It doesn't matter if you have never watched Alias. This essay is quite touch. I moved into tears when I was reading.
Vaughn, an agent in CIA,Sydney called him her guardian angel.This essay is about him. Hope you guy enjoy it.
Author: Suzanne aka Suzie aka Nakita
Title: Gloomy Sunday
Summary: One year post “The Telling”, Vaughn POV. Vaughn makes a rash decision.
A/N: All I can think about is a great lyric from a very great song, “I will fall into the darkness and I fear I will never see the light”. A one parter for right now depending how y'all like it.  
**
The CIA gave me one year to find her, before declaring her KIA.
I failed.
Two days ago she was buried.
Two days ago I completely lost myself.
Before there was hope, now there’s nothing. No comfort in knowing that I’ve at least brought her home to be buried. There’s only an empty coffin with a headstone that reads her name.
Another star. No record of who she was or how she died, just a star.
I watched them carve it into the wall.
I welcome death now. I’ve even written the note to leave explaining why I’ve done something so horrible to myself—to those who wouldn’t understand. I’ve written it a thousand times and all I can seem to write is my name.
Vaughn.
She never called me anything else, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Are they going to understand why I’ve done away with myself? With the self-destructive person I’ve become? Yes, I think so.
But they shouldn’t be mad. I'm glad to go. I’ll be with her again. I’ll find my peace.
Don’t cry for me when you find this. Don’t you dare.
Eric, take care of Donavan please. He won’t understand.
TO BE CONTINUED
ps: so sad but so good. I really love Vaughn and also this eassy.

Darkness.
It enters my home like an old friend.
Through the open windows, into the living room, over the photographs causing shadows to darken blissfully clueless faces.
Donavan is sleeping soundly by the front door, forever the faithful watchdog I intended him to be.
You know that they say 90% of women, when they commit suicide do their makeup, and then shoot themselves in the heart?
Men on the other hand do it the old fashioned way. Gun in the mouth; blow out the back of your skull. Or my personal favorite, what I think I may do, press that gun hard into your temple, swallow hard, ask one last time for forgiveness, then pull the God damned trigger.
My phone rings once, and then the answering machine picks up and I hear my voice. A voice that was happy once, when I recorded the message.
It’s Eric.
“Vaughn man, I’ve called you twelve times…call me back when you get this.”
I laugh.
He’s still waiting on the phone, I can hear him thinking.
“I know what you’ve got to be going through…”
Do you? Do you have any idea what I'm going through? Do you know that I’ve been sitting here staring at my gun for the past three hours?
“...we all lost a friend.”
You know I never told her that I loved her?
Would that surprise you? Would you hate me? Would you understand that I didn’t want to screw up the one good thing that I had in my life?
“…I know that you loved her…we all did.”
Just shut up, hang up the fu*king phone and leave me alone.
“…its just that I'm worried about you…we all are.”
Is this when you tell me that you expect me to go and report to Dr. Barnett twice a week for the next few years of my life?
“That’s why Kendall has arranged for you to see Barnett once a week.”
I over estimated you. Congrats.
“Mike I know you hate her. We all—.”
The machine beeps. It’s cut him off.
Blessed silence.

The grass is long now. But the flowers are fresh.
She’s had visitors.
My knees crack as I lower myself down to the ground.
I'm ruining my suit.
I wonder what people think, the ones that see me here.
Do they understand? Have they lost someone that’s here or are they just visiting a national…
Not treasure. How could the land of the dead be considered a treasure?
Arlington. Hero’s are buried here.
She was one.
Oh God.
Was.
Was.
Was.
Was.
Was.
“I miss you so much…” I mumble the words as I bring my face into my hands.
She’s not dead.
I know it. I still feel her in my bones.
I feel eyes on me, and I can’t say that I blame them.
How often do you see a grown man, kneeling in the grass, crying in front of a headstone?
“I love you…” tentatively I place a hand on the black marble headstone. I trace a shaking finger over her name.
