Disclaimer: These aren't my characters, this isn't my story, I'm just
telling parts of it someone else forgot. JJ, ABC, and Bad Robot own them
all and when I'm done playing with them I promise to put them away.
Chapter Four: One Foot in Front of the Other
Words, thoughts, images: they're flying through my mind faster than I can consider each one. I want to yell. No, I want to scream to her, apologies, truths, reassurance, but my mouth has become separate from my mind. It's wired shut by my own apprehension. I've never hated myself so much.
She's still walking, her frame looking frail, almost childlike through the darkness. Even from this distance I can see her struggling to wipe the hair from her eyes in between sobs. The further she gets, the smaller she appears. With each second that passes it is harder to fight the urge to run after her, to make her listen to my words. I could give her the truths, the explanations she so desperately wants. But I won't, not tonight. I have to find my own will to continue first.
As I walk away from the spot she left me, I realize this isn't the first time one of our meetings have ended this way. The night I revealed the first secret to her, she condemned me, refused to acknowledge my actions as anything but intrusive. What had I expected? Danny was dead; she had learned the hard way that Arvin Sloane could have filled in for Satan himself on any given day; and I had just burst into her world with a .45 and volumes of unwanted information.
Things steadily progressed, though. I spoke with her Thanksgiving Day. I nearly turned to go home three times that evening. When I reached her porch, once again I nearly left, but I forced myself to push the doorbell and waited with every muscle tensed. Our conversation was brief and Sydney littered it with jagged, razor-edged wit that both stung and calmed me at the same time. I was invited in, but the happiness within was not mine to infringe upon. Work. It was my recurrent excuse. The reality was that I had not had Thanksgiving dinner since the year before my wife disappeared, and I had no intention of taking part in festivities that would dredge up the memories and open the wounds of the painfully vivid past. The next day, as I sat at my desk, a container of leftovers suddenly appeared in front of me. I looked up to see Sydney's smile greeting me. No memory could stop me from enjoying that moment.
Weeks passed, missions were completed, and allegiances were questioned. Our lives and loyalties were both threatened. Sydney's more recent actions were under scrutiny, while mine, shaded by time and layers of secrets, were being uncovered by Agent Vaughn in his blind attempts to appease his and Sydney's curiosity. The time was right though, and I uncovered another truth that I knew would crush her. Laura Bristow had never existed. It was all a game, one that ruined more lives than just ours.
When Cole and his men nearly brought SD-6 down, I was terrified. It wasn't the risk of death that bothered me; it was the threat of dying without letting my daughter know exactly how much I loved her and regretted the fact that I hadn't been able to keep her from this life. Soon though, it was all over, the CIA took Cole into custody and I was given another chance.
Feeling as if I had a now-or-never opportunity, I asked Sydney to meet me at the park that her mother and I had brought her to so frequently when she was a child. At the time, I believed I was making a sufficient step towards a closer relationship with Sydney, and I suppose, in hindsight, I was. However, it was more a reckoning with myself, than it was with my daughter. Sydney stood and listened to my reminiscences of the past and I nearly believed that I was the same man that had gone to that park decades earlier. Though little was said and our discussion was brief, it opened more doors for growth between us than all of the years since Sydney's childhood combined had. And as the carousel turned, carrying its passengers slowly and surely, I had reason to hope our lives could some day be so predictable.
Now I walk through the pouring rain, nearly a mile from my car. My raw hands are bare in the damp air. Though it is only October, the wind is especially cold, even as relentless drops fall steadily. My fingers are so numb they ache, but I refrain from thrusting them deep into my pockets, feeling I deserve the pain. A car alarm goes off somewhere in the distance as I turn to make the trek back to my car. Water continues to stream from my hair into my eyes and down to my chin. I don't wipe it away. Just as the masochist in me allows my hands to ache, it compels my mind to cling to my crimes. One foot in front of the other, I remind myself, but those words do little more than reassure me that nothing else will be so easy.
Chapter Four: One Foot in Front of the Other
Words, thoughts, images: they're flying through my mind faster than I can consider each one. I want to yell. No, I want to scream to her, apologies, truths, reassurance, but my mouth has become separate from my mind. It's wired shut by my own apprehension. I've never hated myself so much.
She's still walking, her frame looking frail, almost childlike through the darkness. Even from this distance I can see her struggling to wipe the hair from her eyes in between sobs. The further she gets, the smaller she appears. With each second that passes it is harder to fight the urge to run after her, to make her listen to my words. I could give her the truths, the explanations she so desperately wants. But I won't, not tonight. I have to find my own will to continue first.
As I walk away from the spot she left me, I realize this isn't the first time one of our meetings have ended this way. The night I revealed the first secret to her, she condemned me, refused to acknowledge my actions as anything but intrusive. What had I expected? Danny was dead; she had learned the hard way that Arvin Sloane could have filled in for Satan himself on any given day; and I had just burst into her world with a .45 and volumes of unwanted information.
Things steadily progressed, though. I spoke with her Thanksgiving Day. I nearly turned to go home three times that evening. When I reached her porch, once again I nearly left, but I forced myself to push the doorbell and waited with every muscle tensed. Our conversation was brief and Sydney littered it with jagged, razor-edged wit that both stung and calmed me at the same time. I was invited in, but the happiness within was not mine to infringe upon. Work. It was my recurrent excuse. The reality was that I had not had Thanksgiving dinner since the year before my wife disappeared, and I had no intention of taking part in festivities that would dredge up the memories and open the wounds of the painfully vivid past. The next day, as I sat at my desk, a container of leftovers suddenly appeared in front of me. I looked up to see Sydney's smile greeting me. No memory could stop me from enjoying that moment.
Weeks passed, missions were completed, and allegiances were questioned. Our lives and loyalties were both threatened. Sydney's more recent actions were under scrutiny, while mine, shaded by time and layers of secrets, were being uncovered by Agent Vaughn in his blind attempts to appease his and Sydney's curiosity. The time was right though, and I uncovered another truth that I knew would crush her. Laura Bristow had never existed. It was all a game, one that ruined more lives than just ours.
When Cole and his men nearly brought SD-6 down, I was terrified. It wasn't the risk of death that bothered me; it was the threat of dying without letting my daughter know exactly how much I loved her and regretted the fact that I hadn't been able to keep her from this life. Soon though, it was all over, the CIA took Cole into custody and I was given another chance.
Feeling as if I had a now-or-never opportunity, I asked Sydney to meet me at the park that her mother and I had brought her to so frequently when she was a child. At the time, I believed I was making a sufficient step towards a closer relationship with Sydney, and I suppose, in hindsight, I was. However, it was more a reckoning with myself, than it was with my daughter. Sydney stood and listened to my reminiscences of the past and I nearly believed that I was the same man that had gone to that park decades earlier. Though little was said and our discussion was brief, it opened more doors for growth between us than all of the years since Sydney's childhood combined had. And as the carousel turned, carrying its passengers slowly and surely, I had reason to hope our lives could some day be so predictable.
Now I walk through the pouring rain, nearly a mile from my car. My raw hands are bare in the damp air. Though it is only October, the wind is especially cold, even as relentless drops fall steadily. My fingers are so numb they ache, but I refrain from thrusting them deep into my pockets, feeling I deserve the pain. A car alarm goes off somewhere in the distance as I turn to make the trek back to my car. Water continues to stream from my hair into my eyes and down to my chin. I don't wipe it away. Just as the masochist in me allows my hands to ache, it compels my mind to cling to my crimes. One foot in front of the other, I remind myself, but those words do little more than reassure me that nothing else will be so easy.