* * *
In one reality, she's not who she says she is.
In another, he loves her enough to let her go.
* * *
b)i)1) Release
"You accessed classified material on my laptop. Don't try to deny it."
"I won't." Her voice is harsh, but controlled. There's no surprise in her tone, only a forlorn kind of longing.
She's been waiting for this, he realises with a shock. She's been waiting for him to find her out – wanting to be found out, almost.
"Why, Syd, why?"
He needs to know why she would take to betraying her country – betraying him.
"Because Bristows have always been traitors," she says to him sadly. "Do you think you could put down the gun, Vaughn? Please? You can handcuff me, if you like, but please, just put it down. You have my word. I won't try to escape."
And he believes her, if only for an instant.
"I'm not an idiot, Syd. You don't want to spend the next ten years in a Federal jail cell anymore than I want to put you there. The gun stays."
"I was afraid you might see it like that," she sighs.
Before he knows it, he's flat on his back, and then the world goes black.
The last thing he hears is "Sorry about this, Vaughn."
*
He blinks, and he's handcuffed to a chair in his kitchen, and she's standing in front of him, his own gun trained on him.
"You knocked me out? You knocked me out? Syd, do you have any idea how much that hurts?"
"Have you forgotten who you're talking to, Mr. Vaughn?" She asks, allowing a hint of humour to creep into her voice.
He blinks again. "Uh, good point."
"Why, Syd?" He seems to be saying this a lot, he thinks.
"Well, you left me no choice with the gun to the head…"
"No, not that."
She understands now what he's talking about.
"About eight months ago, nearly a month after my return…I started remembering things. Disturbing things. Vaughn, I was killing people….and I wasn't myself. Someone…someone connected to Rambaldi…they were controlling me."
He blinks again, still trying to shake off the wooziness from the concussion he's sure he has.
"Vaughn, I have reason to believe that my parents know what I was doing…and more specifically why I was doing what I was doing while I was 'away' – and what my role in the Rambaldi prophecy is."
"Syd, I don't understand what this has to do with you stealing classified information from my computer!"
"Vaughn, I need to find my parents. And I need to find them now. I need to know what I did for two years – and I need to know who controlled me, and why they made me do what I did."
"But Syd, surely – surely the CIA could help?"
"Vaughn, the only thing the CIA wants to do to my parents is lock them both in a cell for the rest of their lives. I can't trust the CIA on this…I can't even explain this to you very well."
He sits blankly, trying to digest what he's just learnt.
"So you're leaving?"
He had meant to say something profound, meant to plead with her not to go…but they were the only words he could find.
"Yes," she says quietly, and he can see the sadness in her eyes threatening to break into tears at any point. "I hacked your laptop so I could find out where my parents where. I…I have a plane ticket booked to there right now. I'll find them there, somehow. And then maybe they'll tell me who I am again. There's a part of me missing, Vaughn, this massive hole in my mind where I should have memories…but instead it's just a blank." The tears are beginning to roll down her cheeks, he sees at this point, and she begins to choke out the words. "I'm sorry Vaughn. So, so, sorry."
"I know," he says sadly, all the longing in the world contained in his voice.
"I'll-I'll understand if you move on – or go back to Lauren. I can't promise you when I'll be back. It could be next year," she swallows, visibly struggling to force out the words, "It could be never."
"You know I'll wait for you forever….like I should have last time," he says, the sadness and pain in her voice reflected in his own.
"You have to believe me when I say that I didn't know any of this would happen when you divorced Lauren. I would never have asked you to leave her – never would have let you leave her if I had known that this would happen. You have to believe me when I say this, Vaughn!"
"I believe you," he whispers quietly.
Because he does.
He would ask her to stay, and he knows she would.
But he can't, and he knows it.
Because he loves her enough to let her go, and he knows to have her stay [just for him] would be to kill her, slowly but desperately, craving her identity and memory like a wilting plant craves water.
He loves her enough to let her go.
[If you truly love something, set it free... if it does not return to you, it was never yours to claim for your own.]
"I know," she says, as she lowers the gun and leans in and kisses him, hungrily, as if she knows it will be the last time.
"Goodbye, Vaughn. I love you…and I'm sorry. So, so sorry." She's crying openly now, not even trying to pretend to hold back her tears.
"I'd rather have thirty minutes of wonderful with you, than a lifetime of nothing special with anyone else," he says slowly. Steel Magnolias isn't his favourite movie, not by a long shot, but that quote……well, a good quote is a good quote, no matter where it's from.
She recognises the quote, and smiles briefly. "That's a very girly movie for a man to know quotes from, Vaughn," she says, straightening up slowly.
"I'm really not a very average guy, Sydney. I thought you would have realised that by now," he says with a forced grin, trying to lighten the situation with a bad joke like he'd watched Eric do for so many years.
"True," she says ruefully, a faint grin playing across her own lips.
He knows that if they weren't laughing, they'd be crying.
"I can't go with you, can I?" he says desperately, in a last ditch attempt to stop her from walking out of his life again.
"I can't do that to you, Vaughn. I need to find myself……I need to find out who I am again. It may take me years…I may never find out, knowing how much the CIA want to find my parents. I can't let you spend the rest of your life following me on some crazy quest."
He objects to what she says, oh, so much; he wants to shout out that he would follow her to the end of the earth forever, if only she would ask him…but he won't say it and she'll never ask.
And instead he'll love her from afar, until she finds herself, he thinks bitterly…but she'll always be a part of him, whether she's a thousand miles away or in his bed every morning.
"Goodbye, Vaughn."
He knows she'll probably never return.
He knows that the next phone call he'll have to make will be to the CIA, to tell them she's gone.
But he knows he'll wait a few hours, to give her a headstart.
He knows he'll probably face severe consequences for this. He might even be fired.
He knows all of these things.
But he doesn't regret it. Any of it.
Because what they had, what brief happiness they had…it was enough.
It has to be enough.