Eric’s been waiting in the car.
He came this morning to pick me up, force me to finally come into work.
He say’s that it will help with the healing process.
“I did so much with us wrong…” I whisper. “I did…I did and, I’m sorry.” I cover my face with my hands again to hide the tears. “I'm so sorry.”
**
Eric doesn’t speak to me during our car ride to work.
Leaves me to my brooding.
I don’t want to go back.
It’s going to be the same way it was at the funeral. Understanding looks and apologies, hugs and tears.
I’m the man who gave up two stars for the wall, a father and a lover.
They pity me for it. And I hate them for that.
I’m so tired. So tired of being here.
Eric turns off the car and sits, silent. He’s my best friend and I love him for saying nothing.
“I’ll understand if you want to go home.” He doesn’t look at me. He stares at the steering wheel when he says it.
Then when he looks at me I can see that his eyes are brimming with tears. “I’m sorry I pushed you.”
“No.” I try to say it but it just comes out as a whisper, so I shake my head. “You didn’t.” I whisper letting my return to the dashboard.
Then he does something that surprises me, but at the same time I'm glad as hell he does it.
He pulls me into a fierce hug.
To anyone else it would seem weird if they happened to stumble across the pair of us, crying into one another’s shoulders. But I appreciate his doing this much more than I can put into words.
As we cross the parking garage and head for the elevator Eric mumbles something that makes me smile for the first time in a year and a month.
“You tell anyone about that I’ll kick your ass.”

**
How are you doing Michael?
Hey Michael, do you need anything?
Mike man, you need to talk I'm here.
Michael.
Michael.
Michael.
Michael.
The only sanctuary I have is the bathroom stall I’ve been locked in for the past hour.
I’ve read and reread all of the paper on the back of the stall door a thousand times.
I tried to find peace in my office, but they came, despite my locked door and drawn blinds.
I don’t want to be here anymore.
Everything here reminds me of her.
The desks. The walls. The sounds. The faces of the people who feel so sorry for me.
I pull my face from my hands at the sound of someone knocking softly at my stall door.
“Mike?”
It’s Eric.
I don’t bother to answer him because I know he realizes I'm in here.
“You ok?”
He’s still leaning on the door. Waiting for me to say something.
“Leave me alone.”
He’s pacing now.
“Mike you have an appointment with Dr. Barnett in ten minutes.”
He knows that I don’t want to see her.
I don’t want to sit and listen to someone else tell me in a round about way that all of this is my fault.
That if I had found out a way to make my relationship with her strictly professional in the first place she wouldn’t be gone today.
Do they not think that I already realize this?
Do they not realize that this is one of the reasons I don’t sleep anymore?
I hate them.
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself Michael.” Eric says this to me very slowly.
Is it that he’s trying to make a point?
“You’re eating yourself up inside…”
No sh*t.
“And I can’t stand to see you…”
I'm on my feet now.
I open the door.
“You know that weekend in Santa Barbara I was going to propose to her?”
…
His hands are in his pockets and his mouth is hanging slightly open.
I want to strike him right in that gaping mouth.
That mouth that talks too much.
That mouth that was right so long ago when it told me to step back from Sydney. I should have listened to it.
…
“What you don’t know what to say now?” I snap at him. “You’re at a loss for words?”
I laugh sourly as I walk over to the mirror and begin to adjust my tie.
“I don’t care how everyone thinks that they know what I'm going through. And if I hear that one more f*cking time I'm going to shoot someone.”
Eric still says nothing as I walk out of the bathroom.
I try to slam the door but it’s on springs that slow it down so I successfully make an ass of myself as I stumble out of the bathroom.
**
“It’s funny how someone’s loss makes everyone realize what it is that they have.” I stare up at the ceiling, trying not to lock eyes with her.
“How is that?” she’s chewing on her pen cap again, it’s something she does.
Maybe a nervous tick.
Or maybe she’s just bored with me.
