EVENT HORIZON
By: lucy2point0, email: wendy@devil.com
Rating: G-PG for this chapter
Spoilers: Almost Thirty Years
Disclaimer: This fantastic Alias world is SO not mine, but it does belong to JJ Abrams, ABC, yadda yadda.
Notes: This is my first Alias fanfic. I just had to get it out and commit myself to this story so I don't abandon it with the other many illegible, half-hearted attempts during season one. :D
Told from a Vaughn-centric POV.
Feedback: Sure…
Event horizon - the surface of a black hole : the boundary of a black hole at which the escape velocity equals the speed of light and beyond which nothing can escape from within it
He watches with utter disbelief and panic at the scene unfolding before him.
The roar of the water, nipping at her heels, just about drowns out her screams at him to move. Lightening fast, she closes the distance between them. She tries to grab his hand without stopping but ends up only pushing at him to move as she turns the corner.
It is enough though. The push snaps him out of it and he turns and runs after her.
He is following her blindly now, focused on her flyaway blue hair. They are sprinting down the hallway. He hears her call out to him breathlessly.
"Vaughn…you still…with…me?"
"Yeah," he bursts out. He is breathing hard, trying to keep up with her and not daring to look behind him.
"Almost…there," she continues, more faintly.
His leg muscles are starting to twitch and burn from fatigue. He had never been a good sprinter in high school or during agent training, he realizes belatedly and somewhat grimly, but maybe it was because he never had a good enough incentive to push himself beyond the limits…until now.
He watches her eat up the distance between herself and the closing door in what seems to be a final finishing kick in her sprint and attempts to do the same. A split second later he sees her fly past the narrowing gap left by the closing door.
"Vaughn!" he hears her scream.
She is genuinely scared for him and it is enough for him to summon the last spurt of energy to make it the last few feet to the door. But as he nears the door and watches her scrabble for some kind of purchase to keep it open, he realizes that he is not going make it and he lets up slightly as he gets to the door.
The door closes shut with a solid clang. He hits the door and pounds at it once, knowing that is not going to be enough to get it open.
He moves over to the window of the door, praying she has kept running and has turned the last corner to get out of the building.
But to his dismay she is still there. He watches a myriad of emotions cross her face, from shock, to disbelief, to fear and sorrow. It's the look of sorrow that troubles him the most.
He looks at her intently, shaking his head almost imperceptibly, hoping she understands that he made his choice to come and help and this was a consequence of his choice.
The roar of the water is almost deafening now. He turns briefly and sees the water advancing and knows in another few seconds he will likely be crushed from being sandwiched between the unyielding door and the force of the water.
He takes a deep breath and braces himself as the water slams him brutally against the door. The force just about squeezes out all the air he has been holding in, leaving just enough for a little while.
He pushes downward through the murky, churning darkness to the eerie rectangle of light glowing through the window and finds himself watching Sydney frantically attempting to break down the door with a fire extinguisher.
He shakes his head and waves his hands in front of her to tell her there is no use and to get out. This time he is the one telling her to go, pushing at the door to tell her there is no use trying.
Blackness is starting to creep into the edges of his vision. He knows he is almost out of air but he tries in vain to get her to warn her of the guard coming up behind her.
But this time it is not enough. He is thrown hard against the door by another surge of water, and slammed into black unconsciousness.
------------------------
He is slowly suffocating in the darkness. The pressure inside his chest is hurting to the point of pain. He chokes and tries to cry out but he can't. All he can hear is the sound of gurgling, and he realizes after several seconds that he is the one doing it. His whole body seizes and clenches as he struggles to breathe.
With a sudden rush warm water gushes out from his throat and he coughs and his eyes fly open. Another gush of water escapes his mouth and he gasps for air.
He can barely see anything in the darkness. But what he can see is that he is lying sideways on the floor, in a factory or warehouse of some kind.
"Vaughn." He is rolled onto his back now. "Vaughn, can you hear me?" It's Jack.
