A/N: Thank you for the wonderful reviews!
Just some corrections..
Weiss was wondering why "bad things happened to good people" not, "good
things happened to good people."
AND
"Weiss had never seen Vaughn cry so violently." Not Weiss seen Weiss. A
few mistakes..thanks for the helpful hints (thanx Sara.)
I don't own "Don't Let Me Be the Last To Know" or "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" and I don't think I got the lyrics dead on but they still have the same effect! I went Britney crazy with this piece!
THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR THE CONTEXT OF THE NEXT COUPLE OF CHAPTERS:
SHIVA: pronounced she-vah..Hindu god of destruction and re-creation. Lord of the dance; one of the three major Hindu gods.
She took the soft cotton in her hand and started to shimmy the soaked one over his head. It was there, to her horror that something she never imagined was revealed.
There, cut across his tightly tone stomach, was a long jagged scar that reached from above his naval and across the lower section of his rib cage. It was obviously a surgical scar from at least the last ten months. She imagined Vaughn laid out on a cold metal table in the middle of a New York run hospital, going under anesthesia completely alone and afraid with no one to comfort him. She started to choke up again as she reached her hand out to trace the damage with the tip of her finger, expecting to feel a burning sensation beneath her fingertips. It looked so painful and empathy pains screeched through her own chest. It took her a few moments to realize that she still had vocal cords and was able to speak. "When did this happen?" She asked, managing to control her tone. Her hand became unsteady as she debated whether or not to keep her hand there. It bounced back and forth.finally retreating to her lap. Feeling completely out of control, she clasped her hands in her lap, feeling the raw jean material against the top of her hand.
Weiss walked to the room's little desk and retrieved a wooden chair and brought it over to the bedside and sat down near the headboard, "July." He was well aware of the pain in his voice and wanted to comfort her but he knew it would do no good. The only one who could possibly comfort her was the one lying on the bed, almost dead to the world. He backed away silently, leaving the chair there, and moving towards the bed. He started to fuss with the little pill bottles, aligning them on the wood night stand like tiny painful soldiers.
"Ju-July?" She stammered back, "But he left in June!" She dropped to shirt on the floor and starred at horror at the long purple disfigurement. Her brow twisted in the sympathy pains that started to etch themselves harder and stronger against her chest.
Weiss continued with a somber tone, "He left to have a tumor in his lung removed. They though they got it all-" He rested his body on the bed, reclining there. He watched her with interested eyes. He had never seen her this way. No one at the office had ever seen her broken before.
"They were obviously wrong." She snapped back and turned towards Weiss cynically, "Technology. Doctors. What do they know?"
Weiss fully reclined and starred up the ceiling as he rapidly searched his brain for the right answers to appease her. "I don't know what to say to you." His eyes bounced around the little room and finally rested on the floor and discovered the t-shirt there. He sat up and motioned to retrieve it-
"Don't bother. He's burning with fever. It's not worth it to try to cloth him. Sweating a fever won't work. We have to keep his body cool." Her tongue splashed over the words that her mouth had echoed that one time when she got so sick when she was all of five. Her nanny had repeated those words many times.
She got to her feet in a cold manner and lunged over Vaughn's motionless figure. With one fluid gesture, she removed the sweatpants from his thinning legs. She revealed a pair of blue green boxers over the muscular legs. Furthering her quest, she reached over his warm chest and found the top sheet curled up on the other side. "We might as well keep him comfortable." She replied to Weiss's questioning look as she pulled the cream colored sheet and wrapped it over his body and discarded the sweats on the floor. "All we can do know is wait." She stopped for a moment. Her eyes caught the yellow gold rope chain dangling haphazardly around his neck. She reached forward, recognizing it instantly. There was the metal of Saint George, protector of boy scouts. His mother had given him Saint Michael, for obvious reasons but Sydney felt for his birthday two years ago that Saint George was appropriate. He vowed never to take it off and she promised to hold him to it.
"You were never good at waiting."
