Rhapsody
Chapter 11: Faltering
For a moment, he thought it was all a dream, one that he was sure to have had at least once during the course of that night. When he parted his lips to speak, there were no words waiting to be released; his tongue felt painfully swollen and heavy, as if it had been stung. His world warped into blurred metallic images and rusty sounds; much different than it had been mere seconds before, when he could have sworn that he had been fully awake…
Sydney straightened in his arms and pulled away, the pinch he needed to refocus his eyes and his mind, to convince him that he wasn't dreaming. There were days when it would take a literal downpour of thousands of tiny kisses over every inch of her face to lure her from sleep, when he had to pull the covers off both their bodies or even threaten to leave her in bed alone. Today, none of that was required; she was somehow more alert than he was at the moment, Agent Martin's last few words serving to bounce him back to his foggy, sleep-deprived state of mind.
Not surprisingly, Sydney was the first to speak; her question didn't seem to be the one she had intended to ask, but she was able to expertly mask the surprise that overtook her features for the shortest of instants, the sound of her voice tempting Vaughn's out of hiding.
"What time it is?"
"A little after eight," Martin answered, matter-of-factly, returning Ilya's wary stare. The child had not moved from his position behind the desk, nor seemed to have any intention of doing so. He had reason to be afraid of unfamiliar men who rattled him from his dreams, only kept from crying out because he could just make out little Gabriel's feet, could see Sydney and Vaughn out of the corner of his eye. The three of them helped him hold together what little bravery he had, eyes focused on the man before him, daring him to take just one step towards the baby who was only still lying on the floor because he would have been too heavy for Ilya to lift.
Vaughn would have been able to sympathize with the younger agent, having received that exact same look so many times in the past. But in order to do that, he would have had to notice the heat that was passing between the young man and the little boy, would have had to remember the long plane ride and the first few days after it, would have had to be able to focus on anything other than the tiny, pointed fangs of anger that had just sunken into the flesh of his big toe, spewing the noxious poison of revenge into his veins.
As it was, he hadn't even heard Martin continue. "… to the authorities about twenty minutes ago. Apparently the fat one tried to buy cigarettes and threw a fit when the owner wouldn't accept his rubles. We picked them up on satellite relay. Cops have blocked off their van so they're still in the vicin…"
"Where?"
Vaughn spat the word out as if he had been choking on it, startling Martin to fumble for a question that he already knew the answer to, but needed to buy time to re-gather the wits Vaughn's tone and quick delivery had torn from him and whipped around the room.
"What?"
"Where is he?" Vaughn stood and was already halfway across the room, approaching at a menacingly rapid pace while still managing to do no more than walk.
Martin swallowed visibly. "At a gas station outside Cienega. On the corner of…"
But Vaughn was already past him and out the door and Martin had to run to catch up. Sydney followed quickly, as she would have been able to do not even a year before; but so much had changed in a year. Changes that, for the most part, were better, but in situations like this…
Gabriel's whimpers turned to full-fledged shrieks, so loud and desperate that little Ilya jumped out of hiding to totter to the infant's side. Sydney froze in the doorway, a hand on the frame to steady herself as she slowly turned, heart ripped in two over whether she should run to her little boy or after her love, not even sure which she would have wanted more. Her eyes swept across the room, met Charlotte's for a quarter of a second, before landing on the two little boys.
Gabriel's entire face had turned a dark shade of red and his balled fists pounded against the ground in time with his kicking little feet. Ilya had sunk to his knees, his hands pattering gently across the baby's face, his lips moving incessantly; but if any words were actually pouring from them, they were sliced by the infant's screams.
Sydney knew in less than an instant where she was needed. It took her all of two steps to cross the room, her eyes locked on the picture of her two little boys, almost melting when she realized that Gabriel was quieting under Ilya's ministrations. A hand on her wrist stopped her, nearly shocked all the air from her lungs. Color rose in her cheeks at her own reaction, embarrassed that she had let Charlotte startle her so. Reluctantly, her eyes left the children, crawling a path towards her future mother-in-law's, running across the older woman's soft smile before reaching their final destination.
"Go on, dear," Charlotte murmured, motioning towards the door. She put a hand on Sydney's, squeezing gently before letting go. "Ilya and I can hold down the fort for a few minutes."
