Title: Waking Dream
Rating: PG
Category: Angst/Romance, future fic
Spoilers: Oblique references to 'A Free Agent', but nothing too obvious.
Disclaimer: They're not mine. It took me 24 steps to admit that. I had to do the class twice
Archive: Ask if you want it
Summary: Not always are we able to wake ourselves up from the nightmare. Sometimes it takes others
Notes: I apologise for the lack of updates for There But For The Grace Of You Go I, but the chapter I am at is extremely tricky. Surprisingly enough, considering how TBFTGOYGI begins, it's actually going to be one of my happier ones. Just know that I have not given it up and I will continue. As for this, I guess you could call this cheap therapy for me. These scribblings of mine are all an attempt at catharsis.
In case you hadn't noticed, I am fascinated by Michael Vaughn. You know the expression 'still waters run deep'... I think there is so much more to him that we have yet to see. And Vaughn sans Sydney, is an incarnation that never fails to get my pen scribbling involuntarily.
Oh and all my mistakes are my own since I am beta-less
************************************
Hope is a waking dream -Aristotle
It was one of those Hollywood-scripted spring days. LA's ever-present smog was miraculously not present for once. The blue sky was pristine, unmarred; a pure virgin blue that usual could only be found on the palettes of Old Masters free of even soft scurrying cirrus clouds. The sun was invitingly warm and from time to time a gentle breeze ruffled the budding trees.
Michael Vaughn noticed none of this as he sat, head resting against a headstone.
Her headstone
Sydney's.
All he felt, all he could feel for the past year was rage and grief. They were the only things that could momentarily displace the ice that seemed to surround him, to hold him captive. The grief, the rage refused to die out, even as all the rest of him slipped away they burned strong, fierce, true and constant. They remained after the deaths of Sloane and Sark, and he knew ultimately he was going to die -as he died a little bit more each day- from the inside out, burnt, bleak-eyed and hollow.
Perversely, or not so perversely giving his state of mind, it was one of the few things that gave Vaughn some comfort; knowing he couldn't continue in this way for very much longer.
He had tried
At first it had been to avenge her murder. In those early days he had never thought about 'the end', his end, at all. The only thoughts he allowed to occupy his mid were the finding of Sloane and Sark. But at night, during those few hours when his body could take no more, and had to shut down, he would dream of Sydney.
Always, and only of Sydney.
It was a toss up which dreams were worse; the good or the bad.
The bad ones recreated missions she'd been on, except this time she wouldn't make it. He'd find himself waiting endlessly in the warehouse for footsteps he would never hear again, only to see a wave of blood washing towards him, over him, like that night in Taipei. Or sometimes his dreams were far more literal. He'd watch her die. A thousand different ways, yet always ending in the same position that he'd first found her in. Neck broken, but artfully placed in his bed so that she appeared asleep.
Those dreams had him waking in a cold sweat, gagging, retching and sobbing, unable to sleep for the rest of the night or for several nights to come.
Yet the good ones were always worse.
Each replayed the few months they had shared together. A handful of days where they found that 'thing' everyone hopes and prays for.
Love.
The lasting, forever kind. Love that can only be described in poet's terms, since it defied the lexicon of the ordinary, tired, drab, everyday world.
In these dreams, she was warm, soft ... alive.
She was Sydney, smiling at him the morning after the raid on SD6
She was Sydney, who had watched over him the first morning they had woken up together.
She was Sydney, who unashamedly whooped and cheered when she finally managed to slip a goal past him, the time he taught her ice hockey.
She was simply Sydney. Complex, simple, sweet and tough as nails. A walking contradiction.
His love.
And in those dreams he ...he was also alive.
These were the dreams that left him screaming silently through the rest of his day. They destroyed a little piece of his soul each time, because they reminded him that once he had and held perfection within his grasp, at least perfection for him, and he had lost it, and no matter what he did. No matter what vengeance he took, he could never get that back.
So he didn't sleep. And when he did, it was for one-hour periods. Enough to eke out some rest for his overworked body, but not enough to let his subconscious free.
Because of this, what should have taken years took Vaughn a mere nine months. Tracking down first Sark then Sloane.
