The Photograph
**********
When she walked by the people in the operations center, they glanced up at her as they would any person walking by their desk. Then they returned to their work. A split second later, after processing what they had just seen, their eyes darted up in disbelief.
Surely the Great Sydney Bristow hadn't returned from the dead.
Pens dropped out of their hands and cups of steaming coffee were spilled over paperwork. Their eyes followed her as she made her way through the room. People Sydney had never met stared, not even noticing that their mouths hung ajar. The loud mixture of furious typing, printers running, and talking came to an abrupt halt. The phones even stopped ringing for the length of time it took Sydney, Will, and Jack to walk from the elevator to the conference room.
And Sydney ignored it all. She walked straight for the door, and Will kept his hand on her shoulder the whole way.
Once they stood in front of the entrance to the conference room, Sydney lowered her head, shut her eyes, and took a deep breath. Jack pushed the door open.
As soon as she walked in, she was greeted with huge smiles and open arms. Dixon was the first to reach Sydney. He stood in front of her for a moment, looking for the right words.
"Sydney..." he said, as if he didn't believe she was really there.
He shouldn't be able to believe it, Will thought. Just two days ago she was dead.
Dixon's mouth hung open, as if he were about to speak, but all he could do was laugh. "Sydney..." he said again, as he put his arms around her.
Weiss and Marshall's reactions were much the same - stunned silence and hugs.
And Sydney was crying. But they didn't seem like tears of sadness to Will. Sydney was overwhelmed by the happiness of her friends, he thought. Some of their joy was being transferred to her for just a moment.
It wasn't until the three men moved from the row they had formed in front of Sydney that Will even saw him. Someone he hadn't seen in this building in months.
Vaughn. Sitting in the corner, watching them welcome her back.
****************
About two months after being shot, Vaughn invited Michelle, Weiss, and Will over to watch a hockey game. Will and Weiss had never met Michelle before, and they weren't sure what to expect. As soon as the game was over she stood up to leave. She had to go home and catch a few hours of sleep before going to the hospital early the next morning. She gave Vaughn a hug and left.
After a few second of silence, Will spoke. "She seems great..."
"Yeah, she is," Vaughn replied.
"How did you say you met? She was your nurse?" Will asked.
"Yup," he said as he grabbed another beer from the fridge.
"Does she hit on all her patients or just you?" Weiss joked.
"No..." Vaughn laughed. "She didn't hit on me. I, uh, I called her."
"Oh," Weiss said, sarcastically.
"No, I mean, not to ask her out or anything. She gave me her number in case I needed anything," Vaughn explained. "And a week or so after I left the hospital, I needed something."
There was an awkward pause in the conversation. That "something" needed a definition, and everyone in the room knew it.
"Guys, I...I have to tell you something," Vaughn said, rubbing his face with his hand. "I wasn't going to tell you, but it just seems like..."
"What?" Will asked. The cursing, cheering, and general rowdiness that had filled the room moments ago during the game had suddenly been replaced with complete silence and complete seriousness.
"After I was shot, they...they gave me some pills...some, you know, some painkillers."
Will could already see where this was going. "Vaughn. You didn't try..."
"No. No, I didn't. But...I thought about it." Weiss and Will both stared at Vaughn, unsure of what to say. "I was sitting there...really thinking about it."
"So you called Michelle?" Will asked.
"Yeah," Vaughn nodded.
From the short time he had spent with her, Will could understand why anyone would be attracted to Michelle - he could tell she was funny, smart, and good-natured. But he hadn't seen what it was that qualified her to be the first one after Sydney. What did she have that broke through to Vaughn? After hearing Vaughn's story, he knew what it was. Sydney wasn't the only woman who had saved Vaughn's life any more.
They switched to ESPN and the three of them watched TV in complete silence.
A few months later, as Vaughn filled a box with the items from his desk at the CIA, Will thought about that conversation and he was happy to see Vaughn go. He knew what this job was doing to Vaughn. He knew how exhausted he was and how depressed he was. He also knew that Vaughn was beginning to move on. But he couldn't move on if he stayed here.
Will knew that if Vaughn didn't get away, he would never stop living his life around her. Vaughn held his box under one arm, and shook coworker's hands with the other. The whole way to the elevator he was met by person after person wanting to shake his hand. They all wished him good luck and smiled, while secretly wondering how such a talented agent was ruined by a single death.
