a/n: thank you to angelbleu who betaed wonderfully.
thank you to:
valley-girl2: lol. I was jokin' around ;) I live for description actually, the "unknowns" were there because it needed to correlate with the other chapters/sections. Hehe… thanks for reading!
Brynne: LOL! Nice summary… yup… you got it about right! DeadVaughn speaking is next up ;)
nattie700: well, your review threw me off! And then I realized that you were still on chapter 5… Did you read chapter 6? It is beautiful in French… a bit sad however… hmm… did you ever watch the X-files? There was an entire ep on how temperatures drop when there's a ghost present… so yeah, I did take that idea from a X-files ep. Sigh… the good old days of pre-Telling Vaughn… ::eyes narrow:: you got the DVDs!!!!!!!!! Not fair! :P I don't even have the first one yet… waiting for birthday money… ;) lucky you.
Sorry the replies are so short this time… I got to run… almost late for class!
Chapter 7
Date: unknown.
Place: unknown.
Time: unknown.
The sudden gust brought his voice even closer and stentorian. She could hear bits and pieces of what he was asserting.
"NO! I will not do this to her… Let me make this clear… not …-ing to le-… her. I … er… I wi-"
It was too hard to put together what he was saying, so she didn't even want to try to accomplish such a hopeless task.
Then, only one thought occurred to her… she was in death, with Vaughn. But that couldn't be right. She clutched the ring around her neck even tighter. Where she was… was warm, welcoming, homely. There was nothing there that told her she was in death. It certainly was a possibility though-- one she enjoyed more than she wanted to admit. If I am in death… Vaughn is waiting for me. He should be here. But she didn't feel his presence. She heard him… but she couldn't sense him.
She couldn't sense him. He wasn't really here… but where was here?
It slowly dawned upon her.
She was dancing in a long ago memory.
She remembered that night… so clear now. It had crystallized in her subconscious, put away to be thought of for another day.
flashback
Tossing over in bed, she languidly returned from the land of Nod only to realize why she couldn't sleep any longer.
Vaughn was nowhere in sight.
He wasn't next to her like he was only a few hours before. In fact, there was still a dent on his pillow where his head had been placed. She touched the mattress where his body was supposed to be. It was still warm. He had only been gone for a little while, she realized.
She left the sweet confines of their bed and grabbed a robe to put over her nude body. She blushed, thinking about what they were doing only a few hours before falling asleep. Loving each other, in the most intimate of ways.
She pulled the robe tighter around herself, warding away the early morning chills as she walked down the hallway of their house. Searching through every room, Sydney finally found him on the porch dressed in his own black robe.
"NO! I will not do this to her… Are you hearing me loud and clear? Let me make this clear then. I am not going to leave her. Ever. I will never leave her. I love her too much. Aiden, do you hear me? I AM NOT GOING TO LEAVE HER."
Aiden. Who was that? She hated him already.
She could never stand it whenever Vaughn was angry. She wanted to calm him down, and rub out the wrinkles in his brow.
Surreptitiously, she sneaked up to him. When she was finally close enough, she wrapped her arms around his middle. He reacted swiftly. Within moments, she was on the ground, his knee pressed against her stomach, a hand at poised at her throat. His CIA training had taken over.
"Vaughn?" she cried out, surprised by his agility, accuracy, and precision.
When he recognized her startled shout, he immediately scooped her up into a tight hug. His cell phone call forgotten.
"What are you doing out here, Syd?" he whispered into her ear.
"You weren't in bed… I came to find you."
He kissed her head, her nose, then came to rest on her mouth. They stayed like that for a long time, the squawking from the cell phone lying on the ground, a long forgotten memory.
end flashback
Eventually, they had gone to bed, but still… she had forgotten that incident. There must be a reason why her mind decided to remember it.
But now she was stuck in this glass wonderland, the sleeted leaves casting a winter wonderland feel.
There must be a way to turn back… there must be. And with that thought, a tear cascaded down her cheek. She closed her eyes.
~*~*~
February 17, 2005
Los Angeles, California
Hospital
9:37 PM
"Jack… I think she's waking up," Weiss said into his cell phone.
"Okay, I'll be right there."
With that, Weiss hung up.
"Hey Sydney… wake up! Come on… wake up!"
"Weiss… stop being so loud!" Sydney moaned.
"So, the sleeping beauty finally decided to wake up."
"Go away Weiss. Go away."
"I wonder how Vaughn dealt with you in the—" when he comprehended what he was saying, he automatically shut up. He turned around to face Sydney again. She was glaring at him.
Breaking the tense silence, she asked, "So, why am I in the hospital?"
"You were "asleep," as the doctors called it, for three days! I'm so sorry I said those things in the op… I'm so sorry," Weiss' face was devastated.
"It's okay Weiss. I'm fine now. In fact, I think something about that sleep let me clear my mind a little. I can't remember what it was… but… it helped a lot. I feel as if I can move on with my life now… It was as if Vaughn was trying to help me get past this rough spot."
~*~*~
August 03, 2005
Los Angeles, California
Sydney's and Vaughn's house
6:11 am
She had been slowly declining mentally as today neared. She felt him at every turn, at every moment of her life recently. He was close by, still not having released her from his clutches. She missed him. She wanted to be with him again.
She felt his ghostly hands threading through her hair when she slept. She felt his breath at the nape of her neck when she sat on the couch watching TV or reading.
Crawling out of bed today had been hard, but she knew what she had to do.
[remember, this is from the prologue]
Sydney Bristow stared at her reflection in the mirror. To the casual eye, she looked normal: brown haired, tall, thin. However, she looked closer at her appearance today. She saw that her hair lacked its normal luster, and she realized that she's gradually lost a lot of weight in the past year. Many people said that she's begun to slouch whenever she sat down, and that her manner had changed considerably. She's heard them say that she's become glacial, distant, dead. But what they don't understand is that she is dead. Dead in soul, spirit, life. She no longer wanted to be physically trapped in this world. She longed to go back into her bed, crawl under the cold covers, and waste away. Especially today. August 3. It's been one year. To the hour. In a couple of minutes, it would be the exact time since he left her.
She took the engagement ring off her necklace and slid it on her right ring finger. Today she wasn't going hide it. Today she was going to honor him. Today she was going to visit his grave for the first time since she died along with him. She was determined to tell him to stop haunting her because she was going to see him again. Very soon.
~tbc~
eta: you know what I just noticed? there's no French in this chapter! ::bangs head against desk:: oh well... too late...