“Marshall,” I move my eyes from the ceiling the dark window. It’s storming outside. “He married Carrie six months after Sydney disappeared.”
“Mr. Vaughn, why is it that you continue to say disappeared?” she asks me as she tucks her short blonde hair behind her ears.
I swallow.
A beat passes and I hear her gnawing on her pen form across the room.
I hate her.
She thinks I'm simply grieving, or possibly that I’ve been driven mad by grief.
She’s alive and I know it.
We both turn to the sound of the ringing phone.
“Excuse me.” Barnett mumbles as she rises to answer the phone. “Barnett…Yes sir, he’s right here.”

**
I don’t know what this could possibly be about.
Kendall isn’t really the type to make a personal call.
I walk quickly through the office keeping my head turned down, trying to avoid any and all eye contact.
Same pitying faces. Same pitying looks.
I hate them.
I want to leave this place but I cant.
I leave I loose any and all ties to the intelligence world.
Anything that might help me find Sydney again.
They’re all wrong and I’m going to prove it to them.
I'm going to bring her home.
I don’t have to knock to enter Kendall’s office; the door’s already open.
I stop.
Kendall.
Jack.
Eric.
Who’s she?
Oh s*it.
A f*cking intervention.
“Mr. Vaughn please take a seat.” Kendall remarks as he swings an arm out in the direction of the seat across from him.
Does he think that I don’t know where to sit?
Bastard.
They’re silent. They don’t know who should speak first.
Let me start.
Vaughn you’re a raving loon and we’re slightly concerned.
That about right?
I stare at them. They’re looking at one another.
Jack at Kendall, Eric at the new woman. Jack at the new woman, Eric at Kendall.
Finally the new woman slides a folder across the top of the table toward Kendall.
He clears his throat and begins.
“Mr. Vaughn this is Lauren Reed, she works for the NSA out of DC,” he swings that damned arm in the direction of Lauren who holds out her hand to shake mine.
I don’t take it.
F*ck you Kendall. A new partner?
I’ll leave before you assign me to someone new.
Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time? I kill my partners.
“What is this?” I'm looking at Kendall now.
“If you listen to her son you’ll learn.” Jack says rather softly.
Oh s*it.
Something’s wrong.
Eric’s eyes are red, he’s been upset.
I wasn’t that horrible to him in the bathroom.
Was I?
“Mr. Vaughn for the past two years I’ve been on operation in Hong Kong…” she begins but I talk again.
“Not that I don’t want to learn about what I’m sure is your completely compelling history Miss Reed, but I have better things I could be doing.”
Like looking for Sydney.
I rise to my feet.
“Sit.” Jack orders.
“I'm sorry Jack but I'm not going to sit here and listen to this.” I turn toward the door.
Jack says something that I don’t quite hear right. It sounds like he said… “Excuse me Jack?”
“We’ve found Sydney Michael.”
…
She’s alive.
Oh God she’s alive.
I was right.
We buried her and all you assholes thought I was crazy.
…
They’re still not talking.
I sit back down.
“Miss Reed…” Jack urges her to begin again.
“As I was saying. For the past few years I’ve been on operation in Hong Kong, working around organizations like the Triad etc. but with in the last year it has seemed to us at the NSA that a new organization has taken over and at it’s forefront is one Arvin Sloane…”
Her words trail off and I'm thinking of Sydney again
I'm thinking of the last night that I saw her.
I'm going to get a second chance.
“…CIA operations officer was in custody.” I'm listening to her again. “After a year in confinement she was executed.”
…
…
…
I can’t talk.
There are no words I can find.
Oh God.
This is real.
She’s…
“How do you know it’s her?” I mumble hoarsely.
Eric’s crying now.
“We did some DNA testing on what I was able to recover.” She answers.
What I was able to recover.
What I was able to recover.
Able to recover.
Recover
She’s not gone.
She’s not.
She’s not.
She’s not.
“How?”
“Well through DNA…”
I cut her off. “How was she…” I bring my hands up to my face.
