Chap.20- Questioning
Vaughn gently closed the door behind him and turned to set off in the direction of the park when he saw a slim, lithe figure standing in the doorway of his neighbor's house, jiggling the lock. Curiously, he leaned forward.
"Syd?" He called out.
Sydney turned to look at him and adopted a mock look of surprise upon her face.
"Vaughn!"
"Did you just get back from a run?" he asked her, starting to stretch in his driveway.
"Yea...I see that you're heading off."
He nodded.
"I like it at this hour. There's hardly anybody at the park."
"Yea...um...I don't know if you've noticed already, but I looked at the suitcase that I took and I think it's yours..."
"Oh...yea, I've been meaning to return it to you." Vaughn responded. He blushed in embarrassment. Earlier this morning, when Lauren had been sleeping, he had unzipped the suitcase and overturned everything into the laundry hamper. When he looked into the hamper and saw that the clothes were obviously not his, he had hurriedly packed the bras, panties, and all the other contents back into the suitcase before Lauren woke up. "Hold on a second." He said to her and entered the house again. After a few minutes, he came back out and held out the engagement ring and wedding band to Sydney.
Sydney looked at the two gold rings in his palm and took them from him carefully, trying to ignore the heat and electricity that shot through her fingers and toward every nerve, fiber, and muscle of her body.
"I can go get yours. It's upstairs..." Sydney said, pointing vaguely in the direction of the master bedroom.
Vaughn shook his head and waved her off.
"It's okay. Don't wake up your husband. I'll get your suitcase to you before work in the parking lot."
"Thanks."
"No problem."
"Enjoy your run." Sydney said, and Vaughn was off, waving to her as he left.
She waved back even though his back was turned to her already. Sydney let her arm drop limply to her side. Feeling the weight of the rings in her enclosed palm, she opened her hand. They glittered and sparkled in the sun that had peaked over the horizon, emitting tiny rainbows and each sparkle seemed to wink at her in response. Smiling, she slipped them on and headed upstairs to change. Work was waiting for her.
True to his word, Sydney and Vaughn exchanged suitcases in the parking lot at eight in the morning. They usually arrived at the same time and parked in the same section and with the exception of today, they also usually avoided each other until they were forced to talk in the conference rooms or wherever.
Avoiding each other wasn't something they did out of contempt, hate, or even in their conscious minds. But instinct and their subconscious had told them to act like this to avoid anymore problems and association that they already had with each other.
But today, it was all different. Maybe it was the fact that they each felt that there were bigger problems than theirs out in the world, or maybe it was the fact that they had developed a deeper bond and connection through sorrow and tears in France. Whatever the reason, they both felt as if something had changed. A feeling of peace had settled itself in both their hearts and had assumed the form acceptation.
Although they had both told each other and themselves that everything between them was alright, it really hadn't been until now. Sydney had let go of the fact that Vaughn had moved on when he assumed that she was dead, and Vaughn had to accept the fact that because of his choices, he had lost the woman whom his mother had called his soul mate.
"After you," Vaughn said, gesturing to the elevator whose doors were sliding open.
"Thanks." Sydney said, walking into the elevator and leaning against the metal handles, her arm automatically reaching out to push the button. "How was your run?" she asked, continuing their conversation from this morning.
"Good."
"That's good..."
Silence encased the elevator and it stopped, its doors sliding open to allow somebody else to enter the elevator. Vaughn almost sighed in relief, the air felt heavy and the silence that encased the elevator felt suffocating.
But there was nobody standing there.
After three more levels, the elevator was finally there and they both stepped out, separating. Sydney went left, Vaughn went right. In their minds, they both knew, when time came for the meeting, they would join together at that same hall, and would walk to the same conference room together.
Sydney arrived at her desk and sorted through the papers that were waiting to be completed. Three post-it notes were stuck to her computer screen informing her of a mandatory appointment with Gerard at two-thirty, a conference with Kendall and her father at four and a good-morning note from Mark just because he was bored. She smiled and unstuck all three messages, crumpling them up and tossing them into the trashcan.
At exactly 2:25, Gerard's secretary called Sydney and reminded her of the appointment. Grudgingly, she stood up and buttoned the buttons of her suit jacket and walked toward the elevator. Gerard was a man who was always on time and lived his life by the exact seconds of the clock. When the clock struck at exactly two-thirty, she was allowed into his office and seated on the uncomfortable chair in front of his desk.
