Drum roll please!!
This (very long) chapter is meant to be read slowly and even more than once so that everything i am trying to get across is understood...I REALLY hope it isn't too confusing because it's the most important chapter--so if no one understands it, i'll be very sad, but i'll post a simplified version...
Anyway, without further ado, i give you....
Chapter Eight
(I didn't have a good quote for this chapter
)
Sydney sat on the coach with Will, eating ice cream and for the first time in a while, having fun. For the past two hours they had laughed and cried, reliving the times they had had with Francie.
“Are you feeling better now?” Will asked, smiling.
Sydney smiled back, “Yes, that really helped. I just needed to be sure I hadn’t forgotten all of the good times I had with you and Francie.”
They were silent as they ate their ice cream. Sydney finally broke it saying quietly, “You know, I am going to have to look for a new roommate soon.”
Will sighed, the smile gone from his face, “Yeah, I know.”
Sydney started to say something when her pager went off. She glanced at the screen and was ashamed to feel her heart speed up.
“It’s Vaughn. I have to go in.”
Will looked at her, frowning. “Does he know yet?”
Sydney picked up her bag. “He’s probably been informed by now.”
Will gave her a sympathetic smile. “Good luck.”
“Thanks."
*******
Sydney arrived at the CIA but she didn’t get out of her car. She leaned her head against the steering wheel, taking deep breaths. She didn’t want to face Vaughn. Not after she had asked for him to be replaced as her case officer. It had been the hardest thing she had ever done but, deep down, she knew it was the right thing to do. It was too dangerous for the both of them, and as much as she hated the fact that he was married, she didn’t want to mess it up for him. She took one more deep breath, got out of the car and walked through the front doors.
Sydney spotted Vaughn looking at a file, she suspected hers, and walked over to him, trying to slow down her heart. He looked different somehow, disheveled and preoccupied—something was up.
“What’s going on?”
Vaughn looked up from the file in his hands. “We have a debrief. I know this is going to be hard, but you need to explain what you saw during your regression therapy.”
Sydney looked down at her feet and nodded her head.
“Doctor Anders says that you’ll only need one or two more sessions, after that, your memory should come back on its own.”
“Good.”
Vaughn started to say something, but he was interrupted by Kendall. “Agent Bristow—after your debrief you will meet with Agent Chandler who will be replacing Agent Vaughn as your case officer.”
Sydney quickly glanced at Vaughn, his hands were folded in front of him, and he was staring at his feet.
Sydney nodded at Kendall and after he left, she nervously cleared her throat. “I’m sorry Vaughn, really I am.
It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but given our…uh…history, I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be working together.” It broke her heart to have to do this, but she knew it was for the best. She would never heal if she had to see him everyday or hear his voice on her com.
“Vaughn, please, say something,” she whispered, trying to keep her voice steady.
Vaughn took a shaky breath, “Alice and I are getting a divorce.”
Sydney stared at him, taken completely by surprise. Of course, she never thought that Alice was his type but she definitely didn’t think that Vaughn was the divorcing type. She opened and closed her mouth, her eyes wide open. She finally thought of something to say, “Oh God, Vaughn, I am so sorry.”
Vaughn shrugged his shoulders, “It’s better this way, neither one of us was happy.” Vaughn looked at her, the office chatter and sounds dissolved around him and for the first time, he could look at her and not feel a pang of guilt in his gut. He shook himself out of his trance and said, “Syd, we should probably go to the debrief now.”
Sydney nodded her head, and allowed him to lead her to the debriefing room.
Sydney and Vaughn sat down at a table full of familiar faces, except one man that neither of them recognized.
“Agent Bristow, you know Marshall, Agent Dixon and this is your new case officer—Agent Chandler.” Sydney smiled at Marshall and Dixon but, she gave a barely perceptible nod toward Chandler. She already regretted having Vaughn replaced and she knew it was because of the news he had just given her.
Kendall directed his gaze toward Vaughn. “Agent Vaughn—you may go, you are no longer on Agent Bristow’s case.”
Sydney stared at Kendall, anger flashing in her eyes. When she spoke, she did her best to keep the anger and resentment out of her voice. “If you don’t mind, I’d like Vau—Agent Vaughn to stay. He’s familiar with my case up until now and I think it would be a good idea if he were present to hear this.”
Kendall glanced between to two of them, his usual scowl engraved upon his face. “Very well, but this will not become a regular routine. Agent Chandler has been fully briefed on your case, and we do not need
Agent Vaughn anymore. Is that understood Agent Bristow? Agent Vaughn?”
They both nodded, trying to hide their dislike, and Vaughn took his seat next to Sydney.
“Let’s begin. Agent Bristow—you had your first regression therapy session yesterday, will you tell us what happened?”
Sydney took a deep breath. “Since the session yesterday, my memory has begun to fill in the holes of the past two years. I still can’t remember the earliest memory, but after the next session, I should have the complete picture.”
Sydney glanced at Vaughn and he gave her an encouraging smile. She continued.
“For the past year I have been working undercover for a man named Arthur Romanov. He—“
Chandler interrupted her, “Who is he?”
Vaughn, who had been watching Sydney intently, turned to glare at him, disliking him from the start.
“He’s Russian, working for what I thought a newly developed organization called The Agency.”
