Two Words
Two words can change your life, but it is the story behind them that counts
Written by: SydnVaughn4eva 2
pic created by AlisonDoren over @ sd-1
Disclaimer: I own alias. I invented the show with my pure genius mind. And MV is my fiancée. Hehehehe. I wish!!! I do not own alias it was created by the mastermind JJ Abrams. And MV is still my fiancée… in my dreams dat is. Gawd I hate reality, dreams r sooo much better.*leans back in her seat and starts daydreaming about MV* :inlove:
Summary: Post ‘the telling’. Syd has a secret about her missing two years which has the ability to change two peoples lives with two single words.
Pairings: L/V but S/V eventually.
A/N
This is my first fanfic cuz im only new 2 va board so please be nice. *gets down on her knees and begs* reviews will be much appreciated. Oh and I promise their wont be too much L/V. I hate Lauren as much as u guys do :whip: but I am a fan of a little angst. dis fic has been posted over at sd-1 but i decided 2 post it here as well so heres all nine chapters. also i lke quotes cux i enjoy reading wat parts u guyz liked, so a post full of quotes will be much appreciated.
Prologue:
Sydney’s POV
I’m sitting and staring at myself in the mirror, staring at me. But I can’t see me because I don’t seem to recognize myself anymore. All I see is this woman with long wavy blonde hair, wearing dark eyeliner and those empty unfeeling eyes. I’ve become everything I despise. Oleg was right…Sydney Bristow no longer exists.
Flashback
You and I are going to work together. We will spend lots of time together. But we will get the results that my employers have requested. I always do.
We'll make this easy. We unearthed her. We left her in your apartment, before we burned it. You, that was more difficult. When a body is burned badly enough, the DNA they test for is in the teeth. We extracted pulp from your teeth, and injected it into the teeth in the corpse that was to be your replacement. Of course, they tested the body they found. To them, it was you.
He will mourn and move on, find someone else perhaps. The sooner you accept that you are no longer who you were, the easier this will be. Sydney Bristow is gone.
End of Flashback
I have been missing since my fight with Alison Doren, Francie’s Double. For almost two years now. I am dead to the CIA and everyone I care about. I have been torn away from everyone that I care about including my lover. There is still a little part of me who is fighting for her identity, fighting for Sydney Bristow. Even if I have come everything I despise I will never be completely broken. Not even Oleg could do that.
Flashback
Your name is Julia Thorne. You were born in London on August Two, Nineteen Seventy-Three.
My name is Sydney Bristow you ugly bastard.
End of Flashback
Oleg tried hypnosis, disorientating me with narcotics, withholding me from food at weeks at a time, and bombarding me with images and information. All in the attempt of brainwashing me into believing I was a person called Julia Thorne. He was successful, at least he thought he was. I faked the whole façade. I realised if I didn’t this would never stop. I then became operational within the Covenant. All this happened within nine months. And at my first possible chance I contacted the CIA and I met with Kendall at a safe house in Tuscany.
Flashback
I want to go home. I want to see my dad.
Your father can't be contacted. He's under deep cover. And as it is, you have no home to return to. Agent Bristow, let me be clear. You return home, you're putting in jeopardy the lives of the people you claim to love.
You're just trying to scare me.
Look at your friend Will. The Covenant left the son of a b**** for dead. Listen to me. If what little intel we have on the Covenant is anywhere near accurate, they have the potential to be far more deadly than the Alliance ever was. Which is why it is imperative that you continue as Julia Thorne. The Covenant believes they have you programmed.
If you think I'm going back to them, you're insane.
If you don't, they're going to come after you, after your friends, your family, after Vaughn.
I have to see him.
Sydney, you've been gone nine months.
He loves me. Nine months is nothing.
End of Flashback
Here I am staring in the same mirror preparing myself for the most confrontational mission of my life to seduce a CIA agent to gain information for the Covernant about ‘the chip.’ I am about to seduce my lover and my confident…I will recognize him but he wont recognize me.
TBC
Chapter one:
Ressurrection
Jack’s POV
I am numb. I don’t know what to think right now. And here I am having to face this briefing room with all the people who are going to act emotionally when they hear what I am about to say. Especially Agent Vaughn. I’m not even ready myself to say these words, to get my hopes up even if we had confirmed that it was her. I sigh.
“30 minutes ago we received a call from one of our agents, someone who was presumed dead, claiming to be Sydney Bristow.”
“How do we know it is her? It could have been someone posing as her.” Lauren stated. She’s in denial. I would be too if my wife’s ex-boyffriend came back from the dead.
“We ran a standard voice analysis when the call came through, it was a match to her file.”
“Where is she now?” Dixon chokes out clearly emotional.
“She is on a plane as we speak from Hong Kong where she contacted us from.” She will be here by morning.” Everyone stands up to leave all still digesting this piece of information as still am I. “You should all know,” They all turn around. “Sydney has no recollection of the last two years, she doesn’t remember a thing about her capture, so bear that in mind.” I’m left standing in the middle of this briefing room thinking that in a few hours I’m about to see my daughter again. And somehow for the first time in my whole life I don’t know what to do.
Vaughn’s POV
She’s alive, she has been alive all this time. What am I supposed to do now. She dosen’t remember a thing and she is about to find me married. She is going to hate me. She is never going to want to speak to me again.
Weiss approaches me. “How you holding up, man.” Sounding concerned.
“I’m okay.” I say but but my voic betrays me.
“You can’t fool me man, you have been staring at that desk for a whole hour you’ve almost burnt a hole through it”
“You state the obvious, she is going to hate me you know that don’t you.”
“She’s is not going to hate, yeah so maybe in the beginning but I know Syd just as well as you do, she could never cut you out of her life, she will forgive you, she will understand.” He says that but he is not me, he is not the man who is married to another woman. “You’re right, she may hate me for awhile but she will eventually forgive me.” It’s not what I feel but it is the only way I am able to get Weiss to leave me alone. I just need to be alone right now.
Lauren’s POV
Michael and I are sittind down eating our dinner at an unusual hour of eight o’clock. He’s just sitting there staring at his plate playing with his food with the fork he is holding. Just staring into space. “Honey are you okay, do yo want to talk about it?” I ask knowing that is the last thing he wants to do but we are going to have to have this conversation sooner or later.
“No, I don’t really want to talk about it, but all I need to know right now is if you can handle this, if you are okay with this?” He says dulley.
“Michael don’t worry about me, I’m okay with this we made our vows to eachother she can’t ruin our marriage.” This is exactly the opposite to what I wanted to say. I wanted to say she is going to ruin everything. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She isn’t suppose to be here. She is supposed to be dead to the world. She should no longer exist. But instead I smile at him. “I’m more worried about you then I am worried about me.”
“Don’t be.” He says to me as he takes a bite out of his meal. As convincing as he is trying to be. I see right through him.
Sydney’s POV
Here I am moments away from seeing all the ones I love again, including him. I am so confused right now. I don’t know wheather I should just tell him it was me or should I lie and not say anything just as I have lied about the fact that I don’t remember a thing about my missing two years, when in actual fact I do know everything that happened to me right down to every single detail. If I tell them the truth Kendall will find out and have me sent back there in an instant. I will not go back there I just want to leave behind that part of my life apart of my life I wish never happened. I will not go back to those people. I’ve decided that he will never know it was me that night in Panama city. Why ruin his life over something like that when not telling him will do no harm at all.
I am now just metres away from seeing everone again to seeing him again. I stop and take a deep breath. I slowly walk into the Rotunda…
TBC
Chapter two:
Suspicions and Lies
Sydney’s POV
There he is standing there looking to the ground like he was unable to face me. Somehow I feel the same way. I’m not ready to see him, yet here I am standing here. My brown eyes meet green and we connect. How can I lie to this man? But that is what I seem to be doing. I am lying to him right now just by looking deep into his green orbs. He has me transfixed. I am soon torn away from his glance by a voice greeting me.
“Welcome, back.” Dixon says and smiles at me.
I can’t help but smile back. “Well it is good to be back.” I sigh.
“Are you okay sweetheart?” My father says full of concern.
“I’m fine, I guess I am just wrapping my head around it all, not remembering anything at all, it’s going to take some time to adjust.” I pretend to look upset. Well at least that was my plan but I didn’t need to pretend because I was upset, upset that I was lying to all the people I care about. Lying to Vaughn, the one person I don’t want to lie too, but I have too because my secret is too damaging to him. I don’t want to be the cause of a marriage break up. Not over this.
Flashback
“Are you serious, you had a woman dump you for that”
“Yeah it kinda sucked at the time.”
“I wouldn’t dump you like that.” I said seductively.
“Good…to…know.” He breathes out staring at my lips. I closed the gap between us in a passionate kiss. Our hands roamed each others bodies and our clothes were shed in frenzy and he slowly backed me up towards the bed.
End of Flashback
Weiss’s POV
Syd was so distant when we first saw her. We all had hugged her and welcomed back but she seemed to have her thoughts somewhere else. I don’t even think she acknowledged who she was hugging and talking to. She’s hiding something I know she is and Jack doesn’t seem to realize it. Now there is a first. And as for Mike that is a whole complete different story. He told Syd that he was married about ten minutes after everyone greeted her. It didn’t go too well, obviously. She just walked away in tears. I expected her to yell or something but she didn’t but she gave him those eyes of betrayal and I think that said enough. It was enough to nearly kill Vaughn on the spot.
Vaughn’s POV
Here I am yet again staring at my desk again. Why do I feel so guilty for telling the truth? Its not like I was lying to her.
Flashback
“Hi…err…welcome back.” I said uncertainty.
“Hi she says hugging me.” Sounding more confident then I was.
I hugged her back and I look straight into her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” She asked uncertainty.
“Syd, there’s something I need to tell you…something I need to say.”
“What?” She says, perplexed.
“Before you get your hopes up about anything between us….you should know that we can’t be together.” I say with my heart in my throat at the time.
“Why, what are you trying to tell me?” She says confused.
“Because a lot has happened since you died… I mean it’s been two years Syd…I though you were dead, Syd.” I say almost crying. “I’m married.
End of Flashback.
She just stared at me in bewilderment and when it all finally sunk in she gave me a look of betrayal and walked away. I expected her to yell at me or something but she didn’t, her eyes were enough. It’s the look she gave me that makes me feel guilty. I don’t get to ponder my guilt much longer because Lauren comes over to me.
“Hi, you told her didn’t you?” She deadpans
“She hates me.” I say feeling defeated.
“She’s going to feel like that but that is not your fault, think about it she lost two years of her life and has no recollection of it. The last thing she would have remembered would have been being with you. It’s going to be hard for to get over the fact that she lost two years, and not feeling she has lost them. This is what is making it so hard to forgive you. But she will eventually Michael, don’t doubt that.”
“Thanks.” It’s the only thing I can come up with. Although that is good advice, she doesn’t know Sydney.
Jack’s POV
My beautiful daughter is sitting here crying in my arms. That boy has ripped my daughter’s heart out.
“I can’t believe he is married.” She says through red-swollen eyes.
“Michael Vaughn is just a boy who was never good enough for you anyway, don’t lose your strength over him.” I say in my best fatherly tone.
“But I loved him…I still love him.” She says with hurt in her eyes. “I don’t know what to do Dad., what do I do?” She pleads with me.
“I don’t know sweetheart, just go on with your life I guess.” She continues to cry. “Are you going to be okay sweetheart?”
“Right now Dad I don’t know, but what I do know is that right about now I could do with some sleep” she says.
“I agree, I’ll take you home.” I give her a hug and she dissolves the rest of her tears.
“Yesterday mission in Nevada paid off, the team was able to capture Sark and bring him in.” I slide Sydney a folder to her. She starts to read.
“Why was this operation run for?” She asks me.
“They were in Nevada investigating a tip from a reliable source that some of Rambaldi’s work was in a local museum.”
“Did they find anything?” She asks sounding really concerned.
“No, the Covenant got there first.”
“Sark was apprehended and brought into US custody. He is going to be interrogating him with the inferno protocol.”
“Something I don’t agree with because I don’t think we need to.” Lauren speaks up. “Sark has always had flexible loyalties; it’s likely he would just give us the Intel.”
“By the looks of this information Sark has changed and grown a backbone for once, and Sark just talk, he always wants something in return.” Sydney jumps in.