Leaving them both with one bullet between their eyes, he negligently tossed his resignation towards a silent Kendall, turned his back on the rest of the stunned, silent team and walked out of the building they'd been holed up in.
It was a matter of supreme disinterest to him whether or not he was charged on two counts of murder, but he wasn't surprised when no charges were laid. The CIA gave Sydney -and in turn himself- a lot more leeway and respect now that she was dead. It was their brand of apology.
Sorry we ruined your life.
Sorry we whored you out to the enemy for pieces of paper written in all probability by a mediaeval lunatic.
Sorry we couldn't be bothered to remember that you were still a child really. A child who had been born to be used an abused.
Sorry we got you killed.
Sorry we got her killed.
Sorry.
The big guns still tried to talk him out of quitting though. They weren't quite that sorry. And Michael Vaughn had turned into one of their prized assets despite the baggage that came with him.
Kendall tried. Devlin tried, hell even Eric tried, but nothing swayed him There was no point to it anymore, if there ever had been one. There was no point to anything.
That had been three months ago.
Three months of fighting daily against the desire to feel the searing, quick, sharp relief his spare Glock offered.
He had a list of all the reasons why ending it all would be 'wrong'.
He'd be dishonoring his father's memory.
He would leave his mother all alone. Confirming her worst fear and bringing about her worst nightmare; losing her only son, leaving her all alone in the world
Donovan. As absurd as it was, Donovan had been with him too long for him to think it wouldn't affect his overweight, over-affectionate mutt.
Eric would never forgive himself, for leaving him be, for allowing himself to pull away from Vaughn, even though it was something Vaughn so clearly desired and actively sought.
And then there was Sydney. It went against everything she believed in, that she was.
Everyday, before he went through the motions of 'living', he'd recite the list to himself. Everyday he had to recite it once more, and everyday only one reason stopped him.
Sydney.
Always Sydney.
But, despite this, as days passed, the list was repeated more and more with less and less effect, and honoring Sydney's memory became harder each day.
And so he visited her, asking for strength. The kind of strength that for him, was synonymous with what and who Sydney was.
"Syd, help me" The anguish took on a will of it's own, forcing him to speak " I can't do this anymore." He released a shuddering, breath before laying his sins at her feet " I have tried, but it's so damn hard. Faking that I'm okay for my mother. Knowing she doesn't believe me, but will play along to keep the status quo. Having to pretend to Eric and Will, and fooling no one...I'm just so tired. I want peace Syd. And I know I won't find it again...Oh Syd I want you back."
Harsh, angry, painful sobs racked his frame, and he shifted against the headstone, moving closer unconsciously- always-moving closer to her- not noticing the figure on the hill watching him intently.
This was the one place where he didn't have to pretend -he never could with Sydney anyway- it was a place where he could let go, without feeling as if he was letting his mother down, his friends down...the list went on.
"I need you Syd," Vaughn rasped out, his forehead resting fully against her marker " I miss you, everyday, I need you back in my life...in my arms, I'm dying Syd. I can't do it. I've tried for a whole year, and everyday I feel I'm dying by inches."
Exhausted by his stormy confession, Vaughn lay almost completely inert against the headstone, staring up at the cerulean blue sky, feeling drained to his very soul Minutes gave way to hours and Vaughn remained where he was, in the half- world between consciousness and dreams
Jumbled thoughts and dreams of 'what if' flitted through his weary mind, and for a moment he thought he saw Sydney, standing on the hill in the distance, out of his reach. Always out of his reach
In that moment, he forgot everything; the last year, her funeral...everything, but when he looked again, the figure was gone, and the seeping cold of the marble reminded him that this nightmare had no end.
It was so easy to return to his dazed, almost catatonic state, and on another day he in all probability would have, but he was due at his mother's house in an hour, and for her sake he would keep up the charade of 'moving on'.
Slowly, unwillingly, he made his way out of the cemetery and headed home, weary and empty.
*************************************
The slightly open door was a neon sign warning him that someone had broken into his apartment. Vaughn found himself tempted to not draw his weapon at all but to walk in, but training and his 'promise' made it impossible to indulge in such thoughts. Easing his gun out of its holster, he slipped silently into his living room...and almost dropped his gun in surprise.
