Title: "Fidelity"

Author: LegalBlonde

Email: legalblonde2005@yahoo.com

Rating:  PG-13, for language.

Ship: S/V

Genre: Romance, angst, futurefic

Archive: CM, anyone else ask first so I can go visit!

Spoilers:  "The Telling"

Summary:  Five years later, Sydney and Vaughn are just beginning to learn about betrayal…and trust.

AN:  This is five years post-Telling, so three years after the two-year gap.  Special thanks to carrielynn, my very own Superbeta, and to CIAchick711, who's given me valuable advice.

******

You learn how to sense when someone's there.  It's the half-heard footstep and the smell of hot plastic and gunpowder and the stronger-than-usual feeling of eyes boring into your back.  Then it's the gagging in your throat and the bile in your stomach and the sudden fear of oh-no-someone's-here.

This time it's different.  It's the fall of the step, landing lightly on the edge and rolling onto the ball of the foot before she dips her heel, ever so slightly, to make the lightest possible impress on the dusty floor. It's the smell of super-stiff hair gel she uses on missions on the supposedly unscented lotion she rubs into her hands and the sound of brown hair brushing shoulders, and then it's not the sense of oh-no-someone's-here, it's-oh-shit-she's-here, so you know exactly what you will find as you bring the Beretta around slowly to face the corner.

"Put the gun down, Vaughn."

She's wearing solid black and camo-green and has one gun strapped to her waist and one more at the ankle.  She speaks simply, like "it's three-fifteen" or "I'm in a meeting until six" or "you've got mustard on your sleeve", except those are expressions from a different time a thousand miles away and you refuse to think about that. 

You don't put down the gun.

"Give me the hard drive, Sydney."  You choke up on the grip, just for effect. 

"You're not going to shoot me."  She says this flatly, with just enough condescension to remind you of the teacher she should have been and just enough disdain to remind you of the excellent spy she is.  Gun or no gun, you both know who's in control of this little scene. 

 "No, Sydney, you think I'm not going to shoot you." 

Nonplussed, she slides a silvery memory stick out of the computer bank and into a pocket on her camo-green vest. 

"Just put the gun down."  From the sound of it, she's inheriting her father's muted range of expressions.  That, or she's just trying to piss you off. 

"You don't have to do this.  It doesn't have to be this way."  The lines sound something from a cheesy cop movie even before they're out of your mouth, but they're the best you can come up with when Sydney Bristow is staring you down.  Not the first time you've had this problem. 

"I don't have to do what?"

"This.  This – work.  Whatever it you want to call it.  I know this isn't what you want."

This garners the first emotion you've seen from her, a harsh little laugh like an empty cough and a quick flick of the dark hair. 

"Don't tell me what I want, Michael.  You're hardly an expert on that." 

The Michael is just there to unnerve you; you know this because it works so well.

"Give me the memory stick and come back with me.  We can -- arrange immunity; we can get you a deal.  You can work for the CIA."

"We tried that once, remember?"

You shake your head, keeping the gun steady by some miracle of self-control and muscle fatigue.  "That was different.  It was the wrong time -- you'd just come back and everything was different.  Nobody was ready for that yet."

The corners of her mouth flick up in a bitter little smile.  "Everyone was different; not everything.  I'm sorry you don't like the way it's turned out -- but we don't get a vote on these things."

That last line was measured for impact, and it hits, right on the sternum, burning and bruising like a bullet in Kevlar.  You shake your head again.

"This is not you.  This is not the Sydney Bristow who would do anything to protect the people she loved, who always wanted to work for the good guys.  The woman who came in to see me in that red wig with the Tolstoy-long story she wanted to tell me -- this isn't her."

"No.  She grew up."

"Syd--"

"There aren't good guys and bad guys.  There are people.  People will love you or people will betray you."

"And Irina Derevko won't betray you?"  You try to keep the venom out of your voice, but it comes naturally, like an extra syllable in that name.

"She hasn't in five years."

"And do you really agree with--"

"Could you trust me, Vaughn?  After I've left everything behind, after I've worked for the one person you truly hate, could you ever trust me again?"

"The CIA would be willing to make you a deal -- in light of your past service, they would agree to bring you back in." 

You haven't answered the important question, and you know it as well as she does.  Something darkens her eyes (are they always darker, now?) and she turns toward the door.

"She left me."  You blurt this out without thinking, as unguarded as you always were around her, groping for any way to keep her here.  You plunge ahead, groping for an explanation and an answer and wherever it is that you stashed your dignity.  "This guy named Brad Tilden -- he's a stock broker.  He works normal hours and can talk about his job in public and doesn't carry automatic weapons."  or torches for old girlfriends, you add silently. 

She pauses for just a moment, looking back over her shoulder. 

"I'm sorry."

Her eyes lighten and her voice softens and for a moment you believe her, before you remember you're not supposed to do that anymore.

Then she's gone.