Eric stood motionless against the length of the wall. Just around the
corner were two guards and the door to Vaughn. Across the hall, he watched
agent Matthew Chavez give the signal that they were in the clear.
A beep sounded in his ear - incoming transmission.
"Visual comms have been redirected," Jack said. "I'm going for the documents."
"Focus in," muttered another voice - Agent Josh Collins, who was on standby in a unmarked vehicle located across the street in the sleepy Russian town. "Affirmative lock on comms. Proceed under undetected surveillance."
"Can't they just say what the hell they mean?" Matt whispered.
Eric replied, "He just said they don't know we're here. yet."
Matt rolled his eyes and both men hurried to the end of the hall, pressing their bodies against the wall. Eric quickly peeked to see where the guards stood, then quietly slid a disc-like object along the wall. It stopped two feet away from the guards, and blended almost perfectly with the white marble floor. Eric and Matt automatically covered their faces with gas masks and waited.
{~}
Some kind of dream. Nightmare. Had to be.
Abruptly, she sat up in bed and choked on the bile that had risen. Her vision was blurry, her hair disheveled and tangled. She was shivering though it was mid-summer. Cold sweat trickled down the line of her back and the side of her face.
Sydney swallowed hard and drew her knees up to her face and hugged them tight. Helpless to do anything else, she let the tears come. She welcomed them in their release, and sobbed in fear.
She was rocking back and forth on the bed, and didn't care to notice her surroundings. Despair filled her, and echoed in her thoughts. Vaughn. Michael, Michael. there's so much to tell you, so much to say. Don't leave me this way. How will I go on?
Behind the two-way mirror, three agents averted their eyes. Though grown men, they still found it difficult to deal with crying women. Reluctantly, one stood up and went to the door. He looked at his fellow co-workers ruefully before he opened the door and faced a startled Sydney.
"Miss Bristow, I am Officer Daniel Trejo," noting the look of pure terror that overcame her, he quickly added, "I'm with the CIA."
Holding out one hand in a gesture of peace, he reached in his back pocket and withdrew his wallet. Flipping it open, he showed his credentials and saw her visibly relax.
"You're in a CIA safe-house not far from HQ or your father's."
"My father." She glanced at him, eyes glassy and expression hollow. "Where is he?"
Daniel hesitated for a moment. Looking away, he simply offered her the truth. "On a mission."
Sydney merely nodded once and looked down, hiding her face from his. The scalding tears blotted her eyes again and her heart wrenched in pain. All she could think of was Vaughn. abruptly, she blinked and looked up again. A mission?
"What kind of mission?"
"A recon mission," he said. Seeing dismay swim in her glistening brown eyes, he hurried on. "With Agent Weiss. It is also a rescue mission."
"Rescue?"
"Yes, ma'am. Rescuing your handler, Agent Michael Vaughn."
Belatedly, Sydney realized that the agent had deliberately referred to Vaughn as her handler. Memory flooded back, and silently she wished it was still true.
{~}
Jack tensed. The door was not cooperating! Annoyance frayed his nerves as he tried yet again to enter the code to open the vault.
"It's not opening," he spoke softly.
"Was the correct code entered?" Josh asked.
"I don't make those kinds of mistakes."
"No, Jack. You only make the most obvious ones." The voice sent chills up his spine and the hair on his neck stood alert. So, the time had come.
Slowly, he turned and faced the woman he had not seen in nearly thirty years. Irina Derevko stood much like her daughter - tall, elegant, and with an air of quiet command.
For a moment, Jack was frozen in place, mouth in a thin line, jaw clenched, with eyes sharp. His heart was stabbed through with the renewed pain of memories. of betrayal. of deception.
Of the Laura that had been.
With a purposeful stride, she came to him and embraced him. His mind reeled and screamed betrayal, but he kept his body still. Her hands lightly scratched down his back and then she had the gall to smile at him before stepping back. She regarded her former husband with mixed contempt and perverse pleasure.
