Chapter 8
CIA Headquarters, Kendall's office
"What is the current status on Agent Bristow?" Kendall asked Vaughn as they sat across from each other in the elder Agents office.
"I wouldn't know," Vaughn answered sharply, "I'm here instead of being at the hospital with her."
"Do I have to remind you, Agent Vaughn, that you have other responsibilities at the CIA other than being Agent Bristow's handler? Her father is there if she wakes up, and since you were supposed to be getting me the preliminary stats on the ring we confiscated in Barcelona an hour ago, I suggest you do your job before I find someone to replace you."
"Yeah, I'll get right on that, Sir." Vaughn said, standing up. "Oh, and Sir. It's when," Vaughn corrected, "When she wakes up. Because "if" anything happens to Sydney, your threats will no longer be idle, you really will need to replace me." With that, he left the room.
CIA Headquarters, Vaughn's office
"Why can't you tell me how she's doing?" Vaughn yelled into the phone. "I know its confidential," but I'm CIA he wanted to yell. "Fine, can I speak to a man in your waiting room. His name is Jack Browning. His daughter, Sydney Browning, is the one I'm asking about. She was admitted last night."
Once Sydney had stopped seizing, the CIA backup team covertly transported her to a local hospital under the alias Sydney Browning. In their absence, SD-6 had been issued a replacement director. The new boss had been curious about the Agents Bristow, but Jack fabricated a very believable lie. In his weakened psychological state, Sloane had allowed Sark access to the SD-6 vault, where Sark promptly stole a very important computer chip. Jack and Sydney had been in pursuit of Sark, and had been able to recover the chip, which Jack handed over to the quite impressed new boss. Sark had managed to escape, though, and Sydney was on his tail in Europe. Jack only came home after being notified of Sloane's immediate replacement.
The cover worked, and nobody was asking questions about Sydney, Jack made sure of it. Unfortunately, as of last night Sydney was still in critical care, and Vaughn couldn't find out any more information.
"Please, ask for Jack Browning. He's tall, handsome, I guess. Looks like he's mad all the time." The nurse must have answered "no" again because Vaughn slammed the phone down in frustration.
"No need to break the phone, Mike. Kendall is pissed enough as it is. He'll enjoy adding "destruction of government property" to his list of grievances, trust me."
"I don't care about Kendall." Vaughn motions for Weiss to close the door. "I can't focus on anything Eric. I'm going insane. I can't get through to Jack and he told me it's not safe for Sydney if I go to the hospital. The last time I saw her, she was dying. No, she was dead. Then she started seizing and I had to fight the urge to betray my feelings to Jack, and hold her in my arms. I might never get the chance."
"Above all else, Sydney is a fighter. If I made it back from the great beyond, there is no doubt in my mind she will too."
"But."
"No buts, Mike." Weiss chose his next words carefully. "She's saved your life more than once, man. It was time for you to repay the debt. She'll come back to you."
"I hope you're right. It's just," Vaughn wasn't sure he could put into words what he was thinking, "I can't sleep at night when Sydney is away on missions, but lately, I have day-nightmares about her getting hurt, or captured, or dying. I love her so much, and she has no idea."
"Go profess the "L" word to her, not me. I'll find you an appropriate alias. Jack will never be the wiser."
"I shouldn't."
"Mike, she wants you there when she wakes up. Trust me, I've looked into the eyes of the opposite sex and seen my fair share of repulsion. But Sydney looks at you like you're made of gold, man. Go."
"Alright, okay, I'm going to the hospital." He waited by the door for Weiss. "C'mon, aren't you going to help me?"
"Cool, field trip."
Hospital
"We need to strategize. I can memorize room locations, mark the exits, flirt with a few nurses," Weiss said as he and Vaughn entered the emergency room. They quickly sidestepped the waiting room where an angry Jack Bristow was fighting with a doctor.
"I would like to know what is being done to help Sydney because from the looks of it you haven't done anything!" Jack roared as the other waiters looked on. "My daughter is, dying, and I've been told this is THE BEST hospital in the state so I suppose you page your BEST doctors right now and FIX HER!" He said in that vicious manner of his.
"She's not a car," Weiss cracked, as Vaughn said, "She must still be in ICU. It doesn't look good for her Eric."
"What did I say before? She'll be okay. Just go. Go Prince Charming, wake up that sleeping princess with a freakishly long-awaited kiss," Vaughn gave him a surprised look. "Hey, I wasn't going to kiss her."
"Yeah, right." Weiss grinned.
