Storage Room Secrets (Part 2)
TITLE: Storage Room Secrets [2/?]
AUTHOR: *note, author uses alias, this is not her real name* Ambrose Chavez
EMAIL/FEEDBACK: agent47AChavez@hotmail.com
DISTRIBUTION: feel free to archive this work as long as you notify me of its location so I can visit the site!
DISCLAIMER: ALIAS is the property of ABC, Touchtone Pictures, Bad Robot Productions, and the creation of JJ Abrams. Sadly, I have no part in it.
SUMMARY: Sydney and Vaughn must learn that every decision has a price.
RATING: (this episode) PG
CLASSIFICATION: dramatic romance (Sydney/Vaughn)
THANKS: to all who send me feedback, I really appreciate it. A very large and special thanks to my invaluable (and most active and detailed) beta-reader, Elise, who checks her email almost as much as I do! (a million thanks, Lise).
He contemplated both the agent before him and the photos he extended, eyes steady. He flickered his attention towards the pictures and what he saw had him raising an eyebrow in a single questioning gaze.
Devlin found the photograph was worth a thousand words. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he noted how the two had come out picture perfect. Every clichéd saying he knew about love and passion applied.
Idly, he thanked the agent and waved a hand in dismissal. This would have to be dealt with swiftly and efficiently. Or so he hoped.
Sighing, he sat back in his plush leather chair, looking and feeling every bit as old as his years professed. After many years in the CIA, Devlin knew how inter-office or inter-agent relationships were nearly inevitable.
He also knew how hard they were to break apart.
As he absentmindedly reached up and fingered the simple band of silver that hung from a leather cord beneath his dress shirt, against his heart, he thought of the past, reveled in the memories, and let his heart break again for the love that never had a chance.
Pushing his own personal recollections aside, he looked down at the set of photographs before him, studying them, letting them blur the present with the nostalgia he felt.
In the dim, scattered light of the warehouse, two of his agents were engaged in a passionate kiss, and forever framed in a single shot.
The photographs mirrored what had been, and what is. They also prophesied of the certain, tangled, and perhaps violent end that blossoming relationship would suffer.
Devlin leaned forward onto his classic oak-finished desk, and let his hands spread over his face. He let one hand fall away while the other pinched the bridge of his nose as he fought the haunting memories that flooded him, enticing him to drown in their depths yet again. Like so many times before.
Unable to resist, Devlin dove headfirst into the mass of wounds he failed to leave behind.
And amidst the sea of painful memories, he realized that hers was the easiest to resurface. Everything about her was a whisper of beauty and grace. The moments they shared were priceless, irreplaceable, and unforgettable.
Suddenly, the picture was no longer of Michael Vaughn and Sydney Bristow, but of himself, years younger, holding Grace McFalls. The one woman he’d always remember as the girl he could never truly have. The one he lost.
The one who died for love. For him.
Despite how much he ached to give these two an opportunity to find love and comfort in the arms of the other, he knew all too well the risks involved – professionally speaking, that is.
Devlin knew duty and understood protocol.
And he sympathized immensely with these ill destined two.
*****
Jack Bristow ground his teeth together. The photograph was vivid and up close. There was no mistake, and it was undeniable.
The woman in the picture was his one and only daughter. It was Sydney.
He closed his eyes and tried to blot the picture from memory. Yet there it was, already emblazoned in his mind.
“I’m sorry,” Devlin stood before him. “I thought you would be concerned.”
Jack struggled with his voice, so he simply nodded.
“As you well know, this type of behavior is discouraged among agents.” he continued.
Jack raised his good hand to stop the oncoming lecture. “Save your speech for Vaughn. I’m familiar with the agency’s procedures.”
“Yes.” Devlin said quietly. “So am I.”
Jack met his eyes then. They had served the country side by side for so long, that the easy companionship between them granted each man understanding without words.
“McFalls.” Jack murmured. “Chile, 1978. Op gone awry.”
Devlin pursed his lips together and said nothing. He looked at his hands, folded them deliberately. Years had passed, and he had never failed to remember that one sweltering mid-July afternoon in Chile. It had been humid and blisteringly dry. Sweat trickled down the line of his back underneath the shirt he wore, leaving it plastered to him.
She had just completed a brilliant switch, and was walking confidently toward him as he pulled the car up to the door where she was to exit. She slowed her pace when she spotted him, and took the time to smile and wink his way, excited with the operation’s success.
In his headphone, he heard the alarm in the guards’ voices as they realized what had happened.
“Grace, they’re onto us. We got to move,” he spoke fiercely. Her brow lifted in a silent question, somewhat disbelieving, before she broke into a run, bulleting through the twin glass doors at the speed of lightning. Simultaneously, Devlin threw open the door and watched with mounting tension and urgency dancing in his eyes.