I can’t say it.
I can’t.
I won’t.
They’re wrong.
Oh God let them be wrong.
“Killed?” Miss Reed is speaking again. She looks over to Jack with what I read as slight confusion.
“Shot we think.” Kendall speaks.
“You think?” I'm on my feet now. “You think?”
“Due to your relationship with her Mister Vaughn I don’t really think that we should go that much more into detail then letting you know that we’ve found her, we’ve brought her home and we will burry her properly.” Kendall mumbles as he closes the folder.
How dare he.
I stop and stare at him.
The tears fall fresh and hot down my cheeks.
Eric’s still crying.
“Tell me.” He doesn’t move. “I'm not stupid I know that you didn’t support the relationship that I shared with her, but so help me,” I cough back a sob, “I loved her.”
I cant breathe.
I’ve forgotten how.
I can’t swallow.
I, my chest is tight.
Oh Christ my head’s spinning.
I'm going to pass out.
“She’s was burned Michael.” Jack tells me coldly.
…
…
…
Burned.
Dad.
Oh God.
Not again.
“I'm done.” I say holding my face in my hands. “I'm out.”
I look up at them.
Eric is the only one who looks surprised.
Jack just nods his head lightly; he too has gone through something like what I'm going through right now.
“I'm afraid that I can’t let you…” Kendal begins but I cut him off.
“I'm tired… I'm so God damned tired.”
I’m crying now.
I don’t care.
F*ck them.
“Before there was hope!” I extend my arms toward them, and then let them fall back down at my sides. “There was something for me to be here for.” I shake my head. “And now,” I pause then continue softly, “now there’s nothing.”
They don’t talk.
I’m on my feet.
I’m at the door.
“I’ll have my resignation on your desk with in the hour.”
This post has been edited by Nakita on Aug 24 2003, 07:40 AM

**
The entire office was silent as I set the signed papers down on his desk.
Kendall takes the papers, shakes my hand, and thanks me for the good years and service to my country.
I pause in the doorframe as he says one last thing to me.
“You leave now, you leave forever. You know that?”
You’re a bastard.
You know that?
You never treated her with half the amount of respect she deserved. You treated her like a child and I hate you for that.
I say nothing and continue forward.
I don’t really understand what it is that he wants to hear from me.
Am I supposed to grovel? Supposed to ask him to let me come back on weekends.
This is the end for me.
THE END.
They’ve won.
There’s no strength left to fight anymore.
They all watch me as I walk across the main floor toward my desk.
They all watch, and for some reason I didn’t mind.
It’s over.
Over.
Over.
No more pretending.
This is the end.
Will they be angry with me tomorrow? Or will they understand?
The entire office watches me pack my desk a piece at a time.
First the files.
Someone says something from over my shoulder.
Jack.
“You can take some time off Vaughn.” He remarks softly. “We still need you.”
Me?
Still need me?
I laugh lightly.
“The past year of my life the CIA has managed to over look. I’ve wasted company dollars looking for her.” I rise to my feet to face him. “I’ve searched. I’ve lied. I’ve stolen and, and I’ve murdered! How many more things are they going to overlook!” he says nothing. “And now she’s…dead. And there’s nothing keeping me here anymore!”
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Oh God I said it.
Dead.
Oh sh*t.
He says nothing and in that instant I'm sorry I yelled at him.
It’s not his fault.
He tried to keep me away from her.
I mumble an apology and return to my desk.
I pull out the first row of files and throw them into my box.
“You’re going to have to leave those here.” Jack says.
I'm not going to fight him.
I'm tired.
So fu*king tired.
So I give them to him.
All of them.
As I turn away from my desk holding just my pictures in my hands I hear him speak.
“Michael.”
He’s never called me Michael before today and I don’t know why it’s affecting me as much as it is.
He’s holding a manila folder in his hand that’s extended toward me.
Why is he letting me keep one?
I take it.
I read the label and my heart sinks.
