Title: "Recoil"

Author: Waterdancer aka AquarianLady

Email: jch114@hotmail.com

Website: none at this time.

Feedback: YES YES YES

Distribution: CD ALL DAY. Anyone else please ask.

Disclaimer: Anything Alias related (Vaughn, Devlin, SD-4,SD-6, Weiss, Donovan the dog) are all the property of ABC and Touchstone Pictures. It is the creation of JJ Abrams and Bad Robot Productions. Diana Rochelle is mine.

Summary: A woman from Vaughn's past comes back.

Rating: PG-13 for language.

Classification: Action/Adventure, Drama, and a dash of Romance.

A/N: A big thank you to Robin and Thorne. You guys have been a well of encouragement, and you don't know how much I appreciate it. It helped out tremendously. Thank you to Robin for the great beta. This is my VERY first attempt at a Vaughn fic. Hope you guys like it.

***

Reckless. Loose Cannon.

The words that people used to describe her came out of nowhere as she semi-patrolled the grounds of the estate. Stung by the sudden reminder of her faults, she sat down on the grass, tears clouding her vision. It was her fault that they--Patrick, Daniel, Marisa, and the others—were dead. Patrick had warned against going into the SD-4 office building. "Something doesn't feel right," he said before they had gone in. "This is too easy."

I goaded him on. "Patrick, we can do this. We've had excellent success on these types of missions. In and out." He always called me his lucky charm. She may have been reckless, but she got results. Except for Rick, none of them had been worried.  Every operation over the previous six months had gone somewhat smoothly. The occasional gunfight had ensued, but no one had been hurt or caught from the team. That night, everything should have gone according to plan. It had for a short time.  The surveillance cameras had gone out with a few keystrokes from Daniel, and the downloading of the archives had gone fine.

However, as they were exiting out of the building, they found a team from SD-4 waiting. Marisa handed her the computer disk and whispered, "You know what to do. We split up and meet at the safehouse in a week. If we don't make it, you make sure this gets to the agency." They had hit the ground running. Diana had been the fastest among them, so she had been picked to run away and avoid all confrontation if possible. The others were to act as diversions. A week later, when she arrived at the safehouse in one of the back alleys of the city, the door had been already open. Drawing her gun, she started into the house.

Pushing the living room door open, she dropped her gun to the floor as she saw the members of the team. Her friends. They had been tied up and shot in the head. Marisa, Daniel, Jonathan, Kellie—all of them dead. Where was Patrick?

"Diana," a voice rasped behind her. She picked up her gun and spun around. "Patrick?" she whispered.

As he stumbled to the floor, he made a low moaning sound. She sheathed her gun and ran over to him. Rolling him over, she felt hot tears come to her eyes. The mischievous sparkle in his blue eyes was gone; eyes that were now bloodshot replaced them. Bruises covered his face and body.


She ripped off the sleeve of his shirt and started to clean his face. He grabbed her hand and said in a hoarse voice, "Diana! You don't have time for this.  You know it's too late anyway." A small trickle of blood came out of the side of his mouth.

"Shut up. You're fine. Let me—"

"There's no time. We were set up. I thought so when we were at SD-4, but now—" shaking his head, he started coughing again. "Look, in the kitchen drawer there is an envelope--it's got six new passports for everyone with details for new covers. I intended for everyone to go their separate ways after this mission, but—" He winced in pain as he took a breath.

"Shh, we're going to get out of here," she said, stroking his cheek, trying to keep her emotions in check.

"No, you are. Take your ID and run. Make sure that you and that disk get back to the Agency."


"Patrick, I'm not leaving you here. I don't leave people behind!"

He grabbed her hand tighter as they heard garbage cans crash in the alley.  "Someone's coming," he rasped in a low voice. "As your superior, I'm ordering you to leave."

Looking at his face for one last time, she studied him.  Tried to remember every line.  Then nodding, she stood and raced into the kitchen.  She opened up kitchen drawers, pulling them out until the backs fell out of their holes.  Their contents went scattering onto the floor.  The envelope was in the third one.

Grabbing it up with shaking hands, she spilled the contents out onto the counter.  She winced as the smiling faces of the dead stared at her from passports and driver's licenses that would never be used.  She found hers attached to Patrick's.  They would have been traveling together.  Picking up her passport and ID papers, she shoved them into her top.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she gripped the warm metal of her gun.  She glanced over at the bodies of her friends and promised to them that she would make sure that their deaths had not been in vain.  She would make it out of the safe house, and she would get the intel to the CIA.

"Marta! Hey, Marta!"  Diego's voice brought her out of the past.

Diana stood up and squeezed her eyes shut, again trying to forget the memories. "Yes, Diego," she said, looking over at the other guard.

"Are you okay?"  He looked at her, letting her see his concern.  His doubt.  "I called you several times." He placed his hand on her shoulder.

"I'm fine." She started to turn away from him.

"Are you sure? You seem distra—"

"Diego!  I'm fine, really.  What did you want?" She knew her voice was hard but she didn't care.

Diego pulled away from her.  "Have you done all preparations for tonight?"

"Preparations?  For what?"

"The party is tonight.  You haven't forgotten, have you?"

The week was almost over and no word from Michael yet.  I wonder if tonight is the nigh—

"Marta!" Diego snapped. "Are the preparations complete for the party?"

"Yes. Yes. I still have to patrol the rest of the grounds, but everything else is in order," she lied.

She looked at him with what she knew was an unreadable face as his eyes narrowed at her. It was obvious that he didn't trust her, but there was something more behind his eyes. I just can't put my finger on it.

As she started to walk away from him, she called over her shoulder, "I'm going to get back to work.  I'll be inside in thirty minutes."