Chapter Twelve
Reasons for following the rules
an: If you read the first version of chapter eleven with Syd and Vaughn ending up in bed...ick....and you haven't read the new and improved less ship more believable version, then you should head on back to chapter 11 and read it again. Some changes made in it will clear up questions that are bound to spring up if you haven't read the second version of chapter 11.
I watched him from his bed. He was sleeping, peacefully, contently.
What the hell was I thinking?
He's a dead man. I'm a dead man, or woman. And we're definitely idiots, though that goes without saying.
My mind started composing a list of all the little ways in which we'd broken protocol last night.
1) He'd come to my room for the vaccine.
2) He'd touched me. And I don't just mean physically. He'd opened up the past, damn him. And I had no idea how to close the Pandora's box of emotions he'd so carelessly torn open.
3) He'd touched me. Ok so I mentioned that one. But I think it deserves to be stated at least twice. Truthfully I was at the point of stating it at least thirty more times.
If McKain hadn't been waiting in my room, if he hadn't assaulted me, if he hadn't drugged me, would I have come up here anyway?
That thought was bugging me more then any other. How much of my actions were driven by fear and how much of them were driven by, well by something other then fear?
I couldn't afford to think about this right now. It wasn't safe, and I didn't want to know the answers.
4) I'd gone to his room. Seeking comfort...seeking... What had I been seeking? I had this sinking feeling that I'd run to Vaughn for reasons other then comfort. For reasons like companionship, like friendship, like that unhealthy emotional attachment that we'd strived so hard to remove. Yeah if Barnett ever found out about this I could definitely kiss Michael Vaughn goodbye.
At least we hadn't slept together. I mean I'd come so close to telling him to share the bed with me... Last night I'm sure I could have found a million reasons to justify me staying in his room. This morning...
Well I was suddenly remembering why we'd decided to follow the rules.
I could blame it on the drug. I could always say that it must have been affecting my judgment. That I would never in a million years voluntarily come up here and risk our lives like that. That I would never stand out on his balcony with him for the whole world to see, especially when I knew there was a man bent on getting what he wanted with a whole file on me, a man who could end both of our lives with a simple phone call or fax, not when that man could be watching and waiting to destroy us.
I would never come into my handler's room, cry in his arms, touch him, let him touch me. No never, it had to have been the after effects of the drug.
Except...
I knew that it wasn't.
Which meant that all that crap I'd been trying to feed myself, was just that, crap. It meant that things were definitely progressing to that unhealthy attachment that we'd tried to eliminate. It meant we were in it too deep. That anything I did from now on would have to be guarded.
My mind screamed out. No it felt so good last night to have his arms around you. It felt so right to sit next to him, to hold his hand. For a moment you had the balcony. Don't throw it away Bristow.
Yeah, like I could really listen to that. Still he looked rather inviting sleeping in that chair by the doors to the balcony. With the sun streaking across his face, his chest rising and falling evenly in a pattern that I'm sure matched my own.
Tearing my eyes away, I decided that maybe I should start another list.
Reasons to follow the rules.
1) Michael Vaughn looks very nice sleeping.
2) Michael Vaughn smells very nice. This I noticed as I rolled over and put my back to the temptation in the corner. In rolling over however my nose came in contact with his pillow, which I'm sure he didn't use very long, but carried his scent anyway.
3) Michael Vaughn makes me feel things I shouldn't be feeling. Thus number four...
It's wrong.
My mind seemed rather content to leave it as a plain old, "It's wrong." My heart wanted to know why though. Really sometimes I think I might enjoy being heartless.
It's wrong because---how many lists could I come up with?
1) It's against the rules. Why did I seem to be going in circles here?
2) It's dangerous. It will get both of us killed. That is a certainty. It is only a matter of time.
3) It's wrong... Oh screw this list. It's just wrong.
I could deal with that. I didn't need justification for my justifications.
I decided to go back to my earlier list, my reasons to follow the rules list.
5) It's dangerous. Goes without saying and is really part of the previous number but I felt that a large quantity of reasons were needed.
6) Danny.
Danny.
Danny.
It wasn't that I wasn't over Danny. It was more along the lines of another bathtub. More along the lines of getting revenge for his. Danny was all the reason I needed.
7) People depend on me. If I'm dead I can't very well bring down SD-6. If I don't follow the rules I will end up dead.
8) I can form unhealthy attachments if I don't follow the rules.
9) Those attachments can impair my judgment. I think we learned that last night when Vaughn scrapped the counter mission with his jealous actions. At least, I think they were jealous actions. I'm pretty sure they were now. Cause I know he has an unhealthy attachment to me.
10) The people who wrote those rules knew what they were talking about.
Sighing I rolled back onto my back. I decided to count the spots on the ceiling instead. I was sick of my list. I had enough reasons, more then enough reasons. But it just left me feeling cold, empty, alone, sick to my stomach even.
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I must have fallen asleep.
When I woke up she was staring at the ceiling. I knew she was busy regretting her decision to stay.
The change in her was so blindingly obvious. She was no longer relaxed.
I froze in position and allowed myself to watch her. I don't get that opportunity often and after last night I had the sinking feeling that I would be seeing even less of her.
One step forward, five steps back. I hated this dance.
Her muscles tense, any movement would have her jumping out of the bed. Ready. And that hurt.
To think that she couldn't just relax with me. Sure that usually meant dangerous risk. But for just once it would be nice to be with her and not have her ready to run any second.
It would be nice to spend a Sunday morning like this one in bed with her. Just being lazy.
Not that that could ever happen.
In seven years we hadn't come close to bringing SD-6 down and I wasn't about to let myself get excited about this new development. McKain was a liar, a crook. There was no guaranteeing that this list of his would be real.
But then, we were all liars and crooks. We were all thieves in our own ways.
The possibility of taking SD-6 down hovered so close to us before only to be proven as false, as impossible, as insane. I couldn't afford to get my hopes up.
And she knew that as well.
If we didn't have things to discuss... Well she would have been gone. I would have woken up alone like so many other days.
That didn't explain why she didn't wake me though.
I chose to take that as a sign of hope. That maybe she wanted to stay too. That maybe when this was over we wouldn't go back to ignoring each other. Maybe we could go back as friends.
Above all I just wanted her to be my friend.
I didn't know what those last few years had been. I didn't know what to classify our relationship as. But I did know that it was not friendship. It was close to nothing.
Professional. That's what it was.
I don't like professional.
She stirred and I closed my eyes so she'd think I was asleep.
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Glancing over at the clock I nearly had a heart attack.
Nine am. Shit. Dixon.
Item number eleven. Dixon. He didn't know he wasn't fighting the bad guys. I owed it to him to bring SD-6 down. Him and all the others.
Dixon.
"Sydney?"
Dixon.
The door flew open.
"Sydney!"
My eyes flew open.
"Dixon!"
la la la...yup you enjoyed the torment don't give me that. Did you expect Dixon to walk in?