His brow was completely drenched in sweat and the compress on the
back of his neck was not helping at all. His mind was completely empty of
all thoughts except those damning his body and technology. The bathroom
floor was cold against his skin. The liquids burned in his throat in his
mouth.
He felt feverish but consciously knew that he had no fever. He felt flu symptoms but knew he had no flu. This was a reaction, one he dreaded every time but now, he was in a different place with new doctors but it wasn't so different and they weren't that new. His life had become a massive circle of negations. Absolute fire was spreading through his abdomen and scorched his skin in its wake.
But this time was different.
This time there was someone else with him and he wasn't in some cheap hotel. She was the one holding the dampened wash cloth to the back of his neck. Her hands traced invisible circles along his lower back in effort to calm him. He was suffering so much and she hated to see him this way. They had been home for about twelve to fourteen hours since his intense chemo treatments and already, he was feeling the side effects. She had changed into a comfortable pair of sweats with a nice white t-shirt and her hair pulled away from her neck. The make-up was still there to hide the bruises but they were starting to show through as well as the bags from beneath her eyes. She was tired, there was no denying that and all she wanted to was collapse into bed and pretend like the last few weeks just didn't happen.
His body leaned back onto her and he sighed heavily out of exhaustion. "I told you I shouldn't be here. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." He repeated over and over again as he tried to push away the nausea.
She kissed his temper as he collapsed further into her lap, resting his head against the bottom of her ribcage, "And I told you, I'm not going to let you get out of my sight. I lost you once and I'm not going to do it again." Her hands traveled over his soothingly.
"What happens when I die? You'll lose me all over again." He said, rather soberly.
She suppressed the emotions that were rising dangerously in her throat as she tried to think of something to say, "We're not going to talk about that yet. You're still here, aren't you? And you're not going anywhere."
"I'm dying, Sydney." He replied.
"No, you're not, Vaughn." She answered, with her tone a touch fimer,
"I am dying, Syd. I mean, there's going to be one morning that I don't wake up." His voice was raspy and low.
"Please don't talk like that." Sydney pleaded softly.
"I've been thinking about it a lot lately." His eyes reached up and stared at the crisp white ceiling. "Death. I mean, I wonder what it will be like. I'll get to see my father again, which will be nice. But I-I've been thinking about it a lot and I wonder who's gonna come to my funeral and who will mourn me and what people will say. How my mother-" His breath hitched in his throat as he remembered his mother was dead, "What my mother will look like as an angel. I wonder. I'll get to watch you go on with your life and be so happy with whatever will come and I'll get to watch Maisie grow up in the safety of Isabelle's arms. I'll get to be there for her first day of school, her first date, her first everything. And then I can haunt her boyfriend." He laughed lightly at the first part as his chest gave way to coughing. "And I'll get to watch you and make sure that you're not harmed on missions and that you'll be fine. I'll be your angel."
"Please don't talk like that. You're going to be here for a while. We'll quit the CIA or I will and I'll be an English teacher and you-you can be a French teacher. We'll have a baby together and move to a house in the suburbs. And we'll have a dog and a house with a white picket fence and everything. We'll live happily ever after. The end."
"But Syd, we have to think rationally about this for a moment." He ran his hand lazily, tracing circles on her exposed calf. He loved it when she was dressed down with her hair pulled back and stray pieces flying around her face. She looked so beautiful, even there.
She refused to listen to logical thought at this moment. She pulled against it like a child pulling away from its mother in a crowded department store. "No. No, we don't. We are just going to sit here and muddle through this and come Monday, the world will be a brighter. You said it yourself, you've fine after the weekend."
"But Sydney-"
"No buts, Vaughn." She replied, her voice in that no nonsense tone she used when she spoke to people like Kendall.
They fell into an uncomfortable silence for a moment. Their thoughts were in ten different places at once. He was thinking more along the times of how sick he felt at that moment and started to pray that death would come simply because life on earth was so hellish. As if without warning, he lurched forward and emptied the remaining contents of his stomach. Soon, he gave way to painful dry heaves as the bile of his stomach churned against his fragile frame, burning him from the inside out.
