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Chapter Three:
A Twist of Fate
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Oleg was standing in the doorway; she could feel his eyes on her. He was measuring her every movement, judging her every action no matter how small. Sydney sat at a low table in a large room, scanning the pages of a Rambaldi book. Her next mission for the Covenant would take her to France in order to retrieve an old painting that Rambaldi had painted around the same time as he made the prophecy. She was not sure what the Covenant expected to find from the painting or if they were merely such fanatics that they were just trying to get their hands on everything Rambaldi ever touched. She didn't care; this was the chance she had been waiting for. She would finally be able to escape her grasp and contact Kendall. It had been six months since she had been brought to this place, six months of isolation and torture before she had accepted that the only way to escape was to cooperate with them.
She could feel Oleg's eyes on her, she continued to ignore him until he called her name, or the name she had become accustomed to replying to.
"Julia," he spoke to her softly now. He was almost tender, affectionate with her. He had become her star pupil and she could see how proud he was of her, of the achievement he thought he had wrought in her brain. One day she would show him how wrong he had been, one day soon she would kill him and every last member of the Covenant. She would show them all that she was never Julia Thorne.
Until that day, she had to maintain this façade. It was just another alias, just another mission. She tried not to think of Vaughn or her father. Tried not to remember that she was dead to them.
She looked up and met Oleg's eyes, letting a smile touch her lips but never her eyes. "Yes?"
"It is time to go," Every word he spoke to her in that loving tone was like a stab in the heart. He spoke to her as if she was his child but he was not Jack Bristow, he had no right to think of her as his daughter.
"Of course," She got to her feet and gathered the book from the table. As she moved to leave the room, he caught her arm and pulled her to look at him. Hiding the grimace that crossed her face, Sydney forced a loving smile, thoughts of her father putting emotion into her expression. Oleg stared into her eyes intently and she remembered how those same eyes had watched her crying out in pain as he flipped the switch on the Electro-shock machine. He had watched her without emotion, merely curious as to how long it would take to break her.
"Be careful, Julia. We don't want to lose our best agent out there. We have great plans for you, Julia. Don't forget that." He was trying to make her think he was truly concerned for her well being but she could read beneath his words. He was warning her, he was warning any shred of Sydney left inside her that she could never escape them.
"We will be watching you of course, we will want to know of your progress and we will be prepared to send in backup if anything goes wrong."
Sydney nodded at him and gently eased her arm out of his grasp, placing her hand over his. "You know how much I appreciate your concern, but I will do fine. Nothing to worry about."
Oleg nodded and let her go. She could feel his eyes burning into her all the way down the hall. Inwardly she cursed; she would miss her chance again to contact the CIA unless she could find some way to give the Covenant the slip. But if she disappeared they would suspect something and there was no cover she could easily give them that they would not question and find fault in.
Smoothing her newly blonde hair, Sydney shook off her uneasiness and took a deep breath as she stepped outside onto the airstrip. A nondescript jet waiting at the end of the runway would take her to Normandy. A sharp pain shot through her as she thought of going back to France. She was going to Normandy, the city where had been born. The thought of Vaughn brought tears stinging to her eyes and with a slight gasp, she quickly blinked them away. She could not give way to any uncharacteristic displays of emotion, she never knew when the Covenant could be watching her or what they would suspect. Pushing aside all thoughts of Vaughn, Sydney ran through ancient methods of meditation as she boarded the plane, she had gone on hundreds of missions in the past nine years and despite who she was working for, the missions themselves remained very much the same. She wished for the day when she would no longer have to think about Milo Rambaldi, much less hunt his archaic devices halfway across the planet.
As the jet took off, Sydney closed her eyes and cleared her mind. She was Sydney Bristow, she could do this mission like all the rest and it would take her one step closer to getting back to her normal life. Back to her father. Back to Vaughn. That was all the strength she needed.
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Vaughn sat in the sand outside of his father's old home on the coast of Normandy. He watched the waves crash on the shore; the roar of the water was a balm to his troubled soul. The piercing agony of Sydney's death had dulled somewhat since he had come to France. It merely settled in his soul with a dull ache, like a hole in his side.
He had been persuaded to come to France by his mother three months ago. She had recommended staying in their old home in Normandy, where he had been born. He knew that she had been worried sick over him after Sydney's death. She had told him to get out of the country, away from everything in Los Angeles that reminded him of his lost love. How could he explain to her that everything reminded him of Sydney? Just being here reminded him of Sydney, he had planned to show her this place, his childhood home, on their honeymoon. But that had never happened. He sat alone now in the growing twilight, empty bottles strewn about upon the sand and she was still gone, there was no bringing her back. No matter how much he drank, no matter how many times he thought he could hear her voice speaking to him, he knew in his heart that he was slowly deteriorating. He was losing his mind very slowly.
He opened another bottle and gestured to the sunset, "This is for you, Syd." Taking a long swig, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and sighed. The colors of the sunset reflected brilliantly on the water and he almost felt a moment of peace at the sight.
"You know, I always wanted to show you this. The sunset here was always one of my favorite parts of living in France. The sun shines in Europe like nowhere else in the world and I wanted to see it shining on you." The shadows were closing in on him now as the sun sank behind the horizon. A pale light glimmered in the sky but he could sense the encroaching darkness on him.
"You would have loved this house," he had become so accustomed to talking to her now. He did it easily, without thinking. He had spoken to his father plenty of times since his death. It pained him that that some of the most important conversations of his life were held with ghosts.
