Discovering The Waterfront Chapter 15: Haunted and Haunting, an alias fanfic

Alright this next chapter may not be the best but I'm building up to the climax which promises to be totally excellent.

...the story continues...

Discovering The Waterfront

Chapter 15

Haunted and Haunting

Isabelle sat quietly on the C.I.A. plane. Her mother sat next to her but Isabelle didn't really notice. She was so tired she couldn't focus on anything around her. There was a problem though, as much as she tried or wanted to sleep, she couldn't. She let out a small sigh of frustration and shifted her sitting position. She looked out at the darkened sky and then around the plane. Everyone was asleep, that was everyone except for the one person in one of the seats in the front. She quietly stood and maneuvered her way around her mother without waking her up. She walked forward down the aisle and sat down next to the awake person.

"Couldn't sleep?" Vaughn asked his daughter.

"Nope." She replied without any emotion.

"How long since you last slept?" Vaughn asked sounding concerned.

"Over a week." Isabelle laughed despite the circumstances.

There was an awkward silence amongst the two, neither one wanting to tell the truth.

"So you're my dad." It wasn't a question but a statement to herself.

"Sorry I haven't been around kiddo." Vaughn said trying to sound as fatherly as he could.

"That's what grandpa calls me." Isabelle told him.

"Ok, I won't call you that then." Vaughn rebounded.

"That would be great." Isabelle laughed a little.

"I saw you when you were a baby you know? But there was a problem with Prophet Five and everyone thought I was dead. Even your mother didn't know." Vaughn explained his absence.

"What happened?" Isabelle asked wanting to hear the story.

"After Prophet Five found out I was alive the first time they ordered a hit. You, Your mother, and I we were all in hiding but they just kept coming. You were too little to remember this but they blew up an entire apartment building thinking it was the one we were staying in. After the explosion I disappeared, your mother thought I was dead and Prophet Five stopped coming. I don't think she thought I was gone but she went back to work and the rest is history." Vaughn told the story.

"That was why mom was always at work. She was looking for you." Isabelle said quietly.

"Probably." Vaughn confirmed Isabelle's suspicions.

"When Sloane took me they made me take this pill everyday, I didn't want to but they forced it down.Then every morning they would ask me how I was feeling and whether or not I had been sleeping." Isabelle said thinking the no sleep condition was connected to her stay.

"Did you tell them?" Vaughn asked looking at her bloodshot eyes.

"I lied, said I was sleeping fine. Then they upped the dose to twice a day. Then they would do the same routine questioning but they added a new question. Whether or not I was seeing things that weren't there." Isabelle thought over the medicine and the times she had thought she had seen her family.

"Were you?" Vaughn was concerned.

"Yeah. I kept lying but I think they knew because they reduced the dose again and kept writing things down on a chart. When I asked them about the medicine they told me it was for something important." Isabelle looked out the window and saw a bird flying by but it wasn't an ordinary bird it was bright white and suddenly it burst into flames.

She shuddered and put her hands to her head. She shut her eyes and then looked out at the window again, the bird was gone.

"Are you alright?" Vaughn asked noticing her reaction to something she saw.

"Fine." Isabelle whispered keeping her eyes closed and in doing so ending the conversation.

The rest of the flight Isabelle was silent and even when they arrived at APO, she remained quiet and vacant. She dropped herself in a chair near Sydney's desk, she was on lockdown for the next 48 hours starting now.

"Sydney I need to talk to you for a second." Vaughn told Sydney suddenly.

"Sure." Sydney followed Vaughn into the debriefing room.

"I think they did something to Isabelle. She told me they made her take this medicine or something and she hasn't been sleeping. She's seeing things that aren't there Syd, I'm really worried." Vaughn explained Sydney hurriedly.

"I'll have the doctors run some tests." Sydney left the room and walked over to Isabelle trying to confirm what Vaughn said for herself.

"Listen, we have to run a few tests ok?" Sydney told Isabelle in the most delicate voice she could use.

"What kind of tests?" Isabelle looked her mother directly in her eyes showing how bloodshot and worn her own were.

"Blood tests." Sydney answered Isabelle and smiled slightly when she saw her daughter shudder like she always did at the mention of any form of needle.

"Alright." Isabelle complied with a shrug.

"And I think a psych test too." Sydney admitted.

"Why?" Isabelle asked wondering why she would possibly need to go answer questions from a shrink.

"It's just routine." Sydney lied, she was worried so she was making Isabelle go talk to the psychiatrist.

I think we have an emergency
I think we have an emergency

Isabelle sat on the couch of the psychiatrist's office. The office was rather large than Isabelle thought it would be, there was a couch lined up against the wall with a chair right across from it. Awards and degrees lined the wallnear a desk where a bookcase was behind.Itwas located in the C.I.A. offices in Los Angeles so naturally Isabelle had to be transported there for her session, with theproper security measures taken of course. The shrink knew all about what had happened as she had read the report and seen Isabelle's medical records from the bloodwork.

The psychiatrist was a new person whom Sydney had only talked to once before. She seemed nice and Sydney figured Isabelle would be alright, so she waited out in the hall while Isabelle sat in the session alone.

If you thought I'd breathe then you were wrong
Because I won't stop holding on
So are you listening?
So are you watching me?

"Well Isabelle, I bet you're exhausted from all that running around?" Dr. Lewis asked Isabelle holding a clipboard with countless charts and a blank piece of notebook paper waiting to be written on about Isabelle.

"Not really." Isabelle answered quickly looking anywhere but at the shrink.

"Your mother says you haven't slept in over a week, is that right?" The doctor tried again.

"If thats what she said." Isabelle didn't like the interrogation thing, she had been asked question after question by everyone from her grandfather to nearly everyone at APO.

