Why me?
______________________
It took a few seconds for everyone to realize the enormity of what they had just discovered.
Sloane had kidnapped Sydney, taken her baby, and was now (apparently) ready to use his Rambaldi device.
For all the work the CIA had done to stay one step ahead of Sloane, it now seemed that they were hopelessly behind. They didn't even know what the device did.
"I'll leave you to deal with Agent Bristow. I have some phone calls I need to make," Kendall said to all of them. He rushed away.
'To deal with Agent Bristow,' Will repeated the words in his head. He could never think of it that way. This wasn't a burden or a problem. This was Sydney. He didn't feel like he was "dealing with" anybody.
Part of Will wanted desperately not to tell her. Wouldn't it be better for her to never find out about this? At least not today?
Jack must have sensed that Will and Vaughn were tentative to tell Sydney. "It's better for Sydney to hear all the bad news today. Then she can have a few weeks to cope with it before the memories start coming back," Jack continued.
"If they start coming back. They said there was a chance they might not," added Will.
"Do you want to risk that?" asked Jack.
A few minutes later, Jack, Vaughn and Will sat with Sydney at the end of the table in the conference room. Will held her hand.
No one knew where to begin. There was silence.
"Tell me," demanded Sydney. "You wouldn't have called me in here if it weren't important. Just tell me."
The three men looked at one another and then back to Sydney.
"Syd, something." Will paused, unsure of how to say it. "Something came up in your medical tests today."
And then something Will hadn't expected at all happened. Instead of slowly and tentatively telling Sydney the details, instead of Jack filling in Will's pauses with more information, instead of taking 15 minutes to explain it to her, Vaughn spoke up.
Vaughn told her what they had found during the tests. He told her about the baby. He told her the theory that they had come up with. He told her that as they spoke, Kendall was already gathering the information they would have to reexamine. They were already talking to Sark yet again, trying to glean whatever information they could with their new evidence. He didn't pause, he didn't search for the right words, he just got straight to the point. Will watched him with amazement. How could he be so brave?
Sydney had stared at Vaughn for most of his speech, but Will was sure that every few seconds she glanced at the gold band on his finger. By the end of the explanation, her jaw was clenched and Will knew she was about to break down.
She looked Vaughn in the eyes. "Will - you - please - leave?" she said calmly, emphasizing each word. Without flinching, he stood up and left. And then Will understood.
Vaughn had explained what had happened to Sydney because he knew she was already upset with him. She could kill the messenger and it wouldn't matter. She would still have two people in the room to take care of her. He knew she needed that.
So for the next half an hour Will and Jack sat with Sydney as she asked more and more questions that they didn't know the answer to. And through all the questions she didn't start sobbing, as Will had expected. Her jaw remain clenched and she didn't shed a single tear.
After they had spoken for quite a while, she had just one more question. "Why me?" But as soon as she said it, her face filled with regret. She shut her eyes for a moment, stood up suddenly, and hurried out of the room. Will stood up to follow her, but Jack put his hand out to stop him.
"Give her a few minutes."
Will waited a couple seconds, and then decided to go find Vaughn. He didn't have to look far, though. Vaughn was standing right outside the door, leaning against the wall.
****************
Will and Vaughn were eating lunch together. In fact, it was the same lunch at which Vaughn had told Will he was planning on marrying Michelle. The first time they had seen each other since Vaughn had left the CIA. The lunch where Will had been so sure that Sydney was never coming back. Where he had been so very wrong.
At some point during a short pause in conversation, something occurred to Will. Something that now seemed incredibly obvious. He couldn't help but laugh out loud at how blind he had been to have not seen it before.
"What?" asked Vaughn.
"You left the CIA because Michelle asked you to, didn't you?" he said. "You didn't leave because you got sick of working."
Vaughn didn't respond, but to Will, his silence was enough of an answer. "So are you ever going to come back?"
"I don't know."
"You're not gonna come back if you marry her," Will said, smiling, and shaking his head knowingly.
Vaughn picked up his Diet Coke and took a sip. He put it down and stared at the glass. He was clearly thinking about something, but Will had no clue what it was.
"I think I'd only come back for one reason," Vaughn explained. "Only if she came back."
"Vaughn." Will was starting to get frustrated by his friend's denial. He missed Sydney as much as anyone, but he had been able to accept she was gone.
"I know, I know what you're going to say."
"So you're never coming back?" Will asked.
Again, Vaughn took a moment to answer. "She started crying. Michelle did." He rubbed his face with his hand, the way he always did when something was bothering him. "A couple nights ago, we were supposed to meet for dinner. I was late, we had a debrief. When I got there she was in tears. She said that as long as I'm at the CIA, I'll always love Sydney more than I love her." He paused.
