Title: Into the Deep
Author: Jennifer Campbell
Fandom: Alias
Spoilers: General season 2
Pairings: Sydney/Danny, Sydney/Vaughn
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: The show Alias and its characters belong to people
with a lot more money than I have. Please don't sue.
Notes: This is a revised version of this chapter. Thank you to Neptune for the beta.
##
Will picked up a small card off the orange pile and read it out loud. "'Take a ride on the Reading.' Does anyone own the Reading Railroad?"
"I do. Plus two other railroads. Ha!" Francie said. "One hundred dollars, please."
Will grumbled as he moved his marker across the board, then forked over the play cash. "I'm poor. You realize that? You're going to put me in the poor house."
"Oh, poor baby," Francie taunted. "Now roll again. You got doubles."
Sydney watched with a grin as her friends teased each other from across the board. She hadn't been too sure about playing Monopoly when Danny had suggested it, but she was having fun. It took her mind off other things, like the impending phone call and the warning that her life was in danger. All that seemed far away and rather ridiculous now, while she sat on the living room floor and did normal things with her friends.
Will landed on jail. Then Sydney rolled. Danny squeezed her shoulder lightly as he stood up and stretched.
"I'm gonna get another beer," he said. "Anyone want anything while I'm up?"
"I'll have another, too," Will said.
Danny nodded. "Francie?"
"Oh, I've had too much already," she said, pointing to her two empty bottles.
"How about you, baby?"
"Nah," Sydney said. She was still working on her first beer, careful to strike a balance between being sociable and staying sober. If the agent contacted her, she would need to be at her best.
She moved her little dog marker around the board and landed on a property she already owned. Then it was Francie's turn. She landed on luxury tax, and Will made a point of laughing uproariously. Francie stuck out her tongue.
Before Will could roll the dice, the phone rang. Sydney's heart started thudding as she jumped to her feet. "I'll get it," she yelled.
"I'm right here, honey," Danny replied from the kitchen. "Stay put. I've got it."
Sydney sank helplessly back to the floor. She couldn't put up a fuss over the phone without drawing attention. It probably wasn't him anyway. But what if it was? Didn't the CIA agent specify that she should answer the phone? What if this messed up everything?
"Sorry. Wrong number," Danny said, then returned to the living room with two beers and handed one to Will. Sydney gripped the carpet hard in both fists.
"Who was it?" she asked, trying to sound casual.
"Oh, just a wrong number. Someone asking for Joey's Pizza. I've never even heard of the place."
Joey's Pizza. That was it! The signal! He had called after all. Now, she just had to get away without raising suspicions. She rubbed at her forehead and groaned.
"Oh, damn," she said, getting to her feet. "I forgot. There's something I need to pick up for class tomorrow. I have to go to the store."
"Can't it wait?" Will said as she crossed to the coat closet. "We're kind of in the middle of a game here."
"Yeah, Syd," Danny said, "you can get whatever it is in the morning. Before class."
She looked at them apologetically. "It can't wait. I'm sorry. I'll be back soon."
She grabbed her purse and car keys and slipped out the front door before anyone could voice another objection. Her breath clouded as she walked to the car. The freshness of the night air helped to calm her down, get her racing heart under control. She was going to a secret meeting with a CIA agent. It was really happening. Part of her couldn't help but giggle like a little girl, but on her more serious side, she knew this wasn't a game. It was deadly serious, with emphasis on the deadly. She wondered, as she started the car, where this dangerous path was leading to.
#
Sydney drove around the warehouse for almost ten minutes before finding a way inside. Chain-link fence surrounded the entire compound, except for one unlocked gate that she bumped open with her car. The asphalt inside was cracked and bumpy from disuse. She parked beside a sleek black sedan that she assumed belonged to the agent. From her purse, she retrieved a small knife, filched from the kitchen earlier that evening. Sydney was fairly certain the agent's intentions were good, but if not, then she might need a weapon. She tucked it in the back of her jeans.
