Title: "Starting Over"
Author: Abby O. (abbyo3@hotmail.com)
Category: S/V Angst Rating: PG-ish.
Summary: Post-The Telling. This takes places a month after the episode.
Spoilers: Second Double/The Telling
Disclaimer: Nope. None of these wonderful people are mine.
Feedback: Don't make me beg. g A/N: I won't even
comment on the episode for fear of saying something incoherent or cursing
excessively. LOL, I loved it to pieces but it nearly tore my sanity to pieces. Anyhoo, this is sort of a little improve I wrote during
school. Enjoy!
"Starting Over"
By Abby O.
The candles in the living room were lit, just as they had been at around twn o'clock every evening. The soft lighting made her feel
at ease, or at least she liked to think so. In reality, nothing could assuage
the sheer agony that kept pounding away at whatever sanity she had left. Never
in her life had she felt more lost and alone. In the past, Vaughn would be
there to comfort her; he was her lifeline and her unwavering source of
strength. He was the one person she had given herself wholeheartedly to even if
she couldn't admit it to herself before or admit it verbally to him. It was
impossible to do that now. Things were painfully different and she was positive
that it was too late. He had another life. He loved somebody else.
Sydney turned on the stereo and the
haunting tunes of Sarah McLachlan filled the room.
Situating herself on the couch, she stared at the roaring fire in the fire
place and listened to the occasional sparks.
Vaughn was married. Married.
Of all the words she thought she would grow to despise in her life, 'Sloane' and 'Mom' to name a few, that certainly wasn't one
that she expected. He was married to a woman named Christy Meyer for two months.
The thought of Vaughn marrying this faceless woman tore at Sydney's
insides and nearly made her want to vomit. She honestly felt physically sick
that this entire nightmare was indeed real. He abandoned his search for Sydney
and moved on with his life, as if what they had was so miniscule that it was
easy to throw away...
Sydney sighed and curled up even
tighter under the fleece blanket she had thrown over herself. Sleepless nights
were no longer uncommon in her life so she preferred spending her evenings on
the sofa. Sometimes, her father or Weiss or Dixon
would stop by to see how she was doing. She was never much for company. Often
times, messages would accumulate on her machine as the annoying blinking red
light taunted her whenever she passed by the kitchen. There was no need to
check it. It was just another slew of people wondering if she was fine, feeling
that the next thing that came out of their mouths would break her like she was
made of glass. She didn't need the pity. She needed her goddamn life back.
She knew it was unfair to accuse Vaughn of giving up on her, but she couldn't
help but think that that's what he did. He had to move on,
the rational side of herself told her. He had no idea if she was dead or alive.
How could she expect him to spend the rest of his days devoted to finding her?
The answer was so simple.
If things were the other way around, I would've spent my entire life looking
for you. I would've killed whoever was necessary to find you. I wouldn't have
stopped...God, I never would've stopped until you came back home to me...
The tears started up again though they were useless because her face had become
feeling-less. She didn't want to feel angry, or betrayed, or hurt...but she
did. She didn't want to love him as much as she did, but she didn't know how to
love anybody else. She didn't want to love anybody else. She knew it was time
to move on just like he did, but she couldn't find the strength nor the will to
do so.
Ever since her return, their conversations were short and strained. It was the
same pattern every time: he would ask if she was okay, she would put on her
infamous facade and tell him she was fine, then he would make up some excuse
about having to leave. His eyes were always dark and elusive, his voice small
and forced. The bright sparkling green eyes from before became an illusion that
only existed in the past. Everything she thought she knew about Michael Vaughn
had become an unreachable dream; a dream that became impossible to grasp when
her entire life had been taken away from her two years ago.
After a while, she had drifted off to a fitful sleep. Well into the night, she
was awakened by a knock on the door. She slowly got up and rubbed the sleep
from her eyes. When she opened the door, she was greeted by a weary- looking
Vaughn still dressed in his rumpled work clothes.
"What are you doing here?"
