Title: It Goes On
Author: UConnFan (Michele)
E-Mail: LoveUConnBasketball@yahoo.com
Story Summary: In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on." - Robert Frost Twenty years post "The Telling"; Surviving the worse case scenario.
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The only sound echoing off of the surrounding Plexiglas was the soft hum of his skates over the ice. Scrutinizing the puck, black in contrast to the white sheet beneath him, he moved it back and forth across the ice. At his age he was used to playing only himself, and had perfected at least half a dozen one-person games to absorb his time. After all, very few people were on the ice that early, and most of the people who were there were far from interested in playing or even practicing with a man his age.
"Hey," a familiar voice bounced off of the walls. Michael Vaughn glanced up and rolled his eyes at his companion. "Don't you ever sleep in anymore?"
"Shouldn't you be in some warm bed?"
"Are you kidding me?" Eric Weiss' eyes grew. "It's sales day buddy, Meg had me up and out the door at quarter to seven."
Sighing, Vaughn slowly skated to where Eric stood. Reaching his friend's side, he glared down at the ice and muttered, "I'm starting to think Alex hates me."
"So? My son thinks I'm a jackass," he pointed out. When Vaughn glared at him, the other man shrugged. "So I have my moments. My point is, they're teenagers. They're practically genetically programmed to detest their parents, especially their fathers."
"I know I wasn't the best father..." He groaned and then looked at his friend. "When she was little though... Even when I wasn't around, when I was, I couldn't do anything wrong."
"You know you're annoying when you overanalyze?" Eric informed him. "I knew I shouldn't have let you leave so early last night..." he commented under his breath. "You know, you should have just saved all of us the trouble."
"How could I have done that?"
"Shown up on Sydney's doorstep yesterday morning. You know she would let you stay."
"Jesus Eric, not this again," Vaughn sputtered, turning around and slowly gliding back to the center of the rink.
"What? I'm not out of my mind here, Michael," Eric called, unmoving at the entrance of the ice. "Did you even tell her your plan? I mean, did you just casually mention it during the two days you were there?"
From the center of the ice, Weiss barely saw his friend shake his head, but even his whisper resounded in his ears. "No."
"Well, I don't think she'll mind, but it might be nice if she knew."
"This isn't easy for me." The lone figure on the ice whirled around to face him. "I don't even know what the hell I'm doing."
"No one's expecting this to be easy, but you're going to just get more miserable if you don't. This stopped being easy when you two imposed this stupid vow of barely speaking to one another."
"Hey!" Vaughn glared at his old friend. "I *tried*, but all she did was push me away -"
"Give me a break." He rolled his eyes. "You could have tried a lot harder, but you didn't. Neither one of you did, and now you both regret it."
"I loved Kate, I was married to her at the time."
"Yeah, so? Since when was Sydney ever receptive to the idea of a friendship, when she was upset or angry? If I remember clearly, you sure as hell pushed your way into her life the first time around, and you were taken then too buddy."
"That was different, I wasn't married to Alice."
"The point is that you didn't give up on her," Eric softly explained. "You didn't give up on Sydney, not even when she had... When she came back, nothing was easy for her, but after one half of a rejection, you just dropped her like a hot potato. What the hell were you so scared of?"
"When you bury the woman you love, she's not supposed to show up once you move on and get married," Vaughn muttered. Finally, he stopped skating around in a seemingly endless circle and looked at Eric. "Kate got married yesterday."
"Congratulations to her, but we're talking about Sydney. I've known you too damn long to let you change the subject like that."
"I was scared of her. Do you have any idea how easy it would have been to let Sydney in? Every time I *looked* at her I had to remember that I was married then and that I *loved* my wife. I couldn't even look myself in the mirror at night. Do you have any idea how shitty it is, being forced to remind yourself that you're supposedly in love with someone?"
"No," Weiss sighed. "I'm sorry, I don't."
"I was scared of knowing that after two damn years, after moving past her and thinking I had it all together, she could take that all away. Jesus, there were times when I *wanted* her to take it all away. I had a *wife*, I had spent months trying to get past her..." He shook his head as his eyes dipped to his well-worn ice skates. "And after nearly two years, Sydney was still the only woman I really wanted," Vaughn mumbled and looked back at his friend. "That scared me to death."
"Well... On the bright side, Grace finally learned how to do around the world," he injected. Laughing, the image of a tiny six year old struggling with a yoyo came to mind. "Seriously," Weiss continued, "that was twenty years ago. Neither one of you can change that, but you can't keep living with what happened or what you should have done. In the end, you both fucked it up. Admittedly, you had good cause to fuck it up, but it happened. You're no longer married; Sydney's no longer trying to rebuild her life. What's the problem?"
His eyes were sober as he glanced up at his former partner. "Syd's got a boyfriend."
"There's no way he smells as good as you do."
Vaughn's lips quirked as both men laughed at the memory. "I don't know. I met him, briefly, but I didn't give him a full inspection."
"I'm assuming that if it was serious, you would have thought about this plan of yours more than once."
"I have thought about my plan more than once," he vowed. "And... Sydney says it's not serious."
"But you're not convinced?"
"Sydney's not the type to have a casual relationship."
Weiss stood up straight and shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe she was lonely. Of all the people in the world, you have got to be able to understand what loneliness does to a person."
"What if Claire hates me?"
"I've yet to meet a Bristow immune to your charms," Weiss jabbed. "C'mon, you even got Jack Bristow to like you; to *trust* you. I don't think anyone had done that in thirty years. Anyway, I think you're about three steps ahead of yourself."
Vaughn shook his head. "What if I'm making the biggest mistake of my life?"
"Than you come back here and you can stay in our garage apartment until you get your life together. And, you'll be able to say you did the best you could, that you weren't a total idiot who gave up every chance he ever had with Sydney Bristow."
"You're right." He shook his head, a half-grin on his face as Weiss studied him. "I'm about a month ahead of myself."
"I think over-planning is the lingering curse of every CIA handler."
"Than how did you avoid it?"
"Just ask Marshall, I've got magic." Eric shrugged as both men laughed. Soberly he inquired, "Do you think you're doing the right thing?"
"I don't know," Vaughn muttered, absently moving the puck with his hockey stick. "I haven't been right about Sydney in years."
"So, your instincts been off a few times. What is it telling you *now*?"
Green eyes finally looked up, wide and filled with more hope than any average man his age dared to have. "This is my best and last shot."
"When are you going to see her again?" Eric pried, his friend walking by him and sitting down on a bench, beginning to take off his skates.
"I don't know yet. I know Claire's home from Stanford, and I know Syd's missed her... I don't want to invade on their time together," he explained, tossing a look in his friend's direction.
"Meg was very disappointed that you didn't say a word about Sydney at dinner. You know she never got to meet her."
"Yeah, I know," he sighed. "A lot of people never got to meet her."
Collapsing onto the bench next to him, Eric let out a heavy sigh. "Your mom would have loved Sydney."
"She always knew," he muttered, unable to look at his friend. "My mother... She liked Kate, and she loved Alex, but she always knew there was something I could never tell her. I could never bring myself to tell her about Sydney, not even after I thought she was dead... What would have been the point? What mother wants to hear that her son wanted to spend the rest of his life with the daughter of her husband's murderer?"
"When you put it that way, it sounds pretty twisted," Eric teased as Vaughn chuckled.
Glancing at his friend he continued, "I should have asked for a transfer the moment I found out."
"I remember telling you that too," he remembered, his eyes lingering out at the ice. "You would have been miserable though. *She* would have been miserable..." He shook his head and then met the other man's eyes. "What would have been the point? You were already in love with her by that point, god knows if anything, it only made you more devoted to her..."
"I would have done anything for her," Vaughn recalled, his voice low and cracked.
"And you did do everything you could. You put your life on hold, jeopardized your standing in the agency to look for her and for Sark and Sloane and Derevko... You looked your father's killer in the eye on more than one occasion and didn't hurt her, all because you knew what it would do to Sydney. There was absolutely nothing else you could do then."
The sigh that escaped him, left his body nearly doubled over, the realization soft from his lips. "But there is now."
"It's not going to happen overnight... Okay, last time it did, but I think you're both a little too old for that now," Weiss jostled to his friend's chuckle. "You can't just jump back to where you were. You're not that person anymore, and neither is she."
"What the hell am I doing?" he muttered, covering his eyes with his hand as he massaged his temples.
"You're falling in love with Sydney Bristow." Groaning, Vaughn's head lolled forward as it shook slightly. "Yeah," Weiss chirped, gently slapping his friend on the back. "That's how I felt about it the first time around."