Everyone stared at her, waiting for her to finish her thought. She opened her mouth to speak again—
“The Agency what? Is that it? Just ‘the Agency’?” Chandler interrupted yet again, his tone condescending.
Sydney turned to glare at him, but Vaughn lost his composure, “Would you let her finish a thought for gods sake?!”
“Agent Vaughn!” Kendall barked, “If you cannot control your temper, I will ask you to leave.”
Vaughn clenched his jaw, but kept his mouth closed.
Sydney sent him a warning glance and he mentally criticized himself for losing his temper.
“The name of the organization headed by Romanov was called The Agency. I was sent there by Arvin
Sloane as a double agent. He thought The Agency was a small organization just beginning in the black market. It turned out it was a huge agency that had been around for over 25 years.”
“If it was such a big agency then why haven’t we heard of them before?” Dixon asked.
“I worked as a double agent for about a year, and then I made a discovery. I discovered something that went much deeper than the black market. Sloane led me to believe that The Agency was another surfacing organization out to control the black market, but that was not the case. They didn’t want to control the black market, they wanted to control other organizations involved in the black market. We had never heard of them before because their work was done through other organizations.”
“I don’t understand, was Sloane working for The Agency?” Chandler said, his face skeptical.
“Let me explain. They set up other organizations, get the entire black market network to turn against each other and eventually wipe each other out. Yes, it turned out Sloane worked for The Agency and carried out their wishes through SD-6 and the Alliance. By taking down the Alliance, we did exactly what The Agency wanted. As a double inside The Agency I was simply a test, to see how long a double agent could last within The Agency and not discover their true motives. When I found out, and reported my discovery to
Sloane, he of course, told Romanov who, in turn, tried to have me killed. But I escaped and, of course, ran straight to Sloane who also had the word out for my assassination. But I escaped again.”
“How?” Vaughn asked.
“My mother.”
“Irina Derevko?” Vaughn said.
“Yes, she had apparently had been looking for me for the past two years. She finally tracked me down to a warehouse in Switzerland, where Sloane was keeping me until he found out everything I knew about The Agency. She arranged for my escape. The last thing I remember is being on a plane with her, and then I woke up in Hong Kong. I assume she left me there because she knew she couldn’t be caught with me with her. She was trying to save her own skin.”
“This Intel, Agent Bristow, is huge. This is going to change the way the entire operations unit is run, because now we have an enemy that works through our other enemies. I presume their goal is to control the black market, but what happens after that?”
Sydney shrugged her shoulders, “World domination? I don’t know.”
“If you remember anything else, Agent Bristow, contact Agent Chandler. Thanks everyone, we’re finished for the moment.”
“Wait—“ Sydney said to Kendall, “I would like a full debrief on my father’s case.”
“Case? Agent Bristow—there is no case. Your father is an enemy of the United States, he is on the 10 most wanted list.”
“Listen, I know that it seems he is working for Sloane, but so was I, and I never saw him or anything.”
“Agent Bristow, you were undercover for a year and I am sure Arvin Sloane did the best he could to keep you two from finding out about each other,” Kendall said, obviously bored with the conversation.
Vaughn caught up with Sydney as she was leaving. “Hey, Syd, I was wondering, do you want to catch some dinner with me now? It’s kind of late, and I don’t know about you, but I am starving.”
Sydney looked at him warily. “I don’t know Vaughn, that might not be a good idea.”
Vaughn pleaded with his green eyes, “Please?”
Sydney finally allowed him a quick smile, “Alright, a quick dinner, but you’re not paying.” She said, her tone serious.
“Deal,” he said, shaking her hand.
They went to a nearby diner and as Sydney looked at her menu, she was aware of Vaughn’s puzzled gaze on her. She put down the menu and looked up at him, “What?”
Vaughn shook his head, “Nothing.”
“Vaughn, please, I can tell you have a question you are dying to ask. Just ask it and get it over with,” she said, resting her chin on her hand.
“Why?” he asked simply.
She looked at him, frowning, “Why what?”
“Why did you do it? Why did you give information to Sloane?”
Sydney looked down at her menu, covering her mouth with her hand. She looked up at him, tears glistening in her eyes. She fought them back and regained her composure. “I have asked myself that question so many times and I still don’t know the answer. When I look back on those two years, it’s almost like it was a television show I had watched. It was almost as if someone else was in control of my body, and I was just a spectator, watching myself do...do, awful things. I tortured people Vaughn; I killed people for no reason. If they got on my nerves, I would just shoot them—just like that, without a backward glance. It was like they robbed me of my conscience. I’ve become the kind of person I despise—“ she looked up at him, tears she couldn’t stop were streaming down her face, “I’ve become my mother.” She bent her head down shamefully.
“Sydney,” Vaughn said firmly, bending his head down, trying to get her to look at him, “You are not your mother. Never, ever compare yourself to your mother. Promise me?”
She nodded her head and wiped her eyes dry. “The only possibility I could come up with was that Sloane wiped my memory and programmed me to be able to kill with a clear conscience. And then I guess someone set it back. I don’t know, maybe it was my mother.”
Vaughn smiled sympathetically, “Let’s not talk about that now.” He glanced down at his menu, “So what looks good to you?”
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Well?? i hope it's not too confusing...R&R!!!