“Why should that matter, Sarks’s demands haven’t been to great have they in the past, why do something that is going to be unnecessary?” Lauren argues with Sydney.
“Then obviously you don’t know Sark.” Sydney says harshly to Lauren, arguing back at her. “Especially when he goes to all that trouble to steal a single piece of paper, hidden by the Covenant.” Everyone stares at her in bewilderment. What did she just say?
TBC
Chapter three:
Revelations
Sydney’s POV
“Sydney what is this…what is going on?” My father studies me carefully looking at me as if to find some kind of flaw some kind of truth. The truth is this scares me, if anyone could figure out I am lying its my father. If he figures it out it’s my own fault I let my emotions cloud my judgement. This will always be my biggest fault.
“Nothing Dad, I’m Just thinking that that could be possible, think about it the Covenant could have easily staged this, they could have had someone pose as the contact, this could have been a ploy to distract us so that they could get their hands on something of greater value Something that we have been looking for as well. I s there anything that you guys have been desperately searching for?” I said in a quick ramble.
“The Cube.” My father stated at me.
“Okay, so my guess is that they never wanted us to know they had found it, so they kept us busy. The only way they knew in the first place that we were looking for it as well is if someone had tipped them off.” I said pacing the room up and down”
“Sydney, what are you actually suggesting?” My father looks at me curiously.
“I’m suggesting we have a mole.” I deadpan.
“Sydney where is this coming from, there is no substance, no background information to suggest that what you are saying is correct.”
“It’s a feeling I have, a gnawing feeling at the pit of my stomach, it’s almost like a memory but then it’s not. Its like I feel it, but don’t remember the images or the words spoken. I don’t know what it is, but I have this huge feeling that I am right.” It’s the best I can do.
“Agent Vaughn I need you to check in with our contact, see if he is still alive, if he isn’t then we have a mole to find.” My father says in his cold voice.
“What we are actually going to move on what Ms. Bristow says!!” Lauren yells. “We are going to move on information based on a feeling.” She is furious. She looks at me sending daggers at my body,. If a look could kill I’d be dead right now.
“Yes we are.” My father states with that yeah-that’s-what-is going-to-happen-and-I-don’t-need-to-sit-here-explaining-to-you-why-so-deal-with-it look.
“This is outrageous.” Lauren says flabbergasted. “This is absolutely outrageous because we are moving on something she doesn’t even remember.”
“I think I might be able to shed some light on this whole situendo.” Marshall speaks up. “I think this could really be Syd’s memories starting to resurface. They may only be feelings, like when you break your mother’s favourite glass ornament and you know your are in big trouble. Yeah I did that once, tried to hide it in the freezer so it would look like ice, but mamma found it and boy did I get in to trouble. You know she threatened to not buy me….” Marshall rambles as usual.
“Marshall.” Vaughn cuts in. “Get to the point.” He says sharply.
“Oh well as I was saying these feelings can slowly turn into actual memories.” He says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“So what you are saying, is that what she is actually saying could have happened.” Vaughn says, he sounds almost strained like he is happy but is also trying not to feel anything at all.
“Basically yeah.” Marshall says friendly.
Jack’s POV
I walk over to my daughter and everyone else about an hour after the briefing. “Our contact is dead you were right.” I look at her with a smile on my face. I am so proud of her right now.
“So we are now looking for the mole now.” She says to me with a hint of a smile on her face.
“Not exactly.” Lauren says with a smug smile on her face. “We are going to monitor everyone but not in a great deal, if something odd comes up we start a full search with everyone within this taskforce.” I notice Sydney’s face starts to go to the colour of chalk.
“I agreed with her, we can’t move on something…” I stop and watch as Sydney quickly walks away. “Like that, it could be damaging if it is not correct.” I say. “Agent Weiss could you go after her and see if she’s okay.” I say quickly.
Sydney’s POV
I got to the bathroom and the second I got into the nearest cubicle I emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I slowly stood up and went to the sink and washed my mouth out. The moment I walked out of the bathroom, Weiss was standing there.
“Are you okay?” He asks his eyes full of concern.
“Yeah I’m fine, I’m just feeling a bit off colour today.” I say, knowing that it is the truth. I’ve been feeling really off since I woke up this morning. We both don’t say anything. There’s just awkward silence.
We start to walk side by side. “You and Lauren don’t seem to be getting along well.” He says trying to make conversation.
“You state the obvious, I had this plan to try and be nice to her for Vaughn’s sake, but something about her just infuriates me.” I say with a touch of anger.
“Is it because she is Vaughn’s wife?” He says slowly.
“God no Eric, I’m not that cold.” I say. But somehow that is something that sticks with me for the rest of the day.
I wake up in the morning and do the exactly the same thing I have done for the past week. I run to the bathroom and empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I brush my teeth and walk out side into Weiss’s living room, I moved in by Weiss’s request two days ago. He looks at me in concern.
“Syd have you seen a doctor yet you have been vomiting for almost a week now.” He says concerned.
“I went yesterday.” I say knowing where this is going to lead. What am I supposed to say?
“What did they say?” He asks me.
Flashback
“I need to take some of your blood, I need to check every possibility.” Doctor Novena says. He slowly pushes a syringe into my left arm and slowly draws out some blood. He pulls the syringe out and puts a cotton wool bud on the area where the syringe was moments before. He indicates for me to hold it into place. “Stay right here, I’ll bring this to the lab and have it tested immediately.” He says walking out the door.
End of Flashback
“He said...um…he said.” I stumble. My heart is in my throat right now.
“Eric can I trust you to not repeat what I tell you to anyone?” I say swallowing my the huge lump in my throat.
“Yeah, whatever Syd I wont say anything, I promise.” He says with a look of confusion on his face.
“Eric.” I say when a stray tear falls down my face. “I’m pregnant."
TBC
Chapter Four:
The truth and nothing but the truth.
Sydney’s POV
“You’re pregnant, Syd.” Eric says to me completely shocked. “How...I mean who did this to you? What am I talking about you don’t remember, I swear to god Syd that when I find out who did this…no violated you, I will kill them...I will kill them.” He says angrily, pacing up and down.
“I already know who the father is.” I say with tears running down my face,
“WHAT!” He yells at me. “How could you know that, this most likely happened before you came back.” He says looking at me confused. I just look back him. The look is all he needed to give him an answer. “You’ve been lying to me, to the CIA, to everyone.” He says putting his face in his hands. “Why, Syd, why?” He says choking back tears.
“Because I had to.” I say to him trying to choke back my tears. “I did it for me, I did it for Vaughn…I had to see him but I couldn’t tell him it was me.” I say looking at the ground as a fresh round of tears falls down my face.
“Syd, what are you talking about.” He said softly as he knelt down I front of me. I do the only thing that makes sense to me, I look up at him and start to tell him what happened.
I shot her three times. Then I passed out, dead to the world. When I woke up, it was three days later. I was in the back of a van, strapped down.
Flashback
You and I are going to work together. We will spend lots of time together. But we will get the results that my employers have requested. I always do.
We'll make this easy. We unearthed her. We left her in your apartment, before we burned it. You, that was more difficult. When a body is burned badly enough, the DNA they test for is in the teeth. We extracted pulp from your teeth, and injected it into the teeth in the corpse that was to be your replacement. Of course, they tested the body they found. To them, it was you.
He will mourn and move on, find someone else perhaps. The sooner you accept that you are no longer who you were, the easier this will be. Sydney Bristow is gone.
End of flashback
Weiss was silent he just look at me taking it all in. I took a deep breath and continued. “They made me watch my own funeral, they tortured me with my love for Vaughn. I was then taken to a Covenant facility just outside of St. Petersburg’s. They wanted my co-operation something I wasn’t willing to give, so Oleg started the brainwash protocol. He spent months trying to break me down, using sensory depravation, electroshock. He would put me to sleep by running an IV with a barbiturate into one arm, and shock me awake with an amphetamine in the other arm.”
Flashback
I will kill you, you son of a b****. I promise you.
End of flashback
When Oleg believed that he had finally broken me, he began a conditioning process. He started with hypnosis.
Flashback
Your name is Julia Thorne. You were born in London on August Two, Nineteen Seventy-Three.
My name is Sydney Bristow you ugly bastard.
End of Flashback
“He disorientated me with Narcotics. Withheld food from me for weeks at a time. He bombarded me with images, information. All classic techniques, designed to make me believe I was a woman called Julia Thorne. They succeeded, well at least they thought they did.”
Flashback
Welcome, Ms. Thorne. The work you'll be doing for us requires a certain commitment.
Of course.
Who this man is is unimportant. What is important is the knife on the table. Use it. Kill this unimportant man.
End of flashback
“I killed him. I traded my life for his. I still don’t know who he was. This all took nearly nine months and at my first chance I contacted Kendall and met with him at a safe house in Tuscany.”
Flashback
I want to go home. I want to see my dad.
Your father can't be contacted. He's under deep cover. And as it is, you have no home to return to. Agent Bristow, let me be clear. You return home, you're putting in jeopardy the lives of the people you claim to love.
You're just trying to scare me.
Look at your friend Will. The Covenant left the son of a b**** for dead. Listen to me. If what little Intel we have on the Covenant is anywhere near accurate, they have the potential to be far more deadly than the Alliance ever was. Which is why it is imperative that you continue as Julia Thorne. The Covenant believes they have you programmed.
If you think I'm going back to them, you're insane.
If you don't, they're going to come after you, after your friends, your family, after Vaughn.
I have to see him.
Sydney, you've been gone nine months.
He loves me. Nine months is nothing.
End of Flashback
“So I went back and that was when I first learned of Lauren. As hard as it was I couldn’t confront Vaughn. The reality of my predicament settled in, I knew Kendall was right.”
Flashback
This is Kendall.
I'll do whatever you want.
End of Flashback
“That’s how I came to be a double-agent for the second time in my life. On my first assignment I was sent to Algeria where I met Simon Walker.”
“Whose that?” Weis spoke for the first time.
“He’s a thief and I was introduced to him as a contract killer. My assignment was simple and clear the covenant wanted me to find the cube. We both came up with a variety of new leads, but at the same time I kept the CIA informed. I them came into the knowledge of Andrian Lazarey a Russian Diplomat who a lot like Sloane devoted to the study of Rambaldi and colleted his works. I believed he could help me find the cube, but soon the covenant wanted me to assassinate him. So I did, but at the same time I saved his life.”
Weiss starts looking at me confused, but before he can say anything I continue.
“I made the Covenant believe that I had killed him, I faked his death. I went to Lazarey the night before and told him about the hit. He was a reasonable man and we stuck a deal.”
Flashback
(Russian) How did you get into my house?
(in English) I'll make this as simple as possible, Mr. Lazarey. Unless you do exactly as I say, by this time tomorrow you will be dead.
End of flashback
“Lazarey and I started to work together to retrieve the cube. It took us nine gruelling months, but we found it in the Fish river gorge in Namibia. Getting to it was a lot trickier; it was located in a cave in a huge vault, which needed to be opened by individual keys. Lazarey devoted thirty years of his life to find these keys, he found the last one two weeks before we were there.’
Flashback
This lock won't stay open. I need to hold the key in place. Lazarey’s hand gets trapped in the vault.
Here, bite down on this.
End of Flashback
“I did the only thing I could do to get the cube and Lazarey out of there, I cut his hand off. Four months after this I was sent to Panama City to seduce a CIA agent to get information on ‘the chip. That agent was Vaughn.”
“Vaughn was sent there to seduce you to gain information on the inner workings of the Covenant, Syd you were unrecognisable, we didn’t know it was you.” He says shocked.
“Yeah, sometimes I couldn’t even recognize myself.”
Flashback
“Are you serious, you had a woman dump you for that”
“Yeah it kinda sucked at the time.”
“I wouldn’t dump you like that.” I said seductively.
“Good…to…know.” He breathes out staring at my lips. I closed the gap between us in a passionate kiss. Our hands roamed each other’s bodies and our clothes were shed in frenzy and he backed me up towards the bed.
End of flashback
“We made love.” I can’t hold the tears back any longer I just cry.
“So Vaughn’s the father of the baby…Syd you gotta tell him, he has the right to know, he’d want to know.” He says gently.
“He can never know, it was my plan all along but this happens, but I can always pretend it’s someone else’s, just as you thought it was.” I say with tears streaming down my face.
