Tomorrow's Promise

Author's Note: This chapter was written by Gabby Silang.  I couldn't think of any better way to conclude my first fanfic than by having one of my favorite authors write the resolution.

Thanks again, Gabby!  And thank you, faithful readers, for sticking with me and for giving me such rich feedback!  And if you haven't checked out Gabby's fic, 6.28, you should put that on your reading list.  And if you're interested in reading more of my stuff, I'm up to chapter twenty-something on Will's Girl.

Chapter Twenty One – Something to Live For

It was almost three weeks after that day, and she was entering a much different warehouse.  They hadn't seen each other since he'd left her to the doctors.  Walking in she saw him already there, waiting for her. 

Much had happened in less than a month.  Sydney gained a lifetime.

She spent most of the three weeks in a hospital, an SD-6 building, in physical therapy.  Her life came back to her, not in snips and snaps as before, but flowing and fluid.

That man was her father.  He carried her on his back.  She danced on his feet.  Badly.  He left all the time.  He stopped laughing when she was twelve.  He'd do anything for her.  Protect her from her mother.  Her mother who read the promises of "The Runaway Bunny" with such conviction.

If you go flying on a flying trapeze, I will be a tightrope walker and I will walk across the air to you.

That book was in a packing box in her closet with a high school diploma and her grandmother's wedding veil.

The hospital bath was warm.  There had been a cold bath one time, and not in an ordinary hospital.  Electricity.  Pain.  Fear.  For herself and an intensely afraid man, Irish.  Martin Shepard.  He killed Danny.  Danny was her fiancée.  Called her 'baby' when no one else was around.  Was her fault.  In another bath. 

As soon as she could stand well enough, she opted for the shower.

Limping into another familiar setting, seeing her handler standing where he always stood, more images flowed.  I have an instinct.  I just wanted to say, I'm so sorry.  I'll break into the Vatican with you.  You look really pretty.  Your counter-mission is your counter-mission is your counter-mission is.  A couple of smiles.

Vaughn found it hard to look at her.  Found himself wishing for another time with her, one without close calls, without history.

He'd done exactly what she hadn't wanted him to and he'd screwed it up royally.  It wasn't even that he was important to Irina, just something else for her to lord over Sydney, to threaten and coerce with.  To hold her back.  He could pretend he was an asset.  Mostly he felt like an ass.

Meeting with Weiss later that awful day, watching Syd and Jack brought out like dead things on stretchers. . .

Yeah, he was an ass.

He'd spent nearly two hours with Devlin trying to explain his actions, which had nothing on the time he spent with himself on the subject.  Convinced Deviln not to suspend him, mostly on the merit of his intel on the identity of 'The Man.'  Somehow his supervisor had managed to pack "one more time and you're in the basement" into a parting look.

Vaughn had had a lot of time to think in the past three weeks.  He was on restricted duty, recovering from his injuries.  He thought of that as penance. 

And what Irina had said about Syd and her 'special powers and abilities.'  He found himself inexplicably trusting the truth of the words, reminding himself of his crazy aunt Trish, then brushing them off before digging any further into that particular can of worms.  Syd probably hadn't even thought twice about all that.  The words of a monumental liar, a murderer. 

The description was too familiar.  Don't think about it.

Sydney walked to where Vaughn was pacing, appropriately caged  "Hi."

He looked up at her  "Hey,"  her shoulders were lower than they'd been, her gate less confident, her eyes more crowded.  She remembered. 

She sat down on a crate near him.  "How's the arm?" she asked, gesturing towards his cast. 

He joined her  "Driving me insane,"  she smiled, commiserating, "But I'll live."

Quiet, but still a demand:  "You better."

Swallow, say something "The leg?"

Deep breath  "They tell me that I should be walking normally in a couple weeks, but most likely always have pain from it,"  cringe  "Compared it to arthritis."

Vaughn nodded sympathetically.  "And how about…?" he asked.

There was a pause while she shook her head, hoping some of all this new truth, the old truth, would leave.  Didn't work. 

"I don't think I'll ever get used to this"  disbelief and anger laced  "People can't really live like this.  My mother,"  don't break  "That woman is a monster.  My mother, Vaughn!"  She paced then, unsteady  "And what am I doing?  Tottering along, twiddling my thumbs waiting for her to decide she really does want me dead.  This woman who brought me up and taught me how to read and braided my hair, tied it with ribbons, with her hands, and killed your father, and betrayed us, with her hands."  Deep breaths  "I never knew her.  I never knew that woman."

It was hard to find something to say to that, to the naked truth.  So he didn't speak for a while.  Took her hand to stop her pacing.  The leg was probably hurting her.

"You know we'll catch her.  You will.  I know I'll see it happen."  She tried to pull away to clutch at old debates but he gripped tighter  "Until then you've got your father, you've got Will and they both know the incredible things you're doing and would do anything for you,"  a light smile  "I know the feeling."

Something washed over her then, a bit of her old bravado.  Her shoulders straightened, her eyes cleared.  She slowly let go of his hand and took a step back. 

"Okay"  inhale some fresh air  "Okay," her own smile "I think I can live with that.  Until then."

"Until then."

Author's Note:  The Runaway Bunny was written by Margaret Wise Brown, and is awesome.