Shaking off any thoughts about their past, she continued to move about and strip Vaughn of his clothing, "Look where I got it from." The last step was to pull and fold the thin cotton sheet over his stomach. She managed to tuck it beneath his arms, leaving his scarred chest exposed. His tattoo was still evident on his shoulder. At least some things were unchanging.
Weiss grew silent for a moment as he remembered all of those visits between Sydney and her parents. They were so alike each other that it started to get scary after a while. There were countless times, especially since Vaughn left, that Jack and Sydney blew up at each other, causing everyone in the Task Force Operations Office to stare and grow absolutely silent. Or there were those times that the arguments between Sydney and Irinia could be heard throughout the building and were watched by many on the security screens. Sydney had become arrogant, brash and almost cocky since Vaughn left. It was almost as though she wanted to get caught and have to deal with something new. Her life seemed to grow too painful for her to deal with and dealing with a life and death situation was much easier. Or at least that's what it looked like from the outsider.
"Who knows about Vaughn being sick?" She sat in the chair Weiss had brought her and pulled it closer to the bedside. She took Vaughn's hand in hers and stroked it gently with her thumb. His skin was burning with fever but his pulse and breathing was still steady. She felt her heart coincide with his.
Don't
Don't let me be the last to know
Don't hold back
Just it go
I need to hear you say
That you need me all the way
So if you love me so
Don't let me be the last to know
"Kendall.Devlin.Jack." Weiss sighed heavily and rambled on the names and shut his eyes so to block out her irate looking face.
She immediately winced, knowing that her father kept something else from her. She wanted to scream and lose her cool even more but she just couldn't bring herself to. Exhaustion was beginning to set into her system. She reached out her other hand and stroked Vaughn's hair lovingly, "Now I know. And it's too late."
"It's not too late, Syd. He's still here."
She smiled a sad little smile and watched each breath come and go out of his lungs. His figure had faded so much but he still looked the same to her. She convinced herself that he still had the same personality and that his smile would still make her knees go weak. His veins still ran purple beneath is graying pale skin but there were obvious scars littered along his arm. The bones were beginning to protrude through his chest. His skin was sagging in some areas and pulled tight in others. She felt the tears threaten to overturn themselves again but she couldn't bring herself to cry. "How large was it?"
"What?"
"The tumor? How big was it?" She turned around finally and faced him with her eyes burning intensely.
Weiss sighed and racked his brain for the answer. He knew this or at least he used to know the answer to this. Unfolding his hands from their clasped position over his stomach, he rounded his hands together to form the shape of about an orange.a rather small orange. "About this big?"
She scoffed at the size and mimicked it coldly with her hands, releasing her grasp on his. Her torso now completely turned away from her sleeping prince, "That's a death sentence."
Weiss sat up a little further, dropping his hands and propping himself on his forearms, "But it wasn't. He's still here and he's not going anywhere."
"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" She turned and regained her position of holding his hand.
"Sydney." his voice trailed off.
"How many rounds of chemo has he had?" She fired another question and felt her face twist into an unpleasant grimace.
"This would be his second."
"And radiation?"
"One round. You know he didn't want you to see him like this. That's why he left."
She immediately grew sarcastic, "But the minute that he's back here and needs someone to hold his hand, I'm the first one he calls. If he loved me so much, then why wouldn't he let me know when something was wrong? Did he honestly think he was protecting me?'
"He wanted you to focus on your job."
She didn't say anything to his retort. Instead, she heard Weiss mutter something beneath his breath followed by a rather loud yawn. The bed springs, in a rhythmic turn, squeak horribly. He let out an uneasy sigh and the room went absolutely silent. Sydney felt as though Vaughn was about to lift out of his body and disappear forever. She had just found him and she was suddenly desperately afraid that he would leave her. That he would leave in a different way that he already had. At least when he left her alone that first time, she could call him or something but now if he left, how would he ever know how much she loved him? The tears began to burn in her eyes again and finally, as she heard Weiss's breathing become more regular, she started to cry once again, careful to keep her tears muffled so not to wake the two sleeping men.
