Grey Zone
Summary: One agency knows she’s a traitor, the other thinks she is. What can Sydney Bristow do when nothing is in black and white anymore?
Disclaimer: I can only pretend to own them. Sue me not. I have no cash.
A/N: I posted my drabble entry last night and it gave me courage to post this one I'm working on. I'm sorry if there are mistakes, but I still need a beta. Anyway here is the first chappy. It starts after the Getaway, but has a different take on the events with Sloane. Mostly action oriented, but there will be some S/V along the way, as it is centered on them. Let me know what you think. If you guys like it I might post the second chapter tonight.
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Chapter One: As It Seems
Michael Vaughn sat at his desk trying to rub the pain from his head. This couldn’t be real. He’d spent the past three days in a debriefing with Jack Bristow and some how he still couldn’t grasp what his superiors were telling him. As much as his heart tried to deny the proof his head wouldn’t let him. Sydney was gone. She was out of his life. It hadn’t happened how he had imagined it in his nightmares. She hadn’t died in the line of duty or saving her country. No, in fact Sydney was very much alive. The fact was Sydney Bristow was a traitor. A triple the whole time.
Vaughn sat his elbows on his desk and pushed his palms hard into his forehead desperately trying to relieve the pressure. He has so many questions running through his head. How could he have been so wrong about her? How could she never falter in her performance? Had she faltered? Had he ignored it? Was he too wrapped up in the job to notice? Was he too wrapped up in her to notice? He still couldn’t get around everything. Devlin had called him into his office three days ago and his whole life had been turned upside down.
< O > Flashback < O >
“Agent Vaughn will you please take a seat?” Devlin asked him a little more distant and firm than Vaughn was used to hearing from him.
“Has Agent Bristow made contact with you in the past 72 hours?”
“No sir. We I haven’t received anything since we retrieved the gyroscope.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Devlin replied grimly.
“Wait. What is this about?” Vaughn questioned.
“We have reason to believe that the loyalties of Sydney Bristow do not lie with the CIA.”
“What…” Vaughn was speechless for a moment; he had not been expecting that. “Sir that isn’t possible. I know Sy..ahem..Agent Bristow and there is not a person in this world who has more patriotism than she does. There’s no one who wants to see SD-6 burn more than she does.”
“I assure you it is quite possible Mr. Vaughn. The CIA has some compelling video footage against her. It looks as if she played us. Please come with me.”
<O> End Flashback <O>
Vaughn couldn’t deny what he had seen. There were two videos. The first had shown her doing a crossword puzzle at table in the food court of a mall down town. Vaughn had not thought anything about the video was unusual until the end of the clip. Sydney had been sitting with her back to the security monitor and Arvin Sloane came to occupy the seat across from her. The two talked for a few minutes before Sydney reached into her purse and handed him a small red cell phone and an envelope. She had given him her CIA phone and what they believed was all her CIA credentials and contact lists. Then Sloane handed her a different envelope, which they had assumed were orders of some kind because shortly after Sloane got up and walked away. A few minutes later Sydney stood up and tucking the newspaper under her arm walked in the opposite direction.
The next tape was the more damning of the two. It was clear and left very little to be interpreted. It was a security tape from a CIA facility where Sydney had obviously raided and taken the Rambaldi manuscript they had just acquired. They guessed that her timing had been off by just a fraction of a minute because after the camera caught her on tape the feed went dead.
After three days of questioning and little sleep Vaughn still had no idea what to believe. He knew Sydney, or at least he thought he knew her. She had cried on his shoulder, trusted him with her life, and had risked her own to save him. Yet, the evidence seemed irrefutable, and his superiors reminded him of every past action of Sydney’s that could be deemed questionable: Badenweiler, her rogue op to Taipei, and of course the page 47 prophecy. Still something was nagging at his gut. He couldn’t describe it, but he knew everything wasn’t as it seems. Either there was more to Sydney’s betrayal than the CIA could grasp, or she wasn’t a traitor at all. With that thought he had made his decision. Vaughn was going to find out what exactly it was that had happened, consequences be damned.
