Vaughn trudged up the steps of his mother's bed and
breakfast and into usual warm and homey feeling of the house.
"Michael is that you?" he her mother call from the
other room. He deposited his keys on the hall table and found her in the living
room, curled up in an easy chair watching Arsenic and Old Lace.
"Yeah, it's mom," he said.
She turned to face at him and her smile faded into a confused
expression, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," he responded.
She looked at him skeptically then decided from his demeanor
that she wasn't going to get anything out of her son that night. She hated it.
After going through the awful experience of loosing a child, only to have the
report of his death to be false, she would have liked it if he had told her
everything he went through so she could take care of him and help him recover,
but realized that it didn't exactly work that way for a grown man. So she
resigned herself to waiting until he was ready to talk to her, "Okay then.
You got some mail, it's on the bookcase behind you."
"Thanks, I'm going to bed. Goodnight," He said,
grabbing the envelope on the way out.
"Goodnight," she called after him.
He trudged up to the room he was staying in until he found a
new apartment, his old one having been rented out years ago. He glanced at the
big envelope, before dumping it onto the dresser. It was from work, no doubt
copies of the medical and psychiatric records from Langley, memos about
returning to work, and probably an order from Devlin to see Barnett on a regular
basis. Everything he was not in the mood to deal with at the moment.
He laid down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. She kissed him. Sydney Bristow kissed
him. He shook his head, still confused about that. It seemed so unlike her. He wondered if maybe he should have said
something to her before she ran off, but he didn't know exactly what. I took
every ounce of will power to move away, when all he had wanted was to hold her
as close and kiss her senseless. The situation was perfect, she had even made
the first move so later consequences couldn't be blamed on him, it had been
perhaps his only change to make her realize just how much he cared about her,
longed for her......loved her. As tempting as it was though he could never do
something like that to her, knowing that she would regret it later.
He felt bad enough about lying to her. The night they met on
the pier had not been the day he arrived in L.A., it was the day before. After
being home for the first time in years he wouldn't just start his life over
again, and then think about Sydney later. She had called him guardian angel
once, but for three years it had been her that watched over him. There were some
moments when the hope of seeing her again was all that got him through. When
they finally released him from the hospital at Langley he caught the first
flight he could get to Los Angeles. As far as he knew she still lived in the
same house, though her car was not there when he arrived Her roommate got in the
car and left shortly after. He followed just on the hope that she was going to
meet Sydney. He lost the car in traffic for short time, but eventually found it
parked in front of a bridal shop. He didn't even have to get out of the car, he
could see them through the window. Sydney in a wedding dress talking to Jack,
and Will Tippin standing with his arm around her. They looked so natural
together, casual almost.
He only went to the rehearsal dinner the next day for Chase,
since they had been close in college and he had begged him to go to meet Amy. So
he went long enough to meet Amy and then leave without really bothering to talk
to anyone else or even look around. It really threw him off when Sydney showed
up at the pier later that night. Their conversation was brief, but they did
arrange to meet again. Having a week to think everything over was good for him,
it gave him time to decided that when he did meet her he would be as mature
about it as he could. After all it had been four years since he saw her last and
it they were never really together in the first place, so it was only natural
that she had gone on with her life. He wasn't surprised that it was Will, he
always knew that Will was special to Sydney. She was the one that suggested they
talk, so she obviously still wanted to know him. It was at least something, and
besides if he really loved her he would want her to be happy.
The night had gone okay, he was even sticking pretty well to
his resolution about being happy for Sydney. That is until the end, which
brought them back to the kiss. Why had she done that? He knew she would never do
something like that to someone he loved, especially Will. It didn't make any
sense at all. Maybe he was missing something there? Could she not really want to
marry Will? No, if that were true she wouldn't agreed to in the first place.
Sydney was not the type to lead people on.
'Okay, Mike. Think about this logically,' he told
himself.
He avoided running into her at the rehearsal dinner since he
knew she would be there, but she somehow showed up at the pier later. Probably
just coincidence, she seemed as surprised to see him as he had her. While they
talked over coffee earlier, he had waited for her to bring up the topic of Will,
figuring it would be better that way, but she never did.................and then
she kissed him.
The only explanation he could come up with was that perhaps
his reappearance after four years had confused her emotions. After all she
seemed horrified when he pulled away Maybe she was just then realizing what exactly
she was doing, and what the repercussions would be. It was far fetched, yes, but
much less far fetched than everything else that came to mind. He sighed,
regardless of what the reason, the bottom line was that things had changed
between them, and he didn't know where anything would go now.
**OHHH! That was so stupid! :( :( :( I thought I could pull this story off, but it is not going well is it? Should I just ditch it before I make it even worse?**