A/N: So, I did decide to continue, against my will, I might add, seeing as how there are a million other things I should be doing right now besides writing or even thinking about writing. But, when the muse strikes, you've got to obey, I guess. Be prepared for some major angst! And just a warning, I'm not sure if I'm going to continue after this, and I won't be able to update this anytime soon if so. Anyway, please enjoy and leave a review so I'll know if I should continue when I have time. Thanks for reading!
A Life of Inescapable Betrayal
He had found her. But he wondered whom exactly it was he had found. She wasn't who she used to be, that much was obvious. He could hear her old self whispering Vaughn when he had turned up on her doorstep in the rain after two more years of separation.
But his name was not what she had spoken.
Because she knew that their time apart had changed both of them... and this was no simple disguise that could be removed at the end of a mission, no wigs or make-up, not another alias to be added to list of which she could no longer keep track... This was simply her and him, both more vulnerable than ever, because there had never before been a time when their guards could be let down completely, when there wasn't even a possiblity of being interrupted by other people's problems, when they weren't expected to sacrifice their time for the safety of everyone else. Beautiful, relieving, effortless as it was, he couldn't help longing for the time before all of this...
They never used names, not anymore. That was just another understanding that had not needed words. It was the initial understanding that led to many other implicit understandings until it reached the point that the use of words in any circumstance seemed superfluous. Whether it was him wanting an invitation to sit with her on the small dock, or her waking him from a nightmare of their life before this freedom, a simple smile in their eyes and a soothing hand was enough. That was why she was utterly confused, hurt even, when he pulled away from an almost-kiss and asked, "Why did you leave?"
"What?" She blinked and shook her head as she tried to verify if she heard him correctly over the blaring thought of why the hell did he pull away that ran through her head.
His brow creased and he paused to glance down at his feet in guilt before he raised his eyes back to her and repeated in a perfectly stoic tone, "Why did you leave?"
Not a hint of anger, not a trace of hurt. The only thing she could find in his voice was the words that glared back at her with their own ferocity, so much so that adding outside emotion to them would be redundant. Her brows knitted as she studied him in search of the meaning behind his words, but for the first time since they were reunited, she couldn't read him. And that scared her more than she wanted to admit.
But her tell was obvious. It always had been. Two years of self-induced and desired change had done nothing to rid her of the mannerisms he would recognize anywhere. She tucked her hair behind her ear and ran her hand down her face as she moved to sit up straighter on the couch and responded, "I think you know why."
"I need you to tell me."
She was getting tired of his stoicism. "You need me to tell you what? That I couldn't handle remembering you with Lauren every day in the office? That I'd had enough of the betrayal and the lying and the decieving coming from people close to me? That you were right nearly from the beginning that living in hiding is easier, better even? Fine! You were right, and it is easier!"
She glared at him before crossing her arms and turning her head away from him to regain some semblance of control.
He sighed and looked down at his hands. "No. I want to know why you left without me."
He saw her lip tremble, but she kept her face turned to the side. Then, after two and a half weeks of understandings, he broke rule number one.
"Please, Syd..."
She turned to face him, and he brushed a gentle thumb over the path left by a fallen tear. She bit her lip and smiled to keep more from falling before she spoke in a broken voice, "I couldn't wait... I wanted to, but I just couldn't, Vaughn. I had to leave then, or I might never have, and I couldn't stay. You were still sick, and I couldn't wait, and then my father... I should have waited for you... I'm sorry..."
She started to break down, but Vaughn pulled her into his arms and soothed her as she took shuddering breaths. He held her until she calmed enough to pull back and wipe her eyes, trying to smile at him as he looked down at her in concern. Now that his blank expression had been broken, she was able to see the emotion behind his words, the reasoning. Seriousness took over her features, and her voice was stern, "That's not what you wanted to ask me. There's something else."
He ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes when he pinched the bridge of his nose, but didn't respond.
"Tell me, Vaughn."
