Chapter Eight: For Them
Sydney heard the bedroom door slam, and she spun away from the mirror to see Michael, standing wild-eyed before her. "Michael, what--"
"We are bringing that bitch down," he said, his voice gravely serious even as his eyes showed that he was about thisclose to completely losing it. "And we are getting the hell out of here."
"Michael--"
"Hell, I'm about ready to forget bringing her down," he interrupted, eyes glinting with something she didn't quite recognize. "We could just go fake our own deaths and live on an island somewhere. We could do that, right? We have the resources to do that."
"Michael, what did she say to you?" That was the one thing she was learning about Michael that she couldn't stand-- he had the ability to surprise her, scare her. Like the day she'd found him drunk and unshaven in his apartment.
Like right now.
"Sydney, what were you thinking the day you came to my apartment?" he demanded, fixing his wild eyes on her. "The day you suggested we do this. Work for your mother."
"I-- I wanted to help you." She didn't know how to react when he acted like this. Didn't know what the right things to say were.
"You wanted to help me," he repeated, nodding as if he understood. "You thought hurting yourself so badly would help me?"
"What do you--"
"Why couldn't you have just let me be, Sydney?" He dropped onto the bed as if he couldn't possibly stand any longer. "You could have stayed with the CIA. Kept trying to bring SD-6 down with the good guys."
Sydney looked at him, amazed. What the hell had her mother said to him? "And what about you?"
"I would have been all right, Sydney," he said, staring up at her earnestly. "Of course I would have been all right."
Sydney couldn't help it. She laughed, a weak, hysterical little laugh. "Of course? When I found you, you were floating on a sea of Heineken."
He drew back as if she had slapped him. "You always do that," he said, sounding strangely wounded. "You never think I can do anything for myself, Sydney."
"I always do that?" she repeated incredulously. "Who was the one who always came running after me the minute you didn't know where I was on a mission?"
"I was trying to protect you," he snapped.
"I was returning the favor," she shot back.
They glared at each other for a moment before either of them spoke again.
"So this is how it's going to be now?" he finally demanded. "We stay together because we feel like we owe each other something?"
Sydney felt tears prickling the backs of her eyelids. "I stay with you because I love you," she said. "I guess I don't know why you stay with me."
He rose to face her, the pain clear in his green eyes. "Sydney, of course I love you, too," he said, his voice softening. "But I hate what's happened to us."
Sydney wanted to go to him, put her arms around him, but she hesitated. "Michael-- I don't know what she said to you," she said. "But this is what she wants, you know? She's okay with us being in love. But she wants our first allegiance to be to her, so she has to create problems."
Michael sat back down on the bed, sighing as he ran a hand back through his brown hair. "Yeah, the thing is, she doesn't have to create anything," he said. "She just has to use what she already knows about us."
It was then that Sydney dared to sit next to him, wrapping her arms around him. "She doesn't know everything," she whispered. "She doesn't know what we're going to do to her."
Michael sighed. "Of course she does, Sydney," he said wearily. "She just doesn't believe we can do it."
"But we can, Michael," Sydney murmured, resting her head on his shoulder.
Michael groaned. "I'm not sure if I care anymore, Sydney."
Sydney didn't dare look at him as she said, "I'm sorry, Michael."
"Don't apologize." He sounded so sad to Sydney. So tired. "We both made our choices. We're both adults."
She felt a twinge of guilt in the pit of her stomach. "But you made your choice when you were at your weakest."
"Just don't, Syd."
Once again, Sydney felt her eyes filling with tears. In that moment, she hated her mother more than she had ever thought possible. Was this always going to be between them now, this tension, this-- guilt?
"We'll bring them down, Michael," she whispered. As far as she was concerned now, they had to.
Not just for him. For them.
