Thirty-Eight
Unforeseen
"As I told you over the phone, Sark escaped," Kendall began, but Sydney and Vaughn could hardly hear him because of the bustle of activity just outside the room.
Sydney looked out the open door to see dozens of people flying from group to group, all discussing what appeared to be reasons for Sark's escape. She jerked her thumb in the direction of the hoopla and started to ask exactly what was going on.
Kendall responded with a wry smirk. "All of those people out there are like having a thousand more Marshalls."
Everyone looked at Marshall Flinkman who ducked down in his chair and blushed fiercely as he muttered, "At least I'm not out there"
Kendall gave Marshall a reassuring pat on the shoulder and once again addressed the group, which, Sydney noticed, strangely didn't include her father. She chewed on her lip, recalling her most recent conversation with her mother.
"Have you talked to your father yet?" The question struck Sydney as odd, but she let it pass. "Not yet—why?" "No reason."
Sydney stiffened. Was there something her mother hadn't told her? As far as Sydney knew, the only people who would know that The Telling had been used were herself, her mother, and Sark.
Was there another page floating around of which she hadn't been aware? Did her mother and father and perhaps even Sark know about it and not tell her? Did her father simply confront her mother after The Telling was used to go back and tell her that he had remembered what happened and they had worked together to figure out why?
"Agent Bristow, are you listening?"
Kendall's voice snapped Sydney out of her thoughts and nearly made her leap out of her chair. She composed herself and avoided Vaughn's gaze which she could feel bearing down on her and looked in Kendall's direction. "Yes."
"Good," Kendall said, nodding approvingly, "then repeat exactly what I just said."
Sydney pursed her lips and squirmed in her seat. She hadn't heard a thing Kendall had said because she was too busy putting her own spin on Sark's escape. She looked briefly at the people in the room then put her hand to her forehead and whispered, "I wasn't listening."
Kendall scoffed. "Figured as much." He turned to Vaughn. "How about you fill Agent Bristow in, Agent Vaughn?"
Vaughn sat up straight in his chair and cleared his throat. He started to stammer an excuse so he wouldn't have to explain, but Kendall just shook his head at him. Vaughn licked his lips. "It's my understanding that there was a power outage of some sort, and all secondary generators were apparently affected as well, and in the time it took for the power to return, Sark evidently escaped." He tossed an awkward glance at Sydney who was completely red. He looked down, feeling color seep into his own cheeks as well.
"Thanks for the recap," Kendall said, sarcasm in place. He turned to Sydney again and started to ask her a question but Sydney got there first, firing at him a question of her own.
"Do we have any leads?"
"Your mother and Sloane are certainly possibilities," Kendall replied.
"Who else?"
Kendall shrugged. "We're working on it."
Sydney sighed a little and tapped her fingers on the table. "Where's my father?"
"I couldn't get ahold of him," Kendall admitted, "and he wasn't here during the outage."
"Great," Sydney sighed. "He could probably really help us."
"I agree," Kendall said quietly. "Hopefully he'll have a good excuse for not being here."
"Yeah," Sydney murmured, then said almost under her breath, "'hopefully.'"
---
After the briefing was over, Sydney and Vaughn talked with several of the techs in the rotunda, hoping to determine the cause of the power outage. Unfortunately, the techs were all stumped, but deduced that the incident was well-planned and certainly well-executed.
And, if Sydney didn't know better, she would have said that some of the techs seemed rather impressed.
---
Vaughn drove Sydney back to his apartment after the questioning had ended and Vaughn crashed on the couch while Sydney fished in his refrigerator looking for something to drink. She settled on a bottle of water and went into the living room to see Vaughn stretched out on the couch taking up all three cushions.
"You think you could spare half a cushion?" she asked, grinning.
Vaughn grinned back and one-upped her, pulling himself to a sitting position and inviting her to park between his legs. She thanked him and sat down, leaning back against him as he wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her shoulder. Sydney took a drink of her water and Vaughn gently took the bottle out of her hand once she had brought it away from her lips and took a drink himself. He handed it back to her.
