BOUNCING VAUGHN
PART THREE: FIVE ACES.
Disclaimer: Not mine; never will. Except for those guys you don't recognize. I wouldn't mind if I had Vaughn for one day, though.
Please Read and Review, no matter how bad or how good, just let me know what you think.
"What you mean 'we have a problem'?" Sydney asked his father, who was surprisingly worried.
"He was supposed to go to the Operations Center one hour after his plane landed. He never did." Jack was about to add something else when Sydney cut him off.
"Why wasn't I told he was missing?" Sydney didn't have as much patience as her father thought. "He's been missing for days and you didn't tell me???"
"Sydney!" Her father practically yelled her name. He needed her to listen to him, what he was about to tell her was very important.
"Sydney," He continued once she directed her gaze to him. "Don't be naïve. We didn't call you because it would've ruined your cover with SD-6. Sloane would have known you were a double agent the second your phone rang. You have a mission more important than everything else, more important than a few casualties."
Sydney couldn't believe her ears. "This is the same man who risked everything in order to get the serum that would save Vaughn? Is this the same guy who told me, and I'm quoting here, 'We can't lose Vaughn'?" Her anger was visible in her eyes. "I can't believe you, dad. You know damn well how important Vaughn's been in all this. Now, tell me what the CIA's doing to retrieve Vaughn." She stopped when she noticed her father was avoiding her eyes. "Why do I think there's more?"
Jack still had his eyes glued to the floor, but when he heard his daughter's question. He knew what he was about to say was going to shatter her, to break the little certainty she had in who really were the good guys.
Leon got home and took off her clothes. She spent sometime in the bathtub. She felt like she needed to relax. She needed to concentrate on Vaughn's ordeal. She needed to have a clear mind if she was going to play Leon: International Girl of Mystery.
After her bath, Leon wrapped herself in a towel before stepping into her bathrobe. She went to the living room and checked her phone messages. One of them said just one phrase: Five Aces Golf Resort. She knew what that meant and she instantly went to her bedroom and grabbed her laptop.
She brought the laptop with her to the living room and put the computer on the coffee table. She opened it and checked her e-mails. She went straight to the Junk mail, and opened one by one, trying to decode which one had her new mission encrypted in one of those emails.
Ten minutes later, she screamed "Bingo!" as she found what she was looking for. She opened the email, a free screen savers add, and she did her trick to decipher what was it about. She winced when she learned it.
Nick was trying not to disturb Vaughn. He'd finally reached a peaceful sleep and Nick was pleased for that. He had been next to the mattress that passed as a bed, virtually all the time Leon'd been gone; checking every now and then Vaughn's vitals.
He felt the click of the door and knew that Leon was back. Nick took a look at Vaughn and went to Leon.
"Wilma!" He greeted her.
"Hi, Fred." She said casually. "How's Pebbles?" Nick knew she meant Vaughn.
"Sleeping. Let me tell ya, I saw Pebbles making out with Bam-Bam behind Dino's house."
"You're joking." She said. "I take it he's doing much better." A smirk breeding in her face. "Is he?" She worried when she saw Nick's face change.
"Yes and no" Nick responded. "He finally fell asleep, not because of the drugs, but because of him."
"But."
"His fever's still there. It goes down but only for a second. I'm afraid of secondary effects."
"What- what you mean?"
"I can give him stronger antibiotics, bring the fever down, but I could also worsen his condition with these antibiotics, because in some cases, depending on the patient's state, they could cause bleeding or anemia; and that's the last thing he needs right now. I need a controlled environment, somewhere I can treat him for everything and be prepared for everything."
"We can't take him to a hospital." She shook her head.
"I know this guy in the Bronx, he could get ev-"
"I said NO!" Nick pursed his lips. Leon realized she had yelled her last word and grabbed Nick by his arm, pulling him away from Vaughn. Sleeping or not, she didn't want to tell him what she discovered in front of Vaughn.
"I know we're not doing him any good by refusing to take him to the doctor he desperately needs, but we would make it worse if we do."
"I know that, it's just."
"No, you don't. You have no idea, trust me." She interrupted her friend.
"What are you talking about?"
