Title: Death Comes Slowly
Author's Note: This is my first fic. I hope it's enjoyable andfeedback would be lovely becauseI really dont think I have any real writing talent...so you real writers out there, please pick it apart and help me out.
Disclaimer:I don't know if this is required but it seems to be on most stories. Obviously I do not own the characters, alias, etc. Nor do I own the AFI lyrics that I used at the beginningand end.
What a shame such a sad disgrace,
Such a pretty face,
But she's not regretful.
How had she gotten here? A million choices had led up to this, each one seeming right and necessary. A man approaches you. You take a job with the government. You're not really working for the government. Your dead mother is alive….and a terrorist. Surprise Sydney! Rambaldi says you are the chosen one. You become someone else. You become Sydney again, sort of. You have a sister! Your sister dies, another casualty of the prophet. Your father dies. Vaughn dies. You die in a nondescript warehouse in Moscow. I have been dying since that day…but death comes slowly.
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There was no calm. None of that calm-before-the-storm or moment of clarity or any other romanticized bullshit of that type. What there was was panic. The sheer panic of feeling her atrium and ventricles fluttering, trying to circulate blood that soon would not be there. She was sweating, tears in her eyes, shaking and trying to think of a way to fix this. KnifeBloodCantBreatheOhGodOhGod. There is nothing to do, but she tries to crawl away anyhow; a futile gesture but Sydney Bristow is no defeatist
She had not seen it. The knife. She had him on his knees, he had tossed his sidearm to the ground. His hands were above his head. It must have been up his sleeve. Up his sleeve? It was all playing in an enlightened loop in her head now, a bitter thought. But, hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
She is on the ground now. On her stomach, face pressing into the cold stone of the floor of this warehouse where she would soon be taking her last few breaths. Her heart seems to race, as if pumping harder could hold on to the last ounces of her life that were quickly draining onto the pavement. A warehouse, how fitting, how ironic…
A metallic scrape as he picked up the Glock. His clipped voice holds a little gloating as he says,
"Carelessness Miss Bristow."
A hint of sadness there, but he had finally won. All those years listening to his suggestive comments, his business offers, his barely disguised hints about her mother- all those years of her consistently bettering him and this is how is will end. She is sad as well, albeit not for the same reasons he is. How long till someone would find her body she wonders, and then hoping, morbidly, that it happens before she became too decayed. Oh how the mind wonders.
His expensive shoes barely make a sound as he takes two steps toward her. She smiles despite her situation because he is such a woman.
Carelessness was correct. How many times had she just barely sidestepped what should have certainly killed her? For a decade she had done this, and it is simple laziness that will kill her in the end, how quaint, how….cliché.
She should have checked him. She should have just shot him 300 meters ago while she followed him through this damnable industrial park. Instead though, he had chosen to seek refuge in the building. Stupid, she had thought, and applauded her luck for the eveningBut it had worked in his favor, obviously.
Out of breath, she had told him to get on his knees, toss his gun aside, he was under arrest. Always following the protocol Sydney. Should have just shot the bastard. Oh, how he must have been laughing inside, knowing what was about to ensue.
On the floor, she struggles to breathe without it becoming a sob. Something like half scream half sob comes out instead. Much better. She tries to push herself up but that quickly proves useless and frustrated she feels the tears come into her eyes. She can taste blood in her mouth too, sweet metallic death just waiting to drowned her. He is close to her now, kneeling as if he is still deciding what he will do next. And she can smell him, the sweet smell of clean sweat mixed in with the various other odors wafting from the warehouse that apparently houses kitchen equipment.
It is sickening, having him this close to her and nothing she could do. She wants to spit, something, just to show her resistance but she does not. Instead she grabs his arm as he pulls he to her knees- he apparently has decided that he will kill her. She tries vainly to hold his wrist, because it is the last thing she has to hold onto, but he shakes her off easily. Now kneeling she can see that her blood is all over the cement, with a large smudge where she had lain in it. It is like the last confirmation, seeing one's blood covering such a large square footage. All that life on the floor, not much left in me.
He chambers a bullet and she wonders of all the times when he could have killed her and did not, what has made this different, why is she dying today. She decides to ask.
"You have been a thorn in my employer's backside, Agent Bristow. I am an assassin…I do what I am paid to do."
He was hired to kill her. She was the mark. 'I do what I'm paid'….not what I am told, another time she might have laughed at this discrepancybut now she isn't sure if this is comforting to hear or not.
His eyes are cold as he moves around to face her. Cold and dead. There is no fire left in him, no soul, survival of the fittest has left him standing but inside he is almost as dead as she will be momentarily. Maybe no one can live the way we do without killing a part of themselves she muses. She pities him but then realizes that past the initial panic, she feels nothing either. And suddenly she feels a kinship with this beautiful blonde man whom she has always considered her equal. The man about to end her life. We have all been dying for a long time.
She smiles because her limbs are getting cold and she wishes he would just cowboy up and pull the trigger like a man. She thinks of telling him so but no since in wasting air.
"I feel I should say something profound, but…," he pauses, and takes a breath, "I wish it had not happened like this, Sydney. Cheers, love."
His lips quark in what might have become a half smile but she will never see it because then he pulls the trigger. The force of the bullet going through her takes her backwards. He stands there in the silence for a moment then bends down and shuts her eyes with his finger tips.
It's killing time again.
Put on your face and let's pretend,
These killing lights won't kill us all again