You never thought that Sydney's walk in would be one of the best things to happen to you.

After so many years of lies and half-truths, the real truth finally began seeping out.  It began with your admission that you worked for SD-6, continued the day you handed Sydney her very own CIA cell phone, and lasted for almost two years.  Two years that seemed to fly at a breakneck pace, never slowing down for a second.  Unlike the last two years, which have passed by at a heartbreakingly slow rate, as if to compensate for those last two years with her, to give you extra minutes and hours to agonize over every word, every look, every unspoken thought.

Your final two years with your daughter were often painful as you delved beneath the surface for the first time, actually attempted a father/daughter relationship.  You hadn't argued this much since her teen years, you cynically pointed out to yourself, even as something inside you reminded you that for the first time in her adult life you were actually speaking on a regular basis.  Sadly, that was progress for the two of you.

You spent many a night thinking about her, worrying about her, covering her tracks, sometimes even following her.  You watched her from your car as she sat at an outdoor restaurant a few short weeks after she learned the truth about you.  You wanted to meet with her, you truly did.  But something stopped you.  Fear?  Perhaps.  Fear that this new attempt at a relationship would fail, fear that she would never look at you adoringly again, fear that she would never see you as anything but the father who abandoned her.

Fear that she would ask you questions about her mother, ask for details that a six-year-old would not remember.  Details a twenty-six year old woman would beg for.

So instead you twisted the knife just a bit deeper and called her cell phone.  You watched her from your vantage point as she, not twenty feet from where you were parked, picked up her phone and listened to you cancel on her.  Again. 

You pulled away quickly as you saw her appear at the restaurant's entrance and slowly head to her car—but not before you saw her swipe the back of her left hand across her face, then use her index finger to carefully wipe beneath her eyes.  You immediately recognized the gesture, one you learned first as Laura's husband, then in later years as Sydney's father.

She was trying to stop her mascara from running.

And you had caused it to run.

Yet even after that failed attempt at sharing a meal, she didn't give up.  She always was persistent, you admit ruefully to yourself as you gaze at her photograph on your mantle.  A few short weeks later, she tried again, this time choosing a holiday to invite you over.  A part of you wanted to accept, but a greater part held you back.  It would be awkward spending Thanksgiving with her friends, especially Francie, who had never hesitated to show her dislike of you.  So instead you dropped by late that evening, holding her neighbor's newspaper in your hand, and told her that you had been cleared by your government, that you weren't KGB.

You just failed to mention that her mother was not what she had seemed.

But then, Sydney learned that soon enough.  You knew when you stepped into the conference room that day, still bruised and bandaged from your meeting in Cuba, that she would be devastated.  The change in her eyes was immediate as twenty years of keeping secrets finally crashed down.  Now, there were no more barriers between you about your twisted excuse of a family.  Sydney knew the truth, Lau—Irina was dead, and now you and your daughter could finally move on.

Which is why a phone call made from a pay phone a few months later led to such a shocking revelation for the two of you.

You had already extracted Sydney from FBI custody with the help of her handler and his friend.  All Vaughn had to do was keep her safe long enough so she could escape to the air field.  So naturally you instead found yourself watching the television in the window of an electronics store that you passed as you were returning to Credit Dauphine.  Even though the car was indistinct on the screen, even though you weren't certain which car Sydney had been given, you knew it was her.  A silent scream escaped your lips as you saw the car plummet into the ocean, heard the newscasters say minutes later that a body had not been found.

You don't think you started breathing again until you heard her voice on the other end of the line a few hours later.

You drove as quickly as you dared, losing both SD-6 and CIA tails along the way.  Eventually you pulled to a stop and jumped out of the car, rushing to her side, making sure she was all right.  You listened as she voiced the one thought that you had long ago dismissed as impossible.

"Dad, Mom's alive.  I know it."

You watch the brightly colored horses go round and round as her voice, her tiny image, echo in your mind.

You wish that someone could be certain that she is alive too.

You're not so sure anymore.

tbc