Title: Chat
Author: Jenn
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: Fragments
Summary: Sometimes trying to put the pieces back together only makes them fall further apart.
Dedications: Katiqua, plum, steph, sarah, becky, minirussel, Desand


Fragments


"Can I come in?"

She sees the way that the light hits his face, the way his hair is obviously disheveled, the way his green eyes almost seem to crinkle in despair. She hears the strain in his voice, the way the words are stressed strangely and in the wrong way, completely opposite to his normal intonation.

But by now she knows that it doesn't matter that this Michael Vaughn doesn't seem like himself. Because no matter whom she is led to believe it is, it doesn't matter. It always comes back to him. It always is him.

And she's tired of being led.

"No," she says and shuts the door.

But he knew before he even got out of his car that she would do that. This is Sydney Bristow.

The person he knows better that he knows his own desires.

So he sticks his foot in the door, uses it as a wedge to maneuver himself in one move through the crack so that it stays open.

And she's still watching him.

"Sydney… I have to talk to you. Can I come in?"

There's a moment of brief and complete silence where he can see her just looking at him in disbelief, making him feel as if he had just asked the stupidest question in the world.

And when she speaks, her voice is incredulous. "Can you what?"

He gulps, tries again for the third time. "Can I come in?"

"…Why?"

Everything had seemed so clear when he was driving here to her house… everything had seemed so crystal clear… even as he was parking, even as he walked up the path to her house. And now… now it was pretty ridiculous. The idea that he could just walk here and be able to win her back, gain her forgiveness with a few well-chosen words. Preposterous, really.

He has no idea what to do.

And so he starts laughing.

It's a kind of sad, desperate laughter. The kind where the sound is a bit strangled… strained… attempting to show a humor that doesn't exist. Because what else can he do? And then there's a revelation. "You… you think it was easy for me."

The door opens a little wider, showing half her face now. And the confused facial expression that is etched upon it. "You have no idea what I think. What I feel."

He takes a step closer, so abruptly that he sees the flash of sudden surprise come into her face as he stands inches away from her face. "That's where you're wrong, Syd. You think that I don't know… that I don't care. That because I hurt you, I must not feel anything at all. But Syd… what I did… it ruined my life as much as it hurt yours."

It's her turn to laugh now but it's the same kind of strained laughter. Nothing's really funny. "I find that hard to believe, Michael."

He's trying to find the right words… the perfect words to make her understand. But they keep running away from him. He sees the indecision on her face… sees herself questioning herself about what she is doing. Why she is standing here, talking to the one man she hates? The one man she loves.

He can't let her shut the door again.

"It's like snippets. Fragments. Do you know what I mean?"

She doesn't but can't help but be caught in the earnestness in his face. The way that his hurt and sorry and desperation are distorted together to form a kind of sincerity that she has never seen before.

"Leaving you there in that room… it was the hardest thing that I ever had to do. The most selfish thing that I have ever had to do. Sydney, believe it or not, I need you. I need you like I need breath… the way that I need to have my heart keep pumping. To be able to see you everyday, to know that you're safe and within reach… even if I can't have you is essential to me. It's so ingrained, so deep within me that I don't even know if I can live without your smile and without your voice..."

It could be the moonlight but she can almost swear that she sees tears in his eyes. Or maybe she's just looking at him through her own.

"And… with every day that goes by, all I am left with is a trace of your touch on my arm, the whisper of a breath…" he smiles ruefully, "the fragrance of Tolstoy."

He looks so lost.

So innocent.

And then, somehow, he's in her living room, 2 feet away from her, looking at her with those eyes and that sad smile. "I never meant to leave you."

His words are so soft.

She can't help but cry.

"Don't cry, Syd. Please..." His words trail off because he's not sure if he's allowed to be saying them. Who is he to tell her what emotions to feel? What actions to execute?

Even before, Sydney Bristow was never a person who could be pushed around.

And as if she hears his every thought, she raises her head slightly, eyes connecting with him even more solidly, allows him to see the full view of her watery eyes, the pain that cascades down her cheeks with each tear drop.

Her whisper is menacing, full of hurt. "Don't. Tell. Me. When. To. Cry."

She tilts her head slightly to the right side, her eyebrows bunching together slightly, her entire face becoming a little more animated and he knows that she's getting ready to speak. Getting ready to hurt him.

And he knows that he deserves every word.

"Who are you to tell when to cry and when to hold it in? Vaughn, I've been holding it in for the past 7 years and if you haven't noticed, I've been doing pretty well. Until today. When can I cry, Michael? When am I allowed to cry?" Her voice is dripping with sarcasm, " After you break my heart another time? Maybe one more time after that? Or should we make it a nice and easy-to-remember number like 5? Does 5 sound nice?"

And with her words, shame fills him to his very core, enters his bloodstream and makes him sick to his stomach. He looks up with hooded eyes, meeting her gaze. His tone is defeated, his words useless. "What… what do you want me to do?"

"Absolutely nothing. Because what I want… what I really want is for you to be able to take all the time and make it disappear. Don't you get it? I want to be back in the room, waiting for you to come back with a smug expression on your face and I want you to walk back to me and look into my eyes. I want to be able to hear you say "Sydney, they wanted me to give up on you." And then I want to hear you laugh like that's the funniest thing in the world."

She looks up at him, her voice catching and hitching as slow liquid begins to enter into her eyes again. "I want to be back there and hear you talk about how impossible it was for them to even think about coming between us when we had just found each other. For you to shake your head and laugh again: "They wanted me to give up on YOU.""

She raises her head, trying to smile through tears, trying to compartmentalize, trying to hide how much she is failing. Takes a shaky breath. "I can see it so clearly in my head." She smiles tearfully and looks up at the ceiling in an attempt to stop the tears from falling. "I can see it Vaughn. See it like it's a memory. Like it actually happened. That you laughed and then sat by me and kissed my forehead. That you looked deeply into my eyes and smiled until all the doubt vanished from mine. That you would say that no matter what they did to you or to me, they could never do anything to us. Because that was all that mattered." She stops abruptly and bites her lip, walking back to the door, opening it for him.

Watching him out of the corner of her eye as he walks slowly over and across the room, dumbfounded and humbled. Hit by pure emotion.

There's a moment where you are neither in the house nor out of the house… where you can't feel the room temperature at your back anymore and know that the cold wind will hit you in the next second.

That's where Vaughn is when he turns again, ready to make another half-hearted attempt. "Syd-"

She cuts him off.

"-Vaughn… I believed in us. And I see what you could have done.

"I just don't understand why you didn't do it."












tbc…

more?




-jenn