Author: B'Elanna Paris
Summary: post-"The Telling".
Disclaimer: Alias and its characters belongs to ABC etc.
Notes: My post- telling story. Angsty. Feedback would be much appreciated. Inspired by Blue's song 'If You Come Back'.
Chapter One
Two weeks. That is how long since I found that my life was ruined. Everybody has moved on, believing I was gone, dead. Since I returned from Hong Kong, I had a week of constant debriefings, medical exams and hypo-regression therapy- to no avail I still cannot remember anything.
I have been given a couple of weeks off. Barnett believed it was best, so that I could 'deal' with my feelings. The problem is I have dealt with everything, people have moved on and I must too. But where he is concerned I just can't. He gave up me, fell in love someone else, was he ever in love with me to begin with?
I have been staying with Will since I got back, at his apartment he bought after he got out of hospital. He told me he couldn't stand being at my old apartment because of what happened, so he sold it. Will put my things into storage and I have starting to sort through my stuff, getting rid of stuff which is not needed anymore, going through every box one by one. And that is when I came across it, in one of the larger packing boxes which contained alot my keepsakes; letters, photos and trinkets from past years.
It was an old shoebox, I opened it and in there were photos of me and him and a couple of trinkets from dates and days out we had had. There was not much, we were only together 3 months but we had already began intertwining our lives together. All I can do is stare at the pictures, remembering each place they were taken, each memory, remembering like it was a couple of weeks ago. That is all I have been doing for the past hour just sitting here staring at the photos.
And the it happens, I 'deal' with my feelings. My eyes to start to fill up with unshed tears, and then they begin to fall. I loved him so much, I never got a chance to tell him. I haven't seen since our initial debriefing after getting back from Hong Kong. He does not work for the CIA anymore, he told me he was working at a law firm.
Not waking up to him in the mornings, not having him hold me when I feel sad, just not having him here is making this whole ordeal even harder to handle.
I find myself picking up the phone, dialling his number, is it still the same?
"Michael Vaughn" I just want to hear his voice.
"Hello?" he says
I speak knowing he'll probably know its me. "Sorry, wrong number."
"Syd?" I hang up.
I lay back on the bed, closing my eyes as I feel more tears falling. I'm still gripping the phone. My thoughts are disturbed by the ringing of the phone, its him, I know. I shouldn't answer but I do.
"Hello?"
"Sydney, I knew it was you. Why did you.." I hang up and pull the main phone cord out the socket I don't want him to ring back. I slam the portable receiver back down.
Vaughn sat at his desk in his office staring at his phone. Why had she rung him? He knew why she needed answers he thought and he needed to tell them. He hadn't seen her, he had decided he was going to go see her, at Will's place, well that is where he presumed she was staying. Will had become a friend over the last two years, their mutual love Sydney had made sure that they spoke every so often.
He decided to stop by and see her, he needed to explain everything. When he had arrived at her apartment that night nearly two years, he had discovered a trail of devastation leading to Syd's bedroom. He had rushed in there thinking it would be bad but what he found and didn't find was much much worse.
He had found Francie shot three times, dead on the floor near the windows, blood everywhere. There was a pool of blood opposite to this where the mirror used to stand. He had phoned the operations centre and Jack, they were there very quickly and with further investigation of the apartment he found Will in the bathtub, still alive.
The CIA in the first couple of weeks were optimistic that they would find Sydney, but the leads that they had discovered lead to nothing. After two months the CIA began to scale down the operation to find her presuming she was dead, and finally after 6 and half months, they just put her case on the shelf. The case was still active but nothing was done unless they found a new lead.
He tried to hold out hope, even after the shelved her case. But when he went on an unsanctioned mission which had come about from a back channel lead. Kendall had suspended him for a month from the CIA. Vaughn didn't want to return after that, he just couldn't see why it was worth it anymore so he quit.
As he drove to Will's apartment, he thought about his wife, she did not know who Sydney was only that he had lost someone when she met him. All he had felt the past couple of weeks was more and more guilt over the situation. Ever since he had got back all he could think of was Sydney, but his mind had always been on Sydney, even the day he got married. He felt guilty for not waiting for her, for not being there for her now. Guilty for comparing his wife and Sydney. Guilty for thinking about her when he should be thinking about his wife.
He arrived at Will's house and parked across the road, he still wasn't sure if he wanted to go in. Vaughn saw the door to the apartment open, it was Sydney, had she seen him? No, she was not even looking in his direction. She was wearing some sweat pants, a t-shirt and a coat which she pulled tighter around her as she walked down the path to the sidewalk.
Sydney began walking down the street away from him. He decided to follow her. As she was disappearing out of sight, he started his car and drove up behind, he kept doing this until she stopped a couple of blocks away from the apartment, she was waiting at a bus stop.
The next bus came along and she stepped onboard, he followed the bus until she got off and she waited for another bus and boarded that. He followed the bus all the way to Santa Monica pier where she got off. She began walking in the direction the pier.
Vaughn parked his car up and got out to follow her.