I'm really excited about this story! This chapter was fun to write so I hope y'all have fun reading it. Thanks to all for reading my little story, and please remember to review, I've gotten very little response lately and I'm wondering if anyone is actually reading this.
But enough from me, I present to you chapter eight.
She had run as fast as she could out of the club, Vaughn's desperate pleas for her response echoed in her ears as she tried to control her sobbing. Her thoughts jumbled in a heap as she ran through the dark streets of Paris. Sydney stopped to catch her breath and realized she had somehow managed to find her way back to her hotel. She attempted to gather herself together before she entered, and finally responded to the persistent voice coming through her com link. "I'm okay." She gasped.
"Sydney, what happened?" Vaughn questioned, with another myriad of questions following.
Sydney shook her head as if to clear her thoughts, she couldn't process anything. "I, I have to go." She managed to squeak out as she pulled her com link out. She didn't remember thinking or talking as she later found herself in her hotel room, staring at a mirror at the reflection of herself. Her eyes seemed to glaze over as she reached up and touched her cheek, studying herself in the mirror. She turned retrieved her cell phone. She dialed the only person she knew could possibly answer the millions of questions flooding her mind.
~~***~~
Vaughn was sitting in his hotel room across town. Connected by the com links, the mission had seemed to be going well. That was until he noticed the amount of time that had passed. He stood up and restlessly paced the room. It shouldn't have taken Sydney that long to extract the briefcase. He rubbed his hand over his face, attempting to calm himself, but he was too worried. Vaughn took a seat on the edge of the bed and decided to radio base ops to confirm Sydney's position in the club with the tracer they had previously implanted in her shoulder.
"Base Ops this is Boy Scout, can I get a 20 on Mountaineer's position?" He asked.
"Boy Scout, we copy, Mountaineer is still in position." The voice rang back to him. There was nothing he could do now but wait. It seemed like an eternity before he heard Sydney switch her com link back on. He heard her frantic gasps over the com links, still masked by the loud pounding of the music from the club.
"What's wrong? Are you hurt?" He asked, picking up on the sobs coming from her end. "Sydney what happened?"
After getting no response except the sounds of her ragged breathing and her footsteps against the pavement, Vaughn was becoming increasingly anxious. After inquiring repeatedly and getting no answers, Vaughn was about to go insane, stuck in his hotel room, completely useless. There was no way he could go to her because of SD-6 security. He was helpless as he strained to hear the activity happening on the other side of the com link. Finally Vaughn heard a shaky voice, "I'm okay."
He breathed a huge sigh of relief but immediately knew something was wrong. Vaughn jumped in, hurtling questions at her, desperate to confirm she was unharmed. There was no response, then finally a small voice came back to him as it stammered, "I, I have to go." Vaughn pressed for more but was interrupted by silence. She had turned her com link off.
Frustrated, Vaughn stood up determinedly as he radioed base ops again. There was no way he was going to sit around and do nothing when Sydney was going through who knows what. "Base Ops I need confirmation on Mountaineer's position again." He spoke hurriedly.
"Roger that, hold on a moment." He heard the voice say, as Vaughn gathered up his coat and put his gun in his shoulder holster as he heard the voice speak up again, "Boy Scout, Mountaineer is at resting position." He said, indicating she had returned to the hotel.
"Alright." He simply stated, too preoccupied to respond any further, and not about to let Kendal know what he was about to do.
***Meanwhile***
"Jack Bristow." Jack answered quickly.
"Dad?" A small voice questioned into the phone.
"Sydney?" All ears perked up at her name. Jack listened for a moment but all he could hear was the sound of his daughter's labored breathing. Jack's mind raced as he started to worry. "Sydney where are you? Are you alright?" He questioned frantically.
There was a pause at the other end of the phone. "I shot her Dad." She confessed. "I shot her in the shoulder."
"Who?" Jack inquired while Devlin and Irina strained to hear the conversation. There was another long pause, followed by a few gasps of air.
"Me." She answered in a fearful voice. Jack glanced over at Irina, wondering about her almost miraculous timing. Jack's mind was going a thousand miles a minute when he heard her voice come over on the line, as he deduced that she must have met her twin. "What's going on Dad?" She questioned, her voice carrying a little more confidence.
Jack took a deep breath and tried to fathom how he would explain her twin to her, when he had just heard it himself, and was just as shocked as Sydney would be. "Sydney, I need you to tell me you're okay. Are you okay? Where are you?" He inquired, his brow furrowing with concern.
"Dad, I'm fine. I'm in my hotel room, now tell me what the hell is going on." She stated in a determined voice.
"Okay, Sydney, I need you to listen to me, I'm going to hand this over to your mother now…"
"You're with mom?" She asked, even more surprised than she thought one could possibly be in one day.