"I discovered who's wanting to kill Vaughn."
That statement made Nick looked at her blue eyes. "You did?" She nodded. He was thrilled to know that the mystery enemies had a face and that meant Leon could take them down and Vaughn wouldn't have to die on him. "Who?"
"Me." She firmly told her friend. She was hugging herself, the way she always did when she was dogged about something, the way that scared the hell out of him. He discerned that because he knew her so well.
/ Back in LA, Sydney couldn't believe what her father had told her just moments before. Her mouth was opened and she was trying to make out words, but her voice wasn't helping her. She couldn't imagine Vaughn's lifeless body. She dropped heavily over a chair and held her father's gaze silently asking him for an explanation.
Jack couldn't believe it himself. How could he explain his daughter if he didn't believe it either? He took a deep breath and started talking.
"Sydney, Agent Vaughn's been scheduled to be 'eliminated'." He couldn't meet her eyes.
"Eliminated?" Sydney quizzed her father, still not totally finding her voice.
"What? You? What can you possible be talking about?" She asked after regaining her self-control.
"There's an order: kill Vaughn if he's seen." He finally met her eyes.
"Who wants to kill him?"
"We do."
"WHAT????" She got up. "We who?" Realization came to her. "You're telling me the CIA wants Vaughn dead?" Jack nodded. "Why? Wait a minute. I have to be the one who kills him?" She was past logic.
"NO!!" Jack put his hand in his pockets. "They don't want you to do it. Your job is to sabotage every mission you have at SD-6, stop them from getting classified information and stealing secrets. Why do you think they would use you for something like this?"
"Then, who do they want?"
"Me." She gasped when she meet her father's cold glance. He noticed Sydney's reaction and he tried to explain her. "Sydney," He said in a comforting voice. "There's a group of. 'operatives' under the CIA payroll whose job is to take down possible threats that can't be deal with regular or standard procedures. Nobody knows about them, and if they're caught they have to deny they work for the agency the same time the agency has to deny any knowledge about them. They're spread around the world, they supposed to be unnoticed."
"You mean assassins?" Sydney asked again.
"Yeah, you can call them like that." Jack said in an even voice.
"And you're one of them. You've been ordered to kill Vaughn." She didn't ask.
Jacks waited a minute before answering. "Yes."
"But I thought American intelligence didn't commit murder." Syd repeat the words she heard some other time.
"We do when we have to."
"This shit again???" Nick threw his arms in the air and got the furthest away he could. "You can't go around killing people like that!!! It's NOT healthy!" He was hyperventilating. Maybe having a flashback.
"Nick, look- look at me!" When she got his attention she continued. "I'm gonna pretend I haven't seen Vaughn. No one else knows we keep in touch. And no one needs to know. I'm gonna find out why they want him dead. But until then, I need your help. I need you to concentrate!"
"Okay." Nick mumbled. "Okay. What do you want me to do?"
"I need you to stay here and take care of him while I'm gone. Do not leave the building until I say so. Do not try to contact me in any way." He was starting to protest, but she didn't give him the chance to. "I know you're a good hacker, but the CIA is good too. Normally, they wouldn't pay attention to my emails and phone calls unless they were out of the ordinary, but right now I have them on my back and it'll be like that until they have Vaughn's head. The surveillance in my place's been tightened up. It took me forever to get here." She came closer to him, trying to appease him. She didn't want Nick to freak out in a crucial moment.
"Nick, are we clear?" She knew he'd listened every single word, but she waited for his affirmation. He looked up at her. She could see his comprehension in his brown eyes. "It's going to be alright. I won't let anything happen to any of you, you know that? I promised I would keep you safe once, and I'm promising again. I know it's been a bitch, the life I've forced you to live, but you know I did that to keep you alive. I know sometimes you wish you could go back home and take back your old life when nothing mattered, when you were submerged in your books and weird experiments. I wish I could give it all back to you, I wish I wasn't the root of all your problems, but I AM. And I'm sorry for that. And that's why I'm going to do everything in my power to keep you out of trouble." She paused a moment and looked again to his eyes wanting him to know that she was for real. "Do you believe me?" She had a hold of his shoulders.
