carousel, iii.



The feeling of just waking up hits him, the grogginess and blurry vision. Sunlight creeps under the bedroom door [did he sleep through the night?] as he attempts to clear his head, disoriented.

Where is he?

He eyes land on the picture of the giant type writer and...

Oh.

He sits up in bed, swimming in the soft sheets before heading for the door. He patters down the stairs quietly, trailing his fingers along the wall as he goes. Trips on his way down [damn cat] and stumbles to the bottom.

He reaches the kitchen with its eighteenth century appliances that he's not sure has been used within the last twenty years [the Vaughns are not, and will never be, known for their cooking] and jerks his head up at the back kitchen door being wrenched open.

The image of his mother with grocery bags in hand is strangely overly domestic for their family, a group of people who can neither cook nor clean.

But she remarks about how this is such a pleasant surprise and he helps her with the groceries and she asks him how everything's going and they both have the artificial happiness about them, the kind that's overly sweet and leaves a strange after taste when it's done.

She tells him about Cynthia down the road who broke her hip while gardening and Howard-Next-Door's good for nothing son who ended up gambling his college fund away at the tracks. Neighborhood gossip that she knows he won't be interested in, but it's something to fill the silence. She wants to know the status of her second son [a one Mr. Eric Weiss] and whether he's found a girl yet, because she has a friend who has a cousin who has a neighbor who has a daughter who would be just perfect for him.

He assures her that he will pass along the message.

She stops while putting a can of orange juice in the refrigerator and takes his hand, running her fingertips over his bare ring finger. She turns back to the brown paper bags, pulling out a carton of eggs.

"::We're going to have to talk about this sooner or later.::"

"::There's nothing to talk about. Lauren and I were married and now we're not. Where does the bread go?::"

"::The pantry. You don't want to tell me what happened?::"

"::Not really, no.::"

He can't help but feel guilty as he snaps at her. Every visit, every phone call is his attempt to make up for the years she would have to talk to high school teachers, I'm sorry Mrs. Vaughn, but Michael didn't show up to school again...

"::Maybe I just...maybe I just didn't know her the way I thought I did.::"

It's the truth, technically. He really didn't know her the way he thought he did. No matter that the official end of their marriage probably occurred at the precise moment that he shot his wife into a mine shaft.

But maybe that's irrelevant at this point. At least, he'll pretend it is.

---

They wanted to know where he last saw Sydney. Whether she had made contact with him. Where she was now.

Palermo. No, she hasn't made contact with me. No, I don't know where she is now.

Two truths and a lie.

---

[But that used to be a game, didn't it? Two truths and a lie? Something little kids played at slumber parties? Tell people three things about yourself and make them guess which one is the lie?

.My father worked for the CIA and died on a mission.

It was always one of his truths and it so goddamn ridiculous that no, that must be one of Michael Vaughn's lies again, the boy has an overactive imagination, and that's putting it in the nicest way possible, chronic liar was more like it.

There is probably something to say when your truths become less believable than your lies, although what it is, he's not sure.

He would win every time. Because that's all that dead fathers are good for. Winning at childhood games
.]

---

He makes the soup, the stuff you just pour into a pot and forget about on a stove, and she makes the sandwiches, remarking about how this is about the extent of both of their culinary skills.

Not true. He knows how to make the instant pasta with the hot water.

"::How's work going?::" she asks while inspecting a suspicious looking tomato.

"::Good. Bad. Fine.::"

"::Rough patch?::"

"::You could say that.::"

He wonders how much of a disappointment he is to her at this point, between his marriage and his job. He knows how his mother feels about the issue of his work, in that she would prefer for him to be in an occupation where he's not at risk of losing limbs.

She still cuts the crusts off his Wonder bread. He finds himself staring at it, his white plate with his white bread.

"::Sorry::," she laughs. "::I...forget sometimes.::"

"::It's okay. I hate the crusts anyway.::"

He watches old reruns of MASH with her and listens to her chuckle along with the laugh track, despite the fact that she doesn't quite understand the humor in most of the jokes. It's a bit of a culture clash.

