Title: De Fatumi — Concerning Fate
Author: Dream Writer 4 Life
Rating: PG-13 for language
Genre: Angst/Suspense
Archived: , Cover Me, and SD-1. Anywhere else, ask and you shall receive!
'Shippers' Paradise: S/V, of course!
Spoilers/Timeline: Spoilers through S2.14 Double Agent; future-fic
Summary: Intel from the CIA is disappearing and Syd takes it upon herself to figure out who's stealing it. Her top suspects: the people closest to her. A Dream Writer Experience. April CM Challenge entry.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Period. End of story. Wait, no it's not! Keep reading!
Author's Note: Enjoy! And leave feedback! I love constructive criticism!
De Fatumi
I cannot believe I'm doing this.
Six months ago, I would've never thought that I would be trying to oust my boyfriend and two best friends.
What has changed so drastically? I mean, besides my sanity and blood pressure? I'll tell you what.
They did. They are the ones that have done a complete one-eighty. They are the ones that have made me lose all trust. Francie has been my best friends since high school, Will for almost that long. And Vaughn…well, let's just say that it's an enormous understatement to believe that he has been my anchor to everything good, real, and true in this world. And what did they do? They betrayed that trust. Every one of them. God, I feel so stupid!
And alone. Suddenly, the dripping brick walls seem to be pressing ever asymptotically closer, always nearing but never giving the satisfaction of crushing me to a pulp. The lone light is in front of me at the end of the alley. Ha. How ironic. But the light I'm walking towards will not bring salvation at last; on the contrary, it will most likely bring condemnation.
I cannot believe I'm doing this.
I have never felt so completely alone before. This feeling…it's worse that when I'm on a mission and the comm. link goes dead. Then at least I know that Vaughn or Dixon or Weiss or someone will come after me. Now there is no one. No one will speak the truth.
But they will soon enough.
My deterioration of trust began about a week ago. Actually, way before that: Vaughn started to pique my interest long ago. Things started to disappear from around the house; small things at first, like a receipt or some paper that I could have sworn I'd thrown in the trash. But then larger things were brought to my attention. Files on my laptop were not where I had left them (or HOW I had left them), and they were arranged exactly like they were on Vaughn's computer. At first, I thought that this was too obvious to be him: super spies do not leave such magnanimous clues lying around, especially when spying on another super spy. But then again, what if that was what he wanted me to think? So I waited patiently for another clue.
Files began disappearing from the CIA, being hacked into from the inside. Now, Vaughn had clearance to all of these files, but (my deductive reasoning kicks in here) he had to make it look like a lower-level agent in order to clear himself. This was the last straw for me: I began keeping tabs on him at all times, acting the slightly clingy girlfriend that he was used to from all those years with Alice. And he didn't even notice a thing, not a change in my behavior. All the better for me, no matter how disappointed I was at his ineptness.
God, I even tried confronting him about the issue! Well, I wouldn't really call it "confronting" per say: I kinda just asked him his opinion on the whole ordeal. He only said it was some lower-level nobody "getting his jollies" by being able to hack into one of the most secure areas in the world. I didn't believe him for one second. I still don't.
What was that? Oh, God. It's only a cat. Damn animals. I've always hated cats; too independent for my taste. Plus, the wild ones live in places like this. Not exactly the epitome of chic, catching dirty rats and diseased mice for every meal. This place seems to be infested with all three mangy excuses for animals. I wish that guy would get here soon; Vaughn could wake up at any moment, and I promised to call Francie…
Ha. Speaking of mangy excuses for things.
To tell the truth, I'm still reeling from this one. One night — about a week ago — I couldn't sleep. Deciding that it wouldn't make sense to disrupt two people's night's sleep, I had let Vaughn be and made to journey to the kitchen, planning on doing a crossword puzzle or playing Bingo on-line until I was tired enough to resume sleeping. While passing Francie's closed door, I heard Will's voice mingled with hers. Not wanting to open that can of worms, I began to quicken my pace. What stopped me again was Will, his intonation slightly flatter than usual, divulging some information that he should not have been: security codes, directions around the CIA precautions, and ways to hack into one of the GPS units that had recently been taken in for repairs.
