Author's Note….I made a mistake in the last chapter that's going to be super relevant in this chapter….Kilmer and Layla aren't being held in Odessa. They were being transferred to Athens, Greece. Hope this won't confuse you!
It wasn't until that particular moment in her life that she realized she hated it so much. Sure, there had been those thoughts that she was almost sure that she hated her life but nothing like this. She was absolutely sure that this life was the worst possible life to lead. Her body was cloaked in black, typical operation uniform. The tactical pants that she wore were unforgiving, not flattering her form at all but they were comfortable. The yards of black, durable fabric consumed her tiny frame. She wore no make-up and the true bags and damage to her face were evident. Patterns of black and blue were formed along her jaw line with pink swelling above and below her eyes. She was emotionally drained and it showed. Her honey colored eyes caught her reflection and part of her wants to throw her fist through the mirror. She clenched her hands at her side and gritted down on her teeth.
"Are you ready to go, Syd?" Vaughn asked coldly from the outside of the shut door. His body was being supported by the doorframe. He was still tired, the fatigue was raging on his poor form. His face was worse for wear. Without the make-up that he unwillingly wore, he looked like he had been through a war. The scarlet swelling, highlighted by the intense violet bruises made for an uncomfortable state of being.
She whipped around to face him and harshly looked his face over. There were still abrasions on his face from the attack. His eyes were slightly swollen. But that didn't matter. Her brown eyes held no sympathy for him. His words had been cold and cruel. She still hadn't fully recovered from the fatal blows they had just verbally exchanged. "Yes." She replied, matching his tone. With as much energy as her body would allow, she made her way towards the door and swung it open-almost knocking Vaughn over in the process. "I just want to say good-bye to Madison before we leave. I don't want her-"
"We don't have time for this, Sydney." Vaughn groaned. He moved to step in front of her but noticed the determination in her eyes. He knew that she was ready to strike at any moment. The cobra was let out of the basket.
And that's when it started. The one man that was always suppose to be on her side was now fighting with her. She turned towards him, staring him down. "Vaughn, don't start." She hissed. "I'm just saying good-bye and make sure that she's really fine. We have six hours before Sark wants to make the exchange. We'll be fine. Stop being so-"
Vaughn looked away from a moment. This was the longest that they had ever quarreled and he hated it. But part of him couldn't let it go. She had first doubted his abilities as an agent…then she stopped him from doing serious damage to Lauren, something he rightly deserved to do…then, she told him that she had slept with three different people for the job… "Sydney, please."
"Don't do this to me, Vaughn. You do your thing and I'll do mine. Your strength is in the rules and playing like the big boys. I do better with people." She continued to brush past him but was stopped by his hand clasped tightly on her forearm.
"Sydney."
She was taken back by his using her full name. She had been 'Syd' for such a long time…almost as long as he had been 'Vaughn.' Her honey colored eyes burned into his face. "I don't even know what to say to you anymore." She shrugged him off, the fear of her emotions brewing in her face.
"Don't walk away from me, Sydney."
She turned around and faced him, "We have nothing to talk about. I don't need you to explain. There's nothing. Nothing." She pushed her jaw out as she gritted down on her teeth.
Vaughn sighed ruefully.
This didn't go unnoticed by Sydney. She stepped closer, so close she could practically hear his heartbeat racing in his chest. "The only thing that you need to know, Vaughn, is that I'm not Lauren." She didn't even wait for his response. She didn't want it. She didn't need it.
She walked slowly and confidently across the cold wood floor. Her feet were still bare and chilled. Part of her was somewhat excited about escaping Odessa and seeking the warmth of Athens. Continuing her crossing in front of the fire place, she opened the door to the master bedroom. She hesitated and knocked firmly, pressing her head against the door. "Madison?"
The tired raven haired beauty turned over towards the door. "Sydney." She reached towards her, wanting to feel another person's warmth. She felt so cold. Her body shifted beneath the tightly woven blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The air choked down on her as it was heavy with pain.
Sydney walked in slowly, aware of each step that she took. Her lungs let in a slow inhale as she tried to work up enough nerve. "How are you feeling?"
"I'll be fine when my baby is in my arms. I miss her so much." Madison ached softly. She curled her body beneath her. "You don't know what it's like to lose a child."
Sydney couldn't refute this claim. It was true. She may have lost three men, feeling their shed blood against her skin but she never lost a child. She lost the hope of a child when Kendall told her so but that was not the same. "You haven't lost her. I give you my word that I'll get her back." Kilmer meant too much to her to let his most precious thing in the world slip away. Well, Kilmer meant too much to her to let him slip from her hands.
