With This Ring...

SkyGirl5

Cadet
:hi:
another one parter...

i never did anything for after The Telling... so I came up with this idea... hope ya like it :smiley:

With This Ring...

He walked into the dimly lit, minimally furnished room knowing from that point on, nothing could ever be the same again. It was a feeling, the feeling he'd had ever since he received that fateful call: dread, uncertainty, fear. All those feelings and more swirled through his head. Could he honestly say he was happy to see her again? To see her, yes; under such circumstances, no.

In a moment she was in his arms, knowing that he was her only comfort from the tumultuous world they lived in. It physically pained him to hold her, especially since he knew he couldn’t have her; have them the way they were. He was pained and yet, perhaps for the first time in nearly two years, he was able to breathe once more.

She asked questions; questions that to her seemed of the utmost importance, but in the real scheme of things were no longer the most significant issues at hand. He answered her queries the best he could before sitting her down on the edge of the bed, knowing that he had to break her heart.

“Syd,” he began, his voice hoarse and choked with tears.

“Vaughn, what’s going on? I don’t understand,” she said sounding so utterly lost and confused that it caused a tear to slip down his face, which only unnerved her even more.

“It’s been two years since that night, Sydney,” he told her quietly.

“Wh-what?” her voice was a squeak.

“Almost two years. That was May 2003, this is April 2005,” he explained to her. She shook her head as tears began to pour. Vaughn reached up and brushed a tear from his own cheek and when he did so, she let out a choked sob as she jumped backwards on the bed.

“M-married. You g-got married?” she stammered. “You... ring... you’re married?!” she asked in utter horror, feeling as though she would be ill right there.

“Sydney,” Vaughn said calmly as he took a step towards her but she screeched and ran away from him to the other side of the bed where she stood and trembled.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” she shouted. “Don’t!! DON’T!”

“Sydney please,” he begged as he tried to approach her, but she only grew more hysterical to the point she backed herself into a corner, turned around and cried with her face hidden against the wall.

Knowing it was for her own good, Vaughn removed a syringe from his pocket and injected her with a sedative. It only took a moment before her wails disappeared and she went limp. He scooped her up in his arms and held her tightly for a moment, allowing himself to become reacquainted with the feel of her body next to his, but only for a moment. They had a plane to catch.

~*~

Sydney awoke from sedation feeling even more ill than before. Everything hurt. Her head ached from the sedative, her eyes burned from the tears, she felt weak and weighted down, but those things were nothing compared to the pain in her heart. Vaughn, her Vaughn, had married another. She could never have that perfect life with him. The one with the house in the nice suburban neighborhood with the fenced in backyard for the dog to play in and a giant jungle gym for their children to play on. Those were just foolish dreams now; they were worthless.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and saw him sitting a seat away from her on the plane, reading something intently. “Where are we?” she croaked.

He jumped slightly, not knowing she was awake. Then, he looked over at her and set down the folder he was holding. “About an hour outside of L.A. When we land, you’ll be taken directly to medical services,” he told her.

She nodded slowly and then slid a seat closer to him. “What happened, Vaughn?” she asked slowly.

His heart sank in his chest for that was the one thing he couldn’t answer. “We don’t know Sydney; no one does.”

“But.... I disappeared?” she asked slowly.

He shook his head. “You died. We found your remains horribly burnt in your house, along with Francie’s. There was a funeral.....,” he told her, his voice very distant.

So many things were different; so much new information she couldn’t process. She broke down into sobs again and Vaughn tried to comfort her, but he knew she was past the point of consolation. She cried for ten minutes into her knees, which she had tucked up to her chest, before raising her head and looking at him with her rosy, tear stained cheeks and her bloodshot eyes. “You... you got married?”

He nodded slowly. “But Syd-”

“No,” she cut him off. “I don’t want to talk anymore. NO!” she said sharply when he went to open his mouth again.

“Okay,” he sighed.

She went to slide away from him but stopped as the tears began to pour once more. “Will... can... can you just hold me, just for a little while?” she asked in a very quiet voice. Vaughn raised his arm up and she slid underneath it, burying her face in his neck and snuggling up to him for what she knew would be the last time.

~*~

Three weeks passed and Sydney had reduced to the level of simply existing. She ate little, drank more, forced herself out of bed every day, but she wasn’t living. Every night she cried herself to sleep, partly out of confusion of the changes in the world around her and partly out of the massive void she now felt due to the things she had lost.

She no longer had her friends; her father was still in federal prison and, most of all, she'd lost Vaughn. All she had left was the CIA, and that wasn’t like having anything at all. They wouldn’t let her go out on missions, they wouldn’t give her back her security clearance, so all she did was sit at her desk all day and stare at Weiss as he tried to make her laugh.

