Title: Wish List
Author: Donna donna__rose@hotmail.com
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: They're not mine, if you think they are you are obviously either insane or a very dumb lawyer.
Summary: Syd wishes, Vaughn delivers, a happy ending. I dunno, read it and then you can write my summary for me.
Notes: Ahah! This si the third that I have updated, 8000 words in one night, I'm quite proud considering I started at 8pm. Anyways, read and review and read all my others because they are all just as good as the next as far as I can see. Reviewing is all that keeps me going, I mean that and with four stories and at least 2000 words per chapter, it is rather difficult to find the time.
Chapter Ten
Less than five minutes later, he found himself standing outside Agent Vaughn's office, arm raised, ready to knock. The halls around were relatively silent, no one prepared to risk their life and make a noise when the infamous Agent Bristow was near by. All the doors were closed and everything was CIA standard clean, it made Jack want to be sick as it looked too much like SD-6. Silently, he prayed that he wasn't about to make the biggest mistake in his life as, if he was, it was going to have to be a pretty big blunder to beat all of his past screw ups. Marrying Irina, growing apart from Sydney, enrolling her in Project Christmas, not killing Irina when he had the chance. Looking around, feeling guilty for no real reason, he nocked, once, twice, three times, all in perfect succession, and waited to be called in.
Agent Vaughn's voice came out after a few seconds hesitation, tired and bored. "Come on in." Jack entered without bothering to make sure Vaughn knew it was him and was faced with a messy office, defiantly not up to CIA standards. The place was covered in folders, files and unbound papers all lying on top of a desk, a chair of simply on the floor. Vaughn had his feet up on the desk, his computer on, but a Window's screensaver bouncing around the screen, little stars going in and out of view, and his tie hanging over the back of his chair.
He was reading through a Manila folder, his eyes skimming over the text with a glazed, uncaring look and his fingers playing with the edges. Looking up and realising who it was, Vaughn sighed heavily and slowly removed his feat from the table, dropping the folder onto his keyboard and the screen flicking back onto what he had been reading. "Agent Bristow." Even the name hurt, especially, for some reason, from his mouth.
Jack wasn't totally sure of where to start. He wasn't really the man who should have been doing this and he had had a quick chat to Agent Weiss before coming to Vaughn. "Mr Vaughn." Vaughn simply raised his eyebrows, clearly not interested. "I hear you've been reassigned."
Vaughn nodded and said, "Yeah, I have. So I'd have to ask, sir, what it is I can do for you." Vaughn wasn't exactly being disrespectful, but he was acting tired and without the dedication or ambition he'd processed before.
"It's about Sydney," Jack started.
"I have nothing to do with her." Vaughn cut across him, picking the folder back up and opening it at a random page, his eyes suddenly keen on reading the contents unlike they had been before.
Jack picked up a stack of CIA edition case books, all containing useless information, and placed them on the ground, taking a seat, he watched a moment, before commenting: "Is that what you want?" His voice was flat and lifeless as ever, but his eyes flickering with something else that was important even if Vaughn didn't see it. Vaughn's head shook a little in regret and sadness, but he did not answer. "You never want to see her again?" Nothing to give Jack any clue, and yet he was so sure of what he was seeing. "No? At this rate, you might not"
His head came up quickly and he glared at Jack, a loot of bemusement and dislike mirrored in his green eyes. "What's the point?" The passion was gone, the fire extinguished, nothing was left but a tiny spark in the depths of his emerald pools. His voice was short and in a deep monotone.
"There seems to be no point, Mr Vaughn." Jack breathed in, aware that he was about to break protocol and that while Devlin was backing him off the record, if this went wrong, his would be the head that was chopped. "Except that my daughter has just threatened to put a couple of bullets through one of the walls of SD-6, in front of Sloane."
Vaughn was watching him with greedy interest while still trying to keep his pride. "I don't understand." Jack looked at him and glanced towards the doorway quickly before explaining to him the morning's events. He kindly left out his opinion of Devlin's decision to start an Emotional Back up, but told him everything else, including what he believed Sydney's state of mind to currently be but not why.