"You're the only thing I believe in." They could see their emotions in each other's eyes. They could read the other the way they read an open book. They embraced each other, a way to tell themselves they were there if they were needed.
Leon disengaged herself from Nick's arms and left.
"I'm going to pretend I'm on alert in case Vaughn shows up in town. They don't need to be aware he's already here." She said in her way out.
"Be careful" Nick yelled after her.
"As always, baby." She smiled. Nick couldn't see her smiling, but he knew she was.
He smiled himself.
In LA, Sydney couldn't concentrate on her job. She was assigned by SD-6 to go to South Africa to do something she didn't remember. Lucky her, her father was at the briefing and made sure he told her everything all over again.
More lucky, given the fact that his father had self-appointed as her handler, and she could keep on discussing the details to prevent Vaughn's execution.
They met again at the warehouse. Jack was already waiting for her when she got there. After telling her what Sloane wanted her to do in South Africa and her counter mission, she asked him about Vaughn.
"Did you get the chance to investigate if it was a bogus order?" She was eager to know.
"The order's still there. No one has retracted. It seems pretty real." He answered his daughter's question but was also running possible scenarios in his mind. It wouldn't be entirely possible that the CIA wanted an important officer who has done nothing than his job out of the picture. Of course, Vaughn had ignored orders before, but it was because he was helping Sydney or Jack himself in a matter of great deal. There had to be another explanation. He scratched the back of his head. "Unless."
"Unless what?" Syd wanted her father to get to the point already. She was tired of running around in circles.
"A mole." He looked up to her. "There must be a mole inside the agency, that's the only reasonable explanation. The CIA probably has no idea of what's going on"
"A mole? SD-6? You think SD-6 knows about Vaughn?
"That doesn't make any sense either." Jack disagreed with Syd. "If Sloane knew about you and Vaughn, he would've killed you two immediately. There was no point on letting you go to London and then back here. You would've been terminated with no mercy at all." He paused and mumbled something else that Sydney caught like 'It has to be us'.
"Dad, shouldn't the CIA director give the approval to something like this? I don't think something this big would be overlooked by the agency."
"It could be, Syd."
"Dad." She was urging him to speak.
"Look, we have this system. We communicated by keywords. Something like your 'Joey's pizza'. We got our orders by emails, Spam, or encoded in the newspaper or a picture in a fake website. We don't get a direct order from our superiors. The director consents it and a tech team encrypts a picture on the things I mentioned and someone let us know when to be prepared. Once we receive the message, we assume the CIA has total knowledge about the situation. We don't ask, we do as we are told." He paused to let Sydney digest everything he just said.
Sydney frowned her face, and all her worries became visible.
"What I'm trying to tell you here Syd, is that someone may have played us. Someone inside the agency with high clearance, enough to know that a group like this exists and enough to know how to put us to work."
"So, if this mole is inside the CIA, he could have sent the message to every operative who works with your group without the CIA knowing about it. Do you guys report to someone?"
"We send an encrypted message after every mission reporting how it went. Sometimes we use words or short sentences. We used 'none' as the subject of our messages when the mission was accomplished and 'Credit card pre- approved' when we failed, which, by the way is not very often."
"Who has access to your 'system'?" Sydney inquired.
"Sydney, it could be anyone. If anyone has the knowledge, it wouldn't be so difficult to post a matter like this in our system. From the woman who serves the coffee to the CIA director, and I don't think he has anything to do with this."
"You're being very helpful, dad."
"I'm meeting with Devlin in an hour. I'm going to tell him about this. I don't think he's our mole, because he seemed truly concerned when he learned about Vaughn's disappearance. He knows who can gain access to the computer system and if that doesn't throw any results, we can always use the tapes of the video cameras or a computer expert to help us to determinate the location from where the file was sent. I heard it's about a virtual fingerprint or something." Jack frowned in confusion.
"What do I do until then?"
"You do your mission as usual, live your life normally." He saw Sydney opening her mouth in protest, but he spoke firmly making her understand the danger of the situation. "Sydney, you can't make up an excuse to get you out of your duties at SD-6 like it were a high school. You can't show up in front of Sloane with a note from your doctor to bail you out of gym class. You won't do agent Vaughn any good dead."