After a bit, Vaughn asked, "Do you think Sloane or your mother might have been involved with Sark's escape?"
"I don't want to talk about that right now," Sydney whispered, settling further back into Vaughn's chest.
"Okay," Vaughn agreed, kissing the back of her neck. He reached his hands up and began massaging Sydney's shoulders.
Sydney sighed softly, then nearly jumped out of her skin when Vaughn's phone rang. Vaughn groaned good-naturedly, and Sydney moved to allow him to stand up. Vaughn walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone while Sydney sat back down on the couch.
"We'll be right there," Sydney heard Vaughn say, and she immediately sprang from her seat and went to find out what was going on. When she entered the kitchen, Vaughn was hanging up the phone and turned to look at her, his brow furrowed in consternation.
Sydney crossed her arms over her chest and asked, "Who was it?"
Vaughn answered quietly, "Kendall."
"What did he want?"
"They found your mother and Sark," Vaughn said, his tone still quiet and almost conspiratorial.
Sydney was unnerved by Vaughn's answers and the way he was behaving. She knew there had to be something more than the CIA finding her mother and Sark. She bit her lip and a shiver went through her as she asked, "Vaughn, what's going on?"
Vaughn sighed heavily and looked down at his shoes, but didn't answer.
"Vaughn," Sydney said again, and took a step towards him. She tilted her head slightly to look into his downcast eyes.
"The intel that was acquired," Vaughn began, "leads us to believe that your father is with them."
Sydney looked taken aback, and she felt tears prick her eyelids. So this was why Irina had asked Sydney if she had talked to Jack. Sydney felt sick and she staggered backward, putting one hand to her stomach and one to her mouth.
Her father was with her mother and Sark because he obviously knew the same things that Sydney, Sark, and Irina knew.
But how?
Sydney backed out of the kitchen and managed to feel her way over to an arm of the couch and awkwardly took a seat upon it. Vaughn followed her every step of the way and kneeled down in front of her, his hands on her knees as he looked up at her. Sydney gazed down and met Vaughn's eyes, which were dark with his apparent sadness, confusion, and a bit of anger that Sydney deemed was for her benefit.
Still though, his soft eyes were comforting and she laid her hands over his.
Vaughn chewed on his lower lip for a moment before stammering, "Kendall, uh, Kendall s-said that uh, h-he said it wasn't clear if—if your father had been captured or if he was working with your mother."
Sydney nodded slowly, but she already knew that there was no way her father had been taken as a hostage by her mother and Sark. Her father must have found out what was going on and either went to confront her mother and Sark—or help them.
Sydney frowned, deep in thought, and remembered the briefing with Kendall earlier in the day. She couldn't help but wonder if there really was another page that stated that her father would have the same privileges in relation to The Telling—or if there was something on the page she had brought back that she had somehow missed.
Or was that the point?
A light bulb went on in Sydney's head—Rambaldi's invisible ink. It was entirely possible that she, her mother, and Sark could have all missed that tiny detail and perhaps her father had gone to her mother and informed her of that fact after The Telling had been activated.
Sydney sighed deeply and looked down at Vaughn whose eyes were focused on the carpet. Sydney bent forward slightly and kissed his forehead, then rested her own forehead against his. Vaughn responded by taking both of her hands in his and squeezing gently as he murmured how sorry he was for everything that had befallen her in the last few days. Sydney reassured him with another forehead kiss, then stood up. She looked at Vaughn.
"I heard you tell Kendall that we were going to be coming in. I'm assuming he wants to brief us."
Vaughn nodded. "He also wants to send us on a mission—apparently they have coordinates of the location of your father." Sydney started to freak and demanded how that was possible, so Vaughn quickly offered an explanation. "Your father was carrying a CIA-issue phone and they tracked the GPS."
Sydney pursed her lips and nodded, pleased with the explanation. "Let's get going," she said quietly, and she and Vaughn left the apartment.
---
"Think you can drive any slower?" Sydney snapped at Vaughn as she alternately loaded and unloaded the pistol in her lap.
Vaughn gritted his teeth and said, "Look, the GPS hasn't changed and we're only a few miles out. We'll get there when we get there."
