This chapter is a little more Weiss centered. I didn't plan for this
chapter originally and I don't know how good it is but the concept was
kinda interesting (or at least I thought so.) So, happy reading! ½ box of
Kleenex will be needed for this chapter! Three more chapters after this
one! (If I don't decide to add anymore) I hafta say, I did not intend for
this story to be so long. There were a lot of twists and turns that even I
didn't think of until I was seriously writing it. Believe it or not, the
first chapter just started out as a creative writing assignment. We were
given an object....I was given a set of American flag stamps. So, if you
read in the first chapter, read carefully for the stamps!
Happy reading!
The two men sat in absolute silence. They didn't know what to say to each other and nothing was appropriate. The sterile hospital smell clouded both their senses and made their conception of reality hazy.
"So um....how long do you think he has?" The blonde man spoke finally taking his weight off of his knees and leaning back into the hospital room. Sydney had left what felt like ages ago and with her, the topics too talk about.
"I don't know. I don't know." Repeated the dark hair man. This was extremely difficult on him. He sighed heavily. It seemed to be the only thing he could do. Yes, sighing was the easiest thing to do at this moment.
Will watched the other man rise from his sitting position and start to pace around the room. Will, though, decided to stay seated and spoke softly, "I hate this helpless feeling. I want to help them so badly and all I can do is sit here and tell Syd it's gonna be okay and I don't know if it is. She was hurt so badly when he left and I don't know how she's going to survive if he-if he dies?"
Weiss looked at him hard, "I hated him for the longest time." He needed to get these feelings off of his chest so badly. They had eaten away at him for so long and if he didn't say something soon, he was going to explode.
"You what?" Will's eyebrows shot up in disbelief. The dry tone of the other man shocked him to his core. There was a deep rooted emotional disturbance.
"I hated him for such a long time for getting sick. I blamed him for his illness. I hated what he did to Sydney and everyone else. And then I had to keep this from everyone and I had no time to react. I had to keep everything bottled up when I was losing my best friend right before my eyes."
"No one had any idea what was going on." Will replied softly. He brought his hands up to his eyes and covered them to block out the blinding light. "No one had any idea."
Weiss turned away from him, his hands resting on his hips as a flood of memories came back, haunting him. He and Vaughn had been through so much together. "When we were training at the farm, Vaughn and I went out one weekend to a local bar. There were girls everyone. Everywhere you looked there were women, knowing that there was a CIA training ground around there somewhere."
"Good night for the two of you then?" Will laughed lightly behind closed eyes.
"No, actually."
"No?" He brought his hand down and looked at the other man with lightly spirited eyes.
"No. Vaughn was lusting after Jeanette at that time and refused- REFUSED to look at anyone whose name wasn't Jeanette Alicia Salve. I mean, there was alcohol everywhere-women everywhere...basically a guarantee that you would go home with someone-and he would not look at any of them. I remember this. He sat the bar, with his whisky sour, the only thing he would drink, and just stared at it for hours. I mean, we must've been there for hours while I tried to pick of this one chick. Yo, this girl was awesome. She had long blonde hair and let's just say she was gifted in all areas." Weiss turned back towards Will and smiled. "Mike was always faithful."
"There's 'but' there, isn't there?" Will replied.
Weiss took a slow breath in. "After the Jeanette fiasco, there was a series of girls that you definitely do not want to know about and then he met Alice Lipton. She was the daughter of an elementary school teacher and an accountant. Nice girl. She was a nice girl, pretty, and she and Mike had a relatively happy relationship."
"Relatively happy?"
"Well, he met Sydney and it all went to hell faster than you can say CIA. He loved Alice unconditionally but Sydney changed everything for worse. Do you know how many times we had a conversation about her over beers? Enough to get him to drink beer and like it too."
"Sydney was that much of a problem for Vaughn?"
"You have no idea how much he loves her. I didn't think that someone could fall for a girl so hard."
Will chuckled lightly at this statement, "You have no idea."
Weiss started to pace slightly, concentrating on the soft blue carpeting of the surgical waiting room. "You sound like you have experience."
"When you fall for a girl like Sydney, expect your whole world to crash down around you." The memories of all of those nights that he lay in bed longing for her touch came soaring back. He remembered how he couldn't stand to be in the same room as her without being right next to her. He couldn't stand the way she could see through him with those piercing brown eyes. He remembered when he admitted to himself that he loved her. He remembered when he admitted to himself that she would never be his. He remembered when he admitted to himself that it was time to let her go. To go and be with Vaughn.
"Did you and Syd ever-" Weiss had never known any history between Sydney and Will. Whenever a romantic entity came up between her and Vaughn, Vaughn would just chose to throw things or curse and scream a lot or clam up. It was normally the latter.
