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a) Lauren
"Laur?" He tries desperately to keep his voice even,
trying not to betray the torment he feels.
"Mike, where are you? I've been trying to call you for the past two hours."
Her tone is frantic, worried…she does love him, he knows.
He swallows, knowing that these words are perhaps even more important than his
wedding vows.
"I'm fine, sweetheart. I just….just needed some time to think, okay? But I'm
fine. I'll be home soon."
He can hear her sigh of relief over the phone, picture her beautiful features
easing as she hears his words.
He does love her. And he owes her more than he could ever say.
"I love you, Lauren. You know that, don't you?"
"I know, Mike. I love you too. Come home safely, please, love."
And it is done.
He has chosen the woman he married six months before, in a quiet wedding on a
beach, sand in their feet and the sun on their backs.
He has seen the pictures of his wedding, seen his smile below eyes tinged with
a weary sadness…….but there is hope there as well. Hope for the future, hope
for some sort of closure.
Hope for happiness in his life even when his angel is dead, lost to him
forever.
There is hope in his eyes now, as he presses the 'end' button on his cell,
knowing that this is where he stops loving Sydney Bristow. There is hope in his
eyes because maybe now he can finally stop loving someone who he can't have,
and finally give his wife everything she deserves.
He owes Lauren more than he can possibly describe, or ever give back to her.
If he saved Sydney after
Danny's death, then surely Lauren saved him after Sydney's.
He met her six months after Sydney died,
nearly 18 months ago now. They were married a year later.
A day after Sydney died, he
was standing outside her house, kneeling in prayer to a God who he had
abandoned many years before, knowing that she would return, full of hope that
the woman who had survived so much before would return to him again just as she
always did.
A week after she died, Will was still in a coma, and Vaughn sat by his bed,
thinking about Will and his injuries so he didn't have to think of her.
A month after she died, he was going through half a bottle of whiskey a night,
and the only reason he didn't make it through the other half was because most
of the time he had cried himself to sleep because of the emptiness he felt,
even with the alcohol to numb the pain.
Three months after she died, he buried the burnt remains found in the ruins of
her house, and another star went up on the wall at Langley. He
couldn't bring himself to speak at her funeral, and so the job was left to her
father.
He knows now that the only thing more terrifying than seeing Jack Bristow point
a gun at you is seeing Jack Bristow cry.
Six months after she died, he was still working at the CIA, still coming in
half-hung over in the mornings and still making sloppy mistakes that Eric
managed to cover up most of the time.
Six months after she died, he met his wife. She was pretty, he saw coldly,
because no one had appealed to him since she had died, but he was still a man
and men took notice of these sorts of things whether they wanted to or not.
She was pretty, yes, but that's not the reason he fell in love with her.
He fell in love with his wife because she saved him from himself, because she, once assigned as his partner, quite firmly told him-
"Agent Vaughn, with all due respect – pull your head out of your ass and cut
the bulls***."
He remembers just blinking at her, feeling the anger build up inside him, the
most incredible rage possible at this woman who had the nerve to possibly tell
him to get over her….
And then this woman, this fragile, blonde woman, said in a voice of steel,
"Don't tell me I have no right to tell you that."
"With all due respect, Agent Reed, you don't have any right to tell me that.
Especially not on your first day on the job," he had replied harshly.
"Oh?" And she had raised a single imperious eyebrow, and said, "Five years ago,
I spent three years with my husband on a deep cover assignment investigating
the European underworld. Two days, two days, Agent Vaughn, before we were to be
extracted, he was executed in front of my eyes because of a dead drop gone
wrong. I was lucky to get out of there alive myself."
So, I guess what I'm trying to say, Mr. Vaughn, is that if you don't think I
know what it's like to lose someone I loved…well, guess again. Don't ever think
just because I'm blonde or young or beautiful that I haven't seen as much death
as you have. Because, with all due respect, Agent Vaughn, you don't know me. Just
as I don't know you. But I can see your bleary eyes, I can smell the alcohol on
your breath and I know about the mistakes you've been making for the last six
months. And you know why I can see those signs as well as I do? Because I was
you, two years ago, Vaughn.
So this is where I respectfully tell you to get your head out of your ass and
pull yourself together. Because that's what I needed someone to tell me." And
then she had walked away from him.
He had been so shocked by her words, her sheer nerve in telling her boss to get
his act together that he hadn't taken her words in until later that night, when
he was about to open his newest bottle of whiskey.
He closes his eyes and rests his head on the bench top, breathing heavily as he
sees her angry speech earlier that day replay against his retinas. The words
echo in his ears, and he can hear her cool soprano telling him to get his life
back together.
And he does.
To this day he doesn't know why he had decided to do what she had nearly
ordered him to do, why her words had sunk in where Eric's and Jack's had
failed.
He thinks it's because in her eyes he could see the pain he felt reflected
back, and seeing the pain still there in her eyes reassured him that starting
to live again would not be a betrayal of her, that starting to live again would
not mean he would start forgetting her.
And so he chose not to open the bottle that night, and he chose life, and two
months later, eight months after she died, he finally worked up enough courage
to ask Lauren to dinner.
He chooses his wife in the knowledge that she saved him from his grief and pain
and he owes her more than he can ever repay.
He chooses his wife in the knowledge that she does love him, and he does love
her, and they were happy together, before his ghosts came back to haunt him.
He chooses his wife in this reality.
Now, before all the S/V shippers jump on me, be safe and sure in the knowledge
that this is just one possible outcome. And from this, there are at
least two different futures streaming off from this.
Now, do you want to see b), where he chooses Sydney next, or do
you want to follow the stream to it's end?
Hopefully updates on this one will be reasonably frequent - I hope.
:)
Em [feedback is, you know, really, really, really, really nice...*pleads*]
Plus, the more reviews, the fastest I write the next chapter. :)