The Dream

Chapter 21: Whispered Prayers

A/N: Well, one more chapter, I think. We're almost done. Here's a warning for anyone who wants it: Beware of the Angst! :) And special thanks to Placebo, who read the first draft of this chapter even before I did. Without her, this chapter would probably not have been up for awhile. Thanks!

Vaughn waited. There wasn't a sound coming from the inside of the van. There was no rustling around, no coughing or sneezing, not even a hint of anyone breathing, nothing.

He raised his hand to knock again, but froze when he suddenly heard a familiar clicking sound and felt hard metal, cold against his neck. A strong hand gripped his shoulder and a low voice reached his ears.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Vaughn swallowed uneasily; he knew that voice. He had heard it every time the CIA was listening in on Sydney's missions. Usually, that voice was kind and reassuring, joking with Sydney and giving her directions. But now, it was cold and dangerous. It was Dixon; and he sounded completely pissed off.

Vaughn moved to turn around, but Dixon's grip on his shoulder tightened like a vice.

"Don't move," he hissed menacingly.

"I…I have Sydney," Vaughn finally responded, not knowing what else to say.

Dixon's hand relaxed for a moment, out of shock, but he quickly tightened his hold on Vaughn again.

"What the…" he began, dumbfounded. "How the hell do you know Sydney?"

"I can't explain that now. We don't have time. Syd's hurt and she needs to get to the hospital right away."

Dixon quickly spun Vaughn around so that he could see both Vaughn's face and Sydney in his arms. He kept one hand on Vaughn's shoulder, while the other pointed the gun ruthlessly at his head.

Dixon's eyes widened when he first saw Sydney, and then narrowed as he looked Vaughn in the eye. "You son of a bitch. What did you do to her?"

Vaughn slowly shook his head. "It wasn't me. I would never hurt her…It was Fahim."

Dixon finally removed his hand from Vaughn's shoulder and clenched his fist tightly. Even in the dark Vaughn could see the crazy look in his eyes and his thirst for revenge. Sydney was lucky to have a friend like this. Dixon was a good man, he had just happened to fall in with the wrong crowd.

"Listen Dixon…"Vaughn began, but he was interrupted.

"How the hell do you know my name?" Dixon asked threateningly, bringing the gun back up.

The barrel was inches from Vaughn's nose; one shot would blow his brains into a million pieces, and splatter them like some kind of freak piece of art all over the side of the van. He would drop Sydney, she would fall to the ground. She couldn't take anything else, those three feet to the ground would probably kill her.

One shot, barely any pressure on the trigger, half a second, that's all it would take to end his world, and hers, forever.

Vaughn eyed the gun uneasily, but then tore his gaze away from it. He didn't have time to give an explanation, and considered trying to convince Dixon that he had told him his name. But Dixon wouldn't fall for it. Pulling a stunt like that would definitely not gain Vaughn any points in the trust department, and he needed those points to prevent his brains from becoming a splatter painting and Sydney from becoming a memory.

"I know more than that," he finally replied. "I know that you work for SD-6, which you think is a covert branch of the CIA…"

"What do you mean, 'I think,'" Dixon asked, his eyes narrowing until they were nothing more than slits.

Vaughn paused before answering, turning his gaze down to Sydney and lowering his head to hers. She was still breathing. Thank you, God.

"We can't discuss that here," he responded, glancing quickly at the SD-6 van. "And we don't have time now. Sydney needs help."

Dixon nodded grimly as he lowered the gun and opened the door to the van. He held out his arms, trying to take Sydney.

Vaughn shook his head and backed away. "I'm not leaving her."

Dixon glanced at his watch and folded his arms. "You said you know her, and you know me. But I don't know how, or if you're telling the truth…"

Jesus. This was going to take forever. There wasn't time. They should be at the hospital already, they should have been there awhile ago.

"I work with her," Vaughn interrupted, almost shaking with impatience.

"Fine," Dixon answered, his eyes narrowing. He didn't believe him. "I work with her too. You can trust her with me."

