Had she known?
Oh, my God.
Had she known that Sydney might die on this mission?
Oh, my God.
Think, think.
Oh, my God.
Regrets....
"Regrets, Agent Vaughn, that is what I asked you about. Would you have any regrets about never telling Sydney what you feel?" Irina held up her end of the wall, as usual, spearing him with a glare, alsoas usual. Why was it that this psychopath could see into his mind more clearly than anyone else? And why would she never let go of her drive to force him to admit his feelings for Sydney?
"Why does it matter to you what I would regret?" he asked, as usual avoiding looking directly at her - as if she were Medusa incarnate and a single glance would turn him to stone. "Can we get back to the Phillippines' intel?"
"Of course," she practically purred and he tensed, knowing that the fatal stab was coming. It always did. "I will give you my information, if you answer my question. I'll repeat it for you, just in case you have forgotten it. If you reach the end of your life - your nice normal life with a schoolteacher wife and 2 kids and a dog, none of whom knows what you really do for a living or who you really are - would you regret never telling Sydney how you feel about her?"
"I don't know what to say..."
"You know what to say, you just don't want to say it, Agent Vaughn. In that you are like your father - you think if you refuse to face reality, it won't happen. He kept thinking someone would rescue him, but he learned the hard way that you ultimately must rescue yourself." This was new - she was upping the ante, using his father as an example, for Christ's sake. He could not move. The torture continued, the purr resumed. "Okay, let's drop the scenario of your suburban fantasy and move onto reality. Every time Sydney goes out on a mission, she could be killed." With satisfaction, she noted his body's involuntary jerk. "Every action has a cost. Is your silence worth the cost? If you got word that Sydney was dead, would you feel glad that you had kept silent or would you be consumed with remorse?" She paused.
"Regrets, Agent Vaughn, are a bitch."
She was right, he learned as he vomited his lunch into the wastebasket.
Jack hauled him upright and flung him into a chair. Looking up he saw his shock mirrored on everyone's face. They had just heard Sydney being captured by a band of terrorists in the Philippines. Shots had been fired, they heard her breathing hard as she ran through the jungle, more shots, then a soft "shit", followed by a thud.
Oh, my God. Don't let them find her, she's been hit before, she could roll under some brush, don't let...
The room was silent as everyone listened. They heard her shallow breaths become even faster as their own hearts pounded.
Where was her backup? C'mon, where was he?
Then a soft sound.
She can do this - she escaped in Taipei even after her own mother shot her. Just hold on, baby.
Then another.
Was that a gurgle? Why would she be gurgling unless there was blood in her esophagus? Oh, no...
Then she struggled, clearly, for a real breath. "Tell you...love you." Then silence.
The wire played the excitement of several male voices coming upon her. Then more thuds and they finally realized that the bastards were beating her, even though she was undoubtedly unconscious. Vaughn had whirled to look at Jack and seeing his face sag and his knees bend slightly, Vaughn realized that their worst fears were realized. That was when he lost his lunch.
Oh, my God. Think, think... Okay, as long as they don't find the tracking device, we can find her...
Momentarily, his mind cleared. "Kendall, authorize an extraction and I'll call for..." The officer's face was remorseful, but his voice firm, "Vaughn, Sydney knew going in that this was a near-impossible mission and the chances of extraction were extremely remote...." Jack cut off Kendall, with a snarled, "Shut up. We're going in. Period. If you won't authorize it, I'll find a way. But we're going." Kendall and Jack stared at each other, Jack growing more impatient with each second. Jack turned and began running down the corridor. Kendall capitulated and yelled, "Fine, you can be in the air in 30 minutes, but Vaughn you are staying put." "No, I won't. I'm outta here now." "Agent, protocol states..." "Screw the protocol" he snarled and began running after Jack. "Agent, you have no reason to..." To his own astonishment, Vaughn's mouth yelled the words to a room full of silent agents that he had refused to say to himself, or as, Irina had said once, to the person who matters most. "I have every reason. I love her."
Hours and many cups of coffee later, Jack, Vaughn and the rest of the team silently flowed out of the helicopter. Using the tracking device on her body that the small cell of terrorists were apparently too unsophisticated to even think of looking for (or, worst case, they were expecting the extraction), they had pinpointed her current location. The wire had apparently been broken in the beating, so there was literally no way of knowing if she lived or had died already. As long as they could get in undetected, their superior training, fire power and numbers should allow them to snatch Sydney. Once informed of her daughter's predicament, Irina gave up far more intel than they had ever suspected she had and gave them exact numbers and locations. She also told them of her nearby medical facility. Best case - she was giving them hope. Worst case - she was setting them up for a trap.
But, no choice now. They had to try. Trying was better than not trying. Anything was better than not trying. He had learned that, finally, and as Irina had predicted, at great cost.
The team moved silently through the jungle, constantly checking their position against Sydney's. One member made the mistake of saying "Sydney's body" and Jack almost killed the soldier where he stood.
Hoping was better than fear.
Walking, walking, stopping only to piss and then keep moving, the team was within a mile of the pinpoint. Now, they would wait for dusk.
Passing out MRIs, one soldier caught Vaughn's eye. The soft compassion in that hardened face almost undid him. "Eat. You need your strength. She will need your strength."
Did everyone know? Did everyone know he had been such a coward? Did Sydney think he was a coward?
They sat silently, waiting.
How did Sydney do this, time after time? The waiting, when your adrenaline is just pumping, and you just want to jump up and get it over with. Now! The waiting. Too much time to think and regret...