"Sydney Bristow-Voyer?" Gerard asked, looking from the file to her and back again at the file, his large glasses slipping slightly down the bridge of his nose. Pushing them up, he studied her file quietly for a minute or two. Leaning back into his heavily cushioned chair, he folded his fingers together and looked at her seriously.
"Yes?"
"Do you know why you were called into my office today?"
"No."
"Have you ever heard of the name Bridgette Delorme-Vaughn?"
"Yes."
"Who is she and what is her relation to you?"
"She is the mother of Agent Vaughn and I don't have any relation to her."
"Oh...but I think you do."
"And what would that be?" Sydney asked her voice flat and she had started to snap, an indication that she was annoyed.
"Well, I mean...your mother killed her husband who is Agent Vaughn's father. I think that is a pretty well defined relation..."
"Mr. Gerard," Sydney snapped. "I know that you know perfectly well who Mrs. Vaughn is and her relation to me as you have so kindly verbalized and demonstrated. No, I do not know why I've been called in here, so why don't you just cut the crap and stop wasting my time. I have better things to do than to sit in this chair and listen to you lecture me."
Gerard looked at Sydney in surprise, his gray busy eyebrows raised. Clearing his throat, he assumed his normal facial expression again and slowly withdrew an appointment book from within the depths of his desk drawer.
"Perhaps this isn't a good time for you. Would you like to schedule another time?"
"No, I want to get this over with."
Nodding, he closed the appointment book and slid it back into his desk. Leaning back into his chair once again and assuming his original posture, he continued with his slow, languid questioning.
"Now, once again, who is Bridgette Delorme-Vaughn and what is her relation to you?"
Sydney clenched her jaw tightly and through gritted teeth she repeated word for word what she had said before.
"She is the mother of Agent Vaughn and I don't have any relation to her."
Gerard took out the pen from his shirt pocket and made a comment in his notes.
"Where does Bridgette Delorme-Vaughn live?"
"France."
"Where in France?" Gerard prodded.
"Normandy."
"Could you find your way back?"
"No. I only knew of the location from my meeting with my father and Kendall. As I can probably suspect where we're going with this conversation, it was an unplanned move and Agent Vaughn drove the whole way while Agents Jamison, Lee, Chaplin, and I slept most of the way there. Even when we were awake, the area was too unfamiliar and it was too dark to tell where we were."
An hour and a half later, Gerard had finally made his way down to the last question on the list and when Sydney had answered that, she quickly got up and headed directly for the conference room. She walked as quickly as she could and was one of the first to arrive. Mark, Ana, and James were already there, chattering and shouting in disbelief at how slow Gerard talked and his pointless questions.
"I see you've met Gerard." Sydney commented as she sat down in her seat.
"Yea," James answered.
"Oh, she looks pale. It's like she hasn't been in the sun for long periods of time. Did you suffer the untimely fate of Gerard, too?" Mark asked.
Sydney smiled and was about to answer when Vaughn walked into the conference room.
"I heard you four were called into Gerard's room." He said, smiling.
"That's not funny," Anna replied. "You had time to recover."
"Enough," Kendall said, cutting into their conversation rudely. "We're starting."
Mark opened his mouth to imitate Kendall, but Sydney sent him a sharp look, silencing him and saving him from any trouble he would have gotten himself into. When she looked back towards the front of the room, Jack had just entered the room with Marshall trailing close behind.
"We've received no notice from our analysts, which means there is no breakthrough in the code breaking." Kendall started; while an enlarged picture of the man's back covered with code appeared on the large screen behind him. "I'm sending you five to Venezuela in a week or so. The sooner the better...Jack..."
"You're mission's actually been made a lot easier." Jack started. The screen picture then flashed from the picture of the tattoo to the young woman they had previously seen and the picture then changed again to that of a young man. "The man you see on the screen right now is a contact that is a native to Venezuela and resides there year round. He is very active in the safe house in Venezuela and he helps us out as much as he can. You have him to thank."
"What do you mean?" James asked.
"Before, your mission was to befriend Mariana Veltri and to gain her trust so that she would reveal how to decipher the code and the location of the nuke. Our team has decided that that would take too long, so they contacted this young man here. He did that work for you in the time span of two to three weeks. She hasn't told him anything yet, but he has informed us that he has indefinitely gained her trust."
