You're either coming or you just left...

[sunshine_queen]

Weiss: How ya feelin'?
Sydney: I'm okay. You look great... You lost weight?
Weiss: Oh, thanks, yeah. I sorta gave up all the foods that I enjoy. I'm miserable, but I look really good.

- The Two, 3.01

 

I'm on this new diet that takes all the fun out of eating, so you lose weight because not eating is preferable to eating really, really bad food.

... And I don't want to study chem because it makes me think of what I did to poor, poor Mrs. Barkow.

So instead I went to two evil monks and looked at the pretty, pretty pictures of Nadia from 'The Orphan' because that was my favorite episode this season because yo quiero mi preciousita tan linda.

So I guess I'll post the third part of Perdition.

[ 3 ]

 

She comes back in the dark, and he'll wake up to find her sitting beside him, gazing at his face wistfully, and he'll know right away that it's her and not one of her many aliases. He'll reach for her and she'll fall into his arms wordlessly, and he'll stroke her hair and kiss her face and he’ll know then that he could never survive again without her, and if that means putting up with everyone else she brings with her, then so be it.

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They make love on those nights, and she'll fall asleep nestled against him; but when he awakes the sheets will be smooth and she'll be awake and back to whom she was the day before, and it will be as if it never happened. This is her protection.

 

On one such morning he wakes up, hoping against hope that she'll still be there, but, as usual, she had fled.

 

She's Natalie now, Natalie after the actress, with brown hair and a flair for the dramatic, a bangle on her wrist, sipping tea as she glances at a newspaper written in a foreign language that she can barely decipher and that he has given up on.

 

He says her name low, and she pretends not to hear. Saying her alias burns his tongue and he spits it out quickly, nauseated when she whips her head around and beams. “Angel! What do you want for breakfast?”

 

“I can't take it anymore.” he says, and his voice is quiet and hard, and a look of sheer terror flits over her features. He's not sure what he can't take, because he know that if he leaves he'll be back by the next afternoon (and hates himself for it) if he makes it out the door at all.

 

She feigns innocence. “Can't take what, precious?”

 

He yells in controlled rage, forever mindful of the neighbors and of those who mean her harm: “This, xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /Sydney, this. I can't take this anymore, the running and the hiding and the hair dye and the contacts and your jobs to finance it all. I haven't been able to hear English from anyone but you in five months. I'm homesick. I could bear it, Sydney, I'd be happy to be here if only you were the same, but you're not, and I can't do anything to draw you back. I've lost, Sydney- I lost you and I can't get you back, and I can't stand that you won't even be yourself for me any longer. I'm losing myself, and it scares me, because with both of us gone we'll never get home.”

 

He wants her to yell at him for being a traitor, for giving up, to do anything but stand there with her eyes filled with tears and her lips parted to catch her breath. He wants her to accuse him of something, anything so that he can get angry and maybe escape this madness, driven by fury to leave.

 

She does not get angry, nor does she incite him. Instead she moves across the room to him, pushing into him like a child, her face against his neck as she imprisons him with her arms. 'I can't do this without you,' she sniffles, and she murmurs her absolute devotion to him and how she would die if he left her. “I want to go home,” she whimpers, and he maneuvers them over to the couch so that he can comfort her properly. “I'm not gone, Vaughn,” she asserts, “I'm here, I've never left, and we'll go home, soon, I promise, but-”

 

Here she sits up straight, her arms still around his neck, her eyes glittering with tears, “But not yet, please? I have to find out who did this to me, to us, and then everything will be all right, and we'll go home.”

 

He does not tell her that nothing will ever be all right, but she is smiling again. “We can go to town this afternoon.” she plans, “and I'll make a call, and we can leave here. Maybe Morocco or Algeria. It'll be nice.”

 

With every call she makes, they fall deeper, but he mumbles “All right,” defeated. She moves away, ostensibly to make him something to eat, and he realizes that he has died again, in some small way or another.

 

~*~

 

Instructions she'll write out for him and then burn. Flight numbers, locations, numbers, logistics. They give her the bare bones of an operation: he plans it, she executes it. Memorizing, time of the essence: plan, commit to memory, light a match. Fear chills the air around them as they dye their hair over the kitchen sink, brown for him, auburn for her.

 

Cargo planes mostly, jets occasionally, sunglasses and hats used liberally. Once, back when it was a game, he'd commented that someone might mistake her for some movie star traveling incognito. They arrive in Milan, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, Prague and don't stay long enough to get jet-lagged. They break in, they download, they steal objects- everything they used to do, only now they can't hide behind the flag. They have the latest gear and their plans and contingencies down pat, but his breath still catches in his throat when he hears the sickening thud of bodies against walls (floors, doors, metal, concrete, wood, marble) or the spray of gunfire and the nauseating silence that follows when he can't tell if he can inhale again or if life is over.

 

She comes out alive, she always does, and through the comm he can hear the strains of a waltz that the band is playing downstairs at some upscale party that they'd never merit an invitation to even if they weren't frauds.

 

Their reward for surviving the mission was a handsome envelope stuffed with untraceable bills and the ability to live comfortably for several weeks- or like royalty for several days. They opt for seedy hotels and cramped apartments to prolong times between jobs, because they both know that they take a gamble every time they agree to one, risk calling attention to themselves, the lost, the rogues.

