Chapter 2
A/N- I'm soooo sorry that this has taken so long., finals are this week and my homework load is phenomenally bad. This is A/U by now, but if my brain worked faster it wouldn't be. Just assume that everything up to The Passage Part I happened, but that when they went for supplies things changed. Just read. You'll understand. If you hate it, that's OK. Part of me thinks that I would hate it, if I hadn't written it. But if you like it, that's wonderful too.
Reviews- I don't think that I can survive without them. Even if it's just to say, "I read it', or 'I read it, and it's crap, and here's why'. I just need to know that somebody bothered. Please???
**Five Days Later**
It vaguely registered, somewhere in Vaughn's brain, that he was being quite rude to the short, rather flustered nurse who hurried beside him, but he didn't have time to be polite. Syd had asked for him, and he intended to get to her as fast as his legs would take him.
"Now, sir, you have to realize that she has just been shot.. the emotional trauma."
"She's been shot before." Funny, when being shot wasn't a big deal anymore. "She stood and talked to me, RAN after me, in three inch heels no less. I didn't even realize that she had been shot. A bullet in the ankle can't have done that much to her physically."
"Perhaps not, but she hasn't said a word since you brought her in except to ask for you this morning."
"And I wasn't there." Shit! He had hardly left her side while she had been unconscious, but she had chosen three in the morning as her time to finally wake up again. She had drifted into consciousness before, but never actually spoken, though she had shown signs of awareness.
"She did seem rather distressed when she didn't." She was abruptly cut off as Vaughn sighted her room number and all but ran into the room, closing the door behind him as lightly as his haste allowed, leaving the very annoyed nurse cut off in the hall.
Although it had been only a few hours since he had seen Sydney last, he was struck anew by how pale she was, and how small she looked even in the little hospital bed. But her eyes were open, and they seemed to understand the situation, and they met his as he came into the door.
"Vaughn," her voice was lower than a whisper but not really a rasp.
"Syd, I'm so sorry that I wasn't here. I stayed all day, but they sent me home to sleep.." He stopped when she shook her head slightly, a pardon for the sin of leaving her side.
"How long have I been here?" Her voice was a bit stronger now, but still low and empty. Her sat beside on a chair beside her bed and gently took her hand before responding.
"Five days, almost to the hour now. Do you remember anything..?" He purposely left the question broad. Whatever she addressed first would get said first. He could probe deeper later.
"I know that I woke up once or twice since our meeting at the pier. And that you were here then. Other than that.."
"Did you know that you had a bullet in your ankle when I brought you here?"
Her voice was even lower than the first comment, and her eyes dropped from his for the first time. "Yes."
"They were worried for awhile......the wound was nearly a day old when you got in, and you had lost a lot of blood."
"I've had worse." No emotion.
"That's what I told them." He tried to be just as bland, but he was sure that his concern leaked through his would-be casual tone.
There was a short silence in which neither knew whether to speak or what to say. Then she sighed and looked at him again.
"I'm sure you've been wondering about a lot of things." For the first time there was some emotion in her voice, a slight but deep undercurrent of pain in her tone.
He chuckled very slightly. "Yeah, you could say that." And the Understatement of the Year Award goes to Sydney Bristow.
"Where should I start?" The question, which should have been mostly to herself, was instead directed completely at him.
"The pier?" As good a place as any.
"The pier," she agreed. Another sigh escaped her before she began.
"I don't know how I made it there in the first place. As you said, I'd had a bullet in my ankle for some twenty hours, and I had no passport and no money. But I got there, as you know, and not only that, I got there before you, which never happens." She paused for a moment before continuing. "I don't really remember what I said, at least not in detail."
"Well, you kept quoting Lady Macbeth at me."
"Yeah, I knew that much." Another pause. "Do you remember what..malady..Lady Macbeth was suffering from?"
"Extreme guilt, if I remember correctly."
"Exactly."
"Syd.."
"Don't talk, just let me say this." There was an intensity to this statement that stopped him in his tracks. She gathered her strength and continued.