"Eric," Vaughn said with half-contempt, "Just stay here and try not to get in trouble. Keep a look out for Jack, and you know, try not to stalk any nurses."
Vaughn was able to reach ICU with no problems. It was a weekend, and the hospital had only half its staff around, leaving the halls relatively free to roam. Vaughn ducked inside a storage closet, and found spare scrubs to change into. Weiss had created a hospital employee badge for him to wear around his neck. Mask over his face, he looked authentic enough to pass through ICU without any notice. He found Sydney's room easily enough.
She was hooked up to more machines than he could count on one hand. The loud beeping machine in the corner was a ventilator. Sydney still couldn't breathe on her own.
"This can't be the end," Vaughn said to her as he sat down in the chair beside her, "not for you, or us. C'mon, Syd, open your eyes." He wanted to say all the right things to wake her up. He wanted her to have a reason to come back.
"I keep wondering how we got to this point Syd. Do you know you're all I think about. That has to be the #1 over-used phrase of all time, but its true. You smile at me and I can't think coherently for an hour. I pray every night for the end of SD-6 so you and I can sit together and talk or drink a cup of coffee. I'm hitting on you and you can't even hear me," he smiled, "how pathetic am I."
"Pretty pathetic, Agent Vaughn." Vaughn winced as Jack stepped into the room.
"Your first mistake was making Agent Weiss your look-out. The man is unable to do any job with so many good-looking nurses around. I'm actually surprised he could talk at all."
"I'm sorry Jack - Agent Bristow, I shouldn't be here."
"No, you shouldn't. You are here though, you might as well stay, until security removes us of course. I figure we have a good five, ten minutes before anyone realizes we're not hospital staff."
Jack stood by the head of Sydney's bed. He ran a shaky hand over her damp auburn hair. "Sydney had the worst case of chicken pox. She had a 104 fever and had to be hospitalized. It was right after Laura left, and Sydney cried for the entire two days she was in the hospital. She didn't cry about the pain or the itch, she cried for her mother. I stood by her side, just as I'm doing now, and tried to comfort her. I placed rags on her feverish forehead, she was so sweaty, just like now. I thought she was going to dehydrate and waste away. I yelled at every nurse to give her more and more water." He stopped speaking and looked to Vaughn. "Do you think Irina should be permitted to see her? The last time, she wanted her mother so badly."
"She knows you're here Jack. She needs her father, no matter what she might say when she's conscious, or what she said when she was a child."
"I don't know why I'm telling you all this. It's highly unprofessional."
"Sometimes you need to screw protocol," Vaughn said, instantly wondering if he will regret saying it.
"You might be right." Jack left it at that. "The doctor finally gave me some explanation why she's still unconscious. The toxin was in her body for such a long time that it started creating antibodies. The anti-toxin is working overtime to kill the virus, but there is no guarantee it will work. It's wait and see. What a pompous, arrogant jerk." Jack scolded under his breath.
"Vaughn, did you know that Danny called me to ask for Sydney's hand in marriage."
"No," Vaughn swallowed hard. He wasn't sure he liked where this was going. "I gave him a hard time, but he had my approval from the start. I wanted her to have a normal life with him, and I liked that he thought to include me in it, even if Sydney herself didn't want that. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
He didn't, but Vaughn nodded anyway.
"You wait with her. I need to yell at more doctors."
Sydney's Apartment, Living Room
"Francie, stop fluffing! I'm alright," Sydney smiled at Francie who was fighting to make her pillow "the most comfortable pillow in the world," as Francie had put it earlier.
"No, you aren't. Do you have any idea how sick you were? Will said the doctors thought you had meningitis."
Sydney winced. Will had lied to her. When had the truth become so relative?
"I know, Francie. But it turned out to be nothing, just some virus I picked up on my last trip. I'm a fighter, remember that."
"Well, I don't care, you're my best friend and if anything happened to you."
"Nothing will." Sydney said, attempting to sit up. Pain overcame her and she fell back against the pillow. "I'm just sore," she said, off of Francie's I-told-you-so-look. "Alright, fluff one more pillow but after that, relax. I don't need a candy striper, I want to talk to you about stuff."
Francie raised an eyebrow and dropped the pillow mid-fluff.
"Oh yea, what stuff?" She inquired, smile on her lips. "Men, stuff?"
Sydney almost smiled at her friend's eagerness to hear gossip. "Um, well, yeah."
"More specifically, extremely adorable Michael from the restaurant stuff?" Francie asked.