Weiss was the only other thing she had and he stood by her, hanging out with her, helping her find a place to live and simply being her friend. She loved him dearly for that. One evening, when he had come over to help her put together some new furniture she had purchased, they were chatting about anything not related to Vaughn or the past, which mostly consisted of Weiss regaling her with stories of himself as a misguided youth. Though they were funny, Sydney just couldn’t bring herself to laugh. She cracked a few smiles, but that was as much as she could give.

Once the furniture was together, Sydney poured herself a rather large glass of tequila, much to Eric’s disapproving eye. She ignored his advice to put the liquor away and tried to down it as quickly as possible so she could enjoy the rest of the evening with slightly less pain. “So tell me,” she practically slurred once there was only a tiny swallow left in her glass. “What’s she like? Vaughn’s wife?”

“Syd,” Weiss said warningly.

“No, no, no,” she said with sloppy hand gestures. “I want to know.”

“Well I can’t tell you because I’ve never met her.”

“You never met ‘er?” she asked in disbelief. Weiss shook his head. “How long’s ‘e been married?”

“Eight... nine months maybe,” Weiss shrugged. “Look, all I know is that he came back with the ring on his hand and he refused to talk about it except to say that she travels a lot and isn’t around much. If you wanna know more you’ll have to ask him.”

Sydney scoffed. She hadn’t spoken to Vaughn since they parted ways on the plane and she had no intentions of speaking to him now either.

“You know what,” Eric sighed as he stood up and walked over to her. “I’ve been a real good friend these past few weeks, wouldn’t you say? I’ve sat here and watched you drink yourself into this depression, which is quite possibly the most un-Sydney Bristow-like thing ever in existence. I’ve not spoken about the CIA or Vaughn even though I wanted to, but now I’m going to say something that I know is going to piss you off, but I don’t really care, because someone needs to say it.

“You’re being an idiot, Sydney. Look at yourself, this isn’t you!” he shouted at her.

“There is no me... not anymore,” she mumbled as she stumbled her way to her kitchen.

“You need to talk to, Vaughn,” Eric told her. Sydney just turned away. “You do Sydney, you do. You’re only fooling yourself thinking that you can just never speak to him again. He’s hurting too, you know.”

She snorted. “Then he can go to his wife.”

“We all lost you Sydney, and we all took it hard. Vaughn took it the hardest out of all of us and it isn’t fair to him that you won’t return his calls or even look at him.”

“Fair?!” Sydney gasped, turning to face him. “Fair!? You actually want to talk to me about fair!? I died, Eric! I lost two god damn years of my life that I can’t even remember and I lost the only man I ever loved in the process. So don’t you dare talk to me about fair,” she spat.

“That’s the thing, Syd. You didn’t lose him. He’s still just a phone call away if you need him,” Eric told her before turning and walking out of her house.

~*~

When Vaughn opened his front door on Saturday afternoon, he was absolutely stunned to see Sydney standing there. Stunned in a good way, that was. “Syd...,” he exhaled.

“Hi,” she said awkwardly, immediately rethinking her decision to go there. “Eric, um, told me where you lived,” she told him.

Vaughn nodded slowly. “Do you wanna come in?”

She didn’t move. “Is your wife in there?” she asked cautiously. The absolute last thing she needed that afternoon was to run into the tramp who had stolen her Vaughn away.

“No, she’s not,” Vaughn sighed. Sydney nodded slowly and stepped inside his house.

“I, um, I’m sorry I was being so...”

“It’s okay,” he sighed.

“You.... you can explain now... or say whatever you wanted to say... I’ll listen, I promise,” she told him.

He took a deep breath and nodded. “Come, have a seat on the couch, I’ll be right there,” he told her as he gestured towards the room to his left. Then, he walked off towards the back of his house. Sydney could hear the floorboards creaking as he walked away and she slowly made her way to his couch. Vaughn’s house was exactly what she thought it would be like. Very guy-like, filled with hockey things and slightly messy, but mostly filled with that scent that was simply Vaughn. She took a seat on his couch and waited for him to return.

A few minutes later, after some muffled banging, he returned carrying a wooden box slightly larger than a shoebox. Sydney looked curiously at the box as he set it down on the coffee table in front of them. The box was obviously an antique, made of deep cherry wood with a carving of a heart on the top. However, when he turned the box, she saw that in place of a simple lock, there was a very high tech device preventing the box from being opened by those who shouldn’t. She turned to Vaughn for an explanation and noticed that he was actually looking rather nervous.

“As in every aspect of my life, nothing is ever easy. Everything comes with a price to pay and everything, even happiness, has complications and strings attached. My marriage isn’t exactly traditional, it’s.... well, I don’t think there is a proper word to describe it,” he laughed softly.

