Title: Bumblebee
Author: SydGillyKC
A/N: Okay, first real chapter. God, I feel like I've traveled back in time. I spent so much time working on "This Tear" that I forgot what it felt like to be at the very beginning of a story lol. So hopefully I won't disappoint. I've also started school again, so that may tie me up from time to time. But I'll try to update as much as possible, I promise. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy it as much as "This Tear." And remember, this takes the "This Tear" timeline into account and goes up until "Nemesis" (3x06) and then goes AU.
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Chapter 1: Shades of Gray
"You planning on sharing that?" Sydney asked, gesturing to the bowl of popcorn Weiss was currently devouring.
Weiss looked at her as if snapped from a daze. "Yeah, sure. I just didn't think you wanted to threaten that trim figure of yours by eating something that wasn't fat-free," he teased her, passing the bowl. She stretched out and kicked him from across the couch. He glared at her overdramatically and rubbed his knee.
"You just wanted to hog it," she argued.
"Not true. It wasn't easy to lose all that weight you know. I only indulge when you're around," he replied.
"And why is that?"
"Because I hope it'll encourage you to do the same. You're getting too skinny," Weiss told her in a light tone. Sydney could easily tell that there was truth behind his teasing, though. She knew better than anyone that she had been dropping weight since her return. Now of all times, though, was not when she wanted to get into it.
"Yeah well you're not helping by eating all the popcorn yourself," she teased.
"Oh, just eat up and be quiet, woman. I'm trying to watch the game," he teased back, obviously sensing that Sydney was not in the mood to get into a deep discussion.
"Since when are you a Red Sox fan?" Sydney questioned, gesturing to the television in front of them.
"Since forever. I went to a couple of games as a kid. I still catch them on TV when I can. When it's a Yankees series, though, I always try to make the time to watch."
"Why depress yourself like this? Hasn't it been like a hundred years since they've won a World Series?"
"Every curse has to lift eventually. This is their year, I feel it," Weiss said defensively. Sydney rolled her eyes and returned her focus to the television.
"Well, they're getting nowhere fast," Sydney pointed out, noticing that the Sox were now losing by two runs in the bottom of the ninth.
"Have a little faith. Damon's on base and they still got Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz due up." He laughed suddenly. "You should've seen it. I took Mike to a Sox game when they played here in Anaheim a couple of weeks after he came back-" he stopped abruptly, realizing what he'd just said. Sydney's expression suddenly darkened, understanding what he meant. Weiss sighed. "Sorry, Syd. I wasn't thinking."
"No, Eric, don't be sorry. You can't pretend the last two years didn't happen for my sake," Sydney assured him. They suddenly fell silent, the only sound in the room coming from the TV set in front of them. "I didn't know Vaughn was a Red Sox fan," Sydney said suddenly, breaking the silence.
"Yeah, well, he's more of a Mets fan, but he likes the Sox too," Weiss replied.
Sydney took a deep breath and released it as a sigh. "Can I ask you something?"
"Anything."
She paused, looking down at the floor. "You told me that he disappeared for six months. And when I spoke to him, he told me that he had loved me so much that it nearly killed him… Do you think it would've been easier for him if the Rambaldi solution had failed?"
"Syd," Weiss said softly. She looked him in the eye, as if to say that she could handle his answer. He sighed. "Honestly… I think it may have been easier at first, because he'd had so much time to prepare himself and he'd had a chance to get some closure and say goodbye. I mean, after you went into remission, he thought that it was your chance to spend your lives together. He'd come so close to losing you that it didn't seem possible that you'd get better only to be killed in a fire several months later. It crushed him. He didn't know how to cope with it. On the other hand, I know for a fact that if you asked him, he would tell you that having you back in his life was worth all the suffering he went through." Sydney looked at him disbelievingly. "Really, Syd," Weiss assured her. "He still cares for you, that could never change. Things will get better, you just have to be patient and have a little faith. These things just take time."
The television suddenly erupted in cheering. Sydney and Weiss, caught off-guard, immediately turned to see what was happening.
"And Manny Ramirez makes a three-run home run to win the game!" The announcer's voice boomed over the crowd.
"Whew! You see that?!" Weiss yelled excitedly.
"I saw it," Sydney replied, smiling. He turned to her.
"You see, Syd, it's just like the Red Sox. Time and faith, that's all you need."
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Vaughn watched her from across the rotunda. He studied her carefully, taking in her neat ponytail and pressed suit. To the outside world, she was absolutely flawless. Vaughn was hardly the outside world when it came to Sydney, though. He could see that she'd used extra make-up today to cover up her paleness as well as the circles under her eyes. She worked hard to appear prepared and ready to go, but Vaughn clearly saw the exhaustion in her demeanor. And no matter how much she tried to hide it, he knew she was losing weight again. It had been nearly two months since her return and it appeared to everyone that she was slowly getting reacquainted with the world. Vaughn saw through her, though. He knew that on the inside, she was a mess. And it killed him to know that there was almost nothing he could do about it.