"Thank you," Sydney somehow managed to choke out, mouthing the words more than speaking them. She ventured one last look over her two little boys, the picture they created nearly making her forget that she had ever wanted to leave: Ilya had one thumb in his mouth, the fingers of the other hand playing gently with Gabriel's, the little boy's tears no longer falling.
"Wish him luck for us," Charlotte added, reaching to lift Gabriel from the floor and patting Ilya's head, giving Sydney the boost she needed to turn from the three of them and leave the room.
When she entered the hallway, reality hit her like the unexpected shock of cold air, and she nearly stumbled into a group of lower-level agents. Quickly recovering herself, too rushed to offer or accept any apologies, she sprinted down the hall in the direction she knew Vaughn would have gone, ignoring the strange glances and amused whispers of Looks like Bristow's back.
She just barely caught up with him, entering the Operations Center as he was about to exit from the other side of the room. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Sydney heard Weiss' voice calling out in Vaughn's direction, "Mike? Hold on, just wait for the… Mike?! Two seconds …"
"Vaughn."
He jolted as the vibrations of her voice passed over him, the sound of it freezing not only the two of them, but the entire Operations Center, everything pausing for a quarter of a second, recognizing the urgency in her tone even if its depth of emotion was somewhat foreign. She hadn't shouted or cried out, hadn't whispered it near tears, hadn't shrieked or sung or laughed. Nothing more was needed than the gentle push of air past vocal chords and through lips, a quick journey through the room to his ears that very well might have taken place a thousand times on any other day, one person trying to capture the attention of another.
But there was something about it that only he could recognize, a fudgy glaze of worry, a sugary sprinkling of doubt, a dollop of warning topped with the cherry of love. The mere sound of her voice giving breath to the letters of his name, forming them in the same way that hundreds of others had, but somehow adding so much more, a mouth-watering concoction that he would sink his teeth into without thought if he could only figure out how. It was all it took to liquefy his gnawing hunger for revenge, reducing it from the searing, nauseous appendicitis-like pain, to the slight ache of an empty stomach longing for a midnight snack.
Turning and searching her out, he paused only long enough to lock his own eyes with hers. The buildings, the situation were both different; this time, they weren't separated by smoking yards of rubble, the destruction of a twisted, false way of life that had opened the door to what they had together. Without thought, he took the few tentative steps in her direction, didn't even realize that they soon progressed into a brisk walk, that even that was not fast enough to get to her.
Sydney followed his lead, her steps matching his own until they met in the center of the room and she found her way into his arms. Deep within some nearly hidden nook in her mind, a tiny, tinny, ringing voice shouted out the similarities, shrieked of déjà vu and memories that she would never want to suppress. She let the smooth sweetness of it wash over her, slip from her mind and down her throat, inundating every nerve ending in her body.
Neither of them heard Weiss speak, just as neither of them had that day. But this time, his tone was knowing, warning, instead of brimming with excitement and adrenaline, hell-bent on getting his news across and not even raising so much as an eyebrow at the position in which he had found his two friends. Of course, when they had later returned to the CIA building and Weiss had innocently opened that closet door, his reaction hadn't been half as nonchalant, but…
"Guys… Hey! Now's really not the time…"
Hey guys, I just talked to Base. We did it, we kicked their asses…
"… to repeat the closet incident. Guys…?"
… did you hear what I said? Asses… kicked…
"What closet incident?"
The sudden intrusion of a voice shouldn't have surprised him, he was surrounded by people after all, but still Weiss jumped at the sound of it, still half expecting his friends' clothes to disintegrate, the room to shrink into that small, not-dark-enough closet, and the scene he had tried so hard to erase from his memory to burn itself into his retinas with even more detail and precision. Taking his eyes off the couple, Weiss found Agent Mraz at his side, pulling on the black gloves that completed his ensemble and watching him expectantly.
"How old are you?" Weiss asked seriously. He wouldn't have been at all surprised if the younger agent had answered Twelve. "Seventeen? Eighteen?"
"Twenty-five."
Weiss smiled sympathetically and patted him on the shoulder. "Buddy, you're far too young to hear this story. We wouldn't want to scar your Baby-Agenthood; no assets, no last-second trips to foreign countries, and that pile of paperwork on your desk only blocks half of the doorway. They're the best years of your life."
