A/N: First: I finally changed my user name here on FF! Don't panic, it's still me! My gamer name has been Sowen for so long, it's just weird I never changed it here.
Second: Part 22 officially passed 100,000 words for this fic! I never thought it would get to this point as it started as a one-shot from 2007 - but here we are. Thank you so much to those reading, especially to my consistent reviewers Laura and RebeccaCarson! Your reviews light me up when I see them and appreciate the kindness of sticking with me and leaving me a message almost every chapter. I had over 1,000 views for this story in May! Though I know it's literally just finding something to do during quarantine, I appreciate every single view! Thanks, readers!
(omg, get to the chapter already)
Third: I've started a Discord Channel for Fanfiction writers/readers! If anyone would like to join, I'd love to hang out with y'all! Send me a DM here and I'll get you invited! It's brand new and has a lot of growing to do. You can reach me on Discord as Sowen # 4747.
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Part 23
Butterflies danced in his stomach and were propelled into his lungs as the elevator took him down. The doors opened, but he didn't step out. Adjusting his blue blazer, buttoning and unbuttoning the front in an effort to decide if he should look casual or professional, his fidgeting resulted with a scoff and an eye roll as ding echoed and the doors started to close.
Panicking slightly he slapped at the button but still didn't step out into the quiet hallway even when the doors followed his button-mashy command.
"Are you...stuck?" The young nurse stood leaning on the counter with a confused grin as the dark-skinned agent jumped at what he thought was a sudden appearance. She'd been watching him war with himself for the last thirty seconds or so, a smile tilting her lips.
"No," he said quickly and stepped out. "No...no, I just - I was just lost in thought."
"Jamie," she laughed at his nervousness, extending her hand.
"Dixon. Marcus," he corrected.
"Vaughn brought you down here a few weeks ago, right?" At his nod, she gestured toward the closed medical room door but noticed his hesitation. "How do you know Sydney?"
It was still strange for him to think of his partner in only the past tense. The words 'former partner' sounded dirty, and he hated that it made him think of her as gone again when he'd only just gotten her back.
"We were partners for just over seven years. You know...with the bad guys."
"Ah," Jamie said and slowly escorted the man over to the medical room's closed door. "Well, you must be pretty close, I'm glad she's opening up a bit."
Dixon frowned. "Why do you say that?"
"I mean...she asked to see her mom, Francie, and now you - and that's it so far. I'm just saying," she faltered, "I mean...seven years is - you must be close, that's all."
It was his turn to chuckle as she tripped over her words. "Yeah, we're pretty close."
Jamie patted him on the arm and left with a soft smile, his brown eyes following as she walked back to the nurses' station and flopped into the comfortable office chair before swinging her feet onto the desk and lifting a worn book into her hands.
'She wants to see you before Jack? Well...before Vaughn?'
Heaving a sigh, he pushed his worry back and slowly pulled the door to the room open. A television was on across the room, Pulp Fiction playing and drawing his attention.
"Hey," her sweet voice said quietly, Dixon feeling his throat tighten as a flood of emotions bubbled to the surface.
She was propped up at an angle that was almost sitting, the oxygen tubes draping across both cheekbones and fitted just under her nostrils. They stared quietly at one another for several moments as both tried to compartmentalize their emotions and figure out where to start. It was hard to believe that this would be their first honest conversation in almost two years, but the looming secret that she'd had to keep was no longer a wedge between them.
A tear dripped from his eye, Sydney nodding, "I know. I'm sorry. I...I didn't want you to find out that way. I wanted so much to be the one to tell you the truth but-"
"Stop." His order was forceful and startled her into silence. "You saved my life...and my wife, Robin, and Steven," he left off moving to the side of her bed. Holding his hand out he waited for her to gingerly lift hers and set it in his palm before he settled his other overtop. "I love you for that," he said with a wide and teary smile.
She broke with a sob pulling at him lightly as he got the hint and leaned awkwardly over the bar and pulled the suddenly frail young woman into a hug. The last time he'd thought her fragile was that night in Sao Paulo, and since then it was something of a dirty word when he thought of his partner. She wasn't fragile or frail, she was...Sydney; Sydney was strong even through moments of weakness. However, this Sydney was new, and a blossoming need to protect this newborn Sydney from the world grew in his heart.
He rubbed her shoulder for long moments until she calmed and he loosened his hold. Letting her settle back against the fluffy pillow he reached up with both hands and cupped her cheeks, his thumbs brushing at the tears from below the tubes.
"It's been a while since we had a meltdown moment together," he said and a strangled laugh broke through her sniffles.
He lifted the glass of water up, her lips drinking from the straw as she cleared her throat. "I...owe you a lot of explanation."
"Why do you think that?" he countered.
"Dixon, c'mon. I - lied to you for eighteen months. You deserved better than that."
Marcus laughed. "You remember that one mission in New York? You know, when we had to break into that guy's penthouse suite on New Year's Eve?"
"Yeah," she admitted, not entirely sure where he was going with his reminiscing.
"It was a total disaster."
"Because you were nervous," she grinned.