It’s the file I’ve looked over a thousand times.
Sydney Bristow
Oh Jack.
Oh God.
I look at him.
You’re a good man and I'm sorry that I never treated you with more respect.
Why?
Why this file?
His voice is soft and he’s staring at his feet now. “I don’t really know what I can say.” He looks at me, his eyes are full of tears. “I understand that you want to leave.” He shakes his head. “I do.” He nods again. “But if you want to come back. Know that there will be a space here for you indefinitely.” I nod and take a few steps away when he speaks again.
“She loved you very much.” I don’t turn to face him. I cant. I don’t have the strength to look him in the eyes.
I'm the man who killed his daughter.
“You took care of her. You loved her. And I know that you would have given you’re life for hers. And she would have for you.” He pauses.
I'm crying again.
Jack stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
“Don’t you blame yourself for what happened. Don’t you dare.” He pauses. “And I know that this may sound trivial after all that’s happened…but you have my respect…you always have.”
I turn to face him.
He holds his hand out to me.
I take it in mine.
“Thank you.” I say softly. A few tears fall down my cheek.
He holds onto my hand of another moment.
He’s staring at me.
Can he see it?
Does he know what it is that I intend to do?
Did he want to do it once as well?
**
The car’s stopped.
I look up.
“We’re here.”
For just a moment I have to think about where it was that he was taking me.
Home.
I don’t want to go home.
I'm just so tired.
So tired of being here.
Why.
Why.
Why.
Why.
Why.
I'm crying again.
Eric says nothing because he too is crying.
“Tomorrow afternoon we’re going to have a funeral.” He says it softy as he grips the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turn white.
“Where?” I’m staring at the spot on the dashboard that I’ve been staring at for the entire car ride.
“Santa Monica Pier.”
…
Why.
…
The first time I realized that I cared for her more than I should I stood with her on that pier.
…
“I’ll pick you up.”
I nod.
Ok.
One last night.
One more night.
One more night.
I open the car door.
Eric says something that I don’t hear.
“I'm coming over later.”
I can see that he needs my company just as desperately as I need his.
I nod.

will you please give me some feedback?
the author would be please if you like the story.
and i'll be glad to translate your feedback to her!

Hurt

I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that's real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything
what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
I wear my crown of thorns
on my liar's chair
full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
beneath the stain of time
the feeling disappears
you are someone else
I am still right here
what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
if I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

**
I close the door behind myself as I step into my dark living room.
The only response I get from Donavan is slight eyebrow movement when I walk into the room.
Good dog.
I move across the room toward the coffee table.
I have three pictures.
Three.
The first is a picture of Eric and I at CST. We’re standing together, covered from head to toe in mud, grinning like idiots.
We’d just graduated Farm.
The second.
My father.
I don’t know why I keep it on my desk. I suppose it’s to remind myself of what I could have become if I had worked hard enough.
A good man.
A company man.
A man who would have given his life for his country without a second’s hesitation.
I almost gave my life up for the job.
I almost gave it up twice.
For her.
For Sydney.
The third.
I touch the glass and trace the line of her jaw.
“I miss you.” I whisper to her. “I don’t…” I cough back a sob, “don’t know what to do…to do without you.”
It’s a picture of Sydney and I at a Kings game.
Just after the fall of SD-6.
New love is the best love.
It’s the stupid kind of picture that you take when you wrap your arms around the other person’s neck when they hold the shi*ty disposable camera out at a queer angle and snap the shot.
Then the folder.
I pass my hand over it, over the worn edges, over the name.
The name.
Her name.
Slowly I make my way over to my liquor cabinet.
What will I have? Scotch? Rum? Tequila?
Something that will numb my senses and mind the quickest.
I finish the glass in a drink.
The brandy runs hot and sweet down my throat.
I’m tired.
So tired.
It’s been three days since I last slept.
Twenty-four.
Forty-eight.
Seventy-two.
Seventy-two hours.