Sydney was pulled from her painful day dreams of life without Vaughn and into the reality that she was living. Without words, she reached up and found a small cup of water. "Do you want-?" She asked as he collapsed back down against her, groaning softly.
"No. No." He replied, covering his sweat covered face with his clammy hand.
"Here, then let me get some of that medicine the doctor gave-" She moved to move his exhausted frame off of her body so that she could go and get the filled syringe from her purse. She balanced his shoulders in her hands as she got to her feet.
"No, no." He replied again, a little firmer this time. He reached up and pulled her back down. "I want you just to sit with me and this-this will pass."
She nodded sincerely and knelt down behind him and let him rest his head against her chest. She ran her fingers through his hair as she murmured soft words. "What do you want to talk about? Or do you just want to sit here and not talk or what....?" She felt her babble flow freely from her mouth no matter how hard she tried to control it.
"I don't care. Just tell me something-just talk. I need to hear your voice."
She thought for a long moment. She couldn't think of a thing to talk about. "Baby, I really don't know what to say to you. We've been through so much that anything would make this seem-oh baby. I just wish I could make this go away for you." The tears started to swell over her eyes and blinked slowly in an attempt to clear her eyes.
He curled his body as the fire stretched through his body, "Please, just say anything. Tell me about yourself or your childhood or something. I need something to keep my mind off of this."
"I used to be a dancer." She said with a thoughtful tone after reminiscing in her mind for a few minutes.
"Used to be?" He repeated, his eyes fluttering closed from exhaustion. "What happened?"
She leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes as she replied. "I don't know. I graduated high school and dance, dance just lost it's place in my life. G-d how I miss it. It was wonderful. I loved pulling my hair back and throwing my dance clothes on. My mother had a dance trunk from her dancing days...and I would wear her skirts and everything...they were beautiful and she always told me she just found them somewhere but now I know that they were from her days dancing under the Russian ballet. Not many people know that the infamous Irinia Derevko was a ballet dancer. A ballet dancer." She knew that it was a dangerous topic that she was treading on and she didn't bother to over-think her train of thought. She never intended for it to turn to a conversation about her mother.
"You look like a dancer." He managed to slur before leaning forward to empty the remaining stomach contents.
His body had finally stopped trembling and he subsided to a restless sleep. It was only his second sleep in her apartment in nearly a year but already he looked so peaceful beneath the fluffy white comforter. She sat in a nearby chair and watched him with exhausted eyes. The door opened slowly and a familiar figure entered, holding two cups of coffee. He offered it to Sydney silently and she looked up at him and smiled, "Thanks."
"Why don't we go talk in the kitchen, so we don't wake Sleeping Beauty over there." Weiss joked lightly. His eyes were anything but joyful.
Sydney nodded her head slowly and got to her feet, taking one last glance at Vaughn before she exited the room. The warm coffee mug gave feeling to her numb fingertips. Her body had gone numb a long time ago. Her fingertips desperately needed feeling and her feet were somewhere beyond cold. That was the thing about it. Since the trip to the hospital, she had felt numb from head to toe. With her numbness growing, she reached the kitchen, the bright light glowing yellow.
Weiss found a chair and sat down in it. "How's he doing?"
She sat down and pulled her feet beneath her, "Has it always been like this? I mean, when he was alone, he was like this?"
Weiss took a long sip of coffee and felt the steam hit his face. "Yeah. Every time gets a little worse, I guess. But sooner or later, they'll be something to cure him."
Sydney didn't know what to do with herself. "He's dying and there's nothing I can do about it. I lose every man that I love except this time..." His voice started to trail off as the tears started to well up again.
"Except?" Weiss probed, reaching out his hand to touch Sydney's hand reassuring.
Her body felt like it was going to collapse, "Except Vaughn came back this time. And now, I'm losing him again." The color started to drain from her face as she realistically thought of her life without Vaughn. "I've done it once and I don't know if I can do it again. I mean, I really don't. What am I going to do without him? I mean, I didn't talk to him for that long time but that's because I was stupid. If I had know, I never would have pushed him out of my life. Why was I so stupid? How could I be so naïve? And now, I have less than a year with him." She collapsed back into her chair and starred at Weiss in horror.