I was more shocked than I have been in my entire life; it barely surpasses the revelation of my mother's true nature…Just barely, but it does. See to me, my mother had already been dead for twenty years; I had made my peace with Laura Bristow, so I could deal with Irina Derevko with some level of detachment. In other words, I could pretend that they were two different people: my mother could not have possibly been horrible enough to kill twelve CIA agents without batting an eye. Sure, she had sent me to my room without dinner when I talked back, but that is literally child's play. They were truly different people, or at least conflicting personalities of the same person. But Will and Francie…they have no such excuse. I'm older and now I have the benefit of going on ten years of spy training. It has not been easy hiding what I knew for the past week, but soon it will all be over. I can see right through them. Soon I'll be able to, anyway.
I cannot believe I'm doing this.
You know, maybe I was better off not knowing what my friends have done. Sure, now I can stop them from turning on their country and possibly killing me one day but…Am I really better off knowing? Was I supposed to know this? I guess that would be the better question here. Did I defy fate by not waking up Vaughn that night? By not asking him outright if he had something to do with the missing information? Of course, that all depends on if you believe in fate.
Which I don't.
Right?
Well, if it was my fate for my friends to turn against me willingly, then I don't think I want to.
Socrates believed that humanity's crowning achievement is knowledge. Having attained knowledge, man could do the right thing and would be good. Without knowledge man was in danger of acting wrongly. Further, he believed that man could, through knowledge, have some influence on his destiny.
Meh.
Sounds okay. But the knowledge that I have will not influence my destiny — to be alone — at all; in fact, it might just help it along. When my friends and Vaughn find out what I am going to do, the best thing they would do is not talk to me. That is, if they're not in federal prison already. On the other hand, if I had not known their impure intentions, then maybe I would have been prone to share even more crucial information. So Socrates does have a point.
Plato thought along the same lines as the former. According to him, goodness comes because one has met evil and overcome it, has made a real choice and chose well. This implies that man is not determined by the universe, but is able to choose, is free to determine in the last analysis his own fate.
This is getting warmer. We never really deconstruct events until the very last second: a dying man reflects on everything he has done over his lifetime and decides whether it is worth it to keep fighting…or not. Almost like me. Is it really worth it to live without friends or a lover? Is my country worth it? I think the jury's still out on that one. But that has not stopped my feet from slowly carrying me towards my perdition. (And by that I mean 'doom', not 'fate'. That's what we're still debating, remember?)
Saint Augustine and Zeno and the Stoics all believed in a concrete fate. The latter two thought that the universe is the result of fixed, unchanging law. Every man's will is determined. Man is part of this casual chain and all his actions are the result of factors over which he can have no control. Man's only freedom, then, is to accept his fate, to assent to what fate has decreed for him. The saint, obviously, went with a more religious approach. He believed that mankind was free in Eden, but since Adam chose to sin, he lost freedom not only for himself, but for all men and for all time. Now no one is free, but all bound to sin, are slaves of evil. Fate is determined by only what God wants. In this view, we find both fatalism and predestination as far as the individual is concerned.
The more I think about life in this way, the more I find myself thinking that fate is a joke. The idea that one almighty power (or many, as the case may be) can plant every choice in every person's head is hardly believable. Maybe that is why I never really bought into the idea of a God. But even if there was one, why, after all I have done for the world and His people, should I get punished repeatedly by betrayal? Because one stupid man took a bite of an apple?! Come on! I deserve better than that!
I agree more with Francis Bacon. He sought to free thought from the traditions of the past and to approach the universe without religious and intellectual bias. When being freed from bias, the human mind will be able to discover the laws that govern the universe and determine its every action.
In other words, throw out everything you have ever learned; you won't need any of it to play the game of life. I love this notion because without either religion or intellect, everyone is equal. But this still does not help me figure this thing out…
Ah. Here's someone. And another someone, too.
