secretlives
Cadet
Author: Jalyn
A/N: Comments are greatly, greatly appreciated. Anyway, just ignore the name on the banner for the moment - recruited is my username on SD1 and I post on there more frequent than here, so .. yeah.
Timeline: Post-Resurrection, but this fic is focused more on S/V rather than the actual happenings after Resurrection. Besides, it's not like the episode had a lot to do with this fic, but rather the entire Season 3 was at fault. In a way, this fic is also Post-Telling. You'd find out once you read more.
Shipper: Sydney/Vaughn; hints of Nadia/Weiss
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Where We Were At</span>
PRELUDE.
PRELUDE.
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>Sydney’s PoV </span>
We have the perfect out.
We, being Vaughn and I. Us before the Covenant. Before I went missing for two years. Before the heartbreaks. Before her, that little b**** from hell.
But I digress.
The perfect out. The perfect opportunity to make things right from the start. The perfect lives we would lead.
I, of all people, should know that nothing is perfect. Something must go wrong every time anything seemed perfect.
Danny was the perfect man – much too good for me – he got killed. Mochtar was a perfect patriot. He died. Emily was the perfect woman. She died. Francie was a perfect friend. She got killed. Vaughn and I had a somewhat-perfect relationship. The relationship died when he married that *h**e.
So why is this time any different? How can it be perfect, when nothing else is?
The reason is simple: Because I’d make sure, for the second time around, that everything would be just that.
Perfect.
CHAPTERone
"So, this little device here, it looks a lot like a miniature car; Vroom vroom, that's how Mitchell plays with them. I made him one the other day as well. But, this is no ordinary car. It doesn't drive like a normal car; it doesn't steer like a normal--"
"Marshall, we're running a little out of time," Dixon prodded him gently. And a little out of patience as well, Sydney thought, as her father shifted in his seat.
"Right. Sorry. So anyway, I added the codes that were embedded into what Nadia scribbled; because there is something very unique about it. Hands up to those who liked 'Back to the Future'," he grinned, raising his own up before putting it down in an act of self-consciousness as everybody present in the meeting room just stared at him, prompting him to continue with his explanation.
"This machine can travel through time," he hurried along. Sydney turned to Vaughn, a look of disbelief etched on her features.
"Rambaldi invented the flux capacitor?” Weiss quipped, and Marshall chuckled.
"Not the flux capacitor exactly; but the concept is there. Theory has it that anything travelling faster than the speed of light could send it back in time. Rambaldi invented this code, playing with that theory."
Sydney sat back in her chair, still not quite believing the logic. Always the sceptical one, she hadn't believed any time travel anecdotes as a little girl, and she wasn't going to start believing it now.
"So what can this... time travelling device do?" she asked, not believing that this entire discussion was taking place at all. She’d entered the meeting room, eager to learn that Rambaldi’s endgame has been discovered, and that she would have nothing to do with it anymore; and neither will Nadia so that the both of them could lead normal relationships like any other sets of sisters do... And now Marshall had to drop this bombshell on her?
Marshall laughed nervously, then flipped a few switches on the protocol and set it on the table. Within seconds, it disappeared. Sydney realised that she had been holding her breath, because five seconds later, the car reappeared again and she breathed. Weiss let out a whistle.
“What you just saw was a machine that took a trip back in time, then back it it’s present again. This tracer,” he pointed to a screen towards his left, “has just recorded a shift in time.” He traced the graph line, where it broke off suddenly, before a 5 second lapse indication, and appearing again on that same graph. Sydney shook her head in disbelief.
"Thank you, Marshall, and the meeting is now adjourned. Marshall, continue working on that device," Dixon nodded as he stood up, and the others all followed suit. Sydney went out of the room and Vaughn rushed after her.
"Syd! We need to talk."
She turned around abruptly and folded her arms in front of her, and Vaughn took a glance at all the other agents in the room, before taking her hand and leading her into a quiet corner.
"Syd. I know that whatever happened in Palermo happened for a reason-"
"Vaughn. I know that it happened for a reason. But you can't erase the fact that whatever happened before that day happened for a reason as well. Yes, Lauren's dead. That doesn't change the fact that you've married her just mere months after you thought I died."