"Yes. Now, your mother will explain everything to you. I'm sorry you couldn't have found out sooner, but frankly I just found out about this myself." He said. "Now, here is your mother." He stated, handing his phone over to the woman who once was his wife.
***Later***
He found her in her hotel room, exhausted and defeated, as she lay haphazardly strewn across the bed. She was still wearing her outfit, the laced up tank top, with a mini skirt. She was too drained to change. She bolted up from the bed when she heard his voice. She was too preoccupied to have noticed him enter.
"Sydney." He breathed, as a wave of relief washed over him, now that he saw her there, relatively unscathed. He rushed over to her side, immediately noticing she was devastated, her eyes swollen from crying, her body fatigued from the awful fight, her mind filled with almost more than she could handle. "Are you okay Syd?" He questioned as he took her face in his hands as she sat on the edge of the bed. "What happened?"
Sydney, yet to speak, looked at him with puzzled eyes as she felt her bottom lip starting to tremble again. She hated it when she cried, and lately it seemed that was all she could do. Suddenly a damn broke lose as she collapsed into his arms, gushing random words as she sobbed: gun, fight, twin sister, shot, ran. Vaughn held her close as he tried to decipher her disconnected words, but decided not to question them quite yet and to let her cry.
A while later after she had calmed down she started to speak, giving the condensed version of the past two hours and the start of her life.
"There was some trouble at the club." She began slowly as she sat down at the edge of the bed and Vaughn followed suit while he listened with eager ears. "It was going fine, but I had to take out Stretrehof and his guards in the basement. That went fine until she showed herself." Sydney said quietly, shuddering as she recalled the event.
"Who?" He asked intently.
"Me." She stated, her eyes seeming to glaze over as she got lost in her thoughts.
"What?" Vaughn questioned with a confused look playing across his worried features.
"My twin." She stated in shaky voice. Vaughn listened with and incredulous look on his face, while she unraveled the seemingly fairytale like account of how she fought the mirror image of herself, and shot her in the shoulder.
Vaughn studied her face, looking deep into her eyes. "Syd, are you sure?"
She appeared to be taken aback at his question. "Of course I'm sure."
He looked at her stricken face and wondered for a moment if she could have been hallucinating.
"Syd, you don't have a twin." He said, trying to bring her back to reality.
She gave a short laugh as she shook her head. "Apparently I do." The look on Vaughn's face morphed from suspicion to shock as he listened to her words. "I just got off the phone with my mother." She said quietly while he gave her an even more surprised look.
She took a breath and decided just to dive right into the seemingly absurd and bizarre tale. "Vaughn, when my mother gave birth to me, I was," She paused, hearing herself say the words made it seem even more preposterous. "I had a twin."
"I was born at a hospital infiltrated with KGB agents. My mother hadn't told my dad she was carrying twins, and he never found out. Until today. He was in the field while I," She paused again and corrected herself, "We were born. The KGB agents confiscated the other baby, and used her for their experiment, the replica of Project Christmas." She stared at the flowered quilt that lay on the bed and started to fiddle with the edge of it, avoiding Vaughn's eyes.
Her voice got shaky as she revealed the next part. "They used her to create the perfect spy, she was brilliant, and smart and used as a tool. She began performing missions for the KGB at the age of ten and she escaped from the project when she was fifteen. She had no relationships, the KGB wouldn't let my mother be with her, and she never had had any interaction with other people containing emotion. Then she began working for herself, being a spy -it was the only thing she knew how to do."
"However, before she left the KGB she was assigned to a mission. The mission was to kill me." She stated, her tone indifferent. "Unfortunately for her my mother stepped in and sabotaged her mission. Not only did it stain her flawless reputation, it drew out an extreme hatred towards my mother." She stated, "And me."
Vaughn's mind was racing as he tried to comprehend Sydney's words. "Ever since she escaped, the KGB lost track of her, the Alliance and the CIA were still in the dark about her existence. Until recently. Her name is Nadia Salvko. My mother loosely kept tabs on her, but lost contact with her associates and heard she was sent to a Turkish prison."
Vaughn kept his eyes locked upon Sydney. He watched this amazing woman recount a tale that could be fit for a storybook, which was her life. He stared at her beauty as his brain began piecing together all of the information, which was so unbelievable that it could only belong to Sydney Bristow. "And that's why all the bogus data has come up recently." He concluded. "The video footage, the break into Langley, she's out for revenge. Your mother marred her reputation; she was going to destroy yours. And then…" He stated, his voice drifting off.
"Kill me." She finished for him. "Exactly." Sydney agreed as she played with the edge of the quilt they were sitting. Tears began to form behind her eyes but she held them back as she swallowed and took a deep breath.