"What did you say?"
"I'd quit if it meant that much to her, but she was wrong."
Will didn't have to ask what she was wrong about. It had been just minutes earlier that Vaughn had told him that he loved Michelle, but "she's not Sydney."
When Vaughn told Michelle she was wrong, surely Michelle assumed that was Vaughn's way of saying, "of course I don't love Sydney more." Somehow, though, Will knew that that wasn't what she was wrong about.
She was wrong about the CIA part. It didn't matter whether or not he worked there.
He would always love Sydney more.
*************
"You ok?" Will asked Vaughn as soon as he spotted him. Vaughn was leaning against the wall, using his right hand to spin his wedding ring around on his finger.
"I'm fine. Is she ok?"
"She's fine," Will said instinctively. Then he thought about it. "No, she's not."
"How could she be?"
"Exactly," Will responded. "Hey, don't worry about it. She was just killing the messenger."
"Go find Sydney," Vaughn said. "She got in the elevator."
Seconds later Will was in the elevator. In this building, there weren't very many places to go to get away from people. He had a hunch, so he pushed the button for the top floor. He walked down the narrow hallway, swiped his ID card through the scanner, opened the door, and walked up the stairs to the roof.
He knew her too well, he thought, when he spotted her on the roof. She was leaning up against the railing, taking in the view of Los Angeles. Watching the tiny people going about their lives, as hers was falling apart. He walked over and stood next to her.
"I thought I'd try it, but it doesn't work for me anymore," she said, when she noticed him standing there.
He knew exactly what she was talking about.
***********
In college, they used to stand on roofs. It didn't really matter what roof, as long as it was high up and they could get to it.
Whenever they were stressed out, or upset, or worried, they'd find a roof and go stand on it. There was something about standing so high up and watching everything go on below that just made whatever problems you might have seem insignificant. You could see so many people. Surely one of them must be worse off than you. They would look at the people below and make things up about their lives. They weren't wishing these horrible things upon these people, it was just their way of understanding that everyone has problems.
"Ok, see that woman in the black dress?"
"Which one?"
"That one, next to the taxi."
"Yeah."
"Her father just died.
"That sucks."
"She's flying back to New York tomorrow morning."
"Alright, that guy with the dog."
"Where?"
"To the left, yeah, next to the street light."
"Ok."
"He just lost his job."
"Does he have a family?"
"Uhh, yeah, two kids. A boy and a girl. And he has a wife. And a dog."
As morbid as it was, they would play this "game" for a little while. Suddenly the C they got on their mid-term, or the term paper that they didn't know how to begin, or the boyfriend or girlfriend that just broke up with them just didn't seem so horrible. Somebody was always worse off.
But of course it didn't work for Sydney anymore.
Nobody was worse off than she was today.
************
It didn't take a long time for Sydney to start talking to Will. It was as if she were expecting him. "Why me," she said, shaking her head. It wasn't a question this time. It was a statement. "All I've been able to think about today how unfair this is for me. 'Why me?' When I said it I could have kicked myself because you know what?" She was still staring straight ahead of her, at the Los Angeles skyline. "Why Francie? And why this. this baby..." By this point she had raised her voice. She took a breath and calmed down. She began again, more softly. "And why you, Will? In my mind, it was just a few days ago that you told me I ruined your life."
"Sydney -" he tried to interrupt her, to tell her that for two years he'd been asking himself why he even said that, but she wouldn't let him.
"No, Will," she had raised her voice again. "You were RIGHT. I ruined everybody's life."
"Sydney -" again, he wanted to interrupt her. To tell her that if she wouldn't be able to find a single person in this building who thought she had ruined their lives. No one thought that the pain that her disappearance had caused them outweighed the happiness that she had brought to them before she was gone. But he couldn't interrupt her. She just kept on talking. In between series of shallow breaths she managed to form a some of sentences. "I have a baby, Will. I was going to be different than my parents. I was going to be there for my baby for her whole life. I don't even know what she looks like."
Will wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back. "Shhhhh," he told her. He had no idea how to comfort her. He just held her and they stood on the roof together. The sun was starting to set, he knew they should go downstairs soon and leave. But before he asked her to go downstairs, it came to him.
"Syd. We have a picture of the baby."
______________________________
Ok, so a few things. First of all, sorry about the time it took for me to get this up. I was out of town and I've been really busy since I got back. Also, I am sorry about this chapter. A lot of things were supposed to happen, but it kind of turned out to be filler. The next chapter should be better, though. I hope I can get it up before I go out of town again on Sunday. I will try very hard. I hope you are still enjoying my story.
I have become addicted to reviews, so please review. Please. I know I am begging, but it really doesn't matter. Please...
Alright, thanks for reading!
