Chapter Ten
The Call
He wasn't expecting the phone call when it came, especially not on his cell phone, but the incessant buzzing against his hip roused him in the middle of the afternoon two days later. He detached it from his belt, wondering why he had left it on at all, then tensed at the unknown number displayed on the screen; unknown numbers were never good news. He punched the button to answer it and brought the phone up to his ear in edgy, jumpy motions.
"Hello?"
"Vaughn." The sole word in that low, breathy voice told him instantly who was on the other end. "Vaughn, I need to see you now."
He caught Weiss's quizzical stare from across the room, and he answered the unspoken question without any guilty hesitation as he muffled the receiver in his shirt, "Family crisis." He gestured roughly with his free hand, "I'm going to take this outside."
Even when he was sure he was out of the range of any eavesdroppers, he kept his tone muted, "What are you thinking calling me on this phone? God knows it's probably still bugged!" The only response was a ragged sob, quickly suppressed, but it was enough to make him regret being so harsh. "Syd? Syd, what's wrong?"
"Something's," the sentence was broken by a shuddering breath, "happened. I need to see you now. Just to--just to talk."
"Now, as in right away?" He dodged a glance behind him, but there was nothing except shadows watching him.
There was a barely audible sound from Sydney, like she was berating herself for demanding too much. "I'm sorry, Vaughn. I didn't mean that you...If you can't get away..."
He shook his head in a swift refutation, but when he became aware that she couldn't see the movement, hastily added, "No, no. They won't even notice I'm gone. After that little withdrawal you made from the bank yesterday they're too busy searching for you to pay attention to anything I do. Truly remarkable work, Sydney."
A tear-soaked laugh. "Thank you."
"Just tell me where you are, and I'll be there before you know it."
He met her in the alley by the bar from the other night; it was chancy to be seen in the same place twice, but the anguish in her voice left no time for him to search out the city for somewhere safe. She was waiting at the same uttermost end where he had held her not so long ago, huddled into the shade of her shapeless gray sweatshirt like its folds would shield her from any passing glances. She pushed her hood back when she noticed him, letting waves of brown hair fall lose in the creases of the tumbled fabric and revealing the angry red splotches on her face that the dimness cast by her clothing had hidden. She reached out manically, like one drowning catching onto a solid object, and pulled him forcibly toward her, burying her face in his collar; there was no sound from her, though, only the silent heave of her shoulders.
"Syd." He trailed a hand up from the base of her spine to the point between her shoulder blades in a comforting motion he remembered his mother using on him when he was at his most inconsolable. "Syd, I can't help unless you tell me what's wrong."
"Francie." It was more a hiccup than a name but it was enough to startle him.
"Sydney, I meant to tell you, truly I did, but there was never the right time. Will and I--everyone--we all tried our hardest to find her, but everything was such a mess after you left, and she was just...just gone."
She rubbed her nose against his chest in a feeble sign of contestation. "You don't understand. She's alive."
Confusion swelled, and he tried to disengage her so that he could see her face, like that would give him some beginning of comprehension, but she refused to be moved. "She's alive? Isn't that a good thing?"
"No, Vaughn, she's *alive*."
With an appalling sensation, he recognized what she was saying, but the subject still remained hazy and unclear. "But how? When?"
"I don't know." Her fingernails tightened treacherously close to his skin through the material of his shirt and he could sense her biting her lip near his throat. "I--I went out for a drive this morning, to get out of that place, get away from Sloane. That's when I saw them, fighting over one of the outside tables at this little restaurant. Sark and Francie.
"I wanted to rip his throat for stealing my friend. But I kept driving because there was nothing I could do at that moment...and I kept thinking, and the more I thought, the more apparent it became that she was there of her own free will. That she could be a double agent. Everything about her proved she wasn't afraid of him, she wasn't struggling or searching for help, she didn't even have that blank look that some people get after shock or brainwashing. If you could have seen her, Vaughn--the way she moved, the way her face looked as they were arguing--I don't know who she is, but she's not Francie."
He gradually became conscious of an expanding damp patch over his heart, like a leak had sprung somewhere.
