Disclaimer: I don't own any of the character in this story, except Mathew. Mathew is out of my own demented head. I mean I'd have to be insane to think someone like him up.
Note: If anybody hasn't figured this out yet, the title is kinda a spinoff of "Boy Meets World". So I thought it only fitting that we'd steal their theme song too.
When this Spy Meets World
Spy Meets World
Wandering down this road, that we call life
Is what we're doin'
It's good to know I have friends that will always
Stand by me
When this Spy Meets World.
Ch. 9 "Johnny's Dad"
Once they reached the United States of America, Sydney was sent straight to meet Sloane. Of course, she met him at the school, not the official headquarters. She was still too young and besides it might be awkward considering her father was there. Nothing could have shocked Sydney at that point though. Well, maybe that could have, but very little else could. Even though he had called her missy and girly and even though he had been a drunk, she had still liked Kim. Seeing what she had seen had really shaken her. Not to mention jumping out of a plane, seeing the plane she had just jumped out of blown up, having sea theme songs stuck in her head, she was lucky she was still sane. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to Sloane. She just wanted to go home, curl up in bed with Theodore, her teddy bear and bawl her eyes out.
"Hello Sydney," Sloane said as he walked into the room.
"Hi," she replied back softly.
"We were really worried about you," he said as he sat down beside her.
"Who's we?" Sydney asked curiously.
"Why the agency," Sloane said. He had almost slipped up, but had recovered beautifully. I mean he still wasn't handsome, but he covered his mistake nicely. Wish the same could be said about his nose.
The rest of the meeting wasn't that eventful. Sydney told Sloane about Sark, except when she was filling him in she realized she had never gotten his name. Sloane got her up to speed and everyone got to know stuff and Syd found out the copilot didn't die and if it hadn't been for Kim, Sydney might have been able to forget it all. Sloane, knowing that Jack was probably having an ulcer at the moment and that he'd have to pay for the doctor bill, sent Sydney home. He explained that he had personally called her father and explained everything. Sydney nodded and almost nodded off to sleep on the short car ride back home. She got out, thanked her "Coach" and ran inside. She couldn't wait to go to sleep.
Jack leapt off the coach the moment he saw the door knob turn. He had promised himself he wouldn't make that big a deal out of it, that he would pretend that nothing had been wrong, that he hadn't been worried because his daughter had been dumped in the middle of the ocean and picked up by some English/Russian/Enemy agent. But of course with all that worry, even the famous, "I Keep My Emotions Bottled Up Inside" Bristow, couldn't help himself. Before Sydney had even come all the way in, Jack had grabbed her into a tight embrace and believe it or not his face actually showed emotion.
Although Sydney was as surprised as us, she returned the hug whole heartedly. For a moment she wondered if he knew. "Nah," she thought to herself.
Jack, remembering she was only supposed to have had bus trouble, quickly regained his composure, mostly. "I was worried," he said.
"About me?" Sydney asked.
"If this had been a TV show," Jack thought, "that would have been the part where the audience would have gone, "Aw"." Was he really that bad a father that his daughter didn't think he ever worried about her?
"Do you want to go out for ice cream?" Jack asked, hoping that would somehow redeem him in his child's eyes.
Although Sydney was about to fall over from fatigue, she quickly agreed. Any chance to spend time with her father was more important than sleep and hello the man said ice cream. As he took another look at her Jack realized that she needed sleep more than frozen family time. When he suggested she go up and rest instead, Sydney protested. She didn't say so, but she felt that if they didn't go now she would once again loose a chance to be with her dad.
"You need your rest, sweetie. We can go later, but right now I want you to march up there and get into bed. That's an order," he said in a mock captain voice.
Sydney grinned and walked up the stairs. She knew she was lucky to get this much out of him, but she could resist. "Will you tuck me in?"
Jack was about to say no, thinking she was much too old for that when he realized she was just trying to reach out to him. "Sure," he said as he followed her up the stairs. He knew too well what it was like to have an absentee father and he suddenly realized how much he had become like his own.
Although the Bristow family had been blessed with many talents, stubbornness was something they also inherited. And Mathew Bristow had plenty of that. Besides being stubborn, he was bossy, opinionated, pretty much everything Jack was. He had a good poker face and always won at it too. For years he had stayed out of his son's affairs because he thought that was for the best and because that's what he had always done, but with age comes wisdom or rather more experiences and lessons to find wisdom. And Mathew realized he had made some mistakes, which for a Bristow is a lot to admit. So he decided that he was going to rectify the situation, even if it killed both of them. Besides what's the fun of having children if you can't annoy them later in life?
The doctors had told him that with his eye sight he shouldn't be driving, but then they hadn't realized that they were talking to Mathew Bristow, successful business man, world traveler, learned man who had graduated from Yale. If they had known that, they wouldn't have dared to cross him, but what do doctor's know anyway? At least those were the opinions of Mathew. If his wife Nancy, who had passed away nineteen years ago, was still alive she would have made him take a taxi. But then if she were still alive, he wouldn't be going to make things right with his son, because things would have been wrong in the first place.
"'Ey, we're 'ere," the cab driver said in his particularly annoying accent.
"Thank you so much," Mathew said, rather sarcastically, as he paid the driver. "Keep the change."
"O wow. A 'ole dollar! T'ank you sooo muc'" the driver replied, with sincere sarcasm, back.
"Don't spend it all at once," Mathew yelled as the cab drive drove off, swearing loud enough to wake up half the neighborhood.
Mathew walked up to the door, wondering if this was such a good idea or not. He was about to turn back when he realized that his wife would have wanted him to make things right. Besides he wanted to meet this wife of Johnny's. How Johnny had ever gotten anyone to marry him was beyond his comprehension, but at least marriage might have sobered the crazy boy.