The sun shone through the open windows and back screen door as Sydney dropped the soiled knife into the dishwasher. Effortlessly, she grabbed the two plates off of the counter, walking them the short distance to the table with a grace she could have used during her short and disastrous stint as a waitress. Sliding the plate in front of Claire, she placed hers down and sat down as well. Sydney smiled as her daughter briefly inspected the sandwich and started to eat the crust.
"So," she grinned, "who's Bryce O'Neal?"
"Mom!" Claire's ears burned.
"What? I let you eat your breakfast and go play pool next door before I asked!"
"It doesn't matter..." She decisively shook her head, eyes drawn to her plate. "It's never going to happen. It's stupid to even think about it."
"You never know," her mother encouraged. "During my freshman year of college I had it so bad for this boy, Dean. I sat next to him in one of my classes and on the first day of school, he asked for a pen. Every time I saw him use it, I would get so excited..." Her smile was nearly giddy. "Anyway," her smile slowly disappeared, "there was this party one night, so I walked up and *tried* to ask him if he wanted to go... He didn't even know my name, and I swear he and his friends laughed about it for the rest of the semester."
"I thought this was supposed to be some encouraging story about how I never know what will happen?" her daughter deadpanned.
"Okay," she sighed and sat back. "A few months after Dean basically scarred me for life, he came up to *me* and introduced himself."
"Like he didn't even know you?!" Claire asked, struggling to hold back her laughter.
Sydney nodded. "Exactly like that. Then he asked me to a concert. The weird thing was that when he walked over to me, I didn't get excited or even nervous, and when he asked me to the concert, I didn't even want to go with him."
"So you turned *him* down."
"Exactly, and I don't regret it," she smiled. "Although I said nearly the same thing once. That I was never going to get with this guy that I had a crush on; that it was basically stupid to even think about it. I remember not even your Aunt Francie believed me when I said that."
"Who was it?" The question prompted a tiny smile from her mother, as a look dripped into her eyes that Claire had never seen before. Only once, her mind amended, in that photo from the other day "It was that guy in the picture," Claire answered on her own. "The boss guy. Michael something."
"Michael Vaughn," Sydney answered. "And yes," she sighed, "it was Vaughn. That's not important now. What about Bryce?"
"I don't really know him," she sighed. "I've talked to people who do though. He's a finance major, and he's really tall. Really cute too. His hair is dark and it's kind of curly, but I don't know what color his eyes are... His picture is on the Stanford athletic department website, for the basketball team. I'll show it to you later," she promised. "Apparently he's a pretty quiet guy. The rest of the team will go out and party and he'll stay in his dorm and read or watch movies..."
"He sounds very sweet."
"He's three years older than I am though, or almost. He's only a junior though."
"So, what's the problem?"
"The problem?" Claire's eyes grew. "The problem is that school is huge, he doesn't even know I exist, and he can have *anyone* he wants!"
"But why wouldn't he want to be with you? Or at least be your friend?"
"You're my mother," she groaned, taking a bite of her sandwich. "You're like doomed to be my biggest fan Mom. Not everyone sees me like you do."
"You're a sweet, loyal, talented g - young woman," she caught herself before she referred to Claire as a girl. Despite the pains it caused her, Sydney was aware that it had been a long time since her daughter had been a little girl. "You like sports and movies and reading too. He sounds like a nice guy."
"I guess he's really religious too," Claire sighed. "He's always wearing the WWJD bracelets, even in games... We're not exactly religious Mom."
"So? I'm sure he's got plenty of friends of all different types of religions and no religions at all. You're wonderful with people, Tinkerbelle. I bet if you didn't have a crush on this guy, you'd have no problems introducing yourself."
"Of course I'd have no problem! I wouldn't care then, but I care Mom! I don't even know the guy and I want him to like me!"
"You want him to like *you*, not who you think he wants. You said so yourself, Stanford is a big school. Which, if things turn out with Bryce like they did with Dean, will be to your advantage. But... If he's half the guy you say he is, it won't be that bad."
"And if he's not?"
"Then he's not worth your trouble. Hey, you never told me what happened last night with Jake and Harry."
"I beat Jake 11-4," she smirked. "I have some pity for Harry, so I only beat him 11-9."
"How many did you purposely let him score?" Sydney inquired.
"Like all nine," her daughter conceded. "He's such a nice guy Mom, and I know he likes me. I'm not going to *let* him win, but I can at least be sympathetic to his cause," she shrugged.
Across from her, her mother nodded in understanding. In the earliest days of her friendship with Will, when she was aware that he was deeply interested in her but not too equipped at poker, or really any game, she would sometimes purposely lose or make the victory less substantial.
"How's Laura?"
"Good," Claire nodded as her mother brought up her roommate. "She's really nice too. We get along well."
"That's how I met Francie."
"I know," her daughter smiled. After years of curiosity, and countless occasions in which she forced herself not to snoop into her mother's most private possessions, she finally had a face with the name. The closest thing she'd had before was the simple headstone that her mother would often bring her to visit on their trips to Los Angeles. That part of the trip was understandably not among her favorite things to do.
"I won't ask you to come with me to visit Francie, but there is something I'd like you to see before we leave L.A."
"What?"
"My grave."
Claire was certain if she'd had anything in her mouth at the moment of her mother's dry delivery, it would have been spurred to the other side of the room. "Excuse me?"
"Obviously there isn't a date of death there anymore," Sydney explained. "But when they thought I had... died... someone bought a double plot and a headstone and they buried me."
"A double plot?" she asked, her young mind picking up on that tiny tidbit.
"It's a surreal experience Tinkerbelle, standing in front of your own grave," she shook her head then sighed. "I think it's time you see it though. When the time comes, it's where I'd still like to be buried."
"What about him?" she asked, her face blank as her mother grew confused.
"Who?"
"Michael. Vaughn, whatever," she shook her head.
"I don't know, I'm assuming that it's something he's discussed with his daughter."
Claire's eyes widened. "He has a daughter?"
"Yes. Alexandra, she's a sophomore at the University of Arizona."
"You could have mentioned that Mom."
"Sorry, I'll make a point of keeping you better informed," she teased.
"Well, is she nice at least?"
"I don't know, I never met her," Sydney confessed. "She was born around the time I moved here."
"I'm assuming he's the one who bought the double plot," Claire detected as her mother sighed.
"Tink - "
"You might want to discuss it with him Mom. Believe me, I know that discussing where one's body will spend the rest of eternity is not an easy discussion, especially given your... past. But you might want to consider it mandatory, given the circumstances," she dryly suggested.
Sydney's lips curled slightly as she shook her head. "How did you get to be so smart?"
"Lots of Zelda. Those child-rearing experts totally underestimate the power of a good video game," she smirked as Sydney laughed.
"You're going to be fine Tink," she smiled softly, her tone as confident as her daughter had ever heard. "If Bryce or any other boy can't see how fantastic you are, then it's their loss."
"That still doesn't give me a date on Saturday nights."
Soberly, her mother sighed and sympathetically studied her daughter. "I didn't think that kind of stuff was that important to you."
"It's not!" she insisted. "I just..." she sighed and met her mother's eyes. "It would be nice, sometimes, to just have someone to watch a basketball game with, or someone who's there to hug me when I'm sad or hold my hand and carry my books to class... I've never had that Mom, *ever*," Claire reminded her mother. Sydney nodded, unaware that her daughter's desire for a serious relationship ran so deep. "It's not something I *need* - and I know that," she promised. "Just... It would be nice not to be alone all the time. To have someone there who just got it," she struggled to vocalize what she sought.
"Yeah," she smiled sadly at her daughter. "I understand."
The first Monday arrived along with cross-country sales on every Christmas item imaginable. During the day and a half of the weekend that Claire had spent in Trinidad, she had successfully helped her mother begin decorating the house for Christmas. As far back as she could remember they began decorating the Saturday after Thanksgiving. While ther mothers brought their children through hectic shopping centers in search of the perfect gift, the Bristow girls perfected the Christmas ambiance.
For Sydney it meant fifteen days until semester exams commenced. With the way exams fell at Stanford, it was only a mere fourteen days until Claire would reappear. Compared to the first three months without her daughter, she expected the weeks to pass by with a new ease that came with knowing how to survive an empty nest. Meanwhile, there were gifts to shop for, flights to arrange, and plans to be perfected for their traditional holiday trips.
Aware that it had been far too long since she'd seen him, Sydney arranged to see Peter the Friday after Claire left. The week had passed by as she fielded nearly a dozen phone calls from her mother and Will, both interested in knowing her plans for the upcoming weeks. What stuck out most in her mind, however, were the three late-night phone calls from Vaughn. All short and nearly meaningless in content, they stuck to simple things like Christmas shopping and how the Kings were playing, but she subconsciously found herself planning her evenings around the hope that the phone wound ring at precisely 10:23 at night.
