Thank you to Spybunny, Jacky, Dori, Lara, and Kay10197 for your reviews!
And to answer your questions, keep your eyes on Maisie, Vaughn, and
Isabelle. (especially the relationship between Isabelle and Vaughn and
Isabelle and her husband)
Trust me, there are more secrets to come and to be revealed!
"Izzy, Claire! I'm here!" Vaughn cried, as he pushed open the door of the familiar estate. Seeing his favorite niece, well only niece, had given him much more energy than expected. Okay, maybe not quite but he had decided to ignore the dull aching pain in his chest that had started to reoccur. He knew exactly what that pain meant and wanted to not think about it so badly. He pushed open the old wooden door to reveal the inside of the manor that smelt like fresh lilacs and roses. Sydney was well at his heels, reveling in a sight of a lived in home. Maisie had gotten over her shyness and was now talking a mile a minute to Sydney about everything and anything to Sydney and Sydney was listening and hanging onto every word. Maternal instincts were running very high. The only one missing from the picture was Weiss, who was left to attend to the bags, unwillingly.
The sisters still sat above in the room when they heard the door open. It was the younger one that jumped to her feet and ran from the room as if she was on fire. Her eyes were bright and alive for the first time in a long time. She loved her brother more than anything else in the world, even though he was six years older than her. "Michael!" Claire bolted from her room upstairs and down the wooden stairs into her brother's arms. She gripped him tightly and at such a force, he groaned slightly from the sudden impact. There was no doubt that they were related and that they were close. They held each other for a long moment until Claire stepped back, "How are you feeling? You don't look well." She reached up to touch his face but he shooed it away.
"You sound like Mom, stop." He bantered with familiarity of an older brother, knocking her hands away from his face, attempting to see if he had fever. Thank goodness he was an agent and could hide pain from those he loved.
"Well, someone has to keep you in line." She retorted, withdrawing her hand to her side with a hurt air. "Now that Mom's not around..."
"Yeah, I know." He kissed her forehead and gave her another tight squeeze and started to whisper in French, "How are you doing? I know that things have been tough for you. How are you handling this?"
Claire found unwanted tears coming to her wild child eyes. She sniffled a reply and nodded in her older brother's shoulder. "I'll be fine."
"Liar." Vaughn laughed in her hair. He leaned back and stooped down to look at her in the eyes, "I was always the good liar in the family and we all know it." He gripped her shoulders tightly.
Claire laughed lightly again at her brother and then looked at the woman standing, unsure at the door. Her language switched to English. "And you must be Sydney? How do you do? I'm Claire, Michael's little sister." She released her grasp from her brother and focused on Sydney. "It's so nice to meet you! I've heard so much about you!" She instantly reached towards the younger woman and pulled her into a tight embrace. Sydney felt awkward and the hug was completely unexpected.
Sydney's awkwardness soon disappeared and she felt so welcomed into the family. Now she understood why Vaughn loved to come home so much. "It's so wonderful to meet you. I've been dying to meet Vaughn's family." They separated for a moment and Claire smiled warmly at her. There was not a line or a wrinkle on her face and she was stunning in her long black skirt with sleeveless shirt. She opened her mouth to say something about 'Vaughn' but chose not to.
There was a long moment of simple silence. "Where's Izzy?" Vaughn asked, his eyes searching the house expectedly.
Claire rolled her eyes and stepped away from Sydney. Her tone was sardonic and sarcastic, "First of all, we can't call her Izzy anymore. She's *Isabelle* and second, she's upstairs. Isabelle? Isabelle?" She turned towards the stairs and started to shout upwards. Her hands went instinctively up to her hips and started to tap her foot impatiently as she continued to yell anxiously.
Sydney stepped closer to Vaughn and when brown met green, concern was apparent once again. "Are you okay? You're pale again." Sydney whispered under her breath. Vaughn lied and nodded that he was okay but he knew Sydney didn't buy into it. "We'll get settled and then you're going to take a nap."
Claire paused from her yelling to turn back to the couple, who abruptly stopped talking, "I don't know where she is!"
Another woman appeared on the top of the stairs, one had on the railing, one on her hip. "Will ya quit your yelling? She's right up here." Isabelle said with false annoyance from the top of the stairs. Her eyes held equal warmness to Claire's. A broad smile crept over her lips as she received her new guests, melting away false hostility. Her long chestnut colored hair had been swept into a French twist, held by a long black chopstick with a tiny rhinestone on the end. Her body was adorned with her simplest jewelry; a diamond pendant around her neck and her wedding and engagement ring on her fingers. She was perfectly made up and smelled like the sweetest perfume. Her face, dry from tears and concealed from its redness, now glowed at the sight of Vaughn and his long time but dangerous love.
