Chapter: {wind}
Summary: After an angry separation, Vaughn and Sydney's lives come crashing together again.
Category: Sydney/Vaughn angst
Author: Bella (bella@bellalumina.net)
Rating: PG-13; future chapters will be R/NC-17
Timeline: AU, takes place after "The Solution."
Thanks: to Souris for the encouragement, and to the reviewers for their kind words.
Disclaimer: Alias is not mine.
Note: Chapters will be posted weekly; the next update will be Monday, May 27.
{wind}
Three days sweep by in a blur, then four, and suddenly a few days turn into a week and a half. She has, in her structured way, set up a mental schedule so that she doesn't have to deal with the things she'd like to avoid. She leaves the house at six, half an hour before Francie awakens, and heads to the college library to work on a term paper. At nine, she takes a break for coffee and sits for an hour in a Starbucks close to the Credit Dauphine building, watching customers wipe the sweat off their foreheads as they trudge in and out of the bank building; she learned during her briefing a week or so before that the government was going to keep the banking operation open. She figures they want to cause as little ruckus as possible.
After her coffee, she leaves to go home for a few hours, until an hour before Francie comes home from work. Will doesn't stop by anymore, and she's thankful for that. She doesn't know what she'll say to him the next time they meet. At two-thirty, she goes to the hospital and asks to see Vaughn; every day the nurse explains that he doesn't want any visitors. She sits in the waiting room with a book until visiting hours are over, and then she goes home and goes to sleep.
Two weeks to the day Vaughn was shot, things change. A strange, blustery wind filters through the city, still hot, but less oppressive than the stagnant heat of early July. It rushes through downtown, picking up speed as it sprints through the narrow streets between the skyscrapers, angering pedestrians with briefcases and cellular phones. It knocks off hats and grabs newspapers out of unsuspecting hands; its whipping fury coasts into the suburbs and chaps the cheeks of neighborhood kids.
Sydney is making her way out of the coffee shop when the wind hits her for the first time. It tugs at her shirt and jeans and urges her down the street to her car. She hops into the Land Rover and sits for a moment, looking down at the steering wheel, deep in thought. When she finally starts the car, she doesn't turn toward home but instead heads for the hospital.
She moves toward Vaughn's room like the wind is pushing her there. He's been moved to a normal room on the fourth floor, so she doesn't see Alex any longer; she wishes he were there to let her in the room, because Vaughn's new nurse is a middle-aged woman who turns up her nose at Sydney's requests.
Glancing around to make sure the nurse is nowhere in sight, Sydney stops outside the door marked "Vaughn, M." in hasty medical handwriting and stares, taking a deep breath. She closes her eyes, scrunches up her face, and knocks.
"Come in," his voice calls indifferently.
She opens the door and peers inside. "Vaughn?"
He's out of bed, clad in a pair of khakis, struggling to slide on a clean, white button-down shirt. He sighs and turns his gaze toward her. "What are you doing here?"
His tone doesn't faze her. "I wanted to see how you were doing. Are you going home?"
"Hopefully. This afternoon, if everything works as planned," he says turning his attention back to the shirt. His torso is still heavily bandaged, and he winces as he lifts an arm.
"Wait, let me help," she says, setting her bag down on the bed and hurrying over to him.
"You don't need to do that," he states as she slides the sleeves of the shirt onto his arms.
"You could have pulled a stitch," she observes, focusing on buttoning the shirt, not looking at his face. Her voice drops in volume as she continues, "Is Devlin driving you home?"
He gives her a strange look. "No, I'm taking a cab. Why Devlin?"
She shrugged, pushing the last opalescent button through its buttonhole. "He signed for your surgery."
"I'm a little more coherent now. I can sign myself out," he points out, and she nods.
"I know, I just thought...." She sighs. "I don't know what I thought."
She finishes buttoning the shirt and backs away. "Thank you," he says softly.
She nods. "No problem."
They stand in awkward silence for a moment before she broaches, "Is Weiss going to stay with you?"
He raises an eyebrow. "I'll be fine on my own."
"Vaughn," she admonishes, "you can't even put on a shirt. You can't stay by yourself."
