Sporks and Fries: Interlude I
Sydney
By Kira
kira@sd-1.com |
Disclaimer: I don't own Alias. Really. Seriously!
The first step to solving a problem is realizing you have one.
The second step is realizing that there are some problems that you can't fix on your own.
There aren't many problems in this world I can't fix on my own. Sometimes, I think they only send me on missions with a partner because there's some archaic rule written somewhere that two agents must be sent on each mission. Right. That must have been written before I came around, because there's no way they would have said that if all their agents were awesome like me.
I tilt my head to the side, in a typical cute girl fashion, and read through my crowded Lotus Notes box. Thank God it's working for me today – there's all these changes to it since it's for "government use". Geeze, those meanies, why do they have to make my life harder by giving me an altered version? I mean, don't people have enough problems with it already, let alone a government version?
Whatever. Email from Vaughn. Wait –
I turn in my chair. Oh, he's not at his desk, he's standing near it. Why the hell does he clutter up my mailbox with email when he can just walk over here and talk to me? Oh, it's a fwd. A crappy one at that. I never thought him the type to give into those "Send this to 10 of your friends to get good luck!" things, but every day I get at least one forwarded to me.
I seriously question his mental age.
Sighing, I move to close the window, my mind somewhat sluggish in processing what he was doing while standing next to the desk. I swivel around in my chair. As expected, Weiss jumps clear across the room, mutters something about work (like he does any work), and runs out of the room.
Vaughn stands straightening his tie. He gulps as he looks over at me, rubbing the back of his neck ever so nervously. I close my eyes, trying to pull up what I had seen before.
Was that a hicky?!
Am I seeing things? I swear, I'm not seeing things. I'm not – oh, but I wish I were!
I need to google this problem right now. As in this instant. Saving the world can wait – I need help. And google, well, google can find anything. And I need a support group.
Wait, what exactly should I google? It's not like I can type in My Boyfriend is More than Good Friends with his Best Friend. Well, I can, but I'm sure IT monitors these things, and as soon as I hit search, the entire office is going to hear about yet another unsanctioned romance involving Vaughn. I doubt that would be a good mark on his record, and unless he were to search for a job involving pulling in the love of lots of people, wouldn't help him after the CIA fired him.
But what else can I type in? I have to find a politically correct way to phrase this, and I can't pass it off as I have a friend who… thing. That would send up a red flag as well, and the talking would carry out as I surmised beforehand.
I let my head fall and hit the keyboard. There was no way of searching the internet for answers from here – I'd have to look when I got home that night, making sure to keep an eye on Vaughn.
I felt a hand rub my back and instantly flipped up and spun to grab the arm the hand belonged to, only to face Vaughn, who's face was twisted in a way that couldn't be comfortable. I let go.
"Wow. Are you alright?" he asked me, a few forehead winkles making their morning appearance. I paused, thinking of what I would say to cover for my nosedive into the keyboard.
"Yeah, fine," I replied automatically. I could almost hear myself snort in my head. Am *I* okay? Yeah, sure, I'm fine. Why don't you just go hang out with naked men some more, or maybe you want to finish that little thing with Weiss you had going over there. I'm on to you, Mr. Vaughn – I'm a super secret spy – I can see these things. There's nothing you can hide from me, you –
"No you're not." Did he just interrupt me?
I needed to come up with a save.
"It's the jelly at home," I sighed. "Will likes grape, and stocked up the fridge with it. And everyone knows you can't have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without strawberry preserves." Buy it buy it buy it.
"That's odd," he responded, rubbing his forehead. "I thought Will liked all things strawberry. At least, that's what he told Weiss." He looked off somewhere while I tried to keep my temper down. He was talking to *Weiss* about what Will *liked*?! What the hell was going on here? Ok, ok, I can handle this. The two of them were trying to make Will seem more comfortable in his new job here, so it wasn't completely unfathomable for Weiss and Vaughn to be talking about him.
"Means I'll have to go return that, then." Did he just say that? Did he –
"What did you say?" I demanded of him. His eyes widened and he stuttered.
"No – nothing. Nothing at all," he laughed nervously. "Look, over there, it's – "
Oh, yes, you did stop talking, because now I'm standing in front of you, hands on my hips, glaring.