"I have a girlfriend," Mraz responded with an indignant sigh, folding his arms across his chest.
"Not like that, you don't."
It was a simple answer, and maybe one that would have evaded the truth or stood only to help win an argument at any other time. But here, it was the truth, and it didn't take much more than one at least partially working eye to see that.
Weiss gestured in Sydney and Vaughn's direction, couldn't help but marvel at the way her cheek rested so perfectly against his chest, while the fingers on one of his hands combed through her hair, the other rubbing circles into her back. For a moment, Weiss wondered what his friend had done in a former life to deserve the woman who now stood in his arms, who would stay there for the rest of both their lives and then some. Maybe if he could get Vaughn to divulge this secret, his now lonely trips to the local pubs would end in more than vicious hangovers and flopped one night stands; maybe by this time next year, he could have a closet incident of his own.
But as things stood now, there was no chance in hell of that happening, and Vaughn had more than one up on him in that department: he still stood with his fiancée in the middle of the Ops Center; one of them would look up or down, lips moving in time with what were unquestionably whispered words. Even Weiss had to admit it was sweet, and sure, it looked innocent, but he had seen more than enough to be overly cautious where the two of them were concerned. He had a hundred bucks riding on the assumption that little Gabe would be corrupted the very same day he learned how to walk, and still had every hope of winning back his money and then some.
Turning back to Mraz and taking his hand from the younger agent's shoulder, Weiss nodded thoughtfully. "Just turn around and pretend you don't see them," he said with a shrug. "It's worked for me before. They'll be done soon."
"They're not doing anything," the younger agent responded, openly scrutinizing the couple just as more than a few others were, his attention suddenly turned as Jack marched into the room. "Just talking."
"They're good, kid. That's what they want you to think."
But in all honesty, Vaughn and Sydney were doing nothing more than that. Probably even less, since the amount of words that needed to be spoken between them was cleaved into a fraction of what would have normally been required. She was content to simply hear his heart beat against her ear, to let her fingertips waltz along the wrinkled material of his shirt; she sighed against him, peering up to meet his eyes.
"Don't go by yourself," she whispered, her eyes following the path that the buttons on his shirt took downward as her cheeks colored, embarrassment rising at her sudden over-protectiveness and seeming vulnerability. Not because of where she was, they had both easily forgotten their current location, but because of who she was, because Sydney Bristow was not supposed to need anyone as much as she did this man.
At different times, it frightened, soothed, frustrated her, colored her in the giddy glow of happiness, the pale pink of embarrassment and the seething red of anger. No matter what the single or complex jumble of emotion, she could never prevent whatever words burned to get to him from finding their way to her lips. A closed mouth would do little to aid her, only giving thought and feeling more cause to flood from her eyes, her fingertips, her every breath and movement. So she relented, allowed thought and sensation the letters required to spring into speech, permitted her voice to adjust itself as it thought necessary, even if it would sound close to begging…
"Please," she added, her whispered tone lowering to that nearly impossible to hear level which seemed to vibrate more against his skin than his eardrums, shaking what little concern hadn't already been showing through his irises to gleam in full force. But this allowed her to garner the courage to continue, her voice to raise and recollect a pinch of that all-knowing strength he recognized. "There's a whole team ready to go, Vaughn. You'd just have to wait for the…"
She was silenced by the pad of his thumb, let it brush across the seam of her lips before turning her gaze from him. Perhaps not quite to the exact second, but she could predict the moment his hand would shift to her chin, tilting her face upwards so that she once again met his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Syd, I… I wasn't thinking," he admitted quietly, "about you, or Gabe, or Ilya…"
He trailed off when he saw the glimmer in her eyes, simply a fragment of the sunny sparkle he prayed would never fully burn from within her, no matter what happened to them both. He was able to sense that she was going to speak before she knew it herself, waited for her words to sweep through the silence. They came eventually, quietly, despite the furtive glances that were stolen in their direction and the blatant stares from Weiss and Mraz.
"Yes you were."