{~}
The guards fell with a slight thud, and immediately, Eric and Matthew scrambled into the hall, dragged the guards out of sight, and went to stand in their place.
Beep. Josh again.
"Sark and his assistant are preparing to leave the room. Vaughn appears to be stable, but not in the best condition. Initiating thirty-second power glitch. Set."
The door slid open, and Sark emerged. Eric fought the urge to tackle him on sight. Instead, speaking in excited, hushed tones, Sark and the assistant proceeded down the hall and turned sharply to the right. Eric held his breath for ten agonizing seconds, holding his foot in place, preventing the door from shutting and locking by only a half inch. Then Josh spoke again.
"Clear. Glitch set. On."
The door swept open when the power failure shot through the system, allowing Eric and Matt access when they pushed through. Vaughn, strapped to a chair in the center of the room, jerked his head up and frowned at the two men.
"More questions?" he asked, groggy.
"No, Mike. We gotta book it." Eric gripped a knife and sliced through the leather restraints.
"Book?" Vaughn watched, dazed as Matt cut the other restraints and hefted him to his feet.
"We gotta run."
"Ten seconds." Josh said. Suddenly, he sucked in his breath as his eyes scanned the monitor: Irina was talking to Jack! "Alpha, get out ASAP. Repeat: get out ASAP. Bloodhound is caught. Repeat: Bloodhound is caught. The Man has appeared."
Eric mumbled a curse and grabbed Vaughn by the arm. "I know you're not in the best of shape right now, but you have to run with me here, ok?"
Vaughn only nodded, then stumbled two steps after Eric and Matt began exiting the room. The door began to shut again, and Eric shoved Vaughn through before following with Matt behind him. Lifting Vaughn off the floor, Eric spoke.
"Robotron, meet us on the backside of the building. Corner of Kastltoff and Rutskya."
"Affirmative." Tires screeched on the street as the unmarked van went flying towards the intersection.
{~}
She spoke a command in Russian. Two guards appeared and took hold of Jack. They led him down the hallway into a small room in which Irina walked past him and took her seat behind a lavish, exquisitely feminine rosewood desk.
He was not fastened to his seat though he expected to be. It surprised him, but he said nothing. He simply let his mind work at how to escape. The guards stood on either side of him and kept a close eye on him.
Briefly, he glanced over to the door.
As if reading his thoughts, Irina spoke.
"Not to worry, Jack. You won't be here long."
Calculations ran through his head, figures, numbers, percentages. Chance. He could trust her, or he could treat her as the enemy she had become.
Trust? The thought struck him as odd and incongruous to the pieces of the woman he had put together: there was that past. and that small glimmer of hope that somewhere inside was the remains of a once-sweet woman. and then.
Jack ruthlessly tossed that notion aside. She was no such thing, even their marriage had been a farce. There were no true emotions to be found in her, no real understanding of good and truth. all that embodied the woman he had been fooled by was a swirling dark cloud of a pungent fetid aroma that signified the decay of the human soul and heart.
God, he needed to get out of here before he suffocated.
"You're armed, and I have not bothered to check or disarm you." She smiled mirthlessly.
Jack set his mouth in a firm line.
Spreading her hands wide on the desk, she leaned forward. Her hair was pulled back into a severe bun, making her features much more demanding and without its former appeal. Jack's left eyebrow rose slightly as he realized the difference. "You come for information, and I should be happy to help you obtain it."
Suspicion crept up, and Jack narrowed his gaze.
"After all, what is it you Americans say? Anything for an old friend, right?" Again, Irina smiled.
Jack shrugged.
"Oh, come now, Jack. After nearly thirty years, I would think you would have more to say to me."
The words "betraying bitch" skittered across his mind, but Jack simply opened his mouth, hesitated, then shut it again. Finally, he spoke up.
"What is it you want to discuss? The information, I mean."
Irina raised a brow in silent inquiry. Jack felt compelled to answer her.
