5
Finding in a folder not only an entire identity for herself, but one for him as well, is a dream come true for her. They're real people now, with credit histories and degrees and families (dead now, but they "existed" at some point or another.) He is a random skid. She has a purpose. She once existed.
She shrugs noncommittally as she memorizes the address of her personality's London flat. "She used to work for them," and she does not say who they are. "And now she's under their," another they, he doesn't care, "control, but she supposedly has all sorts of intel hidden all over. I am a dead ringer for her, too."
Honey-colored locks that swing in the sunlight and flip at the tips, her expression hidden by designer shades. She is exquisite, walks as though she has not a care in the world, head held high. For a moment, he has her back.
The jet from Norway to London takes just over two hours to deliver them safely. She saunters through the terminal as though she owns it, hair bouncing, tossing dazzling smiles at hapless passersby who know not the power she possesses. Their luggage- several suitcases that they had not checked in themselves, all Louis Vuitton and identified as belonging to them in their respective handwriting- are lovingly handled by porters tripping over themselves to help the pretty young woman with a luminous quality. She steps to the curb and raises a graceful hand that sends five cabs screeching to a halt. It's eerie.
They are quiet on their way to the penthouse in the West End of London they've never seen, but the doorman is obviously thrilled to see her, handling the luggage as the caramelized woman glides through the opulent lobby to a bank of elevators. He trails behind her, noting how in this incarnation she walks the same as Sydney.
To call the penthouse luxurious would be an understatement. The very walls whisper of class and elegance and she was delighted. This is the kind of home she'd grown up in, he can recall, because she grew up in a big house with maids and nannies and it was the kind of place where one put something back the minute one stopped using it (something he'd never been able to master: not in the home, because his mother wasn't that manic; not in his personal life, because he could never leave well enough alone).
She flits from one room to the next. Gorgeous heavy furniture in the living room; ornate dining room; modern kitchen; Grecian bathrooms; fantastic bedrooms. The closet is full of couture and walk-in and is so organized he wonders what kind of life, exactly, the woman that she's supposed to be led.
In the bedroom is a jewelry box, and in it are dozens of trinkets- Tiffany's and Cartier and Piaget and Harry Winston and Rolex and a thin silver chain with a large diamond "J" dangling from it. She fingers it absently.
It's six days before Christmas, he realizes, and she drops the necklace back into the box goes into the kitchen to search for something to eat because the continental breakfast they offered on the plane wasn't palatable to her majesty's discerning taste. While she's searching the cupboards and refrigerator, he notices that the woman who lived here has no personal decorations at all- just photographs and paintings of landscapes and, how fascinating she is, this mystery woman, this Julia Thorne that she is pretending to be.
She calls out that there's nothing in the kitchen and that they're going to need to go to get some food, does he want to come with her? Certainly. They go downstairs and one of the doormen run to go and fetch her car- a steel grey Jaguar- and they make a lovely couple.
The market they wind up at is small and overpriced with expensive items the woman he loved would've laughed at. Instead she buys prosciutto and San Pellegrino water without batting an eye. "Lobster for dinner?" she asks casually, and he wonders if she realizes that neither of them can cook.
She eschews the lobster idea in favor of handmade pasta and bottled sauce, which is within the realm of reality since they can both boil water. He has a limited concept of pounds, but when they check out he's left with the unsettling feeling that they've spent too much.
Even more disconcerting is how she signs her name with her left hand.
"When did you become ambidextrous?" he asks casually on their way home as she drives on the wrong side of the street with ease. She handles the stick shift with her left hand effortlessly.
She doesn't look at him. "Hm?" she asks distractedly, so he repeats, with infinite patience, "When did you become ambidextrous?"
"What?" she looks at her hands on the steering wheel. She shrugs, her nose wrinkling.
"You signed the check with your left hand in the store."
She pauses before nodding. "Yes. I did."
"Why?"
She shakes her head slowly. "I don't know."
She turns on the radio after a few seconds of silence.
There are a few days of grace for the holidays that she forgets about until the last minute. Christmas in London, once she remembers it, excites her, and she drags him along to shop and soak in the atmosphere.