It was only when she certain that Weiss was asleep that she did something she hadn't done since her "mother" died when she was six. She prayed. "Please..anyone who will listen to me..I need him to make it through this. I don't think he understands how much I love him. I mean, I know he walked out on me and even it was to protect me..you can't let him leave me. Not yet at least. We have things to work out but you can't take another man away from me. You don't get the third. You got Danny, Noah but Vaughn is mine!" She gripped his hand tighter but careful not to wake him and curled her free arm around so that she could rest her head down on it, letting her eyes dance against the exhaustion that suddenly flooded the mid-Saturday afternoon.
His eyes fluttered open and struggled to focus on the ceiling above him. Wow, that sleeping pill had worked wonderfully. He had dreamt that Sydney had finally come but she told him that she had moved on and never wanted to see him again. But for some reason, that didn't bother him. She still had come. His body didn't hurt nearly as much now and the nausea didn't seem as overpowering as it did a few hours ago. His eyes were still focused on the ceiling and judging by the light, he figured it was late afternoon to early evening. He felt a touch groggy as he waited for his body and soul to awake from the effects and as it did, his mind started to race with questions. He wondered for a moment how he got from the bathroom to his bed, or at least, he thought he was in the bed and why he was stripped down to his boxers.
He continued to flicker against the harsh light. What the hell was going on? He fought to sit up a little ways, suddenly aware of something or someone clasped in his hand. As he eyes opened even more, he recognized the hazelnut colored hair. Unwrapping his hands from the sheet, he started to run his fingers through her hair, feeling tired mixed emotions about her being there. Her feet were still firmly planted on the ground and it appeared that she simply fell over out of exhaustion, landing near him. He continued to stroke her head lovingly.
She felt the familiar hand against her head and started to stir. She sat up and looked with a drowsy look on her face. Her mascara had smudged beneath her eyes and the blush had settled into little lines alone her lips. She no longer looked perfectly done up and was now struggling against herself to come to.
"Hey." He greeted, shaking off the remaining side effects of the sleeping pills.
"Hey yourself." She replied, sitting up more and leaning towards him a bit more, "How are you doing?" She had to fight ever urge in her body to lean over and just kiss him. She had missed waking up to him for ten long months and now the loneliness ached inside her broken heart.
From the bottom of my broken heart
Even though time may find me somebody new
You were my first love
You were my true love
He smiled his little half crooked smile, "You came."
She felt the color drain from her face as she lost eye contact with him for a moment, "Yeah, I came." The tears threatened to show themselves once again and she ached with desire. Her words were cold unintentionally
He reached his hand up and cupped her cheek in his palm. She placed her atop his and leaned into it. He felt the muscles in her face relax as she started to smile. "Weiss brought you here."
She nodded and was finally unable to look at him. "Yeah."
He took a moment to revel in the silence filling between them.
"This is why you left me?"
He couldn't answer to her. He simply nodded his head, "You don't understand the circumstances."
The angry tears started to form again, "But I want to. Come back into my life, Vaughn. You don't know how much you hurt me when you left."
He avoided her eyes and fought to sit up but the nausea came flooding back in full force. An unintentional groan escaped his lips as he fought to sit up, "It hurt me to leave you-"
"I still don't understand why you left."
RING
RING
RING
"Is that your cell phone?" Vaughn asked, smiling a little bit reliving the days of living from cell phone ring to cell phone ring. Sydney dug deep into her purse, lying at her feet. Her hands undid the zipper and she quickly found her phone.
Weiss suddenly jumped up, "Hello! I'm vibrating!" He reached into his pocket, suddenly very awake and found his cell phone. He and Sydney went back and forth on their one way conversations which proved to be very entertaining for Vaughn.
"Bristow"
"Weiss."
"Oh my G-d." Sydney sunk back into her chair and felt the color drain from her face. She felt like she couldn't talk, even if she tried.
"No." Weiss's tone was still matter-of-fact.
"That's not relevant! Yes..now?"