Thomas Hobbes and Descartes thought along the same lines: cause and effect have something to do with the way the cosmos align. Hobbes believed that all the universe is subject to a purely mechanical series of cause and effect. The entire universe is in motion. All thoughts or ideas are simply motions in the brain. It's a very detached and scientific outlook on life, but when broken down to the simplest atomic level, all decisions are is the simple firing of neurons from nerve ending to nerve ending. Vaughn's plethora of neuron firing caused the effect of stealing files. On the contrary, the mathematician, Descartes, said that the body is part of the organic universe and is governed by purely mechanical processes. Cause and effect are supreme in this plane while the mind/soul is free. The will is independent of the body…
Do you know what that could mean?
That could mean that none of them performed actions that were true in their hearts!
If Descartes is correct, then none of them would have to be blamed for their actions if they had pure intentions: Will wanted to clue Francie in on his life and Vaughn…wanted to be smarter?
Oh, who am I kidding? That even sounds ridiculous in my head! This would also mean that every person who committed a crime could claim that his or her body had acted independent of his will, and therefore should be spared punishment. Society as we know it would crumble. No. As good a spin as it puts on my personal situation, it does not bode well for the rest of the world.
One more person follows the cause/effect theories of Hobbes and Descartes; you could say that he even originated the hypothesis. His name is Sir Isaac Newton, the famous physicist and creator of the theory of gravity. Didn't think he was a philosopher, did you? Well, you were right: he wasn't. But his laws of motion could be applied to the Fate vs. Free Will debacle. The first law states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion until and outside force acts on it (also called Inertia). In terms of my thought process, this means that people will keep on treading the same line until someone completely new puts a different spin on their life. (But that doesn't help me.) Second law: I remember it is something to the effect of a larger mass requires a larger force for the same acceleration as a smaller object. Smaller objects are faster than larger ones. This law applies to the decision-making process. Larger decisions are harder to make than the little ones; choosing a college takes up more time than choosing a value meal for lunch. Makes sense and completely applies to what I'm feeling right now.
Where is that damn guy?
Newton's third law is the one that connects to Hobbes and Descartes. It states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction…In other words, each cause has an effect. Because someone did this, that happened; because someone left a briefcase in the middle of hallway I tripped. It is almost like karma, if you think about it; you know, the whole 'what-goes-around-comes-around' thing? If you do something bad, something equally good and powerful must be done to make up for it. Because Vaughn, Will, and Francie became traitors against my country, I had to turn them in.
I cannot believe I'm doing this.
John Locke, one of the leaders of the French Revolution, had the simplest view on the subject. He thought that will is the power of an individual to think his own actions and to prefer their doing or not doing. If one is able to think about his actions and is able to prefer one action over another, he has will. In other words, if we like one flavour of the cosmic pie better than another, then there sure as hell ain't someone else who's gonna pick which pie we're gonna eat.
Finally.
He's here.
He's backlighted by the light at the end of the dank alley so I cannot see his face, but I know it's him. Standing my tallest — but still noticeably shorter than him — I lift up my chin, playing the part of a spoiled Frenchwoman. Tonight I am Solange Renault, a highly respected narcotics dealer on the Black Market. And former SD-3 operative/mole for K-Directorate. 'Enfin. Oú avez-vous eu?' Finally. Where have you been?
'Occupé.' Busy.
A few moments' silence then:
'Est-ce que vous avez la merchandise?' Do you have the stuff?
'Est-ce que tu as l'argent?' Do you have the money?
'Oui. C'est ici. Deux cents mille dollars americains.' Yes. It's here. Two hundred thousand American dollars.
'C'est lá. Sodium pentothal est trés cher. Tu utilizes cette drogue pour quelle reason?' It's here. Sodium pentothal is very expensive. What are you using it for?
'You don't want to know.'
I have no idea why I finish in English, but it seems to have scared the crap out of the guy. He hands me a four inch tall vial that is just small enough to fit into the palm of my hand. After grabbing the suitcase from my outstretched hand and turning quickly, he anxiously made his way into the light and around the corner. I don't care that I've blown my cover. I don't care that there are probably about twenty big, burly mercs headed my way and that I should most likely be running for my life. I don't care. Right about now, I don't care about anything.