He had never seen her frightened about anything. This was the unbeatable Sydney Bristow and here she was, horrified. He had seen her broken and depressed but never scared. This was uncharted territory for all of them and each step down this slippery slope was more treacherous than the last. She set up her coffee cup down and her hand flew up to her mouth as she continued to think about life without him. "Have you slept at all?" When she didn't answer right away, he pushed harder, "Sydney. When's the last time you slept?"
She thought carefully about this for a moment, taking time to bit down on her lip thoughtfully. "I slept until noon the day we came home and then-and then I've been up ever since." She shrugged her shoulders innocently. "I'm used to not sleeping." She quickly responded as Weiss shot her a disbelieving look. "Really, I'm fine. Weiss, I promise. I'm serious. I'm fine."
Weiss got to his feet and looked at her, his hands being brought up to his hips. "You need to go get to bed and sleep."
She shook her head adamantly, "Vaughn's in the bedroom."
"So, you can crash on the couch. C'mon, Syd. Even you have to sleep sometime." He opened his hand to her and motioned for her to get up.
She sighed heavily and got to her feet and felt the exhaustion overwhelm her body. She had been awake for over twenty-four hours. "Let me check on Vaughn first and then I'll rest my eyes on the couch. I won't sleep. I just need to rest my eyes for a minute."
"Uh-huh. Whatever you say, Syd."
Together they walked through the living room and to the bedroom. Weiss lagged behind in the living room to make a bed for Sydney for her to sleep on. He knew too well of her stubbornness and laughed to himself quietly as he laid out the green knitted over the cream colored couch. He knew the pain Sydney was going through. He was going to lose his best friend and all he could do was sit by and try to comfort him and his girlfriend. He sighed heavily as he threw the blanket up in the air, attempting to spread it out over the long creases of the cushions. He found some pillows and tossed them towards one side for her to rest her head on. Another heavy sigh came and he realized how tired he was.
"Oh my G-d. Oh my G-d. Weiss! Weiss! Get in here! Weiss! Vaughn's not breathing!" He heard Sydney scream. He dropped the pillow from his hands and ran into the bedroom, not feeling another but panic.
He felt feverish but consciously knew that he had no fever. He felt flu symptoms but knew he had no flu. This was a reaction, one he dreaded every time but now, he was in a different place with new doctors but it wasn't so different and they weren't that new. His life had become a massive circle of negations. Absolute fire was spreading through his abdomen and scorched his skin in its wake.
But this time was different.
This time there was someone else with him and he wasn't in some cheap hotel. She was the one holding the dampened wash cloth to the back of his neck. Her hands traced invisible circles along his lower back in effort to calm him. He was suffering so much and she hated to see him this way. They had been home for about twelve to fourteen hours since his intense chemo treatments and already, he was feeling the side effects. She had changed into a comfortable pair of sweats with a nice white t-shirt and her hair pulled away from her neck. The make-up was still there to hide the bruises but they were starting to show through as well as the bags from beneath her eyes. She was tired, there was no denying that and all she wanted to was collapse into bed and pretend like the last few weeks just didn't happen.
His body leaned back onto her and he sighed heavily out of exhaustion. "I told you I shouldn't be here. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." He repeated over and over again as he tried to push away the nausea.
She kissed his temper as he collapsed further into her lap, resting his head against the bottom of her ribcage, "And I told you, I'm not going to let you get out of my sight. I lost you once and I'm not going to do it again." Her hands traveled over his soothingly.
"What happens when I die? You'll lose me all over again." He said, rather soberly.
She suppressed the emotions that were rising dangerously in her throat as she tried to think of something to say, "We're not going to talk about that yet. You're still here, aren't you? And you're not going anywhere."
"I'm dying, Sydney." He replied.
"No, you're not, Vaughn." She answered, with her tone a touch fimer,
"I am dying, Syd. I mean, there's going to be one morning that I don't wake up." His voice was raspy and low.
"Please don't talk like that." Sydney pleaded softly.