They were three little words that belonged to one of those moments where he discovered anew that she was the only one who would ever truly understand him, almost made him ashamed that he had ever held another woman in his arms. This sensation washed over him thousands of times each day, often with nothing more than a laugh or smile; when he opened the front door, returning from whatever errand he had been on, and she was waiting just steps away with the boys, cooing that daddy was home…
Sydney just… she just got it, she got him. She understood his thoughts even before he did himself, knew that the blind rage that had almost driven him to take on Bykov alone was only partially a self-motivated thirst for revenge, mostly an uncontrollable desire to protect his family, to do whatever it took to keep them safe. She had felt the same way before, and…
"Be careful," she murmured, filling the space where his speech should have been. There were only two spoken words, three syllables and not even enough letters to fill the fingers on both his hands. But so much more was carried on the breath she gave to them, twinkling in the path her eyes took, shooting quickly down to the floor before meandering back up to his own.
He could sense how badly she wanted to go, to be in the midst of the fray as they found this bastard and made him pay for the hell he had inflicted on a little boy's life. But just as two normal parents might have decided against a private vacation merely so they would not both be on the same plane if something should go wrong, so that one of them would always be there for their children, they had silently agreed that only one of them could go on this mission. On any mission, he realized quickly, but that would have to be something they discussed later, when the turmoil of their lives slowed to at least a loud and buzzing hum from the utter clamor to which it had so recently risen.
"Always, Syd," he promised easily, knowing that this time she was expecting a response. Whatever her question or comment, he was usually able to yank the right reply from deep within him, as if he had somehow known it had been there all along. This time, however, he seemed to know that she wouldn't agree with what he needed to say, and it almost pained him to give life to the words; but he would never lie to her, would spoon-feed her a thousand sharp and painful truths before the most sticky-sweet of falsehoods. "But you know that I…"
Before he could continue, Weiss' "Okay guys, really" that he had planned on ignoring was joined by the steadily loudening echo of a familiar scream, one that would wrench painfully at Vaughn's heart if it were allowed to continue for a moment longer. His mother came into sight, a shrieking Gabriel in one arm and a frightened Ilya clinging tightly to her other hand.
"I'm sorry, dear," she murmured, glancing apologetically at Sydney. "I waited as long as I could. But he's hungry, and, quite frankly, I think he just wants his mother."
Vaughn watched as Sydney took the little boy with a whispered thank you, and offered his mother a grateful smile, completely enraptured by the picture of his son quieting and snuggling into Sydney's chest, trying fervently to get to his breakfast. It was something so relatively simple, yet he and Sydney had had to jump and twirl through an intricate string of hoops and tunnels to reach it; he had thought that it was something they would have never been able to attain. He bent to kiss the little boy's head, enamored with the feel of the fuzzy hair against his lips, but unable to muse much further on this subject when something tugged at his pant leg.
A glance downward showed little Ilya looking sadly up at him, his hand grasping the material of Vaughn's pants so tightly that there was no question over whether or not he was afraid to let go. Gently loosening the boy's fingers and crouching so that he was eye-to-eye with the child's serious stare, Vaughn took one of Ilya's hands in his own. "What's the matter, buddy?"
Ilya launched himself into Vaughn's arms, nearly toppling both of them over with the force of it, and causing the few surrounding agents that weren't focusing overly hard on Jack Bristow's current briefing to smile. The child hid his face in the nape of Vaughn's neck as he was lifted off the ground, one of his hands sliding continuously over Vaughn's skin while he mumbled a nearly tearful, "Babe…"
"Babe," Vaughn began to explain, quickly catching his error at the same time Sydney's small smile flickered into view. He proffered a bashful one of his own, unconsciously nestling his cheek against Ilya's head and pulling back with a kiss. "Gabe's okay. Just hungry."
Whether Ilya understood his words or not didn't seem to matter. The child softened in his arms, reaching a hand up to the tip of Vaughn's nose and trying to squeeze it as Vaughn had done to the boy himself so many times in the past few days. Unable to suppress a grin, Vaughn mirrored Ilya's action, "stealing" the little boy's nose and then kindly replacing it.
"Hey Mike?"
Weiss' voice was soft, had lost all the impatient intensity it had possessed just moments before. The quick briefing had finished and Vaughn hadn't heard a word, hadn't even noticed that the other agents had begun filing quickly past him to their places at computer consoles or into the vans waiting just outside the exit.