"Are you sure?"
"It can't be!"
"I do understand the importance of this-"
"You want me to what? With who?" Sydney's eyes grew wide and she jumped to her feet in rage.
Weiss pulled his legs around to stand up on the ground as he continued to speak, "Did we check out his sources?"
"No..I DO understand but you can't be suggesting..Dad!" Sydney turned away from Vaughn for a moment
"Are we sure this creditable?'
"This is too dangerous! I have to draw the line somewhere. I'm not putting all of our lives at risk just because Kendall is-"
"Are we sure she's dead?"
"And he's the only one who can id the body?" Sydney starred at Vaughn in horror and pain. She started to mouth something to him but he didn't understand.
"Can't we send someone in his place? Give someone his alias!" Weiss blew his top and started to pace back and forth, holding his palm to his forehead.
"He's not strong enough-mentally or physically! He has a fever!"
"We can't send him all the way to Fleury for something a rookie can do! Just because she's-"
"I really do not think he's well enough to travel overseas- let alone a complex mission."
"It's an unnecessary risk!"
"There has to be someone that knows him just as well. I mean, she's fine but I'm not confident in sending him over. Can't you find someone else?"
Sydney let out an aggravated, "Fine! Okay!'
Weiss sounded just an enthusiastic, "Fine. Okay."
They both hung up their phones and looked at each other before speaking. Sydney spoke up first, "Kendall?"
"Yea. How'd you guess? Wait, you were talking to your dad, right?"
"Oh yeah. Do you want me to tell him or do you want to?" She looked down at Vaughn like he wasn't there, acknowledging his nervous façade and turning back to Weiss. She held her head in her hand for a moment, waiting for him to reply.
Weiss hushed his voice, "I don't know how he's going to take it. I mean, he will be able to home but there's so many risks involved!"
"Do you want to tell him or shall I?" She started to grow impatient and by the looks of it, a migraine started to grow in her skull.
Weiss grew silent again and motioned for her to tell Vaughn the news-
"Will the two of you stop talking like I'm not in the room?" choked Vaughn rather loudly in his raspy voice.
Sydney looked down at him and shook her head before sitting down, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this Vaughn, but-"
I don't own "Don't Let Me Be the Last To Know" or "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart" and I don't think I got the lyrics dead on but they still have the same effect! I went Britney crazy with this piece!
THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR THE CONTEXT OF THE NEXT COUPLE OF CHAPTERS:
SHIVA: pronounced she-vah..Hindu god of destruction and re-creation. Lord of the dance; one of the three major Hindu gods.
She took the soft cotton in her hand and started to shimmy the soaked one over his head. It was there, to her horror that something she never imagined was revealed.
There, cut across his tightly tone stomach, was a long jagged scar that reached from above his naval and across the lower section of his rib cage. It was obviously a surgical scar from at least the last ten months. She imagined Vaughn laid out on a cold metal table in the middle of a New York run hospital, going under anesthesia completely alone and afraid with no one to comfort him. She started to choke up again as she reached her hand out to trace the damage with the tip of her finger, expecting to feel a burning sensation beneath her fingertips. It looked so painful and empathy pains screeched through her own chest. It took her a few moments to realize that she still had vocal cords and was able to speak. "When did this happen?" She asked, managing to control her tone. Her hand became unsteady as she debated whether or not to keep her hand there. It bounced back and forth.finally retreating to her lap. Feeling completely out of control, she clasped her hands in her lap, feeling the raw jean material against the top of her hand.
Weiss walked to the room's little desk and retrieved a wooden chair and brought it over to the bedside and sat down near the headboard, "July." He was well aware of the pain in his voice and wanted to comfort her but he knew it would do no good. The only one who could possibly comfort her was the one lying on the bed, almost dead to the world. He backed away silently, leaving the chair there, and moving towards the bed. He started to fuss with the little pill bottles, aligning them on the wood night stand like tiny painful soldiers.