"I've been thinking about it a lot lately." His eyes reached up and stared at the crisp white ceiling. "Death. I mean, I wonder what it will be like. I'll get to see my father again, which will be nice. But I-I've been thinking about it a lot and I wonder who's gonna come to my funeral and who will mourn me and what people will say. How my mother-" His breath hitched in his throat as he remembered his mother was dead, "What my mother will look like as an angel. I wonder. I'll get to watch you go on with your life and be so happy with whatever will come and I'll get to watch Maisie grow up in the safety of Isabelle's arms. I'll get to be there for her first day of school, her first date, her first everything. And then I can haunt her boyfriend." He laughed lightly at the first part as his chest gave way to coughing. "And I'll get to watch you and make sure that you're not harmed on missions and that you'll be fine. I'll be your angel."
"Please don't talk like that. You're going to be here for a while. We'll quit the CIA or I will and I'll be an English teacher and you-you can be a French teacher. We'll have a baby together and move to a house in the suburbs. And we'll have a dog and a house with a white picket fence and everything. We'll live happily ever after. The end."
"But Syd, we have to think rationally about this for a moment." He ran his hand lazily, tracing circles on her exposed calf. He loved it when she was dressed down with her hair pulled back and stray pieces flying around her face. She looked so beautiful, even there.
She refused to listen to logical thought at this moment. She pulled against it like a child pulling away from its mother in a crowded department store. "No. No, we don't. We are just going to sit here and muddle through this and come Monday, the world will be a brighter. You said it yourself, you've fine after the weekend."
"But Sydney-"
"No buts, Vaughn." She replied, her voice in that no nonsense tone she used when she spoke to people like Kendall.
They fell into an uncomfortable silence for a moment. Their thoughts were in ten different places at once. He was thinking more along the times of how sick he felt at that moment and started to pray that death would come simply because life on earth was so hellish. As if without warning, he lurched forward and emptied the remaining contents of his stomach. Soon, he gave way to painful dry heaves as the bile of his stomach churned against his fragile frame, burning him from the inside out.
Sydney was pulled from her painful day dreams of life without Vaughn and into the reality that she was living. Without words, she reached up and found a small cup of water. "Do you want-?" She asked as he collapsed back down against her, groaning softly.
"No. No." He replied, covering his sweat covered face with his clammy hand.
"Here, then let me get some of that medicine the doctor gave-" She moved to move his exhausted frame off of her body so that she could go and get the filled syringe from her purse. She balanced his shoulders in her hands as she got to her feet.
"No, no." He replied again, a little firmer this time. He reached up and pulled her back down. "I want you just to sit with me and this-this will pass."
She nodded sincerely and knelt down behind him and let him rest his head against her chest. She ran her fingers through his hair as she murmured soft words. "What do you want to talk about? Or do you just want to sit here and not talk or what....?" She felt her babble flow freely from her mouth no matter how hard she tried to control it.
"I don't care. Just tell me something-just talk. I need to hear your voice."
She thought for a long moment. She couldn't think of a thing to talk about. "Baby, I really don't know what to say to you. We've been through so much that anything would make this seem-oh baby. I just wish I could make this go away for you." The tears started to swell over her eyes and blinked slowly in an attempt to clear her eyes.
He curled his body as the fire stretched through his body, "Please, just say anything. Tell me about yourself or your childhood or something. I need something to keep my mind off of this."
"I used to be a dancer." She said with a thoughtful tone after reminiscing in her mind for a few minutes.
"Used to be?" He repeated, his eyes fluttering closed from exhaustion. "What happened?"
She leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes as she replied. "I don't know. I graduated high school and dance, dance just lost it's place in my life. G-d how I miss it. It was wonderful. I loved pulling my hair back and throwing my dance clothes on. My mother had a dance trunk from her dancing days...and I would wear her skirts and everything...they were beautiful and she always told me she just found them somewhere but now I know that they were from her days dancing under the Russian ballet. Not many people know that the infamous Irinia Derevko was a ballet dancer. A ballet dancer." She knew that it was a dangerous topic that she was treading on and she didn't bother to over-think her train of thought. She never intended for it to turn to a conversation about her mother.
"You look like a dancer." He managed to slur before leaning forward to empty the remaining stomach contents.
