Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam
By- Abercrombieprep
Disclaimer- I own nothing beyond Elaina and Hannah Snyder… and Katherine. Everyone else is JJ's madness!
Rating- PG-13 for some language
Part One
Bring Me Home
"Since that night you've been missing... you've been missing for almost two years."
She stared. Stared at Vaughn because it was the only thing she could do. She couldn't breathe, the air in the room was suddenly gone and she was tumbling, tumbling into a world of darkness.
"Syd..." Vaughn said. He couldn't bring his eyes up to hers, but that was for the best. She knew that if she saw those innocent green irises, now tainted in her mind, she would be sick.
"Syd, look at me," he choked.
She did, as it was her natural reaction to his pleading.
And she was sick. She felt it as soon as her eyes locked on his. Acid ran up her throat and she threw up the contents of her last, mysterious meal on Vaughn.
She was barely aware of Vaughn picking her up and carrying her to the bathroom.
She woke up in her cot, but did not open her eyes. Her hair felt damp, and she was wearing new, albeit snug clothes.
Slowly, she opened her eyes. She saw Vaughn sitting in a chair across the room. She had the immediate notion to shut her eyes, pull the sheets over her head, and pretend she had died in her sleep. Luckily, she was more reasonable and lifted her body into a sitting position, locking her eyes on the ground.
"The plane leaves in an hour. I was just about to wake you," Vaughn mumbled.
Sydney nodded slightly.
"I've called everyone. Will, your mother, your father, Weiss, Marshall, and Dixon, and told them to meet us when we land."
"Thank you," Sydney said while standing up. She could tell by Vaughn's tone that it was time to leave.
"I'll try to bring you up to speed on the plane if you want. A lot has happened in the past two years."
Sydney pointedly glanced at the wedding band on his finger, "Yeah."
Vaughn sighed, but didn't say anything. He weakly opened the door and held it open for her. She brushed past him and headed towards the exit.
She stopped when she reached the outdoors. It was light now, she and could finally make out exactly where she was. It was a hospital, but they weren't at the main entrance. In fact, they were in a small side building that looked nearly abandoned.
Vaughn nodded to a bright red Ford Explorer, "The doors are unlocked."
The car reeked of fresh leather, the smell only enhanced by the fact that it had been sitting out in direct sunlight. From the few seconds it had taken her to cross the parking lot, Sydney was already drenched in sweat. Saying it was humid was an understatement. The few cars she could see had condensation buildup on their windows, the contrast between the cool air-conditioning and the wet air outside evident.
Vaughn took his place at the driver's wheel, and Sydney had the urge to ask him if he was sure of where he was going. She knew it was just anxiety, Vaughn was perfectly capable of handling a foreign city, and it wouldn't even be a strain. All of the street signs were in both Chinese and English. She just didn't want anything to go wrong. She wanted everything to be perfect.
In a perfect world, she reminded herself, she wouldn't be in this situation. Francie would be real, whole, alive. Will wouldn't have been injured. Her mother would be innocent. She wouldn't have lost the last two years of her life. In a perfect world, Vaughn wouldn't be married.
She sat there, in stony silence for a few seconds before she worked up the courage to ask him, "Who is she?"
"Who?" Vaughn asked, oblivious to her tone.
"Her," Sydney said, pointing at his ring. "Your wife."
"Oh, Laina."
"Her name is Laina?" Sydney asked, surprised. He didn't seem like a Laina kind of guy. Definitely more of a Sydney guy, she thought icily.
"Well, Elaina, but I call her Laina," Vaughn said, as if guarding anything remotely emotional. It was like he didn't want to tell Sydney anything about her.
"So how did you meet?"
"Syd, I don't want to talk about this right now."
"You told me you'd tell me about the past two years. You told me that a lot happened. I want to know about this. I don't care if you don't want to talk about it now, I do."
Vaughn heaved a sigh, "Can't it wait until tomorrow?"