No CIA agent stayed naïve very long, certainly not field agents. Vaughn had seen a lot of things in his time: horrifying, terrifying and tragic, but none compared to the sight of Irina Derevko, calmly laying two places at his table for dinner. Something simmered on the stovetop and somehow she had managed to lessen the gloom and darkness that had shrouded his apartment over the last year.
Donovan squatted happily in his corner, ravenously devouring something in his bowl. He stopped fro a second to greet his master with a wheezy bark, and then went back to inhaling whatever Irina had fed him.
"Traitor" Vaughn muttered at his fickle little bulldog "Thanks for letting me know the going rate on loyalty."
Donovan was too busy to answer, but wagged his tale in a desultory manner in an attempt to appease.
Vaughn couldn't help laughing at his gluttonous pet, but when another soft laugh joined in, nothing was funny anymore.
"Hardly a traitor. You know you really should feed him something other than those biscuits. Nothing that processed can be considered food."
"Excuse me if I don't consider you the expert on loyalty," he answered finally addressing the woman who had indelibly marked his life in two drastic and totally opposite ways "Would you like some coffee?"
A muttered 'thank you' was all she could muster, to his question. Irina had heard if his 'changes' -for want of a better word- but the man who stood in front of her, bore such little resemblance to the fiery young agent who had loved her daughter so singularly, that it shook her out of her habitual, indoctrinated calm.
"I want to talk to you Agent Vaughn." She began, uncomfortable with the silence in the room
"Well I'm not interested." The flatness of his tone backed up his claim
"You don't even know why I'm here..."
"...And I don't care." Vaughn cut in smoothly "You're either here because you need my help" he continued without bothering to look at her, as he got the coffee ready, "or because you want to kill me."
"Wrong on both counts." For the first time since he'd first began talking to her, Irina saw a spark of something in Vaughn's eyes.
"So why are you here?" He asked finally, against his will. Irina Derevko always managed to get under his skin. She was his own proverbial car wreck - no matter how much you wanted to walk away, you just had to take a look, or in his case ... talk.
"First, we eat." Her admonition sounded so eerily similar to his mother that Vaughn found himself automatically taking the steaming plate she offered.
"Why are you doing this?" He finally asked, looking straight into her eyes. Eyes that, for the first time ever, reminded him of her daughter.
"Because I made a promise to her. Just as you did, and lately it looked as if you were going to break it, and I won't let you do that to her."
His anger which always was smouldering under the surface, roared into life at her words. "What would you know about it? You hadn't even seen her for close to thirty years."
Restraining her impulse to wound him as much as his words wounded her, Irina took a moment before formulating her answer.
"I gave you more credit than you obviously deserve Agent Vaughn." She icily spat, at length " I watched her everyday, but I made sure she could never see me. My superiors would have killed her immediately, if they'd had an inkling of how I truly felt about my daughter." Irina weighed the pros and cons of what she was about to say next, Irina took a deep breath before continuing " I watched you too. Everyday. I watched you grow from a little boy into the man you are...my parents were Catholic -even though they were not allowed to practice- and that was the one thing they taught me well...the concept of penance. You were my penance."
"Well consider yourself well revenged then." He laughed, but it was an ugly sound; harsh, grating and discordant "Your daughter was both my saviour and my damnation. I was doomed when I was with her, and without her I'm dying."
Expecting to see accusation, fury or good old-fashioned hatred, it chilled Irina to see only bone-deep weariness (the same sort she saw every day in the mirror, since Sydney's death) lining the face of the man opposite her.
"I can't go on this way much longer" Vaughn heard himself confessing feeling a curious freedom and sense of openness that was absent with his friends and family. "I try, and not just for Syd's sake but for my friends...my mother."
He hadn't meant that as a reminder, and actually felt a twinge of guilt when he saw her wince at the mention of his mother.
"I know." Irina began quietly after a moment or two -or ten " You can't do it alone. I didn't expect you to and I don't think Sydney would have either."
"No one can help." He reiterated angrily " And I'm sick of..." Vaughn stopped mid-sentence, not ready to consciously recognize what the sound was he heard coming from his bedroom.
"Stay there" Irina commanded him briskly, moving off before he could even nod, albeit absentmindedly.
Though it didn't seem possible, Vaughn turned even paler when she re- entered the room, carrying her precious cargo.
