"This was not anticipated."
Lounging at home, relaxing in his dress pants and a v-neck white undershirt, Jack didn't even turn. "Was it?" he questioned, the hint of an unreadable smile on his face.
In response, she fully stepped into the room. Her powerful presence seemingly dimmed the already muted lights.
"You know what I am going to ask," Jack said, finally deigning to rest his eyes on her.
She crossed her arms against her chest, studying him with frank curiosity. It was as though she had never been asked a favor before, and wanted to memorize every detail of such an oddity.
Jack waited patiently.
"You wish to know what my sister is concocting," she answered upon finishing her scrutiny.
He inclined his head in an abbreviated salute.
"I fail to see my gainings in this endeavor," she dismissed. "Why would I help you, Jack Bristow?"
This time, his smile was one of cool triumph. Despite her seeming refusal, the woman's eyes gleamed with undeniable interest. He rose, moving to stand on front of her.
"Because, Yekaterina," he drawled. "Isn't this what family is for?"
"That was not the first time I've been caught," Vaughn told the psychiatrist, the words just spilling out. "I… you've read my file, I'm guessing, you probably know that."
In response, Judy shifted in her chair, making herself more comfortable to listen to him for as long as he wanted to talk.
"And I put myself in that situation, this time," he continued. "I, uh - " he tried to pull himself up a little, not enjoying conversing while flat on his back. But his body was stiff from Sloane's encouraged nap, and he couldn't help a wince.
"Might not be a good idea," Barnett mused, staying nonjudgmental. He sighed but forced himself to relax.
"Yeah," he sighed. "Um, anyway… I mean, I didn't know exactly what would happen, but I wasn't anticipating returning to Sloane to be pleasant."
She nodded again, inwardly pleased at his willingness to talk to her. Very good sign, that. Worth a test. Vaughn, still determined to assert himself, took advantage of the break in conversation to carefully lift the water bottle from the nighttable by his bedside and take a drink. He couldn't help feelings of quiet pride as he did so. His strength was growing.
"Michael, I'm going to ask you three questions, but I don't want you to answer them right away, all right?" Barnett reached over, helping him return the water bottle to the table once more with her free hand. Whatever strength he had depleted quickly, dissipating as though he had never had it.
He paused, confused. That seemed to be his perpetual state of emotion these days. "All right," he answered.
She let go of his hand, deliberately changing from concerned confidant to professional colleague. Vaughn straightened unconsciously in reaction.
"The first is, do you blame yourself for what happened to you?" she inquired.
He cocked his head, mouth opening in automatic denial… before closing it wordlessly. Was that because he remembered he wasn't supposed to answer or another, more serious reason?
"The second?" he asked, voice and eyes neutral.
"Did he break you?" she asked. "Did he win? I'm not talking about an overwhelming moment. You didn't even have to say anything to him. But was there a time, however brief while you were tortured, that you gave in? That you would have done or said anything to make the pain go away?"
He closed his eyes and looked away, hands clenching into fists.
"Last one," Barnett continued, forcing herself to pronounce the words. "If Agent Bristow and your mother had been taken with you and Sloane - or whoever tortured you - actually hurt one of them instead and forced you to choose and watch, who would you have chosen?"
His head snapped back to her, green eyes wide with horror and disbelief. "What?"
Unnoticed by both of them, Amélie lodged herself just outside the door.
"You heard me, Michael," Barnett said quietly. "Who would you have allowed Sloane to torture? Sydney? She's a strong woman. She could probably have handled it. But she's also the woman you love, even the lowest Agency clerk knows that. So would have you have chosen your mother then?"
His breath caught at the thought. "Stop - "
"By then she would have known your secret," Barnett continued, sensing that she had found a trigger point. "She would have learned it in the worst way possible. Would she have condemned you for that? Would you choose to have your mother tortured to silence her resentment?"
Tears filled his eyes again as he shook his head in helpless denial. Every inch of him wanted nothing more than to flee from both her and her questions, but he didn't even have the strength to sit up at the minute. She had him trapped.
In the hallway, Amélie covered her mouth, nearly bent over in horror.
"Their favorite method was lashing you with a strap," Barnett mused out loud. "Can you picture watching them hit - "
"Stop," he interrupted. Or perhaps pleaded, he honestly didn't notice. His breathing sped up almost as dramatically as his heart rate, the beeping acting as a crescendo to his breaking point. His body shook uncontrollably.
Other victims of PTSD had the luxury of time. Despite her earlier words, the only way Vaughn would find the same privilege was by retiring and even then, it was doubtful the Agency would leave him be. Such was the cost of life in Intelligence.
"'Picture' is the wrong word," she said, all but choking the words out. "Can you hear - "
"Stop!" he exploded, turning away from her again and curling up into a ball as much as he could to shield himself. Why was she doing this?
Barnett bowed her head. That was enough. "Agent Vaughn," she murmured to him. Very, very gently, she reached over and rested a hand on his trembling shoulder. His breath hitched and caught, the flight/fight/freeze impulses of PTSD canceling each other out. Try as he might, he couldn't breathe. Green eyes wide with alarm, he struggled desperately.