A rusted metal door was left ajar, and Sydney opened it slowly. The interior was dark, and she wished she had remembered a flashlight. Enough moonlight shone down through holes in the ceiling, though, that she could make her way. This side of the building hadn't been too badly damaged by fire, but she saw evidence of charred wood and melted metal, and piles of rubble lay under places where the ceiling had caved.
Please oh please, she thought as she walked, don't let the ceiling crash in on me. She could just see the headlines in tomorrow's newspaper. Woman's body found crushed in condemned textile warehouse. Had to be identified by dental records. No foul play suspected. She was just stupid for going into a burned-out warehouse in the middle of the night ...
She passed through another chain-link gate and into an open room dotted with crates. The agent from the mall was sitting on one of the larger crates, hands folded in his lap, and he was smiling up at her.
"You made it," he said, relief evident in his voice. Sydney realized then that he hadn't been sure she would show. "I'm glad you came."
"So explain to me why I did come," she said as she approached cautiously.
He grimaced and said, "If you don't mind, Ms. Bristow, we're waiting on someone else, and it's important that he be here for this. Also, if we wait, we only have to have this conversation once."
"Oh," she said, and licked her dry lips. Another agent. It was getting crowded in here. "Can you at least tell me your name, or will that have to wait, too?"
He grinned. Sydney felt her cheeks heat, and she silently berated herself. She couldn't allow herself to react like that. Not with a husband at home.
"Sorry, Ms. Bristow." He stood and extended a hand. "I'm Michael Vaughn."
She shook his hand. "It's Mrs. Hecht now. But call me Sydney. Otherwise, it makes me feel like I'm at school."
"All right, Sydney. Would you like a seat? I can offer you a very comfortable crate. Just mind the splinters."
She chuckled and accepted the offer. He sat down next to her. He was still wearing his suit, she noticed. Must have been a long day at the office. Then again, maybe secret government agents didn't work normal business hours.
She asked, "So, when will this other person be here?"
"Soon, I hope." He glanced at his watch, then cocked his head, as if listening for something. She heard it, too. Footsteps. "I think he might be coming now."
The footsteps grew louder, and Sydney saw the beam of a flashlight reflect against the chain link. A tall man with confident bearing walked through the gate, but Sydney couldn't see him clearly over the flashlight's glare.
"Agent Bristow," Vaughn said. "You're two minutes late."
"Your watch is fast, Agent Vaughn," the man replied, and Sydney suddenly had difficulty breathing. She knew that voice all too well. "Sydney. Sorry to draw you away from Danny and your friends."
"Dad?" she said, so softly she could hardly hear herself. Vaughn had called him Agent Bristow. But that was impossible. Wasn't it? She felt lightheaded and might have fallen off the crate if Vaughn hadn't noticed her swaying and steadied her. "Dad, what are you doing here?"
He turned off the flashlight and pulled up a crate across from Sydney. As soon as her eyes adjusted, she could see the uncertainty in his expression, like he wasn't sure quite what to say. That never happened. He always knew what to say. From that alone, Sydney knew the truth.
"You lied to me," she whispered. "All these years."
His shoulders stiffened. The uncertainty vanished, and in its place came a colder, stern expression she recognized all too well.
"How long?" she asked.
"Since before you were born."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Only a few months ago, before Sydney and her father had become reacquainted, he might have ignored her questions, told her she had no need to know. Now he shook his head and sighed.
"It was for your protection, Sydney. If it makes you feel better, you are the first person, outside the CIA, I've allowed to know about this in thirty years."
"Did Mom know?" she choked out. Tears were threatening to fall, and she wiped at her eyes harshly. "Or did you lie to her, too?"
"She knew."
Sydney wanted to reach for him, hold his hand, anything to find comfort. Her father, though, wasn't the sort of man who appreciated such gestures. It would show weakness. So instead she folded her trembling hands in her lap.
"This is hard to believe, Dad. In only a few hours, I've been contacted by the CIA and now I've found out my father isn't who I thought he was. This is a lot to take in all at once."
"Sydney, I wish I could soften this for you, but there's no easy way to reintroduce yourself to a loved one. All I can say is I'm sorry. I'm telling you this now because I care for you. Because I think you might be in danger."