"The past no longer exists for me, Irina. What was between us was an assignment on your part, and I don't care for it." He forced himself to look bored with the subject, but then snapped his gaze back to her with sharp intensity. "You left Sydney without a mother, and as if that weren't enough, you reappear in our lives to cause havoc. I think you ought to be quite satisfied with yourself and your operation. But I can promise you that it ends here."
Amused, Irina smiled. "Still so serious, Jack. All work and no play." Dramatically, she sighed.
"I want the information." Jack quelled the acute shudder that wanted to bristle down his back when he spoke of their past.
"Nothing comes free." Irina turned away from him, staring outside the window for a minute. She spotted an unmarked van speeding down the street before she turned back to him. "I want Sydney."
The answer was instantaneous.
"No."
She shrugged. "I suppose it makes no difference. I can get her without your help, and your protection will prove useless. I simply wanted to make the processes easier."
"I will not hand to you the daughter you chose to leave behind." Jack rose from his seat. "Tell your guards to stand down, Irina. We have nothing to discuss. I want the intel, and I will have it."
Control, Jack needed to find control in this situation. He refused to let Irina call the shots. He allowed her to conduct this meeting as she pleased, but Jack would chose to end it.
A discreet knock on the door interrupted the terse silence following that statement. Sark stepped in and without glancing around to see what was going on, blatantly spoke, his voice flat.
"It's him. Vaughn's the One."
Jack turned, spared Sark a disapproving glance, then turned back to Irina, who wore a smirk on her face as she rose from her plush chair.
"You know, Jack." she glance at him and idly twirled a pen in her fingers before setting it down. "I look forward to seeing you again."
"What does he mean? Vaughn's the One?" Jack demanded, one hand curled into a fist. "What's the One?"
Irina lifted one finger and both guards stepped up to escort Jack outside the building.
As Jack was being led from the room, Irina's last words echoed in his head. "All in due time, Jack. I hold the cards now. You'll simply have to wait to see what you're dealt."
{~}
The van pulled up, and Jack clambered in.
"Hurry up!" Josh exasperatedly yelled, grabbing at Jack's arms to help him in.
"There's no need." Jack sat, slammed the door shut, and rested his head against the wall of the van. "They know we were there."
"Yes, but we have to get out of here before they come after us."
Jack didn't think the statement required a response, but gave one anyway. "Josh, didn't you notice I was escorted out of the building by guards?"
Josh bit his lip and glanced into the rear view mirror.
"What happened?" Eric asked, still attending to Vaughn's swollen face and the slight cuts and bruises appearing on his body.
"She tried to get me to trade Sydney for information."
"Information?" Matt glanced up.
Jack watched them as they placed bandages and applied salves to Vaughn, who was sitting directly across from him.
Solemnly, Vaughn raised his head and met Jack's gaze.
"They say you're the One."
"I've been trying to get him to talk and he hasn't spoken since we got into the van." Eric sighed deeply, annoyed with himself and with his friend.
"There's a reason," Jack spoke quietly.
Vaughn's face betrayed no reaction.
Once again, Eric tried. "Vaughn, what did you tell Sark?"
No answer.
"Vaughn?"
A moment later, Vaughn glanced up at his friend. "I need you to tell me what you told Sark. Whatever it is may be vital to the operation."
"What is the One, Vaughn? Do you know?" Eric placed one hand on each of Vaughn's shoulders and waited for him to look up again.
Eric waited a beat and spoke again.
"Did you say anything? Give them any information? Anything?" Eric was antsy, irritated, stressed. Patience was a micrometer thin, and the truth of his own betrayal still plagued him with guilt. Borne from it was aggravation. "You said something! That's the only way they would know anything."
A blank stare was his reply.
"My god, Mike!" frustrated beyond his limits, Eric took a firmer hold of his shoulders and gave him two hard shakes. "What the hell did you tell that bastard?!"