Vaughn looked over at her, he could tell she was about to break but wouldn't let herself. He turned to her and took her in her arms again, defeated in the fact that the only time he ever got to hold her was when she was distraught. He held her close as he whispered in to her ear, "It's going to be okay Syd, it's going to be okay." As her breaths evened out and a serene silence hung about the room.
Suddenly a shrill beeping abruptly broke the quiet atmosphere as Vaughn cell phone rang. He shifted as he fished his phone out of the pocket in the coat he was wearing.
"Agent Vaughn." He barely got the words out as he heard the other voice come over the line.
"Agent Vaughn, where the hell are you?" Kendal's voice demanded. Sydney looked at Vaughn with questioning eyes before quickly figuring out who it was. Vaughn stood up and paced the room while he spoke.
"I'm at Sydney's hotel sir." He answered in an even voice.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for you to be there?" Kendal started to lecture.
"Yes I do Mr. Kendal, but presently I think the new situation concerning Nadia Salvko is a far more dangerous threat to Sydney than SD-6 security detail."
"Agent Vaughn, you do not have the clearance or the authority to be in contact with Agent Bristow during a mission. You are aware that your presence could compromise agent Bristow's double agent status, not to mention jeopardize the CIA's position."
"Yes and I'm also fully aware of the danger that Nadia Salvko brings to…" He began to argue forcefully.
"Agent Vaughn, I'm not even going to begin to state the innumerable breaches in protocol that you presence ensures, not to mention the fragility of Agent Bristow's current unstable state…" Kendal spat out angrily.
"Sir I will not let you interfere with the well being of my agent." Vaughn interrupted as Sydney watched him pace about the room, as he brought his hands over his face and to the back of his neck in frustration.
Kendal sighed, frustrated at Vaughn's persistence. "Alright Agent Vaughn, you win. However I'm ordering you to stay put until extraction, we cannot take the chances of having you be spotted by SD-6 security."
"I agree, Thank you sir." Vaughn said, visibly relieved.
"Oh and Agent Vaughn, you better pray that nothing happens." Kendal warned before disconnecting.
He switched off his cell phone and found Sydney studying him with questioning eyes. He looked at her, and a surge of both pain and love shot through his heart for her. He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but it was overshadowed by the deep creases of worry on his forehead.
"Looks like I'm here for the night." He said as he sat down on the bed beside her.
Sydney gave a small half smile as she leaned over and rested on his shoulder. "Good."
Vaughn instinctively put his arm around her as they sat in silence, both minds racing furiously, trying to comprehend the events of the last couple of hours and what it would all portend.
***Meanwhile, At JTF***
Jack, Irina, Kendal and Delvin all sat in the briefing room, trying to make sense of the latest developments.
"Why now?" Kendal asked, pointedly staring at Irina.
"As far as I know, Nadia Salvko has usually dealt with black op trade markets. Illegal weaponry, sales to independent buyers. During this time, she was bound to come in contact with the Alliance." She said thoughtfully.
"Do you think Sloane knows about her?" Devlin questioned.
Jack spoke up, "I don't believe so. If Sloane had known the existence of Salvko he would have acted on it."
"I agree. I'm sure he is aware of her presence," Irina carefully stated. "But not of who she is."
Jack nodded as Irina seemed to get lost in thought for a moment. Irina looked up, "She's after Rambaldi." She stated simply.
"If she's after Rambaldi why wouldn't she be working with Sloane?" Devlin questioned.
Irina confidently spoke up again, "Nadia is too independent to work with anyone, let alone for someone. She's motivated by greed, by the thrill of accomplishing a mission, finding something no one else has."
"Of course." Jack added quietly piecing all the information together. "It all makes sense now. Rambaldi's prophecy, all this time we thought it was Sydney."
"So what do we do?" Devlin questioned, looking at the group.
Kendal spoke up. "Contact Salvko. Set up a meeting between Sydney and Salvko. Have Sydney take her down and her bring her in."
"I can arrange a meeting." Irina added.
"And just how do you plan on doing that?" Jack asked bluntly, obviously opposed to the idea.
"I have my contacts." She replied, unaffected.
"So you plan on using Sydney as bait." He confirmed as Devlin and Kendal watched the two interact.
"In a matter of speaking, yes."
"It's too dangerous, I will not let it happen." Jack stated.
"Sydney would have the advantage," She argued. "Sydney shot Nadia in the shoulder."
"Like mother like daughter." Jack spat at her.
"We need to act on this and we need to act now." Irina stated softly.
"There is no way I'm going to let you use my daughter as bait to bring in someone who is trying to kill her." Jack said defiantly, his anger rising.
"In case you have forgotten Jack, that someone who is trying to kill her is also your daughter." Irina spat back, her eyes locking with his.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Jack questioned.