"I'm fine," he repeats.
She shakes her head. "This is going to be how it is between us now?"
"How would you like it to be between us?" he asks in a measured voice, giving her a look that says he thinks she's crazy.
"Civil?" she offers, gesturing vaguely, wrapping her arms protectively around herself.
He smiles sarcastically, but it thrills her just to see his deep dimples and white teeth again. "You're serious," he says in a low voice. "This is civil, Sydney. This is as civil as it needs to get."
"What exactly does that mean?"
"Our ... relationship ... it's over, Sydney. We don't work together anymore. That's all it was. Work," he says dismissively.
"You make love to all of your coworkers?" she asks, unable to keep anger from edging into her voice. "Do you buy Christmas presents for all of them? Do you break the rules for them?"
His eyes rage. "Are you trying to make me feel pathetic? Are you going to throw every little thing I--"
"--I'm trying to say that we meant something to each other," she interrupts. "You meant something to me. I didn't mean anything to you?"
"I meant something to you?" he seethes. "That's rich."
"Vaughn...."
"No, no, wait. You sleep with every friend that you know you're going to walk out on? That you're going to steal from and lie to?"
"It wasn't like that."
"It was like that, and you know it. What do you want from me? I can't be the same Vaughn I was before, not to you. I don't just go around falling into bed with people. That's your problem, not mine."
She has to count to ten to keep herself from screaming at him. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Paris wasn't the first time you used me, Sydney. You slept with that assassin; you knew how I felt about you--"
"--that's not fair. I had a history with Noah. He wasn't just an assassin."
"I don't care if he was fucking Gandhi. You knew how I felt, I thought I knew how you felt, but obviously I didn't, because you slept with him anyway. And I had to pretend that I couldn't tell you had feelings for someone else. I had to comfort you," he says with disgust.
He stops and sits, and only then does she notice how labored his breathing has become.
"Vaughn, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have started this again."
"This," he says, gesturing at the space between them, "is what we are now. This won't change."
"You won't ever be able to forgive me for this," she says, not questioning but coming to terms.
"I don't know. Sorry just doesn't seem like it's enough," he says quietly, avoiding her eyes.
"I don't know what else I can offer you," she murmurs.
He nods. "That's what I thought. That's why we need to forget about each other and move on."
"You want to move on?" she asks softly.
He doesn't answer right away, just looks at her. "I never thought we would come to this. If I had known...."
"I know," she replies. "I had to go. I couldn't let things stay the way they were. I had to see her, Vaughn."
"You had to use me to do it?" he asks carefully. "That doesn't seem like a requirement."
"You were there. I couldn't ... you had the directions. You had them. I needed them."
"I'm not going to argue with you about this," he says suddenly, pinching the skin between his eyebrows. "We didn't just sleep together, and you know it. We had an affair, Sydney, and we almost got caught, and it was your fault. You almost got the both of us killed because of your goddamned curiosity. That's two months of my life that I wasted with you, thinking that you were serious about this when all you wanted was easy access to your mother." He says it like a swear word, and she flinches.
"I don't know how to tell you how sorry I am," she breathes, praying that she won't cry.
He nods again. "I know."
The abrupt nurse walks in and drops a clipboard on the bed. "Here are your papers; you'll need to speak with the doctor once more before you leave." She leaves, but not before shooting a questioning glance at Sydney.
"Thank you," he says tonelessly, reaching for the papers and wincing. Sydney sighs and grabs the clipboard, handing it to him. He doesn't say anything.
"I'm worried that you might not be okay on your own," she says suddenly, and he looks up.
"Sydney, I'm really going to be all right."
"If there's some emergency ... you can't guarantee that you'll be okay by yourself."
He sighs and drops the clipboard pen onto the forms. "What do you want me to say? My mother isn't here, and I don't have any other family. I don't have a choice. I'll be okay."
She looks at him, not wanting to say aloud what she's thinking. Instead she just twists her hands and watches him fill out forms, finally murmuring, "What if...?"
He looks up at her, and his eyes widen. "Oh, no...."