"Hey Syd? Syd? Sydney? Whoo hoo! Earth to Sydney Bristow! Are you in there?"
"Will, I believe she's gone. T.O.S.C.D.: 8:41. Hurry, get a blanket; I can't stand to see her like this."
"T.O.S.C.D.?"
"Sorry Mike. It's an acronym. It stands for 'time of space cadet departure'. She's been doing this a lot lately, especially since you guys returned from your business trip in France. Did something happen there that we need to know about?"
"No, Fran, nothing happened."
"Of course not. Francie, if something had happened, Syd would have told us."
"But she hasn't been talking to me lately! How am I supposed to know anything?"
"Just take my word, Francie. Nothing happened."
"Alright. Well, it's still her turn, so someone's gotta snap her out of it."
"How have you done that before?"
"Cold water has always done the trick. So's Will's singing. But what works the best is tickling her."
"She's ticklish?"
"Yeah! Behind the knees! She never told you?"
"It's never come up in conversation."
"Well Fran, let's get with the tickling. Come on. I feel an especially smart streak coming on."
"Uh, guys, I don't think that's a really good idea. What's always happened after you tickle her?"
"Will always gets a black eye or broken nose, followed by weeks of apologies and flowers from Syd."
"Hon, stop talking about yourself in the third person."
"Sorry."
"I don't think we should tickle her. I mean, I know I don't want to end up on the wrong side of a knuckle sandwich. Why doesn't someone go get her purse and see what's in there?"
"Huh? What? I'm back!" Sydney sat up straighter, shaking her head and rubbing her eyes vigorously. "Is it my turn already?"
Vaughn, Francie, and Will all stared at her from opposite sides of the table. She peered back with wide-eyed innocence, unfolding one of her long legs from underneath her. She had been listening the entire time, and when she listened so intently for such a long period, she had a habit of unfocusing her eyes and concentrating on the words being said. It was a last-ditch attempt at avoiding the use of her newly acquired chemical, at finding a reason not to suspect them of the crimes she already knew they had committed. The tactic had not worked so far; she had not expected it to, but she had hoped with all her heart that it would have. Now she had no choice but to continue on as planned.
"Well? Ask me a question."
Will slipped a card from the box and asked, "'What's the capital of Yugoslavia?'" Flipping it over, he peered at the answer and shrugged, a sign that he had just learned something new.
"I don't know."
Vaughn tried to hold her gaze from under his eyebrows, patented worry lines rippling over his brow. "Yeah you do, Syd. You've been there hundreds of times—" Will's and Francie's heads snapped up, Francie's out of consternation and Will's in alarm "—with the bank," Michael finished, not deviating in his piercing gaze. Will stifled a sigh of relief and wrapped his arm around Francie's shoulders.
Sydney drew her eyes away from her boyfriend's, unable to hold his gaze any longer. The concern harboured there was so raw and pure that it made her question everything she had planned. "Oh yeah. I just forgot for a second. It's Belgrade. Will, it's your turn." Vaughn's eyes did not leave her for long during their game of Trivial Pursuit. Even when he was reading cards or moving his little pie pan around the board, he seemed to be watching her out of the corner of his eyes. She figured she had better get back into character, be the bubbly, good-natured friend that she had perfected so well; Syd began answering all of the questions correctly, even her friends' and the ones that Vaughn could not answer. No, Will was not going to get a pre-packaged gift-wrapped win that night.
"'What is troilism?'" Syd asked Will, looking at him over the top of the stiff card. She was trying her hardest to ignore the constant glare from Michael; it was not working well.
"When a government is run by a troll. I don't know!"
"Not trollism, troilism," She explained, replacing the card with a small smirk. "It basically means a three-some."
Her male friend's face convulsed in disgust. "Aw, man! That's nasty! And you didn't even look at the back of the card. You know, for a person without much of a social life in college, you sure know a hell of a lot of stuff that you shouldn't."