But none of them knew Sydney the way that he did. If they had, they would have been ruined too.
Weiss and Will waited by the elevator. When Vaughn finally made it to them, he shook their hands.
"Take care of yourself," Will said.
"And don't forget about us when you feel like going to a hockey game," Weiss added.
Vaughn shook his head and smiled. "Guys, it's not like we're never gonna see each other. We'll hang out."
"Yeah, we'll hang out," said Weiss.
The elevator doors opened. Vaughn stepped in and turned around to face them. "It's just a break. I'll be back before you know it."
***************
Evidently, Sydney hadn't seen him sitting in the corner, either. Her expression went blank for a moment, and then she forced herself to smile faintly. Vaughn stood up from his chair and walked up to her.
"I already got to see you, so, you know, I didn't want to interrupt," he said. She nodded.
"Anyway, I just wanted to say welcome back," he continued, nervously. Sydney nodded again.
"Thanks," she said. He leaned in, as if to give her a hug, but instead he kissed her lightly on the cheek. Then he left the room.
As Will stood with Sydney, Weiss, Marshall, and Dixon, he couldn't believe the irony of the situation. They stood in a room where, in meeting after meeting, they were told that no evidence had been found, that the lead had turned up empty, that they had no more clues.
That Sydney was gone.
And now, in that very same room where she had practically been declared dead, was Sydney Bristow, laughing and chatting about nothing at all.
That was exactly what Sydney needed, Will thought to himself as he watched her. She needed Dixon to show her pictures of his kids. She needed Marshall to talk about his wedding and his new house. She needed Weiss to joke with her. She needed to be distracted.
Will needed to be distracted, too. But every time he started to think about something else, his mind raced back to the news that Sydney would eventually have to hear, and the cold feeling inside him would return.
After nearly half an hour of standing quietly while Sydney caught up with her friends, Jack came in and quietly tapped Will on the shoulder. Will hadn't even noticed Jack leave the room, but he followed him to another conference room where Kendall and Vaughn sat, staring at a computer screen.
"What is it?" Will asked.
"We just received an e-mail," answered Jack.
"From?"
"It appears to be from Irina Derevko," stated Jack.
"What? We haven't heard from her in..."
"Almost two years..." Kendall interrupted.
"What did it say?" Will asked.
"It's a picture," Jack explained.
Vaughn motioned for Will to walk over to the other side of the computer screen. He did, and couldn't believe what he saw.
The image was a chubby baby girl in a pink dress. Underneath it were a few words, which Will read even though he already knew who was in the picture.
"Sydney's baby. Today."
************
Several years earlier Will had been in Sydney's apartment, waiting for her to get ready for a dinner. While he was waiting, he looked closely at the pictures on her bookshelves.
Sydney and Francie at the beach. Sydney and Danny at a birthday party. Will and Francie at Disneyland.
And then he came across a picture that was very different from the others. In a shiny, silver frame was a faded picture of a young woman, who looked almost identical to Sydney. She was sitting in a rocking chair, holding a chubby baby girl. He laughed at the picture and took it off the mantle.
"Ready, Will?" she asked as she walked out of her bedroom, still hooking her earring.
"Syd, you were the chubbiest baby I have ever seen in my life," he joked, showing her the picture. She laughed. "I mean, of course now you're not..."
"It's ok, Will. I know," she said, flashing one of her huge grins.
Will looked back at the picture. "It's funny though. I swear, even if this picture weren't in your house and your mother didn't look exactly like you, I think I would've known it was you."
"Really?" she asked.
"Yeah. Your eyes, they're exactly the same."
"Will," she said, smiling, "we're gonna be late."
***********
The four men sat huddled around the computer, trying to figure it out.
"He already had the device, why does he care about the baby?" Kendall asked, raising his voice above the others.
"And what about Irina appearing out of nowhere?" added Jack.
Will's thoughts were drowning it all out. He wasn't even listening to the bickering taking place around him. All he was doing was staring at the picture on the screen.
"It looks just like Sydney. I mean, those eyes..." Will thought no one was paying attention, but a few seconds later, Vaughn spoke up.
"Wait, Will, what did you say?"
"She looks just like Sydney. It's unbelievable..." Another couple of minutes went by, but Will could tell Vaughn, too, had lost interest in the debate. Something was bothering him...