"What do you have to return?"
"Syd, you know I love you, right?"
"Yes."
"So, umm, trust me, mmmk?"
"Did you just go mmmk?"
"No. Gotta go, bye!"
I have never seen Michael Vaughn run so fast. It was like he was a blur of gray, sweeping through the JTF like a fly escaping a spider. Which he was.
But first, I needed some advice.
. .
Subject One: Irina Derevko
"I don't think Agent Vaughn is the problem," she drawled in that slight Russian accent. I swear, that's just as fake as Sark's British one. Maybe she's not really Russian, maybe she's something else, like Swedish. She certainly looks it. And I've never been told I look Russian at all. Of course, I may have inherited my looks from my dad, but I think he's a fake American.
"You don't?" I asked, eyebrows raised. I slapped down another card – a red 6. Irina glared at me from across the makeshift table and consulted her UNO cards once again. I was so going to win.
"No. He loves you, Sydney," she said simply, drawing a few cards. She finally threw down a yellow 6. Damn. All I have are red and blue cards.
"I know, but lately, he's been – "
"It's that Agent Weiss," she grinned, watching me pick up more cards. How were these shuffled? I was never going to win at this rate!
"And Sark and Will." She stopped and looked up at me.
"Sark?" she asked, her voice pain-stricken. Finally, a yellow card! I put it down, but just as I did, she threw all her cards at the deck, scattering them throughout the cell. I am so not cleaning them up. "Tell me what has happened."
I leaned closer to her, not wanting the guards watching them to hear. "He visited Vaughn at a deli, called him on the phone, and two days ago, I found him almost naked with Weiss, Will, and Vaughn, drunk."
"You didn't."
"I did. Mom, what's going on?"
"I was afraid this would happen," she sighed. What, what would happen? "It's the Vaughn genes."
"What?"
She got a nostalgic look on her face, and appeared to be far away. "It was the 70's. I had met William Vaughn on a mission to Egypt. He looked quite nice in those safari clothes – he even had the hat. The team he was with seemed like a normal CIA team, but I soon learned something was different.
"William didn't see it, but I did. He kept getting strange gifts left at the flap to his tent. And he always had a great breakfast waiting, albeit a little sandy, when he woke up."
"So?"
"It was the team. It happens, after awhile. The Vaughn genes are so strong, they pull in men as well as women. And they have no idea it's going on. You have to save him, Sydney. Save him from the fate his father suffered!"
"What, death?"
"No! Something much, much worse. His father – "
"Hiya, Syd!" Ugg….of all the times to show his face, it had to be now. I turned back to my mom, but she was already cleaning up the cards, her back to Vaughn. Was she susceptible to these genes as well? These genes of extreme hotness?
"Hey, Vaughn, what's up?"
"Nothing." And he ran away again. What the hell was that. I turned to mom.
"Excuse me for a moment," I said to her, and ran out of the cell. He wasn't anywhere around. Out in the main room, I found myself standing next to Marshall, transfixed and glued to my spot.
Vaughn was standing across the room next to Will, who was *feeding* him some of his strawberry yogurt. Vaughn was being fed by Will, and no one seemed to notice. And what was that, a –
"Is that a foon? I think that's a foon. You know, when I was small I used to try to balance spoons on my nose, but it never worked. So I tried with sporks, and that didn't work either, but foons did and – "
"Marshall, what do you see?" I asked him, turning to look at him. Marshall sighed and looked at Vaughn, then back at me.
"Will's eating some yogurt and Vaughn's discussing something with him. I'm going to assume it's work-related because of the blue file folder he has in his hands that he keeps looking down at – "
I cut him off with a wave of my hand, relived. Then I turned back.
Was it me, or did the lighting just get a little more – seductive? Vaughn was sitting on the edge of a desk, Will just in front of him, licking the foon with a look in his eyes I knew from the time he kissed me. Vaughn grinned and opened his mouth for some more yogurt. Will obliged, slowly feeding him more.
I shook my head. What the hell was going on!?
I looked back to Marshall, then ran out of the room, crying.
Damn those genes!
