Chapter 4: Visitors
Spoilers: slight reference to Enemy Walks In when it starts.
Vaughn was mesmerized at the blood that stained his hands. He tried to wipe it off on his pants but the crimson tint stayed on his flesh like a scar. He looked up, feeling the eyes of the other patients and patrons in the waiting room as they took in his appearance. Hands smeared in violent redness, he was dirty, unkempt, and the expression of silent torment probably did not help. What seemed to draw the most attention was his task force attire. Wearing it, he must've looked like a soldier of the most elite government unit. Or a hit man who botched the job.
He ran a hand through his hair, causing Weiss's blood to mingle with golden-brown. He didn't feel like a soldier; he felt like a little boy waiting for news of his father who had been wounded on the battlefield. Anxious, frightened. Above all, helpless. He shut his eyes to tune out the sounds of injury and pain.
A chilling feeling of déjà vu descended upon him, when he realized that he had been in this place before. Not the hospital itself, but the situation.
I was in a room just like this the day Dad was hurt. I was waiting for news. No, not news. I was hoping. I was hoping the way all little boys hope. That he would be all right but at the same time knowing...
Strange, that at such a young age and knowing so little of the mannerisms of the world around him, he knew the minute he entered the disinfected facility that this very same world would stand on its head. And nothing would ever be the same. I wonder if God took into account how fragile a child's world could be.
Before the doctor came in with the news, before he saw his mother burst into tears, at eight years old, Michael Vaughn knew that his father had died. For the first time in his life, he learned what a terrible place the world could be.
I'm not eight anymore, he thought feeling his heart clench. I'm not that helpless little boy who could only stand by and do nothing while the people around him died. I should've done something… reacted better…I should've… A pointless anger flared up inside of him as he remembered his own ineptitude to save his friend during the operation.
It was supposed to be a simple mission. Retrieve the Bible during the exchange between Khasinou and the courier, then go home praising themselves like the heroes they were. Everything had gone to plan right to the last detail. But no one had counted on the mystery gunman changing the rules. Before they knew it, bullets began to hail down on the group and they were forced to scatter. Weiss got shot in the neck and it was all Vaughn could do to staunch the flow of blood and not panic. Khasinou got away with the Bible. They never identified the sniper.
Vaughn was more than willing to bet that it had been Sark, carrying on the Man's work while she was in custody.
Things happen and you just can't foresee them much less stop them.
Vaughn wondered if Derevko knew that there would be someone backing up Khasinou. Oh well, it didn't matter. If Sydney's mother knew that someone would be waiting for them, it was still Vaughn's fault for not protecting Weiss or not suspecting that Derevko would be setting them up. The mission was a failure and he took that personally.
It's what Dad would do.
Vaughn looked up and saw the doctor walking toward him. He stood up. "Agent?"
"Yes." He's going to tell me that my best friend is dead now. He's nothing more than a tally, a statistic, a star on a monument….
"Your friend, Agent Weiss is going to be fine. The operation was a success. He'll have to hospitalize for a few weeks but other than that he'll be all right."
Vaughn nearly fell over in relief. "Thank you," he managed to get out." The doctor nodded and walked away. He reached for his cell phone to inform Devlin of the news.
But for a reason that is still unknown to him, he punched in another number instead.
"Hello Sydney? It's me…"
"So what happened with the Bible?" Jack Bristow demanded.
"Khasinou got away with it. An unseen shooter prevented us from going after him," Vaughn told him.
Jack scowled and began to pace the warehouse, restless. "She could've easily planned this," he muttered, not talking to Vaughn in particular. "Made it so we would go after her operations manual- and get shot at."
"That's not what Kendall believes. He says that if Derevko really wanted us dead, she would've taken more drastic measures rather than one lone gunman."
"Kendall's an ass." Vaughn had to grin at such an accurate assumption. "What matters is that Derevko's associate got away with valuable intel and the CIA is probably feeling more than a little stupid."
"For trusting her?"
"For trusting her, for allowing her to remain in CIA custody instead of locking her up and throwing away the key." Bristow looked about ready to destroy something and Vaughn wisely took a step back.
"Hey, look I agree with you that she cannot be trusted. But as long as the CIA thinks they need her she is going to be a staple there for a long good while."
"She had an agenda, Mr. Vaughn," Jack said forcefully. "Whatever information the CIA goes to her for will only feed whatever it is she has planned."
Vaughn was silent. In a tone of soft guilt he said "I went to her for information. We went after the Bible and Weiss got hurt-because of me."
The resentment on Jack's face softened as he regarded Vaughn. Being who he was he did not know what it was like to lose a friend but he knew something about self-reproach. "How is Weiss?" he said, with an awkward voice.
Brownie points for effort. "Doctor says he's going to be fine. He'll be in the hospital for a few weeks but he'll be good…" Vaughn's voice trailed off as he remembered with heavy dread his conversation with Irina.
Promise?
"Mr. Vaughn? What is it?"
You are so not going to love me when I tell you this. Vaughn braced himself for the harsh lecture he was sure to get from the older agent. "In order to get Derevko to talk I had to promise her that I would attempt to get Sydney to talk to her."
