Chapter Twenty
Bleeding
A/N: You're all skipping over this to read the chapter... waits patiently...ok done. Alright if you came back to read this you should be applauded. Seems I've decided to be nice. I really don't know what came over me. Smiles. I guess you get lucky when I have a sucky day. Nice. (put your voodoo dolls away now. Cause I'm not planning on making this a habit) Who am I kidding? Plans… yeah like I have any. I'm so sad… I'm hoping you all enjoy the awful revenge I have for McKain. But it makes me sad. I liked him in some sick and twisted way. Just the epitome of evil. Shrugs. I don't have anything else to say… guess you better record that somewhere…
Silence.
His face twisted.
Warmth leaking through my clothes.
Red mixing with white.
Staining my shirt, staining me.
"Are you ok?"
Blood.
Everywhere.
McKain slipped.
Down. Off of me and on to the ground.
The red of the walls leaking on me.
"Syd. Are you ok?"
Shaking. Shaking me.
Dixon.
"Syd. Talk to me."
I laughed.
I looked at him and laughed.
I looked at my hands and laughed.
Vaughn.
I cried. The past slipped through my eyes.
The truth.
Bleeding.
Bleeding through my eyes. With my tears.
"He knew." It comes out strangled.
Vaughn had known there was only enough for one.
"He knew."
He'd given me the vaccine anyway.
"He knew."
I repeated it as if it was the only thing in the world. The only thing I knew, or would ever know. As if it could save us all from this mess.
Dixon nodded and pulled me to him. Not caring that McKain's blood was now all over him as well.
Stained. Tainted. Broken.
When I asked him about cartoons I didn't know that he'd be dead within the week. When I complained about how he seemed so distant I didn't know he'd be gone.
My fault.
Bleeding, through my eyes.
"I need to see him."
"You can't."
"I have to."
"Syd."
"Please."
_____________________________________________________________________________
Dixon never could refuse me anything.
He snuck me in later that night.
Vaughn lay there, motionless. Hooked up to numerous machines.
They breathed for him. They monitored his barely beating heart.
48 hours my ass.
I wouldn't give him more then three.
I took his fevered hand in mine and tried to ignore the heat, the rash that covered it, the fact that it swelled.
I was afraid to touch him; he looked so broken.
He didn't deserve to die like this. My mind flew at all the numerous possibilities.
There had to be other ways to save him.
I had the vaccine in my blood. Couldn't that help him?
I rushed to the door and paused when I came up to it.
They wouldn't listen to me. They'd poke and prod until he was dead. My cover would be blown and SD-6 would never be taken down.
In the end I guess national security did win.
I guess my strict sense of wrong and right interfered and it wasn't enough to save the man I loved.
Or maybe I was just being realistic.
I did the only thing I could.
Then I took his hand in mine once more, kissed it and asked him why.
How he could give me the vaccine when he knew that he'd die without it. How I couldn't even stay to be tested.
So real. Everything was so real. The feelings I had for him had only grown. I did love him. With everything in me. Without him I had no idea how I would be able to continue fighting.
He was what got me out of bed. He was what kept me fighting. The reason I didn't run away.
The reason I was still breathing. And now he was broken and I was alone.
I'd been alone before. But never like that.
Dixon said I'd only have a half hour with him. That the doctor's were keeping a close eye on him and that he would try to get me at least a half hour with him.
I spent my half hour listening to his silence. The steady beat of his monitor. Wondering if things could have been different. If there was some way, some little thing that I'd missed, that could ultimately save him.
We'd let ourselves be distracted. We'd screwed up. If there was anything… We had missed it.
I wondered if he knew I was there. If in those last few moments he heard my tears, felt them as they landed on his face, his chest, his hand. I wondered if he knew how much he meant to me.
If he knew why Will and I never worked out. If he knew that I could never give Will my heart because I'd already given it away.
I wondered if he was in pain, if he could feel anything at all.
I knew he couldn't feel my heart breaking again. I knew he couldn't know of the fear that dwelt in the shattered ruins.
I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him everything.
But wanting and doing are not the same thing. They never have been.
Maybe that was our biggest mistake. Our biggest regret.
We never really sorted the two out. And now we would have no second chance.
I tried to gather the happy memories I had of us. I wanted to bind those memories in a book that I could keep with me. I wanted to put the unhappy ones in another book that I could lock up in a closet somewhere to collect dust. But the photographs didn't separate easily and I had a feeling I'd be spending the rest of my life trying to sort them out.
It would be easier for me to put them all in a box and forget. Or burn them. But I knew even then I wouldn't be rid of them.
When I left, I left behind a vial of my blood, a note explaining the situation, and my heart.
I wanted to write him out of my life.
But wanting and doing are two different things.
And I wasn't motivated enough to do.
A/N: the next few chapters are short. Mainly because they are so dang depressing. But angst is a necessary evil and I hope to give you at least an ounce of hope. If not... the ending is happy. So stay tuned.