"You ready?"
Nodding, Vaughn handed Ilya to his mother, kissing her cheek quickly before turning to find Sydney blocking his path. She tilted her lips upwards, pressing them against his own so quickly that afterwards, he almost wasn't even sure if it had happened. She let that stand in the place of good luck, and it served as the goodbyes they both refused to extend, such a parting seeming too formal and final. But there was one thing he had to say to her before he left, that he probably shouldn't here, now, but couldn't let himself walk out those doors without…
"I love you, Sydney."
The words popped and fizzed with so much finality that he almost regretted them; not that they had been spoken, but the unmistakably serious way in which they had been uttered. He watched as her eyes abruptly narrowed, glazing over with an amalgamation of uncertainty and cautious curiosity so volatile that it nearly bordered on distrust.
"Vaughn? What are…"
He dropped a swift kiss on her frowning lips, incarcerating the rest of her question and bringing a hand up to smooth the worry lines from her forehead. The corners of his mouth upturned in a small, quick smile.
"I love you," he repeated, the words falling slower than they had the first time. But they had barely had a chance to linger in the air before he was forced to relent to Weiss' gentle shoves. He turned, leaving Sydney wishing more desperately than anything that she had been able to find the breath to respond.
Vaughn stumbled into the back of one of the vans, donning more appropriate attire and trying unsuccessfully to listen as his friend blathered on about what exactly they were supposed to be doing. Vaughn was on pins and needles throughout the entire ride, his stomach pirouetting even more maniacally than it had his very first mission, and for once, he was glad that there hadn't been time to eat breakfast.
All that enabled him to move, to rise to his feet when the van came to a halt, step out and march with a group of others so that he ended up in his proper place encircling Bykov's van, were thoughts and flashes of Ilya, Gabriel, Sydney…
"… negative, sir. Nothing…"
The agent's words rang in his ears as doors of the empty van slammed shut. He fought to maintain control, trying to tell himself that he had known it wasn't going to be that easy, to listen to Jack's voice in his earpiece: something about searching the perimeter and he couldn't hear the rest. Words babbled endlessly, flowing one into the other, losing their shape and form as the voice mutated into Sydney's soft murmur, the gibbering sleep-talk that strummed at his heart on those long, dark nights.
He heard her in smiles, dimples, the soft touch of fingertips, and whispers that were really nothing more than the constant soft hiss of static. He knew that, somewhere in the back of his mind and heart, but still let it lure him away from the group, drawing him to where Bykov would be, to where he could ensure his family's safety with a well-placed bullet. It was all that mattered when he saw Sydney's face behind his blinking eyelids, heard her soft murmur: Be careful…
Vaughn had promised to be careful, and he would be. Careful to make sure that son of a bitch never went anywhere near any member of his family again.
The sudden surge of determination, the flaring of rage and a desire to protect his loved ones that was so intense it physically hurt, propelled him onward. He couldn't say where he was or in which direction he was headed, but let passion serve as his compass and muscle, guiding his path and propelling his footsteps. The zephyrous morning air tickled what little flesh wasn't covered by his facemask, metamorphosed into the wraith of Sydney's lips raining over him, her whispering voice, his son's sleeping sighs, Ilya happily shouting their names…
He didn't want to think about how if they failed this mission, if he failed this mission, he was giving Bykov another chance to hurt them, to extinguish the sparks of their lives that lit up his own. That he might never have a chance to hear, touch, taste, smell, see any part of them again…
"… Boy Scout's separated himself from the group."
"Where is he?"
"I swear, he was just right behind me!"
"Alpha team, continue as planned. He'll find his way back."
Vaughn heard the voices, even made sense of the words: the first agent calmly reporting the goings-on, Jack's bordering on angry reply, Weiss' confusion… it was all so crystal clear and yet so clouded. He perceived the words, but it was as if they had twisted and scraped along a thousand convoluted pipes, grating against glass and nails, not losing their shape but obliterating anything that even resembled a meaning. The rest of the conversation rippled through his earpiece without making any sense at all.