But it was just too much. The imagery invaded his brain even as oxygen left it. The tube in his nose was only light help, after all, and part of him didn't care what happened to him as long as the mere thoughts of his mother and Sydney in pain coursing through his mind disappeared.
Judy shot to her feet, one hand slapping a button to notify David while the other one remained on his shoulder. "Michael, calm down," she urged him softly. "Calm down. It isn't real. You know it isn't real. Let yourself relax."
But his struggles continued, the bed shaking as he fought both to breathe and not breathe. One hand rested on top of his heart. If it was at all possible, he could feel it splitting apart. Literally. He was also drenched in sweat.
Groaning, he curled himself up even tighter, ignoring the pain that caused.
Enough waiting. Amélie bolted into the room. Barnett glanced at her, absently wondering how long she'd been listening, but that was hardly important right now.
"Vous allez bien, Michel. Elle va bien. Je suis très bien," Vaughn's mother soothed, bodily moving the American woman aside. ("You are fine, Michael. She is fine. I am very fine.")
Dr. Matthews arrived shortly afterwards, out of breath. "Michael, that's enough. Relax," he ordered Vaughn gruffly, dialing up the IV. "You're not helping yourself, kid."
The doctor leaned over and took him by the shoulders, forcing him to uncurl and lay flat as he replaced the mask over his nose and mouth. With the oxygen now unavoidable, Vaughn's breathing returned to something resembling normal. But agony continued to course through him and he again doubled over, hand returning to rest over his heart.
David sighed. Careful to keep his actions out of Vaughn's line of sight, he fed enough of an additional sedative into the IV line to speed things up. Gripping his hand with one of hers, Amélie rested her other hand on his forehead as her son finally stilled.
"What the hell was that?" Eric Weiss demanded. She jumped, having not even noticed the man.
"Anxiety attack. These are common," David answered, glancing at Judy. She looked back at him wordlessly, lips compressed into a thin line. "Do you concur, Dr. Barnett?"
She bristled at the insinuation in his voice. "You help him your way, David, and I'll help him mine."
He sighed, glancing at a livid Amélie and a very worried Weiss. "I don't want to question your methods, Judy, but I wonder if that was a case of too much, too soon. When I help a patient, I usually don't almost give him a heart attack!"
Weiss watched them both closely, head swiveling back and forth.
"No, you drug him into a stupor," she shot back, offended that the other man put such little confidence into her skills. "You can't keep doing that, Dr. Matthews. He needs to face - "
"I know a little about the PTSD monster," David returned dryly. "He hasn't even been officially diagnosed yet. Would you rather I made him stay awake and damage himself further?"
Judy shook her head. "I'm going back to my office," she acquiesced, knowing she was going to lose no matter what she said. "I'll continue this later."
"You most certainly will not!" Amélie exclaimed.
Judy raised her head, her gaze kind as she studied Vaughn's beleaguered mother. "I will," she replied quietly. "I have to."
And then she left. Amélie wasted no time, appealing to David as he tended to her son. For once, Vaughn hadn't ripped anything open. Weiss leaned against the doorframe, feeling like an intruder but not able to tear himself away.
"Médecin Matthews, surely you can do something to make sure she doesn't - "
He held up a finger. Wait. Concentrating intently, he leaned over Vaughn and rubbed the butt of his stethoscope out of habit before resting it in place, meticulously comparing what he heard there to what he saw on the monitor.
"He'll be fine," David muttered, ruffling the kid's hair before he replaced the metal tool around his neck and looked up at her. "And Madame, she's right."
"What? But you just said - "
"Well, I'm right too," David replied. "But Judy is a pro. Known her for a long time. What she has to do sometimes is brutal, but she has to. It's part of her job." He hesitated, but knew she had to hear it. "And in a case like this, it's Michael's job, too."
Julian Sark never failed at anything.
Granted, his employers of past and present could not boast such perfection. But he, a man following orders, was hardly responsible for that. His record - and reputation - remained utterly flawless.
Therefore, he had never before experienced the feelings running through his body. There was a knot in his stomach, one so tight that it seemed it had folded in on itself, twice. Another similarly odd sensation desired to root his feet to the floor, making every step almost impossible.
For the first time in his young life, he had truly, utterly, undeniably failed.
Sydney Bristow had disappeared.
He didn't smile. Didn't greet her. Didn't rise when she entered. Didn't even look at her. Instead, he crossed his arms and stared right over her head. "Well?"
Lauren bit her tongue. It would do no good to get demoted. "I spoke to the doctor," she began. "He assures me that he is following our instructions. That combined with what I am administering to Agent Vaughn myself will ensure that any statements he gives regarding me or you will be questionable."
"Excellent," Lindsey approved, finally meeting her eyes. "You cannot be exposed, and Agent Vaughn could do so with just two words. This makes certain his unreliability to any superior."