"Fine," Sydney muttered, unloading her gun again.
"Where is this coming from?" Vaughn burst out suddenly. "You weren't acting like this during the briefing."
Sydney looked over at him earnestly. He was right. She was being unfairly rude when she had acted quite normal during Kendall's brief and the subsequent mission briefing. In all honesty, she wasn't sure where her attitude had come from, either. She figured a lot of it had to do with not knowing about Sark's escape and now not knowing about her father possibly being aware of the events before The Telling had been used to go back.
She sighed and said, "I'm sorry. I'm just tired of being the last to know on everything lately." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Sydney started praying that Vaughn wouldn't take them to heart.
But he did.
"Syd, what are you talking about?" Sydney started to reply with the best lie she could come up with, but Vaughn beat her to the punch. "Do you mean the last couple times that Kendall's spoken to me on the phone first? That's not exactly my fault, Syd."
"I never said it was," Sydney shot back, heaving a sigh of relief that Vaughn had unknowingly bailed her out of what could have been an incredibly sticky situation.
"Syd," Vaughn began slowly after a few minutes of silence, "maybe we should take a break for a while." Sydney was too stunned to respond—Vaughn's suggestion had come out of nowhere—so Vaughn continued. "As I said earlier, I'm really sorry that so much has happened to you in the last few days and I'm sorry that everything is snowballing.
"I thought that after you were attacked, I could just hold you and comfort you and make everything better. But, with the way things have been going First, you push me away, then you let me in, and then you push me away again. I love you, Sydney, but I think we need some time apart to figure out where this relationship is going."
Sydney looked down at the loaded pistol in her hands and felt her stomach lurch. She hadn't expected Vaughn to drop this bomb on her. She hadn't expected him to be break up with her. But it had happened, and Sydney wasn't sure what to make of it.
On the one hand, she didn't have to worry about being the one to crush Vaughn's heart when the time came to face reality and end one relationship to ensure the survival of another.
On the other hand, however, Sydney had to face the realization that Vaughn was smarter and stronger than she had thought. He had been smart enough to see that she was simultaneously growing close and distant, and strong enough to put their relationship on hold until Sydney either got a grip or lost touch altogether.
Sydney nodded to herself and then said the only thing she could think of that was fitting—
"Thank you."
---
Vaughn stopped the car about one hundred yards from the GPS coordinates where Jack was reportedly located.
"Small house," Vaughn offered, peering out the windshield. It was pitch black and Vaughn marveled at how dark it had gotten from the time the briefing ended until now. He glanced at Sydney, saw her looking out the windshield as well while she absently ran her left index finger along the shiny pistol she held in her right hand. "Syd?" he asked quietly, hoping to spark a conversation of sorts.
The rest of the short drive had been filled with discomfort for the both of them. Sydney assumed that Vaughn was questioning the decision he had made and was probably hoping that Sydney would ask him to reconsider. She didn't, though, because even though she loved him and would always love him, she couldn't lead him on any longer.
Sighing, she finally looked over at Vaughn. "Ready?" she asked, unbuckling her seat belt and unlocking her door.
"Ready," Vaughn said with a nod and caught Sydney's arm just as she was about to climb out. He kissed her before she could say anything, then left the car without a word, the sound of the door slamming shut punctuating his silence.
Sydney was momentarily stunned but recovered quickly, exiting the car and shutting the door. She followed Vaughn to the back door of the safehouse after quickly scanning the perimeter for threats. She and Vaughn listened for movement inside the building but heard nothing, so Vaughn kicked in the door. He stepped inside first, and looked around the dark house for a light switch. It wasn't needed, however, because as soon as Vaughn found the switch, he was hit and sent sprawling on the floor.
Sydney let out a shrill gasp when she saw the dim outline of Vaughn crumple to the ground. She found the switch and was looking the shooter in the now well-lit room when her eyes fell upon a figure stepping out of the shadows of a nearby dark room.
Sydney gasped, her breath catching in her throat when she tried to speak. "Oh my God," she managed to choke out, "Sloane."