After the long and uninterrupted speech, Jack turned to Vaughn and shrugged, waiting for a response, seeing the younger man looking more interested than he had throughout the entire week about anything according to Weiss. "You think I can fix this?" His voice was hesitant, scared of Jack in a way, not sure why he was even letting these kind of thoughts enter Vaughn's mind. Jack simply nodded to him and waited for another question. Vaughn shook his head. "No, hang on. You hate," he emphasised the word and said it again to make sure Jack knew what he was talking about. "I mean you really hate that idea of me even discussing the weather with Sydney and now you're telling me that she needs me?"
Jack looked at him and started to explain what he thought was occurring. "The CIA would call it emotional attachment," Vaughn nodded, his face contorting into disgust and contempt. "Well, it is. When two agents become emotionally attached then it can cloud their judgement, cause deaths and blunders that otherwise would have been avoided."
Vaughn interrupted him, eager to know where this was all going, not sure that what was going on. "I know all this."
"Sometimes it isn't a bad thing," the words were chosen well, so that they couldn't be confused with anything else and the truth not mixed up or twisted. Still, Vaughn looked back at Jack bemused. "Very rarely, the CIA tolerates it because they feel that it's needed." Vaughn shook his head and chuckled at the idea, thinking it a sick joke coming from Jack's morbid sense of humour. "You see, when I was younger, two agents, the best, they became involved, romantically. Eventually got married and had a kid. The CIA tolerated it because they were each other's ambition and their instincts were almost always right. It was a rare case, but endured because it was an improvement for the CIA and the agents."
Vaughn couldn't believe what he was hearing, how could he not have heard of this? Jack explained quickly, seeing what Vaughn was thinking, "If this exception had gotten out and become a well known story, it would have created a precedent and we would have had agents everywhere killing themselves while trying to prove that they could do it, that having a relationship with a person on the inside could work." While Vaughn thought this was an over exaggeration, he didn't say anything. "Therefore no one is told of it, all of the rumours were cleaned up and the books containing anything about them were sealed and classified Omega 17, along with everything else we don't want people sticking their noses into. Even I don't have access to those books. Anyway, no one knows, but I spoke to Devlin."
Jack paused and watched for a response of any kind form Vaughn; he simply raised his eyebrows and joined his hands, threading his fingers together and placed them on the table, leaning forward eager for more hope. Jack shook his head, regretting his next words in advance. "You're one of those rare cases. " Vaughn's face broke into a smile. "I didn't realise it until you were reassigned, but now I do....Without you, Sydney will, I fear be dead within the next few month." Vaughn's smile remained, his mind ticking over visibly at all of the possibilities.
Jack hastened to add, "Now, this doesn't mean you can be careless, it requires more care, more precision than before. It just means that the emotional attachment," Jack still used the phrase, with disgust behind his words, "is allowed and you have permission to take it as far as you wish with CIA knowledge." Immediately an eyebrow rose as Vaughn realised what Jack meant. Jack ignored him, "Now, you therefore need a handler of sorts, someone you report everything," he stressed the word, " to. That will, for the time being, be me."
Vaughn interrupted him. "Are you sure that Sydney will like that idea? I mean being her dad and all. Wouldn't she rather a woman?"
Jack shook his head, not particularly amused on the outside, but Vaughn's words awakening a mixture of amusement and disdain he'd rarely felt and for the briefest second he had a flicker of an image of him handing Sydney over to Vaughn to be wed, inside. Shaking it, he smiled in a sickly way and continued, "At the moment, Agent Vaughn, I'd be more worried about the fact that, for some reason she chose for you to get out of her life. And then," Jack looked at him, expressing the amount of confidence he had, or more lacked, in Vaughn, "I'd try and work out how you plan on getting her back."
Vaughn just stared at Jack for a long time, shock horror written all over him, eventually Jack asked, exasperated, "What?"