He hadn't waited but a few second after knocking, when a girl opened the door. From the looks of it, it seemed as if he had the wrong house. One, he was pretty sure he'd know if Johnny had had a child and two, he was pretty sure his son's child wouldn't be African American, considering his son wasn't and he knew for a fact that his daughter in law wasn't. Otherwise his sister in law, who went to the wedding, would have informed him since she believed it her life task to inform others on things that were not her business. And if this was indeed his son's house he knew Johnny would have figured out something was a little strange about his daughter. Mathew knew his son was daft, but not that daft.
"Hello. I'm looking for the Bristow residence. Could your direct me to..."
"This is the Bristow residence. Hold on a sec."
Well, maybe he was that daft. "Sydney!" the girl yelled.
"Sydney must be the wife's name," Mathew thought. His thought was falsified when Syd came running down the stairs. "Apparently not," Mathew whispered under his breath.
"Thank you Francie. Hello," said the new girl, who apparently was named Sydney.
"Hello," Mathew said back, wondering if there was more than one Bristow in L.A.
"Please come in. Can I help you?"
"Yes. Um, I'm looking for a Jonathan Bristow," he said as he closed the door behind him. "I don't suppose you know..."
"He's my father. Are you with Jennings's Aero Space?" she asked.
So that's what Johnny was wasting his life doing, instead of going into the family business. "Yeah. Sure. That works." When he received a strange look from someone who supposedly was his grandchild, although she didn't look a thing like Jack, he changed the subject. "Is he here?"
"No, he ran out to get a pizza," she replied.
Just like his Johnny, eating junk food. He never did eat his brussel sprouts.
While he was thinking about this, he noticed the kid was staring at him.
"Have I seen you before?" she asked, as she studied his face.
"No," he said quickly. "Is your mother home?"
"My mother passed away nine years ago," Syd answered sadly.
Mathew felt really bad and stupid, for once, in that order. Usually his pride came before his feelings. He also felt sort of jipped. He wanted to see what lunatic married his son.
"I'll just go then," he said turning for the door. He was stopped in his tracks when the door swung open and he was face to face with Johnny.
Jack's mouth swung open. "Dad?"
Jack was stunned. Jack was dumbstruck. Jack was stupefied. Of course, to his father these reactions didn't seem out of the ordinary for Johnny. Of all the people Jack would have thought would come back into his life, he would have expected Laura to come back before his father, and she was dead.
"Hello Johnny," Mathew said calmly.
"What are you doing here?" Jack squeaked, in a very uncomplimentary voice.
By this time, Syd and Francie had totally forgotten that they were suppose to be arguing over whether Titanic or The First Women's Club was a better movie and were totally enthralled in watching what seemed to be an even better film, unfolding before their very eyes.
"Sydney, Francie," Jack said, remembering their audience. "Go pick out a movie.
"Upstairs," he added quickly.
The two grumbled as they headed up the stairs. They always had to leave when things got interesting.
"Can't a father visit his son?" Mathew said in response to Jack's earlier question.
"Not when the father hasn't seen the son in over 19 years, including missing the birth of his grandchild."
Mathew looked a little sheepish, but continued. "Missed your wedding too."
"Yes," Jack said in a tone that indicated he had not wanted to bring the subject up.
As dense as Mathew was, even he noticed it. "I'm sorry about your wife," he said genuinely.
"Me too," Jack said in a way that Mathew didn't quite understand.
The two just stood there in awkward silence until Syd, who had been eavesdropping upstairs with Francie, came down the stairs. "Would you like to stay for supper?" she asked.
As Mathew accepted, her father gave her a look that said, "we'll be talking later." Syd hoped this little intervention wouldn't cause him to be mean again.
"Are you sure you want to stay? After all it is a long drive back home," Jack said, trying to undo Sydney's damage.
"I'll probably need to get a hotel room," Mathew said wincing, thinking of the expense.
"You could stay here," Syd suggested. "Or not," she said, after she received a "if looks could kill" from her father.
Mathew was hesitant, but only for a minute when he realized the money he'd save.
"Okey dokey!" he said with as much enthusiasm as he could under the present situation.
Jack groaned. Tonight was going to be a long night. What a week to give up drinking.
I have to say that Mathew is one of my favorite characters, because he helps us understand why Johnny a.k.a. Jack, is the way he is. He's also just fun.
To Rach5: The trouble is just starting.
To Scary-Girly: Someone's a tad obsessive on the Vaughn subject. "Coughscary-girlycough" Just kidding.
To eyghon: I haven't gotten that far yet, but Irina does get to talk to some other people on the phone later. Now if she can just remember to turn the voice distorter on...
Tp Krystle3: And I can't wait for some more reviews!!
To black ops: Yeah, I always have an interesting time coming up with the titles. From like day one I knew I had to have Irina drag Jack home.
To thehoodedsweatshirt: Yep, Jack's pulling double duty in the spy world. You'll get to meet my CIA boys later. And NO! Vaughn is not among them for you vaughnaholics that might be reading. And yes "wake up juice" is from Back to the Future. I don't know how you ever guessed.
I was dissapointed nobody found the line from Galaxy Quest. It was "red thingy moving toward the green thingy and she was pretty sure they were the green thingy". It's a really good movie and you should all see it. Alan Rickman and Tony Shaloub steal the movie. Of course, Alan Rickman always does that....Anyhoo, the story is about these actors whouse to star on a kinda Star-Trekish show and then they get involved with aliens who think the show is real and they have to battle really ugly aliens...............you're probably wondering why I'm babbling about this, but I might write a story like that about Alias, where Jennifer Garner and Co. get thrown into the spy world.
