(no subject)

[sunshine_queen]

Two fics from 'Mirage' that ain't too pretty, but both focus on Daddy-Syd interaction.

"Messages"

Jack checks his phone messages once outside the hospital. He had 46 missed calls in four days, which, he notices, is a bit above average.

 

There are business calls scattered throughout- a name, a phone number, a code word, as he likes it. The rest are from his daughter.

 

Collected: "Hey, Dad, it's Sydney. Just... I just wanted to call... can you call me back? Bye." Once.

 

Progressively annoyed: "Dad, it's Sydney. Call me." 17 times.

 

Irritated: "Come on, Dad, answer your phone." 12 times.

 

Flustered: "Dad, please, answer." 5 times.

 

Worried: "Dad, where are you?" 3 times.

 

Scared: "Daddy?"

 

"Legacy"

He had expected Sydney to be upset when she left 1981. That was why he made his excuses and went to their make-shift dressing room to wait- hoping to catch her before she fell. He sped-walked and made it just as she walked back into their world, looking impossibly fragile as the facade of her mother, twenty-five years old and brittle.

 

He had not expected for her to look up at him and burst into tears.

 

The explosion was quiet, calculated; he approached, and her face crumpled, and she whimpered, a little girl noise. He had pulled her to him, and she had tugged her earrings off as she cried into the dry-cleaner scent of his suit, away from the must of her old house and life.

 

"Vaughn," she had cried, "I can't remember. Not any of it. Not that he felt bad about not spending time with me, or that he played the piano with me- why can't I remember that? He could sit down and play with me and I can't remember."

 

He held her and pet her hair, murmuring, "You were just a little girl, Sydney. A little girl. It's alright-"

 

"It's not alright. I can remember being with my mother, I can remember piano lessons, I can remember hating my father. I can't remember him not being there for my sixth birthday. I can remember being angry at him, hating him when he left, hating him while he was gone, but I can't remember him missing my birthday. I can't remember him wanting to stay home. I must have known, Vaughn. I must've known how much- how much-"

 

He lets her cry it out silently. Jack's love for his daughter had been omnipresent in all the time he had known him, but never had it manifested itself in such a manner.

 

"He loves his work. Loves it, Vaughn, it makes him who he is. He would have left it, for me. For me, a daughter who had never seen where her father lived! For a daughter who killed her father!"

 

"You did not kill your father, Syd."

 

She nods miserably, her face hot with tears and flushed against his neck. "He went into the reactor, to shut it down, to save me. My father is dying and it's my fault, and all I can think is that I won't know what to do without him. He kept saying that I deserved better, and I didn't even deserve- or even appreciate what I had."

 

"Sydney." She looks up, mired in her own selfishness and wallowing. "You were five. You didn't know any better. You loved your father, even if you were mad at him. He knew you loved him. He didn't want to disappoint you, Syd."

 

"What if it doesn't work, Vaughn? What if we can't find Dr. Liddell, and we can't save him, and I never- if he never recognizes me again?"

 

She doesn't wait for him to answer, instead laying her head on his shoulder, and contemplates being an orphan whose legacy is guilt.

 

Comments

[puggywuggy.livejournal.com]

Awww, they were both very, very pretty. I especially liked "Messages," because it had the perfect ending.

Your love for Sydney comes out so much in your fic, because you write her very well. :D

Lovely viggies, as always! :)

[sunshine-queen.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks, Nica!

I love your icon, btw.

[dollsome.livejournal.com]

*sniffles* Oh, Madi, those are perfect. So sad. I love the first one; the last line just jumps out at you in this way that is so wonderful. And the second one! Sydney hating Daddy and not remembering and Vaughn and . . . you're so good. And this episode is so good. And I'm emotionally unhinged again.

[sunshine-queen.livejournal.com]

That episode made me verklempt.

[thepodsquad.livejournal.com]

Awwwwww, Madi, I love both of these so much. You know I love the second one. And the first one is just entirely too perfect and sweet. *sniffles*

Wonderful job as always, darling.