Here we go with the Syd POV....it's called "Longing", and you know, if anyone wants to make a wallpaper for it....well, you know I'd love one.

This one's set during "Succession", and we're doing the whole no-dialogue thing again.....[I think that these pieces are going to be entries in Cover Me's October Challenge, actually.]

Thanks again to Old Romantic for the beta; she's doing a great job of making sure I don't look like an idiot.

Oh, and apparently you might need tissues for this one. Big surprise, huh?

Longing

You spent a year and a half eighteenmonthstoolong seeing him nearly every day and not being able to touch him.

It was torture, absolute torment, like the water receding at Tantalus's feet every time he went to drink.

You would hug him, touch his hand, make quiet promises in guarded words about what you would do after it was all over, because that's all that you could do.

And then one day it was over, and you thought that maybe, just maybe, you could finally be happy, finally wake up in his arms every morning where you knew you belonged.

You thought that maybe you wouldn't have to be a spy anymore.

But someone up there doesn't like you very much, or so you think, because every time you think that you're finally happy, finally content, someone or something comes along to snatch it away from your grasp.

You had six months of bliss, where he was yours to touch and kiss and hug and hold on to, where he was the first thing you saw in the mornings and the last thing you saw at night.

Six months of being complete for the first time in your life.

Sure, you were still a spy, but you just had to catch Sloane, throw him away in a jail cell somewhere and it'd all be over and you'd just be free – free to be with him forever.

You had never been as sure of something in your life before as you were of this: that you would marry Michael Vaughn, because he loved you and you loved him and hey, you'd both be happy and have kids and dogs and a minivan and a house with a white picket fence.

You now think you'd never been so wrong about anything in your life.

It's worse this time, the constant longing to touchholdkissmakeyours, because this time there is a wedding ring on his finger and a pretty wife somewhere who he must love because he really can't have changed enough in two years for him to have married someone he didn't love.

But somehow you think that it would be easier to cope with if he had changed enough to be married to someone he didn't love; because that would have meant that you weren't confronted by this thought every dayhourminutesecond of your life:

What if he's found someone he loves more?

You can't help thinking back to Danny and how dead certain you were that you loved him.

But you love Vaughn more than you ever loved Danny, however much it pains you to admit it, because after all Danny died because of you and surely you owe him something. But you can't escape that, because you love Vaughn more than you ever have...and more than you ever will love anything in your life and the idea that maybe he doesn't love you enough anymore scares you more than you've ever been scared before because, oh, you still love him so much [too much] and you can't have him anymore and the longing in the pit of your stomach, the longing that only he has ever been able to create – and satisfy – that longing has become nearly overwhelming and you haven't been back even a month.

You stand in his classroom now, watching him as he packs away his things into his briefcase and all you want to do is break down and laugh hysterically at the irony of it all.

This was supposed to be your classroom, and the CIA agent there to visit someone that they loved was supposed to be him.

They've told you that he might be coming back to the CIA.

It's hard to ever imagine him outside of the CIA, even as you stand here watching him in his classroom.

But you just want him to know that…that you can live with him coming back to the CIA, because however much he may have hated the protocol which kept you apart, hated the bureaucracy and the paperwork – you know that he was made for his job.

And you know that his job made him happy, in a strange sort of way, because he was doing what he had always wanted to do.

And so you want him to come back to the CIA, because all you want is for him to be happy, even when it tears you apart and rips you into pieces seeing him there and not being able to touch him, his simple gold wedding ring glaringburninghurting your eyes….

It hurts you to see him, but you want him to come back because all you've ever wanted is for him to be happy, because, even after everything he's done and everything you've said to him - you still love him. And you always will.

And so you tell him that you can cope with him coming back to the CIA.

You don't know how he can live with the pain of seeing you, talking to you, talking about you, because the pain of seeing him here like this [justoutofreach]…the pain is physical and it's clenching and it's all those months in the warehouse combined and worse and that stupid ring just burns your eyes because it's the physical embodiment of everything that separates you and you just want to crumple and say that you love him and you can't live without him and ask him how he could DO THIS TO YOU?

But you won't.

Because he's an honourable man but you think he would break at seeing you doing that and whatever happens you just want him to be happy. And apparently he is, even without you.