She pasted a smile on her face. "Indeed." Forgive me, Michael.
He rolled his eyes, able to see her unease in the way she crossed her arms over her chest. "I promise you, Lauren, that the precious agent under your obvious fancy - isn't that how you would say it? - will not suffer any major effects. If anything, American protocol dictates he'll be handled with kid gloves. There's no need for guilt."
She forced herself to dangle her arms at her sides, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I know," she ground out, casting her eyes to the floor. "And I know you're only arranging this to help me. Thank you."
Only then did he rise. Lauren stiffened, fighting back disgust as the NSC Director stepped over to her and grasped her chin in his hand, lifting her head up to face him.
"And don't you forget it," he hissed, leaning so close their noses touched. "I can just as easily turn things around, hmm?"
With a snort of amusement he released her, stepping past decisively and leaving her alone.
You'll pay for that, she vowed. She'd tear the man apart herself if she had to. She took a moment, squaring her shoulders and steadying her breathing, before turning and leaving the room as well.
"Will!"
He raised his head at Elsa's whispered summons, surprised out of his ponderings.
Not wanting to to interfere, Will had leaned against the doorframe, staying well out of the way of both the family inside, and the guards keeping a protective watch.
But both parents beckoned him forward, removing some of their precious attention from the son and focusing on him. He could hardly refuse after such a gesture.
"Hey," he greeted awkwardly. Elsa responded with a warm, understanding smile. Neil, not as familiar with the other man, still mustered up a slight nod in response.
"Mr. Will!"
Startled, his blue eyes flashed to the bed. Aaron giggled, trying to sit up, though his father immediately rested a hand on the boy's stomach and pressed him back down.
"Chill there, buster," Neil drawled.
Color flooded back into the Aaron's cheeks, the brief time of stasis relinquishing its hold on the youngster.
"You gave us all a scare," Elsa added, scolding lightly. She reached over, covering his tiny hand with her own.
Aaron scowled. The room hummed in tandem with his returning energy.
"It wasn't my fault!" the boy protested.
And there it was. Will jerked as if physically struck, shame clogging his sinuses.
"It was a big 'bider!" Aaron concluded, unknowingly absolving 'Mr. Will's' misplaced guilt.
"I was about your age when I was diagnosed with PTSD."
Vaughn woke slowly. His tongue felt like a solid mass of cloth, and the rest of him was hardly any better. He didn't have the strength to blink, let alone turn his head towards the speaker.
"I was a hotshot agent then, and was often paired with people that were my polar opposites as a result. Didn't work all the time, and I have the scars to prove it. But even when I got nabbed, I could shrug it off. Just doing my duty, you know? And I was always pulled out anyway."
Gentle hands removed the oxygen mask and the water bottle was held to his lips. Vaughn started, but drank greedily.
"But then I accepted a mission with a fellow agent that I had always admired. Easy enough. Except it wasn't. We got caught, and I can still hear him screaming. Every night. He died right in front of me, and the only thing I could do was watch."
David pulled the water away and replaced Vaughn's oxygen mask, sinking back down into the chair beside his bed. Vaughn shook his head, hands playing lightly at the blankets as he worked to awaken fully. His eyes felt like they were glued shut.
"He had a family. I didn't have that. Still don't, in fact. And I would beg her to take me instead of him because of that. But she never listened. She seemed to take pleasure in that, if at all possible. And he wouldn't have let her take me even if she agreed. That wasn't the kind of man he was."
David ran a hand through his hair, exhausted.
"The first step is denial," he continued. "Mine was supplemented with alcohol. But the last step, kid - the last step is acceptance. It took me almost a decade to forgive myself for his death. There was nothing I could have done, as much as it angered me to realize that. And once that was done, it took me another five years to move on."
Someone coughed discreetly at the door. David looked up, relaxing again when he recognized Jack. Vaughn managed to force his eyes open just in time to see the two of them exchange glances of familiarity. Whatever the doctor was talking about, Jack knew about it.
"When Jack told me about you, I couldn't stay away. I may have acknowledged PTSD as part of my existence, but it would be rather silly to purposely mesh with people that went through experiences similar to mine. But he was very insistent that you get the best. That would be me, of course."
Vaughn raised an eyebrow of surprise at that. Jack gazed back at him unreadably.
"And that's the end of story hour," David said, amused in spite of himself at those two. "Get some rest. I'll be back later."
He rose, shedding weight in the process. It was almost as though long-existent chains crashed to the floor when he stood.
"Wait," Vaughn stammered, voice as uneven as a boy enduring puberty. He was weak, but he wasn't an idiot. David's story -
"He had a family?"
David paused in midstep, not trusting himself to turn around. Jack remained silent.
"A wife and a son."
And then the two older men were gone, leaving Vaughn alone.
No feedback responses this time, sorry! I have a huuuge midterm tomorrow, so I wanted to hurry and post this for y'all first. Wish me luck, and thanks so much for your kind and helpful words!