---

He tells her that he needs to get back to work [he doesn't], that they need him there [they don't], that he'll call her tomorrow [he won't.]

The ride back is longer than he remembers, but his finger is weighted down with his ring this time. The radio announcers tell him that the Kings just lost again, but he won't believe them until he gets home and switches on ESPN.

"Suspension of field status" is the term that they used. Suspension of field status. Indefinitely.

"You'll have my letter of resignation by the end of the day," he mumbled to Dixon, feeling bodies and hands and legs push past him.

He should've taken a cab out to Langley, a pale blue one that there seemed to be an overabundance of in Washington. He should've used one of their computers, poured himself a cup of too strong coffee, avoided stares. He should've clattered furiously on the keyboard, checked for spelling errors, printed it out, signed it with flourish.

He typed it up on an old typewriter he found in his hotel room closet. A fifteen year old typewriter with an ink ribbon that smeared and a stuck "e" key. He was left with a document header of "LTTR OF RSIGNATION."

Layers of himself peeled off with each keystroke.

He realized later that he dated the paper off by a day and that he had somehow managed to misspell his own name. This would be how he would leave his legacy, apparently. Smudged ink on a crumpled piece of hotel paper with the Mariott logo in the corner.

He snatched the paper out from the typewriter and left it on the scratchy comforter. Michal Vaughn's Lttr of Rsignation.

He reached for another piece of paper and rolled it in crookedly, watching it crease and wrinkle. He stared at the keys, his fingers, the gashes under his fingernails that still haven't quite healed from where they slammed razors and needles under them, pushed the syringes up until he was bleeding and writhing, smirked as they mocked the always moral Agent Vaughn, you were such a good husband, pity it had to end up this way, won't break will he, tell us about the Passenger the Passenger tell us where to find the Passenger and maybe your death will be painless...

RLIF.

He stared at the printed word, dark marks on cream paper.

LIBRATION.

PRID.

FRDOM.

He wanted to feel it. He wanted to feel the relief and the liberation and the pride and the freedom.

He always thought there would be someone beneath the rinds of honor and stability and history and trying to be the Right Person and do the Right Thing.

He thought he could figure out who the person was underneath all that.

Underneath it all, there is nothing.

---

No one ever really admits that the reason they join the CIA is because of some twisted desire to change the world. The Agency thrives on young, idealistic idiots. Feeds off of them. It's a pride issue for most new recruits. They're encouraged to have stupid ideas about themselves and what they're capable of. They're told that they'll become the unsung heroes of the free world. Oh, the American public will never truly realize all that you've done for them, but they would shake your hand, thank you personally, if they ever knew [you're told.] So go to your apartments, go to your restaurants, go to your supermarkets, and know that you can hold your head just a little bit higher than all the rest.

The pride. No one really knows how high their chin can reach before the pride kicks in.

His dad died young. Tragically. His son picked up the loose ends of a life incomplete.

---

He stops at a coffee shop that is, strangely enough, playing Christmas music.

It is June.

The air conditioning is on full blast and sends icy goose bumps up and down his arms. The waitress takes his order in monotone ["HellomynameisLouisahowmayIhelpyoutoday." Not a question. A statement. She will be serving you, whether you like it or not] and speaks with a dull New York accent. "Jingle Bell Rock" begins to blare out of the hidden speakers. It is probably a sign to start running.

---

The contents of his desk at work only filled one cardboard box, surprisingly. He always thought it would be more. Maybe he just didn't have as much as he though.

The palm of his hand still dripped with blood, the results of fumbling roughly at the back of one of the drawers and feeling a shard of broken glass rip through his skin. Remnants of a picture frame he had long since smashed in a fit of frustration during a late night at the office. It was a discount type thing, one of those three-for-ten-bucks deals, the kind traditionally holding a family picture of some kind. He had agonized over it after coming back to the Agency when Sydney returned [from the dead—but no, she was never really dead, was she? He needs to stop attaching it to the end of that phrase], distressed himself over whether putting a photograph of him and Lauren on his desk would be obnoxiously flaunting their relationship. He ultimately left it at the bottom of the desk drawer. And then felt pangs of guilt as it collected dust.

