The Life We Always Wanted
Set during Syd's missing years. This fic follows the show's timeline up until Syd goes to see Kendall after escaping from the Covenant. She goes to see Vaughn, and things go differently… (so, no waking up in Hong Kong finding Vaughn married, just to clarify)
Disclaimer: I don't own Alias or any of the characters.
Chapter 4 – Getting Out
3 days later
Sydney and I came up with a brilliant plan, if I do say so myself. Even Kendall thought so. But, this plan needs more than the three of us – that's why we were in the briefing room with Jack Bristow, Marcus Dixon, Eric Weiss, and Marshall Flinkman. There was a lot they needed to be briefed on.
"We have a plan to take down several key players in the Covenant simultaneously." Kendall said, opening the meeting. "We leak some intel that we're moving one of our valuable Rambaldi artifacts. Upon analyzing it, we found it could reveal Rambaldi's endgame, but it can only be opened with the blood of the chosen one."
"But the chosen one is dead?" Eric questioned
"Which is why we'd be moving the artifact back to storage." Kendall said, slightly annoyed. "The Covenant wants any Rambaldi artifacts they can get their hands on; they will want to examine this themselves. When they open the artifact, it will release a gas, knocking them all unconscious."
"Then we go in and take them into custody." Dixon interjected.
"Exactly. But this is also an extraction. We've had an agent undercover with the Covenant for a while, and we need to get her out."
"Who is it?" Marshall asked
Kendall gestured to me. "Gentlemen, the ever elusive Julia Thorne" I said. Then I clicked a button on the remote, and the screens in the room showed a woman with short blonde hair. This time, her face was clearly visible. Jack, Dixon, Weiss and Marshall all gasped.
"Is it….?" Dixon questioned
"No it can't be – she's dead" Weiss seemed confused
"It's her." Jack spoke for the first time "I can tell." The look on Jack's face was a mixture of joy, relief, and anger. The anger appeared to be directed toward Kendall.
"That explains why we couldn't ever ID Julia Thorne" Marshall noted.
"Agent Bristow was kidnapped by the Covenant. They faked her death and attempted to brainwash her into believing she was someone else, an assassin named Julia Thorne. We believe it was the Project Christmas training she had as a child that enabled her to resist the brainwashing. Finally she decided to pretend the brainwashing had worked and began her life as Julia Thorne. She contacted me when she completed her first mission for the Covenant. Agent Vaughn and I have been working with her ever since."
"You knew about this?" Jack said angrily, staring me down.
"Yes sir. We've been working together for a little over a year. Sydney came to see me, even though Kendall told her not to." Jack still appeared angry at me after my explanation; Jack Bristow is NOT someone you want mad at you.
"So Vaughn, if you knew the woman you're crazy in love with is alive, why are you dating Lauren?" Weiss asked, in a slightly misguided attempt to lighten the mood.
"Lauren isn't – well, she's…." I didn't quite know how to say it.
"Lauren is Covenant." Kendall finished for me.
"Her mission was to get close to me." I added, "So my mission was to feed her incorrect information. She is how we'll be leaking the intel for this mission to the Covenant."
"So we need a really good fake artifact that can only be opened with Sydney's blood?" Marshall questioned.
"Yes. And the gas inside it needs to be formulated so it will knock out everyone but her." Kendall added.
"I can do that, but it will take some time." Marshall said. "And I'll need some of her blood." I pulled a small vial out of my pocket and handed it to Marshall.
"Dismissed." Kendall said "we'll meet again in 24 hours. Tell no one about this."
"Marshall" I said as everyone else left. He turned around and looked at me. "I didn't want to mention this in front of everyone – but Sydney's pregnant. The gas needs to be done so it won't hurt the baby."
"Of course. When's the baby due? You know, Carrie is having a boy in just two months. If Sydney's baby is a girl, maybe they'll date when they're older. Then we'd be like family if they got married." Marshall stopped, realizing what he just said
"Yes Marshall, it's my baby. Sydney and I are going to be parents."
"Congratulations. This is such an exciting day. First we have a new mission, then we learn Agent Bristow is alive, and now the baby. Can it get any better?
"Yes. We could get her out of there."
"Okay, I'm on it."
We walked out of the briefing room to find Jack Bristow standing there, and angry scowl on his face. "Agent Vaughn – a word" he said, heading back into the briefing room. Of course I followed, though facing an angry Jack Bristow was not something I was particularly eager to do.
"I assume you're the one that's been meeting with my daughter."
"Yes sir." I said, trying very hard not to sound intimidated.
"Why was I not informed of this earlier. No one felt it necessary to tell me my daughter was alive!" Jack sounded really mad now. "I would have expected that courtesy from you."
"Kendall insisted no one else was allowed to know. As I mentioned in the meeting, he didn't want me involved either, but Sydney came to see me anyway."