Sloane stepped almost into the middle of the room and looked at Sydney with his eyes shining and his lips twisted into a grin that simultaneously sent cold shivers down Sydney's spine and white-hot flashes of anger and rage into her throat, stomach, and fingertips, which were still clinging tightly to her pistol.
In one quick movement, Sydney raised her weapon then yelped when Sloane—now brandishing two magnums—shot the gun out of her hand.
Undeterred, Sydney reached for the gun and felt a blinding pain in her shin that made her rethink her decision. She dropped to the floor, the pain in her leg forcing her to relinquish the privilege of standing upright.
Sloane walked towards her, looking down at her, half-frowning, half-smiling, and completely making Sydney want to strangle him until his beady rat-like eyes shot out of his skull and landed with a decided plop all the way across the room.
Sydney kept her eyes on him as he walked closer and closer to her.
This was the man who had used her as a guinea pig for The Telling.
This was the man who had planted the Di Regno heart in her, making her a ticking time bomb.
This was the man who ruined her life and the lives of the people she cared about on a regular basis.
And this was the last fucking straw.
Sydney set her jaw as her entire body began to quake with the pent-up unresolved anger, bitterness, and general disgust at the sight of Sloane's face.
Sloane had reached her and was beginning to kneel down when Sydney spat in his face. Invigorated, Sydney scoffed inwardly at the bullet in her leg, her lack of a weapon, and the fact that Sloane had two loaded Magnums at his disposal and could easily rid the world of Sydney Bristow with one pull of one trigger.
Sydney, though, couldn't be bothered to care.
She had lost so much already and still had much to lose, but she wasn't going to gain a damn thing sitting on her ass. She rose up on her knees as Sloane used his sleeve to dab at his face.
Their eyes locked.
Except for Sydney's obvious physical disadvantage and only her two fists to defend her, they were on the same level. Both were on their knees, face to face, no disguises to hide behind nor friends to lend a helping hand.
Sydney stared a moment longer, hoping to catch Sloane off-guard—then she lunged. By pure luck, Sydney managed to wrap her fingers around Sloane's neck and squeeze while Sloane screamed in agony. Sloane dropped one magnum to attempt to loosen Sydney's grip on his throat. He gasped and choked while Sydney tried desperately to render Sloane unconscious, dead, or at least force him to keep his focus on breathing and not gathering enough strength to put a bullet in Sydney's head.
The veins started to bulge in Sloane's face, forehead, and neck and Sydney delighted in the fact that she was almost home-free. Her hands had begun to ache and were growing slippery with the effort. She drew a deep breath and tried to regain her concentration and strength, but Sloane managed to pry one of her hands loose.
He caught his breath and sat up fast to point his remaining magnum between Sydney's eyes.
The color drained from Sydney's face. She spotted the other magnum, but it was no use—she would be dead before she could grab it.
So she accepted her fate—it was all over. She gave Sloane her best smirk—and welcomed the end.
---
A/N Part 2: Again, I suck. Basically, my interest in the show pretty much died with the last time I updated this story (coughJanuary30th2004cough). I mean, weepy and whiny Sydney plus Lark? WTF? So totally not the show I fell in love with, and it just kept getting worse from there. I had high hopes for S4, but that sucked too, with Jennifer Garner getting shoved to the side for the second season in a row and the whole year not even really picking up until it was half-over and even then it was too little, too late.
I have to admit, I'm loving S5 so far, which partly explains my renewed interest in this fic. That, and the fact that I've had this chapter written for about, um... a year, and I just never got around to posting it.
I hope to wrap this up in two or three more chapters, but I'm definitely reaching the end of the story and I pretty much know how I want to finish it.
Thank you to everyone who had read this fic at one point, because you guys are a big reason why I decided to finish this up.
To everyone who's reading Wild, I've got to figure out where I want to go with it and when I do, I'll probably post some more. I've got about half a chapter done (and it's been done for a while), but I lost the pages of a notebook that I had with part of that chapter in it. It wasn't much, but it did have some stuff in there written a certain way and I'm not sure I'll be able to remember how I had it.
Eh.
-E