"My God," said Vaughn suddenly.
Jack and Kendall stopped arguing. "What?" asked Jack.
"Why didn't we think of this before?" asked Vaughn. "It's so obvious, it's so..."
"What?" Jack asked again.
"Do you remember, right before she disappeared, when she was on the roof with Irina?"
"What about it?" asked Kendall.
"Sydney said that her mother believed Sydney was the one in the prophecy..." Vaughn explained.
"Derevko didn't believe the prophecy was about herself," agreed Jack.
"But we know it can't be Sydney," Vaughn continued. "She saw the mountain, it can't be Sydney...but..."
"But it has to be someone that looks like she does. The sketch looks just like Sydney..." said Jack, beginning to see where this was going.
"Vaughn, you're not saying...wait a minute, you're not..." Will stammered, not willing to believe what he was hearing.
"Assuming Irina wasn't lying to Sydney when she told Sydney the prophecy wasn't about her..." Jack interrupted.
"Let's assume that for the time being," said Kendall.
"It wasn't Irina and it wasn't Sydney in the prophecy. My point is, couldn't it have been the baby?" asked Vaughn.
"You're saying that they did this c-section in order to take her baby because the baby is the one in the prophecy?" Kendall asked incredulously. "It doesn't make sense."
And then it hit Will. He suddenly understood. "No. That's not the point. They didn't just do the c-section to get the baby. The whole reason they kidnapped Sydney was to get the baby."
Kendall still didn't believe it.
"Look, it's been two years since the device was assembled. Unless I missed something while I was gone, it hasn't been used yet..." Vaughn continued.
"Because Sloane had the machine, but he didn't have the person he needed to use it. The person Rambaldi had chosen," Jack said.
Kendall finally looked convinced. He lowered his head. "And now he does."
___________________
The end for now. I apologize if there are typos or other mistakes in here, or if it generally doesn't make sense - I am up really late right now trying to get this finished before I leave for vacation tomorrow morning. It'll be at least 10 days until the next chapter is up. Please don't forget about me!
Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed the chapters before this. Please review this chapter, also!
Thanks for reading!
**********
When she walked by the people in the operations center, they glanced up at her as they would any person walking by their desk. Then they returned to their work. A split second later, after processing what they had just seen, their eyes darted up in disbelief.
Surely the Great Sydney Bristow hadn't returned from the dead.
Pens dropped out of their hands and cups of steaming coffee were spilled over paperwork. Their eyes followed her as she made her way through the room. People Sydney had never met stared, not even noticing that their mouths hung ajar. The loud mixture of furious typing, printers running, and talking came to an abrupt halt. The phones even stopped ringing for the length of time it took Sydney, Will, and Jack to walk from the elevator to the conference room.
And Sydney ignored it all. She walked straight for the door, and Will kept his hand on her shoulder the whole way.
Once they stood in front of the entrance to the conference room, Sydney lowered her head, shut her eyes, and took a deep breath. Jack pushed the door open.
As soon as she walked in, she was greeted with huge smiles and open arms. Dixon was the first to reach Sydney. He stood in front of her for a moment, looking for the right words.
"Sydney..." he said, as if he didn't believe she was really there.
He shouldn't be able to believe it, Will thought. Just two days ago she was dead.
Dixon's mouth hung open, as if he were about to speak, but all he could do was laugh. "Sydney..." he said again, as he put his arms around her.
Weiss and Marshall's reactions were much the same - stunned silence and hugs.
And Sydney was crying. But they didn't seem like tears of sadness to Will. Sydney was overwhelmed by the happiness of her friends, he thought. Some of their joy was being transferred to her for just a moment.
It wasn't until the three men moved from the row they had formed in front of Sydney that Will even saw him. Someone he hadn't seen in this building in months.
Vaughn. Sitting in the corner, watching them welcome her back.
****************
About two months after being shot, Vaughn invited Michelle, Weiss, and Will over to watch a hockey game. Will and Weiss had never met Michelle before, and they weren't sure what to expect. As soon as the game was over she stood up to leave. She had to go home and catch a few hours of sleep before going to the hospital early the next morning. She gave Vaughn a hug and left.
After a few second of silence, Will spoke. "She seems great..."
"Yeah, she is," Vaughn replied.