"She can be rather stubborn at times." He replied grudgingly
"She wanted to see you too Jack. She asked about you all the time. It tore her up that you thought she was dead. But we all knew that for this to work it had to be as secret as possible."
"I know." He paused, then asked "how is she?"
"Good. But she wants her life back."
"She always hated the double life." Thankfully, Jack didn't sound angry anymore. It was almost like he actually understood.
"And this is so much worse for her than it was at SD-6. Jack – I don't know if I should tell you this…Sydney will probably want to kill me…but I don't want you to hear it from anyone else." I paused, gathering the strength to say these next words. "Jack, Sydney's pregnant."
There was a long pause while he processed this information "I assume you're the father." Great, now he looks like he wants to kill me.
"Yes. And I would appreciate if for her sake, you could accept our relationship. I love your daughter Jack, more than anything in the world. I can't imagine spending the rest of my life without her."
"What are you implying Agent Vaughn?" He asked sternly
"That when this is all over, I'm going to ask Sydney to marry me."
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2 weeks later
"Vaughn here" I said, answering my cell phone.
"Agent Vaughn, I just wanted to inform you of the analysis of the latest Rambaldi artifact we recovered." Kendall's voice said through the phone.
"You mean the box we recovered from Istanbul?" We had "retrieved" this box from a private collector last week.
"Yes. Unfortunately, we were unable to open it. The markings on the box indicate it can only be opened with the blood of the chosen one."
"Well, I guess that's one artifact we won't be able to open." I said, trying to sound a little upset. "It's hard to get the chosen one's blood when she's dead."
"Ms. Bristow may not have been the chosen one. But we're transferring the box to the DSR facility in Nevada tomorrow afternoon. I thought you would appreciate being informed since it involves Agent Bristow."
"Thank you sir. I appreciate your consideration." I said, and hung up the phone.
"Well Agent Vaughn," Kendall said, walking to my desk. "Do you think she took the bait?"
"We should know in a few minutes sir." Kendall, Marshall, Jack and I were looking at my computer screen, waiting for the moment it would indicate Lauren Reid was making a call. A mere 30 seconds later the message "outgoing call" flashed on the screen. Marshall punched a few keys and Lauren's voice came through my speaker phone.
"We have an opportunity."
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Sydney's POV – 3 days later
This is it I thought, as entered the room, the beginning of the end. The call requesting my presence at this meeting had come from one of the leaders of the Covenant late last night. Of course, I immediately called Vaughn. He and a few other agents flew to Warsaw to assist with my extraction and the capture of the Covenant leaders.
"Ms. Thorne, glad you could make it on such short notice." I recognized the man speaking from my loyalty test last year. There were four more men and two women seated around a table.
"Your offer intrigued me." I replied "What's this job that only I can do?"
"We need you to open this box" one of the women told me. Of course, I knew that already.
"A box? Anyone can open a box. Generally the jobs I undertake are riskier, and usually involve assassination."
"This is a special box" the man told me, setting it on the table.
Wow, Marshall really outdid himself on this one. If I didn't know better, I would have sworn it was an actual Rambaldi artifact. It was about 8" long, 5" wide, and 3" high. On the top was, of course, the Rambaldi symbol, o It was surrounded by intricately carved text.
"There's no lid, what exactly do you expect me to do?" I asked
The woman pressed the outer parts of the symbol ( ) and a needle came up from the center of the circle. I reached out my hand and put my left index finger on the tip of the needle. A few drops of my blood went into a small hole at the needle's base and then the needle retracted. All the Covenant leaders stared expectantly at the box. I pretended to look skeptical.
"Was that supposed to open the box? I asked, trying to sound incredulous.
"Give it time" the man replied.
After exactly one minute and 47 seconds (gotta love the details Marshall adds) the circle sank down and a cloud of gas came out of the box. As the people around me collapsed to the floor so did I. When they were all down I got up, walked over to the box, and removed my comm link. There was a jamming device in the box as well, so I knew the transmission wouldn't be picked up by anyone else.
"Mountaineer to base camp"
"Go ahead Mountaineer. It's good to hear your voice." My dad said through the comm channel.
"You too. There's seven Covenant operatives here. Two seem fairly high ranking, but I don't know about the others. They're all knocked out. That gas Marshall put in the box worked perfectly."
"Alright Mountaineer, we're sending in the team now. See you soon."
I shut off the comm. link and lay on the floor, pretending to have passed out like everyone else. There were a couple of people on the SWAT team that didn't know I was part of this mission, so I had to act the part the whole time. A minute later I heard shots outside the door. The SWAT team took out the guards. Then they were in the room, picking up the Covenant operatives. I feel a pair of strong arms picking me up; without even opening my eyes I knew it was Vaughn.
"It's almost over" he whispered, and carried me out of the room.
6/6