"I know I can, but I'm not leaving her. I promised her…"

"Stop." Dixon spat out as he held up a hand. "You're giving all the right answers, but I have no way of knowing if you're being straight with me or if you've been trained by the enemy. Just leave Sydney with me and go."

Vaughn was quickly losing patience. His eyes were beginning to burn with anger. "I am staying with Sydney," he said slowly, in a low voice.

Dixon's eyes ran down Sydney's form, and Vaughn saw his hands twitch slightly, as if they were going to dart out and take something. Vaughn knew that Dixon would have grabbed her, taken her away from him and thrown her into the van, but he was afraid to touch her. He didn't want to hurt her.

Dixon crossed his arms and sighed impatiently. "You're making this take longer than it should. It doesn't appear as if she has much time…"

"You think I don't know that?!" Vaughn shouted back at him, his anger and impatience blending into a dangerous mixture, his fury finally released.

"Do you think I haven't calculated how long she's been bleeding, how long she was left to that bastard's twisted desires?!" The color was rising to his cheeks and his eyes were smoldering.

"I swear to you that I didn't do this to her, but do you think that I still don't believe that it's somehow my fault?! I love her!"

Dixon's eyes widened at this point, and Vaughn paused for a moment, not able to believe that he had actually said that out loud. When the initial shock wore off, Vaughn continued, his voice now low, but still angry.

"God damn it, I'm in love with her. And I'm not going to leave her. Not again."

Dixon waited for a minute, watching Vaughn, who was checking on Sydney again. Vaughn brought his gaze up to meet Dixon's.

Dixon nodded slowly; he could see it, the love, the truth. It was in the way Vaughn spoke about her, the way he held her, the way he watched her. Dixon moved aside and jerked his head toward the open van. "Get in."

"Wait," Vaughn said in a low voice, moving closer to Dixon. "Where's your driver? Where are the other agents?"

"They went to check out the perimeter when we lost audio contact with Sydney. They were trying to discover her location and set up audio and visual surveillance of the meeting. I'll come back for them later."

Vaughn nodded, and continued in a whisper. "Take us to the closest hospital, but not, under any conditions, one that is operated by SD-6. Do you understand?"

Dixon nodded. Even without knowing Vaughn's name, he had started to trust him. He knew that he cared for Sydney more than anything else, and in his book, that was enough. He could tell that there was something more here that needed to be explained, but he also knew that they couldn't talk about it now.

Without a word, he took the map from Vaughn, placing it quickly on the van floor, and then moved to help Vaughn climb into the van.

They brought her to the hospital. It was eight minutes away. The longest drive Vaughn had ever taken. He and Dixon didn't speak the entire way there.

They took her from him in the waiting room. A nurse stayed behind to ask for her name, and he used the name of a vase of flowers he noticed on the admit desk and borrowed his mother's maiden name. Then she asked who he was and what his relationship was to her. He said he was her fiancé, but she still wouldn't let him past the double doors.

The nurse left, and went to take care of Sydney. When she came back a few minutes later, she was suspicious of him, and said they needed to test him before they could let him see her. So, he let them perform their tests, take his blood, but they still wouldn't take him to her just yet. They said he needed to wait for the results.

Vaughn waited for over an hour. It was obvious that they were not going to let him see her any time soon. He finally went to the bathroom and washed the blood, Sydney's blood, from his hands and face. It stained the water a dark red, and he watched the color fade from crimson to pink as the water swirled down the drain.

Then Vaughn left the bathroom and made some phone calls. He told Weiss to inform Devlin that the mission had been a success; he had already contacted the CIA safe house in Cairo and was sending him the map.

"Why aren't you bringing it home yourself?" Weiss asked.

"Because I'm not leaving Sydney," Vaughn answered. He was tired of lying. He didn't know how Sydney had done it for so long.

Weiss laughed. "I knew you had a girlfriend. I was wondering when you were going to actually tell me."

So Weiss had known after all, or at least he had suspected. It should have amused him, but Vaughn didn't feel like laughing.

Then Weiss told him that with that map, they would be able to take down SD-6. They would start with the Los Angeles office. It would take two weeks at the most to assemble and prep the team and the operation, then the LA office would be destroyed. They would continue from there until the entirety of SD-6 was obliterated.

