The Hardest Thing

kate_jones said:
It was Vaughn in the room, right? And on the phone? I hope so, otherwise it's a little creepy! :P
LMAO!! Exactly what I was thinking!!
Great new chap!! Can't wait for the next one!!
angelbleu this is such a great story!! :woot:
P.S. You are welcome for the :poke: :P :lol: :D
-Karie-
 
Come on i'm dyin' here! I am supposed to be studying for my drivers ed test, i am on a laptop. Post more soon please! :D
 
hey spy41 i know i have a huge math final tom and i cant get away from this site!! i need to know now whats gonna happen!!! :eek:
 
Ow, all this poking... :P Thank you guys so much!!! not only did you write one review...you all wrote again with encouraging words. This next one is dedicated to y'all.....:D



Part Five


The mystery patient is back. Sydney’s hand grabs the edge of the counter for support. She couldn’t believe her ears. For some strange reason in the past two weeks, her mind would unconsciously drift towards wondering about him.

“ Sydney?” Julie waves her hand across the blank stare on her friend’s face. “ I thought you’d be thrilled by that news. I told the other girls to hold off on supplying the medicine cabinet for that room. I thought you might want to be the one to . . .” Julie’s words slow to a halt.

Sydney remains speechless. Now is her chance to find out who he is, and she is terrified. Her stomach feels like it is twisted in knots. Her palms are claming up, and she is having trouble breathing.

This isn’t the reaction from Sydney that Julie had intended. After seeing Sydney’s out of character behavior last time, Julie was positive that Sydney had grown attached to that patient. Now, she is not so sure.

“ I’m sorry Syd. I just thought . . .”

Sydney snaps out of her worries and says, “ oh. It’s okay.”

“ I can have some one else go instead,” Julie quickly adds.

“ No,” Sydney wants to do this. She needs to go or else she won’t be able to sleep for the next few nights. Secretly, this is what she has been hoping for anyway. “ You’re right about me. I would like to see the patient in room 470.” She gives Julie a big smile and turns to grab the box of medical supplies.

As she carries the box with one arm, her other hand nervously goes to smooth her hair. She doesn’t understand why she is so self-conscious about how she looks all of a sudden. It feels like the nerves of meeting a blind date. Why are they mysteriously surfacing now?

As she nears the end of the hallway, she sees that most of the doors are open except for the last room. “ Oh no,” she thinks. “ What if he’s sleeping?” She quickly alters her hurried scurry to a slower and softer pace so she barely makes a sound.

She settles the box on the side of her hip as she turns the door-knob. As she opens the door just a crack, she hears the muffled voices of a conversation. Sydney makes two quick mental notes: one, he is awake, and two, he has a visitor. She holds her breath and after a moment of hesitation to turn around, she decides to proceed in. Slowly and carefully, she makes her way in. This is one time when she’s grateful for her spy skills to get into a room undetected. She lifts her head up to see the curtain barrier again. She sees the shadows of two men on the curtain and hears the familiarity of their speech.

“ At least you look a little better than the last time I saw you,” the man sitting in the chair comments. Sydney Bristow can not believe it. It is a voice that she heard two weeks ago outside this very hospital. It is Weiss! Sydney holds her breath and her free hand shoots to cover her mouth to silence her oncoming gasp. So Weiss is here visiting this person…

“ Yeah. I feel better,” then she hears the other voice. Sydney shakes her head from side to side. So she had been right the other day. It WAS him. He was the one calling out. So many questions swarm her head. What’s going on? Why is he here? She stubbornly refrains from letting her mind go to the obvious…that they are in a hospital.

“ I think this place is much better than all the other rooms,” Weiss gets up from his chair and walks towards the window. He plays with the shutters as he peers outside down the street. “ A nice view from here too. Don’t you think?”

“ I haven’t actually gotten the chance to look. The new medication they gave me was not working that well . . .” he slows down and releases a heavy sigh. He sounds tired.

“ Yeah. I heard that after my visit, they had to take to you down to another floor.”

“ I was . . .apparently delirious and saying all sorts of things.” Weiss glances back at his friend with a worried expression. He knows perfectly well that there are certain top secret information that can’t be leaked.