"We kissed. Twice." (as per a deleted scene courtesy of SEASON ONE DVD) "Once we were drunk and it just happened. The second time, I kissed her.she didn't kiss back and it killed me. I mean, I wanted to jump off of the nearest building." He chuckled again and crossed his arms over his chest. He slunk deeper into the chair and shook his head ruefully. "Once you fall for Sydney Bristow, your whole world changes. Nothing's ever the same."
Weiss sighed heavily and looked back at Will with clear eyes. "That's what Mike kept saying."
"This has been tough on you, I'm assuming." Will spoke in a sudden low tone.
Weiss found his seat next to Will and looked at him hard. "I-uh I never knew how to react to any of it. I remember when he told me-told me he had the cancer. It just felt terrible and I remember just falling apart at the seams. But I don't remember crying or anything like that. I can remember stupid stuff. Like what color tie I was wearing or what song was playing on the radio but I can't remember what I said to him..." Weiss trailed off and let his eyes filled with tears that had never fallen before. He clasped his hands in his lap and stared at them intently. He stopped talking for a minute while he got his thoughts together, "I keep telling Sydney that everything will be okay and it'll all work out but the catch is, I don't believe any of it. I mean, I'm losing my best friend right in front of my eyes and all I can do is sit here and pretend that the world is full of lollipops and gumdrops."
Will took a moment to digest all of this, "Life is a bitch, isn't it?"
"I don't know what I'm going to do when he dies." Weiss nodded his head solemnly, "He's my best friend and without him, I don't know what's going to happen with anything. I don't know anything anymore." He sighed heavily and looked down at his hands clasped in his hands again.
Will replied the sigh with an even deeper sigh and looked down at his watch, "Wow. It's getting late. Jules' is gonna where I am. Tell Sydney that I'll talk to her tomorrow, okay?" He rose slowly and started to walk towards the door.
"Yeah. Sure. Later, man." Weiss replied slowly before leaning his head back against the back of the chair.
Will stopped and looked at him hard, the emotions swelling up in the back of his throat, "I'm really sorry about everything that's going on. Really, man, I'm sorry."
Weiss nodded with a sad smile etched on his face, "I'll tell Sydney that you had to leave."
Will didn't say anything. Instead, he walked out awkwardly into the sterile white hallway.
So, Weiss was left there all alone for a while with his thoughts for a while. He didn't know what to do with himself. He still couldn't believe that he was going to lose his best friend. It had sunk in to a certain degree but he didn't know how he was going to react at the funeral. How do you react to the passing of your best friend? He had so many unanswered questions but he didn't know where to get the answers. He felt his breath flutter over his lips and got to his feet. It was really late or really early. He couldn't tell. But he could tell that he was desperate need of a good cup of coffee.
Not quite sure where he was going, he started to walk the halls, his feet scuffing on the linoleum floors. He trusted his hands into his pockets and starred down at the floor intently. He tired to shake off these emotions. He worked for the CIA, for goodness's sake. He should be able to cope with death better than he was. He had killed more men than he would like to count in the field. He pressed his lips together tightly and felt his brow furrow in despair. He picked his head up as he passed a slew of windowed rooms.
"Sydney, you really need to get home and get some rest. You being exhausted isn't going to help Mike any." Weiss spoke is low tones sometime in the early hours of the morning. He had made his way to Vaughn's hospital room, without really realizing it and found his best friend lying there with Sydney curled up on a chair nearby. The sight of Vaughn lying there took the breath out of him but he quickly recovered. He slowly pushed the door open and crept in without making much of a sound.
She picked her head up and rested head on her knees, curled up tightly beneath her. "Yeah well...." She drifted off as she unfolded her legs from beneath and got to her feet.
"You haven't slept well in how many nights? I'll bring you home and you'll sleep and you'll be fine." He offered his hands to her as he walked towards her. "You're not going to help Mike any by not sleeping."
She sat up slowly and placed her feet on the floor. She reached her hands up towards Weiss and pulled him down to eye level. He crouched down in front of her and just starred straight into her eyes. She stared into the brown eyes that she had taken for granted for so long. Those eyes held so much emotion that he refused to let show. He was holding it all in. There was resentment, anger, compassion, sorrow and depression all rolled into the swirling brown spheres. She let go of his hands and managed to rest one of his cheek. "You've been so strong. What can I ever do to repay everything you've done for me and Vaughn? What would we do without you?" A silent tear started to roll down her cheek and she ducked her head slightly.
