t: tergiversation
a: sesha c. & eve marsh : {mindofsesha@aol.com & shackled_rapture@yahoo.com }
s: a promise. a secret. a future foretold in increments. {credit dauphine super challenge}
r: this section: pg-13/mild r… next sections : varied
c: premeditated angst
sp: through rendezvous
d: neither of us claim ownership.
di: ask first, please
tergiversation* chapter one {a retrospective}
He hates the heady scent of fresh-cut flowers. Their sickly sweet fragrance, bound tightly into aesthetically pleasing arrangements, seem artificial to him. That he can smell them from a floor above the room is upsetting, but he wouldn't miss this show for anything. The flowers are but a small hindrance that annoy his senses and can be overlooked. They are expected at spectacles such as this, of course, no funeral would be complete without the obligatory stands of greenery flanking the casket, the exit way to the hearse, the cemetery. Tiny bowls of yellow and white roses in bubbly bowls, tied with gossamer white ribbons. He had hoped he could catch her perfume one more time, the smell he always associated with her, but with the floral odor and his distance from the casket there's no chance of that now. It's just as well.
He watches with veiled interest as the other mourners shuffle into the viewing room. Clothed solely in black; his form draped in obscure shadow, he knows no one can see him from this vantage point. Strange that no one expects to see him here, certainly not perched in some wretchedly hot upper level, voyeuristic in attendance, as he watches the sordid play unfold beneath him. Sloane leads the pack; his short, compact body clad in a well-fitting suit and shiny Italian leather shoes, his face downcast and brooding. Smirking, he wonders soundlessly if the man's patriarchal instincts have kicked in, or if perhaps he just wants the attention. Emily is a step behind on his right, her skin holding even more of pallor than he remembers. Together they approach the casket, pause. He wonders, fleetingly, if they had been able to do a good job with the restoration. If she looks serene, unsmiling, her face made perfect again with waxes and glues and strange silly putties. Zeroes in again on what is going on below him, the slow motion movements that Emily make, knuckles white against the edge of the mahogany casket. She is suddenly shaking, a low tremor that starts slow and gains momentum, one warbling free hand wiping at sporadic, free- flowing tears. Sloane lowers his mouth to her ear, and from here he can't hear the grieving woman's husbands whisper. Can't see anything but the quiver that overtakes her body, the waving of a crisp handkerchief flowing from Arvin Sloane's pockets to his wife's fingers. Hers are the first tears he has seen; probably because she one of the two women in attendance. The men, he assume, come from the well-bred knowledge that it is a sign of weakness to publically exhibit your grief. They keep it buried in taut smiles and the slow scuffle in their footsteps, eyes devoid of loathsome tears, blank with private pain.
They all look shell shocked more than anything else – he watches Dixon approach now, looking very close to losing the stoic expression he is wearing, his wife – Denise, Diane? He's forgotten, as though that detail even mattered –grasping her husband's hand, the couples' face a portrait of disbelief and despair.
It certainly had been a surprise. After all, she'd been the invincible agent, the one who survived life or death missions with skill and a sort of fashionable flair, with nary a scratch to cast doubt on her bank cover. She'd been able to fool so many people for years with this ability of evading consequences for her actions, consequences like death, honing her skill to lie so easily that she made every untrue utterance seem verifiable. Dirty truth. To recall all the times she emerged from dangerous perils unharmed, even when all the odds were stacked against her, it is hard to believe that she could be gone. That same disbelief echoes in the room beneath him, the inconsolable shock, and the still – present whispers of: car accident? How could it be...?
Of course, he understands the state of mind she had been in at the time of her accident. The autopsy report, all clean lines and black ink, spelled it out. "Toxicology reveals that the deceased had self-medicated with approximately 100 mg of Xanax, 550 mg Codeine, 30mg Valium. Alcohol present in blood at 1.25 %, above legal limit and in reaction to pharmaceuticals present in the bloodstream, resulting in probable black out and subsequent loss of control over vehicle."