She nodded and he told her that everything was going to be all right. He knew she was concerned about Vaughn, but he couldn't afford to lose her too. He could disguise his feelings of a concerned father to anyone but himself.
Jack left to meet with Devlin and Sydney stayed at the warehouse for a couple of minutes. In there, she thought she saw Vaughn approaching, she smiled, but then realized it was her mind playing tricks. She started sobbing like she never did before.
Vaughn woke up again. And again, he woke up to a confused Nick.
Nick was sitting on a bench in front of the mattress where Vaughn was laying.
"How are you feeling?" He asked.
"Like I've been shot." Vaughn answered. He was trying to sit up, but his pain was making him think otherwise. Once he managed to domain his pain, he looked up to Nick. "Where's Leon?"
"Oh. She was required back at the 'office'" Nick joked. That earned him a small chuckle from Vaughn. "Seriously, how are you feeling?" Nick back on his doctor-mode.
"It hurts like hell, a bit chilly and with a headache the size of Texas."
"That good, huh?" Nick joked again. Then, he reached for the thermometer and inserted it in Vaughn's right ear. "You still have fever, but it's not as bad as it was before. We'll worry if it comes up again, okay?" Vaughn nodded.
Nick continued to check Vaughn's blood pressure, breathing and heartbeats. Then, he proceeded to uncover Vaughn's wound. It was still a little reddish, but not the intense red he had noticed a couple of days back. He smiled to himself content with the work the antibiotics were doing. Vaughn might be not ready to run the marathon, but he was presenting a better semblance.
Vaughn was still pale, and had dark circles around his eyes. He had bloodshot eyes a few bruises on his face and around his lips, result of his high fever. He had stopped shaking and was more coherent. He still didn't have the strength to get up by himself, but Nick knew Vaughn was definitely getting better.
"Now, 'doctor', how am I doing? Am I out of the woods yet?" Vaughn's voice was a little weak and raspy, but had a resemblance to Vaughn's normal voice.
"You could say that, Mr. Vaughn." Nick said while re-bandaging Vaughn's abdomen. "I still would like to run some tests, a blood work, x-rays, but as far as I can tell, you're doing fine." He gave Vaughn a reassuring pat on his shoulder.
"Can I have a glass of water?" Nick nodded and got up to get the water. "How long Leon's been gone?" Vaughn asked after he took a sip.
"Less than 24 hours." Nick said matter of factly.
"What's she doing?"
"She's trying to investigate who wants your name on a tombstone. She said she'd let us know how she's doing."
"I hope she doesn't get herself into trouble." Nick could see Vaughn was genuinely preoccupied for Leon's welfare.
"She knows how to take care of herself. Don't worry about her." Nick told Vaughn, although he was worried about Leon too.
"I can't help it." Vaughn said. "I guess it's my nature."
Nick smiled. "How did you guys meet?"
"It was an accident." Nick frowned and Vaughn decided the kid had done a lot for him and he owed him a least the truth. "We met during her training. I was in training too. We worked together a couple of times, we just hit it off, you know. We were good friends. I was amazed by this little girl who was wise and made you think of an old soul trapped in a young body. I used to call her Tinker bell."
"Tinker bell? That was the fairy godmother. I think you meant to call her Peter Pan."
"No, I didn't. I thought Peter Pan would've been an improper nickname for a girl, so I went with Tinker bell."
"I never heard her mentioning you before. And tells me almost everything. "
"Yeah, well, I'm one of those few things she can't tell you about." Vaughn replied. "We were good friends and maybe we could have been something else, if we were given the time to be. Not when we met, because she was too young, but maybe a few years later. She was transferred to someplace else, and she was caught in this world already, so I figured out it would be better if I just let her go. She didn't need any kind of emotions in her new job, so when I heard she got it, I put distance between us." Vaughn half lied. He didn't want to tell Nick that he and Leon had a history.
"But you kept in touch."
"Yes, I did." Vaughn suddenly found the mattress really interesting. "You will understand with time, young man, that that girl is not easy to forget. She got herself nailed here." Vaughn touched his head with his index finger. ". and here." This time he touched his heart.