Friday evening Peter arrived shortly after her last class of the day. The two made small talk during the drive to the high school. For nearly two and a half hours the two were kept busy rooting for the Trinidad high school basketball team as they went on to closely defeat one of the best teams in the state. In between runs to the concession stand and the few trips to the bathroom, Sydney ran into old friends and teachers of Claire, catching up in how they'd been doing since she'd seen them. Getting into her beau's car on the way to a late dinner, she was struck by the reminder of why she liked Trinidad so much as she waved and smiled to a few of Claire's high school friends.
Smiling into the Italian's blue eyes as she slid into their familiar booth, she was taken aback when he barely responded. Politely they thanked the waitresses for the menus before she briefly scanned the selection, her usual order already memorized after years of constantly ordering it. Occasionally, she would wonder why they even bothered to give her a menu when nearly everyone in the restaurant knew her by name and certainly knew her order. Sydney folded the menu and placed it back on the table, folding her hands as Peter steadily looked back at her.
"Sydney... I'm going to ask you something that I have no right to ask, but... It's been on my mind for awhile now, and you always say that the only way to solve an issue is to address it," he started. Slowly her smile disappeared as she took a sip of her water and nodded, patiently waiting for him to continue. "I'm aware that it's none of my business - I didn't even know you at the time - but... You've been here for nearly twenty years Sydney, we've been acquaintances for nearly that long, and we've been close for awhile, and there's still so little that I know about you before you came here."
Pushing forward a smile, returning to her years of experience with manufacturing plastic grins, Sydney inquired, "What do you want to know?"
"I don't know if you remember, but a few weeks ago I ran into you here with your friend."
"Michael," the foreign name plowed over her tongue as Peter nodded.
"Yes. He seems like a... fine man, and I'm not questioning your loyalty..." He tore his eyes away from her, studying the house specials menu as he pressed on. "I can't get rid of the impression that you two were once more than friends..." He sighed and started to laugh uncomfortably. "Maybe it's me, maybe I have some sexist bias that men and women, especially someone as attractive as you are, can't just be friends... But I've met your friend Will, Sydney..." Peter finally looked back at her. "And I never got that feeling from him."
"Peter," she sighed his name and softly thanked the waitress for bringing her wine. Momentarily considering her words, she paused to take a sip, allowing the familiar taste to briefly relax her sudden tension. No logical part of her could explain her dread at continuing this conversation, but Sydney knew there was no way to escape the topic. "Nothing happened when he was here, if that's what you're worried about."
"I think I know you better than that." He smiled for a second before he sat up straighter, his face blank.
"We *did* work together," Sydney insisted, unable to look at him as he nodded. "We were... attracted to one another, but for over a year we were nothing more than friends."
"Until you were more than friends," Peter softly added.
"Yes," she sighed. "We... It's complicated," she explained, wishing, not for the first time, that her past was easier explained not only to her daughter, but also to the people closest to her. The Alliance and Arvin Sloane were long gone, but time could never eradicate the legacy of deceit it had imposed upon her life. "Yes, we were together, only for a few months though... It was pretty serious," Sydney softly explained, brushing hair back and shaking her head as she recalled what she had once assumed would become permanent. "Things never officially ended... I really don't want to talk about it, but things happened... I was away, for two years, not of my own choosing." She struggled to adequately explain what in so many ways was still a mystery to her. "Vaughn... He thought I was dead. When I came back, he was married."
"He thought you were dead? How? I don't understand -"
"I really can't say." She shook her head. There was small consolation in knowing that at least that part was partially true. "I was back in Los Angeles for a year and a half before I came here. Things... We ignored it," she sighed. "We didn't talk, so things sort of just hung out in the air. Then Vaughn just... arrived a few weeks ago. His ex-wife is sick, and they offered him a big promotion at work..."
Across from her, she watched his shoulders deflated and his blue eyes seemed to darken. "And after nearly twenty years, you were the first person he wanted to talk to."
"Peter -"
"I'm sorry Sydney," he shook his head and looked down. "I don't want to know, but I have to," he explained under his breath. Under her experienced eye, she watched as he seemed to brace himself for a harsh revelation before Peter's eyes returned to her face. "Do you love him?"
Instinctively, brown eyes dipped to her neatly folded hands, blinking away the stubborn tears as she heard her companion clear his throat.
"Sydney, please look at me," he softly requested. Through the moisture that blurred her vision, she finally responded to his request. "We both know your answer."
"I had no idea this would happen -"
"I know," he stopped her. "I know Sydney, but we weren't going anywhere, not really... We've had fun, and I still think we can be friends, but I don't want to keep my hopes up for something you can never give me."
"I'm sorry." She cleared her throat, one hand quickly wiping away her tears.
Peter shook his head and sighed. "I don't understand what happened to the two of you - and I'm not going to ask," he promised. "Before I met him the other day, the *only* thing I've seen make you *really* happy since I've known you, was Claire. You know I think Claire is a great, great kid," he emphasized as Sydney nodded. "Still... She's on her own now, she's all grown up, and as wonderful as she is, I don't think I ever saw her put the look on your face that Mr. Vaughn did."
"He lives in Los Angeles." Sydney smiled and shook her head. "I don't know Peter, it's been so long."
"I do," he insisted. "The minute I looked at that man Sydney, I knew. Maybe you don't see it, but everyone else does. He'd move to the moon for a chance to be with you and not give it a second thought."
"So this is over?"
"I'd like to think we'll still be friends." He smiled at her. "I think, if you let him, he can make you happy. And you can make him happy."
"I haven't been dumped since I was in college."
Peter chuckled. "I'm not dumping you. I just... I'm not an idiot Sydney. I saw the way you two looked at each other. Hell, even Dave asked if you two had ever been involved. It's not like you and I were going anywhere great anyway," he pointed out. Lowering his voice he reminded, "We haven't even slept together yet."
"I know." She wiped away the residue of moisture and shook her head.
"Anyway," he sighed and leaned back into his booth. "I was thinking about seeing if Georgia was interested in going out to dinner in a few weeks."
"Georgia?" she laughed. "*My* friend Georgia?"
"What's so funny about that?"
Snuggled in her seat, a Cheshire grin danced across her features, her eyes lit up with a secret. "You like her!"
"Hey, I was friends with Rick, you know that. I'm not overly comfortable with all of Trinidad knowing I'm interested in her."
"Sorry," she smiled. "Honestly," Sydney soberly continued, "she's wonderful, and I know she's been lonely. The two of you get along well, and I know you'll understand that some days... Some days she still misses him."
"So do I," he agreed.
"You two could be good for each other."
"Look in the mirror and tell yourself that Bristow," Peter teased.
Leaning across the table as she began to eat her food, he began, "My curiosity is peaked though."
"About what?"
"Were you *always* a hockey fan, or do we have Mr. Vaughn to blame for the fact that Claire spends her winters talking about nothing but the Kings?"
Color blazed onto her cheeks as she looked down at her food. "I like the Kings. I've been rooting for them for years."
"So has your daughter." Peter grinned. "What I want to know is, if this began before or after Mr. Vaughn?"
"When I moved to Trinidad, I was completely on my own for the first time," she explained. Sipping her wine, she drank the courage to meet his eyes. "There were... Probably six or seven people that I missed very badly, but four most of all. So I started this bizarre habit..." She smiled and shook her head.
"What?" he pressed, a twinkle in his eye.
"My best friend, Francie, she... passed away before I moved here," she explained.
"I'm sorry -"
"Don't be," she stopped him. Sympathy was two decades too late and there was nothing he could have done anyway. "Francie owned a restaurant, loved Thanksgiving and Ewan McGregor movies. So, every Thanksgiving I make a meal that I'll never eat all of. On her birthday, no matter how... insane my life is, even if it's at two in the morning, I always watch an Ewan McGregor movie."
"That's one person."
"My friend Will - you've met him?" Sydney asked. Peter nodded, recalling at least half a dozen meetings with a blonde man who, no matter how sharply dressed he looked, always gave off the appearance of a scraggly dog. "Will worked as a journalist once, for the Los Angeles Register. So everyday I have the paper delivered here. I'm not even sure *why* it's in circulation so far north of Los Angeles, but it is," she smiled. "He and Francie were just massive fans of the Lakers too... Back when Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal used to play," she explained as he nodded. "So every season I try to watch a few games. Sometimes I'll even go to a game, take Claire when I can. I root for the Dodgers too, because of Will. I know they're horrible, but he loves them," she explained as Peter grinned.
"Two."
"Right," she nodded. "My father... I wanted to do something, have something that I took an interest in or had in my daily life that reminded me of him. Unfortunately, it wasn't very easy to find something."
"I find it difficult to believe your father has any other interests outside of work."
"So did I," she dryly agreed. "He *loves* photography though. It was something I had forgotten for a long time, until I moved in here and he sent me a bunch of old pictures. He used to love camping too.