"We need Nadia here Jack. As long as she is free she will always pose a serious threat to Sydney and to who know else." Irina said firmly. "It's for Sydney's own safety."
"If you were so concerned for Sydney's safety you would have prevented this entire situation thirty years ago." Jack said vehemently.
Irina was silent.
"It's too dangerous, we have no way of knowing what Salvko will do, she could bring a full back-up team for all we know." Jack asserted.
"Jack we have to do something." Kendal cut in. "We can't just leave Agent Bristow in Paris, SD-6 security detail will get suspicious, not to mention the obvious. If Salvko is really out for revenge and to kill Sydney, she's not going to pay any attention to the repercussions her presence may cause. She could strike at any moment, completely compromising Sydney's cover at SD-6. That alone could get Sydney killed, not to mention the fact that she's being hunted by a former KGB assassin."
A silence followed as Jack looked up from the table. His eyes scanned the room, from Devlin to Kendal until they rested on Irina. She sat up straight, jaw set, her long brown hair fell down her shoulders while she stubbornly returned his gaze.
He sighed, "Alright. Let's move."
~~***~~
They sat in silence for a long time. Finally Vaughn turned and looked at her. "You should really get some sleep." He said, his eyes sweeping over her delicate features.
"I'm not tired." She said stubbornly, obviously exhausted.
"Syd, you're exhausted, get some sleep."
She sighed and looked at the clock. "I'm just going to go change out of these clothes." She said. Vaughn glanced at her apparel, she was still dressed in her wild outfit she'd worn to the club.
He nodded as she stood up and crossed over to the restroom. He sighed and rubbed his hands over his eyes. He listened to the sounds of her changing, of the running water as he took his coat off and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees as he cradled his chin on his palms, his fingers covering his eyes, as he tried to fathom the enormity of the situation, and most of all Sydney.
Sydney had finished washing her face, and was now staring in the mirror. How was it possible that she could have a twin and not know it? God, her life was like one messed up version of the Parent Trap. She studied her reflection as she reached up and pulled her hair back, the reflection perfectly copying as predicted. She thought back to the fight, both of them mirroring each other perfectly, blocking every move. Almost every move. She shut her eyes for a moment as saw herself shoot Nadia, her perfect image. Sydney could still feel the cold gun in her hands as she trembled, right before she had shot her. She quickly opened her eyes again, and found herself looking back in the mirror. Suddenly she couldn't look at herself any longer. She quickly left the room, shutting the door behind her.
She emerged in a tank top and a pair of gray sweatpants. He glanced up from his perch on the bed as his eyes reached hers. Her chocolate brown eyes were filled with fear, confusion, and loneliness.
Vaughn's mind raced as his heart pounded in his chest. He suddenly felt free from the constraints that had previously held him back. He crossed the room towards her, she welcomed his embrace as she buried her head into his chest. No words were spoken, just a silent understanding. Vaughn held her tight, wishing that he could magically make all of her problems disappear. Before his mind knew what he was doing, he drew her back and looked into her eyes as she neared him, each feeling each other's warm breath on their skin. Vaughn drew her in again, this time bringing her to his lips.
All thoughts flew out the window as he felt her lips against his. The kiss, starting out gentle, but growing more passionate as each second flew by. She moved closer to him, running her fingers through his hair as his hands traveled down her back. Finally they pulled away from each other, both in need of air.
His eyes rested on her, he found her staring at her feet, a slight smile upon her lips. He gave a short laugh and took her hands in his. She looked up into his eyes as she spoke. "And I thought nothing would distract me from my thoughts tonight." She joked. He looked down at her with sympathy as he fathomed the enormity of the situation and her strength. He took a breath, "You should really get to bed."
She nodded as her gaze traveled from his eyes to her feet. "Vaughn?" She questioned softly, "Stay with me tonight."
He said nothing, just looked into her bright brown eyes that were pleading his presence. He nodded as he caressed her face gently.
She took his hand and led them to the bed. No words were spoken as they silently slid under the covers. He pulled her body close to his as she buried herself in his chest; his arms encircled her in his strong embrace. He felt her body relax against his as he shut his eyes and cherished the feeling of her close to him, memorizing her scent, her touch, her breathing, the beating of her heart against his.
"Goodnight Vaughn." She whispered as her breathing evened. He gently brushed a strand of hair away from her face, marveling at her beauty. The way her long eyelashes brushed her cheeks when she shut her eyes, the way her lips slightly parted as her breathing became rhythmic.
"Goodnight Syd." He replied. But she was already fast asleep.
A/N -This chapter got a little long, hopefully not too drawn out for y'all. Sorry no real cliffhanger here, but I promise there'll be a good one next chapter. Hehe. As always, please review! And thank you so much for reading!