"Would you like to hold her?" Irina asked softly
Not trusting himself to say anything, Vaughn simply opened his arms, careful to hold the squirming yellow blanketed-bundle in all the right spots. Looking down at the alert, tiny, face staring up at him, Vaughn felt something crumble and uncoil in him. He'd never been able to explain it, since it had only happened once before...on an October morning, when a wary- eyed, clown-haired 'walk in', had walked in to his life.
"How...how?"
"The not so old-fashioned way." Irina cut in " It wasn't hard to get the necessary ...raw materials we needed. Both you and Sydney had been captured, and neither of you were conscious for the whole duration of your imprisonment."
Vaughn felt the bile rising, as he listened to her dispassionate recounting of yet another violation ordered -at her hands- for her daughter. "How could you do that to her?" He raged forgetting the tiny piece of humanity in his arms. Her indignant squawk soon reminded him, and unconsciously he rocked her to a secret rhythm only parents know.
" Because, I live in and think in the real world Michael." Was Irina's biting, hiss of a reply "Our world is not made up of happy endings. Go ahead and tell me how wrong it was. How immoral I am to do that that to my own daughter. How I had no right to play God...go ahead. I know what I did, goes against nature. It goes against all that is right and good, but so does the fact that, my daughter -my beautiful daughter- spent most of her life being used as a tool or as weapon without her knowledge or consent. It goes against everything right that my daughter lies decomposing in a wooden box, while I'm still alive."
Irina drew a shuddering breath before continuing in a more moderate tone, "What I did, I did because I couldn't bear the thought of everyone one of my daughter's dreams being denied to her. I knew all of them; she didn't have to tell me, because when I was her age, when I was as young and as innocent as you both still were, I shared those same dreams. I thought I could leave it all behind. I could start afresh with the man that I loved. I couldn't, and we all paid for it, in tears and in blood. And so did you and Sydney. But neither of you deserved it. You deserved your happy ending Michael, you and Sydney. And I wanted to give that to you. For Sydney. For you. For myself -to atone in someway I suppose-...but I couldn't do that. I failed in my promise to Sydney, and I couldn't bear to see you let her down -you were the only person who never let her down- that's why I did this."
He didn't want to understand her reasoning, but he did.
He didn't want to feel gratitude to her, but he did; how could he not when she had literally given him his hope for the future.
It wasn't meant to be this way, but nothing ever turned out the way you planned.
"She looks like Syd." He said, finally looking up at the woman who had given him the two most precious things in his life.
"But she has your eyes." Irina answered, not looking away from her last link with her daughter.
A sharp thrill went through him at those words. Despite it all, Sloane had not won. Sydney would always live, in their daughter.
"What are you going to name her?"
"I don't know." Vaughn laughed shakily "I feel as if all of this is a dream."
"All hope is a waking dream, Michael." She said looking up finally.
"Hope." He repeated, "That's what she is; for me, for us all. Hope Anne Vaughn... that's her name."
"It's perfect."
It was perfect. She was the phoenix that rose out of the ashes of his dreams. She was the beauty that remained after everything else had been destroyed.
Very simply, she was his hope.
She was both of their hope.
"I must go" Irina said suddenly. "Goodbye Michael."
"Will we ever see you again?" He found himself asking, with was no heat behind the question, just a genuine need to know.
"No," Irina answered measuredly "You will never see me again."
"But that doesn't mean you won't see us again." He added with an almost half-smile.
"You know me to well." Though her tone was meant to be flippant, it came out as surprised. She had been surprised at his perceptiveness, considering what she had just laid on him.
"I don't think I know you at all" Vaughn answered seriously, "I think I'm only beginning to."
Not ready to deal with where this conversation would take them, Irina made ready to leave, but at the door Vaughn's voice stopped her.
"Thank you...Laura."
And in that moment, she knew peace. Not replying in words, she nodded to him, before slipping out of his apartment and out of his life forever.
Vaughn watched the door for many minutes, disbelievingly. Only an hour had passed and in that time his life had changed forever.
He gazed down at his daughter. His phoenix, who was busily trying to feed at his chest, and he felt something well up inside of him, that for a minute he couldn't identify. Not rage, not grief, not sorrow...but something akin to happiness.