He handed in his clearance card and gun, letting his fingers linger longer than necessary over the cold metal. It had sent off a metallic gleam when they gave it to him all those years ago [some schools give out diplomas upon graduation; the Farm proudly handed their newly minted agents weaponry] but now lay tarnished on Dixon's desk. There will no longer be any use for the shoulder holster, either, but he held on to that one. The leather still smelled new.

"You'll always have a job here. If you change your mind."

He shrugged. He would not change his mind.

People stared, but that wasn't what he should have been focusing on. His hearing seemed to block out everything but whispers of his name, not vicious gossip this time, but pity. Funny how quickly emotions can swing.

There was nothing about their new found sympathy that appealed to him, gave them small smiles brimming with venom as they came to shake his hand.

"It was nice working with you, man."

"Call me if you ever need anything. Maybe we could go to a game or something."

"Good luck with everything. Hang in there."

Hang in where? He's spent his entire life being told to "hang in there." That things would eventually get better.

He hated it all. Hated them all. Fuck waiting for things to get better, fuck hanging in there. He was ready to let go. Ready to let the bottom drop out of his life.

---

The coffee tastes like melted plastic, eliciting a cringe from him at each sip, but he orders another cup simply because he thinks it might be rude to inquire about the nearest Starbucks. They don't look like they get many customers, anyway.

Vaughn reaches for a three day old newspaper from his bag and attempts to rub off the cheap ink from his fingers. He folds the heading over backwards, still slightly embarrassed that he's searching the Classified section.

He could teach again, if he really wanted to. There was a job opening at a community college down in San Francisco. Their last French teacher had just been arrested for heroine possession. That person would not be back. They were desperate for a new professor by the time the new school year rolled around.

But teaching was Sydney's dream. Not his.

She "died" young. Tragically. Her boyfriend picked up the loose ends of a life incomplete.

Maybe he's been living out the story lines of too many ghosts.

---

After four sleepless nights, he had come to the conclusion that David Letterman was highly overrated. But that was about it for his earth shattering revelations.

He moved to shut off the blue glow of the television before heading back to his [their?] bedroom. The floorboards creaked beneath his steps, a reminder of just how old this apartment building really was. He'll fall right through the floor someday.

He yanked at the dresser drawer [the third one always stuck] and suddenly stopped. Could've sworn he heard something from down the hallway, but no, nothing. He stripped the oxford off, carefully undoing the buttons, and pulled on the gray over shirt, when...

He was officially losing his mind. Maybe he should've taken that therapy session they sent him to a week ago more seriously...

He stared at himself in the full length mirror, him and all his angry scars. A white scratch right under his ear from where his sister had thrown a teapot at him when he was ten, a welt on his left wrist after scraping it against a rusted nail in Taipei, lasting red marks on his stomach and back from where he had been stabbed by his ex-lover and her aunt, respectively. More on his legs, too, if he shrugged off his jeans. And more under his skin, if anyone ever took the time to peel it off.

He whirled around, almost positive he head something that time. He just stared into the empty darkness of his apartment.

He turned back to his reflection, trying to figure out how he had become that man in the mirror, the man he hated more than anything.

He came for her. But she must know that he would always come for her.

He just always thought that she would come for him.

Shadows aren't supposed to move like that, are they?

And that shadow in the doorway was not supposed to cough.

He spun towards the door as the dark figure lunged at him, hands wrapped around his neck. The man felt like he was packing at least 250, maybe 300, couldn't make out his face in the dimness and breathe breathe he couldn't breathe...

He threw his knee into the man's stomach and heard him give a low grunt as he barreled backwards. But the stranger was on him again, gun pressed to his temple and his gun where the fuck did he leave his gun?