______________________
It took a few seconds for everyone to realize the enormity of what they had just discovered.
Sloane had kidnapped Sydney, taken her baby, and was now (apparently) ready to use his Rambaldi device.
For all the work the CIA had done to stay one step ahead of Sloane, it now seemed that they were hopelessly behind. They didn't even know what the device did.
"I'll leave you to deal with Agent Bristow. I have some phone calls I need to make," Kendall said to all of them. He rushed away.
'To deal with Agent Bristow,' Will repeated the words in his head. He could never think of it that way. This wasn't a burden or a problem. This was Sydney. He didn't feel like he was "dealing with" anybody.
Part of Will wanted desperately not to tell her. Wouldn't it be better for her to never find out about this? At least not today?
Jack must have sensed that Will and Vaughn were tentative to tell Sydney. "It's better for Sydney to hear all the bad news today. Then she can have a few weeks to cope with it before the memories start coming back," Jack continued.
"If they start coming back. They said there was a chance they might not," added Will.
"Do you want to risk that?" asked Jack.
A few minutes later, Jack, Vaughn and Will sat with Sydney at the end of the table in the conference room. Will held her hand.
No one knew where to begin. There was silence.
"Tell me," demanded Sydney. "You wouldn't have called me in here if it weren't important. Just tell me."
The three men looked at one another and then back to Sydney.
"Syd, something." Will paused, unsure of how to say it. "Something came up in your medical tests today."
And then something Will hadn't expected at all happened. Instead of slowly and tentatively telling Sydney the details, instead of Jack filling in Will's pauses with more information, instead of taking 15 minutes to explain it to her, Vaughn spoke up.
Vaughn told her what they had found during the tests. He told her about the baby. He told her the theory that they had come up with. He told her that as they spoke, Kendall was already gathering the information they would have to reexamine. They were already talking to Sark yet again, trying to glean whatever information they could with their new evidence. He didn't pause, he didn't search for the right words, he just got straight to the point. Will watched him with amazement. How could he be so brave?
Sydney had stared at Vaughn for most of his speech, but Will was sure that every few seconds she glanced at the gold band on his finger. By the end of the explanation, her jaw was clenched and Will knew she was about to break down.
She looked Vaughn in the eyes. "Will - you - please - leave?" she said calmly, emphasizing each word. Without flinching, he stood up and left. And then Will understood.
Vaughn had explained what had happened to Sydney because he knew she was already upset with him. She could kill the messenger and it wouldn't matter. She would still have two people in the room to take care of her. He knew she needed that.
So for the next half an hour Will and Jack sat with Sydney as she asked more and more questions that they didn't know the answer to. And through all the questions she didn't start sobbing, as Will had expected. Her jaw remain clenched and she didn't shed a single tear.
After they had spoken for quite a while, she had just one more question. "Why me?" But as soon as she said it, her face filled with regret. She shut her eyes for a moment, stood up suddenly, and hurried out of the room. Will stood up to follow her, but Jack put his hand out to stop him.
"Give her a few minutes."
Will waited a couple seconds, and then decided to go find Vaughn. He didn't have to look far, though. Vaughn was standing right outside the door, leaning against the wall.
****************
Will and Vaughn were eating lunch together. In fact, it was the same lunch at which Vaughn had told Will he was planning on marrying Michelle. The first time they had seen each other since Vaughn had left the CIA. The lunch where Will had been so sure that Sydney was never coming back. Where he had been so very wrong.
At some point during a short pause in conversation, something occurred to Will. Something that now seemed incredibly obvious. He couldn't help but laugh out loud at how blind he had been to have not seen it before.
"What?" asked Vaughn.
"You left the CIA because Michelle asked you to, didn't you?" he said. "You didn't leave because you got sick of working."
Vaughn didn't respond, but to Will, his silence was enough of an answer. "So are you ever going to come back?"
"I don't know."
"You're not gonna come back if you marry her," Will said, smiling, and shaking his head knowingly.
Vaughn picked up his Diet Coke and took a sip. He put it down and stared at the glass. He was clearly thinking about something, but Will had no clue what it was.
"I think I'd only come back for one reason," Vaughn explained. "Only if she came back."
"Vaughn." Will was starting to get frustrated by his friend's denial. He missed Sydney as much as anyone, but he had been able to accept she was gone.
"I know, I know what you're going to say."
"So you're never coming back?" Will asked.
Again, Vaughn took a moment to answer. "She started crying. Michelle did." He rubbed his face with his hand, the way he always did when something was bothering him. "A couple nights ago, we were supposed to meet for dinner. I was late, we had a debrief. When I got there she was in tears. She said that as long as I'm at the CIA, I'll always love Sydney more than I love her." He paused.