"I can't believe we're having this discussion again, Syd. The point of this conversation is not to-"
"No, you're wrong. We're not having this conversation," she cut him off, before turning herself against him and started to leave, but he held her back.
"Time can heal, Syd. I know this will sound corny and unrealistic, but you should know that what we had - what we have - it's undeniable."
"Time won't heal those scars. It can't. I've been broken so many times; and nothing short of a miracle will ever propel us back to where we were at. Now if you'd excuse me..." She twisted the door handle and left a befuddled Vaughn, staring at her.
CHAPTERtwo
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>Vaughn’s PoV</span>
After three weeks, we finally get some disclosure. Lauren’s body has been found where she fell. While it has been decomposed beyond recognition, tests were run, and I made sure that it was indeed her. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice, with what the CIA did with Sydney two years ago.
God, even as I say her name, I feel a strong pang of guilt coursing through me.
I could've kicked myself; my desire for wanting to move on was a hasty decision. I'd wanted Sydney, who I'd thought was dead, to be happy for me. I wanted her to see from above that I was happy; that she should be, too. I even thought that she could be together with Danny once again, and that she would be happy.
The marriage to Lauren was a quick one. She was the one orchestrating the entire process. I had no say in it at all. In fact, if she hadn’t hinted blatantly about marriage every time she saw me, I wouldn’t have done anything.
Now, my friend, that was the biggest mistake of my life. Wait, screw it, that wasn’t. The biggest mistake was to let go of Sydney. Or perhaps, the biggest mistake was not to follow her back home; not to have asked her to wait until after my debriefing. Then, she wouldn’t have had the showdown with Allison. And all will be good. The Covenant could not have held her captive.
But that is not the point. The point is that, right now, I would move Heaven and Earth just to get back to where we were. The day she disappeared was the day a big part of me died. Then, in Hong Kong, that part of me came back to life again.
---
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>Third Person PoV</span>
Marshall’s eyebrows furrowed as he looked at the long scrolls of codes again. There was something he hasn’t quite figured out, and he fingered the little protocol – the meter indicating the amount of energy used has not changed at all. Theoretically, it should have dipped… but it hasn’t. He heaved a long sigh just as the door opened.
In walked Sydney, and he grinned.
“Hey. How’s that time machine going?” she asked, smiling, but the weird thing Marshall noticed was how her eyes didn’t twinkle like it used to. It had been like that since she came back from Hong Kong, so he brushed that aside and gestured at all the equipment on his table, and grimaced.
“Not too good… I’m trying to tie up some loose ends… Fix them… You know, before Dixon sends someone… Disaster,” he tried to explain himself, and Sydney laughed. Once again, he noticed that her eyes didn’t change.
“You know… I still don’t believe in the possibility of time travel,” she admitted, as she picked up the protocol and started playing with it. “Besides that, I don’t really understand this concept. I was hoping you could explain it more about it.”
“Right, this concept, um, involves a little of physics, but to go into depth, the engine here,” he points at the bigger version of the machine sitting just right by his table, “can travel at a speed faster than light.”
“I thought Einstein said that nothing could be faster than light?”
“That’s where everybody’s got it wrong – he said that nothing can accelerate faster than the speed of light. These particles – muons, to be exact – is already traveling at a speed faster than light.”
Sydney blinked at him.
“Marshall, it might help to tell me about how it works, and not why it works,” she said, a hint of a smile hanging by her mouth.
“Right. Basically, I haven’t figured out the entire process yet, but from the scrolls decrypted from the numbers… There’s a certain code that you must activate, and it will send you back in time with your memories still intact… Now, this is the part where I should proclaim myself a genius, but I can’t, because I haven’t figured out the rest of the code. Yet.”
Sydney raised her eyebrows and placed the protocol down, the thoughts running in her head – To say the least, none of them were logical at all.
---
Later in the day
“Nadia, are you catching lunch later, or are you asking one of those guys to bring it up in a brown package?” Sydney inquired as she leaned her weight onto the table. Nadia looked up from her paperwork and shrugged.