"You," Vaughn looked at him, the beginnings of self-assurance edging into his voice, his confidence growing in addressing Jack Bristow, "You always act like this?"
Jack just looked at him as though he was a five year old who was asking a tricky question about Santa Clause for the billionth time. "Do you want my help or not Mr Vaughn?"
Vaughn was inclined to tell him to call him Michael, but decided against it, seeing that Jack's face still looked as cold and emotionless as usual and that there was a chance that he had just imagined everything he had just seen. "Yes of course Sir."
Jack nodded and looked at him, a faint amused smile gracing his lips in private jest for a split second before he wiped it off and spoke again, "Could you tell me exactly what happened?"
Vaughn suddenly looked like he had bitten into rotten fruit, he'd refused to tell Devlin the full story and had been chucked into research for it and now he was faced with a man he wanted to tell even less to. Still, he had little choice in the matter and eventually opted to explain the whole thing, from start to finish, without leaving anything out.
Once he was done, Vaughn just stared at him, waiting for a response, slowly, Jack's eyebrows both raised in shock and he lifted a hand to his face. Clarifying, he asked, "So, she admitted that she loved you?" The words were awkward off his tongue, like a foreign language he hadn't spoken in his life.
"Well, no," Vaughn thought back. "She didn't say 'I love you' if that's what you mean."
"Then there's your problem." Jack explained, slightly embarrassed to be talking about this at all. "Force her to admit it, then go from there. Tell her that you can be together." The entire sentence sounded stupid and so unlike Jack that it took a few seconds for Vaughn to realise what he was expected to do. Thinking it over a while, he eventually stood up and nodded to Jack.
"Do you know where I could find her?" he asked.
Jack felt like rolling his eyes. "Ring her, use whatever code call you used to use, if she doesn't come, tell me and I will go and see her." Vaughn nodded and made to leave. "Use your phone." Jack pointed out and Vaughn returned, sitting down goofily and grinning as he tapped the number in.
Read and review! Read and Review! Please oh please oh please and go and read and review my other fics please!
Author: Donna donna__rose@hotmail.com
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: They're not mine, if you think they are you are obviously either insane or a very dumb lawyer.
Summary: Syd wishes, Vaughn delivers, a happy ending. I dunno, read it and then you can write my summary for me.
Notes: Ahah! This si the third that I have updated, 8000 words in one night, I'm quite proud considering I started at 8pm. Anyways, read and review and read all my others because they are all just as good as the next as far as I can see. Reviewing is all that keeps me going, I mean that and with four stories and at least 2000 words per chapter, it is rather difficult to find the time.
Chapter Ten
Less than five minutes later, he found himself standing outside Agent Vaughn's office, arm raised, ready to knock. The halls around were relatively silent, no one prepared to risk their life and make a noise when the infamous Agent Bristow was near by. All the doors were closed and everything was CIA standard clean, it made Jack want to be sick as it looked too much like SD-6. Silently, he prayed that he wasn't about to make the biggest mistake in his life as, if he was, it was going to have to be a pretty big blunder to beat all of his past screw ups. Marrying Irina, growing apart from Sydney, enrolling her in Project Christmas, not killing Irina when he had the chance. Looking around, feeling guilty for no real reason, he nocked, once, twice, three times, all in perfect succession, and waited to be called in.
Agent Vaughn's voice came out after a few seconds hesitation, tired and bored. "Come on in." Jack entered without bothering to make sure Vaughn knew it was him and was faced with a messy office, defiantly not up to CIA standards. The place was covered in folders, files and unbound papers all lying on top of a desk, a chair of simply on the floor. Vaughn had his feet up on the desk, his computer on, but a Window's screensaver bouncing around the screen, little stars going in and out of view, and his tie hanging over the back of his chair.
He was reading through a Manila folder, his eyes skimming over the text with a glazed, uncaring look and his fingers playing with the edges. Looking up and realising who it was, Vaughn sighed heavily and slowly removed his feat from the table, dropping the folder onto his keyboard and the screen flicking back onto what he had been reading. "Agent Bristow." Even the name hurt, especially, for some reason, from his mouth.