"Ju-July?" She stammered back, "But he left in June!" She dropped to shirt on the floor and starred at horror at the long purple disfigurement. Her brow twisted in the sympathy pains that started to etch themselves harder and stronger against her chest.
Weiss continued with a somber tone, "He left to have a tumor in his lung removed. They though they got it all-" He rested his body on the bed, reclining there. He watched her with interested eyes. He had never seen her this way. No one at the office had ever seen her broken before.
"They were obviously wrong." She snapped back and turned towards Weiss cynically, "Technology. Doctors. What do they know?"
Weiss fully reclined and starred up the ceiling as he rapidly searched his brain for the right answers to appease her. "I don't know what to say to you." His eyes bounced around the little room and finally rested on the floor and discovered the t-shirt there. He sat up and motioned to retrieve it-
"Don't bother. He's burning with fever. It's not worth it to try to cloth him. Sweating a fever won't work. We have to keep his body cool." Her tongue splashed over the words that her mouth had echoed that one time when she got so sick when she was all of five. Her nanny had repeated those words many times.
She got to her feet in a cold manner and lunged over Vaughn's motionless figure. With one fluid gesture, she removed the sweatpants from his thinning legs. She revealed a pair of blue green boxers over the muscular legs. Furthering her quest, she reached over his warm chest and found the top sheet curled up on the other side. "We might as well keep him comfortable." She replied to Weiss's questioning look as she pulled the cream colored sheet and wrapped it over his body and discarded the sweats on the floor. "All we can do know is wait." She stopped for a moment. Her eyes caught the yellow gold rope chain dangling haphazardly around his neck. She reached forward, recognizing it instantly. There was the metal of Saint George, protector of boy scouts. His mother had given him Saint Michael, for obvious reasons but Sydney felt for his birthday two years ago that Saint George was appropriate. He vowed never to take it off and she promised to hold him to it.
"You were never good at waiting."
Shaking off any thoughts about their past, she continued to move about and strip Vaughn of his clothing, "Look where I got it from." The last step was to pull and fold the thin cotton sheet over his stomach. She managed to tuck it beneath his arms, leaving his scarred chest exposed. His tattoo was still evident on his shoulder. At least some things were unchanging.
Weiss grew silent for a moment as he remembered all of those visits between Sydney and her parents. They were so alike each other that it started to get scary after a while. There were countless times, especially since Vaughn left, that Jack and Sydney blew up at each other, causing everyone in the Task Force Operations Office to stare and grow absolutely silent. Or there were those times that the arguments between Sydney and Irinia could be heard throughout the building and were watched by many on the security screens. Sydney had become arrogant, brash and almost cocky since Vaughn left. It was almost as though she wanted to get caught and have to deal with something new. Her life seemed to grow too painful for her to deal with and dealing with a life and death situation was much easier. Or at least that's what it looked like from the outsider.
"Who knows about Vaughn being sick?" She sat in the chair Weiss had brought her and pulled it closer to the bedside. She took Vaughn's hand in hers and stroked it gently with her thumb. His skin was burning with fever but his pulse and breathing was still steady. She felt her heart coincide with his.
Don't
Don't let me be the last to know
Don't hold back
Just it go
I need to hear you say
That you need me all the way
So if you love me so
Don't let me be the last to know
"Kendall.Devlin.Jack." Weiss sighed heavily and rambled on the names and shut his eyes so to block out her irate looking face.
She immediately winced, knowing that her father kept something else from her. She wanted to scream and lose her cool even more but she just couldn't bring herself to. Exhaustion was beginning to set into her system. She reached out her other hand and stroked Vaughn's hair lovingly, "Now I know. And it's too late."
"It's not too late, Syd. He's still here."
She smiled a sad little smile and watched each breath come and go out of his lungs. His figure had faded so much but he still looked the same to her. She convinced herself that he still had the same personality and that his smile would still make her knees go weak. His veins still ran purple beneath is graying pale skin but there were obvious scars littered along his arm. The bones were beginning to protrude through his chest. His skin was sagging in some areas and pulled tight in others. She felt the tears threaten to overturn themselves again but she couldn't bring herself to cry. "How large was it?"