"What did you say?"
"I'd quit if it meant that much to her, but she was wrong."
Will didn't have to ask what she was wrong about. It had been just minutes earlier that Vaughn had told him that he loved Michelle, but "she's not Sydney."
When Vaughn told Michelle she was wrong, surely Michelle assumed that was Vaughn's way of saying, "of course I don't love Sydney more." Somehow, though, Will knew that that wasn't what she was wrong about.
She was wrong about the CIA part. It didn't matter whether or not he worked there.
He would always love Sydney more.
*************
"You ok?" Will asked Vaughn as soon as he spotted him. Vaughn was leaning against the wall, using his right hand to spin his wedding ring around on his finger.
"I'm fine. Is she ok?"
"She's fine," Will said instinctively. Then he thought about it. "No, she's not."
"How could she be?"
"Exactly," Will responded. "Hey, don't worry about it. She was just killing the messenger."
"Go find Sydney," Vaughn said. "She got in the elevator."
Seconds later Will was in the elevator. In this building, there weren't very many places to go to get away from people. He had a hunch, so he pushed the button for the top floor. He walked down the narrow hallway, swiped his ID card through the scanner, opened the door, and walked up the stairs to the roof.
He knew her too well, he thought, when he spotted her on the roof. She was leaning up against the railing, taking in the view of Los Angeles. Watching the tiny people going about their lives, as hers was falling apart. He walked over and stood next to her.
"I thought I'd try it, but it doesn't work for me anymore," she said, when she noticed him standing there.
He knew exactly what she was talking about.
***********
In college, they used to stand on roofs. It didn't really matter what roof, as long as it was high up and they could get to it.
Whenever they were stressed out, or upset, or worried, they'd find a roof and go stand on it. There was something about standing so high up and watching everything go on below that just made whatever problems you might have seem insignificant. You could see so many people. Surely one of them must be worse off than you. They would look at the people below and make things up about their lives. They weren't wishing these horrible things upon these people, it was just their way of understanding that everyone has problems.
"Ok, see that woman in the black dress?"
"Which one?"
"That one, next to the taxi."
"Yeah."
"Her father just died.
"That sucks."
"She's flying back to New York tomorrow morning."
"Alright, that guy with the dog."
"Where?"
"To the left, yeah, next to the street light."
"Ok."
"He just lost his job."
"Does he have a family?"
"Uhh, yeah, two kids. A boy and a girl. And he has a wife. And a dog."
As morbid as it was, they would play this "game" for a little while. Suddenly the C they got on their mid-term, or the term paper that they didn't know how to begin, or the boyfriend or girlfriend that just broke up with them just didn't seem so horrible. Somebody was always worse off.
But of course it didn't work for Sydney anymore.
Nobody was worse off than she was today.
************
It didn't take a long time for Sydney to start talking to Will. It was as if she were expecting him. "Why me," she said, shaking her head. It wasn't a question this time. It was a statement. "All I've been able to think about today how unfair this is for me. 'Why me?' When I said it I could have kicked myself because you know what?" She was still staring straight ahead of her, at the Los Angeles skyline. "Why Francie? And why this. this baby..." By this point she had raised her voice. She took a breath and calmed down. She began again, more softly. "And why you, Will? In my mind, it was just a few days ago that you told me I ruined your life."
"Sydney -" he tried to interrupt her, to tell her that for two years he'd been asking himself why he even said that, but she wouldn't let him.
"No, Will," she had raised her voice again. "You were RIGHT. I ruined everybody's life."
"Sydney -" again, he wanted to interrupt her. To tell her that if she wouldn't be able to find a single person in this building who thought she had ruined their lives. No one thought that the pain that her disappearance had caused them outweighed the happiness that she had brought to them before she was gone. But he couldn't interrupt her. She just kept on talking. In between series of shallow breaths she managed to form a some of sentences. "I have a baby, Will. I was going to be different than my parents. I was going to be there for my baby for her whole life. I don't even know what she looks like."
Will wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back. "Shhhhh," he told her. He had no idea how to comfort her. He just held her and they stood on the roof together. The sun was starting to set, he knew they should go downstairs soon and leave. But before he asked her to go downstairs, it came to him.
"Syd. We have a picture of the baby."
______________________________
Ok, so a few things. First of all, sorry about the time it took for me to get this up. I was out of town and I've been really busy since I got back. Also, I am sorry about this chapter. A lot of things were supposed to happen, but it kind of turned out to be filler. The next chapter should be better, though. I hope I can get it up before I go out of town again on Sunday. I will try very hard. I hope you are still enjoying my story.
I have become addicted to reviews, so please review. Please. I know I am begging, but it really doesn't matter. Please...
Alright, thanks for reading!