Weiss finally found the tears that had refused to pour down his cheeks before. He found the emotions chocking his throat and the words wouldn't come. "We're gonna make it, Syd. You, me, Mike...all of us. Everything's gonna work out. Mike's gonna be fine."
"The treatment didn't work." She blurted suddenly, snapping her head up suddenly.
He felt like had been punched in the stomach. "Let's get you home." He stood up unexpectedly and offered his hands out again. "We need to get you home." He helped her to her feet and rested his hand on her back, slowly guiding her out of the room.
She nodded tearfully and turned back towards Vaughn, "I'll be back soon, baby."
"C'mon, Sydney." He wrapped his arms around her slim body and started to lead her out of the room, despite her slight physical protest that only lasted a few seconds.
"I've gone through life on less sleep." She sighed and allowed herself to be led out of the room.
Weiss laughed ruefully, "Aw Syd. C'mon. You're a strong one, Sydney. You can be a real SOB but you're a tough one."
Sydney laughed a reply as she rested her head on his shoulder "You've always been so nice to me without second guessing it. Why? We barely know each other. And yet you've been there for me every step of the way. You forced me to see Vaughn again and what would I do without you? You've helped him with everything and you've helped me with everything. What would I do without you. I would have collapsed a long time ago." She smiled and looked up at him before yawning. "I'm sorry."
"I know you're exhausted." He paused for a moment and tried to lighten the mood a little bit. "So will you show me Mike's drawer when we get back to your place?"
Sydney simply groaned and buried her head in his shoulder as they continued down the bright hallway. She didn't want to answer and felt the flush rising in her cheeks.
"Hey, I'm serious. I don't have a girlfriend to give me a drawer. I gotta live through Mike."
"That's not true!" Sydney picked her head up suddenly and stopped moving for a moment. "I know you have an itch for Isabelle!" He opened his mouth to protest but was quickly stopped, "Don't even try to deny it! I saw the two of you kissing!" She grinned for the first time in a while. "You lo-ove her! You lo-ove her!" She started to repeat in a sing songy voice.
"Sydney!"
"Eric!"
Weiss tried to find the right words and went through a series of opening his mouth and closing it.
"Don't even try to deny it, Eric Weiss. You told Vaughn to take the plunge with me. You 'carpe diem' us to absolute death. You were almost killed a few years ago and you went through the whole phase of living each day as if it were your last. You've been in love with Isabelle Vaughn for a long time. Take the plunge. Go for it. You'll be happy you did."
Weiss thought about this for a moment, "You speak from experience." They stopped at the elevator and pressed the DOWN button.
"Finally being together with Vaughn was the best thing I ever did in my life. I love him more than anything else."
Happy reading!
The two men sat in absolute silence. They didn't know what to say to each other and nothing was appropriate. The sterile hospital smell clouded both their senses and made their conception of reality hazy.
"So um....how long do you think he has?" The blonde man spoke finally taking his weight off of his knees and leaning back into the hospital room. Sydney had left what felt like ages ago and with her, the topics too talk about.
"I don't know. I don't know." Repeated the dark hair man. This was extremely difficult on him. He sighed heavily. It seemed to be the only thing he could do. Yes, sighing was the easiest thing to do at this moment.
Will watched the other man rise from his sitting position and start to pace around the room. Will, though, decided to stay seated and spoke softly, "I hate this helpless feeling. I want to help them so badly and all I can do is sit here and tell Syd it's gonna be okay and I don't know if it is. She was hurt so badly when he left and I don't know how she's going to survive if he-if he dies?"
Weiss looked at him hard, "I hated him for the longest time." He needed to get these feelings off of his chest so badly. They had eaten away at him for so long and if he didn't say something soon, he was going to explode.
"You what?" Will's eyebrows shot up in disbelief. The dry tone of the other man shocked him to his core. There was a deep rooted emotional disturbance.
"I hated him for such a long time for getting sick. I blamed him for his illness. I hated what he did to Sydney and everyone else. And then I had to keep this from everyone and I had no time to react. I had to keep everything bottled up when I was losing my best friend right before my eyes."
"No one had any idea what was going on." Will replied softly. He brought his hands up to his eyes and covered them to block out the blinding light. "No one had any idea."
Weiss turned away from him, his hands resting on his hips as a flood of memories came back, haunting him. He and Vaughn had been through so much together. "When we were training at the farm, Vaughn and I went out one weekend to a local bar. There were girls everyone. Everywhere you looked there were women, knowing that there was a CIA training ground around there somewhere."
"Good night for the two of you then?" Will laughed lightly behind closed eyes.
"No, actually."
"No?" He brought his hand down and looked at the other man with lightly spirited eyes.
