Far From Home

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Hmmm…read this story over and I have to say that I like it and I don't know why I had so much trouble writing it because it's clear to me now… so expect many updates~

Kat: haha…yes there are 7 but now that I have found my stride, I'm thinking I'm going to continue this one, the way it should be, remembrance, and maybe a little vivian mostly even though I probably will surprise you with some updates of others too. You know me. I can't for some reason work on anything for an extensive period of time.

SAG: yes. I am the queen of cruel. But not really because I'm too selfish to withhold updates…Gracie is definitely reviving. I'm writing the 6th chap of The Way It Should Be right now too so don't think I'm lagging on the updates yet! Then again, you are also cruel…where's CH. 4 of Mental Break?!?!?!?!?!

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9.

She creeps slowly to her room so that she won't wake up Francie, stepping quietly on each plank while the manila envelope is clutched in the death-like grip of her hand. She smiles slightly as she sees the post-it note sticking to her door.

"Syd… you're probably sneaking back from your bank business and trying not to wake me up… don't wake me up anyway but I just wanted to say Hi and that I'll be here for you with ice cream tomorrow. –Fran"

She almost forgets to be sad as she takes the post-it off the door and enters her bedroom. Tiredness falls over her and veils her as her eyes droop slowly… but she cannot sleep. She lies in bed, staring at the nothingness that the darkness gives her, knowing that the file is underneath her pillow and that her confusion and curiosity will get the better of her need for sleep.

So she rubs her tired eyes with a sigh and switches on the light on her bedside table, reaching under her pillow to get a hold of the envelope. It is thick and heavy in her hand and brings her much closer to Vaughn's father than she ever thought she could be. For she has in her possession the complete file.

And Vaughn, she knows, only has a portion of it. The portion containing only Rambaldi's mysteries and problems without the reasons behind them.

She leans her head against the backboard of her bed, closing her eyes for a moment's relaxation before she charges on. Despite the fact that the words have already been skimmed, if not read, by her, she knows that a part of her still does not believe.

It doesn't seem possible that the Bristows and the Vaughns could have anything else more tying them together.

And yet Rambaldi is once again the element that manages to do so.

She pulls her hair back into a ponytail so that it's off her neck as she looks at the tight script of William Vaughn's journal.

When I was assigned to the Rambaldi case, it was for my country. My sense of duty towards this land of freedom and opportunity… in hopes that I would be able to contribute everything I can and all that I am to making this land safe.

For all families.

But now, it's not possible.

I did not believe in Rambaldi until now. We were in Moscow earlier today, retrieving the files needed for continuing our search.

The specifications of this should not and should never be written in anything as tangible and easily taken as this and yet it must be written. So I shall say only this.

That among other things, Milo Rambaldi understood the mechanisms and the workings of the human body more thoroughly than any doctor I have ever met. He knew it well enough to find how to make it ill, how to make it well. How to make it live and die.

This I knew and it is now this I find.

For before now, I never knew how closely our ties bound us together. But the retrieved data clearly indicated me, my family. My son.

I dedicated myself for my country. But in this case, my family must take precedent. I will never cease doing my duty but I cannot allow Rambaldi's experiments to run their course in my family.

There are no dates, not to her knowledge anyway, and all she can do is wonder at what he found and if she can even believe his words. The only thing that enters her mind are the memories of the days she thought Vaughn was dead…the days where he was absent from her life and thus showed her how much she truly needed him. How much she loved him.

Loves him.

And now he has been taken from her again but it a way that has outweighed her wildest imagination. He was not taken in punishment but for her own ineptitude.

He was taken for Rambaldi.

Biting her lip, she slips the photocopy of the journal entry back into the envelope and picks up the Xerox of the Rambaldi manuscript that follows it. And the image she sees is all too familiar.

Three DNA strands, three encrypted names, all tied and drawn together inside of an elaborate sketch of the human body.

When all three are combined, something will happen. When all three are separated, a fate will be moved into place.

Page 46.

She looks up into the empty space in front of her, not knowing what to think, reeling again from what she has been shown already. She knows what image Page 47 holds. She just does not understand what information page 46 can have and why the CIA has withheld that information from her.

Unless they were using him too.

She shakes her head to free her thoughts, reminds herself to remain objective as she turns to the next page.

William Vaughn's tight script nearly covers the whole page and it paper-clipped to a decreased image of the DNA strands.

MV 1970

ID 1952

SB 1973

For the second time, her blood runs cold at the sight of these initials. But perhaps, because she is in her bed and surrounded by the heavy emptiness, the information more fully sinks into every pore of her and she finds that the tips of her fingers are trembling.

For she was born in 1973. Her mother in 1952.

And all three have been intersected though divided again.

She moves on.

TBC…

Well…how was the length of this one? A little better?

Gracie got me going what can I say? I'll try to write another within the next couple of days but leave me a review telling me what you think about what I wrote, what I'm writing, and what I should write because inspiration can last only for so long and I'm already unsure about the future.

~Jenn