Summary: One agency knows she’s a traitor, the other thinks she is. What can Sydney Bristow do when nothing is in black and white anymore?
Disclaimer: I can only pretend to own them. Sue me not. I have no cash.
A/N: I posted my drabble entry last night and it gave me courage to post this one I'm working on. I'm sorry if there are mistakes, but I still need a beta. Anyway here is the first chappy. It starts after the Getaway, but has a different take on the events with Sloane. Mostly action oriented, but there will be some S/V along the way, as it is centered on them. Let me know what you think. If you guys like it I might post the second chapter tonight.
*******************************************************************
Chapter One: As It Seems
Michael Vaughn sat at his desk trying to rub the pain from his head. This couldn’t be real. He’d spent the past three days in a debriefing with Jack Bristow and some how he still couldn’t grasp what his superiors were telling him. As much as his heart tried to deny the proof his head wouldn’t let him. Sydney was gone. She was out of his life. It hadn’t happened how he had imagined it in his nightmares. She hadn’t died in the line of duty or saving her country. No, in fact Sydney was very much alive. The fact was Sydney Bristow was a traitor. A triple the whole time.
Vaughn sat his elbows on his desk and pushed his palms hard into his forehead desperately trying to relieve the pressure. He has so many questions running through his head. How could he have been so wrong about her? How could she never falter in her performance? Had she faltered? Had he ignored it? Was he too wrapped up in the job to notice? Was he too wrapped up in her to notice? He still couldn’t get around everything. Devlin had called him into his office three days ago and his whole life had been turned upside down.
< O > Flashback < O >
“Agent Vaughn will you please take a seat?” Devlin asked him a little more distant and firm than Vaughn was used to hearing from him.
“Has Agent Bristow made contact with you in the past 72 hours?”
“No sir. We I haven’t received anything since we retrieved the gyroscope.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Devlin replied grimly.
“Wait. What is this about?” Vaughn questioned.
“We have reason to believe that the loyalties of Sydney Bristow do not lie with the CIA.”
“What…” Vaughn was speechless for a moment; he had not been expecting that. “Sir that isn’t possible. I know Sy..ahem..Agent Bristow and there is not a person in this world who has more patriotism than she does. There’s no one who wants to see SD-6 burn more than she does.”
“I assure you it is quite possible Mr. Vaughn. The CIA has some compelling video footage against her. It looks as if she played us. Please come with me.”
<O> End Flashback <O>
Vaughn couldn’t deny what he had seen. There were two videos. The first had shown her doing a crossword puzzle at table in the food court of a mall down town. Vaughn had not thought anything about the video was unusual until the end of the clip. Sydney had been sitting with her back to the security monitor and Arvin Sloane came to occupy the seat across from her. The two talked for a few minutes before Sydney reached into her purse and handed him a small red cell phone and an envelope. She had given him her CIA phone and what they believed was all her CIA credentials and contact lists. Then Sloane handed her a different envelope, which they had assumed were orders of some kind because shortly after Sloane got up and walked away. A few minutes later Sydney stood up and tucking the newspaper under her arm walked in the opposite direction.
The next tape was the more damning of the two. It was clear and left very little to be interpreted. It was a security tape from a CIA facility where Sydney had obviously raided and taken the Rambaldi manuscript they had just acquired. They guessed that her timing had been off by just a fraction of a minute because after the camera caught her on tape the feed went dead.
After three days of questioning and little sleep Vaughn still had no idea what to believe. He knew Sydney, or at least he thought he knew her. She had cried on his shoulder, trusted him with her life, and had risked her own to save him. Yet, the evidence seemed irrefutable, and his superiors reminded him of every past action of Sydney’s that could be deemed questionable: Badenweiler, her rogue op to Taipei, and of course the page 47 prophecy. Still something was nagging at his gut. He couldn’t describe it, but he knew everything wasn’t as it seems. Either there was more to Sydney’s betrayal than the CIA could grasp, or she wasn’t a traitor at all. With that thought he had made his decision. Vaughn was going to find out what exactly it was that had happened, consequences be damned.