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Chapter Six:

Faded memories

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Time slowed to a stop, Sydney's heart halting in her chest. Ice ran through her veins, coating her flesh with bitter chill that seemed as if it would never dissipate. Shivering violently, she struggled to lift her arms, to wrap them around herself and warm the bitter cold that Vaughn's words had settled over her. She could not move, could not speak, she couldn't even look at him. She remained staring blankly into the space in front of her, hovering somewhere around Vaughn's chest but she couldn't even see him. There was darkness in her, it veiled her eyes from the truth that hovered beyond her gaze. It seeped in slowly, dawning upon her like the light that caused the darkness to fade into deep shadows.

She could feel Vaughn pulling away from her, leaning back to study her face with a quiet intensity she had become accustomed to. The absence of his flesh pressed against her own left her cold, the hollow space inside growing without his love to fill her.

His eyes were on her face, his body moving slowly. Through the shadows, she could see him moving sluggishly. His image danced over her brain in slow motion, a flash of green like the most precious jewels searing her heart with its heat. The movement of his hands as they blurred before her face and she felt them come to rest on her back. His arms encircled her tightly, she felt choked for breath but deep down she knew that she would be happy to suffocate beneath him. As long as he never let go of her, she might learn how to survive.

His words were echoing through her head, slowly sinking into the deepest cracks where the shadows hid and illuminating them fully. It seemed too unbelievable, everything he had just told her, but as it began to sink in, she realized that she did not doubt it at all. Somewhere, deep inside of the darkness, a spark was burning, the flame of truth. In her heart, Sydney knew what he spoke was the truth.

"Syd," Vaughn's voice filtered through the fog that had shrouded her with its sorrowful cloud. She realized that he had been saying her name for a few minutes, her name was tinged with an edge of desperation this time. He was terrified, she did not know which one of them was more frightened. He,who knew the truth, or her, who was only now discovering what it all meant.

Slowly she turned her eyes to him and gazed at him for a long time. His face was so open and honest, pleading with her for understanding. Dear God, what had she put him through? She had been selfish enough to discard the memories that haunted Vaughn day and night. She had killed him. The knowledge echoed through her heart, splitting it in two. If it had not been for her, he would never have been forced to undergo the torture, the pain, the lying and betrayal. He had done it all for her and she had thrown it in his face. Her own words echoed in her head and she felt the waves of guilt begin to descend upon her.

"What it comes down to is a matter of faith...I would have waited...Now I realize what an absolute waste that would have been."

She could feel the tears pouring freely, spilling over her cheeks, threatening to drown her with their sorrow. Choking back a sob, she felt Vaughn's fingers gently wiping away her tears. He always touched her with such tenderness, he should hate her but he didn't. He loved her. Somehow that made it worse, compounded the pain twice as much, knowing that she had hurt him so deeply.

Vaughn was shaking her head, murmuring softly, her name tangled between softly spoken words. He could see the conflict in her and it killed him to know that this was hurting her so much but he knew it would hurt her more if he never told her. She would spend every day for the rest of her life wondering about the truth and if he didn't tell her now, the rest of her life would not last very long. He would not lose her again.

"Syd, don't..." his voice broke open, the pain spilling out, staining his cheeks with tears. He shook his head and swallowed hard, pulling her close to him. She buried her head in his chest and sobbed softly into the warmth of him. Curling up in his arms, she clutched him desperately, holding on for dear life.

"Don't blame yourself, not for one second. None of this is your fault, Sydney. None of it," he stroked her back gently, running his fingers through her hair with his free hand. He calmed her wrenching sobs, but still she shivered in his arms.

"Everyday I wish that I could go back in time," he whispered into her hair. "But I can't. What's done is done, you and I were victims of a greater evil than we knew even existed. But we have each other again, that's all that matters." Her shaking subsided slightly and he kissed the top of her head gently.

"Syd, when I saw you again, I came back to life." He shook his head, almost smiling at the memory. "You gave me a strength that was not borne of desperation and hatred, but love. You gave me purpose, kept me sane." She looked up at him once more, eyes glazed with tears, face wet and vulnerable. She spoke one word, but he knew what it meant.

"When?"

Vaughn shut his eyes momentarily beneath the heat of her gaze, memories washed over him as he traveled back in his mind to that moment.

"It was in Moscow, about a year after your death. I had finally gained the Covenant's trust, I went to Moscow to meet with Jack but when I arrived, I discovered that he had been taken into custody for being in contact with your mother."