On the interminable transport to their drop off, Vaughn had found himself slumped next to Jack on the floor. The other team members were avoiding them or giving them their privacy, depending upon your interpretation. It didn't matter. Neither said anything as the clock hands seemed to move too slowly. Finally, Vaughn blurted out, "Jack - your life? What are your regrets?" Jack was silent so long, Vaughn thought he was just going to ignore him. It was a fairly obnoxious question to a man who must have scores of regrets. Eventually, Jack said evenly, "My largest regrets are, like most people's, are the for words I did not say, the actions I did not take, the things I did not do. It's much easier to live with the consequences of what you did do, than to live with the results of being afraid to do something."
"A life lived in fear is a life half lived". A proverb from junior high Spanish class coming out of nowhere to taunt him.
Was she alive? How long had he been since he had felt alive?
Following the team leader's instructions, they began fanning out shortly before dusk. Setting up listening and observation posts. The Quonset hut structure, an ugly gash of aluminum in the green foliage of the jungle, sat there, mocking them.
Afterwards, the hit would always seem like a strange combination of a blur of images and frozen moments. Green leaves hitting them in the face, surrounding the building, waiting, waiting for what seemed like hours but could only have been a few moments....Then the communications officer whispered, "Good news, there appears to be only one other person besides Sydney inside." The "Go" signal, the rush in to find that there was one person but he had a powerful semi-automatic gun, the whine of the bullets, the hot and then cold "vriiing" as one creased his shoulder. Frantically looking. Seeing a bundle of Syd's clothes in a corner. Bloody. Empty.
NO! Oh, my God. Where is she? Where is she?
The quiet. A woman running up to the Quonset hut. "American? Irina? Jack Bristow?" in a fractured accent. In a spate of language, the woman asked if they were there for Irina's daughter. Huh? They ran down the path to a large hut. Bursting through the door, he and Jack almost falling through it together. Finding that the hut was actually Irina's showplace of a medical clinic. That was how she "persuaded" the locals to join her.
It's all about the health insurance, stupid.
Now, it appeared that her boondoggle might, might, save her only daughter's life.
"All politics is local." He remembered that from Poli Sci 101.
The men had realized immediately upon turning her over in the jungle that she had to be Irina's daughter, of whom Irina had spoken fondly. Jack was sure she had done so only to ingratiate herself with the women of the area. Vaughn said he could care less why she did it. Jack looked down and nodded. Apparently, Irina had mentioned her former husband's name, too. Odd. But, then Irina was not obvious in her motivations. Why were they wondering about Irina anyway? The doctor, with an American medical degree in a frame on the clinic wall, cautioned them that that had stabilized her for now, but she was unconscious and looked "bad."
Bad does not even begin to describe it.
How do you describe it when someone has been shot twice and then beaten with rifle butts and boots? When that someone is, no matter how much she might deny it, a fragile woman with a woman's smaller, more delicate bones? When almost every part of her body not covered with bruises or bandages is pearl white, not healthy pink? When her chest barely rises and falls with each breath?
It's like a death just to watch. What's it like to live through it?
But if they could get the copter in and medivac her to the US Naval Hospital she would have a better chance. The locals, eager to help Irina's daughter and worried that Irina would take vengeance on them for nearly killing her (apparently, Jack said dryly, they truly must have met Irina), were happy to show them a clearing that had been covered with flak and concealed. The doctor insisted upon treating Vaughn's wounds, but he would not leave Sydney. They had to wheel the medical cart in.
He insisted upon holding up one end of the stretcher to carry her to the copter. He knew he was running on adrenaline alone. He remembered Syd telling him about a conversation she'd had with Dr. Barnett about escaping from her mother in Taipei after being shot. "Barnett had trouble believing me, I could tell," she laughed.
"Adrenaline is the best drug in the world."
The new doctor told them she had internal bleeding, a subdoral hematoma and andand... and they would operate immediately. He could make no guarantees. But, if she came through the surgery, then the rest would be up to the antibiotics and her ability to heal. Jack swallowed hard. Vaughn found he did not have enough saliva to swallow. She came through the surgery. She had a cast on her left forearm and left calf, amazingly the only broken bones in her body besides her left pinky. The doctor left them for the night. But Vaughn realized that it was actually the middle of the day.
Everything I thought was true was false.
Days passed. He and Jack worked out a schedule that allowed each of them time to bathe, eat and pretend to sleep while the other watched over Sydney. They wanted her to see a familiar face when she woke up. Neither ever said, "if she woke up." After 10 days, the doctor told them that he had "grave" concerns.
Doc, maybe the word "grave" isn't the best choice of vocabulary in these situations.
"She should be making some progress toward consciousness. There is only so much science can do...It's up to her now. The human will is the strongest medicine in the world." He advised them to talk to her, even bringing up subjects she would find infuriating - anything to get a response. Jack and Vaughn talked themselves nearly hoarse. Occasionally her eyelids would flicker. Finally, after 2 days, Jack was more frantic than Vaughn could have imagined the cold warrior could get. He slapped the bed rail and said in a booming voice and the tone one would use with a recalcitrant teenager, "Sydney Laura Bristow, get out here right now!" Vaughn almost smiled, imagining what the teen years were like in that household. Sydney's eyes flickered again, but this time they opened. "Daddy? I didn't do it."
No, baby, I am the one who failed to do something.
Syd felt like she had been swimming underwater in a too-warm sea with thousands of seaweed fingers pulling her down. Occasionally, the fingers would let go and her head would break the surface. She thought she saw her father or sometimes Vaughn or sometimes both looking down at her. Vaughn kept saying, "I love you". She knew he would never do that, that would be stepping over his own line. She must be dreaming. It was a nice dream, though. Mmm. Maybe if she opened her eyes again, she would dream it again. Then she heard her father yelling at her to "get out here" in that tone of voice that meant she was in big trouble. The best way to deal with him was to confront him head on and deny everything. "Daddy, I didn't do it." And fell back asleep again to her father's chuckle.