Sydney frowned and shifted in her seat. The whole thing sounded wrong and immoral to her.
"So what are we supposed to do? Why can't he just get the code and send it to us?"
"There's too much risk of it being intercepted." Kendall answered. "We want to get the code and go to the nuke straight away; maybe even so that nobody will suspect that we even know about the nuke at all."
"You're afraid of Robespierre, aren't you?"
"Not afraid, Ms. Lee," Kendall answered, annoyed. "Cautious. He is our number one concern right now. With as much wealth and private property and power that he's accumulated and has been spread throughout the world, he has eyes everywhere. We can't be too careful."
Fifteen minutes later, they were released from the conference room. During the meeting, Sydney had started to crave a large slice of fluffy chocolate cake with chocolate chips, topped off with fudge icing and chocolate shavings.
"Sydney, you want to go get some coffee?" Ana asked, her bag slung over her shoulder.
"Coffee? No...But I'm up for some chocolate cake with chocolate chips, topped off with fudge icing and chocolate shavings."
Ana laughed.
"You sound like you've wanted that for a long time. Sure, I know this great little bakery....so good...."
The two of them left and walked into the parking lot and in the direction of their cars. Sydney looked at the beat-up car that Ana was heading towards.
"Hey, you want to take my car? I can drop you off after."
Ana smiled and looked over at Sydney's shiny new car that sat, gleaming, under the dim yellow lights of the parking lot.
"Yea, I think that'd be a good idea."
She walked over to Sydney's car and opened the front door and without looking, went to sit, bumping the suitcase that was standing on the leather chair and knocking it over to the driver's seat just as Sydney opened her door.
"It's fine." Sydney said, waving off Ana's apologies and grasped the suitcase by the handle and put it in the backseat and then walking back to the front to start the car and put her seat belt on.
"You haven't even unpacked or even taken your suitcase out of the car?" Ana asked in disbelief, her mind wandering to the two day vacation they had been given.
"I got it mixed up with Vaughn's suitcase."
"Oh, mixed up?"
"Yes! We each took the wrong one."
"Is that what they call it these days?"
"They're both black, same size, it's easy to get them confused."
"Okay...uh huh....sure....whatever you say."
Vaughn gently closed the door behind him and turned to set off in the direction of the park when he saw a slim, lithe figure standing in the doorway of his neighbor's house, jiggling the lock. Curiously, he leaned forward.
"Syd?" He called out.
Sydney turned to look at him and adopted a mock look of surprise upon her face.
"Vaughn!"
"Did you just get back from a run?" he asked her, starting to stretch in his driveway.
"Yea...I see that you're heading off."
He nodded.
"I like it at this hour. There's hardly anybody at the park."
"Yea...um...I don't know if you've noticed already, but I looked at the suitcase that I took and I think it's yours..."
"Oh...yea, I've been meaning to return it to you." Vaughn responded. He blushed in embarrassment. Earlier this morning, when Lauren had been sleeping, he had unzipped the suitcase and overturned everything into the laundry hamper. When he looked into the hamper and saw that the clothes were obviously not his, he had hurriedly packed the bras, panties, and all the other contents back into the suitcase before Lauren woke up. "Hold on a second." He said to her and entered the house again. After a few minutes, he came back out and held out the engagement ring and wedding band to Sydney.
Sydney looked at the two gold rings in his palm and took them from him carefully, trying to ignore the heat and electricity that shot through her fingers and toward every nerve, fiber, and muscle of her body.
"I can go get yours. It's upstairs..." Sydney said, pointing vaguely in the direction of the master bedroom.
Vaughn shook his head and waved her off.
"It's okay. Don't wake up your husband. I'll get your suitcase to you before work in the parking lot."
"Thanks."
"No problem."
"Enjoy your run." Sydney said, and Vaughn was off, waving to her as he left.
She waved back even though his back was turned to her already. Sydney let her arm drop limply to her side. Feeling the weight of the rings in her enclosed palm, she opened her hand. They glittered and sparkled in the sun that had peaked over the horizon, emitting tiny rainbows and each sparkle seemed to wink at her in response. Smiling, she slipped them on and headed upstairs to change. Work was waiting for her.
True to his word, Sydney and Vaughn exchanged suitcases in the parking lot at eight in the morning. They usually arrived at the same time and parked in the same section and with the exception of today, they also usually avoided each other until they were forced to talk in the conference rooms or wherever.