"No. Vaughn was lusting after Jeanette at that time and refused- REFUSED to look at anyone whose name wasn't Jeanette Alicia Salve. I mean, there was alcohol everywhere-women everywhere...basically a guarantee that you would go home with someone-and he would not look at any of them. I remember this. He sat the bar, with his whisky sour, the only thing he would drink, and just stared at it for hours. I mean, we must've been there for hours while I tried to pick of this one chick. Yo, this girl was awesome. She had long blonde hair and let's just say she was gifted in all areas." Weiss turned back towards Will and smiled. "Mike was always faithful."
"There's 'but' there, isn't there?" Will replied.
Weiss took a slow breath in. "After the Jeanette fiasco, there was a series of girls that you definitely do not want to know about and then he met Alice Lipton. She was the daughter of an elementary school teacher and an accountant. Nice girl. She was a nice girl, pretty, and she and Mike had a relatively happy relationship."
"Relatively happy?"
"Well, he met Sydney and it all went to hell faster than you can say CIA. He loved Alice unconditionally but Sydney changed everything for worse. Do you know how many times we had a conversation about her over beers? Enough to get him to drink beer and like it too."
"Sydney was that much of a problem for Vaughn?"
"You have no idea how much he loves her. I didn't think that someone could fall for a girl so hard."
Will chuckled lightly at this statement, "You have no idea."
Weiss started to pace slightly, concentrating on the soft blue carpeting of the surgical waiting room. "You sound like you have experience."
"When you fall for a girl like Sydney, expect your whole world to crash down around you." The memories of all of those nights that he lay in bed longing for her touch came soaring back. He remembered how he couldn't stand to be in the same room as her without being right next to her. He couldn't stand the way she could see through him with those piercing brown eyes. He remembered when he admitted to himself that he loved her. He remembered when he admitted to himself that she would never be his. He remembered when he admitted to himself that it was time to let her go. To go and be with Vaughn.
"Did you and Syd ever-" Weiss had never known any history between Sydney and Will. Whenever a romantic entity came up between her and Vaughn, Vaughn would just chose to throw things or curse and scream a lot or clam up. It was normally the latter.
"We kissed. Twice." (as per a deleted scene courtesy of SEASON ONE DVD) "Once we were drunk and it just happened. The second time, I kissed her.she didn't kiss back and it killed me. I mean, I wanted to jump off of the nearest building." He chuckled again and crossed his arms over his chest. He slunk deeper into the chair and shook his head ruefully. "Once you fall for Sydney Bristow, your whole world changes. Nothing's ever the same."
Weiss sighed heavily and looked back at Will with clear eyes. "That's what Mike kept saying."
"This has been tough on you, I'm assuming." Will spoke in a sudden low tone.
Weiss found his seat next to Will and looked at him hard. "I-uh I never knew how to react to any of it. I remember when he told me-told me he had the cancer. It just felt terrible and I remember just falling apart at the seams. But I don't remember crying or anything like that. I can remember stupid stuff. Like what color tie I was wearing or what song was playing on the radio but I can't remember what I said to him..." Weiss trailed off and let his eyes filled with tears that had never fallen before. He clasped his hands in his lap and stared at them intently. He stopped talking for a minute while he got his thoughts together, "I keep telling Sydney that everything will be okay and it'll all work out but the catch is, I don't believe any of it. I mean, I'm losing my best friend right in front of my eyes and all I can do is sit here and pretend that the world is full of lollipops and gumdrops."
Will took a moment to digest all of this, "Life is a bitch, isn't it?"
"I don't know what I'm going to do when he dies." Weiss nodded his head solemnly, "He's my best friend and without him, I don't know what's going to happen with anything. I don't know anything anymore." He sighed heavily and looked down at his hands clasped in his hands again.
Will replied the sigh with an even deeper sigh and looked down at his watch, "Wow. It's getting late. Jules' is gonna where I am. Tell Sydney that I'll talk to her tomorrow, okay?" He rose slowly and started to walk towards the door.
"Yeah. Sure. Later, man." Weiss replied slowly before leaning his head back against the back of the chair.
Will stopped and looked at him hard, the emotions swelling up in the back of his throat, "I'm really sorry about everything that's going on. Really, man, I'm sorry."
Weiss nodded with a sad smile etched on his face, "I'll tell Sydney that you had to leave."
Will didn't say anything. Instead, he walked out awkwardly into the sterile white hallway.