"Hey. Lay off her," Vaughn defended, creeping his hand around his girlfriend's waist. She stiffened involuntarily. She could only pray that he did not notice. But with her crappy luck, he did. Leaning in as if about to kiss her neck he whispered, "Are you okay? Do we need to talk about something?"
As he pulled away she smiled slyly, blinking him a message in Morse code. 'I-M-F-I-N-E.'
'O-K,' He blinked back.
Returning to the game Sydney blurted out, "Monrovia," before scooping up the die and rolling.
Francie looked at her in disbelief. "How the hell did you know that? Africa's changing all the time; this is probably completely out of date!"
"Nope. Monrovia is the African capital named for a U.S. president. It is the capital of Liberia, which was founded by freed American slaves in 1847."
"I'm starting to remember why this game was buried under four inches of dust. Who the hell really knows this stuff? Well, I guess it doesn't help that it's the genius edition from about 1981."
"Just…somebody ask me a question."
Vaughn pulled a card, moving away from her so that she could not see the answer and grimaced; it was a literature question that even he did not know the answer to. "'What Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem tells of a sailor who kills an albatross?' Come on, Syd, I'd like to see you answer this one."
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," She answered without a moment's hesitation. A stunned silence leveled the room as Syd gathered a brown piece and fitted it into her pie. When she noticed their lack of conversation she looked up. "What? Was I wrong?"
"No!" Michael exclaimed, tucking the card away at the back of the box. A corner of his mouth lifted in an incredulous smile at his girlfriend. "You're crazy! How in the name of Fannie May chocolates did you know that?!"
"I'm a Lit major, remember? Freshman year of college and again sophomore year of grad school. They usually lumped him with Poe, Dickinson, Tennyson, and Longfellow. The class was a bitch and the teacher was sexist, but the poetry was good. 'The Lady of Shallot' is still one of my favourites." She paused, raising an eyebrow at her beau. "Fanny May chocolates? Obsess much?" He shrugged it off in indifference, and she dropped the subject.
It was getting late; she had stalled and deviated from the plan long enough. It was time.
"Guys, I'm getting a little thirsty. Anybody want anything? Vaughn and I got a bottle of Merlot this afternoon. Sound good to anyone?"
"Yep. Pour me a glass."
"Ditto for me."
"Ditto? Who says 'ditto' anymore?"
"Shut up, Will."
"Me too, Syd."
She left for the kitchen, where her purse and the bottle of wine stood side by side on the counter. Plucking the vial from a hidden pocket, she extracted three goblets from a cabinet and a cork popper from a drawer. She poured a third of the clear, odourless liquid into each of the glasses, then quickly replaced the flask into her purse for later disposal. Siphoning the wine, it mixed with the serum to concoct a potion that could change Syd's life forever: it could allay her fears…or confirm them. She swirled all three of the glasses, mixing them thoroughly before grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator for herself. Finding a way to balance all four drinks, she was about to take the road to her perdition yet again — and the phone rang, scaring her half out of her skin. She settled the beverages on the edge of the counter and darted into the family room, where her friends and the phone were waiting.
"Hello?"
"Sydney, it's me."
Her father. What the hell was going on? And his normally even voice had an undercurrent of…yes…was it…excitement?
"I need you to stay calm."
"Oh, hi Dad. What a surprise! How are you?" She allowed her eyes to glance meaningfully at Vaughn, hoping he got the discreet message. He did. Sitting up straighter, his ears seemed to perk up ever so slightly.
"Is Vaughn with you now?"
"Ramifications? Exactly, having everyone here is somewhat exhausting."
"Skip sequence cipher text…Good. What I need you two to do is get down to the warehouse as soon as possible. We've got a lead on the CIA mole."
"What? Oh, that sounds interesting!"
"Bring Will, too, if he's there."
"Something extravagant? He's insane!"
"Be here as quick as possible. Good luck."
