Backlash
Author: Pharo
Disclaimer: 'Alias' belongs to J.J. Abrams, Bad Robot, Touchstone, and ABC.
Summary: Dealing with repercussions.
Spoilers: "The Box (2)".
Feedback: pharo@onebox.com
I'm cold---cold in the sense of freezing and about to turn blue from the gusts of wind entering with each opening of the door. I sip some of my once-extremely-hot-coffee. Who knew it could be this cold in LA? Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm coming down with a cold. Maybe my system is just messed up like that. Maybe it's because of the recent developments in my life that is making me feel so damn cold. I don't know…that could be it. My mother was evil. My father might be evil. My boss is most definitely evil. Surrounded by all this evil, no wonder I feel so cold.
Maybe I should just trade my "white armor" for some dark clothes. I wonder if they have ID cards with "Dark League" written on them. Say "to hell with it" and just join the evil side. Life would be much easier that way, right? I'd actually know who was the big bad instead of stumbling across the truth. I wouldn't have to try so hard to take down the bad people because it wouldn't be my job anymore. The more I think about it, the better it seems than it probably is.
The small café-restaurant has been empty for most of the day. Every twenty minutes or so, a customer drops by and asks for a cup of coffee to go while they shake off all the rainwater from their jackets like a wet dog. They leave and the waitress comes, equipped with a mop that has been used more today than in a whole month.
"Sorry I'm late," he says as he comes in, partially drenched. "It's crazy out there."
"Cats and dogs," I comment while looking out the rain-smeared window. I shake my head and turn back to face him. "What's the news with Devlin?"
"He was happy that we were able to stop SD-6 from going under."
"Was he fine with you coming in to help us out?" I ask, knowing that no matter how happy Devlin would be, he wouldn't condone that.
"Well, he said that if I ever tried anything as stupid as that again, he'd kill me himself," he says with a grin that makes me think he'll do something like that again in the near future.
"It was fun, wasn't it?"
"Intense."
Welcome to my life, Vaughn. Intense is practically my middle name. Sydney "Intense" Bristow---that's me.
"Vaughn, can I ask you something?" I ask, looking down at the muddy liquid in my coffee cup.
Maybe he can put some things into perspective for me. Either that or make me even more confused than I already am.
"Go ahead."
"Sometimes, don't you think it would be easier if we didn't do this for a living?" I ask. "If we joined the bad guys or something."
"Sydney…"
"No, seriously, Vaughn. I mean, we go out there and we fight, day in and day out, but nothing ever changes. The evil still exists. What's the point?"
"There's one less evil the next day," he says without a moment's loss.
I'd never expect such a simple answer from him, but there he goes, surprising me again. He smiles with the knowledge that we both know that he's correct. One less evil every day will amount to no evil one day.
"Can I get you anything?" the waitress asks.
"Hot coffee."
He's cold too. I guess I'm not messed up after all. Or, we could both be messed up…
She nods and leaves.
"Did you bring your car?"
"No. I like walking in the rain."
"Want a ride home?"
Vaughn is offering me a lift home. I wonder how many rules he's already breaking just by having coffee with me…or how many he will be breaking if he drives me home. Do they have some sort of rulebook for the CIA? It wouldn't be completely impossible, especially if the bad people actually did have ID cards.
"Against protocol."
Two words describing this tango between us.
"It's raining," he says as the waitress brings him his coffee.
So, there's a rain exception in tiny print as a footnote in the handbook: In the case of rain, disregard all rules. Why does that seem highly unlikely to me?
"I better go," I say with a small smile.
If he's not going to follow the rules, I have to.
"No, wait."
"Why?" I ask, starting to get up.
"Just have another cup, please?"
"Vaughn, come on, don't."
"Just until the rain becomes lighter," he pleads with sad eyes.
That could take forever and spending forever in this restaurant is neither safe nor appealing.
"It's not safe," I say quietly, shaking my head.
"Please," he whispers and I can tell that something is wrong.
I slowly sit back down and look down at the cold coffee. Why am I doing this? Why is he doing this?
"What's wrong?"
Besides the fact that we are both going to die in the hands of SD-6 for doing this.
"I just…you're…you're the only person I can talk to about this."
"About what?" I ask, raising my eyebrow a little. I'm usually the one to go to him---not the other way around.
"I don't think anyone else would understand. I'm not even sure you would understand."
"Understand what?"
He takes the sugar shaker on the side of our corner table and puts some sugar in his coffee, yet doesn't bother to stir it in. Instead, he just puts his hands around his coffee mug as if he's trying to warm them, not that it would help any. The coffee has already started to get cold.
"I killed that guy Sydney," he says in an intense whisper.
How do I reply to a statement like that?
"Vaughn, you were saving lives."
"I killed him."
"He was the bad guy, remember? He was one of Cole's men and we would've been six feet under if you hadn't."
"Doesn't matter. He was still a person and I---"
"You allowed innocent people to stay alive."
"I. Killed. Him."
He looks down into his coffee again. What is so amazing about coffee?
"If you hadn't killed him, Vaughn, he would've killed you."
"Wouldn't it just have been better that way? I wouldn't feel like this. I wouldn't hear the gunshot over and over again."
"Stop---"
"He has two parents still living and a younger sister," he says, finally looking up at me. "What are they going to think?"
He lets out a bitter laugh.
"I don't know," I say quietly and somehow, it just doesn't seem like a sufficient answer.
"I keep thinking," he says, "if they'll give his mother a wooden box with a medal in it. Are they going to have someone at his funeral to tell his family that he was a hero? Or is it going to be just another funeral?"
"Vaughn---"
"The CIA will probably make it look like he was caught up in some mugging gone bad. To them, he was just a criminal, right?"
"He was, Vaughn."
"No, Syd, he wasn't. None of them were. They were caught up in something beyond their control. They thought they were working for the good people until it turned out to be the other way around. Cole thought he was working for the real CIA, so when he and the rest of the guys found out they weren't, they wanted to get back at the bad guys."
"No," I say, shaking my head, "they wanted to kill innocents. They knew that SD-6 agents thought they were working for the CIA, too."
He takes a deep breath.
"What I did to that guy's family…they did the same to mine."
"No, Vaughn, not 'they'. My mother. What my mother did to yours."
I think I'm going to break down in about two seconds. Wouldn't that just be great? Vaughn comes to talk to me and I cry and make it all about myself and my screwed up family.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to---"
"My mother killed your father. She did it because she was assigned to. And afterwards, she probably didn't even think about. She didn't agonize over it. She killed him and then went on to the next person on her list. What she did to your father was something beyond anything you or I could ever do. She was a cold-blooded killer."
Isn't it great talking about my mother like this?
"What you did to that man was self-defense. It was saving the lives in the building and maybe lives all around the world. If they got their hands on Rambaldi's perfume, who knows what they would've done. They were not the good guys, we are. They were just trying to dress it up as revenge against evil, but in all reality, they weren't all that great either. You know that. I know that. They knew that."
Silence.
"It wasn't perfume," he corrects with a weak smile.
"That's all you got from my speech?"
"I know…you're right. You're always right."
"Don't you forget it," I say with a grin.
"Hey, the rain stopped."
I look out the window and see that he's right. It's still dark, but there are no longer buckets of rain falling from the sky.
"Let's get out of here," I suggest, getting up.
He places the money for his untouched coffee on the table, smiles, and suddenly, I realize that I don't feel as cold anymore.