Hope.
The End
Rating: PG
Category: Angst/Romance, future fic
Spoilers: Oblique references to 'A Free Agent', but nothing too obvious.
Disclaimer: They're not mine. It took me 24 steps to admit that. I had to do the class twice
Archive: Ask if you want it
Summary: Not always are we able to wake ourselves up from the nightmare. Sometimes it takes others
Notes: I apologise for the lack of updates for There But For The Grace Of You Go I, but the chapter I am at is extremely tricky. Surprisingly enough, considering how TBFTGOYGI begins, it's actually going to be one of my happier ones. Just know that I have not given it up and I will continue. As for this, I guess you could call this cheap therapy for me. These scribblings of mine are all an attempt at catharsis.
In case you hadn't noticed, I am fascinated by Michael Vaughn. You know the expression 'still waters run deep'... I think there is so much more to him that we have yet to see. And Vaughn sans Sydney, is an incarnation that never fails to get my pen scribbling involuntarily.
Oh and all my mistakes are my own since I am beta-less
************************************
Hope is a waking dream -Aristotle
It was one of those Hollywood-scripted spring days. LA's ever-present smog was miraculously not present for once. The blue sky was pristine, unmarred; a pure virgin blue that usual could only be found on the palettes of Old Masters free of even soft scurrying cirrus clouds. The sun was invitingly warm and from time to time a gentle breeze ruffled the budding trees.
Michael Vaughn noticed none of this as he sat, head resting against a headstone.
Her headstone
Sydney's.
All he felt, all he could feel for the past year was rage and grief. They were the only things that could momentarily displace the ice that seemed to surround him, to hold him captive. The grief, the rage refused to die out, even as all the rest of him slipped away they burned strong, fierce, true and constant. They remained after the deaths of Sloane and Sark, and he knew ultimately he was going to die -as he died a little bit more each day- from the inside out, burnt, bleak-eyed and hollow.
Perversely, or not so perversely giving his state of mind, it was one of the few things that gave Vaughn some comfort; knowing he couldn't continue in this way for very much longer.
He had tried
At first it had been to avenge her murder. In those early days he had never thought about 'the end', his end, at all. The only thoughts he allowed to occupy his mid were the finding of Sloane and Sark. But at night, during those few hours when his body could take no more, and had to shut down, he would dream of Sydney.
Always, and only of Sydney.
It was a toss up which dreams were worse; the good or the bad.
The bad ones recreated missions she'd been on, except this time she wouldn't make it. He'd find himself waiting endlessly in the warehouse for footsteps he would never hear again, only to see a wave of blood washing towards him, over him, like that night in Taipei. Or sometimes his dreams were far more literal. He'd watch her die. A thousand different ways, yet always ending in the same position that he'd first found her in. Neck broken, but artfully placed in his bed so that she appeared asleep.
Those dreams had him waking in a cold sweat, gagging, retching and sobbing, unable to sleep for the rest of the night or for several nights to come.
Yet the good ones were always worse.
Each replayed the few months they had shared together. A handful of days where they found that 'thing' everyone hopes and prays for.
Love.
The lasting, forever kind. Love that can only be described in poet's terms, since it defied the lexicon of the ordinary, tired, drab, everyday world.
In these dreams, she was warm, soft ... alive.
She was Sydney, smiling at him the morning after the raid on SD6
She was Sydney, who had watched over him the first morning they had woken up together.
She was Sydney, who unashamedly whooped and cheered when she finally managed to slip a goal past him, the time he taught her ice hockey.
She was simply Sydney. Complex, simple, sweet and tough as nails. A walking contradiction.
His love.
And in those dreams he ...he was also alive.
These were the dreams that left him screaming silently through the rest of his day. They destroyed a little piece of his soul each time, because they reminded him that once he had and held perfection within his grasp, at least perfection for him, and he had lost it, and no matter what he did. No matter what vengeance he took, he could never get that back.
So he didn't sleep. And when he did, it was for one-hour periods. Enough to eke out some rest for his overworked body, but not enough to let his subconscious free.
Because of this, what should have taken years took Vaughn a mere nine months. Tracking down first Sark then Sloane.
Leaving them both with one bullet between their eyes, he negligently tossed his resignation towards a silent Kendall, turned his back on the rest of the stunned, silent team and walked out of the building they'd been holed up in.