Her life was in danger. The reason she had come here tonight. For the sake of that alone, she knew she had to set aside her emotions and focus on the problem at hand. So she wiped her eyes again and said, "It's the brown-haired woman, right?"
Vaughn and her father exchanged a surprised look. They hadn't expected her to know that. It made her feel better, that after the shocks they had dumped on her, she could surprise them, too.
"Yes, it's her," Vaughn said. "How did you know?"
"I saw her twice today. Once outside the school, and again at the mall food court. I saw you there, too, Agent Vaughn." She looked back to her father. "Who is she?"
"Her name is Irina Derevko. She's former KGB and now operates her own espionage organization, dealing in black market information and weapons. She escaped from CIA custody last night, and we have reason to believe she might want to take retribution against me."
"And hurting me is a way of accomplishing that," Sydney finished. "What did you do that she would want revenge for?"
Her father hesitated. "I can't tell you that."
"What does she want then?"
Vaughn answered this time. "We're not really sure."
Sydney couldn't help but laugh bitterly. "So I have a former Russian spy stalking me, and you can't tell me why. And you don't know what she wants." She could hardly believe the words. But she had to trust her father, despite the shock he'd handed her. Something told her she could trust Agent Vaughn, too. They would want her safe. They wouldn't make up a story like this. So Sydney took a deep breath and said, "What do I need to do?"
Her father gave her a small smile of approval. "Agent Vaughn can fill you in on that."
"Sydney, I've been assigned to head a team to watch you 24 hours a day, partly to keep you safe but mostly to catch Derevko if she comes near you again. I too saw her at the mall this afternoon, but she slipped away too quickly. She won't get away again.
"Now what you need to do," he continued, "is fairly simple. First, don't tell anyone. Not your husband, or your friends, or co-workers. It's for their protection."
"I understand," she answered.
"Good," he said, then pulled a slip of paper from his suit pocket and handed it to her. "This is my personal cell phone number. If anything should happen, call and I'll come, or I'll send a fellow agent, if I can't come. Memorize the number and destroy the paper. We can't have your husband finding it."
She read the number once, then handed it back to Vaughn.
He looked confused. "You need time to memorize --"
"Already done. Anything else?"
"Um, yeah." He reached back into his suit and pulled out a plain black cell phone. "When you call, use this. It's standard CIA issue. That way you won't be charged for calls, and my number won't show up on your phone bills."
"Sydney," her father said, "I can't stress enough how important it is that you call if you see or hear anything unusual. It is critical that we catch Derevko as soon as possible. It will go quicker with your help."
The phone went into her purse. She looked first at her father, then at Agent Vaughn. They both looked back at her without any effort to hide their concern.
"Are you all right with this, Sydney?" her father asked, and she understood his true question. He wasn't asking about her cooperation with the CIA. He wanted to know whether everything was OK between them.
The short answer to that was "no." No, she wasn't OK. This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen in real life. The long answer was a bit more complicated.
"We were never close when I was younger," she said after thinking it through. "The past couple of years have been nice, getting to know you again. I know you care about me and that you kept all this secret because you had to, but I wish you would have trusted me more. Mom knew. I should have known, too."
Jack sighed and nodded. "You need to get back."
"Yeah, Danny will be sending out a search party soon," Sydney said as she stood. "And I still need to drop by the store so I have something in hand when I get home. I told them I was going out for school supplies."
"Just be careful," her father said.
"You, too, Dad." She looked to Agent Vaughn. "Will I see you sometimes? Just to know you're there? I don't feel too confident about all this."
He half-smiled and nodded. "I'll be around."
"You go out first, Sydney," her father. "We'll keep watch and follow."
So Sydney went through the gate and retraced her steps to the car. She suddenly felt exhausted, like after kickboxing class or a long, hard run. It would take time to process everything that was said tonight. Her father was CIA. She was being stalked by a former Russian spy and would be under government surveillance 24 hours a day. And she couldn't tell a soul.
Well, she wanted excitement in her life. Just remember, she thought ruefully, take care what you wish for.
#
Francie had already gone by the time Sydney got home, and Will was saying his goodbyes. She hadn't expected to be gone for so long. After she had given Will an apology and a goodnight hug, she wanted nothing more than to crawl under her covers and never come out again.