She began waking for brief, too-brief moments, but never gave Vaughn more than a vague smile. Jack took pity on him. "Sydney, Vaughn's right here. Why don't you talk to him?" "No, not here." "Yes, he's right here. He's holding your left hand." "Don't feel it." "Vaughn, squeeze her hand harder. Honey, do you feel that?" "Dream." Vaughn leaned over and feathered a kiss on her lips. He realized that this might be their first and last kiss if she did not recover. What had he given up? What had he taken from her, from them, in the name of doing the "right thing"? And what was the right thing? That was the question he should have asked himself harder, the question that haunted him. He had thought he had known, had thought he was so right. How had he been so mistaken?
"Your consistent shortcoming, and you should know this, is your naive sense of morality." Wasn't it just too perfect that the people who saw him most clearly were Syd's parents?
Two days later, the doctor came to see them in late afternoon. "Jack, Mike, I have to tell you that the odds are not looking good. She has minimal brain wave activity, over the last several hours that low grade fever has begun to spike and, well, tonight will tell the tale." The doctor waited for the two of them to digest his words before he continued, "If you need to make peace with her, now is the time." Vaughn gulped and felt his control, to which he had clung so precariously ever since he heard that first shot, slip, "But she can't hear us. Oh, God. Oh, God. If only.."
"Regrets, Agent Vaughn, are a bitch."
He could not go on. The enormity of the price was too much. The fact that Irina was right was too much. What did she know about love, after all? That psychopath knew better than he, who had thought so hard, but not deeply enough, about love. That was pathetic. Beyond pathetic.
"And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith, so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."
The doctor put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Son, in all my years seeing people face this moment, the only words I can tell you that might help are to believe that even if she cannot hear you, God can. I don't know what your beliefs are, but as the old saying goes, there are no atheists in foxholes."
I am in a hole. A hole I dug myself and out of which I cannot climb. He felt like he was scrabbling, scrambling, scratching and still sitting in a narrow hole deep in the dirt. He barely noticed Jack going into Sydney's room. He barely noticed the passage of time, the shifting of shadows across the corridor floors as they lengthened into evening and then full night. He only felt the build up, the screeching of the words in his head, the frenetic feeling he'd had for so long - really ever since he had decided that he and Sydney should not be together - reaching a crescendo. He could not sit still. He felt paralyzed. He could not stand still. He wanted to escape. He wanted to never leave. Pace down one side of the corridor and back up again, run hands through his hair until he had to stop himself from pulling it out, pace again.
Jack came out, looking haggard. He walked over slowly. "Vaughn, Mike - thanks for giving me time alone with her. Why don't you go in?" "Did she say anything to you?" he asked, hoping, hoping. "Yes, she murmured a few words. That's it." They looked away from each other.
Time slowed as he walked over to the bed. The whiteness of the room had a soft glow in the darkness. Jack had not left any lights on, so the only color came from the medical equipment casting red and green and blue pin- lights here and there. He sat down on the chair that was still warm from Jack's body. He looked at Sydney, so still, so unlike her normal self - full of fire and emotion. And waited for the words to come...
The noise in his head was becoming a cacophony. All those words...which to say first or never? Maybe he should just say it all.
"Here in the darkness in these final hours, I will lay down my heart..." Do you remember that song, Syd? We heard it in some bar on some mission. Helsinki? Milan? Minneapolis? Well, it was certainly not the fetish club in Taipei, anyway. I had never heard it before and you had to tell me it was Bonnie Raitt. You said you loved her music, but that song was so sad you always skipped over it when you played that cd. And then you were running down a corridor away from the bad guys, while my heart was in my throat, like always.
And maybe that was the problem. My heart was in my throat and I was afraid to swallow.
Syd, I was afraid. I was afraid that I might lose you and afraid of the pain. "A man who fears suffering is already suffering what he fears." No kidding, Monsieur Montaigne. High school French class. Yeah, I took it for an easy A. Of course, I would have been much better off taking a more challenging class and learning something.
But that's been a problem of mine - looking for the easy way out. When, in fact, the easy way out has costs too. Silence has a cost, doing nothing has a cost. Your mother pointed that out to me. I didn't want to listen, since, well,... you know your mother. I hope you don't mind when I say that she is like a King Cobra, weaving and feinting until she goes in for the kill. Well, you probably don't want to hear that.
I could have listened to Weiss too. Yeah, he turned us in, or rather turned me in, because he felt my emotions were too strong. He thinks you're still ticked at him about that. I'm still kinda ticked about that too. But then, when I was going out with Alice again and kept saying that we were working on our issues he said, "You know, if you have to work that hard at what you think are the basics, then maybe you oughta take a good look at just what the basics are. The basics are that you don't love Alice. You love Sydney. Period. Deal with it."
"I can't make you love me if you don't. I can't make your heart feel something it won't." Sometimes I wonder if you thought that song was so sad because you saw us in that song, if you felt that I did not really love you. And if so, that would be the second worst thing I ever did. Which considering what we do for a living, is saying something.
Do you ever wonder where we would be if we had taken a different road in our lives? If I had never felt the need to honor my father by replicating his career? If you had never taken the SD-6 recruiter's card? If you had never met Danny? If Devlin had not assigned me as your handler? When you think about it, there are a lot of potential detours in life.
"But I, I took the road less traveled and that has made all the difference." But, I, I did not. I tried to take the friggin' highway to, what was it your mother said?, the suburban fantasy. Anyway, that one was from Junior High English, can't remember the author. I am sure you know who it is though, you always knew every literary quotation. No matter how I tried I could never stump you. I did with this one, though, remember? "When you come to the fork in the road, take it." One of your favorites fromYogi Berra. I used to love to dig up a new quotation of his, just to hear you giggle. It was easy since you never had read sports stuff. We never did get to a hockey game. Do you know what a hat trick is? It's when....