He watched as Weiss walked up to her then. He asked her something, causing her to look up from the file she was reading. He talked for a moment and he saw Sydney smiling at him. The sight was a relief to Vaughn, but he couldn't help the jealousy that bubbled inside of him. Vaughn was grateful to his friend for being there for Sydney when he couldn't be, but that didn't stop him from wishing she would smile like that for him again.
Quickly glancing down at his watch, he saw they had a little under ten minutes before their briefing started. He silently debated with himself for a minute or so before finally walking across the room to where Sydney and Weiss were standing.
"Hey," he said once he reached his destination.
"Hey," they both replied, smiling. But while Weiss's smile looked open and friendly, Sydney's was tentative and unsure. It broke his heart. The comfort he'd always felt with her was gone now, replaced with awkwardness and pain.
"How are you?" He asked, directing the question mostly at Sydney.
"I'm fine," she replied quickly, but not too quickly. It was obviously her standard answer to a question she'd been asked frequently in the past two months. "Are their any leads on Allison yet?"
Vaughn sighed. "Not that I know of. If there's anything, I'm sure Dixon will let us know," he replied.
"Yeah, you're probably-"
"Michael," Sydney was cut off by Lauren, who approached from behind Vaughn. Vaughn forced himself to smile, inwardly wincing at the fact that Lauren had cut Sydney off. He risked a quick glance at her just in time to see her eyes almost imperceptibly flicker to the floor before looking up at Lauren, an empty smile on her face. His heart broke a little more.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt," Lauren said as she positioned herself next to Vaughn.
"It's no problem," Sydney said, sounding just slightly too friendly.
"I just saw Dixon and he said he's ready for us if we want to head in there," Lauren told them.
Vaughn finally peeled his eyes away from Sydney and focused on his wife. "Sure, let's head in," he said, smiling at her. They proceeded to the briefing room in silence, Vaughn walking alongside Lauren, hoping that Weiss was beside Sydney… taking a place that once was his.
He found himself unable to concentrate on a word that Dixon was saying during the briefing. With Sydney sitting across from him, it was hard to focus on anything but her, though he mostly had to do so from the corner of his eye so that he at least appeared attentive. Sometimes it still shook him to see her sitting across from him. There were times when he still had to convince himself that she was real, that she was no longer a ghost. He was no longer the drunk and lost man that he had been a year and a half ago, speaking to a figment of his imagination, to a memory. Things were different now. And yet they weren't. Because no matter how alive she was, he'd still lost her.
When Dixon began to discuss an upcoming mission, Vaughn noticed Sydney discreetly massaging her temple with her fingertips. He knew that everything was still overwhelming for her. As far as he was concerned, she shouldn't be out in the field at all. She should still be recovering. Or better yet, she should get out. On the day when he was unselfish enough to think about putting her happiness over his need to spend time with her, he wished that she would forget about this life. With all she'd lost, what better a time to finally go off and be an English teacher somewhere peaceful and untouched by this world. When she was so obviously in pain, he could feel his desire for her happiness begin to outweigh his need to keep her in his life.
Somewhere deep inside him, he knew the reason for this. He was afraid. He was afraid that if she kept going like this, he would lose her all over again. One way or another, he knew it would be inevitable.
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"My accounts were finally unfrozen the other day. It took longer than I expected. Then again, I guess banks and credit card companies aren't used to their clients coming back from the dead. In the CIA, it's practically an every day occurrence. I guess that's part of what makes it hard. It's almost as if people think I should have been prepared for it because of the job. But nothing could prepare anyone for something like this. There's nothing more painful than waking up and realizing the whole world has gone on without you."
"Thank you, Amelia," the doctor said as Amelia trailed off in tears.
Sydney hadn't wanted to come back here. She didn't belong with this people. Her situation was different. But Dixon and Weiss has somehow managed to talk her into giving it another chance, constantly reminding her that these truly were the only people who understood what it was like to lose years of their life as if it were one night, one moment, one instant. These people knew what it was like to be presumed dead and return to find that their loved ones had built a new life that no longer included them. Though Sydney wasn't normally one for commiserating, it was somewhat comforting to hear other people feeling the same things she was, to know that she wasn't the only one who found it impossible to simply pick up and move on. How could she get on with her life when the life she was now living was completely foreign to her?
"James, how about you? What's been on your mind lately?" The doctor asked the middle-aged man seated beside Sydney.