"And...and I don't know what's going on anymore, Vaughn." Her voice hysterically crested through a throat closed with tears and grief, like she was somewhere faraway and was worried her words wouldn't reach him. "What's happening to my life?"
There was nothing left to do but hold her as the barricade came sliding down, nothing left to say that she had not told herself, nothing that could stamp out the horror plaguing her. Later, maybe he'll decide on the information the CIA, what he'll tell and what he'll withhold. But for now there's only her need.
And it was in the quiet between her upheavals that he first heard that damning sound.
A footstep. A second. A third. The clink of gravel hitting the wall.
Over her head, he set eyes on the faces of the two men he would have wished anywhere else, watching as their shoulders swelled to fill his only escape. He was trapped.
It had all been a trap to lure him here, he can see that now.
His arm dropped away abruptly, leaving her uncovered, but there was no surprise about her as she purposefully turned to confront the recent arrivals, one hand dashing away the last trace of any tears on her cheeks.
"Oh, Syd," he whispered so only she could hear. Even as he felt her betrayal razing into his core, he couldn't help but touch her, one hand caressing her hair with the knowledge he may never touch her again. "You really had me this time, Sydney."
There was the dimmest, most fleeting blaze of some emotion in her eyes, then his saving grace fled, and then there was nothing in her expression. Cold, blank nothing, like running into a brick wall. He had never felt so alone in his life.
Unaided, he could have possibly taken out Sloane by himself, but with Sark at his side, the outcome was much more doubtful; Sark had more than once proved himself Vaughn's equal, and without certainty of where Sydney's loyalties lay, he had no hope of breaking out of the alley in any condition at all.
Sloane thrust out the gun they all knew he had been carrying, jerking it meaningfully in Vaughn's direction, "Give him up, Sydney. Your little game has come to an end."
She extended her hands in the open air, palms up, as if to show she had no claim on him. "Go ahead. I'm not stopping you."
A/N: Sydney has a lot of explaining to do in the next chapter, doesn't she? (Just like JJ will have to do some explaining next season...) For now, you'll just have to guess at her motivations and her allegiances...
The Call
He wasn't expecting the phone call when it came, especially not on his cell phone, but the incessant buzzing against his hip roused him in the middle of the afternoon two days later. He detached it from his belt, wondering why he had left it on at all, then tensed at the unknown number displayed on the screen; unknown numbers were never good news. He punched the button to answer it and brought the phone up to his ear in edgy, jumpy motions.
"Hello?"
"Vaughn." The sole word in that low, breathy voice told him instantly who was on the other end. "Vaughn, I need to see you now."
He caught Weiss's quizzical stare from across the room, and he answered the unspoken question without any guilty hesitation as he muffled the receiver in his shirt, "Family crisis." He gestured roughly with his free hand, "I'm going to take this outside."
Even when he was sure he was out of the range of any eavesdroppers, he kept his tone muted, "What are you thinking calling me on this phone? God knows it's probably still bugged!" The only response was a ragged sob, quickly suppressed, but it was enough to make him regret being so harsh. "Syd? Syd, what's wrong?"
"Something's," the sentence was broken by a shuddering breath, "happened. I need to see you now. Just to--just to talk."
"Now, as in right away?" He dodged a glance behind him, but there was nothing except shadows watching him.
There was a barely audible sound from Sydney, like she was berating herself for demanding too much. "I'm sorry, Vaughn. I didn't mean that you...If you can't get away..."
He shook his head in a swift refutation, but when he became aware that she couldn't see the movement, hastily added, "No, no. They won't even notice I'm gone. After that little withdrawal you made from the bank yesterday they're too busy searching for you to pay attention to anything I do. Truly remarkable work, Sydney."
A tear-soaked laugh. "Thank you."
"Just tell me where you are, and I'll be there before you know it."
He met her in the alley by the bar from the other night; it was chancy to be seen in the same place twice, but the anguish in her voice left no time for him to search out the city for somewhere safe. She was waiting at the same uttermost end where he had held her not so long ago, huddled into the shade of her shapeless gray sweatshirt like its folds would shield her from any passing glances. She pushed her hood back when she noticed him, letting waves of brown hair fall lose in the creases of the tumbled fabric and revealing the angry red splotches on her face that the dimness cast by her clothing had hidden. She reached out manically, like one drowning catching onto a solid object, and pulled him forcibly toward her, burying her face in his collar; there was no sound from her, though, only the silent heave of her shoulders.