Jack had angrily torn off his headset, turning to the nearest agent with an heated glare and shouting out orders. Hissing and glowing letters crashed violently into words; sparking to flame the second he opened his mouth and nearly incinerating poor Agent Lee. Among them, three words that might have made Vaughn reconsider, might have stopped him in his tracks and convinced him to turn back around…
"Widen the range of satellite surveillance… Setup a secure line straight to Vaughn... And get Sydney... Now!"
Had she been given the choice, Sydney would have been in the Operations Center at that very moment, would never have left unless it was to partake in the mission herself. But while she had been forced to wear some pretty revealing costumes over the years and most of the agents would have been too involved in their own business to have questioned it, breastfeeding her son was not something she felt she should share with a good chunk of the CIA staff.
As soon as the various teams had filed out of the building, she had silently led her little group back to Vaughn's office. They could just as easily have gone to hers; they had passed it on the way, after all. But whether it was his smell, the feel of his presence, or the fact that he had so recently held her in his arms in that very same space, there was simply something about the fact that the office belonged to Vaughn that led her back to it, seemed to have called to her just as he might have himself.
Ilya had latched onto her side as soon as his feet had touched the floor, only separating from her after Gabriel had been fed and handed to his grandmother, and Sydney had gently pushed the little boy away so she could stand. The room had seemed to become smaller and smaller as she paced it, back and forth without stopping, without noticing that Ilya was always toddling close behind; her eyes found the clock, the window, her watch, the door, the clock again, and…
"Ilya!" His name flew from her lips in a harsher tone than she had intended, nearly tripping over him as she had turned to give the room another pass. But the gentle "Sweetie…" that followed it a moment later, with more compassion and patience than she would have thought herself capable of at the moment more than made up for it.
She took him into her arms, frowning at the way he threw his own around her neck and clung to her tightly, hadn't seemed so desperate since those few days after she had first rescued him. Her thoughts of Vaughn's safety became sprinkled with those of this child's, soon transferred to her own, and…
"Sydney, dear?"
It wasn't until the fourth time Charlotte called to her future daughter-in-law that Sydney's head snapped in her direction, eyes immediately apologetic as a hand continued its comforting path through Ilya's hair. "Hmm?"
"Michael told me last night, about how…"
"Agent Bristow!"
A breathless Agent Lee appeared in the doorway, her dark hair flying wildly. "Director Br… um… your father needs you right away."
Sydney's eyes had clouded with concern the moment she had heard the younger agent frantically calling her name. Now they stormed to a full-fledged fear, barely held back by her stubborn stoicism and pride. She tried to place Ilya on the ground; wanted, needed to run in the direction of the Operations Center, knew why Vaughn's last words to her had been so seriously careful, so necessary when he had known deep down what he had to do... And that he might not come back.
While Charlotte knew something was not right, she at least had the presence of mind not to let her thoughts wander among the thousand and one things that might have gone wrong with her son. She knew him better than most mothers can know their grown boys, but even so, it would have been impossible for her to be so connected with him that his thoughts and feelings belonged almost solely to her; he only allowed one woman that far into his life. Charlotte hadn't had enough experience with him either during operations or with his new family to know that his determination and desperation would surely multiply tenfold when both came crashing together; she never knew what it was possible for her sweet little boy to become.
For that alone, she remained levelheaded, had tenderly shifted the sleeping Gabriel into one of her arms and tried to take Ilya with the other. But the little boy gripped Sydney forcefully, his arms so tight around her neck that she nearly choked; his entire body unnaturally rigid, face buried in her neck, the hot tears stinging her flesh just as every strangled murmur of "Tyd!" stabbed at her heart.
Somehow, she more or less coherently spoke to Vaughn's mother, let the woman reassure her with a gentle "He'll be all right," when it should have been the other way around, when the experienced agent should have brought comfort to the mother in her time of need. Gabriel was still fast asleep in Charlotte's arms, and despite the shadow of worry that had creased his grandmother's forehead, she had gamely agreed to stay with him and keep out of the way.
Agent Lee had promised to bring word as soon as they heard anything, another thing that Sydney knew she should have done herself. But she didn't have time to think further on it as the two agents all but ran to the Ops Center, the small boy Sydney carried in her arms all that kept the pace down to something resembling a walk. Sydney didn't ask for any information when arriving at her father's side, merely taking the headset he handed to her, getting it on quickly even with one hand and hissing, "Vaughn! What the hell are you doing?"