With horror, he saw her purse, which held everything they needed, catch onto the door handle. It jerked her back, and took her eight agonizing seconds to unhook it. Too much time, he thought angrily, too much that they didn’t have.
Everything seemed to move in excruciatingly slow fragments of time. She whipped her head backward, glanced, and found that a guard had run up yards behind her. His gun was drawn, ready to take the shot. In one last effort, he yelled “Alto!” to no avail.
Devlin had reached into his holster, whipped out his own gun, unlocked the safety and cocked it. But she was in his way; he couldn’t get a clear aim. She ducked and rolled milliseconds before the guard fired a round. The bullet scathed her shoulder, deflected, and careened into the car.
Unthinkingly, Devlin took the shot, and nailed the guard just wide of his heart. Grace ran the last yards toward the car, and leapt into the seat. One more shot went off, and while Devlin floored the accelerator and took a sharp turn, the door to the passenger side flopped wildly. She had collapsed on his shoulder, one arm hung over his as he drove on.
He glanced at her, fury and trepidation consumed him. His eyes were wide, pupils large and dark as night. His heart throbbed and crashed against his ribs in painful beats. Her vibrant green eyes were glassy and held an opaqueness foreign to them.
Fearing the worst, he reached over her, pressed one hand onto her back, and found a thick, warm stickiness there. He knew that much blood couldn’t possibly be from the shoulder hit. One low howl of pain escaped his throat as he applied pressure to the wound, hoping it was all some horrendous nightmare, but knowing it was reality.
When the extraction team pulled them both out of Chile, he sat by her side, face as hard as granite. Emotionless. He held her hand the entire flight home, and turned blank, hollow eyes to the pilot before he spoke.
“I loved her.”
“I know.” Jack had said, voice unflinching, eyes trained on the span of air before him.
Devlin turned his attention back to the woman and twisted the simple silver ring off of her finger. And kept both it and her close to his heart for an eternity.
Later, he reflected upon the mission and was forced to admit if they had not been sent together, harboring intimate feelings and conducting a cautious love affair, the mission would have been more successful. It wouldn’t have been filled with sweet stolen kisses, longing glances, and clouded judgment.
She certainly wouldn’t have taken the time to smile and wink at him. It had been obvious then that her mind had not been on the mission, but on him. Her focus was divided, and the shock that had registered on her face before she hastily began to flee became a personal testimony why the majority, the senior officers, and agency policy opposed inter-agent relationships.
Grace McFalls, vision hazy with love, had died for him and their country because, as fate would have it, there were reasons for rules. Rules they decided to break willingly.
For that, they suffered the consequences, each paying with their lives, but in different ways. Grace compensated with her death, Devlin with his life.
The burden of guilt he carried lingered over him even now. He hadn’t been able to forgive himself for her death. He never would.
*****
Vaughn leaned back in his chair, lifted his arms, tucked them behind his head, and closed his eyes. He needed a moment to relax.
He never heard Jack enter. The quiet click of his door startled him into sitting erect, both hands gripping the armrests of his swivel chair, eyes wide and bewildered.
“Jack,” he sat back, considerably relieved. Then, immediately following, he was overcome with uneasiness. Jack never visited his office. “This is… unexpected.”
Vaughn acknowledged the bandaged sling and cast around Jack’s right arm, and inquired about both the arm and the minor gunshot wound that had graced his lateral upper right flank. There was no answer.
The man before him didn’t smile, didn’t sit, and didn’t breathe a word. His face revealed nothing, his eyes were dark and stormy. But they had that look.
Vaughn resisted the urge to wipe his hands on his slacks, as he had when he was a schoolboy wondering if he had been caught doing something he had no business doing in the first place.
“I came to tell you that you’re being pulled off Sydney’s case.”
His mouth fell agape, his brows knitted themselves together, his eyes widened, and his air supply froze.
“W-what?” he stuttered.
“You’re on probation for the next three months.” he spoke matter-of-factly to discourage any discussion.
Jack felt the back of his neck tingle with temper, and took a moment to rein it in. He resisted the urge to fist his hand and ram it through the boy’s youthful face. He was allowed to get away with a lot, but killing one of the agency’s agents, or in the very least, severely maiming him in a fatherly rage was probably not permissible regardless of circumstance.
“What for?” Vaughn heatedly pushed himself from the desk and shoved the chair backward when he stood.
Jack ignored the move.
“You think you can just kiss my daughter and think nothing of it?” his voice reverberated with emotion, and the office all but shook with it. “Go against protocol, overstep your boundaries, and continue as if there’s nothing between you?”
Vaughn, shocked into silence, pursed his lips together and left the thoughts running rampant in his head unspoken.
“You stay the hell away from Sydney.” Jack warned vehemently. “If you so much as attempt to establish contact with her, are seen on the same street corner as her, are anywhere within a 10-mile radius of her, you will lose your position with the agency. I’ll personally see to it.”