I place my glass on the table and lie down on the couch.
Just as I close my eyes I hear a crash from the direction of my bedroom.
I’m on my feet
My guns out.
I’m moving across the living room toward my bedroom.
Donavan remains in the living room, totally un-interested by the promise of an intruder.
I hope he has a gun so I can be justified in killing him.
No more CIA cover-up.
Six o’clock news.
Retired CIA officer guns down home invader.
Or better yet.
Retired CIA officer guns down home invader then dies tragically due to wounds inflicted during struggle.
I hear the padding of bare feet across the wood floor.
My bedroom door is slightly open.
Did I leave it open?
Oh s*it.
Why this?
Why me?
I push the door open with my hip and step just inside the doorframe.
I drop my gun.
It clatters on the floor beside my feet.
Sydney.
…
…
…
She’s standing in the bathroom, brushing her teeth at the sink.
Quickly I make my way across the room toward her.
Tears cloud my eyes.
She’s not there.
She’s not real.
She’s not standing in my bedroom.
She’s.
She’s dead.
Oh God she’s dead.
She’s dead.
They were right.
I am crazy.
They showed me the files.
My hand touches the soft skin of her upper arm.
She is here.
She is real.
She is standing in my bedroom.
She’s.
She’s alive.
Oh God she’s alive.
She sets my toothbrush down in the sink then turns to face me.
She smiles and kisses my lips gently.
It’s like we never missed a moment.
That she hasn’t been missing for almost two years.
I close my eyes as I close my hands over her shoulders.
She’s alive.
Her hands are on my cheeks.
“Vaughn, you’re crying. What’s wrong?”
Michael baby. Call me Michael.
She’s concerned. She wipes away a tear with a fingertip.
“I had this horrible…” I shake my head.
“Horrible what?” she reaches out and passes the back of her hand gently over my cheek.
They showed me the files.
The evidence.
She’s not supposed to be here.
I laugh and shake my head.
I reach out and tuck some hair behind her ear.
I kiss the bridge of her nose.
Her closed eyes.
The hollow of her throat.
But that doesn’t matter.
They were wrong.
You’re home now.
You’re safe.
“It’s not important.” I take her hand and lead her across the room toward my bed.
I’ll tell you when we’re both old and gray.
She’s wearing my pajamas.
Christ it drives me crazy to see her in my clothes.
Something so sexy in such awful clothes.
It’s late.
I want to hold you.
After a dream like that just let me hold you.
I undress.
She lies down in bed and I lie down next to her. I string my arms around her hips and tuck my head in the groove of her neck and shoulder.
The sweet smell of soap still clings to her skin.
For a long while we lie silent.
I just hold her close to me, afraid to let her go again. I concentrate on the beating of her heart against my chest, on the rise and fall of her delicate frame as she breathes.
“Michael?” she says it so softly that the sound of it breaks my heart.
I love it when she calls me Michael.
“Yes, Syd?”
I push the hair away from her neck and kiss her shoulder.
“Michael,” she pauses, “I love you.”
I love you.
Love you.
Why did you have to be the first to say it?
Why didn’t I have the balls to say it a long time ago?
Because I love you. Why didn’t I say it when I first realized it?
“I love you.”
I think you know this. You’ve known this for a long time.
But I say it again.
“I love you.”

**
I wake to the sound of shots being fired.
Sydney.
She’s not in bed.
I scoop my gun up off the floor as I make my way quickly to the bathroom.
Not here.
I pull back the shower curtain in a violent motion.
Not here.
Donavan’s barking.
God damn it.
I’m out of my room, into the living room.
Eric.
He looks concerned.
“What in the hell is wrong with you?” he asks as he begins to pick up the shreds of the bullet-ridden door. “I’ve been calling your phone, your house. All the fuc*ing lights are off! What the hell are you thinking!” He drops the pieces of the door that he’s already picked up as he swings his arms outward in a violent motion.
“What did you do that for?” I ask softly, lowering my gun looking at what remains of my front door.