You won't show him how much you hurt, how much you love him, how much you needwantcrave him, because you can't have him and he can't have you and nothing that you can say will change anything, can get rid of the ring on his finger.

He's not yours anymore.

You'll always love him but you can't have him.

But the least you can do is listen to what he has to say and watch how he says it.

And as you watch him speak you have to cross your arms across your chest to physically restrain yourself from going over to him, because there are lines which cannot be crossed

By a handler and his asset/by a married man and his formerly dead girlfriend

There are new lines now and you've only just started to learn them but learn them you will because there are more important things than protocol now, things like wives and wedding rings and oaths sworn in good faith.

There are lines you can't cross

There have always been rules in your relationship with him:

Protocol

You shouldn't do these kinds of things with your handler, exchange longing looks across an empty warehouse, talk about watches and Trattoria de Nardi and the Kings and give picture frames for Christmas presents – you shouldn't do these things but you do because you think you're falling in love with him and just maybe he feels something back in return and he's your ally and you need him so badly it hurts.

Parents

You shouldn't be in love with a man whose father was killed by your mother, and he shouldn't be in love with you. It's disrespectful to his father's memory and it's wrong and there are too many issues to deal with and your mother rips him apart every time he sees her, you know, you've seen the footage from her cell [You look just like him], and you'll never be properly able to talk about your mother with him, and he'll never be able to talk about his father with you. You shouldn't love him but you do and your family history should prevent it but it doesn't and so it'll just be carried around by you both as emotional baggage, weighing you down until the day you die.

And

now

he's married.

You shouldn't be in love with a married man, and he shouldn't still look this broken over your death, shouldn't still be this haunted and desolate.


but.
every.
word.
he.
says.
says.
i.
love.
you.
and.
it's.
killing.
me.


Or is this just what you want to hear?

You have new lines to avoid crossing, new rules to govern the game you've been playing since the day you met and you will play until the day you die.

You have new lines to avoid crossing, but the only thing you can think of as you stand here watching him tell you about how he self-destructed is:

How can he have felt so much then and

not.

feel.

anything.

now?

He says that he was so in love with you it nearly killed him and you can see in his eyes how true it was, how close it drove him to the edge.

You never told anyone that you contemplated suicide after Danny's death, how all you had wanted was to bring down SD-6 in one final act of revenge – and then all you had just imagined yourself doing was dying a quiet death somewhere.

But that was before you met Vaughn, before you fell in love with him like you did.

But you didn't love Danny anywhere near as much as you loved Vaughn, as much as you believed he loved you.

If you had lost him you would be dead.

It's as simple as that, you know. If he had died you would be dead, and you know that with such savage conviction that you just want to scream at him and ask him how he's possibly alive and how on earth he moved on.

But as he tells you about how you had started talking to him after you had died you feel shivers running down your spine as you can hear how close he had come to losing it all and you just want to cry because he had loved you so much and oh, God, you just want him so badly.

You love him so much it hurts.

But you can't have him.

Because there are rules.

And this time you have to keep them.

But that doesn't make it hurt any less, doesn't make the longing any less intense.

It doesn't make it any easier to see the man you knew you would one day marry married to another woman, doesn't make it any easier to see him stand before you and tell him that he loved you so much it nearly killed him.

And it doesn't stop you crying yourself to sleep every night, hugging a pillow that's not yours in a bed that's not yours wanting him so desperately that you think you'll go crazy yourself.

It doesn't stop you from being consumed by longing for someone that

you

can't

have.

There's still an aching need that penetrates every part of your body, permeates every part of your soul until it consumes you until all you are is your need for him

and

there

is

NOTHING

you

can

do

about

it.

And all you wonder is how he could ever have moved on.

Because that's the only thing he says that you have a problem understanding.

Because when he tells you that he loved you so much it nearly killed him, and you look into his eyes?

All you can see your own pain and longing and need staring back at you, and you don't doubt him for a second when he says that he loved you so much it nearly killed him.

Because it's killing you now.




Well. Yeah. I still can't watch that scene without nearly crying. Vaughn's voice as he says that it nearly killed him - good grief, that scene *still* gives me goosebumps. It's one of the best S/V scenes *ever*, I swear. And it's such good cannon fodder for fic.

If you liked it, please review!


Em