"Yeah, I was. You were going in by yourself, and I was out of my mind with worry."
Her puffy eyes glistened with more tears but the tilting grin stayed on her lips.
Marcus shook his head, "you wanted to knock my lights out when I kept repeating details and double-checking the equipment." She chuckled lightly at his admission.
"you made me late and I didn't even get the intel."
"Do you remember what I said to you before you stepped out of that van?"
Her smile faltered a little. "You...you said you felt like you were dropping me off at my first day of school."
Marcus nodded. "I was nervous because you've always been like a daughter to me. I saw in our first year that you didn't have your father in your life and...you're so easy to love, Syd. It drove me crazy that your real dad didn't want to have anything to do with you. You were - are - such an amazing person, and I was terrified of losing you that night."
Dixon moved away from the bed and slipped his hands into his pockets, his eyes focused on a single stock photo image of an American flag in a gaudy framed portrait hanging on the wall. Sydney sniffled but didn't speak, mostly because she didn't know where the conversation was going.
"At first, I was upset. But I-" he paused and turned, making sure to hold her gaze for a moment, "I never felt angry. Well...that's not true. I've spent a lot of the last month and a half being very angry, just not at you, Sydney." He turned back to the poster.
"Dixon, I tried so many times to bring you into the fold. I knew better than anyone how loyal you were and what a good asset you would make. Vaughn was right every time he countered me. I couldn't sign you up for double agent duty, it was something you'd have to choose yourself. It was dangerous enough for me to be involved and I didn't even have a family. I'm sorry you were kept in the dark for so long."
Marcus laughed and reached out, his hands straightening the slightly askew frame before stepping back and making sure it was even. "If anything, I owe you an apology. I meant it when I said that calling your loyalty into question was a dark time for me, and I meant it all those times I said that I trusted you."
"I don't know why," she grumbled and looked down at the rumpled blanket over her lap.
"This random guy shows up at my door almost 47 days ago. In hindsight he looked distraught, but...at the time I just assumed he was coffee-deprived since it was something like six o'clock in the morning. The look on his face, Sydney - I had seen that look before. I saw it on my own face in the rear-view mirror that night in New York the moment you left the van, and I saw it in his haunted green eyes. He was...heartbroken because of what he'd lost."
"I'm sorry," she repeated, more tears falling from her eyes.
He turned back with a warm smile. "I know. I also know that you did what you did and said what you said to protect me. We made that promise to each other and," he paused taking her hand back into his, "I'll be damned if that promise went away because you had to hide the truth from me. I'll never put any blame on you for being a double, Sydney."
The smile she shared was genuine, and she felt the anxiety in her soul begin to drift away. "It killed me every time I had to lie to you," she admitted.
"That's what Vaughn said. If I'd known at the airport that I was pushing you to share a relationship you weren't even supposed to have, I wouldn't have poked so much, you know that."
Sydney shook her head, "it's okay."
"Seriously though...how are you feeling right now? If you're tired or if you were sleeping, I can come back later," he said quickly seeing the fatigue written across her features.
"You're the third person to ask that, but...I'm fine."
Marcus squinted his eyes into a semi-serious glare. "Tell me the truth."
"I don't know what you want me to say," she lied.
"You don't have to say anything, but I'm genuinely curious about how you're feeling, that's all. If you're really feeling fine, that's great."
Sydney growled, "of course I'm not fine." More tears escaped as her chin quivered. "I don't know how to be fine right now, but I'm trying."
Marcus just sent her another soft smile and rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. "You don't have to try, Sydney. Not with me. You can tell me exactly how you feel right now, or not. It's okay either way."
"I…" she paused as her gaze darted around the room before stopping on the television. Pulp Fiction was still playing, though she'd muted it when Dixon had entered. The scene where Uma Thurman's character lay nearly dead on the floor grabbed her attention. She could almost feel the sharp pain the moment the needle pierced the sternum and drove adrenaline into the failing heart, and she knew that the same action had been done to hers after they'd established a weak rhythm during her extraction. At least, that's what she'd learned when the psychologist had given her the information from the rescue once she felt she was ready.
"I died, Dixon."
Her partner nodded sadly but didn't speak.
"I...I died. And now...now I'm just supposed to hide in the basement of an office where I've never legitimately used the front door. Who knows how long this will take? My dad's been at it for almost thirty years and...I've been in the deep end for eighteen months."
"You know that you're closer than anyone's ever been. Because of you, they're going down sooner rather than later. That other stuff? The healing and figuring it out? That's coming too. You're not dead, Syd - you just need to find your way back. Everyone that loves you is here with you-" he started, but her disgusted reaction surprised him.
She scoffed and thumped her hands on the bed in a small tantrum, wincing as the left side jarred painfully in her shoulder. "Everyone is here because I screwed up. I ruined their lives! Will and Francie and...and your family - you're all stuck down here. You didn't choose to be in a CIA basement!"
Marcus could recognize that she didn't want sympathy, she wanted to be angry, and that was a right she'd definitely earned. So he decided to join her. Pulling his hands away he huffed, "Syd - you didn't stick me down here. Tell me: how long were you a double before you asked the CIA to put my family on a list just in case something happened to you?"