Before my mother died," she swallowed over the old lie, "we would go camping a few times a year. I try to take Claire a few times a year, and I'm always taking pictures and sending them to my dad. I realize it's not a lot, but it's a way of having a part of him in my life." She smiled and shrugged.
"And Mr. Vaughn?"
A sad smile slid across her lips as she slowly sipped her wine. As much as she tried, it was difficult to be too excited over him once again entering her life. All it did was remind her that he had left it in the first place, and that no matter how badly they tried, they would never be able to replace what they had lost. "Vaughn loves hockey. That was the first personal thing I ever found out about him," she recalled. "He loves pool too, and dogs and painting..." she listed. "Hockey is his passion though. For awhile it felt like every moment we weren't working we were playing hockey or watching hockey..."
"So you liked hockey, even then."
"No," she laughed. "I liked the zamboni. Still do," she confessed.
Peter watched her grow serious, her mind a lifetime away. "I was lonely.
When I came back, watching the Kings just became part of my routine...
And I really needed a routine," Sydney sadly remembered.
"Why didn't you just get a job in Los Angeles?"
"Humboldt offered me a good position," she shrugged. "Better than I would have been able to get at a bigger school in L.A. Plus... I had to leave," she sighed. "Being in L.A. was too difficult."
"And now the one thing you thought you'd gotten rid of is back to haunt you," Peter softly chuckled. Shaking her head, Sydney allowed a soft laugh to escape her.
"I didn't want to get rid of him," she sighed. "I really didn't want to lose anything I had in L.A.," Sydney remembered. Then her shoulders shrugged as she took another sip of her wine. "I guess it just worked out that way."
"Take my advice Sydney," his voice cracked through her musings. "When my mother passed away, she had done everything she wanted, loved my father her whole life and done everything she could to be happy. You are one of the few women I've ever met who managed to impress me more than my mother," he explained. "That man... No human being should have the right to make another human being that happy," Peter chuckled and shook his head. "It's confusing, the power we allow other people to have over us, over who we are and how we feel about ourselves..."
"Why do we do it?" she asked, wondering if a nearly sixty year old bachelor could solve a mystery that a myriad of far better people had failed.
"Because..." he sighed and sat back against the booth. "Because as much as it kicks us in the ass, when it works, supposedly there's nothing more worthwhile in life."
They quietly finished their dinner before he drove her back to her home. Hugging her before she retreated into her warm home, the two parted on good terms. In a town like Trinidad it was difficult to avoid anyone, and neither wanted to lose the other's friendship. Even so, Sydney knew Peter was right. With Vaughn back, her heart was certainly not up for grabs - if it ever was to begin with. When she was honest with herself, she even had her doubts. Michael Vaughn owned a part of her that most other people didn't even realize existed. The only way to permanently lock him out was to never see him; an option she was painfully familiar with.
Christmas shopping and preparing exams led her to all but forget their decision to drop an attempt at a romantic relationship. During her phone calls to both Vaughn and Claire she didn't mention the break up, having made a conscious decision that it was news better shared in person. Plus, her daughter was burdened down with exams, her first as a college student, leaving her regular phone calls short and slightly frantic as she struggled to juggle everything. As much as she missed Claire, Sydney wasn't worried, confident that her daughter would eventually master the balancing act, just as she had once done.
Claire's car pulled into the driveway on the second Sunday of December, a miserable, rainy day, a week before her eighteenth birthday. Wrapped up in exam preparations in the family room, she listened as her daughter let herself in, greeting the dogs and cats with sweet reserve and a coddling tone that one would only use with their pets.
"Mom!" she finally called, smiling when she saw her mother busy at work.
"Hey sweetie," Sydney smiled absently at her daughter.
"Working hard?" she teased as her mother shrugged. Walking up behind her, Claire wrapped her arms around her mother's shoulders, kissing the top of her head. "I've missed you!"
"I've missed you too." She looked at her with a sad smile. "Sorry, I just have to finish these. Exams start tomorrow."
Claire shrugged. "Sure. Anything I can do to help?"
"I don't think so sweetheart," she considered. "How were your exams?"
"Over," she smiled, releasing an overly dramatic sigh as she leaned against the back of the double glider. "So, guess what?"
"Hmm..." she hummed, her eyes on the stack of exams. "You think you failed your finals?"
"No, thank god," Claire sighed in relief. A smile broke out briefly on her mother's face, Sydney recalling the relief she felt after having survived her first exams. It was a lifetime ago now, but the feeling of relief was not one you forgot easily. "Guess again."
"You've decided to drop the field hockey team so now I have to scramble to find they money to pay Stanford's ridiculously high tuition?"
"Mom!" her daughter laughed. "Something *good* Mom!"
Turning half around in her chair, Sydney shrugged. "I give up sweetheart."
Leaning forward, her voice dropped as she spoke, "I *know* him Mom!"
Sydney slowly smiled. "Bryce O'Neal?"
"Yep!" Claire grinned and nodded enthusiastically. "We're like *friends* now Mom!"
"Really?"
"Really!!" She continued to nod, her body almost humming with excitement.
"How did you manage to meet him?"
"It was so *not* on purpose - trust me, I would have worn something better!" she insisted as her mother laughed. "It was like right after I got back from Thanksgiving. The morning I left for classes, it was nice out, so I walked to my classes, since they were like right around the corner," she started to tell her story as Sydney patiently nodded. "By the time I got *out* of the library, it was pouring Mom! I had to walk like two blocks to the freaking shuttle stop because it was like a twenty minute walk to my dorm and there was no way in hell I was doing *that*," Claire clarified. "So, by the time I actually get *on* the bus, I look like a drowned rat. Seriously Mom, I looked horrible!" She shook her head as her mother covered a laugh. "So I'm on the bus, and it's packed. I'm looking out the window, standing there looking like an idiot, and this guy just moves his duffel for me and looks at me like I'd be an ass for not sitting."
"Bryce?"
The color blazed across her face. "One and the same."
"He's a gentleman."
"He really is!" she confirmed. "He's so great Mom! He's twenty one, he's from Wisconsin and he's a finance major."
"I'm impressed."
"There's sort of more..." She hesitated. Silently, her mother urged her to continue, her smile warm and encouraging as Claire finally broke. "He wants to meet you."
"Already?"
"Well... He says I talk about you all the time. Which I probably do," she groaned. "I thought, since it's basketball season, you could come down and see a game. Maybe spend the weekend. That way we could get some time to hang out too."
"I think it sounds like a great idea," she agreed. "So are you two friends or more than friends?"
"He hasn't kissed me yet, if that's what you're getting at," Claire insisted. "We spend basically all of our free time hanging out though.
Laura likes him, which makes life a lot easier... Sometimes he'll hold my hand. He's so sweet Mom! He's a part of this Christian group on campus. Not exactly my usual cup of tea, but they had this Christmas prayer service, so I went with him before I left."
"Sounds nice," Sydney slowly approved. "I'm glad you've met him and that he's not another Dean."
"Me too! So, when are we leaving?"
"Our flight to L.A. is Saturday morning. My grades should be in to the office by then. I thought you'd want to spend your birthday with Uncle Will."
"Sure," Claire shrugged.
"Then we're supposed to leave for Seattle the twenty eighth. My classes don't start again until the 15th, but your calendar says the 7th."
"Right. We're on quarters though Mom, so we start slightly earlier than you, plus we got out first."
"Show off," Sydney smirked.
"So, what's been new around here?"
"I took Gehrig to the vet, she says he needs to lose some weight," she explained, eyes drawn back to her exams.
Claire snorted. "Gehrig's had to lose weight since he was like one and a half."
"What else... Exams are almost over... Gehrig and the vet... Oh, and Peter and I broke up," she casually added.
"Excuse me?"
"I mean, we're still friends," she quickly added. "Just... Our romantic relationship just wasn't working."
"Mom! You dumped him for that Vaughn guy, didn't you?"
"Claire!" She turned around to face her daughter. "I *didn't* dump him. Peter brought up the subject and we mutually decided it was better if we were just friends. Anyway, Peter is interested in the possibility of a relationship with your Aunt Georgia."
"Eww." Her nose wrinkled as her mother laughed.
"I think it's wonderful sweetheart. Nothing has happened between
Vaughn and I. I don't know if it will, but Peter thinks it might and he wants to give me the opportunity to pursue it if I can."
"But you're still friends?"
"Right," she confirmed.
"Well, I guess it's something," she sighed. Slowly she stood. "I'm going to go unpack. Do some laundry."
"Okay Tinkerbelle," Sydney returned her attention to her work. "Love you."
"Love you too Mom." Claire dropped a kiss to her mother's head, passing her on her journey up the stairs to her bedroom.