"I know what you're talking about." Nick sadly said.
"You like her, don't you?" Vaughn asked the younger man.
"In a platonic way. I mean, it's like be in love with wonder woman. You know you're falling for her, but you can't have her because she's not real. And you move on and find someone else to fall for." Nick met Vaughn's gaze. "I can't get involved in a relationship, because that would give me away. I need to be prepared to run any minute. No stings attached. My 'platonic affection' for Leon is more about need of human contact than a real attraction. A sense of normalcy."
"Tell me about it." Vaughn didn't mean Leon. He empathized with Nick because he was in the same place with Sydney. Almost. The difference was in Vaughn's denial and hunger for a normal life, a normal life he couldn't have with Sydney. And that was stopping him from going for everything Sydney could give him.
Vaughn was getting a little confused. He remembered how much he longed for Leon, and those feelings were getting mixed up with his current unspoken feelings for Sydney. Why he always had to fall for women he couldn't date?
"Earth to Mike. Earth to Mike." Nick was trying to snap Vaughn out of his thoughts. "What was that?" He asked.
"Just thinking." Vaughn replied. "Hey, can I use your bathroom?"
Nick helped Vaughn to the bathroom and left him alone to do what he needed to do. Nick also told Vaughn about a new toothbrush Leon brought the other night, and that he'd have a bowl with water if he needed to clean himself up. But he prohibited any attempt of showering. He said the wound couldn't be moistened.
Vaughn called Nick when he finished brushing his teeth and washing his face. Nick helped him back to bed.
"So, Nicholas," Vaughn wanted to have a distracting conversation. Something to take him out of his problems for a brief period of time. "How long has it been since you're here?"
"Five years." He answered. "And my name is not Nicholas." He added.
"But Leon calls you 'Nick'" Vaughn asked slightly confused.
"Yeah, she does, but 'Nick' is not short for 'Nicholas'" Nick explained. "It's short for Nicanor"
"You were name after." Vaughn found himself interested in this triviality.
"It's a saint." Nick said. "My grandmother was an immigrant from Latin America, and a devoted catholic. She named me after this saint. San Nicanor, she always said. She said he guarded him during her odyssey."
"That's nice." Vaughn said.
"Yeah, I think. I'm not so much a religious person." He looked down. "How about you, Mike?"
"Me neither." Vaughn mimicked Nick and looked down too.
Leon came back to Nick's building twelve hours after Vaughn woke up. She had already been out 24 hours before that. She was wearing a clown costume. That made Nick laughed at her for almost twenty minutes.
"I gotta tell ya, this time is much better than your last attempt of being a clown." He said when he saw some bird's crap on her shirt.
Leon was fuming. She shot him a glance that made him suppress his laughter. But when she turned her back at him, he couldn't help it and began giggling.
"Where's Michael?" She asked still a little mad.
"He's in the 'conference room ,'" Nick said, still keeping his distance.
"Playing with your Playstation again?"
"He's good at it. He kicked my ass. Twice." Nick was signaling it with his fingers. Although Leon couldn't see him.
"Good. I'm glad someone can do that." She was cold with him, Nick thought she was so business-like and that still frighten him a little.
"Did you find out something?" Nick asked.
"Yes, I did."
When they reach to the room Nick liked to call the conference room, they found Vaughn half asleep in one of Nick's rubber couches. He woke up when he felt two sets of eyes staring at him like they wanted to drill a hole on him.
"Hey sleepy head." Leon greeted him with a kiss on his forehead.
"Are you tired?" Nick asked him. "Don't you think it would be more comfortable if you slept on the mattress?"
"I was just taking a nap." Vaughn was trying to get up, but he did it the wrong way and it sent a wave of pain through his upper body.
"Hey! Easy man." Nick and Leon immediately knelt before him, but Vaughn waved his hand dismissively and took a few deep breaths.
"I'm okay,"He said. "I'm okay." He finally looked up. He tried to convince them he was getting better, because he really was.
"What've you got?" He rubbed his tired eyes. "And why you have that thing on?" He looked her unusual outfit.
"Hey, I'm trying to fool people so they can't find you, so gimme a break. Okay?"