"How did you say you met? She was your nurse?" Will asked.
"Yup," he said as he grabbed another beer from the fridge.
"Does she hit on all her patients or just you?" Weiss joked.
"No..." Vaughn laughed. "She didn't hit on me. I, uh, I called her."
"Oh," Weiss said, sarcastically.
"No, I mean, not to ask her out or anything. She gave me her number in case I needed anything," Vaughn explained. "And a week or so after I left the hospital, I needed something."
There was an awkward pause in the conversation. That "something" needed a definition, and everyone in the room knew it.
"Guys, I...I have to tell you something," Vaughn said, rubbing his face with his hand. "I wasn't going to tell you, but it just seems like..."
"What?" Will asked. The cursing, cheering, and general rowdiness that had filled the room moments ago during the game had suddenly been replaced with complete silence and complete seriousness.
"After I was shot, they...they gave me some pills...some, you know, some painkillers."
Will could already see where this was going. "Vaughn. You didn't try..."
"No. No, I didn't. But...I thought about it." Weiss and Will both stared at Vaughn, unsure of what to say. "I was sitting there...really thinking about it."
"So you called Michelle?" Will asked.
"Yeah," Vaughn nodded.
From the short time he had spent with her, Will could understand why anyone would be attracted to Michelle - he could tell she was funny, smart, and good-natured. But he hadn't seen what it was that qualified her to be the first one after Sydney. What did she have that broke through to Vaughn? After hearing Vaughn's story, he knew what it was. Sydney wasn't the only woman who had saved Vaughn's life any more.
They switched to ESPN and the three of them watched TV in complete silence.
A few months later, as Vaughn filled a box with the items from his desk at the CIA, Will thought about that conversation and he was happy to see Vaughn go. He knew what this job was doing to Vaughn. He knew how exhausted he was and how depressed he was. He also knew that Vaughn was beginning to move on. But he couldn't move on if he stayed here.
Will knew that if Vaughn didn't get away, he would never stop living his life around her. Vaughn held his box under one arm, and shook coworker's hands with the other. The whole way to the elevator he was met by person after person wanting to shake his hand. They all wished him good luck and smiled, while secretly wondering how such a talented agent was ruined by a single death.
But none of them knew Sydney the way that he did. If they had, they would have been ruined too.
Weiss and Will waited by the elevator. When Vaughn finally made it to them, he shook their hands.
"Take care of yourself," Will said.
"And don't forget about us when you feel like going to a hockey game," Weiss added.
Vaughn shook his head and smiled. "Guys, it's not like we're never gonna see each other. We'll hang out."
"Yeah, we'll hang out," said Weiss.
The elevator doors opened. Vaughn stepped in and turned around to face them. "It's just a break. I'll be back before you know it."
***************
Evidently, Sydney hadn't seen him sitting in the corner, either. Her expression went blank for a moment, and then she forced herself to smile faintly. Vaughn stood up from his chair and walked up to her.
"I already got to see you, so, you know, I didn't want to interrupt," he said. She nodded.
"Anyway, I just wanted to say welcome back," he continued, nervously. Sydney nodded again.
"Thanks," she said. He leaned in, as if to give her a hug, but instead he kissed her lightly on the cheek. Then he left the room.
As Will stood with Sydney, Weiss, Marshall, and Dixon, he couldn't believe the irony of the situation. They stood in a room where, in meeting after meeting, they were told that no evidence had been found, that the lead had turned up empty, that they had no more clues.
That Sydney was gone.
And now, in that very same room where she had practically been declared dead, was Sydney Bristow, laughing and chatting about nothing at all.
That was exactly what Sydney needed, Will thought to himself as he watched her. She needed Dixon to show her pictures of his kids. She needed Marshall to talk about his wedding and his new house. She needed Weiss to joke with her. She needed to be distracted.
Will needed to be distracted, too. But every time he started to think about something else, his mind raced back to the news that Sydney would eventually have to hear, and the cold feeling inside him would return.
After nearly half an hour of standing quietly while Sydney caught up with her friends, Jack came in and quietly tapped Will on the shoulder. Will hadn't even noticed Jack leave the room, but he followed him to another conference room where Kendall and Vaughn sat, staring at a computer screen.
"What is it?" Will asked.
"We just received an e-mail," answered Jack.