Vaughn was lost, swimming in what had occurred in the small room they just left behind.
For a moment, he said nothing. He simply stared, straight through Eric, so it seemed. The colors, scents, people around him blurred, faded, remained unfocused. Questioning. he'd been questioned for hours, and now he was being questioned again. no doubt, when he returned, there would be more questions to face.
Did the cycle never end? Did respite always remain an elusive figment of whimsical imaginings never to be captured except in dreams or in the long- lost days of youth?
There was an answer. There was only one answer. He relived the moments, as he saw Sark's face and eyes shift with his reaction to what he had said. Sark had gone from upset to shocked, to intrigued, and finally, he left in a subdued, unreadable mood.
.It was all dependent upon his one answer.
What had he said? What had he told Sark? Why did it cause a flicker of alarm, of recognition to flash in those cold, calculating blue eyes? Something he said. something he said.
Another shake brought him back from the disturbing revelry.
Staring vacantly into his friend's brown eyes, Vaughn quietly repeated his words, forming each syllable perfectly, crisply.
"I told him I love her."
{~}
Night had fallen. Beauty was gone. Life relinquished its luster if it would confine her to go on without Vaughn. Perhaps if the Fates were especially cruel, her Father would be gone too. She would be left all alone.
It would be Sydney Bristow versus the world.
And the world, at the moment, would be her greatest enemy. The enemy had a face. The face was not unlike her own, and it had a name.
Mom.
Sydney reached out and pressed her fingers to the window, watched her heat meld with the chill of the night and form around her fingertips. She lowered her head to her shoulder and sobbed.
Oblivion hugged her and her sense of surroundings shrunk to encircle her mind where the events of the last few days plagued her.
A voice. A touch. A look.
One. More. Time.
A soft click sounded behind her. A single statement pierced the silence that separated her tears.
"We're the chosen."
She felt the presence step forward and lightly rest a hand upon her shoulder. She didn't need to spare the being a glance, and instead she turned and bound her arms around the slim waist of the figure, buried her face in the expanse of the chest before her.
The aroma. The feel. The man.
The chosen.
A beep sounded in his ear - incoming transmission.
"Visual comms have been redirected," Jack said. "I'm going for the documents."
"Focus in," muttered another voice - Agent Josh Collins, who was on standby in a unmarked vehicle located across the street in the sleepy Russian town. "Affirmative lock on comms. Proceed under undetected surveillance."
"Can't they just say what the hell they mean?" Matt whispered.
Eric replied, "He just said they don't know we're here. yet."
Matt rolled his eyes and both men hurried to the end of the hall, pressing their bodies against the wall. Eric quickly peeked to see where the guards stood, then quietly slid a disc-like object along the wall. It stopped two feet away from the guards, and blended almost perfectly with the white marble floor. Eric and Matt automatically covered their faces with gas masks and waited.
{~}
Some kind of dream. Nightmare. Had to be.
Abruptly, she sat up in bed and choked on the bile that had risen. Her vision was blurry, her hair disheveled and tangled. She was shivering though it was mid-summer. Cold sweat trickled down the line of her back and the side of her face.
Sydney swallowed hard and drew her knees up to her face and hugged them tight. Helpless to do anything else, she let the tears come. She welcomed them in their release, and sobbed in fear.
She was rocking back and forth on the bed, and didn't care to notice her surroundings. Despair filled her, and echoed in her thoughts. Vaughn. Michael, Michael. there's so much to tell you, so much to say. Don't leave me this way. How will I go on?
Behind the two-way mirror, three agents averted their eyes. Though grown men, they still found it difficult to deal with crying women. Reluctantly, one stood up and went to the door. He looked at his fellow co-workers ruefully before he opened the door and faced a startled Sydney.
"Miss Bristow, I am Officer Daniel Trejo," noting the look of pure terror that overcame her, he quickly added, "I'm with the CIA."
Holding out one hand in a gesture of peace, he reached in his back pocket and withdrew his wallet. Flipping it open, he showed his credentials and saw her visibly relax.