"Sorry." Vaughn saw Nick giggling and noticed her shoulder and the stain on it but he decided to let it go.
Leon sat beside him. "Stop looking for your verdugo, compadre, because I learned your suspicions are true."
"You mean."
Leon cut him off. "The CIA want you dead." Her statement left him dead cold. "What could you possibly have done to piss your own people?" She almost yelled.
"Well, that's something I want to know." Vaughn replied.
"They don't do this everyday, you know?" She was looking at his eyes. "They don't kill their own people every week. The hell! Not even once every decade! The CIA only sentence an agent to death if they suspect the agent is immensely dangerous or if this agent has a hold of secrets that he wasn't supposed to have, or if they think he's put them on a situation where death is the only way out." She sighed. "I don't think you became a threat over night, not in a 'I'm gonna blow this building full of children and loving grandmas if you don't send me 10 billion dollars' kind of threat. And I don't think you're selling secrets either. So it must be because of your work. They could feel threatened because of something you learned or something you did." She took another pause. "So, WHAT THE HELL were you working on?"
Vaughn could feel her anger. "I don't think that's none of your business."
"That's crap!" She snapped at him. "You came here half dead, telling me to save that little French butt of yours, putting my life on the line, and instead of beating the crap out of you, I gave you a hand sentencing me and Nick to death, and I did it anyway. So the least you can do is come clean with me. Stop whining like a baby and start speaking."
Vaughn looked at her, a little mad because he felt it was wrong for her to be throwing him in the face the fact that she saved his life, but he also knew she was acting like that because she was concerned for the three of them. He closed his eyes and inhaled the dense air that seemed to be filling the atmosphere of the room. She took a cloth to take off her 'clown make up'.
"Have you ever heard of SD-6?" Leon nodded, but Nick seemed to be lost. Vaughn wanted to clarified it. "It's an agency that recruits agents making them think they will be working for the US government, when all they will be doing is stealing secrets of this government and sell them to a man who makes money with them." He wasn't able to meet their eyes. "One day, this woman came to us and told us she was working with SD-6 and she was willing to help us to bring them down."
Vaughn sighed again. "To make a long story short, this woman became a double agent for the CIA and I, without any previous experience, became her handler." He paused a minute to see their reactions and hoping that would buy him some time. When he saw none, he continued.
"I work with intelligence. I give her the counter missions, I know everything she knows about SD-6."
"You're helping her to bring them down." Leon said while rubbing her face clean.
"She's doing all the hard work, I'm the one who stays back home safe." Vaughn told his friends.
"You're like Charlie!" Nick interrupted them. "You know, Charlie's Angels?" When he saw the glares they were sending him, he backed off. "I'm just going to stand there and pretend I'm a stone."
"Go on." Leon urged Vaughn to retake the story.
"We can't be seen in public, because there's a security team following her almost all the time. We have to pretend we don't know each other. She can't be linked to a CIA officer because that would blow her cover at SD-6" He looked at Leon, who understood the situation. "She turned in his boss to a man we still don't know who he's really working for, to be killed. And she did it to save me. The guy began to work with the head of SD-6 and that's why I thought they were the ones after me in the first place."
Vaughn was starting to sound like he was running and talking at the same time. "But that didn't make any sense because he didn't knew who was the serum for and he hasn't seen me, well, not for a long time, and he doesn't know Sydney's a double agent or I'm her handler. That's when I started to get suspicious about the CIA. That and Weiss's advice."
"I got my new mission yesterday." She sat close to him. "You are my new mission. They alerted every operative around the world in case you got out of the country, but they paid home special attention. I guess they believe you're still inside the country." She hesitated a little. "They said 'Abort/postpone every previous mission. Center your attention on this one.'"
Their eyes met. They locked their glances for a long time. It was just a few minutes though. Many things to be said, many reassurances left alone in those glances. His forgiveness if she had to do it. Her unspoken promise to do whatever it took to keep him alive.
"What if they discover you?" He asked her with his eyes full of trepidation.
"They won't." She told him.
"Yes, they will. Sooner or later, they will."
"They haven't, and they won't." She grabbed his hand and put it between hers. "We've fooled them before, we can do it again."