“ Don’t worry. I think they just dismissed whatever I said as…delusional crazy patient talk.” Vaughn thinks back to that day. The morning started out fine. Weiss had left just as he a nurse came in with the new medication. It made him extremely drowsy. It made him feel as if his whole head was in a tank of water. He was drifting away. It felt like sleep, but it wasn’t.

Vaughn lets out a chuckle as he remembers seeing her in that “sleeping” state.

“ What’s so funny?” Weiss finally notices Vaughn’s change of mood.

“ Nothing. It’s just that in my state of delusion, I thought I saw her.” They both know of whom he refers. They have stopped using her name in conversation because they know it is hard on him.

“ That girl of your dreams?”

Everything seems to spin into slow motion as Sydney listens closely. She isn’t aware of who they are talking about. She doesn’t know if she wants to hear anymore. Even after these months of mourning her loss of Vaughn, it still bothers her that he might be with someone else. Though it pains her, she wants to listen to them continue.

Vaughn almost smiles, but quickly chokes it back. He turns his head away from Weiss by the window and stares at the curtain that is a barrier down the middle of his room.

“ Don’t laugh, but I think I felt her presence that day,” Vaughn talks sadly to the curtain.

His hard gaze wants to penetrate through to the other side, but the sun shines so brightly onto the curtain that he can’t. But she can see his shadow, and she feels his eyes on her even if he isn’t aware. The sensation scares her. She carefully take a few steps backwards until her back just barely brushes the wall.

“ And today it’s the same way,” he sighs as he runs his hand through his hair. “ I woke up and felt as if I just had to hear her voice. So I . . .”

“ You didn’t,” Weiss couldn’t believe it. He walks to the nightstand by Vaughn’s bed and takes the phone that he left on the table when he went out for coffee. “ You called her with my phone?”

Vaughn looks down at his hands and nods his head. “ But I hung up really quickly. I don’t know what came over me.”

Sydney gets a flash from this morning when she and Francie were picking out clothes. The phone rang, but there was no one on the other end. Could it be? Sydney reaches to steady herself against the wall.

“ I haven’t had the urge to do that in awhile.”

“ You mean you’ve called her other times before?” Weiss is surprised by Vaughn’s confession. Vaughn had always refused to let Weiss call Sydney for him.

“ No. I haven’t.” Vaughn is quick to respond. “ But it was real hard right after things ended. When it got to the point when I couldn’t take it anymore, I’d try to think where I might find her.”

Weiss looks sympathetically at his friend. If only Vaughn wasn’t so adamant about keeping her away, he might get his happiness back.

“ And I’d go in search of her. I would watch from afar as she ran in the park or sat at the train station or . . .”

Sydney feels her heart beat faster as she comes to the realization that he’s talking about her. She blocks his voice out as she tilts her head to rest against the wall. Her insides are churning as she thinks back on those days when she swore she felt him near. So she wasn’t going crazy then! She had blamed herself for all those times she wanted to pull her hair out because she thought he saw him but when she looked again, he quickly disappeared. She remembers crying those nights she felt so alone after those episodes. And all this time, he had been there!

Weiss’s voice brings her back. “ Why did you torture yourself like that man?”

All Vaughn can do is give him shrugged shoulders. He doesn’t even know why. Sometimes he wished he never acted so cruel that day at the warehouse. Sure there were days when he wanted to tell her and explain, but then he remembers why he’s doing all this. It is for her happiness. When his condition got worse and he had to be admitted, that was the day he swore he couldn’t go back.

“ I saw her the other day . . .uh . . .as I was coming out of the hospital,” Weiss closes his eyes waiting for Vaughn’s outburst.

“ What?!” Vaughn’s breath catches and his shoulders heave with the coming of a coughing fit. Sydney watches intensely through the curtain as Weiss rushes to Vaughn’s side.
Vaughn holds out his hand to signal that he’s okay. He takes a deep breath and continues his outburst, “ What? She can’t know!”

Weiss feels his forehead for perspiration. “ Calm down. I told her I was visiting my grandmother.”

Vaughn relaxes a bit and sinks into his pillow. “ I’m sorry I jumped at you. I get a little . . .” Vaughn squeezes his eyes shut and flops his arms down on the bed in exasperation.

“Crazy when it comes to her?” Weiss finishes his sentence for him.

Vaughn looks up at his best friend questioningly and finally ask, “ How is she?”