His body had finally stopped trembling and he subsided to a restless sleep. It was only his second sleep in her apartment in nearly a year but already he looked so peaceful beneath the fluffy white comforter. She sat in a nearby chair and watched him with exhausted eyes. The door opened slowly and a familiar figure entered, holding two cups of coffee. He offered it to Sydney silently and she looked up at him and smiled, "Thanks."
"Why don't we go talk in the kitchen, so we don't wake Sleeping Beauty over there." Weiss joked lightly. His eyes were anything but joyful.
Sydney nodded her head slowly and got to her feet, taking one last glance at Vaughn before she exited the room. The warm coffee mug gave feeling to her numb fingertips. Her body had gone numb a long time ago. Her fingertips desperately needed feeling and her feet were somewhere beyond cold. That was the thing about it. Since the trip to the hospital, she had felt numb from head to toe. With her numbness growing, she reached the kitchen, the bright light glowing yellow.
Weiss found a chair and sat down in it. "How's he doing?"
She sat down and pulled her feet beneath her, "Has it always been like this? I mean, when he was alone, he was like this?"
Weiss took a long sip of coffee and felt the steam hit his face. "Yeah. Every time gets a little worse, I guess. But sooner or later, they'll be something to cure him."
Sydney didn't know what to do with herself. "He's dying and there's nothing I can do about it. I lose every man that I love except this time..." His voice started to trail off as the tears started to well up again.
"Except?" Weiss probed, reaching out his hand to touch Sydney's hand reassuring.
Her body felt like it was going to collapse, "Except Vaughn came back this time. And now, I'm losing him again." The color started to drain from her face as she realistically thought of her life without Vaughn. "I've done it once and I don't know if I can do it again. I mean, I really don't. What am I going to do without him? I mean, I didn't talk to him for that long time but that's because I was stupid. If I had know, I never would have pushed him out of my life. Why was I so stupid? How could I be so naïve? And now, I have less than a year with him." She collapsed back into her chair and starred at Weiss in horror.
He had never seen her frightened about anything. This was the unbeatable Sydney Bristow and here she was, horrified. He had seen her broken and depressed but never scared. This was uncharted territory for all of them and each step down this slippery slope was more treacherous than the last. She set up her coffee cup down and her hand flew up to her mouth as she continued to think about life without him. "Have you slept at all?" When she didn't answer right away, he pushed harder, "Sydney. When's the last time you slept?"
She thought carefully about this for a moment, taking time to bit down on her lip thoughtfully. "I slept until noon the day we came home and then-and then I've been up ever since." She shrugged her shoulders innocently. "I'm used to not sleeping." She quickly responded as Weiss shot her a disbelieving look. "Really, I'm fine. Weiss, I promise. I'm serious. I'm fine."
Weiss got to his feet and looked at her, his hands being brought up to his hips. "You need to go get to bed and sleep."
She shook her head adamantly, "Vaughn's in the bedroom."
"So, you can crash on the couch. C'mon, Syd. Even you have to sleep sometime." He opened his hand to her and motioned for her to get up.
She sighed heavily and got to her feet and felt the exhaustion overwhelm her body. She had been awake for over twenty-four hours. "Let me check on Vaughn first and then I'll rest my eyes on the couch. I won't sleep. I just need to rest my eyes for a minute."
"Uh-huh. Whatever you say, Syd."
Together they walked through the living room and to the bedroom. Weiss lagged behind in the living room to make a bed for Sydney for her to sleep on. He knew too well of her stubbornness and laughed to himself quietly as he laid out the green knitted over the cream colored couch. He knew the pain Sydney was going through. He was going to lose his best friend and all he could do was sit by and try to comfort him and his girlfriend. He sighed heavily as he threw the blanket up in the air, attempting to spread it out over the long creases of the cushions. He found some pillows and tossed them towards one side for her to rest her head on. Another heavy sigh came and he realized how tired he was.
"Oh my G-d. Oh my G-d. Weiss! Weiss! Get in here! Weiss! Vaughn's not breathing!" He heard Sydney scream. He dropped the pillow from his hands and ran into the bedroom, not feeling another but panic.