READ YOUR MIND
A/N (PLEASE READ!): Hi, everyone. This is my first story I've written, and, well, I really don't want to continue if I don't get any feedback. I'll update as much as I can, but don't expect daily updates. The story got its title because in the story, Vaughn tends to think out loud, and people tend to answer him. There are some characters from West Wing in here too, but not to the extreme that there are West Wing storylines. They simply help my story about Alias move along more smoothly. I don't own West Wing, and I certainly don't own Alias. Just the DVDs. This story is from Vaughn's POV unless otherwise noted.
Thank you and enjoy!
Chapter 1: Escapism
"Vaughn, it's been 6 months now. You have to stop doing this to yourself."
"Weiss, don't. Don't even start with me tonight. This is my life."
And so started another night with my current best friends, Jack Daniels, and his twin brother, Jack Daniels. I know I shouldn't drink. I've seen what it can do to people. I mean, let's face it: Alcohol couldn't have done Jack Bristow any good, either. But it's a form of escapism. Escaping from my job. Escaping from the world.
Escaping from her memory.
God, everything about her just haunts me. The eyes. The smile. The lips. The intelligence, the strength, the laugh, don't even get me started. I loved her so much.
I was going to marry that woman. I was going to be able to brag that Sydney was my wife, possibly the mother of my future children.
And then she died.
I've always been a firm believer in the thought that everything happens for a reason. But what was the reason behind her death? I mean, yeah, she had killed people, but that was in self-defense. She had just gotten her life back, for God's sake.
And someone had to take it all away. Someone took her life that balmy night in May.
That same person took my life that balmy night in May.
I've been on a leave of absence from the CIA for the past 6 months now. The job doesn't hold the same appeal it once did; the occasional smile from across the boardroom table, the intermittent handholding under the table, the inadvertent dinners in different countries when a mission was over. And now Weiss was calling me in for a new job.
"Vaughn, Kendall is calling you in. Get yourself cleaned up and get over here."
"Weiss, don't you get it?! I'm done! Over! I have no reason to come!"
"I'm coming over there whether you like it or not. We're going to D.C. tonight. Something about working in the White House to protect President Bartlett. You know, see your other aunt? Aunt CJ?"
"Fine. Whatever. I'll drive over in a minute."
"No. I'm picking you up. You're slurring as it is, there is no way that I'm going to come pick your remains off of the highway when you inevitably have an accident."
And so it began. The first mission without her.
Boy, was I ever wrong.