"Syd." He trailed a hand up from the base of her spine to the point between her shoulder blades in a comforting motion he remembered his mother using on him when he was at his most inconsolable. "Syd, I can't help unless you tell me what's wrong."
"Francie." It was more a hiccup than a name but it was enough to startle him.
"Sydney, I meant to tell you, truly I did, but there was never the right time. Will and I--everyone--we all tried our hardest to find her, but everything was such a mess after you left, and she was just...just gone."
She rubbed her nose against his chest in a feeble sign of contestation. "You don't understand. She's alive."
Confusion swelled, and he tried to disengage her so that he could see her face, like that would give him some beginning of comprehension, but she refused to be moved. "She's alive? Isn't that a good thing?"
"No, Vaughn, she's *alive*."
With an appalling sensation, he recognized what she was saying, but the subject still remained hazy and unclear. "But how? When?"
"I don't know." Her fingernails tightened treacherously close to his skin through the material of his shirt and he could sense her biting her lip near his throat. "I--I went out for a drive this morning, to get out of that place, get away from Sloane. That's when I saw them, fighting over one of the outside tables at this little restaurant. Sark and Francie.
"I wanted to rip his throat for stealing my friend. But I kept driving because there was nothing I could do at that moment...and I kept thinking, and the more I thought, the more apparent it became that she was there of her own free will. That she could be a double agent. Everything about her proved she wasn't afraid of him, she wasn't struggling or searching for help, she didn't even have that blank look that some people get after shock or brainwashing. If you could have seen her, Vaughn--the way she moved, the way her face looked as they were arguing--I don't know who she is, but she's not Francie."
He gradually became conscious of an expanding damp patch over his heart, like a leak had sprung somewhere.
"And...and I don't know what's going on anymore, Vaughn." Her voice hysterically crested through a throat closed with tears and grief, like she was somewhere faraway and was worried her words wouldn't reach him. "What's happening to my life?"
There was nothing left to do but hold her as the barricade came sliding down, nothing left to say that she had not told herself, nothing that could stamp out the horror plaguing her. Later, maybe he'll decide on the information the CIA, what he'll tell and what he'll withhold. But for now there's only her need.
And it was in the quiet between her upheavals that he first heard that damning sound.
A footstep. A second. A third. The clink of gravel hitting the wall.
Over her head, he set eyes on the faces of the two men he would have wished anywhere else, watching as their shoulders swelled to fill his only escape. He was trapped.
It had all been a trap to lure him here, he can see that now.
His arm dropped away abruptly, leaving her uncovered, but there was no surprise about her as she purposefully turned to confront the recent arrivals, one hand dashing away the last trace of any tears on her cheeks.
"Oh, Syd," he whispered so only she could hear. Even as he felt her betrayal razing into his core, he couldn't help but touch her, one hand caressing her hair with the knowledge he may never touch her again. "You really had me this time, Sydney."
There was the dimmest, most fleeting blaze of some emotion in her eyes, then his saving grace fled, and then there was nothing in her expression. Cold, blank nothing, like running into a brick wall. He had never felt so alone in his life.
Unaided, he could have possibly taken out Sloane by himself, but with Sark at his side, the outcome was much more doubtful; Sark had more than once proved himself Vaughn's equal, and without certainty of where Sydney's loyalties lay, he had no hope of breaking out of the alley in any condition at all.
Sloane thrust out the gun they all knew he had been carrying, jerking it meaningfully in Vaughn's direction, "Give him up, Sydney. Your little game has come to an end."
She extended her hands in the open air, palms up, as if to show she had no claim on him. "Go ahead. I'm not stopping you."
A/N: Sydney has a lot of explaining to do in the next chapter, doesn't she? (Just like JJ will have to do some explaining next season...) For now, you'll just have to guess at her motivations and her allegiances...