"What?"
"The tumor? How big was it?" She turned around finally and faced him with her eyes burning intensely.
Weiss sighed and racked his brain for the answer. He knew this or at least he used to know the answer to this. Unfolding his hands from their clasped position over his stomach, he rounded his hands together to form the shape of about an orange.a rather small orange. "About this big?"
She scoffed at the size and mimicked it coldly with her hands, releasing her grasp on his. Her torso now completely turned away from her sleeping prince, "That's a death sentence."
Weiss sat up a little further, dropping his hands and propping himself on his forearms, "But it wasn't. He's still here and he's not going anywhere."
"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" She turned and regained her position of holding his hand.
"Sydney." his voice trailed off.
"How many rounds of chemo has he had?" She fired another question and felt her face twist into an unpleasant grimace.
"This would be his second."
"And radiation?"
"One round. You know he didn't want you to see him like this. That's why he left."
She immediately grew sarcastic, "But the minute that he's back here and needs someone to hold his hand, I'm the first one he calls. If he loved me so much, then why wouldn't he let me know when something was wrong? Did he honestly think he was protecting me?'
"He wanted you to focus on your job."
She didn't say anything to his retort. Instead, she heard Weiss mutter something beneath his breath followed by a rather loud yawn. The bed springs, in a rhythmic turn, squeak horribly. He let out an uneasy sigh and the room went absolutely silent. Sydney felt as though Vaughn was about to lift out of his body and disappear forever. She had just found him and she was suddenly desperately afraid that he would leave her. That he would leave in a different way that he already had. At least when he left her alone that first time, she could call him or something but now if he left, how would he ever know how much she loved him? The tears began to burn in her eyes again and finally, as she heard Weiss's breathing become more regular, she started to cry once again, careful to keep her tears muffled so not to wake the two sleeping men.
It was only when she certain that Weiss was asleep that she did something she hadn't done since her "mother" died when she was six. She prayed. "Please..anyone who will listen to me..I need him to make it through this. I don't think he understands how much I love him. I mean, I know he walked out on me and even it was to protect me..you can't let him leave me. Not yet at least. We have things to work out but you can't take another man away from me. You don't get the third. You got Danny, Noah but Vaughn is mine!" She gripped his hand tighter but careful not to wake him and curled her free arm around so that she could rest her head down on it, letting her eyes dance against the exhaustion that suddenly flooded the mid-Saturday afternoon.
His eyes fluttered open and struggled to focus on the ceiling above him. Wow, that sleeping pill had worked wonderfully. He had dreamt that Sydney had finally come but she told him that she had moved on and never wanted to see him again. But for some reason, that didn't bother him. She still had come. His body didn't hurt nearly as much now and the nausea didn't seem as overpowering as it did a few hours ago. His eyes were still focused on the ceiling and judging by the light, he figured it was late afternoon to early evening. He felt a touch groggy as he waited for his body and soul to awake from the effects and as it did, his mind started to race with questions. He wondered for a moment how he got from the bathroom to his bed, or at least, he thought he was in the bed and why he was stripped down to his boxers.
He continued to flicker against the harsh light. What the hell was going on? He fought to sit up a little ways, suddenly aware of something or someone clasped in his hand. As he eyes opened even more, he recognized the hazelnut colored hair. Unwrapping his hands from the sheet, he started to run his fingers through her hair, feeling tired mixed emotions about her being there. Her feet were still firmly planted on the ground and it appeared that she simply fell over out of exhaustion, landing near him. He continued to stroke her head lovingly.
She felt the familiar hand against her head and started to stir. She sat up and looked with a drowsy look on her face. Her mascara had smudged beneath her eyes and the blush had settled into little lines alone her lips. She no longer looked perfectly done up and was now struggling against herself to come to.
"Hey." He greeted, shaking off the remaining side effects of the sleeping pills.