"No it cannot wait!" Sydney exclaimed, enraged. "Because the last thing I remember is you and I planning to go to Santa Barbra. Because the last thing I remember is you dropping me off at my house. All I remember is being in love with you, and you loving me. It's the only thing I want to remember, but I can't live in a fantasy world."
Vaughn is silent for a moment, but Sydney can sense that he has given in. He just needs a moment to think.
She needs a lifetime to think.
"Elaina and I met in a different sort of way. It was through my mother, somewhat. You see, after you disappeared, I became very reclusive. My mother wanted me to go see a therapist that specialized in treating those who's loved ones were kidnapped or murdered. I refused of course, but my mother can be very conniving. Sometimes I think she should be the one working at the CIA," Vaughn laughed. "Anyway, she told me that she wanted me to deliver a package to a friend, so I went to her "friend's" office and the receptionist told me that she could see me in a minute. Turns out her "friend" was the therapist."
Sydney gave the faintest of laughs. She supposed the story would be funny if it wasn't the story of how her lover had met his wife.
"The first few sessions, I only went because of my mother. But finally I decided it was the best thing for me. I met Elaina on June 22. She had come into the waiting room in hysterics. I tried to calm her down the best I could, and she finally started to talk to me."
"I'm sorry, I just can't help it," she choked out.
Michael rubbed her back in slow circles, "It's okay. It's best to let it all out rather than hold it in."
The woman took a deep breath and let it out. "You'd think I'd have learned how to deal with this by now. It's only been twelve years."
Michael gave the woman a small smile and handed her a tissue. He wondered if the pain he felt now would last that long. "You can go into see Katherine first, if you'd like. I can wait."
"Oh no, I can make it. I don't want to steal your time. Usually just sitting in this office helps calm me down. I only come here twice a year now, and as soon as I walk in I feel a little bit better," she replied. Then her head popped up, "How very rude of me. I'm Elaina Snyder."
He shook her proffered hand, "Michael Vaughn."
"You're new here. I've never seen you before."
"Yeah, this is only my seventh time here, I think."
"Wow. Do you mind if I ask what happened?"
"My girlfriend was kidnapped, we assume. I don't know. There hasn't been any ransom note, anything. She could be dead for all we know," Michael said.
"Oh," she said, suddenly very quiet.
"And you?" he asked, trying to forget the pain the simple question had caused.
"My little sister, Hannah. She was kidnapped when she was in third grade. They found her body in a field seven months later. She'd be twenty one today, if I hadn't failed her," she whispered, fresh tears forming in her eyes.
"I'm sure you didn't fail her. With as much love as you obviously feel for her, I don't know how you could have failed her," Michael said, trying to help her. Her eyes were an uneasy shade of grey, and he could almost hear them screaming out in pain.
"It was my turn to watch her. We only live five blocks from the school, so on warm days she walked home. I sat by the window all night waiting, waiting for her to walk through the door. She never did."
"That's not failing your sister. That's having trust in society. Society, or rather one person, failed you," he stressed.
Elaina smiled at him. "You'd make a pretty good shrink, you know?"
Suddenly feeling a little bit more confident, Michael asked, "Would you like my number? In case you want to talk, but don't want to pay some outrageous price…"
She smiled again, "Yeah, I'd appreciate that. There are some days I just want someone to talk to, but I don't want to spend the money to come here. I know what Katherine is going to say to me, it's the same every time."
"It wasn't that I just gave up on you Sydney, you have to believe that. But there comes a point where one has to move on. The first few weeks after you went missing I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't talk. I felt like I did when that door slammed in front of me in Taipei. That I'd never see you again… all I wanted was for you to be safe."
"So while someone was doing god knows what to me… you were off getting married?"
"I got married two weeks ago, Sydney. It wasn't like I just ran off in search of another woman to replace you. It's not like I could ever find someone to replace you. What we had was special, and it still is. But what I have with Elaina is even more special. You of all people should understand that."
Sydney stared at him, confused.
"Didn't you feel like you needed someone to support you when Danny was killed? Didn't you feel like you need a little bit of guidance?"