“This is ridiculous!” Vaughn’s face was red, his eyes ablaze. “I’m her handler, and imposing a probation on me without verifiable grounds is absurd!”
“There are grounds, and they are verifiable.” The absolute control he held onto quivered and nearly broke. “One more thing.”
Jack leaned forward threateningly, spread his uninjured left hand flat on Vaughn’s desk and met Vaughn’s fuming gaze with equal rage.
“If you ever place your hands on my daughter again, I’ll kill you.”
Vaughn refused to move a muscle or show any physical signs that the threat had any effect. Exercising his own discipline, he clenched his jaw, and sent smoldering looks at Jack’s back as he turned away from him. Pausing to spare him one last cursory glance, Jack regarded him detachedly.
“Before I forget, I thought you might want to keep this as a memento.” he reached into his breast pocket, withdrew a single photograph and tossed it onto the desk. While he exited the office, Vaughn turned the picture over, and swore viciously.
*****
“What do you mean Vaughn isn’t my handler anymore?” Sydney asked as calmly as she could manage, though her nerves were jumping, her skin felt like crawling, and her heart plummeted.
Jack muttered, “Lambert is taking his place.”
“What?!” She snapped, springing to her feet. “They tried making him my handler before. The guy’s a pig and an idiot. He’s takes risks without thinking first—”
“—Sydney,” Jack interrupted. “You’re in no position to pose any questions. Vaughn is not your handler anymore, nor will he be in the future.”
“Why not?” she asked quietly, her voice low and lethal. The query wasn’t a threat, but it sounded like one.
Jack hesitated, and looked away, pretending to study the simple taupe furnishings of her house.
“He’s on probation.” Another pause, as he drew his gaze back to meet hers. “So are you.”
“For what?!” indignant, she began to pace her living room.
“Due to your inappropriate and careless behavior during the rendezvous you two had at the warehouse last night.” he set his jaw, and Sydney noted the side of his cheek pulsing.
He was angry with her and trying not to be. Holding himself in check and under rigid control was one of Jack’s greatest strengths. And sometimes, his greatest weakness.
“Inappropriate behavior?” she asked flatly. The puzzle pieces were starting to snap into place. The kiss, that one sizzling kiss, was considered inappropriate?
Not bothering with the answer to that question, she plowed blindly on.
“There’s a mutual attraction, and with everything else going wrong right now, I just needed a friend. I needed some comfort and he was there. I acted on impulse, and I’m not sorry for it.”
She felt her cheeks flush, the color draining from them, then back again to heat them with pinkness. Preposterous, she thought. It would hardly matter who she kissed now; she was a grown woman! Why should it embarrass her to admit it to her father?
“You have friends. Will, Francie,” he said evenly. He ignored the buried, rhythmic hurt that drummed within him. He wanted to say, “You have me.” but couldn’t bring himself to form the words.
“But they don’t know about everything that’s going on. They wouldn’t understand anyway. Vaughn knows, he understands, and he was willing to listen.” She stopped pacing to stand before him, hands on her hips. “I don’t have to lie to him.”
Jack stood abruptly, cutting the visit short, and effectively ending conversation.
“Well, I’m not going to argue with you, Sydney. I just came to tell you.” There was an awkward pause, a brief hesitation, before he opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.
He hesitated and didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Stay away from Vaughn. What we do isn’t meant to mix business with pleasure. It often ends…”
He searched for the right expression, and settled for vagueness. “It often ends in ways we never expected, and ultimately, causes more hurt than imaginable.”
She said nothing, but the fire in her eyes remained as she watched him open her front door.
“Dad?”
He turned toward her slowly, his expression bland, but his eyes, which were replicas of her own, masked a deep hurt. She noticed them, allowed her eyes drifted to his side, where she knew there were bandages, and to his arm, where it rested in its sling, and felt guilt parade inside her. Her heart and voice softened as a result.
“How did you know? About last night, I mean?” There was a trace of suspicion in her voice, and a careful defense of the pain in her heart.
“Another agent had been sent to the warehouse to report the final analysis results of various Rambaldi findings, and had stepped up to see the two of you…” he didn’t complete the sentence, but instead gave a curt nod, and moved to step out the door.
“Who was the agent?” she asked quietly, stopping him.
Jack considered evading the question, then looked at her. She stood, simple and elegant. And alone.
Loneliness, he knew, could eat at a person’s heart like no poison or disease can.
“Agent Eric Weiss.”
*****
Late, into the wee hours of the star-dusted night, Sydney sat up and dug through her purse for her cell phone. She reached a decision, weighed it on every side. There could only be one solution.
Dialing the now familiar numbers, she rested the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she gnawed on her lower lip. Once, twice, three times the phone rang.
She almost hung up, but she heard the faint click of someone snatching up the line.
A groggy and hoarse “Hello?” sounded in her ears.
“Joey’s Pizza?” she whispered weakly, pleadingly.
Silence greeted her.
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