The toddler was the first to welcome the new maiden. Maisie shrieked loudly, "Mama!"
"Maisie!" Isabelle grinned from ear to ear, hurrying down the steps to take her daughter into her arms. She kissed her lightly on the forehead as the tiny daughter hugged her tightly around the neck. "I'm Isabelle. You're Sydney, I presume?" She wanted to shake her hand but couldn't free herself.
"Yes." Sydney smiled at the warm looking sister dressed in cold looking black. "Your daughter is beautiful, Isabelle."
"Thank you, Sydney." She beamed with pride over the compliment for her daughter. The older sister walked towards her brother, kissing both sides of his face and whispered quickly in French, "She's beautiful, Michael."
Vaughn grinned at getting his sister's approval, "She is, isn't she?"
The mother continued to float in between Vaughn and Claire only to set her daughter down and reach to embrace Sydney. Getting use to their family ways, Sydney hugged equally back. "Where are your baggage? We have to get you settled if the wake's in a few hours." Isabelle took Sydney's hand, "Let me show you to room?"
Sydney smiled, taking the sister's hand and feeling part of the family. "I would love that, thank you." She shot Vaughn a concerned but happy look to which he mirrored exactly.
"Don't listen to a word she says about my childhood!" Vaughn cried happily and received a menacing look from his older sister. And they disappeared upstairs.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Claire's entire attitude changed, "You are sleeping with Derevko's daughter? How could you? And how could you bring her into this house!"
"Who's that?" Maisie asked innocently, playing with the hem of her aunt's dress.
Claire knelt down, "Why don't you go upstairs by Mama, okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay." Claire's tone changed entirely to the sugar sweet sound of an aunt as she watched her beloved little niece ascend the stairs. She gave her a tap on the rear end to help her up the stairs a bit. It had barely been two seconds before she started again on her rant, "How could you, Michael?" She stood up to face him.
Vaughn didn't know what to think, "I can't believe we're even having this conversation! Sydney is not Irinia! We've been over this a thousand times!" He quieted his voice and started to feel weak again. His mind was not as strong as he thought it was and the tightening feeling around his chest gave him unwanted news of a retuning demon.
Claire started to plead, "I can't believe that you're doing this to our family! She looks just like Irinia! Anyone who's seen that file is going to know! I can't believe you!" She turned to run somewhere. She didn't even know where she anted to go but she knew she had to get out of there. This was too overwhelming for even her.
Vaughn grabbed her tightly by the arm and held her in the foyer. "You have to know that I love Sydney more than anything else in this world." A new sense of urgency filled his voice as he hushed his tone to a whisper. "She's why I'm standing here today. She's saved my life more times than I care to count and she's the one that dragged my from my bed and into the center. And she's the one that told me the news." He took an overly dramatic pause. "She is my strength, Claire. I love her."
Claire's eyes started to swell with unwanted tears. "But she's the daughter of the killer of our parents. You're going to be killed-just like Dad." She felt the fear that she kept bottled up for how over twenty years. It had eaten her alive everyday and for the first time since she was two, she le the cork in the bottle to fall off.
Vaughn felt absolutely helpless. His arm was still gripped tightly around his sister's freshly toned arm but he felt his body growing weaker. "I won't. I promise." He said falsely. He pulled her into a deep hug and felt her sobs shake her tiny frame. There was something different about her though. She was more toned and muscular. There was a different way that she talked too. It was the way that agents spoke to each other and only agents could pick up on it. She squeezed tighter as the tears squeezed their way out of her eyes. She buried her head in his chest and soaked his shirt.
It wasn't the embrace that was hurting his lungs. It was something else-something internal. The tightness in his chest grew almost unbearable and he suddenly felt a lack of oxygen to his brain. He went to further his promise but sharply inhaled and started to wheeze. "I need to sit." He managed to gasp, feeling the effects of the chemotherapy start to take effect.
Newfound terror crept through his sister's eyes as she wrapped her arm around his back and ushered him towards the formal living room. He quickly eased himself into a white and blue toile chair, feeling the soft fabric beneath him. His breath was coming shorter and in harder gasps. "What is it? Michael? Michael, talk to me!" She knelt down before him and placed her hands on his face as he started to concave over his knees, gripping his chest tightly. "What's wrong?" Her voice started to break even more than before. Her body still racked with the tears from before.