"Okay. I gotta go: I have friends over. Love you, too, Dad. Bye." Hanging up, she excused herself to the kitchen while silently cursing the CIA's timing yet again. She had just shouldered her purse and had her keys in hand when a different hand appeared on her shoulder. Whipping around, her purse collided with the friends' beverages sending them tumbling to the hardwood floor. The wine goblets spilled and shattered upon contact while her water bottle just bounced once and rolled away quietly. Vaughn jumped slightly and cursed himself as they both bent down to collect the shards.
"What was that about?" He questioned, leaning towards her and speaking to the floor.
"Dad wants us and Will at the warehouse A.S.A.P. He said they found the mole." Sydney watched for a reaction, but there was none. Will appeared in the doorway, eyebrows knotted in concern.
"Is everything okay?"
"Yeah. I…was just being a klutz and knocked over everything. Can you help up pick up?" Syd replied, loud enough for Francie to hear. He nodded shortly and squatted. Both Syd and Vaughn leaned closer to him as he began plucking glass from the floor. "Will, don't react, just listen. We need to take you somewhere. Don't ask questions," She added, his mouth opening and attempting to shift into reporter mode. "Vaughn and I are leaving to go pick up papers from the bank. You will go and pick up paper towels at the Seven/Eleven down on the corner. Once there, go through the back door — it'll be open. In the back alley will be a white bread truck. Hop in the back and you'll go where you need to go. Don't ask anything; just do it. Trust me: everything's going to be okay." Smiling at her best male friend, she straightened up, pulling Vaughn with her.
Together, they entered the family room after grabbing their coats from the barstools. Syd grimaced sadly at Francie, Vaughn helping her into her leather jacket. "We have to go, Fran. I left some papers at the bank and Michael's the only one who has the keys. We'll be back as soon as we can."
"But it's, like, ten o'clock! And can't he just give you the keys? Or can't he go get them for you like a gentleman?" An evil me-hate-friend's-boyfriend glare.
Sydney just smiled regretfully and led her beau out the door. A few short minutes later, Will made his planned escape and left for the Seven/Eleven.
Well, we caught him.
Or her, I should say.
It was Francie all along.
That was why they wanted Will out of there as well: so that he would not make a scene.
Apparently, she had been the one rearranging the files on my laptop and stealing files from the CIA. She had been hypnotizing Will at night, forcing him to share codes and intel as well as coercing him into steal other files from the CIA building itself. As soon as they find that Will did none of this of his own free will, he will be cleared and released.
Ha.
Free will.
We're right back to the beginning, then, aren't we?
Was it fate that Dad called when he did? Was it fate that Vaughn followed me into the kitchen? Was it fate that my purse knocked over the glasses? Was it fate that Will came to check on us instead of Francie?
Right now, I really don't care.
All I can say is that I am pretty damn glad that it all happened.
I guess I am still in shock about the whole thing. In my mind, I had already accepted the fact that all three of them were traitors. Out of those three, I would have expected the real one to be Vaughn, not Francie. He had more opportunities, motive, and know-how. My heart still has not confirmed that Francie was the enemy after all. Even she keeps denying that she is the real Francine Calfo, but that is all the information about her investigation that anyone will give to Vaughn or me. My father seems to know more, but then again he always does.
For now, I am just glad that I did not get the chance to use the sodium pentothal on my friends. I told Vaughn about it and, while we screamed and yelled at each other for a good two hours about trust and asking questions, in the end he understood why I did what I did. We're good right now; I think he is more worried about my mental state concerning Francie than anything at this point in time. He might be afraid that I might end up like Will.
Will tried to commit suicide while in a federal holding cell. Since then he is been on suicide watch, under constant surveillance. Vaughn has been doing the same with me; when we are not together — which is not too often anymore — he calls every ten minutes. I appreciate the sentiment, but…I'm not to that stage of grief yet. He won't have to worry about me for a little while yet.
As for Fate…
I'm hoping Newton's Third Law of Motion was right; what with all the crap that I have been dealing with, I could do with some good right about now.
Vaughn's coming over later.
We'll be alone.
I wonder if that could be the beginning of a winning streak.
END