Death of a Spy

Option 2: Vaughn

Disclaimer: Alias isn't mine. Everyone knows that if I owned Alias, I'd have created a character for myself on Alias and killed Lauren personally.

A/N: I'm sort of extending my original idea here, partially because I liked writing the first part and partially because of the review I got from Adelaide Bristow. I liked your ideas, Adelaide Bristow! Hope you enjoy!

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A single, accidental surveillance shot. A routine test of their satellites, that's all it had been. Nothing major had been happening at the time, so when Dixon had ordered an unscheduled--as they often were--surveillance check, Vaughn had jumped at the opportunity to do something.

It was a simple task. Upload a current picture from each satellite, check that the time, and the date, and other details were correct.

Then he'd seen the picture from the bird watching LA. Two nondescript black vehicles, on a sedan and one an SUV, in a barren field with no buildings for miles. And no building mean no people in LA. He'd spent twenty minutes zooming in and adjusting the focus on the picture. And what he'd seen when he was through had caused his whole life, that precious life he'd worked so hard to rebuild, fall in around him.

Because there was no question who those people in the picture were. Sark was unmistakable to any CIA agent. But the other was a figure Vaughn knew well. Intimately. Her face was a face he'd woken up to every morning for months. Standing there with Sark, and showing no resemblance of fear, was Lauren Reid.

Vaughn stared at the screen of his computer for several long minutes before he realized anyone walking by his desk could see the picture. Surprise made him unsure of his loyalties, shock made him doubt the truth when it sat right in front of him.

He printed a copy of the picture and slipped it into a folder he could take home--or away form the CIA, at least--later.

Remembering the surveillance check, he forced himself, he forced himself to methodically check every one of the CIA's birds. But if anything was wrong with one of them, Michael Vaughn would never have seen it.

Promptly at six o'clock, Vaughn slipped a few files into his briefcase to work on later. No one would even notice the folder containing the picture.

Lauren had a meeting to attend with the NSC that evening. Vaughn hoped she would go straight to the meeting, and give him time to think. Or to order his jumbled thoughts into something resembling thinking. His mind seemed to freeze every time he thought of the picture in his briefcase, and one time sweat beaded on his forehead at the mere thought that his Lauren could be a double agent.

In his apartment he spread the other various files on the coffee table. One folder containing one piece of paper would look suspicious if anyone showed up. He leaned back on the sofa and opened the only important folder on his lap. He looked away at the sight of Lauren with Sark, but he forced his eyes back to the paper.

Best case scenario, Lauren had been operating without the knowledge of the CIA or the NSC. Worst case, she was Covenant.

Vaughn nearly jumped through the roof when the door opened and Lauren walked in. Casually, but quickly, he flipped the folder shut and set it on the table with the other ones.

"Hi, honey," he said as he stood up to kiss her briefly.

"Hey," she said with a smile. "I only have ten minutes," she added, brushing past him. "The NSC meeting, remember?"

"Of course. I didn't expect you to come home first, though. Since you're home, I thought may be the meeting was canceled."

"No such luck," Lauren laughed. Vaughn didn't see her eyes snap to the folder he'd put down the moment his back was turned. She went into the bedroom to change clothes. "These shoes are killing my feet," she claimed. "And I don't have any others to match this suit."

Nine minutes later she was searching for her jacket and glanced at her briefcase.

"Michael, I left my notes for the meeting on the bed. Could you get them for me?" she asked.

"Sure."

Michael disappeared into the bedroom while Lauren snatched open his file.

"They're not on the bed."

"May be they fell. I know I had them in there," Lauren called while she stared at the picture in disbelief, her tone never changing.

Resignedly, she drew the gun hidden under her blazer.

Nothing else to do, she reasoned. I can't be compromised.

"Michael, I found them," she called, then slid into place by the door, just out of sight.

The blow flew from behind the door frame and sent Vaughn reeling backwards into the bedroom. By the time he recovered himself, Lauren stood in the door way with a gun leveled at him. The emotionless expression on her face was frightening.

"What the hell?!?" he yelled.

"Shut up," she ordered. "Sit down."

Vaughn moved as if to sit on the bed, then lunged forward. When Lauren moved to avoid him, they ended up with the gun locked between them, pointing toward the ceiling. They struggled, but Vaughn couldn't make himself hit her, even though she pounded his head with her free hand with a practiced accuracy.

The gun went off, and both of them froze for the millisecond it took for the bullet to hit the ceiling. Then they continued their fierce struggle for control of the weapon.

Vaughn felt the metal of the gun in his hand, and he pulled at it cautiously, trying to wrench it from Lauren's grasp.

The gun went off again. Only this time, he Vaughn felt the warm blood soak his cotton t-shirt, and felt his legs go weak under him.

And then Lauren dropped in a heap at his feet, blood staining her charcoal gray jacket and a bullet hole torn through it in the center of her chest. Her face was ashen, and her eyes were accusing before they glazed over and became empty.

Vaughn sank onto the bed, unable to stand any more. He touched the blood on his shirt that he'd barely realized wasn't his own. He still expected to feel the searing pain of a bullet ripping through his flesh.

He looked down at Lauren's body, where she lay in a pool of blood that soaked her hair and stained the pretty blue carpet beneath her. Two words kept echoing in his mind as if that was all it could handle.

She's dead.

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