I am so so so sorry for the lack of updates! The past few weeks have been CRAZY and now that it's finals week, things are finally winding down.
I hope you all haven't forgotten about this! :lol:
Four
Things are starting to get complicated.
When you’re with him, there are brief moments when you wonder what the hell you’re doing. Your life is already so complex – being a double agent, lying to your friends, everything to do with your parents. Your relationship with Vaughn only makes things more difficult. But then he looks at you, kisses you… and you know that it’s all worth it.
You’ve fallen hard for him – you don’t remember the last guy who made you feel this way. If it was possible, you’d spend every single moment with him.
Of course, it isn’t possible. Not even close. In fact, you can’t even be seen with him in public. That makes it impossible to have a real date – there are only late night meetings at the pier, the observatory, the train station. Preceding these meetings are lies to tell Francie and sometimes Will, and an elaborate path to the destination. Lots of extra turns, excruciating side trips down random streets, keeping tabs on the rearview mirror, hoping that SD 6 is not tailing you. So far, you’ve been lucky. But how long can this luck last?
Remember that first kiss. It happened at the first meeting in the warehouse, after that night on the pier. This meeting had a legitimate purpose – another mission. It was all business at first, so much so that you wondered if he had decided to ignore all the revelations of the night before. Or maybe you had gotten drunk, after all, and dreamed it.
After detailing the counter-mission, he had fallen silent. He looked down at his shoes, you looked down at yours. You were wearing the inappropriately sexy boots again. The toes – square, not pointed – peeked out from under your black slacks. The silence had been so deafening that you cleared your throat to interrupt it. The noise had startled him enough for his eyes to fly to your face briefly, before focusing on the cardboard boxes to his left. Another few minutes of this awkwardness and you were done. He wasn’t going to acknowledge it and neither were you. Taking a deep breath, you finally said, “Well, I should go…”
Finally, that seemed to wake him up. He reached out and grabbed your arm. “Wait,” he had said. He pressed his lips together, waited a beat, then said it. “Alice and I broke up.”
You had looked down at his hand on your arm – the same hand had reached out to touch your arm the night before – then up at his face. Before you could think of a reply, he leaned in with a rush and kissed you.
It was breathless and sweet, full of emotions only half-spoken. He tasted vaguely like peppermint, and you wondered if he had planned it all. After a long moment, you broke apart. He leaned his forehead against yours, your fingers laced together. A few deep breaths, then he had said, simply, “So…”
“So…” you had repeated, a smile playing on your lips.
The next couple of weeks were filled with these moments. Under the guise of a work-related briefing, with actual missions to discuss. Work first. And then he suggested meeting at the observatory at night, after it was closed. An unexpected and rare lull at SD 6 – no mission to discuss. You met close to the building, in the shadows, hidden from the world. That was the first time you seriously thought about having sex with him. Not out in the open, and not in your jeep – which was probably bugged anyways – but in his standard black sedan. Those thoughts were enough to make you blush, and even in the darkness, he had noticed and asked about it. In response, you merely kissed him.
The next time you met him at the observatory, it actually happened. It wasn’t perfect – in his car, you felt kind of like an awkward teenager – but it was with him, and that was all that mattered. The entire time, you were both almost too much on edge, hoping someone wouldn’t see the car in the dark, empty lot. No one did, but you both agreed that it was too dangerous to do that again.
It isn’t all about the sex, anyways. When you meet at the train station, he sits facing one way and you sit facing the opposite direction. And you just talk. About work. Childhood – he told you how he found out that Santa Claus wasn’t real when he was eight. Funny stories about mundane activities like going to the grocery store. Anything but your relationship. That conversation is just under the surface, permeating every silence. You don’t want to bring it up, afraid that the impossibility of this relationship will become a reality. Where else can it lead to but disaster? You feel like the only saving grace would be the downfall of SD 6, the destruction of the Alliance.
But really, it didn’t get really complicated until Will found out.
It happened so innocently. You were talking to him, getting ready for yet another mission, this time to Crete. He asked, “What’s so thrilling about this spy stuff anyways?”
“It’s hard to explain,” you said, trying to find the words to explain. “It’s like kissing someone you’ve liked forever for the first time. You know, that rush.” And immediately, you blushed, wishing you had chosen a different example.
Will’s piercing blue eyes had caught that blush. You never blushed – as a spy, it was something you didn’t want to do – so when you did turn red, it was really noteworthy. And he knew that. “Oh? You’ve had experience with that lately?” he asked, amusement edging his voice.
You had smiled, tucked a loose strand hair behind your ear, trying to cover. “Of course not,” you replied, maybe a little too quickly, a little too glibly.
He had just looked at you for a second or two. And then he knew. His eyes widened and he said, “With –?” before you shushed him, affirming the question he already knew the answer to. As well as you could, you begged him to secrecy and fielded off his questions. He hasn’t brought it up again, but now when you make up an excuse to go meet Vaughn, he looks at you, silently asking, “What the hell are you doing?” That’s what you think that look means, anyways. Of course you can trust Will. But when somebody else knows, the relationship is more real. More concrete. More of a potential mistake that can never be undone.
And then, in Crete, you made a mistake during the mission. It was so minor, so seemingly inconsequential. But as a result, you weren’t able to give the information to the CIA – SD 6 got it instead. Kendall asked you what you were thinking. You weren’t sure, but it was probably along the lines of what the tattoo on Vaughn’s arm meant. Of course, you didn’t tell that to Kendall. You stood there and took it, instead of arguing back as you usually did. As you were berated, Vaughn stood at Kendall’s right, slightly behind him. Though you kept your eyes focused on Kendall’s angry face, you knew Vaughn’s brow was furrowed, worried. Kendall got over it and Vaughn never brought it up. Your father was also there, standing on the other side of Kendall, watching you closely with his arms crossed. He also hasn’t brought it up yet, but you don’t doubt that he’s figured everything out. Jack Bristow rarely misses a thing.
The weather in L.A. has been unusually cloudy lately. No real rain, but the sky is a bomb, ready to explode at any minute now. You wait for it.