Did you know that you mother once asked me if I loved you? I blathered on about rules and protocol... Suddenly, a whisper. "Vaughn?" "Yes? Oh God, yes?" "Here?" "Yes, yes, I am here. I love you, Syd." He squeezed her hand harder. No response. Silence. Then, "No, not here. Dream. Rules..." silence. "important..." Nothing more.
Vaughn went silent. Were her last words to him to be about protocol? How...utterly...appropriate. With a hard clench in his gut, Vaughn realized that his failure, no his refusal, to tell her that he loved her had cost her so much, cost him so much. She had tried so many times to tell him, in one way or another, how much she loved him. How had he ever done that for her? She thought she meant less to him than the CIA rule book. In reality, he was ashamed to admit that she had meant less to him than his fears. Fears of not doing the right thing, whatever that was. Blaming the fissure between them, that he had created, on their "special" circumstances.
What a crock of shit, he blurted out. I needed, (he realized), to rescue myself. Syd, when you found out about Alice, you should have said, "Et tu, Brute?" I was one more person who had let you down, the last person you expected to let you down. And I, I said I had no choice...What a crock. "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves." Cassius, the betrayer, 10th grade English, Julius Caesar. Shakespeare.
"Love does not alter when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove." Our school system made us memorize lots of literature, lots of Shakespeare. I had to memorize that sonnet in 12th grade English. Funny how I thought memorizing Shakespeare was such a waste of time. The teacher had told us that some pieces of literature, some art, could speak great truths. Truths that might just come in handy at a point in life when one's own language or experience or wisdom proved inadequate. Truths that we might not realize on our own.
I had forgotten the truth at love was the greatest gift, not to be squandered or thrown away or picked up later when convenient. Had I ever learned it before?
Only every damn time I have ever been at a wedding. You remember that passage, "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." But first, you have to trust love. And I did not. No excuses. Not anymore. The time for excuses is over.
What's the rest of it? "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways." Somewhere between Irina's interrogation and this moment, I realize that I have finally grown up. And if you never regain consciousness enough to hear and believe me when I say "I love you and that's what matters", well, that's the price I have to pay for the rest of my life. That will be my greatest regret. It cannot be avoided or smothered or forgotten. Only accepted.
He was silent again, for a moment. With this knowledge came a measure of peace and a slowing down of the stream of words in his head. Now, he knew he was almost ready to live with the silence and in whatever hope remained. He spoke again into the darkness.
"...But when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part, then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope and love abide, these three, and the greatest of these is love."
The worst thing I ever did was to deny love for the sake of fear.
"Me, too." With a start, Vaughn realized that Jack was sitting opposite him and had been for some time.
And they both realized, then, that there was really nothing left to say. Except, perhaps, that "Love never ends."
In these final hours, they both sat and waited. Finally, light began to glimmer. Vaughn spoke without thinking, "There was this grasshopper that walked into a bar--" "Phil," Syd said clearly. "No, Doug," Vaughn replied without thinking.
With excitement, Jack looked at him and asked, "Private joke?" She smiled. They looked at each other. Her eyes opened, "Well, go on, tell me the rest of it, I can use a laugh, I think." "Are you going to argue with how I tell it, this time?" he asked. "Always," she said and smiled again. For the first time outside of her dreams, she heard Vaughn say "I love you" as the two men sat there with tears running down their faces. She was so startled - her father crying? Vaughn had just said, "I love you"? - that she pressed the nurse call button. Perhaps the two needed sedation. The doctor and a nurse rushed in. Her vitals had measured a positive leap over the last hour and her brain wave activity was something approaching, as Jack dryly put it, a living creature instead of a potato. Syd said she did not appreciate the comparison to a dirt-encrusted tuber. She then fell back asleep, but into a normal, restful sleep.
Over the next few weeks, she slept often. The bruises faded. Her arm healed quickly, but the leg was taking a little longer. Not as long, however, as it did for her to believe that Vaughn had taken a leave of absence to stay with her and had apparently announced to an entire room of CIA agents that he loved her. Her father had told her that. He also said, in front of Vaughn, that it was that announcement that saved her father from beating the crap out of him for breaking his little girl's heart, as he had been planning for some time. "Yeah, Jack, I do remember that you don't like anyone to hurt Sydney. I do remember Haladki." "What happened to Haladki?" Syd asked. "Never mind," the men chorused.
At long last, the doctors deemed Syd well enough to fly back home to LA on a military transport. The trip took more out of her than she had expected and by the time she was in her father' car on the way to a safe house, she was asleep. She woke to find Vaughn carrying her inside, with her father following behind with suitcases. She saw Vaughn swallow and then say, "Right before we lost contact with you, you said something. Do you remember what it was?" "Sure. I knew you both were listening. I could hear them coming for me and I could tell I was bleeding badly. I thought it was probable that I wasn't going to make it. When that happens, your priorities become clear, don't they? I realized that I had never told either of you just how much I loved you." "But Syd, I would never let you, I always interrupted you or..." Her father remained silent as they entered the bedroom, just watchful as always, although he had told her more than once while in the hospital how much she meant to him, how much he loved her. "Vaughn, I should have just gone ahead and said it. I know you knew it, but for my own sake I should have said it." He could not believe that she - the bravest person he had ever met or could hope to meet - thought she lacked courage. "Vaughn, are you listening? Anyway, so that's what I did then. I said, 'I have to tell you something important - I love you both.' Why, couldn't you hear it?" "We heard it." "I was so scared, lying there, alone. And then, after saying that, I suddenly felt, well, I would call it peace. And I knew then, that if I were to die, I could do so with no regrets."
"No regrets?" he choked out. Jack quietly left the room.
"Absolutely no regrets. Regrets, Michael Vaughn, are a bitch."
As he said for the thousandth time, "I love you," and covered her mouth with his, he thought that his crippling fear of doing the "right" thing had been replaced by the healthy fear of failing to live life to the fullest, every day, with this woman. He lowered her gently to the bed and began to remove her clothes.