So, Weiss was left there all alone for a while with his thoughts for a while. He didn't know what to do with himself. He still couldn't believe that he was going to lose his best friend. It had sunk in to a certain degree but he didn't know how he was going to react at the funeral. How do you react to the passing of your best friend? He had so many unanswered questions but he didn't know where to get the answers. He felt his breath flutter over his lips and got to his feet. It was really late or really early. He couldn't tell. But he could tell that he was desperate need of a good cup of coffee.
Not quite sure where he was going, he started to walk the halls, his feet scuffing on the linoleum floors. He trusted his hands into his pockets and starred down at the floor intently. He tired to shake off these emotions. He worked for the CIA, for goodness's sake. He should be able to cope with death better than he was. He had killed more men than he would like to count in the field. He pressed his lips together tightly and felt his brow furrow in despair. He picked his head up as he passed a slew of windowed rooms.
"Sydney, you really need to get home and get some rest. You being exhausted isn't going to help Mike any." Weiss spoke is low tones sometime in the early hours of the morning. He had made his way to Vaughn's hospital room, without really realizing it and found his best friend lying there with Sydney curled up on a chair nearby. The sight of Vaughn lying there took the breath out of him but he quickly recovered. He slowly pushed the door open and crept in without making much of a sound.
She picked her head up and rested head on her knees, curled up tightly beneath her. "Yeah well...." She drifted off as she unfolded her legs from beneath and got to her feet.
"You haven't slept well in how many nights? I'll bring you home and you'll sleep and you'll be fine." He offered his hands to her as he walked towards her. "You're not going to help Mike any by not sleeping."
She sat up slowly and placed her feet on the floor. She reached her hands up towards Weiss and pulled him down to eye level. He crouched down in front of her and just starred straight into her eyes. She stared into the brown eyes that she had taken for granted for so long. Those eyes held so much emotion that he refused to let show. He was holding it all in. There was resentment, anger, compassion, sorrow and depression all rolled into the swirling brown spheres. She let go of his hands and managed to rest one of his cheek. "You've been so strong. What can I ever do to repay everything you've done for me and Vaughn? What would we do without you?" A silent tear started to roll down her cheek and she ducked her head slightly.
Weiss finally found the tears that had refused to pour down his cheeks before. He found the emotions chocking his throat and the words wouldn't come. "We're gonna make it, Syd. You, me, Mike...all of us. Everything's gonna work out. Mike's gonna be fine."
"The treatment didn't work." She blurted suddenly, snapping her head up suddenly.
He felt like had been punched in the stomach. "Let's get you home." He stood up unexpectedly and offered his hands out again. "We need to get you home." He helped her to her feet and rested his hand on her back, slowly guiding her out of the room.
She nodded tearfully and turned back towards Vaughn, "I'll be back soon, baby."
"C'mon, Sydney." He wrapped his arms around her slim body and started to lead her out of the room, despite her slight physical protest that only lasted a few seconds.
"I've gone through life on less sleep." She sighed and allowed herself to be led out of the room.
Weiss laughed ruefully, "Aw Syd. C'mon. You're a strong one, Sydney. You can be a real SOB but you're a tough one."
Sydney laughed a reply as she rested her head on his shoulder "You've always been so nice to me without second guessing it. Why? We barely know each other. And yet you've been there for me every step of the way. You forced me to see Vaughn again and what would I do without you? You've helped him with everything and you've helped me with everything. What would I do without you. I would have collapsed a long time ago." She smiled and looked up at him before yawning. "I'm sorry."
"I know you're exhausted." He paused for a moment and tried to lighten the mood a little bit. "So will you show me Mike's drawer when we get back to your place?"
Sydney simply groaned and buried her head in his shoulder as they continued down the bright hallway. She didn't want to answer and felt the flush rising in her cheeks.
"Hey, I'm serious. I don't have a girlfriend to give me a drawer. I gotta live through Mike."
"That's not true!" Sydney picked her head up suddenly and stopped moving for a moment. "I know you have an itch for Isabelle!" He opened his mouth to protest but was quickly stopped, "Don't even try to deny it! I saw the two of you kissing!" She grinned for the first time in a while. "You lo-ove her! You lo-ove her!" She started to repeat in a sing songy voice.
"Sydney!"
"Eric!"
Weiss tried to find the right words and went through a series of opening his mouth and closing it.
"Don't even try to deny it, Eric Weiss. You told Vaughn to take the plunge with me. You 'carpe diem' us to absolute death. You were almost killed a few years ago and you went through the whole phase of living each day as if it were your last. You've been in love with Isabelle Vaughn for a long time. Take the plunge. Go for it. You'll be happy you did."
Weiss thought about this for a moment, "You speak from experience." They stopped at the elevator and pressed the DOWN button.
"Finally being together with Vaughn was the best thing I ever did in my life. I love him more than anything else."