Author: UConnFan (Michele)
E-Mail: LoveUConnBasketball@yahoo.com
Story Summary: In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on." - Robert Frost Twenty years post "The Telling"; Surviving the worse case scenario.
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The only sound echoing off of the surrounding Plexiglas was the soft hum of his skates over the ice. Scrutinizing the puck, black in contrast to the white sheet beneath him, he moved it back and forth across the ice. At his age he was used to playing only himself, and had perfected at least half a dozen one-person games to absorb his time. After all, very few people were on the ice that early, and most of the people who were there were far from interested in playing or even practicing with a man his age.
"Hey," a familiar voice bounced off of the walls. Michael Vaughn glanced up and rolled his eyes at his companion. "Don't you ever sleep in anymore?"
"Shouldn't you be in some warm bed?"
"Are you kidding me?" Eric Weiss' eyes grew. "It's sales day buddy, Meg had me up and out the door at quarter to seven."
Sighing, Vaughn slowly skated to where Eric stood. Reaching his friend's side, he glared down at the ice and muttered, "I'm starting to think Alex hates me."
"So? My son thinks I'm a jackass," he pointed out. When Vaughn glared at him, the other man shrugged. "So I have my moments. My point is, they're teenagers. They're practically genetically programmed to detest their parents, especially their fathers."
"I know I wasn't the best father..." He groaned and then looked at his friend. "When she was little though... Even when I wasn't around, when I was, I couldn't do anything wrong."
"You know you're annoying when you overanalyze?" Eric informed him. "I knew I shouldn't have let you leave so early last night..." he commented under his breath. "You know, you should have just saved all of us the trouble."
"How could I have done that?"
"Shown up on Sydney's doorstep yesterday morning. You know she would let you stay."
"Jesus Eric, not this again," Vaughn sputtered, turning around and slowly gliding back to the center of the rink.
"What? I'm not out of my mind here, Michael," Eric called, unmoving at the entrance of the ice. "Did you even tell her your plan? I mean, did you just casually mention it during the two days you were there?"
From the center of the ice, Weiss barely saw his friend shake his head, but even his whisper resounded in his ears. "No."
"Well, I don't think she'll mind, but it might be nice if she knew."
"This isn't easy for me." The lone figure on the ice whirled around to face him. "I don't even know what the hell I'm doing."
"No one's expecting this to be easy, but you're going to just get more miserable if you don't. This stopped being easy when you two imposed this stupid vow of barely speaking to one another."
"Hey!" Vaughn glared at his old friend. "I *tried*, but all she did was push me away -"
"Give me a break." He rolled his eyes. "You could have tried a lot harder, but you didn't. Neither one of you did, and now you both regret it."
"I loved Kate, I was married to her at the time."
"Yeah, so? Since when was Sydney ever receptive to the idea of a friendship, when she was upset or angry? If I remember clearly, you sure as hell pushed your way into her life the first time around, and you were taken then too buddy."
"That was different, I wasn't married to Alice."
"The point is that you didn't give up on her," Eric softly explained. "You didn't give up on Sydney, not even when she had... When she came back, nothing was easy for her, but after one half of a rejection, you just dropped her like a hot potato. What the hell were you so scared of?"
"When you bury the woman you love, she's not supposed to show up once you move on and get married," Vaughn muttered. Finally, he stopped skating around in a seemingly endless circle and looked at Eric. "Kate got married yesterday."
"Congratulations to her, but we're talking about Sydney. I've known you too damn long to let you change the subject like that."
"I was scared of her. Do you have any idea how easy it would have been to let Sydney in? Every time I *looked* at her I had to remember that I was married then and that I *loved* my wife. I couldn't even look myself in the mirror at night. Do you have any idea how shitty it is, being forced to remind yourself that you're supposedly in love with someone?"
"No," Weiss sighed. "I'm sorry, I don't."
"I was scared of knowing that after two damn years, after moving past her and thinking I had it all together, she could take that all away. Jesus, there were times when I *wanted* her to take it all away. I had a *wife*, I had spent months trying to get past her..." He shook his head as his eyes dipped to his well-worn ice skates. "And after nearly two years, Sydney was still the only woman I really wanted," Vaughn mumbled and looked back at his friend. "That scared me to death."
"Well... On the bright side, Grace finally learned how to do around the world," he injected. Laughing, the image of a tiny six year old struggling with a yoyo came to mind. "Seriously," Weiss continued, "that was twenty years ago. Neither one of you can change that, but you can't keep living with what happened or what you should have done. In the end, you both fucked it up. Admittedly, you had good cause to fuck it up, but it happened. You're no longer married; Sydney's no longer trying to rebuild her life. What's the problem?"
His eyes were sober as he glanced up at his former partner. "Syd's got a boyfriend."
"There's no way he smells as good as you do."
Vaughn's lips quirked as both men laughed at the memory. "I don't know. I met him, briefly, but I didn't give him a full inspection."
"I'm assuming that if it was serious, you would have thought about this plan of yours more than once."
"I have thought about my plan more than once," he vowed. "And... Sydney says it's not serious."
"But you're not convinced?"
"Sydney's not the type to have a casual relationship."
Weiss stood up straight and shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe she was lonely. Of all the people in the world, you have got to be able to understand what loneliness does to a person."
"What if Claire hates me?"
"I've yet to meet a Bristow immune to your charms," Weiss jabbed. "C'mon, you even got Jack Bristow to like you; to *trust* you. I don't think anyone had done that in thirty years. Anyway, I think you're about three steps ahead of yourself."
Vaughn shook his head. "What if I'm making the biggest mistake of my life?"
"Than you come back here and you can stay in our garage apartment until you get your life together. And, you'll be able to say you did the best you could, that you weren't a total idiot who gave up every chance he ever had with Sydney Bristow."
"You're right." He shook his head, a half-grin on his face as Weiss studied him. "I'm about a month ahead of myself."
"I think over-planning is the lingering curse of every CIA handler."
"Than how did you avoid it?"
"Just ask Marshall, I've got magic." Eric shrugged as both men laughed. Soberly he inquired, "Do you think you're doing the right thing?"
"I don't know," Vaughn muttered, absently moving the puck with his hockey stick. "I haven't been right about Sydney in years."
"So, your instincts been off a few times. What is it telling you *now*?"
Green eyes finally looked up, wide and filled with more hope than any average man his age dared to have. "This is my best and last shot."
"When are you going to see her again?" Eric pried, his friend walking by him and sitting down on a bench, beginning to take off his skates.
"I don't know yet. I know Claire's home from Stanford, and I know Syd's missed her... I don't want to invade on their time together," he explained, tossing a look in his friend's direction.
"Meg was very disappointed that you didn't say a word about Sydney at dinner. You know she never got to meet her."
"Yeah, I know," he sighed. "A lot of people never got to meet her."
Collapsing onto the bench next to him, Eric let out a heavy sigh. "Your mom would have loved Sydney."
"She always knew," he muttered, unable to look at his friend. "My mother... She liked Kate, and she loved Alex, but she always knew there was something I could never tell her. I could never bring myself to tell her about Sydney, not even after I thought she was dead... What would have been the point? What mother wants to hear that her son wanted to spend the rest of his life with the daughter of her husband's murderer?"
"When you put it that way, it sounds pretty twisted," Eric teased as Vaughn chuckled.
Glancing at his friend he continued, "I should have asked for a transfer the moment I found out."
"I remember telling you that too," he remembered, his eyes lingering out at the ice. "You would have been miserable though. *She* would have been miserable..." He shook his head and then met the other man's eyes. "What would have been the point? You were already in love with her by that point, god knows if anything, it only made you more devoted to her..."
"I would have done anything for her," Vaughn recalled, his voice low and cracked.
"And you did do everything you could. You put your life on hold, jeopardized your standing in the agency to look for her and for Sark and Sloane and Derevko... You looked your father's killer in the eye on more than one occasion and didn't hurt her, all because you knew what it would do to Sydney. There was absolutely nothing else you could do then."
The sigh that escaped him, left his body nearly doubled over, the realization soft from his lips. "But there is now."
"It's not going to happen overnight... Okay, last time it did, but I think you're both a little too old for that now," Weiss jostled to his friend's chuckle. "You can't just jump back to where you were. You're not that person anymore, and neither is she."
"What the hell am I doing?" he muttered, covering his eyes with his hand as he massaged his temples.
"You're falling in love with Sydney Bristow." Groaning, Vaughn's head lolled forward as it shook slightly. "Yeah," Weiss chirped, gently slapping his friend on the back. "That's how I felt about it the first time around."