He sighed, refusing to meet her eyes, but she knew he was speaking the truth this time. "After we left Palmero, the CIA sent a team to clean up the Covenant site and... retrieve the body. When they got back, they reported that there had been no body in the shaft, no blood where she should have fallen, nothing. While you were gone, we apprehended Sloane. In his search for the Sphere of Life, he admitted to have crossed paths with Sark and that Sark had been the one to remove Lauren from the Covenant site. He wouldn't say if she was dead or alive, and he wouldn't give up their location. He refused to give up any more information until he could talk to you."
"So you were sent to bring me back."
He inwardly cringed at the betrayed look that she delivered him. "No. I came on my own—"
"Because you thought it would be easier if you had time to win me over."
"No! I came to warn you... and..." He felt her eyes pierce through his as if he were transparent. He swallowed before he continued. "I thought you might be more willing to come back if you heard it from me."
He lowered his eyes and braced himself for her seething response but was surprised when all he heard was a soft, "Get out."
"Get out?" he retorted as he looked up in confusion.
"You were wrong. There is no way in hell that I'm going back to be the CIA's pawn in another one of Sloane's twisted games. Go find Lauren or her corpse by yourself. I'm not leaving." She stood up in frustration and turned her back to him, crossing her arms around herself as if she were trying to hold herself together.
Vaughn stood up and took a tentative step towards her and put his hand carefully on her shoulder. "Syd..."
She stiffened under his touch. "Don't, Vaughn," she whispered.
"Please..." He started to bring his other arm around her to pull her towards him, but in that instant, she spun around and shoved him back towards the couch. "I said get the hell out of here!" she yelled. Her voice broke again when she added, "Please, just leave." She stood in front of him, shaking with the effort to breathe and keep her tears from falling at the same time.
Vaughn stood up awkwardly from where he had fallen onto the couch. He took a deep breath, but didn't dare to step closer to her this time. "You need to understand something, Sydney. I have to know that she's dead."
"Emptying your clip on her in Palermo wasn't enough?" she interjected, but he didn't pause.
"You're the only person who can get Sloane to talk. Believe me when I tell you that if there was another way, I wouldn't have bothered coming to you."
She didn't want his words to sting. Two and a half weeks ago, she wouldn't have cared less. But after what she thought was a new start with him...
She whispered harshly in a voice that sounded more hurt than he ever remembered coming from her, "Lauren's the only reason you're here." She had wanted it to sound like a question, but she felt that she already knew the answer.
"Not the only reason." He lowered his eyes and studied his feet.
"But she is the first."
It was his turn to sound hurt, and he glared at her through wide eyes. "You left me when I needed you! Willingly!"
She could feel the guilt start to rise in her, but she suppressed it as best as she could. She was supposed to be the hurt, angry one right now. He was here betraying her.
"Look," she began as calmly as she could, "I'm sorry that your wife betrayed you, and I'm sorry that I left when I did, and I'm sorry that you came all this way for nothing, because I can never go back to that life, especially not now. I thought you of all people would understand that. I'm not letting anyone use me again, not even you."
"Syd," he pleaded, "you don't know what it's like..."
She tilted her head and broke him off sardonically, "To be betrayed by someone you love? To find out the life you were living was a lie? That's funny, I seem to remember quite vividly what those things are like."
He sighed in defeat. He wasn't going to win with her. "I think I'd better go."
"Yeah," she nodded. "That's a good idea."
He made his way to the door, but turned around before opening it, hoping she would budge.
She didn't.
A part of him long buried wanted to smile at her characteristic stubborness. No matter how long she ran, however she tried to convince herself that she wasn't who she used to be, she was still Sydney to him.
He closed the door softly behind him as he stepped outside, an anticlimactic resolution to a heated argument, but one that was final, nonetheless.
She stood, riveted in place, until she gathered the energy to walk towards the couch and sink down onto it.
She buried her head in her hands and cried.
TBC?