It was a matter of supreme disinterest to him whether or not he was charged on two counts of murder, but he wasn't surprised when no charges were laid. The CIA gave Sydney -and in turn himself- a lot more leeway and respect now that she was dead. It was their brand of apology.
Sorry we ruined your life.
Sorry we whored you out to the enemy for pieces of paper written in all probability by a mediaeval lunatic.
Sorry we couldn't be bothered to remember that you were still a child really. A child who had been born to be used an abused.
Sorry we got you killed.
Sorry we got her killed.
Sorry.
The big guns still tried to talk him out of quitting though. They weren't quite that sorry. And Michael Vaughn had turned into one of their prized assets despite the baggage that came with him.
Kendall tried. Devlin tried, hell even Eric tried, but nothing swayed him There was no point to it anymore, if there ever had been one. There was no point to anything.
That had been three months ago.
Three months of fighting daily against the desire to feel the searing, quick, sharp relief his spare Glock offered.
He had a list of all the reasons why ending it all would be 'wrong'.
He'd be dishonoring his father's memory.
He would leave his mother all alone. Confirming her worst fear and bringing about her worst nightmare; losing her only son, leaving her all alone in the world
Donovan. As absurd as it was, Donovan had been with him too long for him to think it wouldn't affect his overweight, over-affectionate mutt.
Eric would never forgive himself, for leaving him be, for allowing himself to pull away from Vaughn, even though it was something Vaughn so clearly desired and actively sought.
And then there was Sydney. It went against everything she believed in, that she was.
Everyday, before he went through the motions of 'living', he'd recite the list to himself. Everyday he had to recite it once more, and everyday only one reason stopped him.
Sydney.
Always Sydney.
But, despite this, as days passed, the list was repeated more and more with less and less effect, and honoring Sydney's memory became harder each day.
And so he visited her, asking for strength. The kind of strength that for him, was synonymous with what and who Sydney was.
"Syd, help me" The anguish took on a will of it's own, forcing him to speak " I can't do this anymore." He released a shuddering, breath before laying his sins at her feet " I have tried, but it's so damn hard. Faking that I'm okay for my mother. Knowing she doesn't believe me, but will play along to keep the status quo. Having to pretend to Eric and Will, and fooling no one...I'm just so tired. I want peace Syd. And I know I won't find it again...Oh Syd I want you back."
Harsh, angry, painful sobs racked his frame, and he shifted against the headstone, moving closer unconsciously- always-moving closer to her- not noticing the figure on the hill watching him intently.
This was the one place where he didn't have to pretend -he never could with Sydney anyway- it was a place where he could let go, without feeling as if he was letting his mother down, his friends down...the list went on.
"I need you Syd," Vaughn rasped out, his forehead resting fully against her marker " I miss you, everyday, I need you back in my life...in my arms, I'm dying Syd. I can't do it. I've tried for a whole year, and everyday I feel I'm dying by inches."
Exhausted by his stormy confession, Vaughn lay almost completely inert against the headstone, staring up at the cerulean blue sky, feeling drained to his very soul Minutes gave way to hours and Vaughn remained where he was, in the half- world between consciousness and dreams
Jumbled thoughts and dreams of 'what if' flitted through his weary mind, and for a moment he thought he saw Sydney, standing on the hill in the distance, out of his reach. Always out of his reach
In that moment, he forgot everything; the last year, her funeral...everything, but when he looked again, the figure was gone, and the seeping cold of the marble reminded him that this nightmare had no end.
It was so easy to return to his dazed, almost catatonic state, and on another day he in all probability would have, but he was due at his mother's house in an hour, and for her sake he would keep up the charade of 'moving on'.
Slowly, unwillingly, he made his way out of the cemetery and headed home, weary and empty.
*************************************
The slightly open door was a neon sign warning him that someone had broken into his apartment. Vaughn found himself tempted to not draw his weapon at all but to walk in, but training and his 'promise' made it impossible to indulge in such thoughts. Easing his gun out of its holster, he slipped silently into his living room...and almost dropped his gun in surprise.