“Syd.” Weiss says trying to convince me but I will not be convinced.
“I don’t want to be responsible for a marriage break up, I wont put him through that.” I say trying to make him understand.
“What about the rest of it, I think everyone deserves to know.” He says trying to reason with me, but I will not be reasoned with. He doesn’t realize what is at stake here.
“If I tell them, they will send me back there.” I say crying to him.
“Your father wouldn’t do that to you.” He said softly.
“He wouldn’t but Kendall will.”
TBC
Chapter Five:
Tensions
Weiss’s POV
She’s making the wrong decision, I know she is. But she won’t be convinced otherwise. I should really tell everyone, I really should tell Mike what I know, he deserves to know the truth, and he needs to know. I wont say anything because she needs me and I couldn’t do that to her anyway, even if my senses are telling me otherwise. She may not be making the right decision now, but she will in the end. Because I know Syd well enough to know that she could never keep Vaughn out of her life and Vaughn could never do the same to her. Syd, there are no words to describe her, she is beyond an amazing woman, and somehow Mike was drawn to her by that. But Syd has other distinctive qualities. God she can be so stubborn, she never backs down when she thinks something is not right. But for some reason with this fight about her moving out, she didn’t seem to have the energy to plead her case, she just back down and she agreed with me. I told her that she is still in a fragile position and that she was pregnant, and while that is happening I refused to let her leave. She needs to be looked after and I was scared she wouldn’t put her baby first if I weren’t watching her closely. She wants revenge for what the Covenant did to her, it’s her number one priority, and everything else comes second, including the child she is carrying.
Jack’s POV
“The NSC is conducting an investigation into the murder of a Russian Diplomat, Andrian Lazarey.” I say dully to everyone in the room. I watch as Lauren stands up and heads to the front of the briefing room.
“The NSC believes that the murder was apart of the Covenant.” Lauren states. “A woman Jack informs me that we have all seen before.” Lauren uses the remote to turn the video of Lazarey’s murder on. “This was taken from a Russian security camera.” Lauren states.
“Agent Vaughn was sent on a mission to Panama City three months ago to obtain information from this woman about the inner workings of the Covenant, which led us to the cell leaders of the Covenant’s North America Cell.” I say coldly to everyone. “To whom we are tracking carefully…until now.” I deadpan.
“What happened to them?” Sydney asks me curiously. She still seems very pale.
“They have been MIA for the past few days, we have no idea where they are, and that’s what we intend to find out.” I say coldly.
“As for Lazarey, the NSC wants to find out this woman’s name and find her.” Lauren speaks up. Looking like she is trying to tell everyone that what she is doing is important too. Someone likes the limelight not surprising really since she is the Senator’s daughter. “This is Mr Bob Lyndsey, he will be heading up the investigation as another NSC Liaison.” She says almost proudly. I hate this man; he nearly had me thrown in a jail cell for collaborating with Irina. Agent Vaughn exonerated me; somehow I owe him for that, even if he is hurting my daughter. I realize I need to wrap this briefing up. “I want all of you to use all our resources to find those cell leaders, that’s all.” I say dismissing them all. “Sydney, can you stay behind please?” I watch as Mr Weiss says something to her and exits the room. I know those expressions very well. I wonder what she is hiding.
Sydney’s POV
The NSC knows, and it is not going to be long before that investigation leads back to me. Even scarier is that look on my father is giving me. He knows, I know he does.
“Sydney, are you okay? You still seem to look very pale.” He says to me gently.
“I’m okay…actually I have been meaning to talk to you about that.” I say in a bare whisper. “Dad…I’m pregnant.” I say even softer. But before he can say anything I continue. “I don’t know who the father is.” I say in a strained whisper. His expression is not what I expected. He looks at me strangely.
“I believe the first part, but not the second.” He deadpans. “So you want to try again?” He says to me harshly.
“I…” Is all I can mange. He knows I’m lying. Oh god what do I do?
“Sydney, you can’t fool me,” he says. “I spent many years being fooled by your mother that I am now an expert on how it’s done, you are doing exactly what she did.” He smiles. “Now I want the truth from start to finish and don’t leave a single detail out.” He says coolly. I had no choice. So I told him exactly what I told Weiss. And when I was done he was just as shocked as Weiss.
“Do you understand why I have been lying?” I say with tears rolling down my cheeks.
“I understand what is at stake here, but you should have come to me first.” He says softly giving me a hug.
“I need to tell everyone, because the NSC is going to find out about Julia…”
“Sydney! We are withholding this information, because I know Bob Lyndsey very well and knowing him he’ll have you charged for this even though he has nothing on you. He’ll find something, believe me he will.” He says coldly.
“What about the investigation?”
“I’ll deal with it.” And with that he strode out of the room leaving me here, standing here in the middle of the room contemplating what I have just done. I just lied to him again. I never told him it was Vaughn’s; I told him it was Cole’s
Vaughn’s POV
We haven’t talked at all. She won’t even look at me. She hates me, and it is all my fault. I watch her sitting at her desk across fro mine; shuffling through the papers on her desk and making notes from a file she has up on her screen. I decide to speak up and break or silence. “You find anything yet?” I ask her.
“No,” she states not even looking at me. I watch her as she subconsciously puts her left hand on her stomach. “It’s almost like they disappeared off the face of the earth, and it’s something I am starting to believe.” She says concentrating on her computer screen, still not even glancing up at me.
“It’s a possibility, it would explain a lot.” I say to her. She still refuses to look at me. “Syd, I think we need to talk.” I say slowly.
“Really, because I don’t think there’s anything that hasn’t already been said.” She says to me with sarcasm dripping from her very word.
“I think there’s a lot we need to talk about.” I say not meaning to sound so cold.
“Nothing I want to talk about.” She says sharply.
“I want to know why you are so angry with me? Why you are making me feel so guilty when there is nothing for me to feel guilty about?” I say angrily.
“You want to know why I’m angry with you them I’ll tell you why. After everything that you and I have seen and heard, all the madness and the impossible you couldn’t even contemplate the slightest possibility that I could be alive. You had no faith in me, and that’s why I am angry.” She says with hate and anger dripping from her every word. And with that she looks back at her computer and continues her research leaving me perplexed about what she had just said. My thoughts are soon interrupted.
“Syd, Syd!!!” Marshall runs up to us.
“What is it Marshall?” She says with concern written clearly on her face.
“We just received an email from an unknown source, the person claims to know where the cell leaders are, and that he is with them right now, the person wouldn’t say where.” He says almost out of breath.
”I couldn’t track where the email came from it was too encrypted, but I was able to get their location.” He says.
“Marshall that’s called locating it.” She says with a huge smile on her face. “Good work.” She says walking away.
“Er...thanks Syd.” He says half waving.
Unknown POV
“Did you have the matter taken care of?” I say softly with my hands on the sides of her face caressing her cheeks.
“Yes, they did exactly as we expected.” She says to me in her crisp accent. And she kisses me hungrily.
“God is he that bad?”
“He’s excruciating.” She says laughing and kisses me again.
Jack’s POV
“Thanks to Marshall we now have the location of the cell leaders, who are in Berlin, in a local hotel in the heart of Berlin, room 60C.” I say to them all. “Vaughn, Weiss and Sydney, you will go to Berlin and get them back on our radar. Sydney you will be on point, Agent Vaughn and Weiss you will be on coms. This is a reconnaissance op only, don’t mess this up. Wheels up in an hour.”
Weiss’s POV
While Vaughn looks immersed in the mission specs I pull Syd to the back of the plane. “Syd, what happened with you and your father this morning?” I ask urgently.
“He figured it out Weiss he knows I’m pregnant, he now knows what you know.” She says quickly.
“So he knows about Vaughn.” He says gently.
“Not exactly…” She stumbles out.
“What do you mean not exactly.” I ask her confused.
“I lied to him, I told him it was Cole’s.” She says in a stained whisper.
“You did, WHAT!!!” I raise my voice at her, what is she doing.
“Shhh…. You and I both know how my father would react to that information. God if he ever found out it was Vaughn’s, that I was pregnant with his baby.” She says defending herself. I’m about to say something else but we both hear someone clear their throat behind us.
“What is going on here?”
TBC
Chapter six:
Hanging in the balance
Sydney’s POV
“How much of that did you hear?” I ask Vaughn nervously. He knows, Oh god he knows.
“Enough to know that you are pregnant.” He says to me. “Who’s the father?” He says gently, he almost looks like he is emotional about it, like he is disgusted that someone would do this to me. Little does he know that it was him, but I am not about to tell him that. Even though every moral fibre in body is telling me to do so. I though lying to him would be harder than telling the truth, but it’s the other way around for me, telling the truth is a lot harder than telling the lie. God I’m thinking too much, I need to say something. “I don’t know.” I say with tears in my eyes. I’m not milking this I am actually crying because apart of me is telling me to stop worrying about everybody else’s lives and worry about your own.
“I’m so sorry, is it...?”
“Yeah it is too late to get rid of the baby, and even if it were possible I don’t think I could go through with it.” I say honestly. I look down at my watch; we’re about to touch down soon. Finally a distraction from my feelings about the baby, especially that deep sensation deep within me, where my true feelings for Vaughn have never died. “We’re about to land in 5 minutes, we should probably get ready.” And with that I walk out of the room and I don’t look back.
(on comms)
“Boyscout and retriever I’m in position.”
“Copy that Mountaineer, move in when you’re ready.” Vaughn’s voice crackles to life in my ear.
(end of comms)
I walk in to the lobby of the expensive hotel and head towards the front desk swaying my hips in a smooth motion. I’m wearing a black sequined halter top which dips really low at the front and the top is short in length so it stops at least 5 cm above my tight navy blue jeans sitting snug at my waist. And to top it all of I’m actually wearing my own hair for once, which is curled and falls past my shoulders. I approach the clerk at the desk. “Excuse me sir, my name is Ethel Frauharah I am looking for the locker rooms for your employee’s, I have just been given a job as a maid and it is my first shift, and I don’t know where to go.” I say in a German accent.
“Of course Miss, right this way.” The clerk says to me in a German accent as well. He leads me down a corridor to the left of the lobby and leads me to a room right at the end of the corridor he walks me into the room and indicates a locker assigned to my alias. “I am assuming you have your keys.” He says.
“Of course.” I say. “Thank-you.” I say courteously.
“My pleasure Miss Frauharah.” He says and walks out of the room. I pull out from my purse a lock pick and I set to work on the lock, it pops open with a click in a matter of seconds. I open the locker and find a maids uniform inside, I quickly change and I head towards room 60C. I knock on the door. “House keeping.” I call. I receive no answer. I take out the lock pick and pick the lock, and with a click it opens. I push open the door. The room is pooled in darkness. I suddenly almost trip over something on the ground. I switch the light on. “Oh God.”
(on comms)
“What is it Mountaineer?” Weiss says to me quickly.
“It’s one of the cell leaders, Ivanhov, he’s dead.” I slowly look around the room and I spot Reicter on the ground near the bed with stab wounds to the chest. “Reicter is dead also.”
“Get out of there Syd, we’ve been set up.” I am about to reply but then everything goes black.
(end of comms)
Vaughn’s POV
“Syd, Syd, SYD!! What the hell is going on, answer me.” I say. I’m worried, because I still receive no answer.
“Weiss we need to go in, I think something’s happened.” I say halfway out of the van.
“I’m right behind you.” Weiss calls after me.
Unknown POV
“Alright lets get her out of here.” I say quickly.
“Wait a second, did you hear that?” She says to me. “Someone’s coming.”
“Well let’s move, we still have time to get her out of here
“Hold on, she’s stirring.” She says urgently. In a matter of seconds she is on her feet ready to fight me. I crane my ears, they’re getting closer. I do the only thing I can. I grab Sydney and plunge a knife in her chest. She falls limb in my arms. I hear the voices get closer and I recognize them. “Babe it is the CIA get out of here we can’t afford you to blow your cover.” I say urgently. I hear fiddling with the door.
“Forget her, we’ll get her next time, you won’t get out of here with her.” She hisses at me. I follow her out onto the balcony and we climb into the next door’s balcony and we escape through the room. Leaving Sydney bleeding to death in the hotel room along with Ivanhov and Reicter.