Avoiding each other wasn't something they did out of contempt, hate, or even in their conscious minds. But instinct and their subconscious had told them to act like this to avoid anymore problems and association that they already had with each other.
But today, it was all different. Maybe it was the fact that they each felt that there were bigger problems than theirs out in the world, or maybe it was the fact that they had developed a deeper bond and connection through sorrow and tears in France. Whatever the reason, they both felt as if something had changed. A feeling of peace had settled itself in both their hearts and had assumed the form acceptation.
Although they had both told each other and themselves that everything between them was alright, it really hadn't been until now. Sydney had let go of the fact that Vaughn had moved on when he assumed that she was dead, and Vaughn had to accept the fact that because of his choices, he had lost the woman whom his mother had called his soul mate.
"After you," Vaughn said, gesturing to the elevator whose doors were sliding open.
"Thanks." Sydney said, walking into the elevator and leaning against the metal handles, her arm automatically reaching out to push the button. "How was your run?" she asked, continuing their conversation from this morning.
"Good."
"That's good..."
Silence encased the elevator and it stopped, its doors sliding open to allow somebody else to enter the elevator. Vaughn almost sighed in relief, the air felt heavy and the silence that encased the elevator felt suffocating.
But there was nobody standing there.
After three more levels, the elevator was finally there and they both stepped out, separating. Sydney went left, Vaughn went right. In their minds, they both knew, when time came for the meeting, they would join together at that same hall, and would walk to the same conference room together.
Sydney arrived at her desk and sorted through the papers that were waiting to be completed. Three post-it notes were stuck to her computer screen informing her of a mandatory appointment with Gerard at two-thirty, a conference with Kendall and her father at four and a good-morning note from Mark just because he was bored. She smiled and unstuck all three messages, crumpling them up and tossing them into the trashcan.
At exactly 2:25, Gerard's secretary called Sydney and reminded her of the appointment. Grudgingly, she stood up and buttoned the buttons of her suit jacket and walked toward the elevator. Gerard was a man who was always on time and lived his life by the exact seconds of the clock. When the clock struck at exactly two-thirty, she was allowed into his office and seated on the uncomfortable chair in front of his desk.
"Sydney Bristow-Voyer?" Gerard asked, looking from the file to her and back again at the file, his large glasses slipping slightly down the bridge of his nose. Pushing them up, he studied her file quietly for a minute or two. Leaning back into his heavily cushioned chair, he folded his fingers together and looked at her seriously.
"Yes?"
"Do you know why you were called into my office today?"
"No."
"Have you ever heard of the name Bridgette Delorme-Vaughn?"
"Yes."
"Who is she and what is her relation to you?"
"She is the mother of Agent Vaughn and I don't have any relation to her."
"Oh...but I think you do."
"And what would that be?" Sydney asked her voice flat and she had started to snap, an indication that she was annoyed.
"Well, I mean...your mother killed her husband who is Agent Vaughn's father. I think that is a pretty well defined relation..."
"Mr. Gerard," Sydney snapped. "I know that you know perfectly well who Mrs. Vaughn is and her relation to me as you have so kindly verbalized and demonstrated. No, I do not know why I've been called in here, so why don't you just cut the crap and stop wasting my time. I have better things to do than to sit in this chair and listen to you lecture me."
Gerard looked at Sydney in surprise, his gray busy eyebrows raised. Clearing his throat, he assumed his normal facial expression again and slowly withdrew an appointment book from within the depths of his desk drawer.
"Perhaps this isn't a good time for you. Would you like to schedule another time?"
"No, I want to get this over with."
Nodding, he closed the appointment book and slid it back into his desk. Leaning back into his chair once again and assuming his original posture, he continued with his slow, languid questioning.
"Now, once again, who is Bridgette Delorme-Vaughn and what is her relation to you?"
Sydney clenched her jaw tightly and through gritted teeth she repeated word for word what she had said before.
"She is the mother of Agent Vaughn and I don't have any relation to her."
Gerard took out the pen from his shirt pocket and made a comment in his notes.
"Where does Bridgette Delorme-Vaughn live?"
"France."
"Where in France?" Gerard prodded.
"Normandy."
"Could you find your way back?"