Vaughn remembered the chill that had raced down his spine as he read the message Jack had left for him. Carefully encoded as not to reveal anything to suspicious eyes, Vaughn could decipher it all too easily. He had been compromised, and not by the Covenant. The CIA may never know it, but they might have saved Jack's life by taking him into their custody. If the Covenant had discovered that the CIA was suspicious of Jack, they would have killed him instantly.

The message was clear, but it was not Jack's imprisonment that had stopped his heart in its tracks. It was the second part of the message he had left, the part that told him Sydney was on her way to meet with him. Jack had known where she was, had most likely been here to see her but had been compromised before he could. It was up to Vaughn now, to do what needed to be done.

Before he could even set the note back on the table, he heard the air behind him whistle faintly. A familiar sound that indicated the swift movement of a clenched fist through the air, prepared to aim a hard blow to the back of his head. He lifted one arm, twisting it behind him to grasp the wrist of his attacker with a fluid motion, born of the unholy training the Covenant had subjected him to. He spun himself around quickly, one hand swinging around to lash out and connect with the pressure point in the base of the skull that would render his attacker unconscious, or dead, instantly.

Instead, he had found himself face to face with Sydney.

His heart stopped, breath caught in his lungs and for a long moment all he could do was stare at her. He barely even noticed when she pushed him back away from her, anger burning those beautiful dark eyes. She was thinner now but much more hardened, even stronger than she had been before. She was frowning at the way he had simply given up fighting, staring at him with a perplexed expression on her normally impassive face. He stared at her, waiting for some sign, a flicker of recognition in her eyes. There was nothing.

"Who are you?" She demanded, her voice was colored with an English accent. It sounded odd on her, the husky voice of her's had never pretended to be elegant or proper.

"Julia," he had breathed. "Remember who you are, who I am. What we were to one another." His eyes were pleading with her, "Don't you know me, Sydney?"

Her eyes had widened with shock, and finally he saw a stirring deep in the depths of her soul that peered out through her dark gaze. She had become this woman, the antithesis of who she truly was. She had become cold, ruthless, detached, in order to survive. Just like he had.

"The Covenant brainwashed me," Sydney spoke absently, interrupting Vaughn's steady flow of words. He did not mind, knew that she needed to understand this more than he needed to remember it. Vaughn nodded slightly and then frowned.

"Well, sort of," he shook his head as Sydney looked to him for an explanation. "During Project Christmas, Jack trained you to be able to withstand most types of torture and brainwashing techniques. However, the Covenant found a way to reverse much of this training and they managed to train you to become their assassin. You knew that you were not really Julia Thorne, had a memory of Sydney hidden inside. The one thing that they effectively managed to achieve was to make you believe that Jack and I were both dead. They realized that we were the two people most important to you and once they made you believe that you had nothing to live for, you were susceptible to their will."

Sydney nodded, swallowing hard as she tried to imagine what it had been like for her at that moment. She was the one who had given up and believed the lie they had fed to her, and yet she could not envision herself accepting that so easily.

"Why did I believe them?"

Vaughn's head dropped and he sighed softly, the sound reverberating in the space between them. "They showed you photographs of what they had done to me when they held me in captivity. Trust me when I say that it is not hard to believe that I was dead by the state I was in."

Sydney bit her lip and looked away, eyes flitting around the room, not seeing anything but what those photos could possibly have shown. No wonder she had erased her memory, she would not want to remember that sight.

Vaughn's hand covered her own, gently squeezing it and giving her back some strength. Meeting his eyes, she nodded weakly and gestured for him to continue.

When his heart had started again, it filled so rapidly with a warm rush of emotion that he felt it cracking, slowly breaking. It was the first time he had felt his heart beat in a year, the first time he had felt anything other than rage, pain or despair. Kneeling before Sydney Bristow, he was humbled and filled with the colors of emotions he had long since forgotten. The world transformed around him, the ugly shades of grey morphing rapidly into his long forgotten color. The ivory of her skin, the gold of her hair (which admittedly, was not what he preferred, but it mattered little to him what color her hair was.) The deep chocolate of her eyes, the soft crimson of her lips. It all came back to him as quickly as he had lost it and he clutched it desperately with all of his strength, savoring this moment and swearing silently to himself that he would never let it go.

"Sydney," he clutched her hands desperately and she did not move away. She stared down at him, fear flickering in her eyes. He could see the struggle within herself, he was so close, the memory of him hovering on the edges of her consciousness. He only had to bring her back.