Her heart starts to pound nervously. "I'm just saying that it's a viable option."
"That's the most ... not viable option I've heard yet."
"Seriously, Vaughn, it could help. It could work."
He takes a deep breath and steeples his fingers, pressing them against his lips. "I could write you a list of a thousand reasons why this wouldn't work."
"Fine. But you know, I think it would be better for everyone."
"Not better for me. I'd kill you, I think."
"You've just been shot in the chest. I think I could take you," she points out, and a faint smile spreads across his face for the briefest moment. She feels a matching smile flicker across her own face, then purses her lips and stares down at her hands.
"We can barely even stand to be in the same room," he says quietly. "I think we'd both end up worse for the wear. More me than you, probably."
"I still don't like the idea of you staying alone." She pauses, watching him scribble out his signature. "When does your mom get home?"
"She'll be back in September," he says absently. "Hopefully I'll be back at work by then."
"You really don't have any concept of what's happened to you, do you?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
She takes a deep breath. "You almost died. You were thisclose to bleeding to death in the back of my father's car. You aren't just going to get back to normal." She pauses. "There was an agent at SD-6 who was shot a few years ago just about the same way. He didn't come back to work for five months."
Vaughn shakes his head. "I'm going to say it for the last time; I'm going to be fine on my own."
She opens her mouth to continue, but the nurse walks in again and takes the charts from Vaughn, handing them to the doctor who has stepped through the doorway. "Well, Michael, looks as though you're going home," the doctor says, and it's a little jarring when Vaughn responds with a nod to his first name. She forgets sometimes that he's a whole other person from the Vaughn she's come to know.
"Will your girlfriend be staying with you?" the doctor asks placidly, flipping through the forms.
Vaughn shakes his head again, pursing his lips like he's sure of what's coming next. "No."
The doctor looks surprised. "The release is conditional on your having twenty-four-hour care at home," he says. "You weren't aware of that."
"No, I was," Vaughn replies tightly. "There are people I can call twenty-four hours a day."
"That's not the same," the doctor admonishes, shaking his head, and Vaughn's cheeks turn light red. She suddenly feels uncomfortable watching the conversation. "Your insurance company states that there must be someone else with you at all times. It's a liability precaution in your plan."
"I'll talk to my insurance company," he says, but the doctor shakes his head again.
"Is there someone available to stay with you?" the doctor asks calmly.
She can tell that Vaughn's trying desperately not to look at her. "I don't know."
"You'll need to make arrangements before I can sign a release form. You can use the phone by the bed to make any calls that you need." The nurse and the doctor both leave as quietly as possible, and Vaughn rubs the wrinkles in his brow.
"Don't say a word," he mutters, finally looking over at her.
"I wasn't going to," she defends.
"You're my only option, and you know it."
She just nods slowly.
"Sydney...."
"If you need me, I'm there. You know that."
He laughs, sharp and bitter, and shakes his head. "I suppose we'll find out soon enough if I'm stupid for believing you twice."
The arrangements are made quickly, and the wind whips her hair about her face she loads his bag into the back of the Land Rover while an orderly helps him into the passenger's seat. "I'm going to swing by home and grab a few things," she says quietly, and he nods, rubbing his temples. "You can sit in the car if you don't want to come in."
"Is your roommate home?"
She shakes her head. "I don't think so. She shouldn't be."
He exhales slowly. "This seat isn't exactly comfortable; if I could come in and sit on your couch...."
"That's fine," she offers, and he does, watching sports coverage of some kind while she throws clothes into a duffel bag. She'll call Francie later, she decides; it'll be easier to explain over the telephone than with a hastily-written note. Pulling the strap of her bag over her shoulder, she calls out to Vaughn, who is awkwardly standing when she walks into the living room. She gives him a quick, compulsory smile and helps him to the car. The wind sweeps her hair around his face, and she watches as he carefully brushes the strands away.
She feels lighter, as if the rushing wind has blown a few of the many weights from her shoulder. She sneaks a quick glance at him before putting the car into drive and asking for quiet directions to his apartment.
Posted: Monday, May 20, 2002
Next week: {rain}