Instead, while Danny washed the dishes, she pulled down a worn shoebox from the bedroom closet shelf and brought it to the bed. She sat cross- legged before it, and slowly lifted the lid to reveal one of her most prized treasures. Some of the old photos had started to fade, and the newspaper clippings had turned yellow with age, but it didn't matter much to Sydney. This was her childhood in this box. A time of innocence and trust that she had lost somewhere along the way.
She smiled as she lifted a photo of her and her dad. She was sitting on his lap at the kitchen table as he pointed to something in the newspaper laying in front of them. In another, taken at the beach, she sat on her father's shoulders with both fists in his hair while he tried not to wince. This was the father she wanted to remember. Not some secret government spy. She found it hard to believe that all those overseas trips to meet with clients had simply been his cover. No wonder he had never let his daughter accompany him, no matter how much Sydney had begged.
The dishwasher started its familiar whirrrr sound in the kitchen, and Danny appeared in the bedroom door, wiping his hands on a dish cloth.
"The picture box," he said, scanning the array of photos she had spread across the bedspread. "You haven't pulled that out for quite some time."
"I haven't thought about it for a while," she said as he joined her on the bed.
He picked up a photo from the box and turned it over to read her father's scribbled handwriting. "Jack, Laura, Sydney and Tudy. On the beach." He flipped it over to study the smiling faces. "I see you, your mom and your dad. But who's Tudy?"
"My stuffed bear. See, I'm squeezing the life out of him there," she pointed, and he chuckled. "I loved that bear. Took him everywhere."
"Where's Tudy now?" Danny asked.
"I don't know. He disappeared when I was fairly young. I guess I left him in a hotel room or grocery store or something." She touched her fingertips to the photo. "I vaguely remember this trip. Mom asked some complete stranger to take the photo, right there next to the ocean. She loved the ocean. I always thought it was a little poetic how it was water that took her away from me."
Danny wrapped his arms around her from behind, and she leaned into the embrace. "She was a beautiful woman. Have I ever told you how much you look like her?"
"Only every time we look at the photos."
"Sydney, where were you for so long tonight?" he asked. "You were gone for almost an hour. I was getting worried."
"I couldn't find what I was looking for at the first two stores I tried," she said, making up the lie on the spot. "I'm sorry. I would have called but I forgot the cell phone."
"That's all right. But I'm not just worried about that. You've been acting a little off all night."
"Oh, thank you," she said sarcastically.
"I mean it. You hardly spoke a word, even with Will and Francie here. You barely touched dinner, and Chinese is your favorite. Now you've pulled out the photo box. You only do that when you're feeling down about something."
"I'm sorry," she said truthfully. "I guess I'm not feeling well. I didn't want to say anything with Will and Francie here."
His ran his fingers through her hair, a comforting gesture. "What's wrong?"
She pulled away to look at him, and he looked back with so much concern and love that Sydney wanted to drop the act right then, tell him everything and damn the consequences. Danny was her husband. He deserved to know. But he also would probably call the police or pack up the car and drive them to his mother's house in Nevada, and Sydney needed to be here. He wouldn't understand that she couldn't run.
So she said, "My stomach has been upset all afternoon, and I have a bit of a headache. I guess I'm just tired after a long day."
"Maybe you should go to bed, then."
"Thanks, baby," Sydney said, and gave him a kiss. He helped her put the photos back in the box, then retired to the living room with a book so she could have some privacy.
She went into the bathroom and locked the door. Instead of brushing her teeth, she simply stared at herself in the mirror for a long time. Her eyes were tired and worn, and they hardly looked like her own. What was happening here? She had just lied to the one person to whom she had promised to always tell the truth. Worse yet, the lying didn't stop here. It would go on as long as Derevko was on the loose. Sydney felt dirty, but no amount of bathing would wash away these stains.
The weight of the day finally hit her full-on, as she stood there in front of the mirror, staring at a woman who didn't quite look like herself. It was too much to handle. She sank to the cold tile floor, curled up against the cabinets, and cried.
##
Feedback please?