"You will have to do it."
"No, I won't. They've been in the dark about us keeping in touch for the last six years." She tightened her hold on his hand.
"They'll link you to me."
"Don't you think that if they knew we're still friends, they would've sent a team here already?" She shifted their positions so he was facing her. "They haven't followed me. They think I'm looking for you this side of the country, they don't think I've been going out because I'm hiding you."
"What if they find out?" He wasn't able to look at her in the eye. "Huh? What do you think would happen if they find out I've been here, with you, all this time?" He finally found her eyes. "What do you think would happen if they learn this isn't the first time you haven't followed orders? What do you think they will do to you? Worse, what do you think they will do to Nick?"
Now she was the one who lowered her eyes.
"Do you think they going to pat your back and tell you to keep up with the good work?" He was trying to make her view his point. "You said it yourself, the CIA don't kill their own agents frequently, but they do it when things get out of control. From the point of view of anyone, you haven't been doing your job. You've been breaking the rules and letting your objectives slide like they were made of butter. You already let two of them go, don't you think they'd think you've let more go? They'd think you've let very dangerous people go around doing evil, merciless things like nothing else matters. They'll consider you a risk." He paused. "And the risks have to be eliminated."
"I don't care." She told him. "I'm not going to let them get you, no matter what's on stake."
"You're willing to trade my life with yours?"
"I don't care about what could happen to me! This thing with you is wrong!"
"What about Nick?" He extended his hand to the young man sitting in the corner. "He's a young man, he could get out of here and start a new life once all this is over. Are you willing to let him die too? You don't care what could happen to him either?"
She couldn't respond. Vaughn was right. There was more at risk than Vaughn's life or her own. She had dragged Nick into mayhem without asking for his permission; she wasn't going to do it again.
"I didn't think so." He sadly said. Vaughn wrinkled his forehead and pursed his lips. "Maybe it would be better for all of us if I just turn myself in. Let somebody else finish the job."
"How could you possibly be so indifferent about this!" Nick decided it was a good time to drop his Stone-like status and rejoin the conversation. "Like it is a simple decision to make, like it was like deciding what color you will wear tomorrow?" He aimed his thoughts at Vaughn.
"Well, it's my life. I think I can have any emotions, or lack of them, when it comes to it." Vaughn told the younger man.
"I didn't spend the last couple of nights trying to keep you alive for nothing!" He exclaimed. "I know it none of my business, that I don't know you at all, but I really don't like people dying on my account."
"Well, I don't like it either. That's why I'm going to do what I'm going to do."
"If Leon says she can fool those spyboys one more time, I believe her." He came closer to the place Leon and Vaughn were sitting. "Take a look around. This place is been my home for the last five years, I was supposed to be six feet under ground and eaten by worms, and yet, I'm still here, breathing and kicking. Leon has done a pretty good job keeping me safe, so if she says she can trick the CIA one more time, you better go with the flow."
"It's not that easy." Vaughn shook his head.
"Yes, it could be." Nick continued. "You can do the same thing I'm doing. We can take you to a safe place and keep you there until everything's calmed again and then you can go anywhere you want to go."
"I wish it could be that simple." Vaughn lifted his head so Nick could look at his eyes. "Your case's different. You don't know the kind of things I know."
"Maybe I know worse things and that's why there was a hit put on me." Nick wasn't backing off. "Do you thing the CIA would worry about a stupid hacker?"
"Okay." Leon stopped the exchange before it went off limits. "We'll think about what we're going to do next tomorrow. It's getting late and Michael needs to rest, and we all need to calm down. So I say we all go to sleep and ask the pillow what it thinks about this."
Nick and Leon helped Vaughn to stand up and they were going to help him to go back to the mattress, but he insisted he could walk without any help. He slowly made his way to the room Nick used as a bedroom and let himself down to the object that served as a bed.
Nick said goodnight and went to sleep on the couch. Leon was about to go too, but when she leaned to kissed Vaughn's forehead, he grabbed her elbow and kept her where she was; close to his face.
She couldn't resist being that close to Vaughn's face without not doing anything. She went lower and tenderly kissed him on the mouth. He kissed her back and let go of her arm and moved his hand to the back of her head.