"You're in a CIA safe-house not far from HQ or your father's."
"My father." She glanced at him, eyes glassy and expression hollow. "Where is he?"
Daniel hesitated for a moment. Looking away, he simply offered her the truth. "On a mission."
Sydney merely nodded once and looked down, hiding her face from his. The scalding tears blotted her eyes again and her heart wrenched in pain. All she could think of was Vaughn. abruptly, she blinked and looked up again. A mission?
"What kind of mission?"
"A recon mission," he said. Seeing dismay swim in her glistening brown eyes, he hurried on. "With Agent Weiss. It is also a rescue mission."
"Rescue?"
"Yes, ma'am. Rescuing your handler, Agent Michael Vaughn."
Belatedly, Sydney realized that the agent had deliberately referred to Vaughn as her handler. Memory flooded back, and silently she wished it was still true.
{~}
Jack tensed. The door was not cooperating! Annoyance frayed his nerves as he tried yet again to enter the code to open the vault.
"It's not opening," he spoke softly.
"Was the correct code entered?" Josh asked.
"I don't make those kinds of mistakes."
"No, Jack. You only make the most obvious ones." The voice sent chills up his spine and the hair on his neck stood alert. So, the time had come.
Slowly, he turned and faced the woman he had not seen in nearly thirty years. Irina Derevko stood much like her daughter - tall, elegant, and with an air of quiet command.
For a moment, Jack was frozen in place, mouth in a thin line, jaw clenched, with eyes sharp. His heart was stabbed through with the renewed pain of memories. of betrayal. of deception.
Of the Laura that had been.
With a purposeful stride, she came to him and embraced him. His mind reeled and screamed betrayal, but he kept his body still. Her hands lightly scratched down his back and then she had the gall to smile at him before stepping back. She regarded her former husband with mixed contempt and perverse pleasure.
{~}
The guards fell with a slight thud, and immediately, Eric and Matthew scrambled into the hall, dragged the guards out of sight, and went to stand in their place.
Beep. Josh again.
"Sark and his assistant are preparing to leave the room. Vaughn appears to be stable, but not in the best condition. Initiating thirty-second power glitch. Set."
The door slid open, and Sark emerged. Eric fought the urge to tackle him on sight. Instead, speaking in excited, hushed tones, Sark and the assistant proceeded down the hall and turned sharply to the right. Eric held his breath for ten agonizing seconds, holding his foot in place, preventing the door from shutting and locking by only a half inch. Then Josh spoke again.
"Clear. Glitch set. On."
The door swept open when the power failure shot through the system, allowing Eric and Matt access when they pushed through. Vaughn, strapped to a chair in the center of the room, jerked his head up and frowned at the two men.
"More questions?" he asked, groggy.
"No, Mike. We gotta book it." Eric gripped a knife and sliced through the leather restraints.
"Book?" Vaughn watched, dazed as Matt cut the other restraints and hefted him to his feet.
"We gotta run."
"Ten seconds." Josh said. Suddenly, he sucked in his breath as his eyes scanned the monitor: Irina was talking to Jack! "Alpha, get out ASAP. Repeat: get out ASAP. Bloodhound is caught. Repeat: Bloodhound is caught. The Man has appeared."
Eric mumbled a curse and grabbed Vaughn by the arm. "I know you're not in the best of shape right now, but you have to run with me here, ok?"
Vaughn only nodded, then stumbled two steps after Eric and Matt began exiting the room. The door began to shut again, and Eric shoved Vaughn through before following with Matt behind him. Lifting Vaughn off the floor, Eric spoke.
"Robotron, meet us on the backside of the building. Corner of Kastltoff and Rutskya."
"Affirmative." Tires screeched on the street as the unmarked van went flying towards the intersection.
{~}
She spoke a command in Russian. Two guards appeared and took hold of Jack. They led him down the hallway into a small room in which Irina walked past him and took her seat behind a lavish, exquisitely feminine rosewood desk.