He sighed. Sydney immediately empathized with his obvious weariness. "I've been back for almost six months now, but I still feel like a stranger in the world. I guess the thing that's been the most difficult lately is work. I just don't understand anymore why I'm working my ass off for a job that's done nothing but rip my life out from under me. When I joined, I was young and patriotic and eager to serve my country. Years later, I left the field so that I could settle down and take a safer job that would keep me close to my family. But I still felt as if I was serving my country and doing the right thing. And then they need me for one field op and suddenly I come back three years later to nothing. My life is nonexistent. And now I've got no one to support and no damn reason to do this job anymore. And the only thing that stops me from quitting is the fact that I don't know what the hell else I would do."
"Thank you for sharing that with us, James. And of course, you and I will discuss this in detail during our private session this week, alright?" The doctor looked to James for confirmation. He merely nodded. "Good." He turned his head slightly and looked directly at Sydney. She felt her whole body tense, knowing what was coming.
"Sydney," he began. "We're glad you decided to join us again. I understand that it hasn't been long since you've been back, but if there's anything you'd like to share with us, we'd love to hear it."
Sydney glanced to the ground helplessly before meeting the doctor's eyes. "I wouldn't even know where to start or how to put any of it into words," she explained apologetically.
"Well, why don't you just start with telling us about some of the differences between your life before and your life now?" The doctor suggested.
Sydney looked at him painfully for a moment before giving a slight nod of her head. She glanced down at her hands, attempting to brace herself for what she knew was about to come out of her mouth.
"I was a double agent inside one of the Alliance cells for a long time. That's actually how I came to be with the agency. Through that work, I grew very close to the man that acted as my handler. He quickly became the only person I could trust and confide in. About eighteen months before I was declared dead, I was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. The man in charge of the Alliance cell I was employed at subsequently made an attempt at my life and I was sent into hiding with this man. I grew very ill during that time and he was always there. He took care of me and our relationship soon became a romantic one. Meanwhile, huge advances were made in the takedown of the Alliance while we were in hiding. By the time the takedown was confirmed, I was already off all treatments. My prognosis was poor and I was only expected to live weeks beyond that time. Even after we were brought back home and we were safe, he stayed with me.
To make a long story short, I was miraculously cured of my illness and entered remission when everyone thought my battle was nearing the end. We pursued as normal a relationship as we could for the next several months. We were about to go away together for the first time when I disappeared. I was declared dead and I learned that he had had no reason to believe otherwise. He himself disappeared to another country for several months. When he eventually returned, he met someone. They dated and married. And then I returned. And now the three of us work together in the same office. And every day it's like a knife driving deeper and deeper into my chest. After surviving cancer, I'd finally had a happy life. I struggle every day to find some reason, some meaning as to why it was ripped away from me."
She took a deep breath, surprised that she'd actually spoken all that aloud to a room of people she hardly knew. She looked around at all of them, all looking sympathetically, even empathetically, at her. One woman had tears in her eyes. None of them said a word. She realized that for many of these people, the thought of dying had been inconceivable before many of them went missing and were presumed dead like she was. But for her, she had accepted the idea of dying, had faced it head-on long before her disappearance. She doubted most of them, if any, had experienced something like that. To go through so much pain only to be teased with true happiness before having it pulled out from under you. She had been given a second chance, the gift of life when she had been right at death's door, but for what? It was a question that haunted her every day.
"Thank you for sharing that, Sydney. I'm sure that you'll find many of us ask those same questions constantly. Is there anyone who's found something helpful when you start feeling overwhelmed by questions like that?" The doctor questioned, looking around the circle.
One older woman spoke up. "If I find myself getting too caught up in the past, in thinking about all that I wish I could still have, I force myself to try something new. I auditioned for a community theater group or planted a garden, things like that…"
She continued to talk, but Sydney began to drown her voice out. Nothing these people could tell her would help her. If she quit the CIA to try "new things" she'd not only lose the only chance at finding out what happened to her during her missing time, but she'd also lose her connection to the only people she was still close to. Her work was her life, even if it was part of what made her so unhappy. Obviously working with Lauren and Vaughn was going to be detrimental to her recovery, but she knew there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. And there was certainly nothing these people could do about it. They could talk about moving on all they wanted, but it wasn't possible for her. They could give her support and they could empathize, but they couldn't give her what she truly needed.
They couldn't give her life back. No one could.
To be continued…
A/N: Ok, hope you like it so far. Not too much of a plot yet, but I gotta kind of set things up before I jump right into it. I promise it's coming soon (as in next chapter lol). This story is definitely looking to be a lengthy one, possibly as long as "This Tear." We'll see. Please review and let me know what you think! Oh, and the Red Sox reference, not only did I write that before they even made it to the ALCS (let alone won the World Series), but I had no idea that Jen was going to become a fan and go to the games with Ben. I'm so psyched! I've been a Sox fan for so long and this is truly the year to celebrate lol. GO SOX!!!
And happy holidays everyone!