The lashing came quick and brutal. "I'll assume that you were drunk when you gave this promise?" Jack said in a cutting tone that Vaughn did not appreciate.
"I am going to try not to resent that-"
"This woman has a secret motive to everything she does." Jack's voice rose to a daunting level. "For all we know her reasons for seeing Sydney may be to manipulate her over to her side. Recruit her for her own reasons."
The notion gave Vaughn a disgusting heave in his stomach. "Hey, you think that I wanted to give that promise?" Vaughn's defenses began to rise as an uncertain need to justify what he did filled him. "You think I want Sydney to go anywhere near the psychopath who killed my dad?"
"I don't know what you were thinking. But my daughter is not going anywhere near that woman."
Vaughn snorted. "I think Kendall may have a problem with that."
"I am just about ready to tell Kendall where he could stick his problems," he growled.
"Yes. Great," Vaughn shot back. "And while we draw up plans to jump him one night, he actually threatened to make Sydney speaking to her mother company policy."
"What?"
Vaughn sighed. "The night that Derevko turned herself in, Kendall told me that he would force Sydney to speak to her, free will or not. That's why I went to Derevko in the first place. So Sydney wouldn't have to." Jack sighed in trepidation. "He said that it would only be a matter of time until Sydney became involved."
Jack turned away from Vaughn. He walked about the room as if to search for some long lost answer to his conflict. "After everything Sydney had been through… Francie's death…her mother's return may do nothing more that cloud her perspective more so. In the vulnerable state that Sydney has encased herself in…"
Vaughn blanched. "It's not possible… Jack you don't think that Sydney could actually be turned against the CIA?"
The same nagging doubt was written all over Jack's face. "All Sydney ever wanted was a stable force in her life. If she thinks that her mother could offer her that-"
"Mother!" Vaughn exploded as his stomach revolted at such a thought. "All the woman did was lie to her and abandon her! All she did was kill and betray and hurt! Does that sound like a mother to you? Derevko thinks that a fucking façade of maternal tenderness and goodwill could ever alter what she is-"
"You have no idea how persuasive this woman could be. She is as single-minded as Sydney-" Jack grew silent.
"Sydney is nothing like her mother," Vaughn reassured him in a voice that showed more certainty than he felt. "If she was-how would I ever be able to look at her?"
Jack looked down. "I think that Sydney has fixed that problem for both of us." Vaughn glanced at him. "I have not seen her for two months and-" Vaughn could have sworn that Jack's voice broke "- I am worried for her."
"I miss her too."
They were both very quiet for a moment both aware that they were thinking of the same thing. "I have to go."
Vaughn nodded and watched him leave. The warehouse felt hollow and dark where it wasn't dark before.
"When can I see my daughter?"
Vaughn choked back a biting, smart ass reply. "Ms. Derevko, as I explained before, Agent Bristow is on leave-"
"She's in mourning." Derevko's eyes were closed as she meditated. She looked like a mystic in the act of receiving a message from beyond. Vaughn had come to notice the dreamy essence that floated around her making it hard to concentrate on his words.
"Yes."
"I told you where to get the Bible. You promised that I would see my daughter."
"I promised that I would try." Derevko blinked open her eyes and stared at Vaughn's stern expression. "Might I add that we never actually got the operations manual. A shooter covered Khasinou as he escaped."
A faraway smile came across her face. "Sark." There was a hint of pride in her voice and it took Vaughn everything he had not to draw his gun and take aim at that smirk.
"We believed as much. So if you can tell us where he may have taken the Bible-"
Suddenly, her eyes lit up. They gleamed with a stunning clarity. "You haven't told Sydney that I turned myself in? Have you?"
Fuck.
Her face was serene as it dealt with his deception. "That's why she never came. Because she never knew."
Keep telling yourself that. "Ms. Derevko, the reason I never told Sydney that you surrendered yourself in is because I'm still not sure why you surrendered yourself."
"Maybe because I want to help." She looked mischievous as though she had a very amusing secret. Vaughn wanted to shake her.
Instead, he let out a cold laugh. "That's funny. I'm sure that the CIA will have a good chuckle over that one."
Then her face became as all pretenses seemed to melt away. "I understand your reserves agent. You think that I have something malevolent planned for my child and you want to protect her." She came close to the glass. "I want to protect her too."
Vaughn frowned. "From what?"
She gave him a stealthy smile. "From you." He felt his jaw detach in a very unprofessional manner.
"What. The. Fuck is that supposed to mean?" he snarled. The woman was deranged. She was cunning and evil and Vaughn decided then and there not to believe another word she said. He would no sooner hurt Sydney than he would hurt the future mother of his children.
Her eyes held his and forced him to listen. "Don't tell me you don't see it. That this life-it's killing her."
"All courtesy, ma'am but this life is not what put a bullet in her shoulder."
She brushed Taipei aside. "I was only trying to make a point. But you-you should be proud. Even after everything I've done the CIA and SD6 have done more damage to her than I could ever accomplish. That's quite a feat." She pressed against the glass.
"One day," she breathed, "she will be sent on a mission and she won't return. Who will you have to blame but yourselves? You and all your ideas of patriotism." There was an almost sadness in her voice. "When it comes to death there is no honor, only victims."