Jack wasn't totally sure of where to start. He wasn't really the man who should have been doing this and he had had a quick chat to Agent Weiss before coming to Vaughn. "Mr Vaughn." Vaughn simply raised his eyebrows, clearly not interested. "I hear you've been reassigned."
Vaughn nodded and said, "Yeah, I have. So I'd have to ask, sir, what it is I can do for you." Vaughn wasn't exactly being disrespectful, but he was acting tired and without the dedication or ambition he'd processed before.
"It's about Sydney," Jack started.
"I have nothing to do with her." Vaughn cut across him, picking the folder back up and opening it at a random page, his eyes suddenly keen on reading the contents unlike they had been before.
Jack picked up a stack of CIA edition case books, all containing useless information, and placed them on the ground, taking a seat, he watched a moment, before commenting: "Is that what you want?" His voice was flat and lifeless as ever, but his eyes flickering with something else that was important even if Vaughn didn't see it. Vaughn's head shook a little in regret and sadness, but he did not answer. "You never want to see her again?" Nothing to give Jack any clue, and yet he was so sure of what he was seeing. "No? At this rate, you might not"
His head came up quickly and he glared at Jack, a loot of bemusement and dislike mirrored in his green eyes. "What's the point?" The passion was gone, the fire extinguished, nothing was left but a tiny spark in the depths of his emerald pools. His voice was short and in a deep monotone.
"There seems to be no point, Mr Vaughn." Jack breathed in, aware that he was about to break protocol and that while Devlin was backing him off the record, if this went wrong, his would be the head that was chopped. "Except that my daughter has just threatened to put a couple of bullets through one of the walls of SD-6, in front of Sloane."
Vaughn was watching him with greedy interest while still trying to keep his pride. "I don't understand." Jack looked at him and glanced towards the doorway quickly before explaining to him the morning's events. He kindly left out his opinion of Devlin's decision to start an Emotional Back up, but told him everything else, including what he believed Sydney's state of mind to currently be but not why.
After the long and uninterrupted speech, Jack turned to Vaughn and shrugged, waiting for a response, seeing the younger man looking more interested than he had throughout the entire week about anything according to Weiss. "You think I can fix this?" His voice was hesitant, scared of Jack in a way, not sure why he was even letting these kind of thoughts enter Vaughn's mind. Jack simply nodded to him and waited for another question. Vaughn shook his head. "No, hang on. You hate," he emphasised the word and said it again to make sure Jack knew what he was talking about. "I mean you really hate that idea of me even discussing the weather with Sydney and now you're telling me that she needs me?"
Jack looked at him and started to explain what he thought was occurring. "The CIA would call it emotional attachment," Vaughn nodded, his face contorting into disgust and contempt. "Well, it is. When two agents become emotionally attached then it can cloud their judgement, cause deaths and blunders that otherwise would have been avoided."
Vaughn interrupted him, eager to know where this was all going, not sure that what was going on. "I know all this."
"Sometimes it isn't a bad thing," the words were chosen well, so that they couldn't be confused with anything else and the truth not mixed up or twisted. Still, Vaughn looked back at Jack bemused. "Very rarely, the CIA tolerates it because they feel that it's needed." Vaughn shook his head and chuckled at the idea, thinking it a sick joke coming from Jack's morbid sense of humour. "You see, when I was younger, two agents, the best, they became involved, romantically. Eventually got married and had a kid. The CIA tolerated it because they were each other's ambition and their instincts were almost always right. It was a rare case, but endured because it was an improvement for the CIA and the agents."
Vaughn couldn't believe what he was hearing, how could he not have heard of this? Jack explained quickly, seeing what Vaughn was thinking, "If this exception had gotten out and become a well known story, it would have created a precedent and we would have had agents everywhere killing themselves while trying to prove that they could do it, that having a relationship with a person on the inside could work." While Vaughn thought this was an over exaggeration, he didn't say anything. "Therefore no one is told of it, all of the rumours were cleaned up and the books containing anything about them were sealed and classified Omega 17, along with everything else we don't want people sticking their noses into. Even I don't have access to those books. Anyway, no one knows, but I spoke to Devlin."
