Thanks you guys so much for the reviews. It's nice to know that people are enjoying my story. I will do my best to make sure you keep enjoying it.
Note: This chapter takes place during "The Getaway". It will once again use some dialogue directly out of the episode. This is the chapter that the story will begin to completely change. The usual disclaimers apply.
TV Chick: Thanks so much for the review and the compliment on Vaughn's characterization. I try to make the characters as believable as possible. I hope you keep reading and enjoying my story.
NaTanaka: I'm thrilled that you think that my plot has amazing potential. And I will try to keep up the good work.
ArodLoverus2001: Here's the more you couldn't wait for.
Chapter 4- The Change
"Hey, Vaughn," Weiss called out. Weiss walked over to Vaughn's desk in the CIA office. It had been a little while since his visit to Dr. Nicholas, and very little less time since he had written off the strange experiences to stress.
"Yeah, Weiss?" Vaughn asked.
"I got the report back on that piece of jewelry you wanted me to get tested."
Vaughn had completely forgotten about the test he had asked to Weiss to do for him on the silver star. He looked down at his hand. He didn't see why he would have forgotten about it. He could still see the faint outline of the star.
"And what did you find?" Vaughn said.
Weiss took a deep breath. "Nothing," he answered.
Vaughn looked at Weiss in confusion. "Nothing?" he asked, the confused tone evident in his voice.
"Yeah, that's why it took so long. They ran every available test on it. It's just an ordinary, sterling silver star. Good quality though." Weiss said.
Vaughn took the star out of Weiss's hand. It was in a small forensics bag, and he quickly put in on his desk.
"Dude, you want to tell me what this is all about?" Weiss said.
Vaughn thought about it, but he figured that Weiss would just think he was crazy.
"Not really," Vaughn answered.
Weiss studied his best friend, not sure what to say.
"Okay," he finally said. They had a gyroscope to recover in a few hours. They had to get moving.
Weiss also planned to have a talk with Vaughn about Sydney. The guy needed to tell her how he felt, and Weiss was determined to do something about it.
"You've been made, get out of there now!" Weiss yelled into the phone. He didn't know how, but Alliance security had gotten a tail on Sydney and Vaughn's date, and had identified Vaughn as CIA. Both Sydney and Vaughn's life were now in grave danger.
"Syd, behind you!" he heard Vaughn say, and the next thing he heard was glass breaking and gunshots. He felt helpless, but Sydney and Vaughn were now on their own.
"Syd, behind you!" Vaughn yelled. Sydney immediately grabbed her wine glass, turned around, and flung it at the door. Sure enough, she could see two men coming through the doorway, one of them with blond hair and one with a head shaped like a cue-ball. both of them armed, and she hit the lead most one in the arm with her glass. She jumped for cover behind the bar as Vaughn overturned the table and began firing his gun. They ran through the back door of the restaurant and sped down the stairs. Vaughn ran down the ally way with Sydney right next to him, only to be cut off by a car coming down to meet them.
They tried to turn and run the other way, but one of the other thugs, Blondie, came into view and began firing at their feet. Vaughn tried to stop before he reached the line of bullets, but the ground was wet, and he slid to a stop, but not in time.
His vision danced in stars as the bullet injured his left leg, and he collapsed to the ground.
"Vaughn!" he heard Sydney yell. His vision was still dancing with red stars, but he also watched her run up to the shooter, and give him a good right hook to the jaw, followed by her knee connecting with his groin. Blondie collapsed to the ground.
But Vaughn's sense of triumph collapsed when he saw thug number two, Cue-ball, run up behind Sydney, and hit her over the head with the butt of his handgun. She fell down cold.
"No!" Vaughn yelled, but all that did was attract the attention towards him again, which was met with a kick to his stomach, putting him in a fetal position on the ground.
"Shut up, you CIA son of a bitch," Cue-ball promptly said, with a look of disgust on his face. He knelt down and took Vaughn's handgun out of it's holster and slipped it in his own belt.
Behind Cue-ball, he saw Blondie get to his feet, rub his chin, and immediately get out restraints and put them on Sydney.
"Damn," Blondie said, "the bitch made me land on my cell phone. We'll have to call Kaine once we get back to the hotel."
Kaine? Vaughn thought. Then he remembered. It was the woman who was investigating Jack for the murder of Sloane's wife. Now he knew why Sydney and he had been followed. He cursed himself for not knowing better.