"No. I only knew of the location from my meeting with my father and Kendall. As I can probably suspect where we're going with this conversation, it was an unplanned move and Agent Vaughn drove the whole way while Agents Jamison, Lee, Chaplin, and I slept most of the way there. Even when we were awake, the area was too unfamiliar and it was too dark to tell where we were."
An hour and a half later, Gerard had finally made his way down to the last question on the list and when Sydney had answered that, she quickly got up and headed directly for the conference room. She walked as quickly as she could and was one of the first to arrive. Mark, Ana, and James were already there, chattering and shouting in disbelief at how slow Gerard talked and his pointless questions.
"I see you've met Gerard." Sydney commented as she sat down in her seat.
"Yea," James answered.
"Oh, she looks pale. It's like she hasn't been in the sun for long periods of time. Did you suffer the untimely fate of Gerard, too?" Mark asked.
Sydney smiled and was about to answer when Vaughn walked into the conference room.
"I heard you four were called into Gerard's room." He said, smiling.
"That's not funny," Anna replied. "You had time to recover."
"Enough," Kendall said, cutting into their conversation rudely. "We're starting."
Mark opened his mouth to imitate Kendall, but Sydney sent him a sharp look, silencing him and saving him from any trouble he would have gotten himself into. When she looked back towards the front of the room, Jack had just entered the room with Marshall trailing close behind.
"We've received no notice from our analysts, which means there is no breakthrough in the code breaking." Kendall started; while an enlarged picture of the man's back covered with code appeared on the large screen behind him. "I'm sending you five to Venezuela in a week or so. The sooner the better...Jack..."
"You're mission's actually been made a lot easier." Jack started. The screen picture then flashed from the picture of the tattoo to the young woman they had previously seen and the picture then changed again to that of a young man. "The man you see on the screen right now is a contact that is a native to Venezuela and resides there year round. He is very active in the safe house in Venezuela and he helps us out as much as he can. You have him to thank."
"What do you mean?" James asked.
"Before, your mission was to befriend Mariana Veltri and to gain her trust so that she would reveal how to decipher the code and the location of the nuke. Our team has decided that that would take too long, so they contacted this young man here. He did that work for you in the time span of two to three weeks. She hasn't told him anything yet, but he has informed us that he has indefinitely gained her trust."
Sydney frowned and shifted in her seat. The whole thing sounded wrong and immoral to her.
"So what are we supposed to do? Why can't he just get the code and send it to us?"
"There's too much risk of it being intercepted." Kendall answered. "We want to get the code and go to the nuke straight away; maybe even so that nobody will suspect that we even know about the nuke at all."
"You're afraid of Robespierre, aren't you?"
"Not afraid, Ms. Lee," Kendall answered, annoyed. "Cautious. He is our number one concern right now. With as much wealth and private property and power that he's accumulated and has been spread throughout the world, he has eyes everywhere. We can't be too careful."
Fifteen minutes later, they were released from the conference room. During the meeting, Sydney had started to crave a large slice of fluffy chocolate cake with chocolate chips, topped off with fudge icing and chocolate shavings.
"Sydney, you want to go get some coffee?" Ana asked, her bag slung over her shoulder.
"Coffee? No...But I'm up for some chocolate cake with chocolate chips, topped off with fudge icing and chocolate shavings."
Ana laughed.
"You sound like you've wanted that for a long time. Sure, I know this great little bakery....so good...."
The two of them left and walked into the parking lot and in the direction of their cars. Sydney looked at the beat-up car that Ana was heading towards.
"Hey, you want to take my car? I can drop you off after."
Ana smiled and looked over at Sydney's shiny new car that sat, gleaming, under the dim yellow lights of the parking lot.
"Yea, I think that'd be a good idea."
She walked over to Sydney's car and opened the front door and without looking, went to sit, bumping the suitcase that was standing on the leather chair and knocking it over to the driver's seat just as Sydney opened her door.
"It's fine." Sydney said, waving off Ana's apologies and grasped the suitcase by the handle and put it in the backseat and then walking back to the front to start the car and put her seat belt on.
"You haven't even unpacked or even taken your suitcase out of the car?" Ana asked in disbelief, her mind wandering to the two day vacation they had been given.
"I got it mixed up with Vaughn's suitcase."
"Oh, mixed up?"
"Yes! We each took the wrong one."
"Is that what they call it these days?"
"They're both black, same size, it's easy to get them confused."
"Okay...uh huh....sure....whatever you say."