Madison reached out to no where, "Please, Sydney. I'm begging you. Don't let Julian take my baby away from me." Madison started to cry again, leaving Sydney helpless to comfort her. "If I could take one thing in my life back, it would be that. I wish I never had-had…" The tears stopped her speech and blocked out her words. She knew what she wanted to say. She wanted to wish that she had never met Julian Sark, never had an affair, never agreed to seduce Kilmer. It was all a lie that had completely backfired on her and hurt her more than it had intended to. She wanted her life to end so badly. It wasn't worth it anymore. If Kilmer and Layla didn't make it back alive, than her life wasn't worth living. She would be living in hell.
She placed her hand on her friend's shoulder, "Vaughn and I will bring Robbie and Layla back. I give you my word. Don't worry, Madison. I will have to hurt anyone that gets in my way." Sydney's voice started to waver as she went over her words. She was getting overly-emotional. She could no longer compartmentalize what was going on. It was too much. The best thing to do was to crash. Was it apparent?
"You're going to have to get over this sooner or later." Sydney observed him, sitting pensively across from her. His green eyes were starring out the dark evening sky. They refused to look anywhere but the glass.
He finally looked away from the private plane's window, "G-d, Syd."
"You have to get over the fact that I'm not Lauren. I will never be Lauren. This is just because you're mad at her. You need to get over it. I'm sorry that you got hurt, that she betrayed you. But, there's nothing I can do about it."
"You did the same thing. You seduced-"
"Those men were something different. I was working-"
"So was she. You and Lauren share that-"
"Don't you dare do this to me, Vaughn. You cannot possibly think that I was working to hurt them. I was doing my job. I wasn't looking to marry them. It was a one night thing. Nothing more than a one night stand. Deal with it, Vaughn. You're going to have to or we can't do our job." She took a sharp inhale and continued, "I'm hoping you can understand that so we can move on from here. Let's just move on."
"Sydney" His tone as soft and somewhat forgiving. He was tired of fighting. It was too much. He hated being mad at her for something she did almost a decade ago. It was her job to seduce those men. If she had said no, Sloane would have killed her. It wouldn't have taken more than a heartbeat for him to call up his assassins and have her murdered. Her choice was a reasonable one. Something in his mind made him want to forgive her. She wasn't Lauren and she was never going to be Lauren. His fight was with her, not with Sydney. He knew he never had to accept her. He loved her the way she was. "Syd, I don't want to do this anymore." He buried his head in his hands.
Her features softened almost instantly, "Good." She wanted to smile but knew that she couldn't. This conversation was too heavy and it was going to go to a dark place.
He sighed softly but she jumped in before he had the opportunity to say anything, "Vaughn, I know that we can't do what we used to. We can't be what we used to be. I just-I don't want to fight with you. If I could take it back, I would. I would take everything I did and say back." She spoke softly and smoothly over the speech she had been practicing since they left the airport nearly six and a half hours ago. "I don't want to fight with you." She shifted around and sat next to him, placing her hand on his arm. "But if you can't understand me, then there will never be an 'us'."
He looked at her with such purity that her breath caught up in her throat. There was something different about that look. He reached up and softly touched her jaw line. The pads of her fingertips ran chills through her spine. The gentle feeling, that old feeling of two years ago, came flooding back. His lips, stained like something of strawberry juice, parted at the touch of her skin beneath his fingers. His other hand reached for hers, which was still resting in her lap. "I want there to be an 'us' again."
She held onto his hand so tightly, she almost thought her hands would break. If she let go, she would lose him. He would disappear into the void. His perfect body would be lost in the endless, black space. There were no words that she could say to make everything okay. Not that it truly mattered that he had accepted her past. She didn't need him to. She didn't want him to.
But he did.
Taking everything else out of the picture, he had finally understood what it was like to look at the mirror through her eyes. He knew about the three men that she had been forced on. There was nothing he didn't know. She was truly naked in front of him. "Michael." She wanted to cry out. She never used his first name unless it was in the most intimate of times. He could only be "Michael" when she was the most vulnerable. 'Vaughn' was his name to her…but 'Michael'… 'Michael' was his name for normal circumstances and there was never such thing as normal.
"Vaughn." She finally was able to whisper. "What are we going to doing?" She leaned into his hand and covered it with her free one.
He leaned forward and pressed his forehead up to hers. "We are surviving in this horrible life the best way we can."
"This is a horrible life." She agreed, pressing closer towards him. She felt his warmth and felt his love pouring through her. "I'm so sick of it."
Vaughn laughed lightly and leaned back, "But you would be so sick of normal."
"I would like to try it once." She sighed wistfully. "Could you even imagine? Living a life that you wouldn't have to worry about being killed every waking moment or have to deal with being tortured….I would just like to try it once."
He looked at her, inhaling her scent deeply, "Speaking off all of this, how are you feeling?"