Weiss’s POV
We open the door of 60C and we find Syd lying face down on the ground. “Oh god Syd!” I yell with tears as I run to her body. I quickly check for a pulse. Thank god she has one, but she is not breathing. I quickly find the stab wound to the chest. “Man she can’t breathe.” I say to Vaughn, who has tears running down his cheeks. I know what is going through his head, he thinks he may lose her all over again. “You need to focus, Mike.” I watch as the focus comes back into his face, he kneels down beside me and he contacts the Rotunda.
(on comms)
“Base ops, this is Boyscout, do you read.”
“Yes Boyscout we read you loud and clear, what’s the problem.” I hear through my earpiece Jack’s voice.
“Mountaineer’s down, she has a stab wound to the chest, she can’t breathe, we’re going to take her to the nearest hospital to stabilize her condition so we can have her brought back to LA.”
“Call me if she gets worse.” He sounds almost chocked up. Jack is an unfeeling man but when it comes to his daughter it’s a completely different story.
(end of comms)
(phone conversation)
“Bristow” Jack greets in his stony voice.
“Its Weiss, Syd’s been cleared for a transfer to LA to the Stafford Naval, she’s on a ventilator, one of her lungs collapsed.” I say quickly knowing because we are leaving soon.
“What about the baby.” He says, concerned.
“They don’t know, they said they’re going to leave that in out Doctor’s hands.” I say. “I need to go, the plane’s leaving.” I close me cell and hop aboard the plane.
(end of phone conversation)
We touch down in Dover airfield early the next morning and from a distance I watch as the paramedics push Syd into the ambulance heading to the Stafford Naval.
“Mike you coming, to the hospital?” I ask concerned, because he hasn’t said anything the entire flight.
“Er…um…no I think I need to see Lauren, she’s probably worried, I’ll come later.” He says with this weird look on his face. I just don’t get him. One minute he’s worried about Sydney and the next he basically looks like he doesn’t care.
“Whatever man.” I say to him shortly, walking away before he can even say a word.
Lisa Vaughn’s POV
With a brisk pace I walk into Sydney’s room. I come face to face with Eric.
“Hey, Lisa, you Sydney’s Doctor?” He says greeting me.
“Yeah. I have good and bad news. The good news is that the baby’s okay, the bad news is that Sydney is in a coma. We have no idea when she is going to wake up, the next 48 hours are going to be crucial, she is in the danger period now so if something is going to go wrong it will go wrong within this period. If she passes the first 48 hours without a problem there is a greater chance she will wake up unharmed. As for the baby being alive it is good news but it can turn into bad also. At the moment we have the baby the baby stabilized, so it is being fed so it is still growing, but because Sydney’ body is under stress, the baby is under stress, so if she doesn’t wake up soon the baby will die.”
“Oh,” Is all he can manage to say to me.
“I have a question for you?” I say softly
“Yeah, what.” He says dully still comprehending the information.
“When I checked on Sydney’s baby, I ran a paternity test because if the baby dies we need that information, it came up as my brother’s. I guess what I want to know is if he knows.” I say still bewildered by the prospect but also excited because if the baby survives I’ll be an aunty.
“No he doesn’t know.” He says looking at me. Poor guy, I’ve never seen Eric cry but here he is doing it in front of me.
“Kay, so I am guessing there was an affair without him knowing it was her, probably in her missing two years, so that means she remembers, I can understand she probably has her reasons to not say anything. But I wish Michael knew because Lauren isn’t right for him. And maybe this could be the trigger to him to make him realize he still loves her.” I say honestly and emotionally. “She’s ruining his life.” And with that I let a tear escape down my cheek. I quickly wipe it away. “I have to go.” And I take one look at the beautiful woman with long chestnut hair lying motionless on the bed.
Vaughn’s POV
I watch Weiss briskly approach us. “What’s going on, sorry I’m late, I was at the hospital.” He says out of breath.
“We have had a breakthrough about Lazarey’s murder, except the results were shocking. I received an anonymous tip from someone that Julia Thorne was the murderer of Lazarey, but he then said it was only an alias. Then came the shocking part, he said it was Sydney.” Lauren states.
“As soon as Agent Bristow regains consciousness and is well she will be charged for his murder.” Lindsey says coolly staring straight at Jack.
“Who exactly received the tip.”? Jack says coldly.
“Agent Vaughn did.” Lindsey deadpans.
“And you told them,” Jack yells angrily at me. He has every right to be, but I have to support my wife.
“You know what Mike I don’t even get you anymore, one minute you care about her being stabbed, and the next you don’t seem to.” He yells at me angrily. He’s never been that angry at me, hate is stabbing me like daggers from his eyes. “And Lauren how the hell can you do that to her, without hearing her out first. The woman who has all the answers, is about to be treated like she is murderer the moment she wakes up.”
“Because she is a murderer.” Lauren retorts at Eric.
“She never killed Lazarey, she faked his death. She remembers everything that happened to her, she never told you because you would have her sent back there in an instant.”
“She was working for us, as a double agent, though her death was not voluntary.” Jack yells.
“See what you’ve done Mike. I know right now that every moral fibre in your body is screaming at you, telling you should’ve never said anything. Syd’s in a coma fighting for her life right now, and Mike that baby is yours and it’s fighting for its life right now as well. So think about that the next time you feel obligated to your wife.” He says to me angrily walking away. How the hell is it possible? Julia Thorne, Panama City. Oh my god!!!
TBC
Chapter seven:
Realization
Lauren’s POV
I watch as Eric angrily walk’s away, followed by Jack doing the same. My anger is now at breaking point. “What the hell happened in Panama City?” I yell at him punctuating my every word. “What am I even doing asking you that, it’s quite obvious what happened!” I yell even louder getting even more aware as everyone in the Rotunda stares at us.
“I was mad at you, I just did it without thinking.” He says calmly trying his best efforts to stop me from yelling. “You have a right to be angry.” He says stiffly.
“Yeah, I do Michael because you cheated on me, how am I supposed to forgive you for this?” I say letting tears fall down my face. “You have broken my trust, Michael. I don’t even know why I am sitting here speaking to you right now, you obviously still love her, and if you weren’t married to me you wouldn’t have even told me what you found out, you would have said nothing. You don’t even care about me I’m just some obligation to you, if we weren’t married you would leave me for her in an instant.” I spat out at him.
“You know what, I am not going to sit here and let you degrade me. I am not going to sit here listening to you whining like a two year old.” He retorts back at me angrily.
“A two year old…a two year old. You’re calling me a two year old?”
“Yeah I am.”
“Well at least I am not unfaithful.” I retort back at him.
“I was never unfaithful to you, I have been unfaithful to Sydney.” He says spitefully.
“What.” I almost choke. “You married me remember…or did you forget.” I say b***hily.
“Yeah and that was the biggest mistake of my life.” He says with sarcasm dripping from his every word.
“Oh really.” I snap. “Then go back to the stupid b***h then.” I say spitefully yelling even louder.
“Yeah that’s what I am about to do, but the only b***h I see on the horizon is you.” And with that he give me one last stabbing look and angrily walks away.
Vaughn’s POV
I feel almost like I am refreshed. I’ve said what I have wanted to say since Panama City, but I am stupid. I am too darn honourable, she changed me and Sydney saw that. Even Eric saw it, no wonder why they are mad at me. It’s taken the love of my life to be in a coma, having my child and both of them fighting for their lives to realize I have changed, that she had changed me In the worst way possible, and that she stopped me from loving Sydney, she made me feel guilty for it, and I have carried that around for a long time. I won’t anymore, I love Sydney and there is nothing Lauren can do to make me feel guilty for it ever again. I finally see my sister at the hospital and quickly approach her. “Hey,” I say to her.
“Hi,” She says with a smile on her face. “What are you doing here?” She hugs me.
“To see Syd,” I say simply looking to the ground.
“Eric told you didn’t he.” She says gently.
“Yeah and among other things. He made me realize a few things. God Lisa, I’m such a fool, I’ve hurt her so much, she hates me, Eric hates me.”
“They don’t hate you, they are just angry at you, because you have changed and you didn’t realize it. None of this is your fault, Michael. I know that. Eric knows that, and even Sydney knows that. You had one moment where you could be free form her restraints and you took it, and Syd had one chance to be with you without putting your life in danger, and she took it as well. If anyone is at fault it is Lauren’s. She manipulated you. She’s has spent most of her life knowing that she can have whatever she wants. She wanted you, and she did anything possible to get you.” She says to me sympathetically.
“I suppose so, but it still doesn’t lessen what I’ve done to her.” I sigh miserably.
“I don’t know what else to say to you. You just need to start to believe in who you used to be. You have cut a lot of people out of your life. You have a lot of relationships to repair.” She says to me frankly.
“Where do I start? With Sydney?”
“No not with Sydney. One because you can’t speak to her and two she wouldn’t want to be with someone who hasn’t even righted his own life. You need to start with our family first, mum. You really need to put things right with her. She is the one who has been affected most by what you have done. Then you need to get things back on track with Nathan and Sarah. Then your friends and then everybody else around you.” She says to me softly putting her hand on my shoulder.
“What about you?”
“You don’t need to, because somehow for whatever reason you never pushed me away. Besides I already forgive you.” She says to me gently she gives me a huge smile. I can’t help but smile back at her.
“So where is Syd?” I ask her still smiling.
“Come with me.” She says gesturing with her hands. I follow her. While e are walking I thought of something that she would be happy to hear.
“So I did put Lauren in her place before I came here.” I say walking beside her.
“Well kind figured that because you probably wouldn’t be here so soon. I’m proud of you.” She says smiling at me again. “Here we are, I’ll leave you alone with her.” She turns and walks away.
“Hey.” I call after her. She turns around to face me. “Thanks.” I say honestly.
“That’s what sisters are for.” She smiles at me.
“Great sisters.”
“Well I’m flattered. Though I wouldn’t believe that if you said that to me when I was five.” She says laughing.
“A lots changed.”
“Yeah, for the better. God we used to fight so much, who would have thought that when we grew up we would be able to have a heart to heart.” She says beaming at me.
“Yeah.” I laugh a little.
“Well I’d love to stay and chat but I have to do my rounds.”
“Kay, I’ll see you latter then.”
“See ya.” She says giving me one last smile. I finally walk into Syd’s room and I find Eric asleep at her bedside in a chair. And then I see Syd lying there motionless on the bed. I can’t help but notice how beautiful she looks. I tap Eric on the shoulder and he stirs. “Thanks.” I say to him.
“For what?” He says to me groggily.
“For yelling at me, making me realize a few things.”
“That’s what friends are for, and I’m not mad at you I’m just mad at what you did, I’m sorry man.” He says to me honestly.
“Don’t be, you helped me.”
“Well I’m gonna leave you alone with her. I’m gonna head home.” He says slowly getting up. He touches Syd’s hair and walks out of the room. I sit down in the chair that Eric was in moments before. I slowly put my hand on her face and caress her cheek. I then move it down to her stomach and rest my hand there, comprehending that there is a tiny life in there that I helped create. Just knowing its fragile state and Sydney’s, I let the tears I had been holding since I walked into the room escape and fall down my face. I lay my head on her shoulder leaving my hand on her stomach as if I am protecting it. I kiss her gently and I hold on to her tight with my every ounce of strength that I have left. I am never going to let her go again. And that’s when I cry like I never cried before.
Jack’s POV
I watch through the window of Sydney’s room, watching Vaughn. A broken man who still has my daughter’s heart and she still has his. I never approved of him, but I wanted my daughter to be happy and if he could do that then I saw no harm in it. I was going to see her but I am not. He deserves some time with her; I owe him at least that. Seeing him with her makes me realize that we are both in the same position, we are facing the possibility of losing the one person we love and care about. I leave and find his sister.
“Mr Bristow it’s a pleasure to meet you.” She says kindly. I can see Amelie` in this one.
“I wanted to know when you will know when Sydney will be out of the danger period.” I say to her in my usual voice.
“We will know by tomorrow morning, I promise you’ll be the first to know if anything is wrong.” She says to gently.
“Thank you.” I say and I walk away.
Vaughn’s POV
I remain lying on her shoulder, kissing the side of her face at random times. I smile at how content she looks for the first time since she came back. Finally she has some peace. I lift my head up and I kiss her cheek again. I lay my head back down in my own peace for once, content just like she is. Then suddenly I hair a blaring noise and in a second my sister was running into the room along with a few nurses behind her.