"Listen to me, your name is Sydney Bristow. Your father is Jack Bristow, your mother is Irina Derevko. You were recruited by a man named Arvin Sloane when you were a freshman in college, at UCLA. He told you that you fit a profile, you were recruited into an organization called SD-6 that you believed was part of the CIA." Vaughn had rattled off details about her life, staring up at her with wild eyes, filled to the brim with emotion. He was doing whatever he could to make her remember.

"Your boyfriend at the time was named Daniel Hecht, when he proposed to you told him the truth about your work. Sloane had him killed for knowing the truth. It was then that you discovered that SD-6 was part of the Alliance and that your father was a double agent, working for SD-6 and the CIA. You came into the CIA after Sloane tried to have you killed and became a double agent as well. It was there that you met me." He gripped her hands tighter, as if he could push the memories back into her by sheer force of will. She was gazing down at him in a daze, as if she could remember some of these details but not all.

"I was your handler at the CIA. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you, do you remember when I told you about my father's watch?" Sydney frowned at this and shook her head, brow furrowed with intense concentration. Vaughn could tell that he was slowly starting to break through.

"You asked me once to break into the Vatican with you," he almost laughed now at the memory. It had been a dangerous mission, they could have died, but it seemed so easy now in retrospect after all he had endured. "I broke so many rules chasing you around the world, Sydney. You went against the CIA's will so many times, once to save a friend. I went to all your favorite places, the observatory, the pier, the bluffs, the Palisades and finally I found you at the train station." He studied her face with a desperate intensity. "Do you remember?"

Sydney's eyes flickered around the room in confusion, staring down at him, she shook herself and tried to block out his words. They were stirring things inside of her heart that scared her.

"You were the one who contacted me?"

Vaughn shot to his feet and almost slammed his fist into the wall in frustration. Breathing heavily, he turned back to her. His voice was low, tinged with anger, but somehow she knew that he was not angry with her. He was angry with whoever had done this to her, but what had been done?

"No, Sydney. Jack contacted you. Do you remember Jack?"

She frowned and struggled to remember, "My...father?"

Vaughn's face lit up, "Yes!" Rushing to her side, he gripped her by the shoulders and stared deep into her eyes. "You remember Jack?"

Shaking her head, Sydney bit her lip. "You said his name." She frowned, "My name is Julia, why do you keep calling me Sydney?"

"Godammit!" Vaughn felt the anger rising up inside of him. The Covenant had stolen her from him once, they were not going to take her from herself. He would not allow it. He was filled with frustration and a desperation that scared him. There was only one option left to him.

He strode toward her, rapidly consuming the space between them with long strides. She was staring at him with wide eyes, fear flickering in the darkness. Without a second thought, Vaughn wrapped his arms around her and brought his lips to hers.

She did not kiss him back, but did not pull away either. There was something about the feeling of his arms around her, the way his hand slid up her back and tangled in her hair that felt so right. So easy and natural, as if it was familiar to both of them.

He kissed her with all the passion that had been built up inside of him for the past year. With all of the hunger and desperation and longing that had driven him onward, tormented him late at night. He would not give up.

Suddenly, a dam seemed to break, waters rushing forth and flooding Sydney with the awareness of who held her in his arms. She gave up rational thought and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer to her until it seemed that they would melt together and become one person. This was right, this was where she was meant to be, this was...Vaughn.

"Vaughn," she moaned his name into his lips and he almost didn't hear her, so caught up in her that he was. It was a sound that he had once been so used to, something he had taken for granted and had missed in the dark hours. It was something that had gotten him through the torture, the memory of her voice at that moment, filled with love and desire. That was his Sydney. Suddenly it registered in his brain, what had just happened. She had called his name, he hadn't told her his name. He had told her about Jack, Irina and Danny, but not his own name.

Pulling away with a gasp, he stared at her and saw recognition in her eyes. She was staring at him with wonder, love in her voice as she spoke. "Vaughn!" She reached up to touch his face and shook her head in disbelief, "I thought you were dead!"

This time, he really did laugh, a sound that startled both of them. He could not remember the last time he had laughed, felt this kind of pure joy and relief. She was the only one who could bring this to him. The irony of her statement was too much for him and after a moment, she cracked a smile and giggled. The sound was music to his ears.

"Oh God, Syd. Thank God," he wrapped his arms around her again and held her close to him. He was never going to let her go again.

But he had.

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