"No, Sydney, there will be no more regrets."
"Regrets, Agent Vaughn, that is what I asked you about. Would you have any regrets about never telling Sydney what you feel?" Irina held up her end of the wall, as usual, spearing him with a glare, alsoas usual. Why was it that this psychopath could see into his mind more clearly than anyone else? And why would she never let go of her drive to force him to admit his feelings for Sydney?
"Why does it matter to you what I would regret?" he asked, as usual avoiding looking directly at her - as if she were Medusa incarnate and a single glance would turn him to stone. "Can we get back to the Phillippines' intel?"
"Of course," she practically purred and he tensed, knowing that the fatal stab was coming. It always did. "I will give you my information, if you answer my question. I'll repeat it for you, just in case you have forgotten it. If you reach the end of your life - your nice normal life with a schoolteacher wife and 2 kids and a dog, none of whom knows what you really do for a living or who you really are - would you regret never telling Sydney how you feel about her?"
"I don't know what to say..."
"You know what to say, you just don't want to say it, Agent Vaughn. In that you are like your father - you think if you refuse to face reality, it won't happen. He kept thinking someone would rescue him, but he learned the hard way that you ultimately must rescue yourself." This was new - she was upping the ante, using his father as an example, for Christ's sake. He could not move. The torture continued, the purr resumed. "Okay, let's drop the scenario of your suburban fantasy and move onto reality. Every time Sydney goes out on a mission, she could be killed." With satisfaction, she noted his body's involuntary jerk. "Every action has a cost. Is your silence worth the cost? If you got word that Sydney was dead, would you feel glad that you had kept silent or would you be consumed with remorse?" She paused.
"Regrets, Agent Vaughn, are a bitch."
She was right, he learned as he vomited his lunch into the wastebasket.
Jack hauled him upright and flung him into a chair. Looking up he saw his shock mirrored on everyone's face. They had just heard Sydney being captured by a band of terrorists in the Philippines. Shots had been fired, they heard her breathing hard as she ran through the jungle, more shots, then a soft "shit", followed by a thud.
Oh, my God. Don't let them find her, she's been hit before, she could roll under some brush, don't let...
The room was silent as everyone listened. They heard her shallow breaths become even faster as their own hearts pounded.
Where was her backup? C'mon, where was he?
Then a soft sound.
She can do this - she escaped in Taipei even after her own mother shot her. Just hold on, baby.
Then another.
Was that a gurgle? Why would she be gurgling unless there was blood in her esophagus? Oh, no...
Then she struggled, clearly, for a real breath. "Tell you...love you." Then silence.
The wire played the excitement of several male voices coming upon her. Then more thuds and they finally realized that the bastards were beating her, even though she was undoubtedly unconscious. Vaughn had whirled to look at Jack and seeing his face sag and his knees bend slightly, Vaughn realized that their worst fears were realized. That was when he lost his lunch.
Oh, my God. Think, think... Okay, as long as they don't find the tracking device, we can find her...
Momentarily, his mind cleared. "Kendall, authorize an extraction and I'll call for..." The officer's face was remorseful, but his voice firm, "Vaughn, Sydney knew going in that this was a near-impossible mission and the chances of extraction were extremely remote...." Jack cut off Kendall, with a snarled, "Shut up. We're going in. Period. If you won't authorize it, I'll find a way. But we're going." Kendall and Jack stared at each other, Jack growing more impatient with each second. Jack turned and began running down the corridor. Kendall capitulated and yelled, "Fine, you can be in the air in 30 minutes, but Vaughn you are staying put." "No, I won't. I'm outta here now." "Agent, protocol states..." "Screw the protocol" he snarled and began running after Jack. "Agent, you have no reason to..." To his own astonishment, Vaughn's mouth yelled the words to a room full of silent agents that he had refused to say to himself, or as, Irina had said once, to the person who matters most. "I have every reason. I love her."
Hours and many cups of coffee later, Jack, Vaughn and the rest of the team silently flowed out of the helicopter. Using the tracking device on her body that the small cell of terrorists were apparently too unsophisticated to even think of looking for (or, worst case, they were expecting the extraction), they had pinpointed her current location. The wire had apparently been broken in the beating, so there was literally no way of knowing if she lived or had died already. As long as they could get in undetected, their superior training, fire power and numbers should allow them to snatch Sydney. Once informed of her daughter's predicament, Irina gave up far more intel than they had ever suspected she had and gave them exact numbers and locations. She also told them of her nearby medical facility. Best case - she was giving them hope. Worst case - she was setting them up for a trap.
But, no choice now. They had to try. Trying was better than not trying. Anything was better than not trying. He had learned that, finally, and as Irina had predicted, at great cost.
The team moved silently through the jungle, constantly checking their position against Sydney's. One member made the mistake of saying "Sydney's body" and Jack almost killed the soldier where he stood.
Hoping was better than fear.
Walking, walking, stopping only to piss and then keep moving, the team was within a mile of the pinpoint. Now, they would wait for dusk.
Passing out MRIs, one soldier caught Vaughn's eye. The soft compassion in that hardened face almost undid him. "Eat. You need your strength. She will need your strength."
Did everyone know? Did everyone know he had been such a coward? Did Sydney think he was a coward?
They sat silently, waiting.
How did Sydney do this, time after time? The waiting, when your adrenaline is just pumping, and you just want to jump up and get it over with. Now! The waiting. Too much time to think and regret...
On the interminable transport to their drop off, Vaughn had found himself slumped next to Jack on the floor. The other team members were avoiding them or giving them their privacy, depending upon your interpretation. It didn't matter. Neither said anything as the clock hands seemed to move too slowly. Finally, Vaughn blurted out, "Jack - your life? What are your regrets?" Jack was silent so long, Vaughn thought he was just going to ignore him. It was a fairly obnoxious question to a man who must have scores of regrets. Eventually, Jack said evenly, "My largest regrets are, like most people's, are the for words I did not say, the actions I did not take, the things I did not do. It's much easier to live with the consequences of what you did do, than to live with the results of being afraid to do something."