“ She says she’s fine. But I could tell she isn’t the same as she used to be.” This hurts Vaughn. He never wanted her to change.

Weiss continues, “ We got on the topic of you and she didn’t want to hear it.”

“ Good,” Vaughn says quietly.

“ Good? No! I told her that you weren’t doing well because you weren’t with the one you want to be with.”

Now Vaughn returns to a state of frustration. “ Why did you say that?”

“ Because it’s the truth!” Weiss yells back at him. He is tired of seeing his friend so miserable. He wants to shout at Vaughn to wake up and stop pushing Sydney away. “ I don’t know why you insist on pretending there is another woman when there ISN’T!”

Sydney clutches box she hands in her hands tighter and tighter.

“ She has to THINK there is.”

“ Why man why?” Weiss gives him a confused face

Sydney wants to ask the same thing. Why Vaughn? If there is no other woman, then why?

“ Because . . .that’s the only way she’ll move on,” Vaughn swallows the lump in his throat and wishes the pain in his heart would just go away.

Weiss looks at his pitiful friend. “ Is that what you really want?”

Vaughn grabs the sheet in between his hand and twists it around in his hand. “ As hard as it is, yeah. I want her to be happy.”

“ She isn’t happy now!”

“ She will be,” Vaughn is sure of it. “ She has so much to give.”

Sydney feels the tears well up in her eyes as she listens to him.

“ Maybe you could set her up with someone . . .” Weiss is bewildered. This is crazy talk.

“ Do you hear yourself?” he wants to go and smack some sense into Vaughn.

“ Yes I do,” Vaughn says in despair. “ I don’t know how well she’s meeting people. And if you approve of a guy, then that’s . . .”

“ Then that’s what? Wonderful? Perfect? What if you get better? Do you still want her to be with someone else?”

Vaughn is silent. He had already given up so much hope of him getting better.

“ Vaughn! You know it’s going to be too late when you get better…”

“ I don’t know if I’ll get better . . .”

“ I think she can help you . . .if you tell her…”

“NO!” Vaughn yells. “ No. I don’t want her to see me like this. To have to come to this place every day. To go home alone every night. To worry about when it will be it for me. And all for what?? For what? No. I can’t do that. ”

Sydney feels like she can’t breathe. Her knuckles are white from her clutching the box. Her knees feel like giving out and her fingers slowly lose sensation. The box slips from her grasp and crashes to the floor.

“ Nurse? Are you okay?” Vaughn calls out. Weiss quickly grabs the end of the curtain and pushes it aside. Vaughn and Weiss turn their heads to see. All three people in the room say nothing.

The room is silent.

Weiss is speechless. “ I . . .I’m going . . .I . . .” he stutters. He sees that no one is paying attention to him and walks to the door.

Vaughn almost passes out at the sight of Sydney, looking exactly the way she did that day at the warehouse in her blue dress. Sydney stares at him with a blank expression as she lets the tear roll down her cheek.

Sydney opens her mouth and nothing comes out.

She tries again. “ You . . .” She says in a shaky voice.

He can’t stand to see her like this and turns his head to look at the window. He closes his eyes wishing that she would disappear. He bites his lip as he hears her voice again.

“ You. . .Jerk. . .”
 
:blink: Wow. That was such a great chapter I can't believe it. I loved that she didn't just fall nto his arms or anything. I mean, I want them to be together eventually but that wouldn't be very Syd-like. Amazing and I can't wait for more. :D
 
omg im soooooo happy that you finally wrote more!! :D yeah ditto what kate said!! omg i love this and you better get busy on the next chap cause i dont know how long i can wait for the next chap!!! :blink: (y) :D
 
awwwwwwwwwwwwww ::crys::......y?!?!!?!?!?? y!?!!?!? damnit vaughn!!!! juss do it!!!! ur such a jerk!!!! ::crys::
 
ahhhh!!!!! post post post (i dont think i can say that word enough times) this is one of the best fanfics ive ever read. i also read ur other fanfic smile and luved it!! u write amazing angst.
 
Oh......................my..............................god..................

POST MORE RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I"M DYING AND I"M CHOKING AND I NEED MORE!!!!!!!!!! :cchokes and falls on the floor:: ::Squeaks out:: hurry!!!
 
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