The sun shone through the open windows and back screen door as Sydney dropped the soiled knife into the dishwasher. Effortlessly, she grabbed the two plates off of the counter, walking them the short distance to the table with a grace she could have used during her short and disastrous stint as a waitress. Sliding the plate in front of Claire, she placed hers down and sat down as well. Sydney smiled as her daughter briefly inspected the sandwich and started to eat the crust.
"So," she grinned, "who's Bryce O'Neal?"
"Mom!" Claire's ears burned.
"What? I let you eat your breakfast and go play pool next door before I asked!"
"It doesn't matter..." She decisively shook her head, eyes drawn to her plate. "It's never going to happen. It's stupid to even think about it."
"You never know," her mother encouraged. "During my freshman year of college I had it so bad for this boy, Dean. I sat next to him in one of my classes and on the first day of school, he asked for a pen. Every time I saw him use it, I would get so excited..." Her smile was nearly giddy. "Anyway," her smile slowly disappeared, "there was this party one night, so I walked up and *tried* to ask him if he wanted to go... He didn't even know my name, and I swear he and his friends laughed about it for the rest of the semester."
"I thought this was supposed to be some encouraging story about how I never know what will happen?" her daughter deadpanned.
"Okay," she sighed and sat back. "A few months after Dean basically scarred me for life, he came up to *me* and introduced himself."
"Like he didn't even know you?!" Claire asked, struggling to hold back her laughter.
Sydney nodded. "Exactly like that. Then he asked me to a concert. The weird thing was that when he walked over to me, I didn't get excited or even nervous, and when he asked me to the concert, I didn't even want to go with him."
"So you turned *him* down."
"Exactly, and I don't regret it," she smiled. "Although I said nearly the same thing once. That I was never going to get with this guy that I had a crush on; that it was basically stupid to even think about it. I remember not even your Aunt Francie believed me when I said that."
"Who was it?" The question prompted a tiny smile from her mother, as a look dripped into her eyes that Claire had never seen before. Only once, her mind amended, in that photo from the other day "It was that guy in the picture," Claire answered on her own. "The boss guy. Michael something."
"Michael Vaughn," Sydney answered. "And yes," she sighed, "it was Vaughn. That's not important now. What about Bryce?"
"I don't really know him," she sighed. "I've talked to people who do though. He's a finance major, and he's really tall. Really cute too. His hair is dark and it's kind of curly, but I don't know what color his eyes are... His picture is on the Stanford athletic department website, for the basketball team. I'll show it to you later," she promised. "Apparently he's a pretty quiet guy. The rest of the team will go out and party and he'll stay in his dorm and read or watch movies..."
"He sounds very sweet."
"He's three years older than I am though, or almost. He's only a junior though."
"So, what's the problem?"
"The problem?" Claire's eyes grew. "The problem is that school is huge, he doesn't even know I exist, and he can have *anyone* he wants!"
"But why wouldn't he want to be with you? Or at least be your friend?"
"You're my mother," she groaned, taking a bite of her sandwich. "You're like doomed to be my biggest fan Mom. Not everyone sees me like you do."
"You're a sweet, loyal, talented g - young woman," she caught herself before she referred to Claire as a girl. Despite the pains it caused her, Sydney was aware that it had been a long time since her daughter had been a little girl. "You like sports and movies and reading too. He sounds like a nice guy."
"I guess he's really religious too," Claire sighed. "He's always wearing the WWJD bracelets, even in games... We're not exactly religious Mom."
"So? I'm sure he's got plenty of friends of all different types of religions and no religions at all. You're wonderful with people, Tinkerbelle. I bet if you didn't have a crush on this guy, you'd have no problems introducing yourself."
"Of course I'd have no problem! I wouldn't care then, but I care Mom! I don't even know the guy and I want him to like me!"
"You want him to like *you*, not who you think he wants. You said so yourself, Stanford is a big school. Which, if things turn out with Bryce like they did with Dean, will be to your advantage. But... If he's half the guy you say he is, it won't be that bad."
"And if he's not?"
"Then he's not worth your trouble. Hey, you never told me what happened last night with Jake and Harry."
"I beat Jake 11-4," she smirked. "I have some pity for Harry, so I only beat him 11-9."
"How many did you purposely let him score?" Sydney inquired.
"Like all nine," her daughter conceded. "He's such a nice guy Mom, and I know he likes me. I'm not going to *let* him win, but I can at least be sympathetic to his cause," she shrugged.
Across from her, her mother nodded in understanding. In the earliest days of her friendship with Will, when she was aware that he was deeply interested in her but not too equipped at poker, or really any game, she would sometimes purposely lose or make the victory less substantial.
"How's Laura?"
"Good," Claire nodded as her mother brought up her roommate. "She's really nice too. We get along well."
"That's how I met Francie."
"I know," her daughter smiled. After years of curiosity, and countless occasions in which she forced herself not to snoop into her mother's most private possessions, she finally had a face with the name. The closest thing she'd had before was the simple headstone that her mother would often bring her to visit on their trips to Los Angeles. That part of the trip was understandably not among her favorite things to do.
"I won't ask you to come with me to visit Francie, but there is something I'd like you to see before we leave L.A."
"What?"
"My grave."
Claire was certain if she'd had anything in her mouth at the moment of her mother's dry delivery, it would have been spurred to the other side of the room. "Excuse me?"
"Obviously there isn't a date of death there anymore," Sydney explained. "But when they thought I had... died... someone bought a double plot and a headstone and they buried me."
"A double plot?" she asked, her young mind picking up on that tiny tidbit.
"It's a surreal experience Tinkerbelle, standing in front of your own grave," she shook her head then sighed. "I think it's time you see it though. When the time comes, it's where I'd still like to be buried."
"What about him?" she asked, her face blank as her mother grew confused.
"Who?"
"Michael. Vaughn, whatever," she shook her head.
"I don't know, I'm assuming that it's something he's discussed with his daughter."
Claire's eyes widened. "He has a daughter?"
"Yes. Alexandra, she's a sophomore at the University of Arizona."
"You could have mentioned that Mom."
"Sorry, I'll make a point of keeping you better informed," she teased.
"Well, is she nice at least?"
"I don't know, I never met her," Sydney confessed. "She was born around the time I moved here."
"I'm assuming he's the one who bought the double plot," Claire detected as her mother sighed.
"Tink - "
"You might want to discuss it with him Mom. Believe me, I know that discussing where one's body will spend the rest of eternity is not an easy discussion, especially given your... past. But you might want to consider it mandatory, given the circumstances," she dryly suggested.
Sydney's lips curled slightly as she shook her head. "How did you get to be so smart?"
"Lots of Zelda. Those child-rearing experts totally underestimate the power of a good video game," she smirked as Sydney laughed.
"You're going to be fine Tink," she smiled softly, her tone as confident as her daughter had ever heard. "If Bryce or any other boy can't see how fantastic you are, then it's their loss."
"That still doesn't give me a date on Saturday nights."
Soberly, her mother sighed and sympathetically studied her daughter. "I didn't think that kind of stuff was that important to you."
"It's not!" she insisted. "I just..." she sighed and met her mother's eyes. "It would be nice, sometimes, to just have someone to watch a basketball game with, or someone who's there to hug me when I'm sad or hold my hand and carry my books to class... I've never had that Mom, *ever*," Claire reminded her mother. Sydney nodded, unaware that her daughter's desire for a serious relationship ran so deep. "It's not something I *need* - and I know that," she promised. "Just... It would be nice not to be alone all the time. To have someone there who just got it," she struggled to vocalize what she sought.
"Yeah," she smiled sadly at her daughter. "I understand."
The first Monday arrived along with cross-country sales on every Christmas item imaginable. During the day and a half of the weekend that Claire had spent in Trinidad, she had successfully helped her mother begin decorating the house for Christmas. As far back as she could remember they began decorating the Saturday after Thanksgiving. While ther mothers brought their children through hectic shopping centers in search of the perfect gift, the Bristow girls perfected the Christmas ambiance.
For Sydney it meant fifteen days until semester exams commenced. With the way exams fell at Stanford, it was only a mere fourteen days until Claire would reappear. Compared to the first three months without her daughter, she expected the weeks to pass by with a new ease that came with knowing how to survive an empty nest. Meanwhile, there were gifts to shop for, flights to arrange, and plans to be perfected for their traditional holiday trips.
Aware that it had been far too long since she'd seen him, Sydney arranged to see Peter the Friday after Claire left. The week had passed by as she fielded nearly a dozen phone calls from her mother and Will, both interested in knowing her plans for the upcoming weeks. What stuck out most in her mind, however, were the three late-night phone calls from Vaughn. All short and nearly meaningless in content, they stuck to simple things like Christmas shopping and how the Kings were playing, but she subconsciously found herself planning her evenings around the hope that the phone wound ring at precisely 10:23 at night.