Dead on Arrival at Mercy Hospital. Organs, those salvageable, were donated to a kid in Jersey who needed a heart and a woman in Arizona who had been waiting on a kidney for two years. He isn't supposed to have that information, either, but it has become effortless for him to be granted access to the most private of files. He wanted to know where the living pieces of her ended up, while wanting to forget her lifeless face, body, hands: black and blue with bruising, paper clipped to the front a manila folder with her name on it. Proof from a million different angles. No matter which way he looks at it, the facts remain the same: death has taken her, and in truth, in truth—that is best. Her silence will prove invaluable, he reasons, and his attention again is recaptured, eyes again on the people below.
He honestly thought that Jack Bristow might not show, but he surprises him, and appears out of nowhere below. His entrance casts an immediate, uncomfortable silence around the room. He is the last of the mourners to arrive, the only relative in attendance. The number of mourners itself is poor, Francie's absence strangely conspicuous, but there is nothing that can be done about that now. He looks lost, the senior man scanning the honey-colored pews and searching, searching – for something. He wonders if Jack thought, momentarily, to seek him out. Perhaps- but then again, he doubts it, for his own absence is most assuredly necessary.
Sydney's father wears an anguished expression obvious from across the room as he slowly makes the procession to his daughter's casket. From here, her face looks like peach plastic framed behind white satin, and he has to remind himself that this vestige of her is only a shell. A cold hard shell with nothing left inside it to haunt him or make him light-headed with stupid desire. And while he could argue with himself that this is indeed beneficial, that he will now be able to focus on the things he is meant to focus on without the haunting of his emotion for her, he still feels regret. Regret for his lies and his honesty, regret that he felt so much and said so little. There had been a place for them, he had thought, a place far off from the particulars of their existence. He thought they had a lifetime, and the convincing grief written on Jack Bristow's face relays to his heart and his mind that he has been incorrect about everything.
When the senior Bristow backs away and moves to a pew in front of the casket, music fills the room beneath his feet. The strands of "Amazing Grace" rise to his ears, the sickly sweet orchestration, lyric-less, just the soft and melancholy tones. He listens when the director begins to speak, his voice low and reverent.
"Friends, family, I welcome you. While this day holds so much sadness and undue pain from the passing of one of God's daughters, we meet to give celebration to the life of this amazing woman. A woman who suffered, yes lord, suffered unduly in the short span that she was with us; O lord, we call up to you and give reverence to the life that our dearly departed lived, so valiantly and courageously. As Jesus said – be ye not sad…"
Two suited funeral officials walk over and close the casket. The man below at the microphone has too little to say, summing his diatribe with some pious comment about how much she will be truly missed, after which strangers - men he has never seen before - come and pick up the sides of the casket. He wonders if circumstances had been different, would he have been given the honor of carrying her casket to the hearse, being part of its journey to her most final and private of spaces. The thought, while saddening in a deep way, still sends a perverse shiver down his spine. He closes his eyes and hears the wailing below, the sound of Emily Sloane and her noisy, dutiful tears. He envies those tears, wishes he had the luxury to cry for his friend, to take a moment and think about all it is that she meant to him. But he doesn't want to allow that, not anymore. Finished with this silent observation, he steps backwards slowly, dropping the memory card he's been gripping for over an hour.
"Sydney Allison Bristow. April 19, 1973 – May 19, 2002: And lovingly, she is surrendered back to Christ" flutters in a crumbled heap to the worn hardwood floor below.
*
A shroud of darkness surrounds her, enveloping; an inky black that goes on to infinity. Claustrophobia has never been a big problem of hers, but for some reason, trapped in this gilded cage of wood and eternal sleep, she feels slightly perturbed with the confinement. Closing her eyes, trading one darkness for another, she hopes that she is making the right decision.
Her watch makes a small, silent tremor, indicating she has two minutes until extraction. The hearse slides to a slow stop and she hears the muffled sound of the driver's door open and close. Holding her breath, she waits until the doors in the rear open and prepares herself for the jarring of the coffin being pulled from the vehicle with swift, jerky motions.
Right now, everything is about speed. When the lid of the monstrous mahogany coffin is lifted, the light hurts her eyes and she instinctively raises up her hand to shield them.
"Agent Bristow"? The agent above her is a short, squat girl with green blue eyes, dressed in the appropriate funerary workers outfit. "You need to change into this, and quickly. Your car will meet you at the prearranged spot in 2 minutes."
