Lost in Loneliness
Author: chatnoir
Disclaimer: the characters aren't mine.
Rating: PG/ PG-13
Summary: Quasi-post The Telling. But it doesn't really focus on that at all. What happens when Sydney is lonely?
thanks to angelbleu for looking it over.
Err… this was originally started in August… hehe… and it's still not done… just beware… it has been on hold for a while… I'm gonna try and finish this fic up over the holiday break… so, bear with me. :P
Prologue
Vaughn first noticed the glow when she entered the room twenty-five minutes ago. Her face was alight. He felt a knot form and tighten in his stomach. She had found someone. A someone to replace him.
After the two years she had been missing, it just seemed like the next logical step—for her to move on. He was married. He had a wife, one he would never and could never love as much as Sydney, but one he had vowed to stay with for the rest of his life. His hands were tied. He was stuck where he was. Life had moved on when she wasn't there. She wasn't there to witness any of it. And she felt lied to, betrayed, devastated.
Although it had torn their hearts to stay away from each other, they had kept their secret tragedies from one another. After the anger she felt, after the betrayal, something had to stay a constant. She was still angry at him for giving up on her, but she rationalized where he stood. Hadn't she done the same thing to Danny? So she had forgiven him. She had decided that they had to just stay friends. That they had to ignore the deep fire of passion and love for one another. They may have succeeded in appearances, but never in their thoughts.
She still dreamt of him. Still felt his arms around her when she woke up in the morning. And she still thought of him, analyzed everything about him, and catalogued it. She was in love with him then, now, and forever. But she couldn't let him know that. It would destroy all the rules that dictated their friendship now. And she couldn't let go of that one last bond she shared with him. But she was still lonely.
They were truly the best of friends, always confining in one another their deepest secrets or what they were feeling. Weiss had said once that it felt like they had never split. And that they still acted like an old married couple despite the fact that there were no more kisses, no more hugs—even if they were for comfort, no more talks about the past when they were together. If only that were true Weiss, Vaughn had thought.
They both harbored thoughts about how much happier they were when they were together five years past.
Now, it was three years past the day Sydney had been cleared from her KIA label. Three years past the day a particular star on the wall had been effaced. Three years since she came back… and he still loved her more than he loved his wife.
Or ex-wife as it was now. They had divorced a year back. He couldn't concentrate on his family when his heart belonged to someone else. He had stayed longer at work than at home, just to stay and watch Sydney. He had felt guilty, but his married life wasn't as exciting, as novel as it was before when there was still some lust. But Sydney and he still couldn't be together, even though it had been a year. They were both too raw emotionally, their hearts full of desolation.
He wanted to be with her every single day, every single minute, every single second. He loved her with all his heart and soul. When she wasn't besides him, he was whipped back to the two years without her. He let himself believe that they could go slow. Start again with the friendship and respect and then slowly grow into a romantic relationship again.
But she had managed to replace him with another man.