Four days before Christmas is crisp and clean and they walk down the snowy streets and promise they'll only buy each other one gift when they separate at Harrods. It is the first time they have separated willingly since they found one another again (a euphemism he uses, squashing all other explanations in his mind) and he takes his time. He meanders around the six levels of the famous department store, ignoring the jewelry counters (she's got plenty, he reasons) and the clothes (he has seen her closet). He winds up in the book department.
He wonders what he would've bought for Sydney under normal circumstances.
The book department, he knows, is a good place to find a gift for someone who has a degree in English. He scans titles, realizing he doesn't even know what kinds of books she likes to read. Romances? Historic fiction? Mysteries? He's sure she's read all of the classics.
He doesn't believe in biographies.
He finds himself in the children's section. He trails his fingers over the spines of the books slowly before arriving at a colorful one with a well-known title.
Yes, this is what he will buy her.
After he purchased The Wizard of Oz using his brand-new checking account, he proceeds to the designated rendezvous point and waits for her to come back. He's slowly becoming used to her as a blonde- he adapts quickly now- and he muses wryly to himself that now she's what he used to consider his type and he misses her long brown hair more than anything.
He cannot help peering through the crowds searching for her tall, immaculately clad form striding forward as though with a purpose. He hopes her new unlimited cash resource hasn't gone to her head and that her gift for him is reasonable- and he might have to injure her if she shows up with a bag marked "Rolex" somewhere. He is wondering just how he could hurt her when she shows up, her eyes watering and he is hit with the full force of just how delicate Sydney Bristow really is.
She doesn't want to be comforted, whatever had happened, and she pastes on a brave smile and grips at his hand. "Home?" she says tremulously, and he agrees wordlessly, hoping she will explain.
"Damn song," she says in the car, wiping at her eyes as he drives. "I always hated it- but then they played it in the store- God. I broke down crying looking at gloves. I was holding a pair of black gloves and crying. It was absolutely pathetic."
In a spurt of courage he asks, "What song?"
"'Have yourself a merry little Christmas'. All I could think was- we'll never get it back, will we? Next year we aren't going to be home, and the next, and the next. We're making it through- but we're not going home, we aren't going to be able to spend Christmas with them."
They don't usually speak of this. They make a point of not speaking about this.
"No," he says simply, not looking at her. "We're not."
She turns in her seat to face him, leaning her head back, her hand extended to rest on his knee. "But we'll be together, won't we?"
He doesn't make promises he can't keep. He tries not to, anyway.
He squeezes her hand in response.
He finds he cannot sleep in the cloud that Julia Thorne must once have called her bed. The feather mattress is just too much. He doesn't complain, however, and lies there next to her, listening to her even breathing.
She wants to call her father. She mentioned it on the way home after the musical fiasco, how she would do anything just to call him and hear him answer the phone with his gruff bark of their last name.
He can relate to that. He wonders about his mother now in the darkness, wondering what she's been told. He wonders if they told her that he was dead, that another man of her life had been lost to duty, or if they told her the truth: your son was crazy in love and ran off without a second thought to anyone else. Your son doesn't love you enough to call you or make sure that you have someone to look after you.
He comforts himself by listening to her breathe. Even, calming, steady. She's facing away from him, sprawled on her stomach, the skin of her back gleaming in moonlight from where it peeks out from under the comforter. She had pulled her hair back into a messy ponytail, strands of sunlight streaming over the pillow. Just as he has matched his breathing to hers, she sighs and then it stops.
And she has left him again.
He has never been more certain of anything in his life. She has died again, and now he was alone, living in this palace of insane wealth that belongs to some woman he doesn't even know. She is gone again.
He reaches out to touch her, and he realizes his hand is shaking. Smooth skin beneath his fingertips, warm with fleeting life.
"Syd," he says hoarsely to Julia's body. "Syd."
A grunt, and she turns to face him. "Vaughn?" she mumbles, and it is Sydney's eyes he sees. She snaps into wakefulness. "Are you all right?" Her eyes, the eyes that haven't changed yet, search him for injury. When she finds none, she wordlessly opens her arms and embraces him to her, smelling like she always has, comforting and alive.
No. He's not all right.
She is not gone.
The purple button doesn't bite. Honest.