"From?"
"It appears to be from Irina Derevko," stated Jack.
"What? We haven't heard from her in..."
"Almost two years..." Kendall interrupted.
"What did it say?" Will asked.
"It's a picture," Jack explained.
Vaughn motioned for Will to walk over to the other side of the computer screen. He did, and couldn't believe what he saw.
The image was a chubby baby girl in a pink dress. Underneath it were a few words, which Will read even though he already knew who was in the picture.
"Sydney's baby. Today."
************
Several years earlier Will had been in Sydney's apartment, waiting for her to get ready for a dinner. While he was waiting, he looked closely at the pictures on her bookshelves.
Sydney and Francie at the beach. Sydney and Danny at a birthday party. Will and Francie at Disneyland.
And then he came across a picture that was very different from the others. In a shiny, silver frame was a faded picture of a young woman, who looked almost identical to Sydney. She was sitting in a rocking chair, holding a chubby baby girl. He laughed at the picture and took it off the mantle.
"Ready, Will?" she asked as she walked out of her bedroom, still hooking her earring.
"Syd, you were the chubbiest baby I have ever seen in my life," he joked, showing her the picture. She laughed. "I mean, of course now you're not..."
"It's ok, Will. I know," she said, flashing one of her huge grins.
Will looked back at the picture. "It's funny though. I swear, even if this picture weren't in your house and your mother didn't look exactly like you, I think I would've known it was you."
"Really?" she asked.
"Yeah. Your eyes, they're exactly the same."
"Will," she said, smiling, "we're gonna be late."
***********
The four men sat huddled around the computer, trying to figure it out.
"He already had the device, why does he care about the baby?" Kendall asked, raising his voice above the others.
"And what about Irina appearing out of nowhere?" added Jack.
Will's thoughts were drowning it all out. He wasn't even listening to the bickering taking place around him. All he was doing was staring at the picture on the screen.
"It looks just like Sydney. I mean, those eyes..." Will thought no one was paying attention, but a few seconds later, Vaughn spoke up.
"Wait, Will, what did you say?"
"She looks just like Sydney. It's unbelievable..." Another couple of minutes went by, but Will could tell Vaughn, too, had lost interest in the debate. Something was bothering him...
"My God," said Vaughn suddenly.
Jack and Kendall stopped arguing. "What?" asked Jack.
"Why didn't we think of this before?" asked Vaughn. "It's so obvious, it's so..."
"What?" Jack asked again.
"Do you remember, right before she disappeared, when she was on the roof with Irina?"
"What about it?" asked Kendall.
"Sydney said that her mother believed Sydney was the one in the prophecy..." Vaughn explained.
"Derevko didn't believe the prophecy was about herself," agreed Jack.
"But we know it can't be Sydney," Vaughn continued. "She saw the mountain, it can't be Sydney...but..."
"But it has to be someone that looks like she does. The sketch looks just like Sydney..." said Jack, beginning to see where this was going.
"Vaughn, you're not saying...wait a minute, you're not..." Will stammered, not willing to believe what he was hearing.
"Assuming Irina wasn't lying to Sydney when she told Sydney the prophecy wasn't about her..." Jack interrupted.
"Let's assume that for the time being," said Kendall.
"It wasn't Irina and it wasn't Sydney in the prophecy. My point is, couldn't it have been the baby?" asked Vaughn.
"You're saying that they did this c-section in order to take her baby because the baby is the one in the prophecy?" Kendall asked incredulously. "It doesn't make sense."
And then it hit Will. He suddenly understood. "No. That's not the point. They didn't just do the c-section to get the baby. The whole reason they kidnapped Sydney was to get the baby."
Kendall still didn't believe it.
"Look, it's been two years since the device was assembled. Unless I missed something while I was gone, it hasn't been used yet..." Vaughn continued.
"Because Sloane had the machine, but he didn't have the person he needed to use it. The person Rambaldi had chosen," Jack said.
Kendall finally looked convinced. He lowered his head. "And now he does."
___________________
The end for now. I apologize if there are typos or other mistakes in here, or if it generally doesn't make sense - I am up really late right now trying to get this finished before I leave for vacation tomorrow morning. It'll be at least 10 days until the next chapter is up. Please don't forget about me!
Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed the chapters before this. Please review this chapter, also!
Thanks for reading!