"Syd?"
His voice crackling to her ear was the sweetest music she had ever heard. She could practically taste the remorse and sudden unease that clung to each slight change in sound and pitch. One syllable and he made her forget everything: the Ops Center, the other agents, that she was standing in her father's shadow, holding a little boy in her arms…
"I… ad to go, Sydn… otect you and the boys…"
Even though it was nearly shouted in her ear, she didn't hear her father's command for someone to try and fix the signal, didn't feel Ilya pick his head up off her shoulder, perking up at the muffled sound of Vaughn's voice.
"You told me you'd be careful," she whispered quietly, delicately.
"I am. I… ill be," his garbled answer crooned to her through the hissing static. "Syd, I – I... ave an instinct about this… where he is… I ha… to… ind him, to get h…"
"What's wrong with our signal?!"
"I don't know, sir. All the lines have gone fuzzy."
The room exploded into action, but Sydney was oblivious to anything and everything but the voice sputtering in her ear, wouldn't have noticed the booming detonation, the roar of fire, the growl of flying debris, or the shrieks of agony if the Operations Center had literally exploded at that moment.
"Please, Vau…"
Her few words choked to a halt when a tiny hand tugged at her headset, wrenching her neck to the side and painfully jolting her wounded arm. She heard Vaughn's quiet but frenzied, "Syd?" wanted to scream at him for worrying about her safety when he was the one whose life was in peril. She tried to reach for her headset, but froze; what she found in front of her reaching hand and before her eyes wreaking havoc on all her other senses, almost annihilating them beyond repair.
Always good at imitating others, always wanting to be just like those two adults who had so willingly opened their hearts to him, taken him in when he had had no one else, no where else to go…
"Bahn?" Ilya whispered, tiny fingers maneuvering the mouthpiece so that he was nearly chewing on it, the headset too big to fit around his head as it should have and quickly slipping off his ears.
But that didn't matter. All that did was the dark, serious eyes, blinking in concentration; the forehead that was too little to already have such anxious furrows; and the small, rarely heard voice that sang into the air, clearly relaying one word to the man listening on the other end.
"Daddy?"
All sense and movement spluttered to a ferocious halt, nearly giving Sydney whiplash as everything else carried on dizzyingly around her. She knew that they had been making that slip all along, had let themselves and others refer to the child as his own. But to hear that term from the boy's own lips, amongst the shouting and flurried activity of the Ops Center, when so much was already at stake…
"Who… who was… at?" Vaughn asked cautiously, his voice so low that she could barely hear it stumble above the sizzle of static.
Sydney hugged the little boy tightly to her, gently removing the headset from his firm grasp and whispering his name into the mouthpiece, "Ilya."
She thought she heard Vaughn take a breath to respond, but if any words tripped from the tip of his tongue, they were either swallowed or lost forever in their faulty connection, taking any chance of happiness with them. A low rumbling invaded Sydney's ears: the sound of a voice too rasping, too far from the microphone to be heard clearly. But the loud and painful click that broke through next was all too familiar, made her involuntarily shudder with the panicked recollection of the never-to-be-forgotten chill of deadly metal digging into tender flesh and the taunting vibration of a weapon being readied for fire.
For half a second, she waited without breath or motion, couldn't fight any words past the lump in her throat, but wouldn't have been able to find any to better the situation. She expected each crackle of static to burst into the agonizing thunder of a single gunshot. But was startled by the sudden silence that roared in her ear, immediately followed by a long, ear-piercing squeal, which nearly deafened all those listening.
The static was gone. The line was dead. And the screeching continued, wailing interminably as it joined with the shouts of the surrounding agents.
Sydney didn't hear it, didn't feel her father slam against her as he tried to maintain the connection or Agent Lee violently tear the headset from her ear. A single tear was all she would allow to crawl down her cheek before she angrily wiped it away, torn between rage, dejection and gut-wrenching nausea as three seconds of silence ticked to four and five… and forty-six and forty-seven…
And the one thought her numbed mind could halfway curl itself around, the only thing she could focus on when so many more important points were clamoring for her attention, when her father was practically screaming commands and agents had to scurry around her to do their best to fulfill them…
… was that she wished she had responded earlier, had been able to tell him she loved him… while she had still had the chance.