TBC
Two words can change your life, but it is the story behind them that counts
Written by: SydnVaughn4eva 2
pic created by AlisonDoren over @ sd-1
Disclaimer: I own alias. I invented the show with my pure genius mind. And MV is my fiancée. Hehehehe. I wish!!! I do not own alias it was created by the mastermind JJ Abrams. And MV is still my fiancée… in my dreams dat is. Gawd I hate reality, dreams r sooo much better.*leans back in her seat and starts daydreaming about MV* :inlove:
Summary: Post ‘the telling’. Syd has a secret about her missing two years which has the ability to change two peoples lives with two single words.
Pairings: L/V but S/V eventually.
A/N
This is my first fanfic cuz im only new 2 va board so please be nice. *gets down on her knees and begs* reviews will be much appreciated. Oh and I promise their wont be too much L/V. I hate Lauren as much as u guys do :whip: but I am a fan of a little angst. dis fic has been posted over at sd-1 but i decided 2 post it here as well so heres all nine chapters. also i lke quotes cux i enjoy reading wat parts u guyz liked, so a post full of quotes will be much appreciated.
Prologue:
Sydney’s POV
I’m sitting and staring at myself in the mirror, staring at me. But I can’t see me because I don’t seem to recognize myself anymore. All I see is this woman with long wavy blonde hair, wearing dark eyeliner and those empty unfeeling eyes. I’ve become everything I despise. Oleg was right…Sydney Bristow no longer exists.
Flashback
You and I are going to work together. We will spend lots of time together. But we will get the results that my employers have requested. I always do.
We'll make this easy. We unearthed her. We left her in your apartment, before we burned it. You, that was more difficult. When a body is burned badly enough, the DNA they test for is in the teeth. We extracted pulp from your teeth, and injected it into the teeth in the corpse that was to be your replacement. Of course, they tested the body they found. To them, it was you.
He will mourn and move on, find someone else perhaps. The sooner you accept that you are no longer who you were, the easier this will be. Sydney Bristow is gone.
End of Flashback
I have been missing since my fight with Alison Doren, Francie’s Double. For almost two years now. I am dead to the CIA and everyone I care about. I have been torn away from everyone that I care about including my lover. There is still a little part of me who is fighting for her identity, fighting for Sydney Bristow. Even if I have come everything I despise I will never be completely broken. Not even Oleg could do that.
Flashback
Your name is Julia Thorne. You were born in London on August Two, Nineteen Seventy-Three.
My name is Sydney Bristow you ugly bastard.
End of Flashback
Oleg tried hypnosis, disorientating me with narcotics, withholding me from food at weeks at a time, and bombarding me with images and information. All in the attempt of brainwashing me into believing I was a person called Julia Thorne. He was successful, at least he thought he was. I faked the whole façade. I realised if I didn’t this would never stop. I then became operational within the Covenant. All this happened within nine months. And at my first possible chance I contacted the CIA and I met with Kendall at a safe house in Tuscany.
Flashback
I want to go home. I want to see my dad.
Your father can't be contacted. He's under deep cover. And as it is, you have no home to return to. Agent Bristow, let me be clear. You return home, you're putting in jeopardy the lives of the people you claim to love.
You're just trying to scare me.
Look at your friend Will. The Covenant left the son of a b**** for dead. Listen to me. If what little intel we have on the Covenant is anywhere near accurate, they have the potential to be far more deadly than the Alliance ever was. Which is why it is imperative that you continue as Julia Thorne. The Covenant believes they have you programmed.
If you think I'm going back to them, you're insane.
If you don't, they're going to come after you, after your friends, your family, after Vaughn.
I have to see him.
Sydney, you've been gone nine months.
He loves me. Nine months is nothing.
End of Flashback
Here I am staring in the same mirror preparing myself for the most confrontational mission of my life to seduce a CIA agent to gain information for the Covernant about ‘the chip.’ I am about to seduce my lover and my confident…I will recognize him but he wont recognize me.
TBC
Chapter one:
Ressurrection
Jack’s POV
I am numb. I don’t know what to think right now. And here I am having to face this briefing room with all the people who are going to act emotionally when they hear what I am about to say. Especially Agent Vaughn. I’m not even ready myself to say these words, to get my hopes up even if we had confirmed that it was her. I sigh.
“30 minutes ago we received a call from one of our agents, someone who was presumed dead, claiming to be Sydney Bristow.”
“How do we know it is her? It could have been someone posing as her.” Lauren stated. She’s in denial. I would be too if my wife’s ex-boyffriend came back from the dead.
“We ran a standard voice analysis when the call came through, it was a match to her file.”
“Where is she now?” Dixon chokes out clearly emotional.
“She is on a plane as we speak from Hong Kong where she contacted us from.” She will be here by morning.” Everyone stands up to leave all still digesting this piece of information as still am I. “You should all know,” They all turn around. “Sydney has no recollection of the last two years, she doesn’t remember a thing about her capture, so bear that in mind.” I’m left standing in the middle of this briefing room thinking that in a few hours I’m about to see my daughter again. And somehow for the first time in my whole life I don’t know what to do.
Vaughn’s POV
She’s alive, she has been alive all this time. What am I supposed to do now. She dosen’t remember a thing and she is about to find me married. She is going to hate me. She is never going to want to speak to me again.
Weiss approaches me. “How you holding up, man.” Sounding concerned.
“I’m okay.” I say but but my voic betrays me.
“You can’t fool me man, you have been staring at that desk for a whole hour you’ve almost burnt a hole through it”
“You state the obvious, she is going to hate me you know that don’t you.”
“She’s is not going to hate, yeah so maybe in the beginning but I know Syd just as well as you do, she could never cut you out of her life, she will forgive you, she will understand.” He says that but he is not me, he is not the man who is married to another woman. “You’re right, she may hate me for awhile but she will eventually forgive me.” It’s not what I feel but it is the only way I am able to get Weiss to leave me alone. I just need to be alone right now.
Lauren’s POV
Michael and I are sittind down eating our dinner at an unusual hour of eight o’clock. He’s just sitting there staring at his plate playing with his food with the fork he is holding. Just staring into space. “Honey are you okay, do yo want to talk about it?” I ask knowing that is the last thing he wants to do but we are going to have to have this conversation sooner or later.
“No, I don’t really want to talk about it, but all I need to know right now is if you can handle this, if you are okay with this?” He says dulley.
“Michael don’t worry about me, I’m okay with this we made our vows to eachother she can’t ruin our marriage.” This is exactly the opposite to what I wanted to say. I wanted to say she is going to ruin everything. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She isn’t suppose to be here. She is supposed to be dead to the world. She should no longer exist. But instead I smile at him. “I’m more worried about you then I am worried about me.”
“Don’t be.” He says to me as he takes a bite out of his meal. As convincing as he is trying to be. I see right through him.
Sydney’s POV
Here I am moments away from seeing all the ones I love again, including him. I am so confused right now. I don’t know wheather I should just tell him it was me or should I lie and not say anything just as I have lied about the fact that I don’t remember a thing about my missing two years, when in actual fact I do know everything that happened to me right down to every single detail. If I tell them the truth Kendall will find out and have me sent back there in an instant. I will not go back there I just want to leave behind that part of my life apart of my life I wish never happened. I will not go back to those people. I’ve decided that he will never know it was me that night in Panama city. Why ruin his life over something like that when not telling him will do no harm at all.
I am now just metres away from seeing everone again to seeing him again. I stop and take a deep breath. I slowly walk into the Rotunda…
TBC
Chapter two:
Suspicions and Lies
Sydney’s POV
There he is standing there looking to the ground like he was unable to face me. Somehow I feel the same way. I’m not ready to see him, yet here I am standing here. My brown eyes meet green and we connect. How can I lie to this man? But that is what I seem to be doing. I am lying to him right now just by looking deep into his green orbs. He has me transfixed. I am soon torn away from his glance by a voice greeting me.
“Welcome, back.” Dixon says and smiles at me.
I can’t help but smile back. “Well it is good to be back.” I sigh.
“Are you okay sweetheart?” My father says full of concern.
“I’m fine, I guess I am just wrapping my head around it all, not remembering anything at all, it’s going to take some time to adjust.” I pretend to look upset. Well at least that was my plan but I didn’t need to pretend because I was upset, upset that I was lying to all the people I care about. Lying to Vaughn, the one person I don’t want to lie too, but I have too because my secret is too damaging to him. I don’t want to be the cause of a marriage break up. Not over this.
Flashback
“Are you serious, you had a woman dump you for that”
“Yeah it kinda sucked at the time.”
“I wouldn’t dump you like that.” I said seductively.
“Good…to…know.” He breathes out staring at my lips. I closed the gap between us in a passionate kiss. Our hands roamed each others bodies and our clothes were shed in frenzy and he slowly backed me up towards the bed.
End of Flashback
Weiss’s POV
Syd was so distant when we first saw her. We all had hugged her and welcomed back but she seemed to have her thoughts somewhere else. I don’t even think she acknowledged who she was hugging and talking to. She’s hiding something I know she is and Jack doesn’t seem to realize it. Now there is a first. And as for Mike that is a whole complete different story. He told Syd that he was married about ten minutes after everyone greeted her. It didn’t go too well, obviously. She just walked away in tears. I expected her to yell or something but she didn’t but she gave him those eyes of betrayal and I think that said enough. It was enough to nearly kill Vaughn on the spot.
Vaughn’s POV
Here I am yet again staring at my desk again. Why do I feel so guilty for telling the truth? Its not like I was lying to her.
Flashback
“Hi…err…welcome back.” I said uncertainty.
“Hi she says hugging me.” Sounding more confident then I was.
I hugged her back and I look straight into her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” She asked uncertainty.
“Syd, there’s something I need to tell you…something I need to say.”
“What?” She says, perplexed.
“Before you get your hopes up about anything between us….you should know that we can’t be together.” I say with my heart in my throat at the time.
“Why, what are you trying to tell me?” She says confused.
“Because a lot has happened since you died… I mean it’s been two years Syd…I though you were dead, Syd.” I say almost crying. “I’m married.
End of Flashback.
She just stared at me in bewilderment and when it all finally sunk in she gave me a look of betrayal and walked away. I expected her to yell at me or something but she didn’t, her eyes were enough. It’s the look she gave me that makes me feel guilty. I don’t get to ponder my guilt much longer because Lauren comes over to me.
“Hi, you told her didn’t you?” She deadpans
“She hates me.” I say feeling defeated.
“She’s going to feel like that but that is not your fault, think about it she lost two years of her life and has no recollection of it. The last thing she would have remembered would have been being with you. It’s going to be hard for to get over the fact that she lost two years, and not feeling she has lost them. This is what is making it so hard to forgive you. But she will eventually Michael, don’t doubt that.”
“Thanks.” It’s the only thing I can come up with. Although that is good advice, she doesn’t know Sydney.
Jack’s POV
My beautiful daughter is sitting here crying in my arms. That boy has ripped my daughter’s heart out.
“I can’t believe he is married.” She says through red-swollen eyes.
“Michael Vaughn is just a boy who was never good enough for you anyway, don’t lose your strength over him.” I say in my best fatherly tone.
“But I loved him…I still love him.” She says with hurt in her eyes. “I don’t know what to do Dad., what do I do?” She pleads with me.
“I don’t know sweetheart, just go on with your life I guess.” She continues to cry. “Are you going to be okay sweetheart?”
“Right now Dad I don’t know, but what I do know is that right about now I could do with some sleep” she says.
“I agree, I’ll take you home.” I give her a hug and she dissolves the rest of her tears.
“Yesterday mission in Nevada paid off, the team was able to capture Sark and bring him in.” I slide Sydney a folder to her. She starts to read.
“Why was this operation run for?” She asks me.
“They were in Nevada investigating a tip from a reliable source that some of Rambaldi’s work was in a local museum.”
“Did they find anything?” She asks sounding really concerned.
“No, the Covenant got there first.”
“Sark was apprehended and brought into US custody. He is going to be interrogating him with the inferno protocol.”
“Something I don’t agree with because I don’t think we need to.” Lauren speaks up. “Sark has always had flexible loyalties; it’s likely he would just give us the Intel.”
“By the looks of this information Sark has changed and grown a backbone for once, and Sark just talk, he always wants something in return.” Sydney jumps in.