"I grew up here, on the coast of the sea, the whole world stretched before my feet. And the whole time you were out there somewhere, some crazy twist of fate brought us together." He took a longer drink from his bottle, he could no longer even feel the burning of the liquor, only the hollow void that settled where his pain usually took up residence.
"Another twist of fate tore us apart," he was whispering now into the darkness. The world was cold around him and she was gone. Every place was empty without her.
Taking another long gulp of the liquor, Vaughn lay down in the sand and cast his eyes on the ocean. He wondered if he slept long enough, the tide might wash him out to sea like it had done with her ashes. With a heavy sigh, he let his eyes close and the darkness come.
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The location was an old house on the beach of Normandy. Sydney was surprised that such a seemingly important piece of the Rambaldi puzzle had been left abandoned in this empty house. Part of her began to doubt the relevance of the painting as she approached from the distance on foot. Her senses were alert for any signs of life but there appeared to be no home at the moment but that could change very quickly. She resolved herself to get in and out with the painting as fast as possible. Something about the sight of this house on the beach disturbed her, as if she felt that she should know it but could not place why.
She entered quietly through the back door, it had been left unlocked and her sense of unease grew. Something was not right here, had the Covenant sent her into a trap? Were they testing her yet again? Her pulse quickened with fear but she steadied herself. They had no reason to suspect her motives and she could handle anything they threw her way.
She found herself in the kitchen; it had a cozy feel to it as if a family had lived here once very happily. She ran her fingers over the grain of the table and closed her eyes for a moment, relishing the touch of something normal and solid beneath her fingertips. A family probably gathered here at night, sharing laughter and conversation over good French wine and food. She could not forget her own dreams for such things easily. With a sigh, Sydney pulled herself out of her reverie and made her way through to the living room. She looked around the room cautiously, searching for any sign of the painting or a safe where it might be kept. Instead, her eyes landed on family portraits that were smiling out at her from the mantel. A real smile crossed her face as she crossed over to look at the photos; she couldn't help herself from this small peek into a normal life.
She picked up one of the photos; a young boy perhaps aged fifteen. He looked familiar to her for some reason but she couldn't distinguish his features in the darkness. Furrowing her brow with concentration, she moved to turn on the table lamp so she could get a better look.
The light illuminated the photograph and Sydney's smile faded quickly, replaced with shock. Her eyes widened and the photo fell from her suddenly nerveless fingers. It landed on the floor with a loud crash, the glass splintering across the smiling face of a young Michael Vaughn.
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Vaughn woke with a start, the bottle still in his hand splashing into the cold sand with his sudden movement. Night had fallen in full on the beach and tiny stars poked through the blanket of the sky, illuminating the beach with an unearthly glow.
He frowned and looked around, wondering what had awoken him. It had been a sound of some sort, a crash or glass breaking. There was nothing. He was alone on the beach, the house looming behind him and the sea ahead. There was not another house for miles, he had liked feeling secluded here but now he was wary to be alone, so far from civilization. He brushed off the feeling and stood up, shaking sand out of his clothes. He didn't know why he always felt such an urge to nap on the beach; he was always a mess afterward. But he had no one here to impress so it didn't really matter; he had been a mess for six months.
Turning to go back into the house, he stiffened. A pale light gleamed in the den and he knew for a fact that he had not left it on. He may be a drunk, he thought, but he's an energy-conserving drunk.
Instantly he felt a wave of sobriety wash over him, a shadow moved inside the house. Maybe his mother had come up here, still worrying over him? No, she would have guessed he was out on the beach and tried to find him. And there was no car in the driveway. Whoever it was had not wanted anyone to know that they were there. But then why turn on a light? Confused but wary and on full alert, Vaughn felt himself slip back into agent mode. He jogged lightly up to the house from the opposite side, keeping out of view of any window the intruder might see him through. Breathing heavily, he stopped at the back door and remembered the small gun he still kept in his holster on his side. He kept it with him as a reminder that anyday, he could end everything but he didn't. He kept it for love of Sydney, and didn't use it for that same reason.
He eased open the door noiselessly, years of practice sneaking out of the house really paid off at this moment when he was required to sneak back inside. Soundlessly, he crossed the kitchen and peered into the living room.
A blonde woman stood there, with her back to him. A broken picture frame lay on the floor, the glass shattered into pieces beneath her feet. She was clutching one of the photos from the mantelpiece and he thought he could hear a soft noise coming from her. The light illuminated her from behind, making her a silhouette to his adjusting eyes. He looked down to see a gun gripped in her right hand and a wild fear rose inside of him.
Aiming the gun at the back of her head, he waited until he was close enough to cock the gun. The sound broke the stillness and she stiffened, obviously accustomed to the noise but not entirely comfortable with it.
"Don't move," he ordered. He cursed his raspy voice, still thick with liquor and sleep. He stepped closer to her, pressing the gun into her mop of blonde hair. Something about the set of her shoulders, the poise with which she held herself, the distinct perfume that arose from her hair. It brought up strong feelings inside of him that he could not quiet and he hesitated for a brief moment but it was long enough.
She spun around faster than his eye could follow, knocking the gun to the floor and him with it. His head collided with the floor and he let out a low moan. A pointed heel pressed down on his chest and he opened his eyes, willing them to focus.
He found himself looking up into the tear-filled eyes of Sydney Bristow before the world went dark.
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