Two weeks ago…two hours ago even, this would have been cause for celebration. He and Sydney would finally be free. Soon, he would be able to take her into his arms in front of anyone …But now, what was the point of celebrating if Sydney wasn't there to share it with him, to share his life with him?

He quietly said goodbye, and called Jack.

At first Jack sounded concerned, and said that he would like to arrange a meeting with Vaughn. He wanted to discuss in person exactly what had happened, so he would know what to expect when he visited Sydney in the hospital.

Vaughn calmly explained to him that he wasn't in the States, and wouldn't be returning until Sydney could too. Jack became cold and businesslike. He coolly gave Vaughn a message to relay to Sydney, and told him to buy her a get-well card and sign his name. Then he mentioned something about danger and agent/handler protocol, but Vaughn didn't really listen to it.

Vaughn was about to hang up, but as an after thought, interrupted Jack and asked him to cover for Sydney and contact her friends. She wouldn't want them to worry. Jack agreed to, and without any further words, or even a hint of a goodbye, he hung up.

He would not be visiting Sydney in Cairo, not while Vaughn was there.

After his phone call with Jack, Vaughn slowly walked to the corner of the waiting room where Dixon was sitting, and quietly explained to him what SD-6 really was. He gave him details about Sydney's missions and counter missions, told him the truth about Danny, and what had happened at Badenweiler. He told him that what he had been doing had not been for the good of his country; he told him that he had been working for the enemy.

Dixon listened calmly to Vaughn's explanation, until the very end. That's when he broke down and started to cry, covering his face with one hand, the other resting on his knee.

Vaughn looked away. Watching other men cry was one of the saddest things to witness. He hated it. It was almost worse than seeing Sydney in pain. Almost. But not quite. Not by a long shot, he realized, now that he was actually thinking about it. Seeing Sydney so close to death was definitely worse than anything else.

Not knowing what else to do, he took Dixon's hand and squeezed it for a moment. Then he let go. Dixon apologized and told him that he would contact Sloane and cover for Sydney. He thanked Vaughn for informing him, for telling him the truth; and he left.

Just as Dixon was walking out the door, a nurse approached Vaughn. "You can see your fiancée now," she told him. "She's in the ICU." She handed Vaughn an envelope and led him down the sterile hospital hallways to Sydney's room.

He looked at the envelope as he walked down the hall; it contained his test results. They had believed that he was Sydney's fiancé, but only after they had determined that the semen they had gathered from Sydney during the rape exam did not belong to him. After they were sure that he wasn't the one who had hurt her. God damn it. He threw the envelope in a trashcan marked "Hazardous Materials" on the way to her room.

The intensive care unit turned out to be an entire hallway in which two or three patients shared one room. Vaughn was glad. He had thought that it would be one large, hallway-like room, with all of the gravely ill, brutally injured, and close-to-death patients in the hospital. He wouldn't have been able to deal with that, he could barely handle the situation as it was.

The nurse left him in front of room 47. Sydney's room. He waited until he saw her white-clad form turn the corner at the end of the hall before he opened the door.

The bed closest to the door had a white sheet pulled over the body, covering everything from head to foot. Nurses were bustling around the body, switching off machines, while a doctor stood nearby, writing something on a clipboard.

"What a shame; she was so sweet, so young," he heard someone whisper tearfully.

Vaughn stood rooted in the doorway, eyes frozen on the sheet-covered body.

"Call someone to take her down to the morgue," the doctor ordered without emotion.

Then someone noticed Vaughn standing in the doorway.

"Can I help you?" one of the nurses asked, wiping tears from her eyes.

Vaughn opened his mouth to speak, but no sounds came out. He cleared his throat and brought a hand to his forehead as if confused. "I…I'm Eric Donovan."

He knew it wasn't very original. Weiss was watching his dog while he was away, and for some reason, that had been the first thing he had thought of when they had asked him for his name earlier.

"And you're here to see your fiancée?" the nurse asked him quietly.

Dammit! Why the hell were there still tears in her eyes?