“Why should that matter, Sarks’s demands haven’t been to great have they in the past, why do something that is going to be unnecessary?” Lauren argues with Sydney.
“Then obviously you don’t know Sark.” Sydney says harshly to Lauren, arguing back at her. “Especially when he goes to all that trouble to steal a single piece of paper, hidden by the Covenant.” Everyone stares at her in bewilderment. What did she just say?
TBC
Chapter three:
Revelations
Sydney’s POV
“Sydney what is this…what is going on?” My father studies me carefully looking at me as if to find some kind of flaw some kind of truth. The truth is this scares me, if anyone could figure out I am lying its my father. If he figures it out it’s my own fault I let my emotions cloud my judgement. This will always be my biggest fault.
“Nothing Dad, I’m Just thinking that that could be possible, think about it the Covenant could have easily staged this, they could have had someone pose as the contact, this could have been a ploy to distract us so that they could get their hands on something of greater value Something that we have been looking for as well. I s there anything that you guys have been desperately searching for?” I said in a quick ramble.
“The Cube.” My father stated at me.
“Okay, so my guess is that they never wanted us to know they had found it, so they kept us busy. The only way they knew in the first place that we were looking for it as well is if someone had tipped them off.” I said pacing the room up and down”
“Sydney, what are you actually suggesting?” My father looks at me curiously.
“I’m suggesting we have a mole.” I deadpan.
“Sydney where is this coming from, there is no substance, no background information to suggest that what you are saying is correct.”
“It’s a feeling I have, a gnawing feeling at the pit of my stomach, it’s almost like a memory but then it’s not. Its like I feel it, but don’t remember the images or the words spoken. I don’t know what it is, but I have this huge feeling that I am right.” It’s the best I can do.
“Agent Vaughn I need you to check in with our contact, see if he is still alive, if he isn’t then we have a mole to find.” My father says in his cold voice.
“What we are actually going to move on what Ms. Bristow says!!” Lauren yells. “We are going to move on information based on a feeling.” She is furious. She looks at me sending daggers at my body,. If a look could kill I’d be dead right now.
“Yes we are.” My father states with that yeah-that’s-what-is going-to-happen-and-I-don’t-need-to-sit-here-explaining-to-you-why-so-deal-with-it look.
“This is outrageous.” Lauren says flabbergasted. “This is absolutely outrageous because we are moving on something she doesn’t even remember.”
“I think I might be able to shed some light on this whole situendo.” Marshall speaks up. “I think this could really be Syd’s memories starting to resurface. They may only be feelings, like when you break your mother’s favourite glass ornament and you know your are in big trouble. Yeah I did that once, tried to hide it in the freezer so it would look like ice, but mamma found it and boy did I get in to trouble. You know she threatened to not buy me….” Marshall rambles as usual.
“Marshall.” Vaughn cuts in. “Get to the point.” He says sharply.
“Oh well as I was saying these feelings can slowly turn into actual memories.” He says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“So what you are saying, is that what she is actually saying could have happened.” Vaughn says, he sounds almost strained like he is happy but is also trying not to feel anything at all.
“Basically yeah.” Marshall says friendly.
Jack’s POV
I walk over to my daughter and everyone else about an hour after the briefing. “Our contact is dead you were right.” I look at her with a smile on my face. I am so proud of her right now.
“So we are now looking for the mole now.” She says to me with a hint of a smile on her face.
“Not exactly.” Lauren says with a smug smile on her face. “We are going to monitor everyone but not in a great deal, if something odd comes up we start a full search with everyone within this taskforce.” I notice Sydney’s face starts to go to the colour of chalk.
“I agreed with her, we can’t move on something…” I stop and watch as Sydney quickly walks away. “Like that, it could be damaging if it is not correct.” I say. “Agent Weiss could you go after her and see if she’s okay.” I say quickly.
Sydney’s POV
I got to the bathroom and the second I got into the nearest cubicle I emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I slowly stood up and went to the sink and washed my mouth out. The moment I walked out of the bathroom, Weiss was standing there.
“Are you okay?” He asks his eyes full of concern.
“Yeah I’m fine, I’m just feeling a bit off colour today.” I say, knowing that it is the truth. I’ve been feeling really off since I woke up this morning. We both don’t say anything. There’s just awkward silence.
We start to walk side by side. “You and Lauren don’t seem to be getting along well.” He says trying to make conversation.
“You state the obvious, I had this plan to try and be nice to her for Vaughn’s sake, but something about her just infuriates me.” I say with a touch of anger.
“Is it because she is Vaughn’s wife?” He says slowly.
“God no Eric, I’m not that cold.” I say. But somehow that is something that sticks with me for the rest of the day.
I wake up in the morning and do the exactly the same thing I have done for the past week. I run to the bathroom and empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I brush my teeth and walk out side into Weiss’s living room, I moved in by Weiss’s request two days ago. He looks at me in concern.
“Syd have you seen a doctor yet you have been vomiting for almost a week now.” He says concerned.
“I went yesterday.” I say knowing where this is going to lead. What am I supposed to say?
“What did they say?” He asks me.
Flashback
“I need to take some of your blood, I need to check every possibility.” Doctor Novena says. He slowly pushes a syringe into my left arm and slowly draws out some blood. He pulls the syringe out and puts a cotton wool bud on the area where the syringe was moments before. He indicates for me to hold it into place. “Stay right here, I’ll bring this to the lab and have it tested immediately.” He says walking out the door.
End of Flashback
“He said...um…he said.” I stumble. My heart is in my throat right now.
“Eric can I trust you to not repeat what I tell you to anyone?” I say swallowing my the huge lump in my throat.
“Yeah, whatever Syd I wont say anything, I promise.” He says with a look of confusion on his face.
“Eric.” I say when a stray tear falls down my face. “I’m pregnant."
TBC
Chapter Four:
The truth and nothing but the truth.
Sydney’s POV
“You’re pregnant, Syd.” Eric says to me completely shocked. “How...I mean who did this to you? What am I talking about you don’t remember, I swear to god Syd that when I find out who did this…no violated you, I will kill them...I will kill them.” He says angrily, pacing up and down.
“I already know who the father is.” I say with tears running down my face,
“WHAT!” He yells at me. “How could you know that, this most likely happened before you came back.” He says looking at me confused. I just look back him. The look is all he needed to give him an answer. “You’ve been lying to me, to the CIA, to everyone.” He says putting his face in his hands. “Why, Syd, why?” He says choking back tears.
“Because I had to.” I say to him trying to choke back my tears. “I did it for me, I did it for Vaughn…I had to see him but I couldn’t tell him it was me.” I say looking at the ground as a fresh round of tears falls down my face.
“Syd, what are you talking about.” He said softly as he knelt down I front of me. I do the only thing that makes sense to me, I look up at him and start to tell him what happened.
I shot her three times. Then I passed out, dead to the world. When I woke up, it was three days later. I was in the back of a van, strapped down.
Flashback
You and I are going to work together. We will spend lots of time together. But we will get the results that my employers have requested. I always do.
We'll make this easy. We unearthed her. We left her in your apartment, before we burned it. You, that was more difficult. When a body is burned badly enough, the DNA they test for is in the teeth. We extracted pulp from your teeth, and injected it into the teeth in the corpse that was to be your replacement. Of course, they tested the body they found. To them, it was you.
He will mourn and move on, find someone else perhaps. The sooner you accept that you are no longer who you were, the easier this will be. Sydney Bristow is gone.
End of flashback
Weiss was silent he just look at me taking it all in. I took a deep breath and continued. “They made me watch my own funeral, they tortured me with my love for Vaughn. I was then taken to a Covenant facility just outside of St. Petersburg’s. They wanted my co-operation something I wasn’t willing to give, so Oleg started the brainwash protocol. He spent months trying to break me down, using sensory depravation, electroshock. He would put me to sleep by running an IV with a barbiturate into one arm, and shock me awake with an amphetamine in the other arm.”
Flashback
I will kill you, you son of a b****. I promise you.
End of flashback
When Oleg believed that he had finally broken me, he began a conditioning process. He started with hypnosis.
Flashback
Your name is Julia Thorne. You were born in London on August Two, Nineteen Seventy-Three.
My name is Sydney Bristow you ugly bastard.
End of Flashback
“He disorientated me with Narcotics. Withheld food from me for weeks at a time. He bombarded me with images, information. All classic techniques, designed to make me believe I was a woman called Julia Thorne. They succeeded, well at least they thought they did.”
Flashback
Welcome, Ms. Thorne. The work you'll be doing for us requires a certain commitment.
Of course.
Who this man is is unimportant. What is important is the knife on the table. Use it. Kill this unimportant man.
End of flashback
“I killed him. I traded my life for his. I still don’t know who he was. This all took nearly nine months and at my first chance I contacted Kendall and met with him at a safe house in Tuscany.”
Flashback
I want to go home. I want to see my dad.
Your father can't be contacted. He's under deep cover. And as it is, you have no home to return to. Agent Bristow, let me be clear. You return home, you're putting in jeopardy the lives of the people you claim to love.
You're just trying to scare me.
Look at your friend Will. The Covenant left the son of a b**** for dead. Listen to me. If what little Intel we have on the Covenant is anywhere near accurate, they have the potential to be far more deadly than the Alliance ever was. Which is why it is imperative that you continue as Julia Thorne. The Covenant believes they have you programmed.
If you think I'm going back to them, you're insane.
If you don't, they're going to come after you, after your friends, your family, after Vaughn.
I have to see him.
Sydney, you've been gone nine months.
He loves me. Nine months is nothing.
End of Flashback
“So I went back and that was when I first learned of Lauren. As hard as it was I couldn’t confront Vaughn. The reality of my predicament settled in, I knew Kendall was right.”
Flashback
This is Kendall.
I'll do whatever you want.
End of Flashback
“That’s how I came to be a double-agent for the second time in my life. On my first assignment I was sent to Algeria where I met Simon Walker.”
“Whose that?” Weis spoke for the first time.
“He’s a thief and I was introduced to him as a contract killer. My assignment was simple and clear the covenant wanted me to find the cube. We both came up with a variety of new leads, but at the same time I kept the CIA informed. I them came into the knowledge of Andrian Lazarey a Russian Diplomat who a lot like Sloane devoted to the study of Rambaldi and colleted his works. I believed he could help me find the cube, but soon the covenant wanted me to assassinate him. So I did, but at the same time I saved his life.”
Weiss starts looking at me confused, but before he can say anything I continue.
“I made the Covenant believe that I had killed him, I faked his death. I went to Lazarey the night before and told him about the hit. He was a reasonable man and we stuck a deal.”
Flashback
(Russian) How did you get into my house?
(in English) I'll make this as simple as possible, Mr. Lazarey. Unless you do exactly as I say, by this time tomorrow you will be dead.
End of flashback
“Lazarey and I started to work together to retrieve the cube. It took us nine gruelling months, but we found it in the Fish river gorge in Namibia. Getting to it was a lot trickier; it was located in a cave in a huge vault, which needed to be opened by individual keys. Lazarey devoted thirty years of his life to find these keys, he found the last one two weeks before we were there.’
Flashback
This lock won't stay open. I need to hold the key in place. Lazarey’s hand gets trapped in the vault.
Here, bite down on this.
End of Flashback
“I did the only thing I could do to get the cube and Lazarey out of there, I cut his hand off. Four months after this I was sent to Panama City to seduce a CIA agent to get information on ‘the chip. That agent was Vaughn.”
“Vaughn was sent there to seduce you to gain information on the inner workings of the Covenant, Syd you were unrecognisable, we didn’t know it was you.” He says shocked.
“Yeah, sometimes I couldn’t even recognize myself.”
Flashback
“Are you serious, you had a woman dump you for that”
“Yeah it kinda sucked at the time.”
“I wouldn’t dump you like that.” I said seductively.
“Good…to…know.” He breathes out staring at my lips. I closed the gap between us in a passionate kiss. Our hands roamed each other’s bodies and our clothes were shed in frenzy and he backed me up towards the bed.
End of flashback
“We made love.” I can’t hold the tears back any longer I just cry.
“So Vaughn’s the father of the baby…Syd you gotta tell him, he has the right to know, he’d want to know.” He says gently.
“He can never know, it was my plan all along but this happens, but I can always pretend it’s someone else’s, just as you thought it was.” I say with tears streaming down my face.