He tells Jack he can barely see him. Jack shakes his head and asks where Sydney is. In between fits of coughing and gasping for air he tells Jack what he can remember leading up to the last memory he had of Sydney about to be ambushed from behind by a guard. In the dim light he sees Jack calculate what might have possibly happened, and if it was even more possible, his face becomes grimmer.
He asks Jack how he found him. As Jack helps him sit up, he tells him.
"I merely retraced the steps you and Sydney took to get into the lab. I went through the nightclub and the passageway you and Sydney pried open to get here. I came over to the entry point where Sydney entered to get to the lab and saw water. You should thank your coat maker because you were hanging by the entry point by a beltloop on a wire hook. Otherwise, judging from the water, you'd have likely ended up halfway to the East China Sea by now."
Not knowing what to make of that statement, he asks Jack where Sydney might be and if she made it to the extraction point. Jack shakes his head.
"She never made it. It's likely she was captured by Khasinau's guards, from your description." A short, tense pause. "She never should have stayed to save you."
He looks at Jack for a moment, feeling a flash of anger. He tells Jack that he made sure that she got out and that he told her to go. Jack turns away, thinking for a few more moments, playing out possible scenarios.
"Get up." Jack half-helps, half-hauls him up. He almost falls down again because his legs are so fatigued from sprinting so hard in his effort to make it to the door. With slow, deliberate pacing, Jack helps him out of the factory and out a back way to an alleyway, with a mini-van awaiting.
Jack opens the driver's side door of the mini-van open.
"Get in." He grits his teeth as he lifts each leg to get into the driver's seat. Once inside and seated, Jack hands him several maps and a comm unit.
"I'm going to go get Sydney. I want you to stay right here. Study the street map. I may need you to pick us up from an extraction point if I can't get back here. You're on comm now."
And with that Jack slams the door shut and disappears silently into the dark alleyway.
And after a moment of silence, a voice from the back of the mini-van startles him.
"Who are you?"
By: lucy2point0, email: wendy@devil.com
Rating: G-PG for this chapter
Spoilers: Almost Thirty Years
Disclaimer: This fantastic Alias world is SO not mine, but it does belong to JJ Abrams, ABC, yadda yadda.
Notes: This is my first Alias fanfic. I just had to get it out and commit myself to this story so I don't abandon it with the other many illegible, half-hearted attempts during season one. :D
Told from a Vaughn-centric POV.
Feedback: Sure…
Event horizon - the surface of a black hole : the boundary of a black hole at which the escape velocity equals the speed of light and beyond which nothing can escape from within it
He watches with utter disbelief and panic at the scene unfolding before him.
The roar of the water, nipping at her heels, just about drowns out her screams at him to move. Lightening fast, she closes the distance between them. She tries to grab his hand without stopping but ends up only pushing at him to move as she turns the corner.
It is enough though. The push snaps him out of it and he turns and runs after her.
He is following her blindly now, focused on her flyaway blue hair. They are sprinting down the hallway. He hears her call out to him breathlessly.
"Vaughn…you still…with…me?"
"Yeah," he bursts out. He is breathing hard, trying to keep up with her and not daring to look behind him.
"Almost…there," she continues, more faintly.
His leg muscles are starting to twitch and burn from fatigue. He had never been a good sprinter in high school or during agent training, he realizes belatedly and somewhat grimly, but maybe it was because he never had a good enough incentive to push himself beyond the limits…until now.
He watches her eat up the distance between herself and the closing door in what seems to be a final finishing kick in her sprint and attempts to do the same. A split second later he sees her fly past the narrowing gap left by the closing door.
"Vaughn!" he hears her scream.
She is genuinely scared for him and it is enough for him to summon the last spurt of energy to make it the last few feet to the door. But as he nears the door and watches her scrabble for some kind of purchase to keep it open, he realizes that he is not going make it and he lets up slightly as he gets to the door.