Sydney smiled. With all that had been going on with Sark and Sloane, she had almost forgotten about their drunken encounter with Vaughn and Weiss.
"Yeah, him."
"You were definitely right, Syd. Hot cute."
"I told you," she took a deep breath, and continued, "He came to visit me at the hospital. He was there when I opened my eyes."
"I thought you couldn't have visitors," Francie pouted to which Sydney responded, "I wasn't. He, he snuck in to see me."
"That is so sweet!" Francie squealed.
"I know. He and Dad were talking." Sydney made a worried face. "As I was waking up, I heard Dad mention Danny's name."
"You think Mr. Bristow was trying to dissuade Michael from seeing you."
It's not that simple, Sydney wanted to say. "I think my father is the most confusing man on the planet. All I know is, when I opened my eyes, and called for him, he looked like he had just won the lottery. I'd never seen him look like that before."
"Well, you should have seen Will then, Sydney. He had the "my puppy just died" look on his face the entire time you were in the hospital."
"I know. I saw it firsthand this morning when he brought me a fruit basket. He kept telling me how good folic acid is for someone waking up from a coma."
"So what about Michael. Did you talk to him?"
"Yeah, after my father took the hint that we wanted to be alone for a minute. For someone who spent relatively no time with me during my adolescence, his clinginess now is pretty ironic." She smiled, "Anyway, yeah we," Sydney looked down. "We."
Francie's eyes widened. "What, you what?" She grinned.
"No," Sydney smiled. "It's not anything you're thinking. He's just intense. It's always so intense. Francie," she paused.
"What, Syd?"
"I think he's in love with me."
Francie grinned. "Good." Sydney looked at her confused, "Why good?"
"Duh, because you feel the same way, that's why."
"What, no, I, no I don't," Sydney stammered.
"Sydney," Francie said in that don't even try to lie to me tone.
It was hopeless, though. For as long as she worked for SD-6, a relationship with Vaughn was suicide. She wouldn't risk his safety.
"Why are we talking about this? I've told you before," she said, reminding herself more than Francie, "we work together, we can't date. Let's change topics."
"You're making a mistake, Syd," Francie said, slightly dejected. "Think about what you would be giving up."
She remembered leaning over the bathtub, fighting back the urge to scream or throw up or both, as Danny lay there cold, brutally murdered.
"I am."
CIA Headquarters, Kendall's office
"What is the current status on Agent Bristow?" Kendall asked Vaughn as they sat across from each other in the elder Agents office.
"I wouldn't know," Vaughn answered sharply, "I'm here instead of being at the hospital with her."
"Do I have to remind you, Agent Vaughn, that you have other responsibilities at the CIA other than being Agent Bristow's handler? Her father is there if she wakes up, and since you were supposed to be getting me the preliminary stats on the ring we confiscated in Barcelona an hour ago, I suggest you do your job before I find someone to replace you."
"Yeah, I'll get right on that, Sir." Vaughn said, standing up. "Oh, and Sir. It's when," Vaughn corrected, "When she wakes up. Because "if" anything happens to Sydney, your threats will no longer be idle, you really will need to replace me." With that, he left the room.
CIA Headquarters, Vaughn's office
"Why can't you tell me how she's doing?" Vaughn yelled into the phone. "I know its confidential," but I'm CIA he wanted to yell. "Fine, can I speak to a man in your waiting room. His name is Jack Browning. His daughter, Sydney Browning, is the one I'm asking about. She was admitted last night."
Once Sydney had stopped seizing, the CIA backup team covertly transported her to a local hospital under the alias Sydney Browning. In their absence, SD-6 had been issued a replacement director. The new boss had been curious about the Agents Bristow, but Jack fabricated a very believable lie. In his weakened psychological state, Sloane had allowed Sark access to the SD-6 vault, where Sark promptly stole a very important computer chip. Jack and Sydney had been in pursuit of Sark, and had been able to recover the chip, which Jack handed over to the quite impressed new boss. Sark had managed to escape, though, and Sydney was on his tail in Europe. Jack only came home after being notified of Sloane's immediate replacement.
The cover worked, and nobody was asking questions about Sydney, Jack made sure of it. Unfortunately, as of last night Sydney was still in critical care, and Vaughn couldn't find out any more information.
"Please, ask for Jack Browning. He's tall, handsome, I guess. Looks like he's mad all the time." The nurse must have answered "no" again because Vaughn slammed the phone down in frustration.
"No need to break the phone, Mike. Kendall is pissed enough as it is. He'll enjoy adding "destruction of government property" to his list of grievances, trust me."
