Storage Room Secrets (Part 4)
TITLE: Storage Room Secrets [4/?]
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 is the creation of JJ Abrams. Sadly, I have no part in it.
RATING: (this chapter) PG-13
CLASSIFICATION: dramatic romance
[*]
A mirror image. That was all she could think. She was looking into a glass mirror. His eyes were so much like hers. Deep brown and endless. They glinted in the shadows of the night, and were haunted at the edges by an untraceable enemy without a face, without a name, and without a past. God, it hurt to live like this. Lies, secrets, and betrayal.
Her first thought was “What are you doing here?”; instead, she blurted out, “How did you find me?”
His eyes shifted from hers, uneasy and taking note of everything around them in a precise assessment of all possible escape routes. It was automatic, and inbred in him through years of training. “I tracked you. Followed your every move from the time I left your apartment. I knew after telling you about Vaughn that you would try something.”
Sydney found that the night’s chill could not compare to the iciness of Jack Bristow’s voice.
“You followed me?” she asked, incredulous. How is that possible? Why didn’t she notice? Did she let the situation cloud her judgment so much that she had been careless in her actions? What happened to her good sense?
“Sydney, do you know what kind of reckless behavior you’re engaging in? You are taking uncalculated and unnecessary risks with your life and your cover. If I found it this simple to track you tonight, who else might have been able to do so?” Jack’s voice was kept deliberately low, but it was sharp and heated. “You know that SD–6 has a special section in security whose sole responsibility is to keep tabs on all agents and report any suspect activity.”
“I know—“
“Don’t you think sneaking out of your apartment at 3 AM could be called suspect activity?”
“I know—“
“Anyone could have been watching tonight, Sydney. Anyone!”
“Dad, I know what I’m doing!”
“You don’t have a damn clue as to what you’re doing!” Jack bit back. “You came here to meet with Vaughn again, risking your cover, your life and his, for what?”
Sydney took one step back. She had seen her father angry before, but not like this. He was quickly losing control, the iron-grip he held on his temper was sizzling to snap, and was as dangerous as live wire.
“I doubled back to do back checks for you. I scoped the scene and the setting and made sure everything was clean and no one was watching. SD-6 could have caught you tonight, Sydney.”
Her face was ashen, her body nearly limp. He was right, she realized. She hadn’t even bothered to double check her mirrors to see if she was being watched. She didn’t make erratic and unpredictable turns in order to throw off anyone who could have been possibly tailing her. She had made herself an easy target tonight. Glancing back over her shoulder, she noted the alleyway. It was deep, dark, full of shadows and her heart sank when she found that there was no escape from it. If someone had come up, and she had mistaken him for Vaughn… if she had run up to an opponent as welcomingly as she had ran towards her father…
She’d be dead now.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” she told him. Her pride demanded that she say something to salvage her integrity.
“I don’t have to worry about you?” Jack repeated. “Focus, Sydney. Don’t lose your head over this. Do not let this get to you.”
“I’m not!” she protested angrily. “I told you I know what I’m doing.”
Her retort sparked something in him. The stress of the life he lived had piled up, and the dam he carefully constructed around his emotions splintered, and suddenly.... Everything from the past ambushed him simultaneously. Everything encompassing Laura.
Laura, smiling in the wedding photo with him. Laura, laughing with him over silly jokes and champagne. Laura, kissing him and telling him her hopes, dreams, loves. Laura, teaching her students at UCLA, raving about a new antique, first edition book he bought her. Laura, lifting Sydney up in her arms and gushing about how beautiful she was.
Then, suddenly, flashbacks of the night of the accident. A high speed chase. FBI agent Calder running after his wife. Two cars crash into the ocean, never a trace of either body to be found. Ever. Until…
Irina Derevko. Laura Bristow was an illusion. Irina Derevko was the hidden betrayer and superb counter-intelligence agent for the KGB. And he, Jonathan Donahue Bristow, had indeed been a fool.
“No, you don’t know.” He spat out bitterly. “You don’t know what it’s like to live your life in love with someone, sharing your life with someone, having a child with someone. And you don’t know what it’s like to live your life knowing you’ve been betrayed in the worst way possible by that same person. You don’t know what it’s like, Sydney. Because you’ve never been there. You’ve never been me. And you don’t know what it’s like to be so blinded by emotions until it’s too late.”
Jarred, Sydney recoiled. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Jack ignored the question. “You don’t just know.”
Wild-eyed and bewildered, she stared at his back as he began to walk away silently.
Her emotions twisted in agony beneath her skin. She felt them slither up behind her eyes in the form of salty liquid, felt her heart beat unevenly, thunderous against her ribs. There was a dull ringing in her ears, blood pumping hard and fast.
“Dad?” she asked in a small, scared voice.
He had heard her use that tone only twice before. The first time was when he had to tell her that her mother would not be coming home again. The second when she asked him if he knew SD-6 would murder Daniel Hecht as viciously as they had. His shoulders were tense, his jaw tight and set. His eyes were closed, and the nerve in his cheek and temple throbbed visibly.