"We were in Kashmir when everything really went wrong. They," he did not have to ask who, "had been bickering constantly, but it was nothing that I wouldn't expect. But we were in this big, empty supply room getting our weapons before we left for the prison." She paused to take a breath, but he knew better than to interrupt. "She said something, something like, "Let the games begin". I don't know why, exactly, but this set him off. He was already tense. His eyes got colder, harder than I've ever seen them, and I have seen his face get pretty closed before. He said something like, 'That's all it ever was for you, isn't it? A game.'" Sydney's voice was speeding up by now, her eyes getting rounder. "Then suddenly he started t talking, saying thing I never thought he'd say, how he felt after she left, how it killed I him inside, how..when he looked at me.. when I was little.." She couldn't finish the thought, and he didn't try to force her. "He looked so hurt, so lost..Then he stopped, just stopped, and his face hardened again, and she knew what he was going to do, I saw the fear in her eyes. It was veiled, but I saw it, I know it, in her eyes, my eyes are the same, the same..He took out the gun." She paused, terrified even in memory, then suddenly her talking resumed at a frantic pace. "I tried to stop him, tried to talk sense into him, but he wouldn't listen, he.." She lost her focus for a moment, her eyes getting bigger and bigger and farther from him and from now. "So I fought him, but he was in a place I've never seen him in, in total focus mode. When you get there..all you know is to destroy, nothing else matters. He knocked me out of the way." Her breath was long and shaky, and somewhere during this speech tears had snaked their way onto her cheeks. Pain radiated from her, but he knew that she had to tell her story before she could be comforted. "And she looked up at him, and her eyes were hurt, not scared anymore. And she said..I will never forget.. She said, 'I was your soul, Jack, and when that soul was gone you had nothing anymore.' And he knew she was right, but it just made him worse. He looked at me, or through me, and he said..he said, 'Say goodbye to your mother, Sydney. This time she won't be coming back.'"
Vaughn couldn't take it anymore. Sydney was shaking beside him, the tears coursing in rivers down her cheeks. He rested his hand on her arm, but she jerked manically away, half shrieking, "Don't stop me!" She rocked back and forth, hands half over her mouth. "I have to get this out of me, have to say it or it will eat me alive, it'll kill me, God, Vaughn!!" He would have been amused by the order of her address if he hadn't been so worried. 'When God isn't there, there's always me.' She was still rocking, but managed to get her voice back under control and continue.
"She started to laugh, maniacal, inhuman laughs. I stood up and grabbed him, but I couldn't stop him, I couldn't stop.." Sydney half choked, hysterical with grief. "He started shooting, one of them caught me in the ankle but I don't think he noticed. I fell.. Saw the blood gushing out..." Suddenly she was frozen, the tears stopped, and she sat quavering in bed. Her voice gained a hard, sharp edge again. " I went into battle mode myself. All that was there was, 'he is the enemy, he shot me and he wants to kill my mother.' I don't know which of us shot first," one cold gasp stuck painfully in her throat, "but suddenly they were both down, and there was blood everywhere, everywhere.. And he realized that I had been shot too, and the last thing he said was, 'So, this how the Bristows finally end,' and he stopped for a minute, and I thought.. I thought he was.. but then, he just barely whispered, 'Not with a bang, but with a whimper.'"
A/N: Reviews! I need them! This was the most exhausting thing I have ever written. Please, tell me what to do! Continue? Not? If so, where should it go? Help me, please!
A/N- I'm soooo sorry that this has taken so long., finals are this week and my homework load is phenomenally bad. This is A/U by now, but if my brain worked faster it wouldn't be. Just assume that everything up to The Passage Part I happened, but that when they went for supplies things changed. Just read. You'll understand. If you hate it, that's OK. Part of me thinks that I would hate it, if I hadn't written it. But if you like it, that's wonderful too.
Reviews- I don't think that I can survive without them. Even if it's just to say, "I read it', or 'I read it, and it's crap, and here's why'. I just need to know that somebody bothered. Please???
**Five Days Later**
It vaguely registered, somewhere in Vaughn's brain, that he was being quite rude to the short, rather flustered nurse who hurried beside him, but he didn't have time to be polite. Syd had asked for him, and he intended to get to her as fast as his legs would take him.
"Now, sir, you have to realize that she has just been shot.. the emotional trauma."
"She's been shot before." Funny, when being shot wasn't a big deal anymore. "She stood and talked to me, RAN after me, in three inch heels no less. I didn't even realize that she had been shot. A bullet in the ankle can't have done that much to her physically."
"Perhaps not, but she hasn't said a word since you brought her in except to ask for you this morning."
"And I wasn't there." Shit! He had hardly left her side while she had been unconscious, but she had chosen three in the morning as her time to finally wake up again. She had drifted into consciousness before, but never actually spoken, though she had shown signs of awareness.
"She did seem rather distressed when she didn't." She was abruptly cut off as Vaughn sighted her room number and all but ran into the room, closing the door behind him as lightly as his haste allowed, leaving the very annoyed nurse cut off in the hall.
Although it had been only a few hours since he had seen Sydney last, he was struck anew by how pale she was, and how small she looked even in the little hospital bed. But her eyes were open, and they seemed to understand the situation, and they met his as he came into the door.
"Vaughn," her voice was lower than a whisper but not really a rasp.
"Syd, I'm so sorry that I wasn't here. I stayed all day, but they sent me home to sleep.." He stopped when she shook her head slightly, a pardon for the sin of leaving her side.
"How long have I been here?" Her voice was a bit stronger now, but still low and empty. Her sat beside on a chair beside her bed and gently took her hand before responding.
"Five days, almost to the hour now. Do you remember anything..?" He purposely left the question broad. Whatever she addressed first would get said first. He could probe deeper later.
"I know that I woke up once or twice since our meeting at the pier. And that you were here then. Other than that.."
