Author's Note: While I patiently wait for FF.net to let me see all of my reviews for Surmising Alliances, (It says 270-something, but I can only view 260-something), here's a brand new story that I wrote for the SD-1.com August challenge.
Summary: Two men died when I pulled the trigger. Both were cause for celebration.
Episode: The Box, Part II
Rating: PG-13, because of subject matter.
Sometime recently, I realized something.
I was a mockery of myself.
And I was glad.
I've known I wanted to do since I was eight and three men in suits left my maman in shambles.
There was never any doubt that the little boy that had lost his father would follow in his footsteps, would continue the quest that William Vaughn had been so brutally removed from.
To be the keystone of a US Intelligence Community that is pre-eminent in the world, known for both the high quality of our work and the excellence of our people.
CIA company line.
I'm not naïve. Loosing a father ensures that. But I had always assumed, perhaps at the back of my mind, that I would never take a life. My father had been stolen and I could never do that to another little boy, or another mother. The cycle of violence would end with me.
But my plans had not allowed for Sydney A. Bristow.
Weiss just came in. "I think something's wrong with me," I say, when he plants himself in front of my desk and refuses to move until I talk. "I'm supposed to see Barnett to talk about… to talk about what I did."
I almost can't say it. Can't think it. It's as though not doing either makes it not exist.
Even though I don't regret it.
I killed a man yesterday. And I was glad I did. I didn't stop to wonder how his mother would cope, or if his father was a strong man that would nevertheless break down at his funeral. I shot him and I watched though huge eyes as he sank to the ground, bleeding from an injury that would never heal. From my hand.
And I was glad.
"I did it for Sydney," I say aloud.
Weiss snorts, causing me to jump. I hadn't realized he was still standing there.
"You're just now realizing, Mike? 'Cause it's pretty much blindingly obvious to everyone else in the office that everything you do is for the benefit of a certain pouty brunette."
I shake my head. "You don't understand," I try to explain.
The second the gun fired, thoughts and logic vanished in the face of cold reality. If I didn't kill him, he was going to kill me.
So I killed him. And I was glad.
Two men died when I pulled the trigger. Both were cause for celebration.
With him died the principled man, the man who prized logic and strategy above all else. The man who lived in the box made of restrictions that would have proved fatal.
The man who would not have shot that gun.
The man who, ultimately, would have been responsible for the death of Sydney Bristow because he would not have shot that gun.
And that was cause for celebration because the death of the old Michael Vaughn meant that Sydney would survive for the next fight.
Sometime recently, I realized something.
I was a mockery of myself.
And I was glad.
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