"Great. Thanks" She takes the clothes and instantly is pulling the navy-blue uniform over her tank top. Taking a moment to look around herself and identify her surroundings, she sees the vases of fresh flowers accenting the doorway to the crematorium. It disturbs her, these visual cues of what has just taken place. What did the others think when they saw those flowers, in that context. Overwhelmed, she focuses inward on the task at hand.
"Hurry, agent Bristow" a voice reminds, and she pulls the rest of the clothing from her body. Claps her hat on her head and pulls on sunglasses. "Good luck" follows her out the door, and despite the general horror of the past 48 hours, she almost smiles.
Her watch buzzes against her wrist. One minute. Adrenaline pumps through her body in lacerating tides. Nervous electricity running rampant, mixed with a heightened-sense of self-awareness, makes her antsy with unkempt energy. Lifting the communicating device inside her watch to her mouth she whispers forcefully, "This is Freelancer, I'm nearing rendezvous. ETA is thirty seconds."
Breaking into a short run, muscles thriving with spontaneous force she quickly darts across the back of the cemetery, breaking up her sprints with brisk walking. She spots the clearing past the bushes ahead of her, leading directly towards her extraction point. After a quick look around her, she finds nothing but silence and endless rows of graves decorated with flowers in a bizarre array of vases. Her feet pound the ground beneath her as she sprints across the late morning lawn, thousands of people at rest beneath her feet serving as her only witness. Satisfied that no one living could be following her, she makes the final break through the foliage in the rear of the cemetery grounds and sees the battered charcoal gray Blazer parked inconspicuously on the corner.
Slightly breathless from exertion and fear, she opens the door tentatively and sees the face of her handler. "Get in" he orders, and she complies, wordlessly, startled by his presence. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting when she entered the car, but it certainly hadn't been Vaughn, dressed in black with wild eyes, unruly hair, a study in impatience.
As soon as the door shuts, he peels into the glossy asphalt. "What are you doing here?" she hisses.
"Remember how I said that most of the extraction procedure was highly classified?" He dares a look in her direction. "This was one of the classified parts I told you about. I sent a double out 2 minutes before the hearse even arrived at the crematorium. She resembles you from a distance, just in case we had surveillance by any third party they'd follow the bait." His eyes make brief contact with hers. "Just in case. I'm playing everything extra-safe."
She remembers him saying something once about being wildly, crazy careful and she finally understands that now, comprehends it in a way she hadn't ever planned. At one point in her life this mission of hers - this lifelong goal of taking down SD-6 - had been all she ever wanted, a highly specified tactical game of cat-and-mouse and revenge. Just as easily as she entered this life and took Vaughn's words with less than a grain of salt, she now realizes the impact of not following such rational advice. Sydney gives him a satisfied smile, relief that everything is still running smoothly, if only for the moment.
"Good work, agent Vaughn. So the next stop is still Albuquerque, right? Or rather, the helicopter that will take us to Albuquerque?" Drumming her fingers along the edge of the door, she waits his response. The car interior shows signs of wear and tear; underneath her fingertips she can feel scratches and dents. A disposable car, one you leave by the side of the road without regret. A getaway car. And at the moment, it doesn't bother her in the least.
"No. We used that as a diversion in case the CIA mole was made aware of our true plans. This way we shouldn't have any leaks in regards to faking your death and sending you to a safe house while your father attempts to locate the man responsible for Will Tippin and Francie Calfo's deaths…"
Their names evoke a familiar sadness that washes through her. Will and Francie - her best friends, killed only days before, their memory filling her vision with images that could only hope to be faded, not forgotten. A rush of guilt remains; no matter how often she convinces herself their deaths were out of her control, she still feels responsible.
She knows where this conversation will go if she lets it run too far. She blames herself, a continuous cycle of self-hatred and poignant regret that makes her weak with a bone-chilling despair. A type of cold that is impossible to shake off, a weight that cannot be lifted. In the end, her friends died for one reason and one reason only: they had both known her. Clearing her throat, she blatantly changes the direction of their discussion to the particulars of her extraction. "In short, you and my dad are the only people that know where we are going?"