"Did you know that you had a bullet in your ankle when I brought you here?"
Her voice was even lower than the first comment, and her eyes dropped from his for the first time. "Yes."
"They were worried for awhile......the wound was nearly a day old when you got in, and you had lost a lot of blood."
"I've had worse." No emotion.
"That's what I told them." He tried to be just as bland, but he was sure that his concern leaked through his would-be casual tone.
There was a short silence in which neither knew whether to speak or what to say. Then she sighed and looked at him again.
"I'm sure you've been wondering about a lot of things." For the first time there was some emotion in her voice, a slight but deep undercurrent of pain in her tone.
He chuckled very slightly. "Yeah, you could say that." And the Understatement of the Year Award goes to Sydney Bristow.
"Where should I start?" The question, which should have been mostly to herself, was instead directed completely at him.
"The pier?" As good a place as any.
"The pier," she agreed. Another sigh escaped her before she began.
"I don't know how I made it there in the first place. As you said, I'd had a bullet in my ankle for some twenty hours, and I had no passport and no money. But I got there, as you know, and not only that, I got there before you, which never happens." She paused for a moment before continuing. "I don't really remember what I said, at least not in detail."
"Well, you kept quoting Lady Macbeth at me."
"Yeah, I knew that much." Another pause. "Do you remember what..malady..Lady Macbeth was suffering from?"
"Extreme guilt, if I remember correctly."
"Exactly."
"Syd.."
"Don't talk, just let me say this." There was an intensity to this statement that stopped him in his tracks. She gathered her strength and continued.
"We were in Kashmir when everything really went wrong. They," he did not have to ask who, "had been bickering constantly, but it was nothing that I wouldn't expect. But we were in this big, empty supply room getting our weapons before we left for the prison." She paused to take a breath, but he knew better than to interrupt. "She said something, something like, "Let the games begin". I don't know why, exactly, but this set him off. He was already tense. His eyes got colder, harder than I've ever seen them, and I have seen his face get pretty closed before. He said something like, 'That's all it ever was for you, isn't it? A game.'" Sydney's voice was speeding up by now, her eyes getting rounder. "Then suddenly he started t talking, saying thing I never thought he'd say, how he felt after she left, how it killed I him inside, how..when he looked at me.. when I was little.." She couldn't finish the thought, and he didn't try to force her. "He looked so hurt, so lost..Then he stopped, just stopped, and his face hardened again, and she knew what he was going to do, I saw the fear in her eyes. It was veiled, but I saw it, I know it, in her eyes, my eyes are the same, the same..He took out the gun." She paused, terrified even in memory, then suddenly her talking resumed at a frantic pace. "I tried to stop him, tried to talk sense into him, but he wouldn't listen, he.." She lost her focus for a moment, her eyes getting bigger and bigger and farther from him and from now. "So I fought him, but he was in a place I've never seen him in, in total focus mode. When you get there..all you know is to destroy, nothing else matters. He knocked me out of the way." Her breath was long and shaky, and somewhere during this speech tears had snaked their way onto her cheeks. Pain radiated from her, but he knew that she had to tell her story before she could be comforted. "And she looked up at him, and her eyes were hurt, not scared anymore. And she said..I will never forget.. She said, 'I was your soul, Jack, and when that soul was gone you had nothing anymore.' And he knew she was right, but it just made him worse. He looked at me, or through me, and he said..he said, 'Say goodbye to your mother, Sydney. This time she won't be coming back.'"
Vaughn couldn't take it anymore. Sydney was shaking beside him, the tears coursing in rivers down her cheeks. He rested his hand on her arm, but she jerked manically away, half shrieking, "Don't stop me!" She rocked back and forth, hands half over her mouth. "I have to get this out of me, have to say it or it will eat me alive, it'll kill me, God, Vaughn!!" He would have been amused by the order of her address if he hadn't been so worried. 'When God isn't there, there's always me.' She was still rocking, but managed to get her voice back under control and continue.
"She started to laugh, maniacal, inhuman laughs. I stood up and grabbed him, but I couldn't stop him, I couldn't stop.." Sydney half choked, hysterical with grief. "He started shooting, one of them caught me in the ankle but I don't think he noticed. I fell.. Saw the blood gushing out..." Suddenly she was frozen, the tears stopped, and she sat quavering in bed. Her voice gained a hard, sharp edge again. " I went into battle mode myself. All that was there was, 'he is the enemy, he shot me and he wants to kill my mother.' I don't know which of us shot first," one cold gasp stuck painfully in her throat, "but suddenly they were both down, and there was blood everywhere, everywhere.. And he realized that I had been shot too, and the last thing he said was, 'So, this how the Bristows finally end,' and he stopped for a minute, and I thought.. I thought he was.. but then, he just barely whispered, 'Not with a bang, but with a whimper.'"
A/N: Reviews! I need them! This was the most exhausting thing I have ever written. Please, tell me what to do! Continue? Not? If so, where should it go? Help me, please!