Now he couldn't even talk. His chest started to burn badly and he felt his head go dizzy from lack of oxygen. He knew he was going to pass out in a moment. This was the worst time for this to happen. The wake was about to start in a few hours and here he was, hyperventilating from the tumor in his lung. He was going to have to tell his sisters about this now. His vision was beginning to grow cloudy as the tightness ensued. "Get..S...S.." He managed to hiss out.
"Get Sydney?" Claire managed to make out and then turned to bolt up the stairs. She secretly thanked her new trainer for making her do so many sets of stairs everyday. She knew that Sydney was staying in the guest room halfway down the left hall. She sprinted as fast as humanly possible. Her body had never moved so quickly in all of her life or at least, in real life. She reached the wooden door frame and saw Sydney sitting on the bed, lightly conversing with Isabelle. "Sydney! Michael's sick!" That's all she could say before she ran out and back down the stairs. Sydney's eyes grew wide at the initial knowledge but knew exactly what she was talking about. Her feet tore away from the privacy of the purple and white bedroom and down to the unfamiliar living room. She ran at full speed down the stairs and looked left and right, not sure which way to go. Her eyes quickly found Vaughn's form and she lunged towards him.
"Vaughn? Vaughn?" She fell at his feet and ran her hands over his face. "What is it? Is your chest? Tightness?" She received an firm nod at each one. Feeling absolutely desperate, she turned to Claire, who stood immobile near the back.
"What is it? Is he dying? What is it?" She managed to gasp over and over again.
"Run and get Weiss, the man outside! Tell him to bring the medic bag. It's urgent!" She rattled off the information, feeling her tongue move faster than ever before. She didn't even watch Claire leave. "Stay with me, sweetie. C'mon. You're okay. You're gonna be okay. Don't worry. Don't worry." She whispered over and over again. Her hands eased him back into the chair, her fingers lingering along his neck to find a rapid pulse. Without even consulting her watch, she knew his heart was going into overdrive. "Please baby, stay with me."
Weiss burst into the house with more speed and energy than she had ever seen before. He quickly joined Sydney on his knees and rummaged through his medical bag. An oxygen mask with cylinder were quickly found and administered. It took him longer than expected to relax and succumb to the oxygen. After about two minutes, he could take a truthful inhale. "I've got him. Why don't you calm the sister?" Weiss watched nervously as Claire started to pace back and forth in the doorway. He turned away from Vaughn for a moment and started to scrunch around for something to relax him.
So..what did you think?
Trust me, there are more secrets to come and to be revealed!
"Izzy, Claire! I'm here!" Vaughn cried, as he pushed open the door of the familiar estate. Seeing his favorite niece, well only niece, had given him much more energy than expected. Okay, maybe not quite but he had decided to ignore the dull aching pain in his chest that had started to reoccur. He knew exactly what that pain meant and wanted to not think about it so badly. He pushed open the old wooden door to reveal the inside of the manor that smelt like fresh lilacs and roses. Sydney was well at his heels, reveling in a sight of a lived in home. Maisie had gotten over her shyness and was now talking a mile a minute to Sydney about everything and anything to Sydney and Sydney was listening and hanging onto every word. Maternal instincts were running very high. The only one missing from the picture was Weiss, who was left to attend to the bags, unwillingly.
The sisters still sat above in the room when they heard the door open. It was the younger one that jumped to her feet and ran from the room as if she was on fire. Her eyes were bright and alive for the first time in a long time. She loved her brother more than anything else in the world, even though he was six years older than her. "Michael!" Claire bolted from her room upstairs and down the wooden stairs into her brother's arms. She gripped him tightly and at such a force, he groaned slightly from the sudden impact. There was no doubt that they were related and that they were close. They held each other for a long moment until Claire stepped back, "How are you feeling? You don't look well." She reached up to touch his face but he shooed it away.
"You sound like Mom, stop." He bantered with familiarity of an older brother, knocking her hands away from his face, attempting to see if he had fever. Thank goodness he was an agent and could hide pain from those he loved.
"Well, someone has to keep you in line." She retorted, withdrawing her hand to her side with a hurt air. "Now that Mom's not around..."
"Yeah, I know." He kissed her forehead and gave her another tight squeeze and started to whisper in French, "How are you doing? I know that things have been tough for you. How are you handling this?"
Claire found unwanted tears coming to her wild child eyes. She sniffled a reply and nodded in her older brother's shoulder. "I'll be fine."
"Liar." Vaughn laughed in her hair. He leaned back and stooped down to look at her in the eyes, "I was always the good liar in the family and we all know it." He gripped her shoulders tightly.
