Find Me

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"What exactly would that be?" Michael attempted to control the shakiness in his voice as he asked the question, knowing that logically, that couldn't be the letter that he had written the night before, the letter that he had slept over. But he did wish that he had disposed of it in a safer way.

Kendall waved the paper once more in front of his face before bringing it to his own and reading the contents aloud. As his voice droned on, Michael felt both relieved and anxious.

When he was done, he waved the sheet in front of Michae's face.

"What kind of performance do you call this? I have never seen such sloppy work from you during your entire employment here; I realize that Suzanne Warner isn't as adept as Sydney Bristow was but these errors could have been easily avoided and they weren't and what I want to know is 'why'?" He leaned forward on the desk, hands pointing towards him as he stared.

No answer.

"Is Agent Bristow's absence going to permanently affect your capabilities as a competent handler Agent Vaughn?"

He had nothing to say; the truth would get him fired. He hadn't known at the time that he was being careless and he had always convinced himself that he would have been just as careful as anyone's life as he had with Sydney's. But here was proof that showed the world, or at least the entire bureau, that he was wrong. He wouldn't risk his life for Warner. He hadn't even been willing to take an extra hour to make sure there were no flaws. And there had been.

"Not anymore."

"Good."

He walked out of the room a little shaky; he had never believed that the loss of Sydney would affect the quality of his work; his capability to work. She had indeed changed his life and then left him in the dust.

Leaning back in his chair, he closed his eyes, remembering the last time he had seen her, hoping that she had at least gained a little weight since then. Hoped that she had been able to cope with the loss of her father better than he had been able to cope with the loss of her.

In his heart, he understood why she had to leave. She had been in danger and she was never one to be content allowing someone else to look after her. Especially when it had cost her her father.

He opened up his laptop and brought up Suzanne Warner's file. He hadn't even looked to see what had seriously gone wrong because in the end she had managed to get the necessary Intel. His mouth dropped when he read about the two wounded and one dead because of faulty information… the information that he had given. The information that they had trusted.

Bringing up the counter mission he had detailed, he perused the third paragraph and there it was. The crucial mistake. The third passageway hadn't been unguarded. It had been closed. Three months ago.

How could he have missed that when an informant had told him that it was so… Kendall was correct in upbraiding him. And in a way, he still couldn't help blaming Sydney. If she hadn't left… he still would have been more careful.

Then again, if she hadn't left, she might be dead.

There was no rationalizing the situation.

Sighing, he opened up his mailbox.

You have one new message.

Run Lola                     Since I'm not sending this anyway…           3K

TBC…

Hey guys, thanks for the reassurance… maybe I will be able to develop a plotJ  I realize that the one here isn't extremely wonderful but stick with it if you want to; if you want me to trash it, I'll do that too because this is definitely not one of the fics that particularly "lights my fire".

Becky- didn't mean to offend, I agree with your review and that was why I was attempting to rectify the situation but it's still on the way… not quite there yet.

Let me know what you guys think, you know your opinions mean the world.

~Jenn