"I don't care about Kendall." Vaughn motions for Weiss to close the door. "I can't focus on anything Eric. I'm going insane. I can't get through to Jack and he told me it's not safe for Sydney if I go to the hospital. The last time I saw her, she was dying. No, she was dead. Then she started seizing and I had to fight the urge to betray my feelings to Jack, and hold her in my arms. I might never get the chance."
"Above all else, Sydney is a fighter. If I made it back from the great beyond, there is no doubt in my mind she will too."
"But."
"No buts, Mike." Weiss chose his next words carefully. "She's saved your life more than once, man. It was time for you to repay the debt. She'll come back to you."
"I hope you're right. It's just," Vaughn wasn't sure he could put into words what he was thinking, "I can't sleep at night when Sydney is away on missions, but lately, I have day-nightmares about her getting hurt, or captured, or dying. I love her so much, and she has no idea."
"Go profess the "L" word to her, not me. I'll find you an appropriate alias. Jack will never be the wiser."
"I shouldn't."
"Mike, she wants you there when she wakes up. Trust me, I've looked into the eyes of the opposite sex and seen my fair share of repulsion. But Sydney looks at you like you're made of gold, man. Go."
"Alright, okay, I'm going to the hospital." He waited by the door for Weiss. "C'mon, aren't you going to help me?"
"Cool, field trip."
Hospital
"We need to strategize. I can memorize room locations, mark the exits, flirt with a few nurses," Weiss said as he and Vaughn entered the emergency room. They quickly sidestepped the waiting room where an angry Jack Bristow was fighting with a doctor.
"I would like to know what is being done to help Sydney because from the looks of it you haven't done anything!" Jack roared as the other waiters looked on. "My daughter is, dying, and I've been told this is THE BEST hospital in the state so I suppose you page your BEST doctors right now and FIX HER!" He said in that vicious manner of his.
"She's not a car," Weiss cracked, as Vaughn said, "She must still be in ICU. It doesn't look good for her Eric."
"What did I say before? She'll be okay. Just go. Go Prince Charming, wake up that sleeping princess with a freakishly long-awaited kiss," Vaughn gave him a surprised look. "Hey, I wasn't going to kiss her."
"Yeah, right." Weiss grinned.
"Eric," Vaughn said with half-contempt, "Just stay here and try not to get in trouble. Keep a look out for Jack, and you know, try not to stalk any nurses."
Vaughn was able to reach ICU with no problems. It was a weekend, and the hospital had only half its staff around, leaving the halls relatively free to roam. Vaughn ducked inside a storage closet, and found spare scrubs to change into. Weiss had created a hospital employee badge for him to wear around his neck. Mask over his face, he looked authentic enough to pass through ICU without any notice. He found Sydney's room easily enough.
She was hooked up to more machines than he could count on one hand. The loud beeping machine in the corner was a ventilator. Sydney still couldn't breathe on her own.
"This can't be the end," Vaughn said to her as he sat down in the chair beside her, "not for you, or us. C'mon, Syd, open your eyes." He wanted to say all the right things to wake her up. He wanted her to have a reason to come back.
"I keep wondering how we got to this point Syd. Do you know you're all I think about. That has to be the #1 over-used phrase of all time, but its true. You smile at me and I can't think coherently for an hour. I pray every night for the end of SD-6 so you and I can sit together and talk or drink a cup of coffee. I'm hitting on you and you can't even hear me," he smiled, "how pathetic am I."
"Pretty pathetic, Agent Vaughn." Vaughn winced as Jack stepped into the room.
"Your first mistake was making Agent Weiss your look-out. The man is unable to do any job with so many good-looking nurses around. I'm actually surprised he could talk at all."
"I'm sorry Jack - Agent Bristow, I shouldn't be here."
"No, you shouldn't. You are here though, you might as well stay, until security removes us of course. I figure we have a good five, ten minutes before anyone realizes we're not hospital staff."
Jack stood by the head of Sydney's bed. He ran a shaky hand over her damp auburn hair. "Sydney had the worst case of chicken pox. She had a 104 fever and had to be hospitalized. It was right after Laura left, and Sydney cried for the entire two days she was in the hospital. She didn't cry about the pain or the itch, she cried for her mother. I stood by her side, just as I'm doing now, and tried to comfort her. I placed rags on her feverish forehead, she was so sweaty, just like now. I thought she was going to dehydrate and waste away. I yelled at every nurse to give her more and more water." He stopped speaking and looked to Vaughn. "Do you think Irina should be permitted to see her? The last time, she wanted her mother so badly."