They kissed for a while, until she realized what they were doing and she started to pull back.
"Don't go." He whispered.
"Mike, I don't think we should." She was trying to get herself out of the situation, but the truth was she didn't want to.
"Please." He looked at her. "Just don't go."
She could see his terrified green orbs pleading her to stay with him, not out of lust but out of an intense need of company.
She didn't say a word and proceeded to take off her clown shoes and the stinky clown outfit. She ended up with a white top and black boxers. That didn't seem to catch Vaughn's attention.
She laid down next to him. He put his arm around her waist and brought her head to rest on his shoulder. He didn't know what was happening, he couldn't explain why, if he had those feelings for Sydney; he had this physical attraction to this young woman. Animal magnetism maybe.
Or maybe he was an emotional breakdown waiting to happen.
They both knew he wasn't in condition to do anything, but they also wanted a moment to forget everything. Forget their screwed-up lives. But they also knew it wasn't right. It was not the time or the place to renew a relationship that never began.
Leon had silently loved him forever. She even lied about her age once just to get close to him. He found out when it was too late, when she already owned his heart. And there was nothing he could do about it.
That was one of the main reasons they decided to put distance between them, but they weren't strong enough to forget about each other and that's why they decided to send messages only them could understand just to let the other know how they were doing.
Again, why couldn't he fall for women he could date?
He clung to her as if she was his piece of wood that kept him floating over the ocean.
"Have you ever wondered where we'd be if things had gone differently?" He asked him.
"Someplace else but here." That was her response. She was trying to keep her emotions in check. Like steel. "Maybe we weren't meant to be. Don't you think?"
"Maybe." He repeated.
"Have you?" She asked him.
"It has crossed my mind."
"Mike," She lifted her head a little to let him see her sincerity. "I swear I'm doing everything I can to get you away from all this pandemonium. I wish there were more." Her eyes sad.
He led her back on his shoulder and tightened his grip. "I know. There's something else you can do, though."
She thought he was talking about something else, and he read that.
"Just sleep." He told her. "I just want to watch you sleep." He set her right. "It was always good to watch you sleep."
"You used to watch me sleep?" She asked him astonished.
"You always looked peaceful on your sleep, like nothing else mattered." He looked serious. "It was kind of soothing, you know? It was like I was spying on you, just to get to the same peaceful place you were at."
She smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek. She fell asleep with that smile on her face. Vaughn watched her for a while and that seemed to sooth him, because he fell asleep too without thinking about his tribulations, the CIA, his life or Sydney.
In LA, Sydney reunited with her father who told her how his meeting with Devlin had gone. He told her that the CIA director hadn't authorized the searching and killing of Vaughn. He also told her that Devlin put him on charge of a secret mission which purpose was to retrieve Vaughn without anybody else to know about it, because it was already known that the order of murder Vaughn was false and they needed to determine who was after all that.
Sydney volunteered to help his father, but he reminded her of her new operation at SD-6. She immediately backed off.
Her father promised her he would keep her updated. She left after that.
She went to bed. She thought she could sleep before leaving to South Africa the next morning. She was wrong. She moved to her side and started to cry but stopped before the tears spilled were too many. She stayed up all night. She decided to plan how she could get Vaughn out of trouble.
Jack did the same thing. He went to his house but he didn't go to bed. He instead spent all night in his living room studying the situation, causes and consequences. He didn't know the causes for sure, but he knew it had something to do with Sydney, and that's why he was worried about the consequences.
So there they were, five people fighting for something in common: Vaughn. Maybe everyone had a different reason. Vaughn because he felt like he wasn't ready to die in a unfair way; Leon because her love for him wasn't selfish and she rather to have him miles away than have him dead; Nick because he knew what it would do to his friend if Vaughn died; Sydney because she was awakening to her feelings for this man and she was beginning to understand them and accept them, and Jack because he was selfish enough to want this man alive for his daughter and his nation's sake.
The five of them, the best on their fields, and yet, all of them feared for the same thing: the set of dawn. There's always a next morning, but what would it bring to them?
Okay, I know some people is going to kill me for putting this girl between Syd and Vaughn, but she harmless..