"No." He makes an arching turn to the right and glances in his rearview mirror. "I'm the only person who knows where we are going. Your dad asked to not be made aware of that information."
"But what if I need to get in touch with him? Or him with us? Vaughn-" A warbling note enters her voice, and she's scared suddenly, afraid of what a lack of contact could mean.
"There's a secure web address that is CIA encrypted where you father may make messages known to us and we can do the same. The entire process is firewalled; they don't know who we are, where we are sending from, and vice versa. Totally secure."
"And he's the only one who knows about that?"
He gives her a brief glance, forehead wrinkling in testimony to his worry before gripping the steering wheel and pressing down on the gas. "Yeah."
"So," she attempts to sound light and airy. "Where are we going?"
"I guess you'll have to find out when we get there."
*
He watches her while she sleeps, slumped against the window, her breath making webs of mist as they ride down a forgotten highway. Blinking away encroaching weariness and keeping his eyes trained on the white splotches on black asphalt, the tick of miles driven and miles to go create a warring tally in his head.
He has no idea where he is going. Just driving until some place feels safe, and he wants it to be a million miles from LA. Every gallon of gas wasted into the nigh makes him feel like he hasn't gone far enough. And with each hour that passes, the air between him and his passenger becomes more and more tense and silent. For a hundred miles she'd ceased to speak – didn't want to. He could see her reflection, face pale and eyes drawn, the impact of the past 36 hours becoming all too garishly real. He understands the reasons well-enough to be more than sympathetic to her silence.
He remembers Tuesday. Recalls with vivid clarity the frantic call from Weiss, yelling that the safe house had been compromised. Walking in to find a veritable bloodbath, dirtied with 4 more bodies of CIA men who sacrificed their lives for the endless cause, the holding room where Will had been kept and abducted a messy wash of blood. The thick red liquid was everywhere, creating a sickening trail where imagination and instinct led him to believe that the reporter had been dragged across the carpeting and down the hardwood floor. By the time he was done surveying the scene the M.E. already estimated that there was enough blood on the floor to suggest that the victim was most certainly deceased. Part of him hopes they never find the body, that Sydney can have a chance to move on and not be confronted with what would surely be an unwanted reminder of all she has lost in this process.
What happened next: stepping into the bathroom, the only place safe from the maroon and scarlet tinged living room, he can't completely justify. With trembling fingers he had called Sydney, breaking protocol by dialing her numbers, by asking her to meet him, by calling her by name - "Syd….there's been an accident."
No one who says "there's been an accident" means an "accident"; not really, it just makes you somehow feel better, more in control. An accident implies that there was no premeditated intent to cause another person or thing harm. Accidents just happen, random and reversible. An accident was not what happened here; it was purely planned and perfectly executed, and five men had given their lives for…
She didn't cry. Not at first. Showed up in twenty minutes, face free of cosmetics, and she didn't cry. Took in everything with wide eyes, her breath shaky when she sighed. It was heartbreaking, seeing her like that, in shock or something like shock, the horror trapped in her eyes. They sat in the bathroom, later, her hands gripping a styrofoam cup of old coffee. Her cell phone had sounded so loud in that room, making everything around them jar with a horrible clanging noise.
He couldn't really make out what was being said, but the slow motion replay of her face has been etched on his mind forever. Eyes widening, she could only nod, over and over and over. He heard something about a break in and then something about a shooting, and then she had pressed "end" and looked up with this—expression, eyes filling with tears and her fingers clutching the coffee cup almost violently.
"Francie's dead." When she cries: big tears welling and spilling over her cheeks, leaving an angry red trail down her face, her eyes glowing and iridescent brown-gold. He doesn't know what to say, not anymore, and so he takes her coffee cup, sets it on the sink, and then he breaks protocol mere feet away from his boss and scoops her into his arms, pulling her rigid weight into his. He holds her until she is really sobbing, great hiccups and shaking and grabbing his shoulders.