"She knows you're here Jack. She needs her father, no matter what she might say when she's conscious, or what she said when she was a child."
"I don't know why I'm telling you all this. It's highly unprofessional."
"Sometimes you need to screw protocol," Vaughn said, instantly wondering if he will regret saying it.
"You might be right." Jack left it at that. "The doctor finally gave me some explanation why she's still unconscious. The toxin was in her body for such a long time that it started creating antibodies. The anti-toxin is working overtime to kill the virus, but there is no guarantee it will work. It's wait and see. What a pompous, arrogant jerk." Jack scolded under his breath.
"Vaughn, did you know that Danny called me to ask for Sydney's hand in marriage."
"No," Vaughn swallowed hard. He wasn't sure he liked where this was going. "I gave him a hard time, but he had my approval from the start. I wanted her to have a normal life with him, and I liked that he thought to include me in it, even if Sydney herself didn't want that. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
He didn't, but Vaughn nodded anyway.
"You wait with her. I need to yell at more doctors."
Sydney's Apartment, Living Room
"Francie, stop fluffing! I'm alright," Sydney smiled at Francie who was fighting to make her pillow "the most comfortable pillow in the world," as Francie had put it earlier.
"No, you aren't. Do you have any idea how sick you were? Will said the doctors thought you had meningitis."
Sydney winced. Will had lied to her. When had the truth become so relative?
"I know, Francie. But it turned out to be nothing, just some virus I picked up on my last trip. I'm a fighter, remember that."
"Well, I don't care, you're my best friend and if anything happened to you."
"Nothing will." Sydney said, attempting to sit up. Pain overcame her and she fell back against the pillow. "I'm just sore," she said, off of Francie's I-told-you-so-look. "Alright, fluff one more pillow but after that, relax. I don't need a candy striper, I want to talk to you about stuff."
Francie raised an eyebrow and dropped the pillow mid-fluff.
"Oh yea, what stuff?" She inquired, smile on her lips. "Men, stuff?"
Sydney almost smiled at her friend's eagerness to hear gossip. "Um, well, yeah."
"More specifically, extremely adorable Michael from the restaurant stuff?" Francie asked.
Sydney smiled. With all that had been going on with Sark and Sloane, she had almost forgotten about their drunken encounter with Vaughn and Weiss.
"Yeah, him."
"You were definitely right, Syd. Hot cute."
"I told you," she took a deep breath, and continued, "He came to visit me at the hospital. He was there when I opened my eyes."
"I thought you couldn't have visitors," Francie pouted to which Sydney responded, "I wasn't. He, he snuck in to see me."
"That is so sweet!" Francie squealed.
"I know. He and Dad were talking." Sydney made a worried face. "As I was waking up, I heard Dad mention Danny's name."
"You think Mr. Bristow was trying to dissuade Michael from seeing you."
It's not that simple, Sydney wanted to say. "I think my father is the most confusing man on the planet. All I know is, when I opened my eyes, and called for him, he looked like he had just won the lottery. I'd never seen him look like that before."
"Well, you should have seen Will then, Sydney. He had the "my puppy just died" look on his face the entire time you were in the hospital."
"I know. I saw it firsthand this morning when he brought me a fruit basket. He kept telling me how good folic acid is for someone waking up from a coma."
"So what about Michael. Did you talk to him?"
"Yeah, after my father took the hint that we wanted to be alone for a minute. For someone who spent relatively no time with me during my adolescence, his clinginess now is pretty ironic." She smiled, "Anyway, yeah we," Sydney looked down. "We."
Francie's eyes widened. "What, you what?" She grinned.
"No," Sydney smiled. "It's not anything you're thinking. He's just intense. It's always so intense. Francie," she paused.
"What, Syd?"
"I think he's in love with me."
Francie grinned. "Good." Sydney looked at her confused, "Why good?"
"Duh, because you feel the same way, that's why."
"What, no, I, no I don't," Sydney stammered.
"Sydney," Francie said in that don't even try to lie to me tone.
It was hopeless, though. For as long as she worked for SD-6, a relationship with Vaughn was suicide. She wouldn't risk his safety.
"Why are we talking about this? I've told you before," she said, reminding herself more than Francie, "we work together, we can't date. Let's change topics."
"You're making a mistake, Syd," Francie said, slightly dejected. "Think about what you would be giving up."
She remembered leaning over the bathtub, fighting back the urge to scream or throw up or both, as Danny lay there cold, brutally murdered.
"I am."