“Syd.” Weiss says trying to convince me but I will not be convinced.
“I don’t want to be responsible for a marriage break up, I wont put him through that.” I say trying to make him understand.
“What about the rest of it, I think everyone deserves to know.” He says trying to reason with me, but I will not be reasoned with. He doesn’t realize what is at stake here.
“If I tell them, they will send me back there.” I say crying to him.
“Your father wouldn’t do that to you.” He said softly.
“He wouldn’t but Kendall will.”
TBC
Chapter Five:
Tensions
Weiss’s POV
She’s making the wrong decision, I know she is. But she won’t be convinced otherwise. I should really tell everyone, I really should tell Mike what I know, he deserves to know the truth, and he needs to know. I wont say anything because she needs me and I couldn’t do that to her anyway, even if my senses are telling me otherwise. She may not be making the right decision now, but she will in the end. Because I know Syd well enough to know that she could never keep Vaughn out of her life and Vaughn could never do the same to her. Syd, there are no words to describe her, she is beyond an amazing woman, and somehow Mike was drawn to her by that. But Syd has other distinctive qualities. God she can be so stubborn, she never backs down when she thinks something is not right. But for some reason with this fight about her moving out, she didn’t seem to have the energy to plead her case, she just back down and she agreed with me. I told her that she is still in a fragile position and that she was pregnant, and while that is happening I refused to let her leave. She needs to be looked after and I was scared she wouldn’t put her baby first if I weren’t watching her closely. She wants revenge for what the Covenant did to her, it’s her number one priority, and everything else comes second, including the child she is carrying.
Jack’s POV
“The NSC is conducting an investigation into the murder of a Russian Diplomat, Andrian Lazarey.” I say dully to everyone in the room. I watch as Lauren stands up and heads to the front of the briefing room.
“The NSC believes that the murder was apart of the Covenant.” Lauren states. “A woman Jack informs me that we have all seen before.” Lauren uses the remote to turn the video of Lazarey’s murder on. “This was taken from a Russian security camera.” Lauren states.
“Agent Vaughn was sent on a mission to Panama City three months ago to obtain information from this woman about the inner workings of the Covenant, which led us to the cell leaders of the Covenant’s North America Cell.” I say coldly to everyone. “To whom we are tracking carefully…until now.” I deadpan.
“What happened to them?” Sydney asks me curiously. She still seems very pale.
“They have been MIA for the past few days, we have no idea where they are, and that’s what we intend to find out.” I say coldly.
“As for Lazarey, the NSC wants to find out this woman’s name and find her.” Lauren speaks up. Looking like she is trying to tell everyone that what she is doing is important too. Someone likes the limelight not surprising really since she is the Senator’s daughter. “This is Mr Bob Lyndsey, he will be heading up the investigation as another NSC Liaison.” She says almost proudly. I hate this man; he nearly had me thrown in a jail cell for collaborating with Irina. Agent Vaughn exonerated me; somehow I owe him for that, even if he is hurting my daughter. I realize I need to wrap this briefing up. “I want all of you to use all our resources to find those cell leaders, that’s all.” I say dismissing them all. “Sydney, can you stay behind please?” I watch as Mr Weiss says something to her and exits the room. I know those expressions very well. I wonder what she is hiding.
Sydney’s POV
The NSC knows, and it is not going to be long before that investigation leads back to me. Even scarier is that look on my father is giving me. He knows, I know he does.
“Sydney, are you okay? You still seem to look very pale.” He says to me gently.
“I’m okay…actually I have been meaning to talk to you about that.” I say in a bare whisper. “Dad…I’m pregnant.” I say even softer. But before he can say anything I continue. “I don’t know who the father is.” I say in a strained whisper. His expression is not what I expected. He looks at me strangely.
“I believe the first part, but not the second.” He deadpans. “So you want to try again?” He says to me harshly.
“I…” Is all I can mange. He knows I’m lying. Oh god what do I do?
“Sydney, you can’t fool me,” he says. “I spent many years being fooled by your mother that I am now an expert on how it’s done, you are doing exactly what she did.” He smiles. “Now I want the truth from start to finish and don’t leave a single detail out.” He says coolly. I had no choice. So I told him exactly what I told Weiss. And when I was done he was just as shocked as Weiss.
“Do you understand why I have been lying?” I say with tears rolling down my cheeks.
“I understand what is at stake here, but you should have come to me first.” He says softly giving me a hug.
“I need to tell everyone, because the NSC is going to find out about Julia…”
“Sydney! We are withholding this information, because I know Bob Lyndsey very well and knowing him he’ll have you charged for this even though he has nothing on you. He’ll find something, believe me he will.” He says coldly.
“What about the investigation?”
“I’ll deal with it.” And with that he strode out of the room leaving me here, standing here in the middle of the room contemplating what I have just done. I just lied to him again. I never told him it was Vaughn’s; I told him it was Cole’s
Vaughn’s POV
We haven’t talked at all. She won’t even look at me. She hates me, and it is all my fault. I watch her sitting at her desk across fro mine; shuffling through the papers on her desk and making notes from a file she has up on her screen. I decide to speak up and break or silence. “You find anything yet?” I ask her.
“No,” she states not even looking at me. I watch her as she subconsciously puts her left hand on her stomach. “It’s almost like they disappeared off the face of the earth, and it’s something I am starting to believe.” She says concentrating on her computer screen, still not even glancing up at me.
“It’s a possibility, it would explain a lot.” I say to her. She still refuses to look at me. “Syd, I think we need to talk.” I say slowly.
“Really, because I don’t think there’s anything that hasn’t already been said.” She says to me with sarcasm dripping from her very word.
“I think there’s a lot we need to talk about.” I say not meaning to sound so cold.
“Nothing I want to talk about.” She says sharply.
“I want to know why you are so angry with me? Why you are making me feel so guilty when there is nothing for me to feel guilty about?” I say angrily.
“You want to know why I’m angry with you them I’ll tell you why. After everything that you and I have seen and heard, all the madness and the impossible you couldn’t even contemplate the slightest possibility that I could be alive. You had no faith in me, and that’s why I am angry.” She says with hate and anger dripping from her every word. And with that she looks back at her computer and continues her research leaving me perplexed about what she had just said. My thoughts are soon interrupted.
“Syd, Syd!!!” Marshall runs up to us.
“What is it Marshall?” She says with concern written clearly on her face.
“We just received an email from an unknown source, the person claims to know where the cell leaders are, and that he is with them right now, the person wouldn’t say where.” He says almost out of breath.
”I couldn’t track where the email came from it was too encrypted, but I was able to get their location.” He says.
“Marshall that’s called locating it.” She says with a huge smile on her face. “Good work.” She says walking away.
“Er...thanks Syd.” He says half waving.
Unknown POV
“Did you have the matter taken care of?” I say softly with my hands on the sides of her face caressing her cheeks.
“Yes, they did exactly as we expected.” She says to me in her crisp accent. And she kisses me hungrily.
“God is he that bad?”
“He’s excruciating.” She says laughing and kisses me again.
Jack’s POV
“Thanks to Marshall we now have the location of the cell leaders, who are in Berlin, in a local hotel in the heart of Berlin, room 60C.” I say to them all. “Vaughn, Weiss and Sydney, you will go to Berlin and get them back on our radar. Sydney you will be on point, Agent Vaughn and Weiss you will be on coms. This is a reconnaissance op only, don’t mess this up. Wheels up in an hour.”
Weiss’s POV
While Vaughn looks immersed in the mission specs I pull Syd to the back of the plane. “Syd, what happened with you and your father this morning?” I ask urgently.
“He figured it out Weiss he knows I’m pregnant, he now knows what you know.” She says quickly.
“So he knows about Vaughn.” He says gently.
“Not exactly…” She stumbles out.
“What do you mean not exactly.” I ask her confused.
“I lied to him, I told him it was Cole’s.” She says in a stained whisper.
“You did, WHAT!!!” I raise my voice at her, what is she doing.
“Shhh…. You and I both know how my father would react to that information. God if he ever found out it was Vaughn’s, that I was pregnant with his baby.” She says defending herself. I’m about to say something else but we both hear someone clear their throat behind us.
“What is going on here?”
TBC
Chapter six:
Hanging in the balance
Sydney’s POV
“How much of that did you hear?” I ask Vaughn nervously. He knows, Oh god he knows.
“Enough to know that you are pregnant.” He says to me. “Who’s the father?” He says gently, he almost looks like he is emotional about it, like he is disgusted that someone would do this to me. Little does he know that it was him, but I am not about to tell him that. Even though every moral fibre in body is telling me to do so. I though lying to him would be harder than telling the truth, but it’s the other way around for me, telling the truth is a lot harder than telling the lie. God I’m thinking too much, I need to say something. “I don’t know.” I say with tears in my eyes. I’m not milking this I am actually crying because apart of me is telling me to stop worrying about everybody else’s lives and worry about your own.
“I’m so sorry, is it...?”
“Yeah it is too late to get rid of the baby, and even if it were possible I don’t think I could go through with it.” I say honestly. I look down at my watch; we’re about to touch down soon. Finally a distraction from my feelings about the baby, especially that deep sensation deep within me, where my true feelings for Vaughn have never died. “We’re about to land in 5 minutes, we should probably get ready.” And with that I walk out of the room and I don’t look back.
(on comms)
“Boyscout and retriever I’m in position.”
“Copy that Mountaineer, move in when you’re ready.” Vaughn’s voice crackles to life in my ear.
(end of comms)
I walk in to the lobby of the expensive hotel and head towards the front desk swaying my hips in a smooth motion. I’m wearing a black sequined halter top which dips really low at the front and the top is short in length so it stops at least 5 cm above my tight navy blue jeans sitting snug at my waist. And to top it all of I’m actually wearing my own hair for once, which is curled and falls past my shoulders. I approach the clerk at the desk. “Excuse me sir, my name is Ethel Frauharah I am looking for the locker rooms for your employee’s, I have just been given a job as a maid and it is my first shift, and I don’t know where to go.” I say in a German accent.
“Of course Miss, right this way.” The clerk says to me in a German accent as well. He leads me down a corridor to the left of the lobby and leads me to a room right at the end of the corridor he walks me into the room and indicates a locker assigned to my alias. “I am assuming you have your keys.” He says.
“Of course.” I say. “Thank-you.” I say courteously.
“My pleasure Miss Frauharah.” He says and walks out of the room. I pull out from my purse a lock pick and I set to work on the lock, it pops open with a click in a matter of seconds. I open the locker and find a maids uniform inside, I quickly change and I head towards room 60C. I knock on the door. “House keeping.” I call. I receive no answer. I take out the lock pick and pick the lock, and with a click it opens. I push open the door. The room is pooled in darkness. I suddenly almost trip over something on the ground. I switch the light on. “Oh God.”
(on comms)
“What is it Mountaineer?” Weiss says to me quickly.
“It’s one of the cell leaders, Ivanhov, he’s dead.” I slowly look around the room and I spot Reicter on the ground near the bed with stab wounds to the chest. “Reicter is dead also.”
“Get out of there Syd, we’ve been set up.” I am about to reply but then everything goes black.
(end of comms)
Vaughn’s POV
“Syd, Syd, SYD!! What the hell is going on, answer me.” I say. I’m worried, because I still receive no answer.
“Weiss we need to go in, I think something’s happened.” I say halfway out of the van.
“I’m right behind you.” Weiss calls after me.
Unknown POV
“Alright lets get her out of here.” I say quickly.
“Wait a second, did you hear that?” She says to me. “Someone’s coming.”
“Well let’s move, we still have time to get her out of here
“Hold on, she’s stirring.” She says urgently. In a matter of seconds she is on her feet ready to fight me. I crane my ears, they’re getting closer. I do the only thing I can. I grab Sydney and plunge a knife in her chest. She falls limb in my arms. I hear the voices get closer and I recognize them. “Babe it is the CIA get out of here we can’t afford you to blow your cover.” I say urgently. I hear fiddling with the door.
“Forget her, we’ll get her next time, you won’t get out of here with her.” She hisses at me. I follow her out onto the balcony and we climb into the next door’s balcony and we escape through the room. Leaving Sydney bleeding to death in the hotel room along with Ivanhov and Reicter.