If you thought I'd breathe then you were wrong
Because I won't stop holding on
This is an emergency
So are you listening?
And I can't pretend that I don't see this
It's really not your fault

"Isabelle I understand that you're angry about not being told the truth. I understand that you're probably sick of the question answer thing but if you don't let me help you, you're going to have a breakdown." Dr. Lewis told Isabelle finally seeing the bloodshot eyes she had been told about.

"You have no idea what I feel." Isabelle whispered dangerously.

"Then give me an idea." She struck a nerve.

"Yes, I'm angry...yes, I don't understand why my mother didn't tell me...but I don't care about any of it anymore because the thing that I'm most worried about is the fact that I'm going crazy." Isabelle had stood during her speech and walked over to the window staring absentmindedly out of it while she spoke.

"Why do you think you're going crazy?" The shrink asked writing down something that Isabelle didn't care to ask about.

"Because...I see things that aren't really there. I haven't slept since I was kidnapped...I mean since Sloane took menot the other times.I don't think I'm ever going to sleep again." Isabelle explained.

"Is there something bothering you that's stopping you from sleeping?"

Isabelle thought over this question. What could be bothering her? Was it the fact that maybe she did still hold some anger towards her family for lying to her? Or it might have been something else that she didn't even realize she felt.

And no one cares to talk about it
To talk about it
Cause' I've seen love die way too many times
When it deserved to be alive
I've seen you cry way too many times
When you deserved to be alive
Alive...

"They made me take this weird pill when I was taken by Sloane. They asked me routine questions and I always gave the same answers...I lied." Isabelle admitted in the room that was slowly becoming more and more constricted.

"Why did you lie?"

"Why do you think?" Isabelle said it airily and without feeling.

"Let's talk about your family." The statement was so plain and simple but for Isabelle it held many unobtainable truths that she couldn't hand out to the world.

A flash went through her mind to when she was in first grade and for a project the class made a poster about their family. The only pictures Isabelle had were ones of her and her mother and her and her grandfather. That was it, and she couldn't even explain what her mother did because she didn't know what Sydney did at the bank, all she knew was that she worked at a bank.

The other kids at things like their father was a lawyer and their mother stayed home with them or they visited their mother every other weekend but lived with their father or for some it was reverse. All Isabelle had was her mother who was gone a lot and an absent childhood.

She had a childhood of course, she played pretend, she had lots of friends but when the day was over all Isabelle had was the quiet peace of her dreams where her parents were happy and she was just like everyone else.

So give up every chance you get
Just to feel new again
I think we have an emergency
I think we have an emergency

"What do you wan't to know?" Isabelle asked not taking her eyes off the passing cars on the road below the window.

"Do you love your mother?"

"Of course I do." She answered without hesitation and feeling slightly offended that anyone would need to ask her that.

"Even though she lied and worked a lot?"

"Yes, I love her regardless." Isabelle looked at the doctor while she answered before returning to her staring contest with the pavement.

"What about your father?"

"I don't know him well enough to answer honestly." Isabelle replied monotonously.

"I think you do."

"I've only talked to him once and yes, he's a nice person but I'm not sure whether or not I can really call him dad." Isabelle admitted feeling a wave of relief hit her as she stated it.

And you do your best to show me love
But you don't know what love is
So are you listening?
So are you watching me?
Well I can't pretend that I don't see this
It's really not your fault

"Would you like to move on?" The doctor's voice was a faded mumble in Isabelle's brain. She felt herself nod and then heard the next question clearly.

"How do you feel about your friend Mark Reed? I understand he's been living in protective custody but you still talk to him."

It was true, Mark had been moved to protective custody for the time being as he was not charged with any crime but was still threatened by both Sloane and his own mother. Isabelle had made sure Sydney understood that and had in her own way helped Mark get the protection he needed.

"He's a good person. I just think he got caught up in the wrong family." Isabelle said quietly.

"Do you think you got caught up in the wrong family?"

"No...I think I got the right one." Isabelle whispered almost too quietly but the doctor still heard. Isabelle heard the quiet scraping of a pen for a few minutes before the next question was asked.

"You still didn't answer my first question. How do feel about him?" This question struck something deep inside Isabelle. She tried to answer but couldn't, something was stopping her.

"Isabelle?" The distance of the doctor's voice was growing.

"I'm fine." Isabelle whispered hoarsely not realizing how much pressure she had put on herself.

"He's the only friend I can talk to about anything because he knows my family's secrets." Isabelle answered thinking for another minute.

"I think this was productive." The doctor said writing one more thing down after she looked at the clock.

"I want to talk to you again alright? Tell your mother same time next week." Dr. Lewis told Isabelle with a smile.

"Great." Isabelle said sarcastically before she left and repeated the message to Sydney.

The scars they will not fade away

Isabelle sat quietly in the same chair she had been occupying her time in for the past day and a half. It was her second night at the office and her father was the one watching her this time. He slept soundly at his desk while Isabelle toyed around on her mother's computer. She walked through firewall after firewall looking at all the projects her mother had been involved in.

There was always a mention of some person named Rambaldi but Isabelle didn't really pay any attention to it. She just liked to look at the placed her mother went while Isabelle was either at school or being babysat by someone.

A message box appeared on the screen asking whether or not she could recieve a message. She complied with it and waited for the message.

"Bored as hell...guards hate when I ask for food." Isabelle laughed as she read Mark's message. He must have known where she would be.

"Hey Mark." Isabelle typed holding the same smile she had everytime she thought about him.

That would be the next chapter. I thought I needed a cute ending instead of a creepy cut off.

Emergency - Paramore - All We Know Is Falling