Six people dead. The count was rising and he was scared looking at her. Didn't want to leave her side, and wouldn't listen if he were told to. When she said she wanted to go to her apartment, after the police investigation and well after three in the morning, he had whispered to her that he was coming with her. Her apartment had been ransacked, and only two things were found missing: a hat box full of ancient photographs from a distant life and a collection of her mother's antique coded books. It was a horrible experience to watch her sift through her belongings after the fact, strewn around and half-destroyed, cataloging the contents for insurance policies and police reports. She had moved around the melee without a sound, robotically restoring a semblance of order, in what seemed a complete autopilot trance. It was standing there in her home, helpless in a corner while she resembled a ghost with dead eyes trying to give the destruction meaning, that he knew something had to change. It wasn't safe for her anymore, and in a rush of determination he vowed to be the one to keep her secure, succeeding where he had failed in the past.
He blinks and lets everything shimmer for a moment, looks at her, because he likes to make sure she is still breathing. Right now everything seems fragile, unbelievable, and even harder to process when he's soaring down highway 81 on a blustery May night. It's true that he does think she is too beautiful, and this situation too risky for him and the both of them. He knows this, just as he knows all the odds are stacked against the two of them making it anywhere together virtually undetected.
But he drives. Rolls down the window on his side when he starts to feel sleepy and the sounds of wind rushing past makes her stretch and open her eyes halfway. The distance is still there between them, the way she refuses to look too long, the way she folds her hands into her lap and looks straight forward at nothing.
"About how far are we?" Already curling in the opposite direction, he waits until her eyes are closed again and she is once again drowsing.
"I guess I'll find out when we get there."
*
Sydney has long since stopped trying to keep track of the time. Or their location, for that matter; Vaughn's silence about their final destination has grown irritating to the point that she doesn't even care where they wind up in the long run. The scenery has equally failed to capture her attention, endless highways, roads with no end. Just time to think, and she doesn't know how much more of even that she can stand.
The Blazer is short on accommodations, other than the AC Vaughn has set on 'high'. Its one redeeming feature is the respectable legroom – with minimal cramping she is able to twist her legs to the side and underneath her, allowing the semblance of a sideways reclining position. She can feel the door lock press incessantly against her cheek after what seems like hours frozen in that position, but has little desire to alleviate the discomfort. She almost welcomes the pain, letting it serve as her penance.
She is running away. She has never run away from anything in her life, and the more time spent in this car, the more emphatic the loathing of her actions becomes. It all happened so suddenly: a new enemy, Will's discovery of her agent status, his subsequent death, Francie's own shooting, the hurried plans for her 'absolute extraction', as the CIA so bluntly phrased it. The worst week of her life; and only now, stuck in this beat-up car with a stony, silent brooding Vaughn, has the adrenaline worn off and the enormity of what has just happened been slapped in her face. There's no going back.
A jerky rattling shakes her from her thoughts as Vaughn guides the car off a solid dirt road and onto what must be gravel. Sydney looks up, her neck stiff from holding such an extreme position for hours, re-centering herself in the seat before fully taking in her surroundings. The path itself is framed by fairly dense woodlands, with foliage covering nearly every surface. Vaughn maneuvers the vehicle effortlessly down the winding road, she assumes towards the clearing she sees ahead.
She turns to look at him at last, his eyes bullets on the terrain ahead, focused on their destination. "Where are we?"
He doesn't move a muscle to acknowledge her query, no glance in her direction or motion with his free arm. It is almost as if he is riveted in this position, held together with focus and determination alone. She startles herself, realizing that in her melancholy she never once thought to suggest a turn at the wheel so he could rest, unable to recall the last break they took. After a moment he replies, "A guy I met in college owns this place, he said it was in their family for ages, they never used it. I figured it's about as remote a place as we're going to find."
She can see the clearing breaking now, a small flat area with a modest, two story structure framed behind the backdrop of the woods. It looked deserted, well built, however unkempt, but…"you're using a place one of your buddies owns as a safe house? Vaughn, how do you know they're not going to run background searches on you, or something, aren't you afraid they're going to find me here-"
He shook his head once, sharply, dismissively. "I met the guy once at a frat party. He was drunk off his ass, probably never realized he talked about this house in the first place and certainly doesn't remember me. No one will find you."
"And you remembered about this house so many years later?"
He turned in her direction at last, and she was taken aback by the depths of his eyes. She couldn't read them at all. "I remember everything."
*
{tbc}