"Hey yourself." She replied, sitting up more and leaning towards him a bit more, "How are you doing?" She had to fight ever urge in her body to lean over and just kiss him. She had missed waking up to him for ten long months and now the loneliness ached inside her broken heart.
From the bottom of my broken heart
Even though time may find me somebody new
You were my first love
You were my true love
He smiled his little half crooked smile, "You came."
She felt the color drain from her face as she lost eye contact with him for a moment, "Yeah, I came." The tears threatened to show themselves once again and she ached with desire. Her words were cold unintentionally
He reached his hand up and cupped her cheek in his palm. She placed her atop his and leaned into it. He felt the muscles in her face relax as she started to smile. "Weiss brought you here."
She nodded and was finally unable to look at him. "Yeah."
He took a moment to revel in the silence filling between them.
"This is why you left me?"
He couldn't answer to her. He simply nodded his head, "You don't understand the circumstances."
The angry tears started to form again, "But I want to. Come back into my life, Vaughn. You don't know how much you hurt me when you left."
He avoided her eyes and fought to sit up but the nausea came flooding back in full force. An unintentional groan escaped his lips as he fought to sit up, "It hurt me to leave you-"
"I still don't understand why you left."
RING
RING
RING
"Is that your cell phone?" Vaughn asked, smiling a little bit reliving the days of living from cell phone ring to cell phone ring. Sydney dug deep into her purse, lying at her feet. Her hands undid the zipper and she quickly found her phone.
Weiss suddenly jumped up, "Hello! I'm vibrating!" He reached into his pocket, suddenly very awake and found his cell phone. He and Sydney went back and forth on their one way conversations which proved to be very entertaining for Vaughn.
"Bristow"
"Weiss."
"Oh my G-d." Sydney sunk back into her chair and felt the color drain from her face. She felt like she couldn't talk, even if she tried.
"No." Weiss's tone was still matter-of-fact.
"That's not relevant! Yes..now?"
"Are you sure?"
"It can't be!"
"I do understand the importance of this-"
"You want me to what? With who?" Sydney's eyes grew wide and she jumped to her feet in rage.
Weiss pulled his legs around to stand up on the ground as he continued to speak, "Did we check out his sources?"
"No..I DO understand but you can't be suggesting..Dad!" Sydney turned away from Vaughn for a moment
"Are we sure this creditable?'
"This is too dangerous! I have to draw the line somewhere. I'm not putting all of our lives at risk just because Kendall is-"
"Are we sure she's dead?"
"And he's the only one who can id the body?" Sydney starred at Vaughn in horror and pain. She started to mouth something to him but he didn't understand.
"Can't we send someone in his place? Give someone his alias!" Weiss blew his top and started to pace back and forth, holding his palm to his forehead.
"He's not strong enough-mentally or physically! He has a fever!"
"We can't send him all the way to Fleury for something a rookie can do! Just because she's-"
"I really do not think he's well enough to travel overseas- let alone a complex mission."
"It's an unnecessary risk!"
"There has to be someone that knows him just as well. I mean, she's fine but I'm not confident in sending him over. Can't you find someone else?"
Sydney let out an aggravated, "Fine! Okay!'
Weiss sounded just an enthusiastic, "Fine. Okay."
They both hung up their phones and looked at each other before speaking. Sydney spoke up first, "Kendall?"
"Yea. How'd you guess? Wait, you were talking to your dad, right?"
"Oh yeah. Do you want me to tell him or do you want to?" She looked down at Vaughn like he wasn't there, acknowledging his nervous façade and turning back to Weiss. She held her head in her hand for a moment, waiting for him to reply.
Weiss hushed his voice, "I don't know how he's going to take it. I mean, he will be able to home but there's so many risks involved!"
"Do you want to tell him or shall I?" She started to grow impatient and by the looks of it, a migraine started to grow in her skull.
Weiss grew silent again and motioned for her to tell Vaughn the news-
"Will the two of you stop talking like I'm not in the room?" choked Vaughn rather loudly in his raspy voice.
Sydney looked down at him and shook her head before sitting down, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this Vaughn, but-"