The door closes shut with a solid clang. He hits the door and pounds at it once, knowing that is not going to be enough to get it open.
He moves over to the window of the door, praying she has kept running and has turned the last corner to get out of the building.
But to his dismay she is still there. He watches a myriad of emotions cross her face, from shock, to disbelief, to fear and sorrow. It's the look of sorrow that troubles him the most.
He looks at her intently, shaking his head almost imperceptibly, hoping she understands that he made his choice to come and help and this was a consequence of his choice.
The roar of the water is almost deafening now. He turns briefly and sees the water advancing and knows in another few seconds he will likely be crushed from being sandwiched between the unyielding door and the force of the water.
He takes a deep breath and braces himself as the water slams him brutally against the door. The force just about squeezes out all the air he has been holding in, leaving just enough for a little while.
He pushes downward through the murky, churning darkness to the eerie rectangle of light glowing through the window and finds himself watching Sydney frantically attempting to break down the door with a fire extinguisher.
He shakes his head and waves his hands in front of her to tell her there is no use and to get out. This time he is the one telling her to go, pushing at the door to tell her there is no use trying.
Blackness is starting to creep into the edges of his vision. He knows he is almost out of air but he tries in vain to get her to warn her of the guard coming up behind her.
But this time it is not enough. He is thrown hard against the door by another surge of water, and slammed into black unconsciousness.
------------------------
He is slowly suffocating in the darkness. The pressure inside his chest is hurting to the point of pain. He chokes and tries to cry out but he can't. All he can hear is the sound of gurgling, and he realizes after several seconds that he is the one doing it. His whole body seizes and clenches as he struggles to breathe.
With a sudden rush warm water gushes out from his throat and he coughs and his eyes fly open. Another gush of water escapes his mouth and he gasps for air.
He can barely see anything in the darkness. But what he can see is that he is lying sideways on the floor, in a factory or warehouse of some kind.
"Vaughn." He is rolled onto his back now. "Vaughn, can you hear me?" It's Jack.
He tells Jack he can barely see him. Jack shakes his head and asks where Sydney is. In between fits of coughing and gasping for air he tells Jack what he can remember leading up to the last memory he had of Sydney about to be ambushed from behind by a guard. In the dim light he sees Jack calculate what might have possibly happened, and if it was even more possible, his face becomes grimmer.
He asks Jack how he found him. As Jack helps him sit up, he tells him.
"I merely retraced the steps you and Sydney took to get into the lab. I went through the nightclub and the passageway you and Sydney pried open to get here. I came over to the entry point where Sydney entered to get to the lab and saw water. You should thank your coat maker because you were hanging by the entry point by a beltloop on a wire hook. Otherwise, judging from the water, you'd have likely ended up halfway to the East China Sea by now."
Not knowing what to make of that statement, he asks Jack where Sydney might be and if she made it to the extraction point. Jack shakes his head.
"She never made it. It's likely she was captured by Khasinau's guards, from your description." A short, tense pause. "She never should have stayed to save you."
He looks at Jack for a moment, feeling a flash of anger. He tells Jack that he made sure that she got out and that he told her to go. Jack turns away, thinking for a few more moments, playing out possible scenarios.
"Get up." Jack half-helps, half-hauls him up. He almost falls down again because his legs are so fatigued from sprinting so hard in his effort to make it to the door. With slow, deliberate pacing, Jack helps him out of the factory and out a back way to an alleyway, with a mini-van awaiting.
Jack opens the driver's side door of the mini-van open.
"Get in." He grits his teeth as he lifts each leg to get into the driver's seat. Once inside and seated, Jack hands him several maps and a comm unit.
"I'm going to go get Sydney. I want you to stay right here. Study the street map. I may need you to pick us up from an extraction point if I can't get back here. You're on comm now."
And with that Jack slams the door shut and disappears silently into the dark alleyway.
And after a moment of silence, a voice from the back of the mini-van startles him.
"Who are you?"