 

They perform their duties, eyes to the ceiling, and then they fly away to some distant city, where they never speak of what has just occurred. They recreate themselves- Stacy and Romain, and they live now in Algeria. She makes up the story, which she informs him of with heavily-lidded eyes: she is a college student and he is her professor, and they've run away to live some quixotic adventure of mad romance. This will work because she looks appropriately young and he looks appropriately guilty. She had chosen Algiers because it was once French and she wants to offer him comfort where she can. He appreciates the effort.

 

They live in the slums of the city, the area considered unsafe for tourists. Every day he risks the danger of going down to the port and gazing longingly at the ferry that goes to Marseilles before trudging back to their little apartment. She is happy there for some reason, enjoying, as always, the dry heat. They are safe there, because people are warned to stay away from this area of the world unless absolutely necessary. She enjoys the ancient ruins not to far from the city, the streets that zigzag and the architecture that mixes European styles with Arabic. She plans trips to the picturesque areas surrounding them, to the art museum, and he wonders if she's just trying to pretend they're on a vacation. In the mornings, copies of the major French newspaper rest on the table and he hates to admit that it is comforting to be confronted with familiarity. She even manages to find a theatre that shows French and English films that she surprises him with, excited as he imagined she would be on Christmas morning.

 

Their first film there is The Wizard of Oz, which she claims was her favorite movie as a child, and that she would wait all year for them to show it on television, but she always cried when Dorothy went back to living in sepia-tinted Kansas. She preferred the bright colors of Oz.

 

Neither of them has seen the movie in years, and they sat close to the screen in a practically empty theatre, their arms entwined on the armrest between them, hands clasped loosely. She lets her head fall to his shoulder when Dorothy begins singing Somewhere over the Rainbow and it isn't long before he realizes that she is crying. He says nothing, knowing that there was nothing to be said, and that their both wishing for somewhere where there isn't any trouble is a pipe dream and nothing more, and the movement of her face as she mouths the lyrics is a sad testimony to the state of things.

 

It isn't until later, much later, when they're lying in bed and she's asleep with her lips parted and her ankle over his, that he realizes that she is Dorothy, the little girl dreamer thrown into chaotic worlds by forces she had no control over, longing for the normalcy promised to all children.

 

One day she sees her father in a crowd and drops his hand for the first time to follow him, disappearing into dank alleyways, crying out for him silently. He follows her, his heart skipping beats when he loses sight of her. She stops abruptly at the crossroads of two alleys, slumping into a wall, hiding her face behind a hank of red hair.

 

He puts his hand on her shoulder, and she reaches up to curl her fingers around him without turning. “I want to go home,” she whispers. “I want to go home.”

 

They pass the American embassy on their way back to their apartment. They try their best not to stare at it greedily.

 

 

Comments

[swirlycurlzz.livejournal.com]

I love your writing. Great story!

I actually just started watching Alias this past weekend when a friend of mine brought her collection of episodes – all of the one aired up to this point – to my house. Loved it. I'm on episode 10 of Season 4 right now and am having a great time!

This was my favorite chapter of Perdition so far. The dynamic you created between Sydney and Vaughn, and the "dry heat"/ longing for home/ sad and gray cigarette stubs atmosphere were so real and biting. I loved this line: With every call she makes, they fall deeper, but he mumbles “All right,” defeated. She moves away, ostensibly to make him something to eat, and he realizes that he has died again, in some small way or another. Especially the dying – the role-playing she falls back into – in some way or another.

I have a question, when exactly in the Alias timeframe does your story take place? Or is it some sort of AU of Season 3?

[sunshine-queen.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks!

Yay for watching Alias! It's a wonderful, wonderful thing, Dusty.

Dead on. This was what might have happened after Vaughn rescued Syd in Hong Kong.

Kinda.

This is one of my favorite parts of the story as well- mostly because I managed to incorporate french, history, and Syd's dad.

[swirlycurlzz.livejournal.com]

Is Perdition a plot-driven story or will it be a series of portraits and accounts of Syd and Vaughn?

Either way, c'est lovely.

Update soon? *Hint hint nudge nudge* <3 Hee, just kidding, won't rush the artist at her canvas.

[sunshine-queen.livejournal.com]

Well, I kinda get a plot. It's not big or anything, but it's there- but mainly, yeah, portraits and accounts.

I'm so glad you like!

Actually, I wrote this story last year... I'm just posting it section by section. A new update tomorrow.

[puggywuggy.livejournal.com]

I wish I could say more, but you know me--it's 9:30 and it's way past my bedtime.

Anyway, you know I <3.

Is this the only time(s) in which the names Sydney and Vaughn are actually uttered, btw?

[sunshine-queen.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's not. But it's one of the rare times. (I just reread it for the first time in a million years)

[puggywuggy.livejournal.com]

Ah. I just wasn't sure... I don't think that ever stuck out to me as much as it did this time.

More <3.

And SQUEE x10000 at that icon! Dude. That moment? Totally sold me on the fandom! I was like, THEY... HOLD HANDS? I... I have to see if there's MORE hand-holding!

And we all know how THAT turned out.

[thepodsquad.livejournal.com]

This was always one of my very favourite parts. I just love the undertone of desperation in this fic, and how it just totally tugs at you. *sighs* It's totally wonderful, no lie.

[sunshine-queen.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks, Hannah. Desperation is my middle name.