"Now let's have a talk with your traitorous girlfriend," said the Blondie.
Vaughn struggled to get up, but failed for two reasons. One, because his leg was hurting like hell, and two, because Cue-ball had his foot pressed on his back.
Vaughn watched helplessly as Blondie grabbed Sydney by her hair and hauled her onto her knees. Sydney let out a little yelp of pain.
"Since we can't call Kaine, we'll just interrogate you right here," said the hit man menacingly. Cue-ball was still strongly holding Vaughn down.
"Now, let's begin with an easy question. How long have you been a double agent with the CIA?" said Blondie.
Sydney glowered up at him. "How long do you want me to have worked for them?" she answered sarcastically.
Vaughn would have smiled except for the fact that Sydney was immediately kicked onto her back for her response.
"Let's try again. How long have you been working with the CIA?" Sydney's interrogator asked her again.
Sydney was now lying on her side, her hands still bound behind her. "Long enough to know that you suck at this torture thing."
That comment got Sydney a kick in in stomach, and she cried out in pain.
Vaughn cried out with her.
"What? Is your leg hurting, buddy?" said Cue-ball. He promptly stepped on the wound. Vaughn didn't know if he cried out, but the stars came back to dance in front of is eyes, almost as if they were taunting him.
"Vaughn!" Sydney cried out, obviously more worried about Vaughn's safety than her own.
Blondie almost seemed to read her mind. "You'd better worry about yourself," her said. "You're death probably won't be as quick. His comment was followed by another kick to Sydney's stomach.
In the middle of all this, Vaughn didn't notice that the pain in his chest had returned, and instead of going away this time, it was slowly becoming more intense. He didn't notice because of the pain in his leg, but mostly because of the fury he felt for Sydney's pain.
He watched helplessly as the thug grabbed her by the hair and started dragging her to the car. Sydney was fighting as hard as she could, but her hands and legs were bound, and her efforts were useless. He admired that she never gave up, even when it was clearly in vain. That was one of the things he loved about her.
Finally the pain in his chest grew so intense that it outweighed the pain from the bullet wound. Cue-ball stood over Vaughn and took out his gun and pointed it at Vaughn's head. Vaughn looked into Sydney's eyes, and she looked back at him, and then, something snapped within him, and everything went black.
Things may have seemed to black out for Vaughn, but Sydney saw something completely different, something that would keep playing through her head for a long time to come.
The first thing she saw after Vaughn and she looked at each other, one being dragged to almost certain death, and one about to get shot in the had from a foot away, was Vaughn start to have what seemed like a seizure. It only lasted for maybe three seconds, and then he seemed to fall unconscious.
The thug pointing the gun at Vaughn seemed to hesitate, not sure what had happened. Sydney thought at first that he had gone into shock from the bullet wound.
All Sydney's physical pain seemed to evaporate, and it was replaced with despair. Despair that she had never really told Vaughn how she felt about him, despair that she had selfishly accepted his risky offer of going out to dinner, and despair that Vaughn seemed to be bleeding to death right before her eyes.
That's when the impossible happened.
Vaughn's eyes opened, and faster than the eye could follow, he reached up and snatched the gun from Cue-ball's hand. The gun's next resting place was at the other end of the alley. The thug looked at his hand in surprise, not comprehending what had just happened. The next thing that went flying was the thug himself. From what Sydney could tell. Vaughn had grabbed the thug by his leg, and threw him into the wall of the alley.
I must have passed out, Sydney thought to herself, this can't be possible. No one could throw anyone that distance, and certainly not like they were a rag doll.
But the pain and shock that she felt was very real, and she knew she was still awake.
The noise finally got the attention of Blondie, who was dragging her away. He dropped her rather unceremoniously and turned around to see what the commotion was.
The next impossible thing Vaughn did was stand up. He didn't even show any signs that he was in pain. Sydney looked down at Vaughn's leg. She could see the blood on his pants, but she couldn't see that the wound was bleeding anymore.
This was getting stranger by the second.
Sydney cried out to him, but he didn't seem to hear her. The next thing he did was turn his attention towards Sydney's tormentor.
Vaughn didn't move for a few seconds, and he just seemed to stare at the man that was standing over Sydney. During this time Sydney got a good look at Vaughn.