Sydney was confused at the sudden shift in not only the conversation but also his demeanor. "What?"
"How long had you been a double before you put my family and me, and Will and Francie, on a protection list? What list did you put us on; did it already exist?"
She shook her head, "a...a few days in I had Vaughn put one together with the director."
Dixon nodded. "Okay. This was right after you were attacked; right after you gave yourself a mission to Taipei where you had your teeth pulled out, and right after you were confirmed for double agent duty." She nodded in confused confirmation. "Was your first thought 'poor me I'm hurting people' or was it 'I need to protect these people'?" His pointed and hard stare weakened her anger a bit.
"I don't know."
"You don't know? I know. That's who you are, Sydney. You didn't get us into anything, you got us out of everything. My children would be dead if you hadn't, do you realize that? Your friends...your father - all dead if you hadn't reacted how you did. I'll bet," he paused with a chuckle, "I'll bet that when you found out you were compromised, the first thing you did was accept it and not fight back because an airport full of people isn't the place for a shootout, am I right?"
She nodded.
"You could have taken 'em, couldn't you?"
"Probably," she whispered, her eyes were held transfixed by his brown, tear-filled stare.
His voice kept all of its intensity but went low and gravelly. "You took it, Syd. You...took it. For all of us you...you sat there and took it for six...days," the last word sobbed out between his lips, his chin trembling as his arms hung low at his sides. "You're absolutely within your right to be mad, baby. Be mad. Hell, I am," he admitted.
"I am mad," she said, though her voice was more of a squeak than the confident statement she intended.
"Good! Be mad! Don't doubt and don't feel pity for yourself. You survived the unsurvivable, and through that, you're still sticking it to them. They'll never see it coming. Who knows - in a month or two; three? You'll get your chance to be the match that burns them to the ground, I promise you that." His promise was fierce and he slowly walked back over and reclaimed her hand between his palms. "I promise."
Sydney cried through a nod and buried her face into the cool fabric of his jacket as she clung to his words and presence. Long moments passed until they both calmed enough to pull apart, and he saw the fatigue written across every feature of her face, but hidden behind her hooded gaze was the rekindled fire in her brown eyes that had been missing when he'd come in earlier. Smiling, he cupped her cheeks.
"I'll follow your lead from this basement not because I'm stuck and don't have a choice, but because I'd choose this even if things had turned out differently. You wanna know why?"
She nodded as her tears spilled against his fingers.
"Because you're Sydney goddamned Bristow, and that's a name they'll never have a chance to forget."
...
Her eyes opened to the pitch darkness of the cell, the damp smell of mold and urine hitting her nostrils.
The tight muscles in her neck twinged as she whipped her head to the side as fast as possible to face the crack of light coming from under the door.
Had all of it been a dream?
No; it couldn't have been, could it?
Could it?
Every muscle in her body protested as she went to sit up, the biting zip ties pinching her already raw skin at the wrists and ankles. She could feel the panicking tightness in her chest, her ribs aching as she went limp against the cool metal of the bare cot heaving panicked sobs.
The tears poured from the edges of her eyes into the hair at her temples and her chin quivered, but she tried to collect herself. What had happened? She forced her mind to piece together the events from the last time she'd been awake.
The secondary room…
The camera in the corner…
Pulp Fiction playing in the background…
Her fist connecting with Flynn's jaw…
Rough hands dragging her back to her cell…
The phone call with Vaughn…
Something wasn't right. Something was wrong. She shook her head slightly and dug the edge of a nail into the side of her broken finger, the pain shooting up her arm - but she didn't wake. The pain was there, it was real, but she wasn't waking up.
She tried to pull free her hand, twisting it back and forth, but the sharp plastic bit into her damaged skin and succeeded at merely digging deeper into the back of her wrist. Sydney kept twisting, her limited movements frantic as blood leaked from the gouges down to the tips of her numbing fingers.
"Wake up," she growled with a sob and started moving her left hand the same as the right hoping that the blood would make them slip out of the restraints. She wasn't having much luck. "Wake up, damn it!"
"You're already awake, love." Flynn's voice bounced off the concrete walls. Sharp, nasally, far away.
Her eyes shot open as sudden low light chased away the cell, faint beeping replacing the Brit's taunting laughter as the edges of her vision blurred into focus.
"Syd, wake up," a gentle voice prodded to her right. "You're okay...it's okay. You're safe," it promised.
Her eyes finally cleared a bit and she turned to look at the face of the man standing beside the bed, loving green instead of icy blue looking into her frightened soul.
"Vaughn," she whimpered.
"I'm right here; everything's okay, I promise."
His hands were gentle and kind, his lips warm and soft, and Sydney ignored the painful pinch in her shoulder as she wrapped her arm around his neck and burrowed with a sob against his throat.
…
A/N: Yeah, another note - I'm full of them tonight. I'm going into my super busy season at work, but I'm still working on chapters and putting the end together! Hopefully, I'll still be able to update about every week or two, but if it's longer, I apologize!