She picked her head up slightly and angled her head up towards him. "Better" she managed to whisper softly. It was a lie. Her body ached and she felt every bruise and battered part of her. "How are you feeling?"
His hands stared to rub lazy circles against her back, "I've had better days but it'll be okay." He adjusted his arms around her, swallowing her body in his. "Why don't you shut your eyes for a little bit, hmm?"
She nodded her head against his chest and felt her eyes flutter close.
Her brown eyes fluttered open and confusion took over her. Her body was covered in her thick white sheets, curled up to her chin. She was warm and comfortable. She hadn't been this relaxed in a long time. The air was warm as the sunlight flickered through the white drawn curtains. Her body twisted slightly to lay on her stomach and she was greeted with a slightly scruffy face. "Good-morning, Sleeping Beauty." The scruffy face smiled. He reached forward and brushed a stray piece of hair from her eyes. His fingertips lingered slightly on her cheekbone and then rested along the small of her back.
Now she was completely taken off guard but didn't mind it so much. This is what it was suppose to be like. Everything else had been a horrible nightmare. She was in his arms, "How long have you been awake?"
He grinned slightly and planted a kiss on her forehead, "I don't know. I lost track of time." He laughed, filling the decreasing space between them. "I was watching you sleep, honey."
"You were watching me sleep?" She crinkled her nose as she laughed. She curled closer and found herself lying practically beneath his chest. Both of them were still on their stomachs and the warmth from their bodies spread throughout the room.
"Yes, yes I was." He admitted, refusing to sound guilty.
She laughed again and pressed a feather light kiss against the underside of his chin. It was the only spot that she could reach. "I love you. You know that, right?"
"Nothing can ever take you away from me." Vaughn whispered hoarsely.
"Except me." A dark voice came from behind them, causing both of them to flip over. Kilmer was standing at the end of the bed, dressed in his black suit. His eyes were unusually dark and solemn. "You know I still love you, Sydney. I'm willing to leave Madison for you. She cheated on me. You can have me back, Sydney. Just say the word."
"I'm happy with Vaughn. Really, I am." Sydney flipped over on her back and sat up violently. She clutched the comforter to her exposed chest.
"You would be so happy with me, Sydney. I don't understand why you can't see that. Can't you see that I'm falling in love with you all over again?" He started to beg, his voice dropping low. "Why won't you be with me?"
She started to cry, the clear pearl tears started to drip down her face, "I can't. I won't break up your family. I love Vaughn, Kilmer. I really do love him.."
Kilmer drew his eyes closed and spoke softly, "I wish you hadn't said that." And without another word, he raised his arm straight out in front of him. His muscular hands held a gleaming silver gun. The peacefulness of the evening was interrupted as six silver bullets shot through the air, embedding themselves-
Sydney's eyes opened quickly and she shot straight up, gasping for air. Her chest heaved for air and it felt as though her lungs would collapse at any moment. There was little oxygen going to her brain and she honestly thought she was going to pass out at any moment.
"Syd! Syd!" Vaughn was sitting straight up with her, woken earlier from his sleep. His hands were clasped around her, trying to settle her screams. They were still in the safety of the airplane but her mind was racking with the dream that she had just experienced. She had felt the gunshots, felt the blood pool on her body. "Are you alright, baby?" He pulled her closer and she felt herself being pulled beneath his collarbone. Savagely, she gripped his tee-shirt and sobbed mercilessly into it. "Come on, baby. You're scaring me." He pressed a kiss into the crown of her hair. "Come on, baby. Come on."
"I love you too much. It's killing me. It's killing me." She wept, the emotions burning like acid throughout her body. "I'm poison. You can't touch me. It'll kill you." She wrenched away from him and collapsed onto the floor, huddling in the fetal position. "I'll kill you. You can't love me. You just can't."
Horrified and helpless, Vaughn sank down to the floor beside her. He reached his hands out to touch her but she moved away again. "Sydney, please. Everything will be okay. Really. I promise. Nothing's going to happen to me and nothing's going to happen to you." Gingerly, he moved towards her again and swallowed her into his arms, allowing her to cry until she succumbed to sleep once again. He reached his head back and rested against the tan leather seats, starring at the ceiling, asking G-d why he was punished her so much.
Okay, I have major, major writer's block. I'd really appreciate any ideas! I'm sorry that it's been so long but my computer crashed and I was forced to wait until it was fixed to update!
So you get to make the decision now….do you want to see the detailed interrogations of each of the detainees…the exchange….have the exchanged blown and another mission take place…sugar coat the exchange and just work on the fluff….just concentrate on the fluff and finally resolve the tension in the little triangles I have created…..take your pick…it's up to you!!!!!