"A life lived in fear is a life half lived". A proverb from junior high Spanish class coming out of nowhere to taunt him.
Was she alive? How long had he been since he had felt alive?
Following the team leader's instructions, they began fanning out shortly before dusk. Setting up listening and observation posts. The Quonset hut structure, an ugly gash of aluminum in the green foliage of the jungle, sat there, mocking them.
Afterwards, the hit would always seem like a strange combination of a blur of images and frozen moments. Green leaves hitting them in the face, surrounding the building, waiting, waiting for what seemed like hours but could only have been a few moments....Then the communications officer whispered, "Good news, there appears to be only one other person besides Sydney inside." The "Go" signal, the rush in to find that there was one person but he had a powerful semi-automatic gun, the whine of the bullets, the hot and then cold "vriiing" as one creased his shoulder. Frantically looking. Seeing a bundle of Syd's clothes in a corner. Bloody. Empty.
NO! Oh, my God. Where is she? Where is she?
The quiet. A woman running up to the Quonset hut. "American? Irina? Jack Bristow?" in a fractured accent. In a spate of language, the woman asked if they were there for Irina's daughter. Huh? They ran down the path to a large hut. Bursting through the door, he and Jack almost falling through it together. Finding that the hut was actually Irina's showplace of a medical clinic. That was how she "persuaded" the locals to join her.
It's all about the health insurance, stupid.
Now, it appeared that her boondoggle might, might, save her only daughter's life.
"All politics is local." He remembered that from Poli Sci 101.
The men had realized immediately upon turning her over in the jungle that she had to be Irina's daughter, of whom Irina had spoken fondly. Jack was sure she had done so only to ingratiate herself with the women of the area. Vaughn said he could care less why she did it. Jack looked down and nodded. Apparently, Irina had mentioned her former husband's name, too. Odd. But, then Irina was not obvious in her motivations. Why were they wondering about Irina anyway? The doctor, with an American medical degree in a frame on the clinic wall, cautioned them that that had stabilized her for now, but she was unconscious and looked "bad."
Bad does not even begin to describe it.
How do you describe it when someone has been shot twice and then beaten with rifle butts and boots? When that someone is, no matter how much she might deny it, a fragile woman with a woman's smaller, more delicate bones? When almost every part of her body not covered with bruises or bandages is pearl white, not healthy pink? When her chest barely rises and falls with each breath?
It's like a death just to watch. What's it like to live through it?
But if they could get the copter in and medivac her to the US Naval Hospital she would have a better chance. The locals, eager to help Irina's daughter and worried that Irina would take vengeance on them for nearly killing her (apparently, Jack said dryly, they truly must have met Irina), were happy to show them a clearing that had been covered with flak and concealed. The doctor insisted upon treating Vaughn's wounds, but he would not leave Sydney. They had to wheel the medical cart in.
He insisted upon holding up one end of the stretcher to carry her to the copter. He knew he was running on adrenaline alone. He remembered Syd telling him about a conversation she'd had with Dr. Barnett about escaping from her mother in Taipei after being shot. "Barnett had trouble believing me, I could tell," she laughed.
"Adrenaline is the best drug in the world."
The new doctor told them she had internal bleeding, a subdoral hematoma and andand... and they would operate immediately. He could make no guarantees. But, if she came through the surgery, then the rest would be up to the antibiotics and her ability to heal. Jack swallowed hard. Vaughn found he did not have enough saliva to swallow. She came through the surgery. She had a cast on her left forearm and left calf, amazingly the only broken bones in her body besides her left pinky. The doctor left them for the night. But Vaughn realized that it was actually the middle of the day.
Everything I thought was true was false.
Days passed. He and Jack worked out a schedule that allowed each of them time to bathe, eat and pretend to sleep while the other watched over Sydney. They wanted her to see a familiar face when she woke up. Neither ever said, "if she woke up." After 10 days, the doctor told them that he had "grave" concerns.
Doc, maybe the word "grave" isn't the best choice of vocabulary in these situations.
"She should be making some progress toward consciousness. There is only so much science can do...It's up to her now. The human will is the strongest medicine in the world." He advised them to talk to her, even bringing up subjects she would find infuriating - anything to get a response. Jack and Vaughn talked themselves nearly hoarse. Occasionally her eyelids would flicker. Finally, after 2 days, Jack was more frantic than Vaughn could have imagined the cold warrior could get. He slapped the bed rail and said in a booming voice and the tone one would use with a recalcitrant teenager, "Sydney Laura Bristow, get out here right now!" Vaughn almost smiled, imagining what the teen years were like in that household. Sydney's eyes flickered again, but this time they opened. "Daddy? I didn't do it."
No, baby, I am the one who failed to do something.
Syd felt like she had been swimming underwater in a too-warm sea with thousands of seaweed fingers pulling her down. Occasionally, the fingers would let go and her head would break the surface. She thought she saw her father or sometimes Vaughn or sometimes both looking down at her. Vaughn kept saying, "I love you". She knew he would never do that, that would be stepping over his own line. She must be dreaming. It was a nice dream, though. Mmm. Maybe if she opened her eyes again, she would dream it again. Then she heard her father yelling at her to "get out here" in that tone of voice that meant she was in big trouble. The best way to deal with him was to confront him head on and deny everything. "Daddy, I didn't do it." And fell back asleep again to her father's chuckle.