Her words pierced him like an arrow. "That sounds a lot like an argument a traitor would use. I have considered the hazards of the job." Inside he was shaking.
"Have you?" She appraised him. "You're just a boy." Vaughn flushed such a demeaning description of himself.
"I'd like to think that I have more experience than a boy."
"You think you know the pain she carries. You don't. You have no idea what it is like to see what she has seen. And to still find any strength left to face another day." Vaughn looked away.
"This life leaves wounds. Scars that will never heal and for as long as she lives she'll look back and wonder when it was exactly that she lost herself. Where among the deceit and loss that any chance of grace was lost to her." Quiet outrage began to bleed into her voice. "It won't matter if she's alive. Inside, she'll be too dead to care."
Vaughn looked down when he felt a small bite on his palm. He realized that he had been digging into it with his thumbnail and a small red crescent was imprinted there. Turmoil bubbled within as he searched for his voice. "You don't give your daughter enough credit. She's stronger than that."
She looked into his face, fascinated. "So much faith," she said in a reflective tone. "Perhaps there is hope for her yet. But some things don't change." Vaughn did not ask what; he did not want to know. "In this life, she is alone."
"She's not," he said before realizing that at this point in time it was true.
"Yes she is. When it comes to pain…we are always alone. The more she fights, the more she will come to realize it."
The intense conviction in her words frightened him. Not so much as the knowledge that what she said was true. It was true because he knew it was true.
No matter how much he loved Sydney I can't protect her.
"I could save her from such a life." Vaughn stared at her for a few moments.
"You're good," he confessed with an icy smile. "But you are a fool if you think that I will allow you any pathway you could use to manipulate her."
She gave her dreamy smile again. "I would never manipulate Sydney. That would hurt her and I never want to do that." She paused and let her next words sink in.
"That's your job, Michael."
Vaughn emerged from the holding area, dragging some of the blackness back into the rotunda with him. He blinked as though he had awoken from some quiet nightmare as the light from the operations center hit his eyes. He was blinded.
Dazed, he stared at the other agents who swarmed the place and felt his revulsion grow, Irina's words diffusing through him like a virus. We call ourselves patriots as we help destroy lives. Civil blood is spilled and we call it sacrifice.
I hurt Sydney. She hurts me. And I call it love.
For a second, he saw something twisted enough to look like the truth: clockwork creatures, which are all they ever were. Someone was always there to pull the strings, wind them up and send them off to whatever suicide mission arrived on the agenda.
Blind. That's all I've ever been. Irina's words and that foggy voice with so many secrets had crawled under his skin. In the short time he'd been with her she knew him. With those clear, all-seeing eyes, she saw right through the suit and managed to stab the man. She saw every dark fear and desire he harbored for her daughter. And in a flash, she judged him and made him feel repentant for some flaw only she could see.
Through the rotunda, he wandered like a dead man. Dead because the only thing that made him alive had walked away from him first. She left him cold and useless like a puppet in a box. He wondered if this was how she felt that day in the cemetery: glass eyes, bones like iron. Only hearing the echo of her footsteps as she left behind all hope.
Vaughn ignored Kendall's prying eyes and continued his steady, robotic pace out of the joint task force building.
The kicker, the real miserable part was that he already knew. Guilt compounded grief and anguish. He didn't need Irina to enlighten him of Sydney's agony. The blue circles under her eyes much like the bruises she also bore told him.
This life is killing her. And I held the knife. All those missions I sent her on…and I didn't see. He clenched. Because I wouldn't let myself see. It was enough that she was strong and brave and so fucking perfect in my eyes. But she's so human…so open to hurt.
That night he splashed water on his face but the words clung to him, soaked so deep to the bone. He glanced up at his reflection. With the liquid in his eyes, his image looked dim and ambiguous. Deceptive even.
I hurt her. She hurts me. It's our way.
The next thing he felt was the breath sickeningly knocked out of him. He dropped to his knees before the toilet and vomited until he felt nothing else for the time being.
When he finished purging he headed over to the hospital. As much as he loathed that place and all the decay it stood for, it was stable. There was something steady about its impersonal halls and faceless doctors. And that was what he needed during the fluctuation of emotions he was feeling at the moment. Something to forget about that voice and its seductive and shrewd tones that spoke half-truths in volumes. He needed regain his footing.
As he walked toward Weiss' room he began to practice a funny opening line to tell him. He couldn't enter while he was still coiled with hurt and anger. He didn't feel like unloading all his problems on a patient; he just wanted to weather through the tumult and be normal again.
Vaughn swung the door open. "Hey Eric. So I taped all the episodes of Smallville for you, even though I find your obsession with the chick who plays Lana completely inappropriate and deviant-"
Vaughn lifted up his head and glanced at Weiss. His friend looked startled at his presence. He was about to ask why when Weiss' eyes flicked toward the corner of the room.
Vaughn turned, confused. And at once forgot how to breathe.
Sydney Bristow stared at him intently, a familiar tenderness playing on her features. She gave a coy smile and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Vaughn's heart cracked.
"Hey Vaughn."
tbc