"Of course I did, but I didn't go around fucking them!" Sydney screamed at him. Comparing Danny's death to her disappearance was the last straw.
Vaughn's eyes became malicious. "Don't you ever say that again. I would never, ever sleep with someone out of pain. I love Elaina with all my heart. She is a good woman, and I would never use her."
Sydney glared at him, but didn't say anything. She was mad, but she also realized that she must have hurt Vaughn.
Stony silence consumed the car, as neither side wanted to apologize to the other.
When they reached the airport, Sydney knew she had to tell Vaughn she was sorry. It was going to be a long ride home if they were still at odds. Besides, she had a lot to catch up to do in a short time.
"Vaughn, what I said earlier. I didn't mean it. I'm just… so lost and confused. If you and your wife are truly happy, then I'm happy."
Vaughn smiled at her, "Thanks, Syd."
"That's what friends are for, right?" she asked, getting settled into her seat and into her new position in Vaughn's life.
"Right," Vaughn replied. "So do you just want to ask me questions, and I'll answer them?"
"What happened to Will?"
Vaughn looked out the window as the plane began to rumble forwards. "I don't know when exactly I got to your house in relation to when you were kidnapped. All I know was when I got there the blood covering the floor, the walls… everything was still warm. I saw Will in the tub, wheezing just barely and I called the paramedics."
"Why did you come back to my house in the first place?"
"I was three blocks away from the Joint Task Force building before I realized I had left a disk I needed at your house, so I turned around and came back for it. When I got there I was in shock, there was glass everywhere. It looked like a house that had just been ripped through by a tornado. When I got to your room I saw Francie lying in a pool of blood, but I knew it was too late for her. So I was looking for you when I found Will," Vaughn replied. His distant manner told her that he was revisiting memories he didn't want to remember.
"Did they ever find the real Francie?"
"Yes. Sark told us where she was. She got a proper funeral, which is what she deserved. Her body, the real Francie's body, sat in a meat locker in Georgia for months. She was killed the day SD-6 was taken down."
Teardrops formed in the corners of her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. "What about my mother? Sloane? Sark?"
"You're never going to believe this, but Sloane was murdered by your mother about six months after you disappeared. It seems that she and Sark had been working against Sloane for some time. She really wasn't betraying us."
"Sloane is dead and my mother and Sark are good?"
"Yeah, I know. Crazy."
Sydney laughed, "Did I win the lottery by any chance?"
"I don't think so. Not everyone is that lucky."
"So what happened to my mom and Sark? I mean… did the CIA just let them go?"
"They weren't just let go. They both live in houses in LA that have CIA cameras in almost every room. They have to check in every month, and if anyone senses that they've been engaged in any illegal activity they're subject to a lie-detector test. They also have to have a personal guard whenever they leave the States and must check in every twenty four hours when they leave LA. So far, they haven't warranted any suspicion."
"Wow. Life has changed a lot, hasn't it?" Sydney said, mulling over the fact that her whole world had gone on without her.
"It'll take you a while to get back into the swing of things, but I think you'll find that although a few things have changed, in the grand scheme of things not that much has changed. Your dad is still the most intimidating person on the face of the planet, Marshall still stutters and gets flustered, Kendall still has something up his ass," Vaughn joked.
"Do you think I could get my job back?"
"I'm sure you could. You'll have to go under intense evaluation, drug induced regression, and lie testing before they'll let you out of their sight, but you'll pass."
"So how is my dad?"
"Good. I saw him right as I was about to take off, and I swear he was emitting some sort of radioactive glow. I've never actually seen him smile, so it was almost scary. He's so glad that you're back and safe. When you disappeared it was like his whole life was gone. You could tell that he was regretting and second-guessing every decision he had ever made while raising you. He loves you so much, Syd. You're his world."
"I know," Sydney said quietly. She laid her head down on the pillow provided and yawned. "I'm tired, I'm going to take a nap. Wake me before we land?"
"Of course."
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-Abs