She began waking for brief, too-brief moments, but never gave Vaughn more than a vague smile. Jack took pity on him. "Sydney, Vaughn's right here. Why don't you talk to him?" "No, not here." "Yes, he's right here. He's holding your left hand." "Don't feel it." "Vaughn, squeeze her hand harder. Honey, do you feel that?" "Dream." Vaughn leaned over and feathered a kiss on her lips. He realized that this might be their first and last kiss if she did not recover. What had he given up? What had he taken from her, from them, in the name of doing the "right thing"? And what was the right thing? That was the question he should have asked himself harder, the question that haunted him. He had thought he had known, had thought he was so right. How had he been so mistaken?
"Your consistent shortcoming, and you should know this, is your naive sense of morality." Wasn't it just too perfect that the people who saw him most clearly were Syd's parents?
Two days later, the doctor came to see them in late afternoon. "Jack, Mike, I have to tell you that the odds are not looking good. She has minimal brain wave activity, over the last several hours that low grade fever has begun to spike and, well, tonight will tell the tale." The doctor waited for the two of them to digest his words before he continued, "If you need to make peace with her, now is the time." Vaughn gulped and felt his control, to which he had clung so precariously ever since he heard that first shot, slip, "But she can't hear us. Oh, God. Oh, God. If only.."
"Regrets, Agent Vaughn, are a bitch."
He could not go on. The enormity of the price was too much. The fact that Irina was right was too much. What did she know about love, after all? That psychopath knew better than he, who had thought so hard, but not deeply enough, about love. That was pathetic. Beyond pathetic.
"And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith, so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."
The doctor put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Son, in all my years seeing people face this moment, the only words I can tell you that might help are to believe that even if she cannot hear you, God can. I don't know what your beliefs are, but as the old saying goes, there are no atheists in foxholes."
I am in a hole. A hole I dug myself and out of which I cannot climb. He felt like he was scrabbling, scrambling, scratching and still sitting in a narrow hole deep in the dirt. He barely noticed Jack going into Sydney's room. He barely noticed the passage of time, the shifting of shadows across the corridor floors as they lengthened into evening and then full night. He only felt the build up, the screeching of the words in his head, the frenetic feeling he'd had for so long - really ever since he had decided that he and Sydney should not be together - reaching a crescendo. He could not sit still. He felt paralyzed. He could not stand still. He wanted to escape. He wanted to never leave. Pace down one side of the corridor and back up again, run hands through his hair until he had to stop himself from pulling it out, pace again.
Jack came out, looking haggard. He walked over slowly. "Vaughn, Mike - thanks for giving me time alone with her. Why don't you go in?" "Did she say anything to you?" he asked, hoping, hoping. "Yes, she murmured a few words. That's it." They looked away from each other.
Time slowed as he walked over to the bed. The whiteness of the room had a soft glow in the darkness. Jack had not left any lights on, so the only color came from the medical equipment casting red and green and blue pin- lights here and there. He sat down on the chair that was still warm from Jack's body. He looked at Sydney, so still, so unlike her normal self - full of fire and emotion. And waited for the words to come...
The noise in his head was becoming a cacophony. All those words...which to say first or never? Maybe he should just say it all.
"Here in the darkness in these final hours, I will lay down my heart..." Do you remember that song, Syd? We heard it in some bar on some mission. Helsinki? Milan? Minneapolis? Well, it was certainly not the fetish club in Taipei, anyway. I had never heard it before and you had to tell me it was Bonnie Raitt. You said you loved her music, but that song was so sad you always skipped over it when you played that cd. And then you were running down a corridor away from the bad guys, while my heart was in my throat, like always.
And maybe that was the problem. My heart was in my throat and I was afraid to swallow.
Syd, I was afraid. I was afraid that I might lose you and afraid of the pain. "A man who fears suffering is already suffering what he fears." No kidding, Monsieur Montaigne. High school French class. Yeah, I took it for an easy A. Of course, I would have been much better off taking a more challenging class and learning something.
But that's been a problem of mine - looking for the easy way out. When, in fact, the easy way out has costs too. Silence has a cost, doing nothing has a cost. Your mother pointed that out to me. I didn't want to listen, since, well,... you know your mother. I hope you don't mind when I say that she is like a King Cobra, weaving and feinting until she goes in for the kill. Well, you probably don't want to hear that.
I could have listened to Weiss too. Yeah, he turned us in, or rather turned me in, because he felt my emotions were too strong. He thinks you're still ticked at him about that. I'm still kinda ticked about that too. But then, when I was going out with Alice again and kept saying that we were working on our issues he said, "You know, if you have to work that hard at what you think are the basics, then maybe you oughta take a good look at just what the basics are. The basics are that you don't love Alice. You love Sydney. Period. Deal with it."
"I can't make you love me if you don't. I can't make your heart feel something it won't." Sometimes I wonder if you thought that song was so sad because you saw us in that song, if you felt that I did not really love you. And if so, that would be the second worst thing I ever did. Which considering what we do for a living, is saying something.
Do you ever wonder where we would be if we had taken a different road in our lives? If I had never felt the need to honor my father by replicating his career? If you had never taken the SD-6 recruiter's card? If you had never met Danny? If Devlin had not assigned me as your handler? When you think about it, there are a lot of potential detours in life.
"But I, I took the road less traveled and that has made all the difference." But, I, I did not. I tried to take the friggin' highway to, what was it your mother said?, the suburban fantasy. Anyway, that one was from Junior High English, can't remember the author. I am sure you know who it is though, you always knew every literary quotation. No matter how I tried I could never stump you. I did with this one, though, remember? "When you come to the fork in the road, take it." One of your favorites fromYogi Berra. I used to love to dig up a new quotation of his, just to hear you giggle. It was easy since you never had read sports stuff. We never did get to a hockey game. Do you know what a hat trick is? It's when....
Did you know that you mother once asked me if I loved you? I blathered on about rules and protocol... Suddenly, a whisper. "Vaughn?" "Yes? Oh God, yes?" "Here?" "Yes, yes, I am here. I love you, Syd." He squeezed her hand harder. No response. Silence. Then, "No, not here. Dream. Rules..." silence. "important..." Nothing more.