Friday evening Peter arrived shortly after her last class of the day. The two made small talk during the drive to the high school. For nearly two and a half hours the two were kept busy rooting for the Trinidad high school basketball team as they went on to closely defeat one of the best teams in the state. In between runs to the concession stand and the few trips to the bathroom, Sydney ran into old friends and teachers of Claire, catching up in how they'd been doing since she'd seen them. Getting into her beau's car on the way to a late dinner, she was struck by the reminder of why she liked Trinidad so much as she waved and smiled to a few of Claire's high school friends.
Smiling into the Italian's blue eyes as she slid into their familiar booth, she was taken aback when he barely responded. Politely they thanked the waitresses for the menus before she briefly scanned the selection, her usual order already memorized after years of constantly ordering it. Occasionally, she would wonder why they even bothered to give her a menu when nearly everyone in the restaurant knew her by name and certainly knew her order. Sydney folded the menu and placed it back on the table, folding her hands as Peter steadily looked back at her.
"Sydney... I'm going to ask you something that I have no right to ask, but... It's been on my mind for awhile now, and you always say that the only way to solve an issue is to address it," he started. Slowly her smile disappeared as she took a sip of her water and nodded, patiently waiting for him to continue. "I'm aware that it's none of my business - I didn't even know you at the time - but... You've been here for nearly twenty years Sydney, we've been acquaintances for nearly that long, and we've been close for awhile, and there's still so little that I know about you before you came here."
Pushing forward a smile, returning to her years of experience with manufacturing plastic grins, Sydney inquired, "What do you want to know?"
"I don't know if you remember, but a few weeks ago I ran into you here with your friend."
"Michael," the foreign name plowed over her tongue as Peter nodded.
"Yes. He seems like a... fine man, and I'm not questioning your loyalty..." He tore his eyes away from her, studying the house specials menu as he pressed on. "I can't get rid of the impression that you two were once more than friends..." He sighed and started to laugh uncomfortably. "Maybe it's me, maybe I have some sexist bias that men and women, especially someone as attractive as you are, can't just be friends... But I've met your friend Will, Sydney..." Peter finally looked back at her. "And I never got that feeling from him."
"Peter," she sighed his name and softly thanked the waitress for bringing her wine. Momentarily considering her words, she paused to take a sip, allowing the familiar taste to briefly relax her sudden tension. No logical part of her could explain her dread at continuing this conversation, but Sydney knew there was no way to escape the topic. "Nothing happened when he was here, if that's what you're worried about."
"I think I know you better than that." He smiled for a second before he sat up straighter, his face blank.
"We *did* work together," Sydney insisted, unable to look at him as he nodded. "We were... attracted to one another, but for over a year we were nothing more than friends."
"Until you were more than friends," Peter softly added.
"Yes," she sighed. "We... It's complicated," she explained, wishing, not for the first time, that her past was easier explained not only to her daughter, but also to the people closest to her. The Alliance and Arvin Sloane were long gone, but time could never eradicate the legacy of deceit it had imposed upon her life. "Yes, we were together, only for a few months though... It was pretty serious," Sydney softly explained, brushing hair back and shaking her head as she recalled what she had once assumed would become permanent. "Things never officially ended... I really don't want to talk about it, but things happened... I was away, for two years, not of my own choosing." She struggled to adequately explain what in so many ways was still a mystery to her. "Vaughn... He thought I was dead. When I came back, he was married."
"He thought you were dead? How? I don't understand -"
"I really can't say." She shook her head. There was small consolation in knowing that at least that part was partially true. "I was back in Los Angeles for a year and a half before I came here. Things... We ignored it," she sighed. "We didn't talk, so things sort of just hung out in the air. Then Vaughn just... arrived a few weeks ago. His ex-wife is sick, and they offered him a big promotion at work..."
Across from her, she watched his shoulders deflated and his blue eyes seemed to darken. "And after nearly twenty years, you were the first person he wanted to talk to."
"Peter -"
"I'm sorry Sydney," he shook his head and looked down. "I don't want to know, but I have to," he explained under his breath. Under her experienced eye, she watched as he seemed to brace himself for a harsh revelation before Peter's eyes returned to her face. "Do you love him?"
Instinctively, brown eyes dipped to her neatly folded hands, blinking away the stubborn tears as she heard her companion clear his throat.
"Sydney, please look at me," he softly requested. Through the moisture that blurred her vision, she finally responded to his request. "We both know your answer."
"I had no idea this would happen -"
"I know," he stopped her. "I know Sydney, but we weren't going anywhere, not really... We've had fun, and I still think we can be friends, but I don't want to keep my hopes up for something you can never give me."
"I'm sorry." She cleared her throat, one hand quickly wiping away her tears.
Peter shook his head and sighed. "I don't understand what happened to the two of you - and I'm not going to ask," he promised. "Before I met him the other day, the *only* thing I've seen make you *really* happy since I've known you, was Claire. You know I think Claire is a great, great kid," he emphasized as Sydney nodded. "Still... She's on her own now, she's all grown up, and as wonderful as she is, I don't think I ever saw her put the look on your face that Mr. Vaughn did."
"He lives in Los Angeles." Sydney smiled and shook her head. "I don't know Peter, it's been so long."
"I do," he insisted. "The minute I looked at that man Sydney, I knew. Maybe you don't see it, but everyone else does. He'd move to the moon for a chance to be with you and not give it a second thought."
"So this is over?"
"I'd like to think we'll still be friends." He smiled at her. "I think, if you let him, he can make you happy. And you can make him happy."
"I haven't been dumped since I was in college."
Peter chuckled. "I'm not dumping you. I just... I'm not an idiot Sydney. I saw the way you two looked at each other. Hell, even Dave asked if you two had ever been involved. It's not like you and I were going anywhere great anyway," he pointed out. Lowering his voice he reminded, "We haven't even slept together yet."
"I know." She wiped away the residue of moisture and shook her head.
"Anyway," he sighed and leaned back into his booth. "I was thinking about seeing if Georgia was interested in going out to dinner in a few weeks."
"Georgia?" she laughed. "*My* friend Georgia?"
"What's so funny about that?"
Snuggled in her seat, a Cheshire grin danced across her features, her eyes lit up with a secret. "You like her!"
"Hey, I was friends with Rick, you know that. I'm not overly comfortable with all of Trinidad knowing I'm interested in her."
"Sorry," she smiled. "Honestly," Sydney soberly continued, "she's wonderful, and I know she's been lonely. The two of you get along well, and I know you'll understand that some days... Some days she still misses him."
"So do I," he agreed.
"You two could be good for each other."
"Look in the mirror and tell yourself that Bristow," Peter teased.
Leaning across the table as she began to eat her food, he began, "My curiosity is peaked though."
"About what?"
"Were you *always* a hockey fan, or do we have Mr. Vaughn to blame for the fact that Claire spends her winters talking about nothing but the Kings?"
Color blazed onto her cheeks as she looked down at her food. "I like the Kings. I've been rooting for them for years."
"So has your daughter." Peter grinned. "What I want to know is, if this began before or after Mr. Vaughn?"
"When I moved to Trinidad, I was completely on my own for the first time," she explained. Sipping her wine, she drank the courage to meet his eyes. "There were... Probably six or seven people that I missed very badly, but four most of all. So I started this bizarre habit..." She smiled and shook her head.
"What?" he pressed, a twinkle in his eye.
"My best friend, Francie, she... passed away before I moved here," she explained.
"I'm sorry -"
"Don't be," she stopped him. Sympathy was two decades too late and there was nothing he could have done anyway. "Francie owned a restaurant, loved Thanksgiving and Ewan McGregor movies. So, every Thanksgiving I make a meal that I'll never eat all of. On her birthday, no matter how... insane my life is, even if it's at two in the morning, I always watch an Ewan McGregor movie."
"That's one person."
"My friend Will - you've met him?" Sydney asked. Peter nodded, recalling at least half a dozen meetings with a blonde man who, no matter how sharply dressed he looked, always gave off the appearance of a scraggly dog. "Will worked as a journalist once, for the Los Angeles Register. So everyday I have the paper delivered here. I'm not even sure *why* it's in circulation so far north of Los Angeles, but it is," she smiled. "He and Francie were just massive fans of the Lakers too... Back when Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal used to play," she explained as he nodded. "So every season I try to watch a few games. Sometimes I'll even go to a game, take Claire when I can. I root for the Dodgers too, because of Will. I know they're horrible, but he loves them," she explained as Peter grinned.
"Two."
"Right," she nodded. "My father... I wanted to do something, have something that I took an interest in or had in my daily life that reminded me of him. Unfortunately, it wasn't very easy to find something."
"I find it difficult to believe your father has any other interests outside of work."
"So did I," she dryly agreed. "He *loves* photography though. It was something I had forgotten for a long time, until I moved in here and he sent me a bunch of old pictures. He used to love camping too.