He was not fastened to his seat though he expected to be. It surprised him, but he said nothing. He simply let his mind work at how to escape. The guards stood on either side of him and kept a close eye on him.
Briefly, he glanced over to the door.
As if reading his thoughts, Irina spoke.
"Not to worry, Jack. You won't be here long."
Calculations ran through his head, figures, numbers, percentages. Chance. He could trust her, or he could treat her as the enemy she had become.
Trust? The thought struck him as odd and incongruous to the pieces of the woman he had put together: there was that past. and that small glimmer of hope that somewhere inside was the remains of a once-sweet woman. and then.
Jack ruthlessly tossed that notion aside. She was no such thing, even their marriage had been a farce. There were no true emotions to be found in her, no real understanding of good and truth. all that embodied the woman he had been fooled by was a swirling dark cloud of a pungent fetid aroma that signified the decay of the human soul and heart.
God, he needed to get out of here before he suffocated.
"You're armed, and I have not bothered to check or disarm you." She smiled mirthlessly.
Jack set his mouth in a firm line.
Spreading her hands wide on the desk, she leaned forward. Her hair was pulled back into a severe bun, making her features much more demanding and without its former appeal. Jack's left eyebrow rose slightly as he realized the difference. "You come for information, and I should be happy to help you obtain it."
Suspicion crept up, and Jack narrowed his gaze.
"After all, what is it you Americans say? Anything for an old friend, right?" Again, Irina smiled.
Jack shrugged.
"Oh, come now, Jack. After nearly thirty years, I would think you would have more to say to me."
The words "betraying bitch" skittered across his mind, but Jack simply opened his mouth, hesitated, then shut it again. Finally, he spoke up.
"What is it you want to discuss? The information, I mean."
Irina raised a brow in silent inquiry. Jack felt compelled to answer her.
"The past no longer exists for me, Irina. What was between us was an assignment on your part, and I don't care for it." He forced himself to look bored with the subject, but then snapped his gaze back to her with sharp intensity. "You left Sydney without a mother, and as if that weren't enough, you reappear in our lives to cause havoc. I think you ought to be quite satisfied with yourself and your operation. But I can promise you that it ends here."
Amused, Irina smiled. "Still so serious, Jack. All work and no play." Dramatically, she sighed.
"I want the information." Jack quelled the acute shudder that wanted to bristle down his back when he spoke of their past.
"Nothing comes free." Irina turned away from him, staring outside the window for a minute. She spotted an unmarked van speeding down the street before she turned back to him. "I want Sydney."
The answer was instantaneous.
"No."
She shrugged. "I suppose it makes no difference. I can get her without your help, and your protection will prove useless. I simply wanted to make the processes easier."
"I will not hand to you the daughter you chose to leave behind." Jack rose from his seat. "Tell your guards to stand down, Irina. We have nothing to discuss. I want the intel, and I will have it."
Control, Jack needed to find control in this situation. He refused to let Irina call the shots. He allowed her to conduct this meeting as she pleased, but Jack would chose to end it.
A discreet knock on the door interrupted the terse silence following that statement. Sark stepped in and without glancing around to see what was going on, blatantly spoke, his voice flat.
"It's him. Vaughn's the One."
Jack turned, spared Sark a disapproving glance, then turned back to Irina, who wore a smirk on her face as she rose from her plush chair.
"You know, Jack." she glance at him and idly twirled a pen in her fingers before setting it down. "I look forward to seeing you again."
"What does he mean? Vaughn's the One?" Jack demanded, one hand curled into a fist. "What's the One?"
Irina lifted one finger and both guards stepped up to escort Jack outside the building.
As Jack was being led from the room, Irina's last words echoed in his head. "All in due time, Jack. I hold the cards now. You'll simply have to wait to see what you're dealt."
{~}
The van pulled up, and Jack clambered in.