“You were in love with Mom.” She swallowed hard. “You would have done anything to save her from that accident, if she had been who we thought she was.”
“But she wasn’t, Sydney.” He refused to turn around. His voice was weary and tired. The memories had plagued him, destroyed his defenses. They took his energy and drained him emotionally. “She wasn’t who we thought she was. So it hardly matters now.”
“It does matter,” she insisted fiercely. “Because you loved her enough to make it matter.”
He was quiet. His back was still turned to her, his figure that always seemed to loom so large and strong appeared to be grief-stricken and fighting to grasp something. Understanding, maybe.
“I learned from your mistakes. I won’t make them with Vaughn.”
Jack’s memory fluttered to another time. A time between friends, when love and fun were ideal. When he had Laura, and Devlin had Grace. He took in the present, and admitted that sometimes, the ideal was just an elusive chimera. Reality always set in and left one with nothing but the painful realization that all good things do end.
And sometimes… they ended in the most unexpected ways.
“No, Sydney. You won’t.” He agreed. He didn’t look at her, but proceeded to leave the alley. “You won’t make the same mistakes because you’re never going to see him again.”
[~]
Vaughn had remained in his car. He expelled his breath and stared at his Nokia phone with trepidation. 4:07AM. He was long past late. What had held him back? Surely, Jack hadn’t honestly meant what he said, so why were his nerves rattling inside of him?
He groaned aloud and rapped his head twice against the steering wheel. A million inquiries swirled in his head, but the most prominent was simply why?
“Quel est le problème avec moi? Elle m'a appelé, et est-ce que je ne peux pas m'apporter aller chez elle? Je vais toujours à elle. Queest-ce que je me sens pour elle... pourquoi il rend tout si dur? Je dois penser! C'est... compliqué.” He whispered rapidly in French without realizing it.
“What's wrong with me? She called me, and I can't bring myself to go to her? I always go to her. What I feel for her... why does it make everything so hard? I need to think! This is... complicated.” Finally realizing what he said, he knocked his head once more against the wheel, harder than before.
Stupid move. He lifted a hand and rubbed the sore spot on his forehead and sighed. I should call her, he thought. Exiting his vehicle, he entered his house, tossed his keys on the counter and draped his leather jacket over a nearby counter stool. Reaching over for his black cordless phone, he ran his fingers through his hair.
Speed dial, number 3. Number one was his voicemail, and number two was his mom. God, where had she come from? How did she become such a priority for him?
There was no answer. The machine kicked in with a faint click.
“Hi, you’ve reached Sydney’s cell. I can’t pick up right now, so please leave a short message after the beep. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.” Click. Beep.
Silence.
[~]
Sydney stripped out of her tight black pants and let them settle in a pile in the center of her bedroom. She heaved a sigh and stole a glance at her floor length mirror. Standing in front of it, she studied her reflection. Tall, lean, and elegant. She ran her fingers over the lace edge of her bra and thought herself very feminine.
Briefly she entertained thoughts of what it would be like to be with Vaughn. Sweet, she knew. Steamy, most definitely.
Infiltrating her thoughts and interrupting her fantasy was the commanding voice of her father.
“You won’t make the same mistakes because you’re never going to see him again.”
A chill washed over her. What had he meant? She knew it wasn’t a threat. It was more command. The way he had said it was final. There was no questioning him, and though her days of blindly taking orders were over, she had shared in the pain of losing her mother twofold. Once, in death, and the other, in life.
The unexpected beeping of her cell phone arrested her attention, and caused her to jump in surprise. “New voice message”, it read.
Gripping the phone in her right hand, she waited for the call to connect, then punched in her pass code with her left. Waiting for the message, she wedged the phone between her shoulder and ear, and leaned over to pick up her clothes from the floor.
“You have one new message. Sent today, at 4:17AM.”
Seconds ticked by and there wasn’t a sound. Folding her pants, she set them on the edge of her bed and reached up to push 3 to delete the message, but she heard a sharp intake of air indicating someone was about to speak.
“Sydney.” There was a pause, and she held her breath. It was Vaughn. He had called. “It’s me. I… just wanted to say sorry for not—“
There was a sudden crash in the background. “What the hell—?” she heard him say.
There were muffled voices in the room. She struggled to hear them and decipher what they were saying. It made no difference; she couldn’t make out the words. She heard a shout, the clack of a gun, a command to hang up the phone.
“It’s not on,” she heard him lie.
“Turn it off,” the command was clear. The intruder had come closer to Vaughn. It wasn’t a voice she recognized. There was no accent she could pinpoint in the sentence.
The sound of flesh running deep into the gut or groin and the resounding groan echoed in her ears. There was the sick sound of metal hitting bone, a body hitting the floor. Someone began dragging the body away. A single gunshot rang, and the line disconnected abruptly.
Back