Claire laughed lightly again at her brother and then looked at the woman standing, unsure at the door. Her language switched to English. "And you must be Sydney? How do you do? I'm Claire, Michael's little sister." She released her grasp from her brother and focused on Sydney. "It's so nice to meet you! I've heard so much about you!" She instantly reached towards the younger woman and pulled her into a tight embrace. Sydney felt awkward and the hug was completely unexpected.
Sydney's awkwardness soon disappeared and she felt so welcomed into the family. Now she understood why Vaughn loved to come home so much. "It's so wonderful to meet you. I've been dying to meet Vaughn's family." They separated for a moment and Claire smiled warmly at her. There was not a line or a wrinkle on her face and she was stunning in her long black skirt with sleeveless shirt. She opened her mouth to say something about 'Vaughn' but chose not to.
There was a long moment of simple silence. "Where's Izzy?" Vaughn asked, his eyes searching the house expectedly.
Claire rolled her eyes and stepped away from Sydney. Her tone was sardonic and sarcastic, "First of all, we can't call her Izzy anymore. She's *Isabelle* and second, she's upstairs. Isabelle? Isabelle?" She turned towards the stairs and started to shout upwards. Her hands went instinctively up to her hips and started to tap her foot impatiently as she continued to yell anxiously.
Sydney stepped closer to Vaughn and when brown met green, concern was apparent once again. "Are you okay? You're pale again." Sydney whispered under her breath. Vaughn lied and nodded that he was okay but he knew Sydney didn't buy into it. "We'll get settled and then you're going to take a nap."
Claire paused from her yelling to turn back to the couple, who abruptly stopped talking, "I don't know where she is!"
Another woman appeared on the top of the stairs, one had on the railing, one on her hip. "Will ya quit your yelling? She's right up here." Isabelle said with false annoyance from the top of the stairs. Her eyes held equal warmness to Claire's. A broad smile crept over her lips as she received her new guests, melting away false hostility. Her long chestnut colored hair had been swept into a French twist, held by a long black chopstick with a tiny rhinestone on the end. Her body was adorned with her simplest jewelry; a diamond pendant around her neck and her wedding and engagement ring on her fingers. She was perfectly made up and smelled like the sweetest perfume. Her face, dry from tears and concealed from its redness, now glowed at the sight of Vaughn and his long time but dangerous love.
The toddler was the first to welcome the new maiden. Maisie shrieked loudly, "Mama!"
"Maisie!" Isabelle grinned from ear to ear, hurrying down the steps to take her daughter into her arms. She kissed her lightly on the forehead as the tiny daughter hugged her tightly around the neck. "I'm Isabelle. You're Sydney, I presume?" She wanted to shake her hand but couldn't free herself.
"Yes." Sydney smiled at the warm looking sister dressed in cold looking black. "Your daughter is beautiful, Isabelle."
"Thank you, Sydney." She beamed with pride over the compliment for her daughter. The older sister walked towards her brother, kissing both sides of his face and whispered quickly in French, "She's beautiful, Michael."
Vaughn grinned at getting his sister's approval, "She is, isn't she?"
The mother continued to float in between Vaughn and Claire only to set her daughter down and reach to embrace Sydney. Getting use to their family ways, Sydney hugged equally back. "Where are your baggage? We have to get you settled if the wake's in a few hours." Isabelle took Sydney's hand, "Let me show you to room?"
Sydney smiled, taking the sister's hand and feeling part of the family. "I would love that, thank you." She shot Vaughn a concerned but happy look to which he mirrored exactly.
"Don't listen to a word she says about my childhood!" Vaughn cried happily and received a menacing look from his older sister. And they disappeared upstairs.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Claire's entire attitude changed, "You are sleeping with Derevko's daughter? How could you? And how could you bring her into this house!"
"Who's that?" Maisie asked innocently, playing with the hem of her aunt's dress.
Claire knelt down, "Why don't you go upstairs by Mama, okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay." Claire's tone changed entirely to the sugar sweet sound of an aunt as she watched her beloved little niece ascend the stairs. She gave her a tap on the rear end to help her up the stairs a bit. It had barely been two seconds before she started again on her rant, "How could you, Michael?" She stood up to face him.
Vaughn didn't know what to think, "I can't believe we're even having this conversation! Sydney is not Irinia! We've been over this a thousand times!" He quieted his voice and started to feel weak again. His mind was not as strong as he thought it was and the tightening feeling around his chest gave him unwanted news of a retuning demon.