Vaughn went silent. Were her last words to him to be about protocol? How...utterly...appropriate. With a hard clench in his gut, Vaughn realized that his failure, no his refusal, to tell her that he loved her had cost her so much, cost him so much. She had tried so many times to tell him, in one way or another, how much she loved him. How had he ever done that for her? She thought she meant less to him than the CIA rule book. In reality, he was ashamed to admit that she had meant less to him than his fears. Fears of not doing the right thing, whatever that was. Blaming the fissure between them, that he had created, on their "special" circumstances.
What a crock of shit, he blurted out. I needed, (he realized), to rescue myself. Syd, when you found out about Alice, you should have said, "Et tu, Brute?" I was one more person who had let you down, the last person you expected to let you down. And I, I said I had no choice...What a crock. "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves." Cassius, the betrayer, 10th grade English, Julius Caesar. Shakespeare.
"Love does not alter when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove." Our school system made us memorize lots of literature, lots of Shakespeare. I had to memorize that sonnet in 12th grade English. Funny how I thought memorizing Shakespeare was such a waste of time. The teacher had told us that some pieces of literature, some art, could speak great truths. Truths that might just come in handy at a point in life when one's own language or experience or wisdom proved inadequate. Truths that we might not realize on our own.
I had forgotten the truth at love was the greatest gift, not to be squandered or thrown away or picked up later when convenient. Had I ever learned it before?
Only every damn time I have ever been at a wedding. You remember that passage, "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." But first, you have to trust love. And I did not. No excuses. Not anymore. The time for excuses is over.
What's the rest of it? "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways." Somewhere between Irina's interrogation and this moment, I realize that I have finally grown up. And if you never regain consciousness enough to hear and believe me when I say "I love you and that's what matters", well, that's the price I have to pay for the rest of my life. That will be my greatest regret. It cannot be avoided or smothered or forgotten. Only accepted.
He was silent again, for a moment. With this knowledge came a measure of peace and a slowing down of the stream of words in his head. Now, he knew he was almost ready to live with the silence and in whatever hope remained. He spoke again into the darkness.
"...But when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part, then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope and love abide, these three, and the greatest of these is love."
The worst thing I ever did was to deny love for the sake of fear.
"Me, too." With a start, Vaughn realized that Jack was sitting opposite him and had been for some time.
And they both realized, then, that there was really nothing left to say. Except, perhaps, that "Love never ends."
In these final hours, they both sat and waited. Finally, light began to glimmer. Vaughn spoke without thinking, "There was this grasshopper that walked into a bar--" "Phil," Syd said clearly. "No, Doug," Vaughn replied without thinking.
With excitement, Jack looked at him and asked, "Private joke?" She smiled. They looked at each other. Her eyes opened, "Well, go on, tell me the rest of it, I can use a laugh, I think." "Are you going to argue with how I tell it, this time?" he asked. "Always," she said and smiled again. For the first time outside of her dreams, she heard Vaughn say "I love you" as the two men sat there with tears running down their faces. She was so startled - her father crying? Vaughn had just said, "I love you"? - that she pressed the nurse call button. Perhaps the two needed sedation. The doctor and a nurse rushed in. Her vitals had measured a positive leap over the last hour and her brain wave activity was something approaching, as Jack dryly put it, a living creature instead of a potato. Syd said she did not appreciate the comparison to a dirt-encrusted tuber. She then fell back asleep, but into a normal, restful sleep.
Over the next few weeks, she slept often. The bruises faded. Her arm healed quickly, but the leg was taking a little longer. Not as long, however, as it did for her to believe that Vaughn had taken a leave of absence to stay with her and had apparently announced to an entire room of CIA agents that he loved her. Her father had told her that. He also said, in front of Vaughn, that it was that announcement that saved her father from beating the crap out of him for breaking his little girl's heart, as he had been planning for some time. "Yeah, Jack, I do remember that you don't like anyone to hurt Sydney. I do remember Haladki." "What happened to Haladki?" Syd asked. "Never mind," the men chorused.
At long last, the doctors deemed Syd well enough to fly back home to LA on a military transport. The trip took more out of her than she had expected and by the time she was in her father' car on the way to a safe house, she was asleep. She woke to find Vaughn carrying her inside, with her father following behind with suitcases. She saw Vaughn swallow and then say, "Right before we lost contact with you, you said something. Do you remember what it was?" "Sure. I knew you both were listening. I could hear them coming for me and I could tell I was bleeding badly. I thought it was probable that I wasn't going to make it. When that happens, your priorities become clear, don't they? I realized that I had never told either of you just how much I loved you." "But Syd, I would never let you, I always interrupted you or..." Her father remained silent as they entered the bedroom, just watchful as always, although he had told her more than once while in the hospital how much she meant to him, how much he loved her. "Vaughn, I should have just gone ahead and said it. I know you knew it, but for my own sake I should have said it." He could not believe that she - the bravest person he had ever met or could hope to meet - thought she lacked courage. "Vaughn, are you listening? Anyway, so that's what I did then. I said, 'I have to tell you something important - I love you both.' Why, couldn't you hear it?" "We heard it." "I was so scared, lying there, alone. And then, after saying that, I suddenly felt, well, I would call it peace. And I knew then, that if I were to die, I could do so with no regrets."
"No regrets?" he choked out. Jack quietly left the room.
"Absolutely no regrets. Regrets, Michael Vaughn, are a bitch."
As he said for the thousandth time, "I love you," and covered her mouth with his, he thought that his crippling fear of doing the "right" thing had been replaced by the healthy fear of failing to live life to the fullest, every day, with this woman. He lowered her gently to the bed and began to remove her clothes.
"No, Sydney, there will be no more regrets."