No CIA agent stayed naïve very long, certainly not field agents. Vaughn had seen a lot of things in his time: horrifying, terrifying and tragic, but none compared to the sight of Irina Derevko, calmly laying two places at his table for dinner. Something simmered on the stovetop and somehow she had managed to lessen the gloom and darkness that had shrouded his apartment over the last year.
Donovan squatted happily in his corner, ravenously devouring something in his bowl. He stopped fro a second to greet his master with a wheezy bark, and then went back to inhaling whatever Irina had fed him.
"Traitor" Vaughn muttered at his fickle little bulldog "Thanks for letting me know the going rate on loyalty."
Donovan was too busy to answer, but wagged his tale in a desultory manner in an attempt to appease.
Vaughn couldn't help laughing at his gluttonous pet, but when another soft laugh joined in, nothing was funny anymore.
"Hardly a traitor. You know you really should feed him something other than those biscuits. Nothing that processed can be considered food."
"Excuse me if I don't consider you the expert on loyalty," he answered finally addressing the woman who had indelibly marked his life in two drastic and totally opposite ways "Would you like some coffee?"
A muttered 'thank you' was all she could muster, to his question. Irina had heard if his 'changes' -for want of a better word- but the man who stood in front of her, bore such little resemblance to the fiery young agent who had loved her daughter so singularly, that it shook her out of her habitual, indoctrinated calm.
"I want to talk to you Agent Vaughn." She began, uncomfortable with the silence in the room
"Well I'm not interested." The flatness of his tone backed up his claim
"You don't even know why I'm here..."
"...And I don't care." Vaughn cut in smoothly "You're either here because you need my help" he continued without bothering to look at her, as he got the coffee ready, "or because you want to kill me."
"Wrong on both counts." For the first time since he'd first began talking to her, Irina saw a spark of something in Vaughn's eyes.
"So why are you here?" He asked finally, against his will. Irina Derevko always managed to get under his skin. She was his own proverbial car wreck - no matter how much you wanted to walk away, you just had to take a look, or in his case ... talk.
"First, we eat." Her admonition sounded so eerily similar to his mother that Vaughn found himself automatically taking the steaming plate she offered.
"Why are you doing this?" He finally asked, looking straight into her eyes. Eyes that, for the first time ever, reminded him of her daughter.
"Because I made a promise to her. Just as you did, and lately it looked as if you were going to break it, and I won't let you do that to her."
His anger which always was smouldering under the surface, roared into life at her words. "What would you know about it? You hadn't even seen her for close to thirty years."
Restraining her impulse to wound him as much as his words wounded her, Irina took a moment before formulating her answer.
"I gave you more credit than you obviously deserve Agent Vaughn." She icily spat, at length " I watched her everyday, but I made sure she could never see me. My superiors would have killed her immediately, if they'd had an inkling of how I truly felt about my daughter." Irina weighed the pros and cons of what she was about to say next, Irina took a deep breath before continuing " I watched you too. Everyday. I watched you grow from a little boy into the man you are...my parents were Catholic -even though they were not allowed to practice- and that was the one thing they taught me well...the concept of penance. You were my penance."
"Well consider yourself well revenged then." He laughed, but it was an ugly sound; harsh, grating and discordant "Your daughter was both my saviour and my damnation. I was doomed when I was with her, and without her I'm dying."
Expecting to see accusation, fury or good old-fashioned hatred, it chilled Irina to see only bone-deep weariness (the same sort she saw every day in the mirror, since Sydney's death) lining the face of the man opposite her.
"I can't go on this way much longer" Vaughn heard himself confessing feeling a curious freedom and sense of openness that was absent with his friends and family. "I try, and not just for Syd's sake but for my friends...my mother."
He hadn't meant that as a reminder, and actually felt a twinge of guilt when he saw her wince at the mention of his mother.
"I know." Irina began quietly after a moment or two -or ten " You can't do it alone. I didn't expect you to and I don't think Sydney would have either."
"No one can help." He reiterated angrily " And I'm sick of..." Vaughn stopped mid-sentence, not ready to consciously recognize what the sound was he heard coming from his bedroom.
"Stay there" Irina commanded him briskly, moving off before he could even nod, albeit absentmindedly.
Though it didn't seem possible, Vaughn turned even paler when she re- entered the room, carrying her precious cargo.