“I banged on the door. Searched for the damned Hide-A-Key!” he swings his arm in the direction of where the garden is through the wall, then he holds out his dirt covered hands as evidence that he did this. “Since when did you move the f*cking key!”
“Last week.” I answer.
“Thanks for telling me!” he hollers.
What the hell is wrong with you?
Why are you yelling at me like I'm a little kid?
“What the hell did you shoot out the door for?” my eyes fall on the file on my coffee table…the three pictures…
Three pictures.
My dad.
Eric and me.
Me and Sydney.
Sydney.
Her file.
No.
No.
It wasn’t a dream.
She is alive.
She can’t be dead.
If she’s dead I failed her.
I was her handler, her case officer, her partner. I was supposed to protect her when no one else could.
No.
No.
She’s not dead.
She’s not.
“I thought that you might have tried something stupid…” his voice trails off as I step into the guest bedroom.
I have to find her.
She’s hiding somewhere and I have to find her.
I have to prove to myself that he’s not right.
That I’m not crazy.
That her death was just a dream.
That there is a file on my table with three picture frames because I pulled them into my dream. I was something I did before I went to bed so I just transferred the memory into my sleep.
”What the hell are you doing?” Eric asks me from the doorframe.
I suppose the position I'm in is rather suspicious looking, on my hands and knees, looking under the bed to see if she’s there.
I frown as I walk out into the living room, back into my bedroom.
My toothbrush.
She didn’t put it up.
She set it down on the sink before we went to bed.
…
…
It’s still in the stupid Garfield toothbrush holder that I put it in last night.
It’s got to be wet.
She could have gotten up and put it up for me.
She’s anal like that.
She likes to put everything where it belongs.
Likes to know where everything is.
If it’s still wet then…
I touch the bristles.
…
…
They dried over night.
I mean they had enough time to dry.
How long have we been asleep?
“Michael!”
He yells after me as I round the corner quickly into the guest bedroom.
I have to check the other rooms.
Syd where are you?
I look in the closet.
Under the bed.
I look in the dresser drawers. I actually look in the dresser drawers.
I stop.
“What the hell are you doing?” Eric’s standing in the doorframe looking at me as if I'm on crack.
“Nothing.” I shake my head and throw my gun across the room at the mirror breaking it into a thousand pieces. “Not a God damned thing!”
I cross the room and look down at the mirror.
My broken reflection.
I bend down and pick up a piece.
It cuts my hand.
I laugh as I watch the blood run from the cut down my forearm.
“Michael.” Eric comes to my side. “What the hell are you doing man?” He presses a shirt he picked up off the floor into my hand to slow down the bleeding.
He pulls me toward the living room.
“She was here…” I shake my head.
He won’t understand.
I sit down on the couch and he sits down across from me.
“Syd was here.”
Eric frowns at me then sighs.
“She’s gone.” He pauses and sighs. Eric passes his hand over his face and stares down at the ground for a moment. “We need to talk.”
I don’t want to talk.
I don’t want to listen.
I just want to have a drink and go back to sleep.
My dreams are happier.
Go away.
The blood is soaking through the white shirt.
Go away.
Go away.
Go away.
“I'm gunna talk and you’re going to have to listen. Because there are some things I need to say, and some things you need to hear.” He pauses as he settles down on the couch across from me. He’s staring at the wall, then at me. “I’m not going to lie to you and say that I know exactly what you’re going through, because I don’t.” he’s shaking his head. “Out of this I lost a friend. A good friend, mind you. But not…not…someone I loved. I mean I loved her. But it wasn’t what the two of you had. Nowhere close.” He plucks the bottle of gin from the table and takes a long swig, then coughs. “I was there with you every time she went on operations.” He pauses letting his attention wander to the file on the table. “Every time you were up at three in the morning cause you couldn’t sleep who did you call?”
Who the hell else could I call?
You, you ass.
“You.”