He nodded slowly.

She put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I'm very sorry…"

Vaughn's heart stopped and he broke out in a cold sweat. He felt like singing loudly and covering his ears like children do when they don't like what is being said. He wanted to cry and scream. He wanted to run away. He didn't want to hear what she was going to say next, but she was continuing and he forced himself to listen.

"…We'll move that patient out of here as soon as possible. Then you can have some time alone with Lily." She dried her eyes and gave him a small smile.

Vaughn let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding, and brought a hand to his forehead. Thank God.

He walked over to the other bed, the one that Sydney was laying in. The bright lights and white walls made her cuts and bruises even more obvious and appalling.

The blood was gone, held in by stitches and bandages. She was hooked up to four IVs, one for blood, one for saline, and two for antibiotics. Countless other machines measured her pulse and breathing, making sure she was still alive.

He leaned down and gently kissed her forehead. Then he took her hand and stood by her bed, listening to the steady beeping of the machines.

They came in and removed the body from the other bed. The nurse that had been crying brought him a chair and told him to sit down. He did, but he didn't let go of Sydney's hand.

The sun rose in the sky, and when the nurse returned, he asked her to close the shades; he preferred the sterile, artificial light of the hospital to the bright and cheerful sunlight.

He was tired, but there was more to it than that. The anger had finally left him, and the sadness wrenched at his heart, threatening to shatter it. But he couldn't even cry.

He was exhausted. He was emotionally drained. He was numb.

The doctor stepped into the room periodically. Sometimes, he talked to him, but Vaughn couldn't really pay attention to what was being said. The only thing he really heard the doctor tell him was that Sydney (or Lily rather, because that's what the doctor and all the nurses called her) wasn't out of the woods just yet, and the sooner she woke up, the better.

They brought him food, but he didn't eat it. Visiting hours were over, but they let him stay; he wouldn't move from Sydney's side, wouldn't let go of her hand.

They never brought in another patient to fill the other, now empty, bed. Vaughn was glad; he still couldn't look in that direction without remembering the terror he felt when he thought that Sydney lay there covered by the sheet. He liked the silence; he preferred that he and Sydney were left alone.

It was dark again when the nurse that had been crying returned, telling him she wouldn't let him stay if he didn't eat something. He wasn't hungry, and told her that he didn't have any money. Not a complete lie, because he only had ten dollars and some change in American currency, which he doubted they would accept in the hospital cafeteria.

The nurse smiled at him as she reached into her pocket and handed him some bills. She promised she'd stay with Sydney until he came back, and told him where he could find both the bathroom and the cafeteria.

He went to the bathroom. The soap made his hands sticky when he washed them, and for a moment he thought it was dark red. It wasn't; it was a transparent pink, just like any other liquid soap, but he quickly washed it off anyway.

He didn't go to the cafeteria. There were some vending machines down the hall from the bathroom and he bought a package of M&M's and a cup of instant coffee.

Vaughn opened the M&M's and poured a few onto his hand. He ate two, a brown one and a green one, but threw away the red one as he went back to Sydney's room. The nurse smiled at him when he returned, but he didn't smile back. He had been awake for over forty-eight hours and if he didn't look like hell, he at least felt like it.

He took a sip of his coffee and ate an M&M (an orange one), as if to prove to the nurse that he had obeyed her orders. She smiled at him again and left him alone. He put the coffee and the M&M's on the table next to Sydney's bed.

He softly kissed her, before once again taking her hand and returning to his chair, his post at her bedside. The doctor walked in, looked at some of the monitors, glanced at his watch, and sadly shook his head. The last action hadn't been meant for Vaughn to witness; the doctor hadn't known that he had been watching.

The doctor stood at the end of Sydney's bed for a few minutes before finally turning to Vaughn and saying, almost in a whisper, "If she doesn't wake up within the next eight hours, it is very likely that she never will at all."

Then, he walked out of the room, but paused at the door and turned around. "I'm sorry."

Vaughn closed his eyes. And that's when he started to pray, the whispered prayers pouring from his lips in French, like his mother taught him when he was a little boy.