The sickening realization that he handed it in to Dixon hit him and he crashed his forehead against the man's with a satisfying bang. He kicked the gun away, rolled over on top, but being on top really didn't offer him any advantage considering his opponent's weight and he was soon pinned on the floor again. He could feel the man's fist connect with his jaw, again, a third time, until the yellow spots making their way in and out of his vision seemed almost tangible. His stomach retched at the metallic taste of his own blood.

He pulled at the nearest extension cord and heard his bedside lamp fall off the nightstand with a clamor [but that was the antique that belonged to Lauren's mother, wasn't it? Ah. Well.] he wrapped it haphazardly around the man's neck. The figure under him struggled, making gagging noises before finally throwing him off. Vaughn slammed back into a wall, wincing at the impact on the wound that still hasn't quite healed. The man was on him again and he moaned as he could feel his arm being twisted be, almost to breaking point...

He wrapped his free arm around the man's neck in a last ditch attempt at control. More sounds of choking before a snap that sent chills through his blood. The man slumped to the floor, lifeless.

And he was the one left breathing.

---

Seeing in hindsight is like watching a movie, although often far less pleasurable. At least with movies you can stop where you want, rewind, replay, fast forward. No such luxuries for retrospect, but maybe it's supposed to be like that. Death by memory doesn't exactly work when you can pick the recollections that you want.

Isn't fear supposed to kick in when you're being attacked?

Isn't there supposed to be some sort of twisted knot in your stomach after killing someone with your bare hands?

But he was just left wondering how much more blood he would have to scrub off his hands.

In hindsight, he realized that wasn't a normal reaction.

---

[But, actually, it was Weiss who was the concerned one after all that, wasn't it? It was him who decided on setting up the team of agents in the apartment across the hall. Him who hand swept the entire place by hand. Him who pulled Vaughn out onto the rusted fire escape with black paint chipping off and wanted to know why the hell he wasn't worried that people were being sent after him. Tranqs. The man's gun wasn't even full of bullets, but tranqs. Something that was apparently a problem.

He continued to peel off the paint from the metal railing. This was where the conversation begsn. The conversation that started with his friend suggesting he go on vacation ("You could...I dunno, Mike. You could go visit your mom for a few days") and ended in the one and only time he's ever had Eric Weiss storm off from him.

It was the parts in between that he'd rather not think about. Which turns out to be pretty easy, in fact. As it would happen, he's gotten pretty damn good at repressing things. Feelings. Thoughts. It's all the same, really
.]

---

He pays the coffee shop bill and doesn't realize until he's driven a mile or two that he left a 250% tip.

The streets feel more familiar as he goes, the sense of returning to where he belongs. Or should belong.

The dimming light from the moon throws shadows over his apartment building, highlighting the crimson bricks burnt by the California sun. The hottest summer in years, the weather men are saying with repressed excitement. A heat wave's due in soon. The meteorologists play it nonchalantly, however, hating to admit that heat waves actually give them a reason to come into work. Los Angeles weather is pretty boring that way.

He grabs the letters from his mailbox and nods to the receptionist who's been there ever since he can remember. He likes this guy, actually. He doesn't ask questions when the wife doesn't come home anymore.

The elevator's broken again [surprise], all electricity seeming to go to the air conditioner that's in overdrive in the lobby. He walks to flight of stairs and stomps along noisily, just to fill up the dead air.

Vaughn bangs once against the door across the hall from his apartment like a good boy, letting the team of agents know that he's back. As it would happen, they're not too bright. He'll sneak out the fire escape later.

He lets himself in, reaches blindly for the light switch, set his bag down. His answering machine tells him that he has no new messages. Not that he was expecting any calls.

He flips through the pack of envelopes in his hand, mentally sorting them into piles of bills and junk mail. Bill...bill...junk...bill...

The stack falls to the floor as he grips one until his knuckles turn white and the cardboard creases.

A postcard with a picture of a Ferris wheel on the front.

More of Sydney's God forsaken postcards.

He flips it over, hoping that he can some how cover up his anxiety with anger, because anger is his emotion of choice right now...

THE PEIR. THURSDAY. 11:30 PM.

YOU KNOW WHERE.