Golden Child Sydney has finally reached a new level of happiness in her life: Her first baby. But what if the baby she longed to hold for nine long months is the force behind the complete change in the man she loves, and the result of a brief lapse in judgment?
Chapter 2: Mercurial Heart
Disclaimer #1: I don't, nor did or will I ever, own any aspect of Alias. All recognizable characters and plot strands belong to JJ Abrams, not to me.
Disclaimer #2: The basis for this is not mine, either. It originally belonged to Aiden Burn. See Chapter 1.
Disclaimer #3: I'm a die-hard S/V shipper. Please don't shoot me. This fic is Sarkney, and the particular scene Aiden Burn laid out caught my imagination. It was by no fault of my own, the story simply possessed my pen. And my keyboard.
Sydney wants desperately to wring her hands, but she knows all her anxiety could be for nothing. Sure, there's a chance. For whatever reason, her equilibrium was shot all to hell during the week of conception. The baby could be Vaughn's, and she'll never have to tell him about Sark. No one might ever know about that two-day long lapse in judgment.
The middle-aged nurse returns with the baby wrapped in soft blue blankets. Sydney looks anxiously toward them, oblivious to all else. As the woman lays the baby in her arms, she studies his tiny face.
"Have you decided on a name yet?" the nurse asks with a smile, her pen poised over the birth certificate.
Sydney barely hears her, and does not respond. All she can do is stare at the child in her arms, and love him, and see all of her worst fears confirmed in his lovely features.
"Julian," she murmurs, an unnatural tone of fear in her tiny voice.
Vaughn does not hear her, but the nurse does. She scribbles away, putting damning evidence down on paper.
"And how about a middle name?" the nurse asks cheerfully. Gradually she becomes aware of the level of tension in the small room. She sees the look on Vaughn's face and turns away to gather her papers. "May be we should finish this later, let you rest up a bit more," she says over her shoulder as she walks out.
Vaughn suddenly strides silently across the room and stands over her. His expression is strange, and she almost fears him. She holds the baby a little closer to her chest.
"That child," he spits angrily. "He's not mine." His expression is dark now.
Sydney shrinks against the pillows that only moments before Vaughn had stacked lovingly behind her.
"No," she says softly, dropping her eyes.
Vaughn gives a low growl and turns to stalk away.
Sydney fights back tears for a moment before she regains control. She realized that her actions have already been committed, and there is nothing more she can do than to love the child in her arms. With luck, she hopes, Vaughn will come to love her son as his own. Perhaps even one day forgive her transgressions.
By the time the nurse returns for her to fill in the missing information on the baby's birth certificate, Sydney is resigned to the truth. She answers almost automatically.
"Your full name, please."
"Sydney Anne Bristow."
"And have you decided the baby's middle name?"
"Middle?"
"You said the first name was Julian, correct, Miss Bristow?"
Sydney pauses, trying to convince herself that it is the stupidest thing in the world to do to name the child Julian. Vaughn may not know yet who his father is, but he will find out. But would it be wise to put it right under his nose like this?
"Tyler," she says finally. His name is Tyler Julian Bristow."
"All right. We can do that. And what is his father's name?"
When Sydney hesitates, she asks again.
Sydney closes her eyes, as if the thought and all the memories that come with it pain her to a great extent. The nurse sees this, and, being a mother of three herself with a husband of twenty some odd years, she cannot understand how a mother can be this reluctant to disclose information.
"His father's name is Julian Sark."
Having seen Michael Vaughn storm angrily from Sydney's room, and despite his personal pleasure at beating Vaughn out for something he'd so desperately wanted, Sark worries for Sydney's and his son's safety. He sees something different in Vaughn's demeanor, something distinctly disturbing to one's peace of mind.
After a brief detour into a supply room for a universal disguise of green scrubs, a matching cloth cap, and a mask, Sark follows Vaughn. He sees him stop at the nursery window and throw a hateful look at the baby.
Walking up and down the maternity ward hall at intervals, Sark sees Vaughn glare furiously at Sydney as she sinks into her pillows. He walks by again just as a nurse is bringing the baby in his blanket-lines plastic basinet back to be with his mother. He stops once to pick up the file from its slot over the door. Tyler Julian Bristow. He decides the name has a nice ring to it. But it makes Sark nervous to see the odd look in Vaughn's eyes when he's so close to baby Julian.
When Vaughn walks out again, Sark overhears him saying he's going for coffee.
Now or never, Julian thinks, walking in the door as he watches Vaughn's back more down the hallway. He watches Sydney look up in surprise when she hears him before he speaks, and he knows the exact moment when she recognizes the eyes behind the mask. Her pupils widen, and the smile she wore as long as she watched her new son fades, and her arms tighten almost imperceptibly
Sark holds up his hands in surrender.
"I'm not here for the baby," he says, unable to withhold a knowing smile along with a certain amount of pride in his voice. "I want to warn you. I think there's a chance your Michael Vaughn is an unstable character right now. I'm only asking you to be careful around him."
Sydney stares at him for a long time without answering, telling herself she has no reason to trust the man standing patiently at the foot of her bed, but for some reason she cannot bring herself to simply tell him to stay away. Despite every one of at least a dozen reasons why she should hate him, she can't just dismiss his warning.
Sark seems so intent on her answer that Vaughn is back in the room before he notices.
As Sark slips out, keeping his back to Vaughn, he thinks he sees Sydney nod her head just once.
Sydney studies the sleeping face of her new baby boy, but her mind doesn't see what her eyes do. Her mind runs in circle and trips over itself in an effort to figure out what Sark could possibly stand to gain by showing up now. She can't believe he risked coming near her now, when, in theory, Vaughn would fight the hardest to protect her.
But perhaps he was watching more closely than she anticipated. Obviously he saw something to know that Vaughn scares her right now, or perhaps he even saw something that genuinely bothers him too. After all, Sark walked right past Michael and he never even noticed. The man she loves and that loves her so dearly would never allow Julian Sark to walk out of her room without noticing.
Sydney is beginning to wonder if she should take Sark's warning seriously. She is far from forgetting how badly Sark betrayed her, the result of his betrayal being the tiny child she holds in her arms, but she can't understand how Vaughn can be so angry with her that he doesn't even notice Julian in the room.
Sydney shifts the child to allow him to nurse. At the time, she was swept up in a certain something about Julian. He was different. She almost believed…
But he is still Sark. Not the Julian she knew for such a brief time.
Vaughn eyes the coffee machine in the hospital cafeteria for a long minute, not sure why his thoughts don't scare him. He can almost see himself dump some harmful substance into a squat Styrofoam cup. But poisoning her coffee would be a ridiculous thing to do.
A part of him wants to see Sydney suffer for what she's done. That baby should be his, but that son of a bitch got to her. And worse of all she'd let him!
A plan is slowly taking shape in Michael's mind. Smother the bastard of a baby. The child shouldn't exist. He'll do it while Sydney is still weak, too weak to resist. He'll have to do it soon. May be he will get the doctors to give her something for pain, play the loving fiancé
He grins.
Yes, Sydney will pay for her mistake.
Hm-hmm! Michael plotting Sydney's murder, Sark trying to save her…what the hell's going on around here? lol