“This box holds my memories from my wedding day, but I haven’t been able to look at them. You see, this lock,” he said as he reached down and flipped open the tiny panel front of the lock to reveal a tiny digital screen. “This lock can only be opened by two simultaneous thumb prints. The prints of my left thumb... and the left thumb of my wife,” he said. Without even giving a moment for those words to sink in, Vaughn pulled Sydney’s left hand from her lap and pressed her thumb against the digital screen along wit his own. A second later, the lock popped open.

Sydney let out the breath she had been holding ever since he began to speak in the form of a choked sob. She wasn’t even sure she was breathing or that her heart was beating. All she knew was that with each passing second, her vision was growing progressively more blurry due to the tears in her eyes.

With a trembling hand, she lifted the lid to the box and saw an assortment of items inside. The first was an envelope which she picked up and found half a dozen Polaroid pictures. Looking at the photos, she felt as though she was looking into her dreams. She and Vaughn were standing at the front of a gorgeous old-fashioned church. She was dressed in a white gown with a lace veil falling halfway down her back; he was dressed in a black suit with no tie and an open shirt collar; they were both smiling. The next picture was the same, except it was taken at a closer distance so only the tops of their shoulders were visible in the picture. Two more pictures were of them standing on a bridge, she couldn’t tell where it was. She guessed Italy, but she wasn’t sure.

Still trembling, she set the pictures down and picked up the two folded pieces of paper that were in the box. After she had gently unfolded them, she saw that they were wedding vows, hand-written by each of them, but she was in no state to read them, so she set them aside.

Reaching in the box for the third time, her hand came in contact with something round and circular. She pulled it out and saw that it was a gold wedding band. She sniffed back her tears and slowly brought it to her left ring finger, just pausing there for a moment before finally sliding it on and collapsing back into Vaughn’s arms, violent sobs taking over.

Vaughn gathered her up and pulled her into his lap as he tried to quiet her sobs. She clutched onto the front of his t-shirt as she sobbed over and over again, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Shh Syd, it’s okay,” he whispered to her.

“No, it’s not. I should have let you explain! I’m awful!” she sobbed.

“No, you’re not,” he assured her. “You were upset and scared and confused. It’s okay,” he sighed into her hair.

It took a few minutes, but her cries eventually quieted to a soft, occasional sniff as Vaughn held her tightly, never wanting to let her go. “I’m sorry I don’t remember,” she told him very quietly.

“It’s okay Syd, you will. You will remember and even if you don’t we’ll just do it all again,” he promised.

She nodded slowly as she pulled his left arm around so that she could lace the fingers of their left hands together to see their rings side by side; the rings that would bond them together for eternity. Then she leaned over and kissed him, her husband for the first time in what seemed like ages.

“I love you, Syd,” he sighed against her lips.

Sydney’s heart fluttered and tears stung her eyes once more, for it was the first time she had heard those words from him. She supposed that they probably exchanged them numerous times on their wedding day, but, of course, she didn’t remember. “I love you too,” she sniffed before kissing him again.

After a few moments of kissing, Sydney snuggled up to Vaughn once more, resting her head on his shoulder. “Tell me about it, Vaughn. Please?”

“Sure,” he said. “You had been gone for over a year... your funeral had been six months earlier and not too long after, your father disappeared. He, like I, was looking into what had happened. We both knew it wasn’t an accident. He would pursue some contacts; I would pursue others. Finally, I just got sick of sitting around the L.A. office, so I just got on a plane.

“One day, I received a mysterious message at the hotel I had been staying at in Rome. It was encrypted and when I decoded it, it only gave a time, a location and your name, but it was in your handwriting. I debated going right up until I left. On one hand, I knew it could be a trap, but on the other... it could be a sign.

“So I went.... and I swear to god when I saw you sitting in that church I nearly died, Syd,” he told her.

“W-what did I say?” she asked quietly.

“Nothing then, you were crying too hard,” he told her with a slight laugh. “We stayed in the church until dark and then we went back to my hotel room and you told me everything. You told me that you were being held captive, but you didn’t know who was responsible. They were trying to brainwash you into believing you were someone you weren’t and after you convinced them that you no longer believed you were Sydney Bristow, they sent you out to do their bidding. The way we crossed paths was simply coincidence. You were standing in line a few people behind me in a café but I didn’t see you, probably because you were blonde.”

“Blonde?!” she gasped in horror as she sat up quickly and looked at him.

“Yep,” he laughed. “Platinum blonde... just like a Barbie.”

“Oh god,” she groaned.

“Interesting how you’re more concerned about that than everything else,” he smiled.

She laughed softly. “Well... I’m just trying to picture myself as a blonde... it's not going well...”