"Would you like to hold her?" Irina asked softly
Not trusting himself to say anything, Vaughn simply opened his arms, careful to hold the squirming yellow blanketed-bundle in all the right spots. Looking down at the alert, tiny, face staring up at him, Vaughn felt something crumble and uncoil in him. He'd never been able to explain it, since it had only happened once before...on an October morning, when a wary- eyed, clown-haired 'walk in', had walked in to his life.
"How...how?"
"The not so old-fashioned way." Irina cut in " It wasn't hard to get the necessary ...raw materials we needed. Both you and Sydney had been captured, and neither of you were conscious for the whole duration of your imprisonment."
Vaughn felt the bile rising, as he listened to her dispassionate recounting of yet another violation ordered -at her hands- for her daughter. "How could you do that to her?" He raged forgetting the tiny piece of humanity in his arms. Her indignant squawk soon reminded him, and unconsciously he rocked her to a secret rhythm only parents know.
" Because, I live in and think in the real world Michael." Was Irina's biting, hiss of a reply "Our world is not made up of happy endings. Go ahead and tell me how wrong it was. How immoral I am to do that that to my own daughter. How I had no right to play God...go ahead. I know what I did, goes against nature. It goes against all that is right and good, but so does the fact that, my daughter -my beautiful daughter- spent most of her life being used as a tool or as weapon without her knowledge or consent. It goes against everything right that my daughter lies decomposing in a wooden box, while I'm still alive."
Irina drew a shuddering breath before continuing in a more moderate tone, "What I did, I did because I couldn't bear the thought of everyone one of my daughter's dreams being denied to her. I knew all of them; she didn't have to tell me, because when I was her age, when I was as young and as innocent as you both still were, I shared those same dreams. I thought I could leave it all behind. I could start afresh with the man that I loved. I couldn't, and we all paid for it, in tears and in blood. And so did you and Sydney. But neither of you deserved it. You deserved your happy ending Michael, you and Sydney. And I wanted to give that to you. For Sydney. For you. For myself -to atone in someway I suppose-...but I couldn't do that. I failed in my promise to Sydney, and I couldn't bear to see you let her down -you were the only person who never let her down- that's why I did this."
He didn't want to understand her reasoning, but he did.
He didn't want to feel gratitude to her, but he did; how could he not when she had literally given him his hope for the future.
It wasn't meant to be this way, but nothing ever turned out the way you planned.
"She looks like Syd." He said, finally looking up at the woman who had given him the two most precious things in his life.
"But she has your eyes." Irina answered, not looking away from her last link with her daughter.
A sharp thrill went through him at those words. Despite it all, Sloane had not won. Sydney would always live, in their daughter.
"What are you going to name her?"
"I don't know." Vaughn laughed shakily "I feel as if all of this is a dream."
"All hope is a waking dream, Michael." She said looking up finally.
"Hope." He repeated, "That's what she is; for me, for us all. Hope Anne Vaughn... that's her name."
"It's perfect."
It was perfect. She was the phoenix that rose out of the ashes of his dreams. She was the beauty that remained after everything else had been destroyed.
Very simply, she was his hope.
She was both of their hope.
"I must go" Irina said suddenly. "Goodbye Michael."
"Will we ever see you again?" He found himself asking, with was no heat behind the question, just a genuine need to know.
"No," Irina answered measuredly "You will never see me again."
"But that doesn't mean you won't see us again." He added with an almost half-smile.
"You know me to well." Though her tone was meant to be flippant, it came out as surprised. She had been surprised at his perceptiveness, considering what she had just laid on him.
"I don't think I know you at all" Vaughn answered seriously, "I think I'm only beginning to."
Not ready to deal with where this conversation would take them, Irina made ready to leave, but at the door Vaughn's voice stopped her.
"Thank you...Laura."
And in that moment, she knew peace. Not replying in words, she nodded to him, before slipping out of his apartment and out of his life forever.
Vaughn watched the door for many minutes, disbelievingly. Only an hour had passed and in that time his life had changed forever.
He gazed down at his daughter. His phoenix, who was busily trying to feed at his chest, and he felt something well up inside of him, that for a minute he couldn't identify. Not rage, not grief, not sorrow...but something akin to happiness.
Hope.
The End