He struggled to find the right words. "I...came to see if you were
okay."
"I'm fine," she answered steadily.
"Can I come in?"
"I really don't think that's a good idea--"
"Syd, please..." His eyes pleaded
desperately with her and even after two years, she couldn't resist the anguish
in his eyes.
Slowly, she pulled the door back and let him inside. She followed him into the
living room, crossed her arms and she immediately tensed at the look on his
face. She knew her eyes were red and puffy from the crying and she looked
absolutely miserable. However, she willed herself to stay strong.
"We need to talk."
"You haven't carried on a conversation with me for more than two minutes
in the past month and now, when it's
convenient for you, you wanna talk?" Her anger
felt as if it was indistinguishable. It had lain dormant in her mind for so
long and tonight was not a particularly good night for a chat.
"Syd, that's not fair..." he tried to
explain, running his fingers through his hair.
"Not fair? Tell me, Vaughn. When in my life have things ever been fair?
Because unless you can point out a specific event that proves to me that
there's even such a thing, I would put away the fairness card and pull out
another one."
He let out a sigh and looked at her. "I understand that you're
angry."
"I'm glad we got that cleared up," she spat.
"You have to give me a chance to explain everything, Sydney!
It's not like this has been a cakewalk for me either! I thought you were dead!
And I looked for you...I drove myself insane
looking for you! There were days where your father or Kendall would come up
with leads and I would follow through them, go over them with a fine tooth
comb, and then I'd come up with NOTHING! The thought of losing you was
unbearable and I didn't know what to do with myself half the time that I was
even sober!" He was shouting now and the force of his words was cutting
through her like a knife. The raw agony and emotion that she saw in his eyes
and heard in his voice were overwhelming...it was too much...
He let out a sigh and he could hear his heart pounding in his chest. After a
few seconds, he continued on. "I dropped you off at your house, and kissed
you goodnight...I left you there...if I had stayed, this never would've
happened to you..." A solitary tear rolled down his cheek as he closed his
eyes, tearing his gaze away from her. "If I had stayed over that night,
things wouldn't be like this."
Her own eyes were welling up with tears as well. How
could he blame himself for what happened? The thought didn't even cross her
mind. For the first time, she saw how truly broken he was and the image
mirrored her own. She tentatively took a couple of steps towards him. "Vaughn...what
happened to me isn't your fault. There's no way you could've known--"
"But that doesn't change things, does it?" he said, meeting her eyes.
"No, it doesn't."
Neither of them spoke for a few moments for neither one knew what to say.
"After a little over a year, I knew I needed to get my life together. I
was a wreck and almost lost my job more than once. People kept telling me that
you would want me to move on...to be happy...but how could I be happy? How
could I be happy when you weren't there? For my own sanity, I needed to at
least pretend that I moved on. And a part of me did," he whispered.
"I met Christy and she was great and stable and...she
put a sense of normalcy back into my life. We got married two months ago."
Sydney swatted at her eyes and it
was her turn to look away. "I'm happy for you," she managed to choke
out.
"Sydney..."
She didn't respond.
"Sydney, look at me," he
said, tilting her chin up to look at him just as he did that night. 'Another
day,' he had said. Her lips were quivering and her eyes were so empty.
"It's always been you, Syd," he whispered.
"There hasn't been a day when I don't think about us."
"There isn't an us anymore, Vaughn," she
said quietly. "You have a wife."
"A wife I don't love."
"She loves you. You married her. Your life is different now."
"My life hasn't existed for two years!"
She closed her eyes, letting all of this sink in. "What do you expect me
to do, Vaughn? Ask you to leave her because I'm home, safe and sound?"
"You don't have to ask," he whispered and showed her his ring-less
left hand.
She knew this wouldn't fix everything, but her breath still caught in her
throat. Her eyes met his, surprised and bewildered.
"I know it's going to take some time to...sort all this out and
everything. But I'm here, Syd. And I'm not leaving
you this time."
* * * * * *
The End.