“Yeah, you obviously dyed it brown again before the wedding,” he nodded to the pictures strewn across the coffee table.

“Mmhmm, keep going please,” she sighed as she nestled her head back down.

“Well, after that we didn’t really talk much,” he laughed deeply. She let out a soft giggle. “Anyway, the next morning I told you how I was going to propose in Santa Barbra and-”

“Oh, I knew it!” she gasped.

He laughed softly. “You said that then, too. So then we decided that we were going to elope then and there. How we managed to do it all in one day I’ll never know, but we did. We were married the next day at noon and then we had a honeymoon for two days before you disappeared,” he said sadly.

“Disappeared?” she asked quietly.

He nodded against her head. “We were asleep. They must have knocked us out or something because when I woke up the door to the hotel was broken open and you were gone. I tried to look for you.... but somehow I knew you weren’t there. So... I packed up all our stuff and went back to LA. I had Marshall come up with that thumbprint contraption. Of course he asked about a zillion questions, but in the end he gave up after I explained that I was married and I wanted to keep all the memories of us safe.”

“And the married thing didn’t spawn more questions?” she asked.

“No, actually I think Marshall cried.”

“YOU MADE HIM CRY?!” Sydney gasped. Vaughn shrugged. “Horrible,” she muttered. “Why didn’t you tell Weiss?”

“Are you kidding me? Can you even picture that conversation? ‘Duude, what’s with the ring?’ ‘Oh, well, I married Sydney,’” Vaughn said mocking Weiss’s voice at first. Sydney laughed. “He’d force me into years of psych eval.”

“True. And my father?”

“He was already in solitary by the time I got back. They wouldn’t let me speak to him,” Vaughn sighed.

“Oh,” Sydney sighed sadly. Then, they were silent for a few minutes. “What if I never remember, Vaughn?”

“You will Syd, I swear it. Together you and I are going to find these horrible people and we’re going to get back your memory... I promise you,” he said as he kissed her head.

“What would I do without you, Vaughn?” she sighed.

“Dunno, but I promise you never have to find out,” he told her.

“You know what we should do? We should go on a real honeymoon. I know everything’s crazy right now but relaxing might actually help things,” she told him.

“Definitely. Where do you wanna go? Fiji? Hawaii? Alaska?” he offered.

“Alaska?” she laughed. He shrugged. “Well... actually I was thinking more along the lines of your bedroom,” she smiled softly.

“Oh well, that’s much closer.”

~*~

“Can we really go to Hawaii?” Sydney sighed to Vaughn later that evening while they were still tangled up in the sheets of his bed.

“Sure, anytime you want. We’ll just go,” he smiled.

She leaned over and kissed him. “I like being your wife.”

He grinned. “Well, I really like having you as my wife. We’re going to have the best marriage, Syd.”

“I know,” she sighed as she linked their left hands together once more. “Oh hey, I have a question. If I disappeared, how’d you get the ring?” she asked as she wiggled her ring finger at him.

“Well, that night before we went to sleep, you hit your knuckle and it was like throbbing or something, so you took off the ring just in case it swelled,” he told her.

“Ohh... how’d I hit my knuckle?” she asked. Vaughn got a sly grin on his face and she burst out laughing.

He leaned over and kissed her head before saying, “We’re gonna be okay, Syd.”

“I know,” she sighed as she hugged him tightly. She knew that the strongest, truest thing she had ever known, her love for her husband, had returned. With that, she could face anything.


~fin~
 
AWW Shucks!!!! :blush:

It was her, it was always her..!!!!!

I like this so much better than the show....!!!! lol.... but then again we wouldn't have a whole season worth od Alias.... but I like htis version better.... It turns out much much beter

Rea
 
awwwwwwwwwwwwww
luv it so much perfect
yeah i think that would have been a better start to the 3rd serise :D
thanks

luv Chicketepee :seehearspeak:
 
Awwwww.....That was so good!!!! Kinda sad in the beginning but fluffy at the end. I like that a whole lot better than what actually happened.

Wonderful job. Thanks for the PM.

~Karen
 
Okay... another great fic has began!!! :D
I wish JJ could take note of that idea of yours when he was making season 3!!

Please add me to the PM list ;)
 
If Vaughn had only explained on the plane or when he found her, Sydney wouldn't have had to go through weeks of extreme pain, depression and drunkeness. However, then we wouldn't have had a great story now, would we?

Thanks for the PM.

Chris
 
Dude I was freaking out.
I thought we were back to the evil 3rd season, which I can't even watch.
That was the best way!
I loved the idea.
He made Marshall cry.
 
A lot better than season three if only it would have been like that instead and I think that Vaughn was right about if he told Weiss he definitely would have sent him to a shrink
 
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