“Me. And I do realize at first that I ran my mouth and I told you what a bad idea it was to get so involved, but I was wrong. And I’m very sorry that was such a s*** about it.”
I shake my head.
No.
No.
You were right.
You were right. If I had listened I wouldn’t have, she, she wouldn’t be dead.
I’m sorry.
I'm sorry.
I’m sorry that I took your friend from you.
I’m sorry that I didn’t listen.
I feel just a bit light headed. The shirt is now dark red.
I pull of my own shirt and put it in my hand.
“You weren’t. You were right.” I’m tearing up again.
So is he.
He’s quick to answer. “See that’s the thing. I was wrong.” Eric’s saying this as if it’s just hit him. “I was so wrong to keep you two apart as long as I tried to. Cause you were miserable and so was she. And I guess that when it comes down to I, I was jealous.” He takes another swig of gin then throws the bottle back down onto the table.
Jealous?
You were right. Not jealous.
I frown at him.
“I was.” He says it to me simply. “I’ve never really known what it’s like to be in love. That’s why I gave you such a hard time. I didn’t really understand.” He pauses. “I was such a f*ck.”
I nod gaining a sad laugh from him. “You were.” I wipe roughly at my cheeks.
“See, this is what you need to do. You need to remember the good. But you also need to move on. You need to heal…you need to let her go.”
I'm shaking my head again.
“Just because you let her go doesn’t mean that you’re betraying her Vaughn. You don’t have to forget her. Remember her, in everything you do if you need to. But you also need to meet new people. You aren’t getting any younger.” He laughs rather uncomfortably. “See this is the part that I tell you ‘She’d want you to move on. That she wouldn’t want you to just sit around and be sad’, but I'm not going to do that.”
Right.
That’s why you just did that.
Go away Eric.
Go away and never come back.
“See this is where you need to realize that some things that happen in our lives don’t just happen. They happen for a reason, whether we understand what that reason is or not, I doesn’t really matter. But they happen and they change who we are as a person.”
Who have you lost you condescending jerk?
How dare you sit across from me and tell me what to do.
“This is where I tell you that we don’t want to let you go.”
“No.” I’m on my feet. “I'm out. I put my resignation on his desk. I'm gone.”
“We want to offer you a position at UCLA.”
What?
UCLA?
Why not The Farm? That’s where 99% of the washed out Agents go.
But UCLA…
Sydney went there.
Sydney.
Oh God.
I can’t work there.
I can’t.
“We want you to take a position there because Lauren Reed is taking a position there.”
“What?”
No way.
No way.
No way.
“We believe that she’s a triple.”
…
…
…
“For who?”
“The Covenant.”
“And you want me to keep an eye on her?”
“We want you to do more than that.”
F*ck you CIA.
You want me to start a relationship with her?
You want me to get close to her so she’ll hopefully tell me who she’s working for?
“Why me?”
Don’t think that I’m even considering taking this position for you.
I just want to know everything that I can know.
That’s why I'm asking.
“Because if we put you in UCLA it’ll be the most believable. Not only do you have a Graduate Degree from them in English but,” he hangs his head, “that’s where Sydney went.” He pauses. “We’ve set it up to get you a teaching position there.”
English.
UCLA.
Sydney.
Why?
Why do I have to be my father’s son?
Why cant I just say no? Why can’t I tell you to get the hell out of my house and never come back?
“Why do we want to keep an eye on her?”
“We believe that she had something to do with what happened to Sydney.”
You bastard.
You’re just saying that. You’re saying that to bait me.
I'm not falling for it.
“How?” I close my eyes and fight the tears.
“We think that during the operation in Hong Kong she was apprehended and programmed. There was a brief period of time that she went missing and was unable to explain the lapse of time and it’s during that time frame we think that she may have been programmed. NSA doesn’t really know what to think about it, but they want you on it.”
No.
No.
No.
No.
“This goes a lot higher than you and me. K-Directorate is gone and we think that The Covenant is trying to take their place.”