too great for him to sustain."

All of them will end with "we're going to miss him a lot." Just like Sydney is missing you right now.

"I don't want to die," you say simply.

In the end, that is what it boils down to. You are one of the many pawns in the game of lies and truth, life and death, standing helplessly, knowing that the sacrifice will come eventually and you will be fade away into nothingness.

"Please don't say that. I won't let anything happen. I promise."

Another promise to you that she can't keep. Just like the time you had tickets to that baseball game or the time she planned your surprise birthday party and cancelled last minute. Wasted promises spent on ears that now search for truth hidden in the lies.

"You throw around words like that, but you don't even know what they are anymore. Promise, truth, friendship. It's lost to you. And I know you want me to tell you that our friendship is fine and that nothing's changed, but I wasn't trained in 'covert language' and I don't wear a gun to work. I don't know you. I can't tell you what you to hear because things between us are not fine."

"What can I do?" she asks.

You realize that you don't see the same person when you look at her or even when you look at yourself. You can stare into the mirror and familiarize yourself with your features as many times as you want, but the end results are the same: a stranger staring back at you, not knowing when he got lost or how to get back.

"I—I can't do this anymore."

She nods even though you know she doesn't understand.

"You're not coming over again?"

"Not for awhile."

"What do I tell Francie?"

"Lie."

***

"She took her car and drove off into the sunset. She said that she wasn't going to stop until she found what she was looking for," Francie says as you sip your orange juice and look out the big café windows.

"Did she tell you if she was going to come back?" you ask, knowing the answer to be 'no'.

She never told anyone when she'd be back or even if she'd be back. That was their way. They kept ambiguous so as to allow the least amount of suspicion if anything were to ever go wrong.

"Think she'll be ok?" Francie asks.

"Yeah. She's always ok."

"I worry."

"She went alone?" you ask. Another stupid silly question.

"Always."

"Don't worry."

"That's exactly what she said."

You smile reassuringly.

"I have to go. It was nice seeing you again, Will."

"Like old times," you comment, realizing it's been two years since you've been to her house.

As she gets up, she takes out a small crème-colored envelope and hands it to you. Familiar choppy letters stare back at you.

"I don't know what it is, but she really wanted me to give it to you."

You wait for Francie to leave and the waitress to fill up your cup before you open the envelope. Sure enough, there's a small piece of paper, folded in half with roses on the edges.

lies are my truths. friendships have long been lost over the years. love doesn't have place to exist in my world. we fight to preserve every single one of these things without ever knowing what they are. all we know is the world and who we are, but sometimes, even then, these lines get blurred.

so who am I? just someone who's looking to touch the horizon.