Claire started to plead, "I can't believe that you're doing this to our family! She looks just like Irinia! Anyone who's seen that file is going to know! I can't believe you!" She turned to run somewhere. She didn't even know where she anted to go but she knew she had to get out of there. This was too overwhelming for even her.
Vaughn grabbed her tightly by the arm and held her in the foyer. "You have to know that I love Sydney more than anything else in this world." A new sense of urgency filled his voice as he hushed his tone to a whisper. "She's why I'm standing here today. She's saved my life more times than I care to count and she's the one that dragged my from my bed and into the center. And she's the one that told me the news." He took an overly dramatic pause. "She is my strength, Claire. I love her."
Claire's eyes started to swell with unwanted tears. "But she's the daughter of the killer of our parents. You're going to be killed-just like Dad." She felt the fear that she kept bottled up for how over twenty years. It had eaten her alive everyday and for the first time since she was two, she le the cork in the bottle to fall off.
Vaughn felt absolutely helpless. His arm was still gripped tightly around his sister's freshly toned arm but he felt his body growing weaker. "I won't. I promise." He said falsely. He pulled her into a deep hug and felt her sobs shake her tiny frame. There was something different about her though. She was more toned and muscular. There was a different way that she talked too. It was the way that agents spoke to each other and only agents could pick up on it. She squeezed tighter as the tears squeezed their way out of her eyes. She buried her head in his chest and soaked his shirt.
It wasn't the embrace that was hurting his lungs. It was something else-something internal. The tightness in his chest grew almost unbearable and he suddenly felt a lack of oxygen to his brain. He went to further his promise but sharply inhaled and started to wheeze. "I need to sit." He managed to gasp, feeling the effects of the chemotherapy start to take effect.
Newfound terror crept through his sister's eyes as she wrapped her arm around his back and ushered him towards the formal living room. He quickly eased himself into a white and blue toile chair, feeling the soft fabric beneath him. His breath was coming shorter and in harder gasps. "What is it? Michael? Michael, talk to me!" She knelt down before him and placed her hands on his face as he started to concave over his knees, gripping his chest tightly. "What's wrong?" Her voice started to break even more than before. Her body still racked with the tears from before.
Now he couldn't even talk. His chest started to burn badly and he felt his head go dizzy from lack of oxygen. He knew he was going to pass out in a moment. This was the worst time for this to happen. The wake was about to start in a few hours and here he was, hyperventilating from the tumor in his lung. He was going to have to tell his sisters about this now. His vision was beginning to grow cloudy as the tightness ensued. "Get..S...S.." He managed to hiss out.
"Get Sydney?" Claire managed to make out and then turned to bolt up the stairs. She secretly thanked her new trainer for making her do so many sets of stairs everyday. She knew that Sydney was staying in the guest room halfway down the left hall. She sprinted as fast as humanly possible. Her body had never moved so quickly in all of her life or at least, in real life. She reached the wooden door frame and saw Sydney sitting on the bed, lightly conversing with Isabelle. "Sydney! Michael's sick!" That's all she could say before she ran out and back down the stairs. Sydney's eyes grew wide at the initial knowledge but knew exactly what she was talking about. Her feet tore away from the privacy of the purple and white bedroom and down to the unfamiliar living room. She ran at full speed down the stairs and looked left and right, not sure which way to go. Her eyes quickly found Vaughn's form and she lunged towards him.
"Vaughn? Vaughn?" She fell at his feet and ran her hands over his face. "What is it? Is your chest? Tightness?" She received an firm nod at each one. Feeling absolutely desperate, she turned to Claire, who stood immobile near the back.
"What is it? Is he dying? What is it?" She managed to gasp over and over again.
"Run and get Weiss, the man outside! Tell him to bring the medic bag. It's urgent!" She rattled off the information, feeling her tongue move faster than ever before. She didn't even watch Claire leave. "Stay with me, sweetie. C'mon. You're okay. You're gonna be okay. Don't worry. Don't worry." She whispered over and over again. Her hands eased him back into the chair, her fingers lingering along his neck to find a rapid pulse. Without even consulting her watch, she knew his heart was going into overdrive. "Please baby, stay with me."
Weiss burst into the house with more speed and energy than she had ever seen before. He quickly joined Sydney on his knees and rummaged through his medical bag. An oxygen mask with cylinder were quickly found and administered. It took him longer than expected to relax and succumb to the oxygen. After about two minutes, he could take a truthful inhale. "I've got him. Why don't you calm the sister?" Weiss watched nervously as Claire started to pace back and forth in the doorway. He turned away from Vaughn for a moment and started to scrunch around for something to relax him.
So..what did you think?