Before my mother died," she swallowed over the old lie, "we would go camping a few times a year. I try to take Claire a few times a year, and I'm always taking pictures and sending them to my dad. I realize it's not a lot, but it's a way of having a part of him in my life." She smiled and shrugged.
"And Mr. Vaughn?"
A sad smile slid across her lips as she slowly sipped her wine. As much as she tried, it was difficult to be too excited over him once again entering her life. All it did was remind her that he had left it in the first place, and that no matter how badly they tried, they would never be able to replace what they had lost. "Vaughn loves hockey. That was the first personal thing I ever found out about him," she recalled. "He loves pool too, and dogs and painting..." she listed. "Hockey is his passion though. For awhile it felt like every moment we weren't working we were playing hockey or watching hockey..."
"So you liked hockey, even then."
"No," she laughed. "I liked the zamboni. Still do," she confessed.
Peter watched her grow serious, her mind a lifetime away. "I was lonely.
When I came back, watching the Kings just became part of my routine...
And I really needed a routine," Sydney sadly remembered.
"Why didn't you just get a job in Los Angeles?"
"Humboldt offered me a good position," she shrugged. "Better than I would have been able to get at a bigger school in L.A. Plus... I had to leave," she sighed. "Being in L.A. was too difficult."
"And now the one thing you thought you'd gotten rid of is back to haunt you," Peter softly chuckled. Shaking her head, Sydney allowed a soft laugh to escape her.
"I didn't want to get rid of him," she sighed. "I really didn't want to lose anything I had in L.A.," Sydney remembered. Then her shoulders shrugged as she took another sip of her wine. "I guess it just worked out that way."
"Take my advice Sydney," his voice cracked through her musings. "When my mother passed away, she had done everything she wanted, loved my father her whole life and done everything she could to be happy. You are one of the few women I've ever met who managed to impress me more than my mother," he explained. "That man... No human being should have the right to make another human being that happy," Peter chuckled and shook his head. "It's confusing, the power we allow other people to have over us, over who we are and how we feel about ourselves..."
"Why do we do it?" she asked, wondering if a nearly sixty year old bachelor could solve a mystery that a myriad of far better people had failed.
"Because..." he sighed and sat back against the booth. "Because as much as it kicks us in the ass, when it works, supposedly there's nothing more worthwhile in life."
They quietly finished their dinner before he drove her back to her home. Hugging her before she retreated into her warm home, the two parted on good terms. In a town like Trinidad it was difficult to avoid anyone, and neither wanted to lose the other's friendship. Even so, Sydney knew Peter was right. With Vaughn back, her heart was certainly not up for grabs - if it ever was to begin with. When she was honest with herself, she even had her doubts. Michael Vaughn owned a part of her that most other people didn't even realize existed. The only way to permanently lock him out was to never see him; an option she was painfully familiar with.
Christmas shopping and preparing exams led her to all but forget their decision to drop an attempt at a romantic relationship. During her phone calls to both Vaughn and Claire she didn't mention the break up, having made a conscious decision that it was news better shared in person. Plus, her daughter was burdened down with exams, her first as a college student, leaving her regular phone calls short and slightly frantic as she struggled to juggle everything. As much as she missed Claire, Sydney wasn't worried, confident that her daughter would eventually master the balancing act, just as she had once done.
Claire's car pulled into the driveway on the second Sunday of December, a miserable, rainy day, a week before her eighteenth birthday. Wrapped up in exam preparations in the family room, she listened as her daughter let herself in, greeting the dogs and cats with sweet reserve and a coddling tone that one would only use with their pets.
"Mom!" she finally called, smiling when she saw her mother busy at work.
"Hey sweetie," Sydney smiled absently at her daughter.
"Working hard?" she teased as her mother shrugged. Walking up behind her, Claire wrapped her arms around her mother's shoulders, kissing the top of her head. "I've missed you!"
"I've missed you too." She looked at her with a sad smile. "Sorry, I just have to finish these. Exams start tomorrow."
Claire shrugged. "Sure. Anything I can do to help?"
"I don't think so sweetheart," she considered. "How were your exams?"
"Over," she smiled, releasing an overly dramatic sigh as she leaned against the back of the double glider. "So, guess what?"
"Hmm..." she hummed, her eyes on the stack of exams. "You think you failed your finals?"
"No, thank god," Claire sighed in relief. A smile broke out briefly on her mother's face, Sydney recalling the relief she felt after having survived her first exams. It was a lifetime ago now, but the feeling of relief was not one you forgot easily. "Guess again."
"You've decided to drop the field hockey team so now I have to scramble to find they money to pay Stanford's ridiculously high tuition?"
"Mom!" her daughter laughed. "Something *good* Mom!"
Turning half around in her chair, Sydney shrugged. "I give up sweetheart."
Leaning forward, her voice dropped as she spoke, "I *know* him Mom!"
Sydney slowly smiled. "Bryce O'Neal?"
"Yep!" Claire grinned and nodded enthusiastically. "We're like *friends* now Mom!"
"Really?"
"Really!!" She continued to nod, her body almost humming with excitement.
"How did you manage to meet him?"
"It was so *not* on purpose - trust me, I would have worn something better!" she insisted as her mother laughed. "It was like right after I got back from Thanksgiving. The morning I left for classes, it was nice out, so I walked to my classes, since they were like right around the corner," she started to tell her story as Sydney patiently nodded. "By the time I got *out* of the library, it was pouring Mom! I had to walk like two blocks to the freaking shuttle stop because it was like a twenty minute walk to my dorm and there was no way in hell I was doing *that*," Claire clarified. "So, by the time I actually get *on* the bus, I look like a drowned rat. Seriously Mom, I looked horrible!" She shook her head as her mother covered a laugh. "So I'm on the bus, and it's packed. I'm looking out the window, standing there looking like an idiot, and this guy just moves his duffel for me and looks at me like I'd be an ass for not sitting."
"Bryce?"
The color blazed across her face. "One and the same."
"He's a gentleman."
"He really is!" she confirmed. "He's so great Mom! He's twenty one, he's from Wisconsin and he's a finance major."
"I'm impressed."
"There's sort of more..." She hesitated. Silently, her mother urged her to continue, her smile warm and encouraging as Claire finally broke. "He wants to meet you."
"Already?"
"Well... He says I talk about you all the time. Which I probably do," she groaned. "I thought, since it's basketball season, you could come down and see a game. Maybe spend the weekend. That way we could get some time to hang out too."
"I think it sounds like a great idea," she agreed. "So are you two friends or more than friends?"
"He hasn't kissed me yet, if that's what you're getting at," Claire insisted. "We spend basically all of our free time hanging out though.
Laura likes him, which makes life a lot easier... Sometimes he'll hold my hand. He's so sweet Mom! He's a part of this Christian group on campus. Not exactly my usual cup of tea, but they had this Christmas prayer service, so I went with him before I left."
"Sounds nice," Sydney slowly approved. "I'm glad you've met him and that he's not another Dean."
"Me too! So, when are we leaving?"
"Our flight to L.A. is Saturday morning. My grades should be in to the office by then. I thought you'd want to spend your birthday with Uncle Will."
"Sure," Claire shrugged.
"Then we're supposed to leave for Seattle the twenty eighth. My classes don't start again until the 15th, but your calendar says the 7th."
"Right. We're on quarters though Mom, so we start slightly earlier than you, plus we got out first."
"Show off," Sydney smirked.
"So, what's been new around here?"
"I took Gehrig to the vet, she says he needs to lose some weight," she explained, eyes drawn back to her exams.
Claire snorted. "Gehrig's had to lose weight since he was like one and a half."
"What else... Exams are almost over... Gehrig and the vet... Oh, and Peter and I broke up," she casually added.
"Excuse me?"
"I mean, we're still friends," she quickly added. "Just... Our romantic relationship just wasn't working."
"Mom! You dumped him for that Vaughn guy, didn't you?"
"Claire!" She turned around to face her daughter. "I *didn't* dump him. Peter brought up the subject and we mutually decided it was better if we were just friends. Anyway, Peter is interested in the possibility of a relationship with your Aunt Georgia."
"Eww." Her nose wrinkled as her mother laughed.
"I think it's wonderful sweetheart. Nothing has happened between
Vaughn and I. I don't know if it will, but Peter thinks it might and he wants to give me the opportunity to pursue it if I can."
"But you're still friends?"
"Right," she confirmed.
"Well, I guess it's something," she sighed. Slowly she stood. "I'm going to go unpack. Do some laundry."
"Okay Tinkerbelle," Sydney returned her attention to her work. "Love you."
"Love you too Mom." Claire dropped a kiss to her mother's head, passing her on her journey up the stairs to her bedroom.