“We could go out and eat, but this mountain load of paperwork that your father assigned me… Not good,” she shook her head. A shift of motion made the both of them turn their heads, and all it turned out was Vaughn and Weiss.
“Hey pretty girl. Lunch later?” Weiss said, winking at Nadia, and she laughed gallantly.
“Why is everybody asking me out for lunch today?” she bantered candidly.
“Aah, someone trying to steal my girl, I see,” Weiss commented, shoving Sydney playfully as she continued the act by poking him in the ribs, causing him to howl in pain. Vaughn looked on, amused, yet a perplexed frown hung on his forehead.
“Syd, Nadia, Dixon wants us in his office right now.”
“Right now. It’s just a few minutes until our lunchbreak. Can’t you ask for a slight delay?” she asked playfully, influenced by the happy mood that Weiss created. Nadia bopped her head enthusiastically.
“Syd, what are you, a hyper robot took over you or something?’
“You’re the robot with your rigid speech.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
"You know, Eric, before they launch into a 'my table's bigger than your table" relay, why don't we get into Dixon’s room and tell him that he can expect their attendance in half an hour?" Nadia said, a lingering smile on her mouth. Despite the tension, Sydney found herself laughing and shot Nadia a grateful look.
Then, she had burst out in another fit of laughter as Weiss knocked his hand against the table, in a bid to follow Nadia to the room. God, it's been so long since I've laughed, she thought wistfully.
---
Five minutes later
“And well, me, being the genius that I am, have finally figured out everything about this machine. As I was telling Sydney just now, there’s a certain code that you must activate, and it will send you back in time with your memories still intact. But, the thing is, every single and little thing that you do, it will alter the timeline and the subsequent actions, meaning that you lose your memories one by one, until it gets completely altered, and all you remember is what you have changed. Which, as you can see, is a very risky step to take.”
“Which means we could also alter the timeline to eliminate all the enemies of the state even before they took action on anything.”
Like the Covenant, Sydney thought wistfully.
“Alright, Marshall, fine tune the equipment while I take this up to higher levels, and make sure that if and when we do use it, there won’t be any dire consequences.”
Marshall nodded and stood up immediately, while the other followed suit.
“Nadia, do you still want lunch?” Weiss asked innocently, and she laughed.
“Sydney, Michael, come join us?”
“I’ve gotta sort my files-”
“I’m going to the copy-”
---
The two of them next saw each other in Marshall’s office again. This time, both were surprised that they were in Marshall’s office, but it turned out that they have the same objective, and that was to learn more about the time traveling machine. They shot sideway glances at each other, yet never acknowledged each other’s presence as Marshall tried to explain in detail every single component of the machine.
Then, the two of them had – with permission from Marshall, of course – explored with the actual machine. Marshall watched over them like a hawk, in case they pressed the wrong button somewhere they could send them back in time, or twisted a knob to make his configurations incorrect and thus, rendering the machine useless.
Sydney threw her gloves down in annoyance with Marshall standing behind them, but tried not to show it and Vaughn glanced at her again, his hand hovering dangerously over a button – coincidentally, the button that one must press to activate the entire machine.
“I’m getting out of here. Thanks for everything, Marshall,” she said, as she walked round Vaughn to get to the door. What any of them did not expect happened, as she tripped over the many wires on the floor and landed heavily on Vaughn, and Marshall’s eyes widened.
“Don't touch that butto-“ he stammered.
Too late.
Vaughn’s hand connected with it, and with a blinding flash, both Vaughn and Sydney disappeared into thin air. The timeline on the machine blinked to the exact date, three years ago.
---
“Sloane's got the device and my mother, she-” Sydney started, then stopped abruptly. She was obviously in a different place… and she gasped. A different time, too? She looked around her and realised, with a start, that she was in a car, parked in front of the house which would have been burnt to the ground… With Vaughn.
“Okay, this must be a sick joke. Syd, I don’t know why, but my mind is forcing me to say that I booked the hotel at Santa Barbara. For three nights.”
The both of them stared at each other as they realised the worst.
“The day when you went missing. We came back to that day.”
---
A/N: Sucky, I know.
me me me