From what Sydney could see Vaughn looked okay. He was putting full weight on his injured leg, almost as if he hadn't been shot. The look on his face was unreadable. Somewhere between fear and anger, and he also didn't show any reaction to the fact that he was doing things that shouldn't be possible.
Then she looked in his eyes. The eyes that usually made her melt when she looked into them.
They were completely black.
Not blank, as if there was no emotion, but physically black, even the whites, like a night sky.
Suddenly Sydney felt frightfully helpless. And also, terrified. Sure, she had been scared often before, but she had not often felt terror. Terror like she felt when she walked into Danny's apartment, and found him murdered.
She knew that something was horribly not right.
Sydney's guard inched away from her, keeping his back to the wall. The thug had his gun aimed at Vaughn, not sure what to do. Sydney saw that the thug was trying to make his way towards the entrance to the alley, with Sydney between her and Vaughn. She also saw that the man's hand was shaking with fear.
Sydney felt the need to do something, but her movement was still restricted by the restraints on her arms and legs. At the moment, she could do nothing but watch. Vaughn in front of her and the retreating thug in back of her.
For a few moments Vaughn simply followed the thug with his gaze. A black gaze completely void of expression. God, Sydney thought, what had happened to him?
She heard the thug begin to run behind her. At first Sydney thought that Vaughn was going to let him go, but as soon as he began to run, Vaughn got a strange little smile on his face. Then he sprang. That was the only way she could describe it. He was there one second, and across the alley the next. She couldn't see what was happening behind her, for it took a second for her to turn onto her other side.
She first heard a strange noise, and she heard Blondie cry out in terror. Finally she heard the thug fall to the pavement. This was the point when Sydney turned around and was able to see Vaughn.
She saw the thug on the ground, clearly dead. Vaughn was standing over the body, and Sydney could see blood on his mouth, which only frightened and concerned her more.
What the hell just happened, she thought. This was getting more surreal by the moment, along with her concern for Vaughn. She had no idea what was happening to him.
Suddenly Sydney felt something cold on her neck. A knife. Apparently Cue-ball had woken up, and decided to use Sydney as leverage.
"Okay, freak. I don't know what the hell you are, but if you come even one step closer, you won't have a girlfriend to risk your life for," said the thug.
Vaughn didn't move. His face twisted into a look of worry, the first real emotion he had shown since..., well, this started. He was showing concern for Sydney's life.
Everything was still for a few seconds, no one seeming to know what to do.
Sydney realized it was a stalemate unless she did something. She did the first thing she could think of. She threw her head back and hit the thug right in the nose. She heard something crack, and there was a small cry from Cue-ball before he felt back on the pavement.
Vaughn moved almost immediately. He was behind her grappling with her attacker the next thing she knew. She could see the dropped knife next to her, and she began to reach for it.
While Sydney attempted to free herself, she watched as the two men faced off. Cue-ball decided to make the first move. He lashed out at Vaughn, and connected with a solid punch to his face. Vaughn staggered back and grunted in pain. The thug smiled at his small triumph.
Sydney got one of her hands around the knife, and began sawing at the rope around her hands.
The thug rushed at Vaughn for another attack. The attacking man got ready to make a knock out blow to the head, but was interrupted by an attack by Vaughn. Vaughn made a move that looked like a punch to the thug's solar plexus, but instead of simply knocking the wind out of the thug, Vaughn's fist went right through his body.
Sydney's horror was now complete. Vaughn withdrew his fist and Cue-ball dropped, dead before he even hit the ground.
Sydney quickly finished cutting through her binds, and she sat up and looked at Vaughn.
Vaughn then seemed to stagger a little, as if a wave of dizziness had come over him. He shook his head and opened his eyes. They were brown again, the beautiful brown that Sydney loved so much, but they showed a hell of a lot of confusion. He looked at the body in front of him, and his confusion seemed to grow.
Did he remember what he just did? Sydney asked herself.
Vaughn then looked down at his hands, which were covered with blood. Vaughn looked like he was about to panic.
"Vaughn," Sydney said softy, trying to get his attention.
Vaughn looked up at her, looking terrified and confused.
"Syd?" he said, as if asking her what the hell was going on.
She didn't get a chance to answer. Vaughn's eyes rolled towards the back of his head and he passed out, dropping to the ground.
So? Huh? Please review. It will help motivate me, plus it makes me really happy. I hope to hear from you. The next chapter will be up shortly.