Weiss’s POV
We open the door of 60C and we find Syd lying face down on the ground. “Oh god Syd!” I yell with tears as I run to her body. I quickly check for a pulse. Thank god she has one, but she is not breathing. I quickly find the stab wound to the chest. “Man she can’t breathe.” I say to Vaughn, who has tears running down his cheeks. I know what is going through his head, he thinks he may lose her all over again. “You need to focus, Mike.” I watch as the focus comes back into his face, he kneels down beside me and he contacts the Rotunda.
(on comms)
“Base ops, this is Boyscout, do you read.”
“Yes Boyscout we read you loud and clear, what’s the problem.” I hear through my earpiece Jack’s voice.
“Mountaineer’s down, she has a stab wound to the chest, she can’t breathe, we’re going to take her to the nearest hospital to stabilize her condition so we can have her brought back to LA.”
“Call me if she gets worse.” He sounds almost chocked up. Jack is an unfeeling man but when it comes to his daughter it’s a completely different story.
(end of comms)
(phone conversation)
“Bristow” Jack greets in his stony voice.
“Its Weiss, Syd’s been cleared for a transfer to LA to the Stafford Naval, she’s on a ventilator, one of her lungs collapsed.” I say quickly knowing because we are leaving soon.
“What about the baby.” He says, concerned.
“They don’t know, they said they’re going to leave that in out Doctor’s hands.” I say. “I need to go, the plane’s leaving.” I close me cell and hop aboard the plane.
(end of phone conversation)
We touch down in Dover airfield early the next morning and from a distance I watch as the paramedics push Syd into the ambulance heading to the Stafford Naval.
“Mike you coming, to the hospital?” I ask concerned, because he hasn’t said anything the entire flight.
“Er…um…no I think I need to see Lauren, she’s probably worried, I’ll come later.” He says with this weird look on his face. I just don’t get him. One minute he’s worried about Sydney and the next he basically looks like he doesn’t care.
“Whatever man.” I say to him shortly, walking away before he can even say a word.
Lisa Vaughn’s POV
With a brisk pace I walk into Sydney’s room. I come face to face with Eric.
“Hey, Lisa, you Sydney’s Doctor?” He says greeting me.
“Yeah. I have good and bad news. The good news is that the baby’s okay, the bad news is that Sydney is in a coma. We have no idea when she is going to wake up, the next 48 hours are going to be crucial, she is in the danger period now so if something is going to go wrong it will go wrong within this period. If she passes the first 48 hours without a problem there is a greater chance she will wake up unharmed. As for the baby being alive it is good news but it can turn into bad also. At the moment we have the baby the baby stabilized, so it is being fed so it is still growing, but because Sydney’ body is under stress, the baby is under stress, so if she doesn’t wake up soon the baby will die.”
“Oh,” Is all he can manage to say to me.
“I have a question for you?” I say softly
“Yeah, what.” He says dully still comprehending the information.
“When I checked on Sydney’s baby, I ran a paternity test because if the baby dies we need that information, it came up as my brother’s. I guess what I want to know is if he knows.” I say still bewildered by the prospect but also excited because if the baby survives I’ll be an aunty.
“No he doesn’t know.” He says looking at me. Poor guy, I’ve never seen Eric cry but here he is doing it in front of me.
“Kay, so I am guessing there was an affair without him knowing it was her, probably in her missing two years, so that means she remembers, I can understand she probably has her reasons to not say anything. But I wish Michael knew because Lauren isn’t right for him. And maybe this could be the trigger to him to make him realize he still loves her.” I say honestly and emotionally. “She’s ruining his life.” And with that I let a tear escape down my cheek. I quickly wipe it away. “I have to go.” And I take one look at the beautiful woman with long chestnut hair lying motionless on the bed.
Vaughn’s POV
I watch Weiss briskly approach us. “What’s going on, sorry I’m late, I was at the hospital.” He says out of breath.
“We have had a breakthrough about Lazarey’s murder, except the results were shocking. I received an anonymous tip from someone that Julia Thorne was the murderer of Lazarey, but he then said it was only an alias. Then came the shocking part, he said it was Sydney.” Lauren states.
“As soon as Agent Bristow regains consciousness and is well she will be charged for his murder.” Lindsey says coolly staring straight at Jack.
“Who exactly received the tip.”? Jack says coldly.
“Agent Vaughn did.” Lindsey deadpans.
“And you told them,” Jack yells angrily at me. He has every right to be, but I have to support my wife.
“You know what Mike I don’t even get you anymore, one minute you care about her being stabbed, and the next you don’t seem to.” He yells at me angrily. He’s never been that angry at me, hate is stabbing me like daggers from his eyes. “And Lauren how the hell can you do that to her, without hearing her out first. The woman who has all the answers, is about to be treated like she is murderer the moment she wakes up.”
“Because she is a murderer.” Lauren retorts at Eric.
“She never killed Lazarey, she faked his death. She remembers everything that happened to her, she never told you because you would have her sent back there in an instant.”
“She was working for us, as a double agent, though her death was not voluntary.” Jack yells.
“See what you’ve done Mike. I know right now that every moral fibre in your body is screaming at you, telling you should’ve never said anything. Syd’s in a coma fighting for her life right now, and Mike that baby is yours and it’s fighting for its life right now as well. So think about that the next time you feel obligated to your wife.” He says to me angrily walking away. How the hell is it possible? Julia Thorne, Panama City. Oh my god!!!
TBC
Chapter seven:
Realization
Lauren’s POV
I watch as Eric angrily walk’s away, followed by Jack doing the same. My anger is now at breaking point. “What the hell happened in Panama City?” I yell at him punctuating my every word. “What am I even doing asking you that, it’s quite obvious what happened!” I yell even louder getting even more aware as everyone in the Rotunda stares at us.
“I was mad at you, I just did it without thinking.” He says calmly trying his best efforts to stop me from yelling. “You have a right to be angry.” He says stiffly.
“Yeah, I do Michael because you cheated on me, how am I supposed to forgive you for this?” I say letting tears fall down my face. “You have broken my trust, Michael. I don’t even know why I am sitting here speaking to you right now, you obviously still love her, and if you weren’t married to me you wouldn’t have even told me what you found out, you would have said nothing. You don’t even care about me I’m just some obligation to you, if we weren’t married you would leave me for her in an instant.” I spat out at him.
“You know what, I am not going to sit here and let you degrade me. I am not going to sit here listening to you whining like a two year old.” He retorts back at me angrily.
“A two year old…a two year old. You’re calling me a two year old?”
“Yeah I am.”
“Well at least I am not unfaithful.” I retort back at him.
“I was never unfaithful to you, I have been unfaithful to Sydney.” He says spitefully.
“What.” I almost choke. “You married me remember…or did you forget.” I say b***hily.
“Yeah and that was the biggest mistake of my life.” He says with sarcasm dripping from his every word.
“Oh really.” I snap. “Then go back to the stupid b***h then.” I say spitefully yelling even louder.
“Yeah that’s what I am about to do, but the only b***h I see on the horizon is you.” And with that he give me one last stabbing look and angrily walks away.
Vaughn’s POV
I feel almost like I am refreshed. I’ve said what I have wanted to say since Panama City, but I am stupid. I am too darn honourable, she changed me and Sydney saw that. Even Eric saw it, no wonder why they are mad at me. It’s taken the love of my life to be in a coma, having my child and both of them fighting for their lives to realize I have changed, that she had changed me In the worst way possible, and that she stopped me from loving Sydney, she made me feel guilty for it, and I have carried that around for a long time. I won’t anymore, I love Sydney and there is nothing Lauren can do to make me feel guilty for it ever again. I finally see my sister at the hospital and quickly approach her. “Hey,” I say to her.
“Hi,” She says with a smile on her face. “What are you doing here?” She hugs me.
“To see Syd,” I say simply looking to the ground.
“Eric told you didn’t he.” She says gently.
“Yeah and among other things. He made me realize a few things. God Lisa, I’m such a fool, I’ve hurt her so much, she hates me, Eric hates me.”
“They don’t hate you, they are just angry at you, because you have changed and you didn’t realize it. None of this is your fault, Michael. I know that. Eric knows that, and even Sydney knows that. You had one moment where you could be free form her restraints and you took it, and Syd had one chance to be with you without putting your life in danger, and she took it as well. If anyone is at fault it is Lauren’s. She manipulated you. She’s has spent most of her life knowing that she can have whatever she wants. She wanted you, and she did anything possible to get you.” She says to me sympathetically.
“I suppose so, but it still doesn’t lessen what I’ve done to her.” I sigh miserably.
“I don’t know what else to say to you. You just need to start to believe in who you used to be. You have cut a lot of people out of your life. You have a lot of relationships to repair.” She says to me frankly.
“Where do I start? With Sydney?”
“No not with Sydney. One because you can’t speak to her and two she wouldn’t want to be with someone who hasn’t even righted his own life. You need to start with our family first, mum. You really need to put things right with her. She is the one who has been affected most by what you have done. Then you need to get things back on track with Nathan and Sarah. Then your friends and then everybody else around you.” She says to me softly putting her hand on my shoulder.
“What about you?”
“You don’t need to, because somehow for whatever reason you never pushed me away. Besides I already forgive you.” She says to me gently she gives me a huge smile. I can’t help but smile back at her.
“So where is Syd?” I ask her still smiling.
“Come with me.” She says gesturing with her hands. I follow her. While e are walking I thought of something that she would be happy to hear.
“So I did put Lauren in her place before I came here.” I say walking beside her.
“Well kind figured that because you probably wouldn’t be here so soon. I’m proud of you.” She says smiling at me again. “Here we are, I’ll leave you alone with her.” She turns and walks away.
“Hey.” I call after her. She turns around to face me. “Thanks.” I say honestly.
“That’s what sisters are for.” She smiles at me.
“Great sisters.”
“Well I’m flattered. Though I wouldn’t believe that if you said that to me when I was five.” She says laughing.
“A lots changed.”
“Yeah, for the better. God we used to fight so much, who would have thought that when we grew up we would be able to have a heart to heart.” She says beaming at me.
“Yeah.” I laugh a little.
“Well I’d love to stay and chat but I have to do my rounds.”
“Kay, I’ll see you latter then.”
“See ya.” She says giving me one last smile. I finally walk into Syd’s room and I find Eric asleep at her bedside in a chair. And then I see Syd lying there motionless on the bed. I can’t help but notice how beautiful she looks. I tap Eric on the shoulder and he stirs. “Thanks.” I say to him.
“For what?” He says to me groggily.
“For yelling at me, making me realize a few things.”
“That’s what friends are for, and I’m not mad at you I’m just mad at what you did, I’m sorry man.” He says to me honestly.
“Don’t be, you helped me.”
“Well I’m gonna leave you alone with her. I’m gonna head home.” He says slowly getting up. He touches Syd’s hair and walks out of the room. I sit down in the chair that Eric was in moments before. I slowly put my hand on her face and caress her cheek. I then move it down to her stomach and rest my hand there, comprehending that there is a tiny life in there that I helped create. Just knowing its fragile state and Sydney’s, I let the tears I had been holding since I walked into the room escape and fall down my face. I lay my head on her shoulder leaving my hand on her stomach as if I am protecting it. I kiss her gently and I hold on to her tight with my every ounce of strength that I have left. I am never going to let her go again. And that’s when I cry like I never cried before.
Jack’s POV
I watch through the window of Sydney’s room, watching Vaughn. A broken man who still has my daughter’s heart and she still has his. I never approved of him, but I wanted my daughter to be happy and if he could do that then I saw no harm in it. I was going to see her but I am not. He deserves some time with her; I owe him at least that. Seeing him with her makes me realize that we are both in the same position, we are facing the possibility of losing the one person we love and care about. I leave and find his sister.
“Mr Bristow it’s a pleasure to meet you.” She says kindly. I can see Amelie` in this one.
“I wanted to know when you will know when Sydney will be out of the danger period.” I say to her in my usual voice.
“We will know by tomorrow morning, I promise you’ll be the first to know if anything is wrong.” She says to gently.
“Thank you.” I say and I walk away.
Vaughn’s POV
I remain lying on her shoulder, kissing the side of her face at random times. I smile at how content she looks for the first time since she came back. Finally she has some peace. I lift my head up and I kiss her cheek again. I lay my head back down in my own peace for once, content just like she is. Then suddenly I hair a blaring noise and in a second my sister was running into the room along with a few nurses behind her.
TBC