"Hurry up!" Josh exasperatedly yelled, grabbing at Jack's arms to help him in.
"There's no need." Jack sat, slammed the door shut, and rested his head against the wall of the van. "They know we were there."
"Yes, but we have to get out of here before they come after us."
Jack didn't think the statement required a response, but gave one anyway. "Josh, didn't you notice I was escorted out of the building by guards?"
Josh bit his lip and glanced into the rear view mirror.
"What happened?" Eric asked, still attending to Vaughn's swollen face and the slight cuts and bruises appearing on his body.
"She tried to get me to trade Sydney for information."
"Information?" Matt glanced up.
Jack watched them as they placed bandages and applied salves to Vaughn, who was sitting directly across from him.
Solemnly, Vaughn raised his head and met Jack's gaze.
"They say you're the One."
"I've been trying to get him to talk and he hasn't spoken since we got into the van." Eric sighed deeply, annoyed with himself and with his friend.
"There's a reason," Jack spoke quietly.
Vaughn's face betrayed no reaction.
Once again, Eric tried. "Vaughn, what did you tell Sark?"
No answer.
"Vaughn?"
A moment later, Vaughn glanced up at his friend. "I need you to tell me what you told Sark. Whatever it is may be vital to the operation."
"What is the One, Vaughn? Do you know?" Eric placed one hand on each of Vaughn's shoulders and waited for him to look up again.
Eric waited a beat and spoke again.
"Did you say anything? Give them any information? Anything?" Eric was antsy, irritated, stressed. Patience was a micrometer thin, and the truth of his own betrayal still plagued him with guilt. Borne from it was aggravation. "You said something! That's the only way they would know anything."
A blank stare was his reply.
"My god, Mike!" frustrated beyond his limits, Eric took a firmer hold of his shoulders and gave him two hard shakes. "What the hell did you tell that bastard?!"
Vaughn was lost, swimming in what had occurred in the small room they just left behind.
For a moment, he said nothing. He simply stared, straight through Eric, so it seemed. The colors, scents, people around him blurred, faded, remained unfocused. Questioning. he'd been questioned for hours, and now he was being questioned again. no doubt, when he returned, there would be more questions to face.
Did the cycle never end? Did respite always remain an elusive figment of whimsical imaginings never to be captured except in dreams or in the long- lost days of youth?
There was an answer. There was only one answer. He relived the moments, as he saw Sark's face and eyes shift with his reaction to what he had said. Sark had gone from upset to shocked, to intrigued, and finally, he left in a subdued, unreadable mood.
.It was all dependent upon his one answer.
What had he said? What had he told Sark? Why did it cause a flicker of alarm, of recognition to flash in those cold, calculating blue eyes? Something he said. something he said.
Another shake brought him back from the disturbing revelry.
Staring vacantly into his friend's brown eyes, Vaughn quietly repeated his words, forming each syllable perfectly, crisply.
"I told him I love her."
{~}
Night had fallen. Beauty was gone. Life relinquished its luster if it would confine her to go on without Vaughn. Perhaps if the Fates were especially cruel, her Father would be gone too. She would be left all alone.
It would be Sydney Bristow versus the world.
And the world, at the moment, would be her greatest enemy. The enemy had a face. The face was not unlike her own, and it had a name.
Mom.
Sydney reached out and pressed her fingers to the window, watched her heat meld with the chill of the night and form around her fingertips. She lowered her head to her shoulder and sobbed.
Oblivion hugged her and her sense of surroundings shrunk to encircle her mind where the events of the last few days plagued her.
A voice. A touch. A look.
One. More. Time.
A soft click sounded behind her. A single statement pierced the silence that separated her tears.
"We're the chosen."
She felt the presence step forward and lightly rest a hand upon her shoulder. She didn't need to spare the being a glance, and instead she turned and bound her arms around the slim waist of the figure, buried her face in the expanse of the chest before her.
The aroma. The feel. The man.
The chosen.