Jack paused and watched for a response of any kind form Vaughn; he simply raised his eyebrows and joined his hands, threading his fingers together and placed them on the table, leaning forward eager for more hope. Jack shook his head, regretting his next words in advance. "You're one of those rare cases. " Vaughn's face broke into a smile. "I didn't realise it until you were reassigned, but now I do....Without you, Sydney will, I fear be dead within the next few month." Vaughn's smile remained, his mind ticking over visibly at all of the possibilities.
Jack hastened to add, "Now, this doesn't mean you can be careless, it requires more care, more precision than before. It just means that the emotional attachment," Jack still used the phrase, with disgust behind his words, "is allowed and you have permission to take it as far as you wish with CIA knowledge." Immediately an eyebrow rose as Vaughn realised what Jack meant. Jack ignored him, "Now, you therefore need a handler of sorts, someone you report everything," he stressed the word, " to. That will, for the time being, be me."
Vaughn interrupted him. "Are you sure that Sydney will like that idea? I mean being her dad and all. Wouldn't she rather a woman?"
Jack shook his head, not particularly amused on the outside, but Vaughn's words awakening a mixture of amusement and disdain he'd rarely felt and for the briefest second he had a flicker of an image of him handing Sydney over to Vaughn to be wed, inside. Shaking it, he smiled in a sickly way and continued, "At the moment, Agent Vaughn, I'd be more worried about the fact that, for some reason she chose for you to get out of her life. And then," Jack looked at him, expressing the amount of confidence he had, or more lacked, in Vaughn, "I'd try and work out how you plan on getting her back."
Vaughn just stared at Jack for a long time, shock horror written all over him, eventually Jack asked, exasperated, "What?"
"You," Vaughn looked at him, the beginnings of self-assurance edging into his voice, his confidence growing in addressing Jack Bristow, "You always act like this?"
Jack just looked at him as though he was a five year old who was asking a tricky question about Santa Clause for the billionth time. "Do you want my help or not Mr Vaughn?"
Vaughn was inclined to tell him to call him Michael, but decided against it, seeing that Jack's face still looked as cold and emotionless as usual and that there was a chance that he had just imagined everything he had just seen. "Yes of course Sir."
Jack nodded and looked at him, a faint amused smile gracing his lips in private jest for a split second before he wiped it off and spoke again, "Could you tell me exactly what happened?"
Vaughn suddenly looked like he had bitten into rotten fruit, he'd refused to tell Devlin the full story and had been chucked into research for it and now he was faced with a man he wanted to tell even less to. Still, he had little choice in the matter and eventually opted to explain the whole thing, from start to finish, without leaving anything out.
Once he was done, Vaughn just stared at him, waiting for a response, slowly, Jack's eyebrows both raised in shock and he lifted a hand to his face. Clarifying, he asked, "So, she admitted that she loved you?" The words were awkward off his tongue, like a foreign language he hadn't spoken in his life.
"Well, no," Vaughn thought back. "She didn't say 'I love you' if that's what you mean."
"Then there's your problem." Jack explained, slightly embarrassed to be talking about this at all. "Force her to admit it, then go from there. Tell her that you can be together." The entire sentence sounded stupid and so unlike Jack that it took a few seconds for Vaughn to realise what he was expected to do. Thinking it over a while, he eventually stood up and nodded to Jack.
"Do you know where I could find her?" he asked.
Jack felt like rolling his eyes. "Ring her, use whatever code call you used to use, if she doesn't come, tell me and I will go and see her." Vaughn nodded and made to leave. "Use your phone." Jack pointed out and Vaughn returned, sitting down goofily and grinning as he tapped the number in.
Read and review! Read and Review! Please oh please oh please and go and read and review my other fics please!