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PollyM.
User deleted
Qualcuno di voi ancora si ricorda Alias? Qualcuno lo guardava?
Io adoravo, o meglio A-D-O-R-A-V-O Michael Vaughn, per me era il cuore e la spina dorsale di tutta la serie.
Questa è una breve fanfiction che ho scritto qualche tempo fa, esiste solo in inglese - sorry
- perché al tempo postavo le mie fanfiction su un forum americano. Non è quindi materiale recente - non scrivo più ff da un po' - ma è un modo come un altro per rompere il ghiaccio in questa sezione 
Timeline: il racconto si colloca nella quarta stagione (per i fan della serie, dopo quell'episodio in cui Vaughn si finge un prete in un ospedale in Bosnia), il sottotitolo inglese era "The talk they never had", ovvero quel confronto che Sydney e Vaughn avrerbbero dovuto avere, dopo gli avvenimenti della terza stagione (Vaughn si era SPOSATO, ricordate? con una tipa di nome Lauren che si rivela poi essere pure una doppiogiochista, eh).
Disclaimer: i personaggi non sono miei, appartengono a JJ Abrams e al suo team di sceneggiatori, la casa producttrice si chiamava Bad Robot, se non ricordo male.
Il racconto è un episodio unico, ma non credo che ci stia in un solo post, quindi lo spezzo
Per chi non si lascia spaventare dall'inglese, allora, buona lettura
CLOSE
The talk they never had
When he opened the door of the granary, a strong burst of cold air hit his body, threatening to snatch the door from his hand. He closed his eyes to thin fissures and, through them, saw that the fog had been brushed away by the Northern wind which had risen while he was inside.
The night was still pitch black, with low, swollen clouds hanging heavily from the sky, the thin drizzle they were now releasing a strong contrast with their sculptured, thick shapes. But without the fog which had hidden the moors like a stuffy blanket until half an hour before, the cottage was now visible from the empty wooden building which, during the summer, served as both granary and stable to its inhabitants. With the next occupied house miles away, the whole area seemed deserted. Only the pale rays of light which filtered through its shutters revealed a presence inside.
He pulled up the hood of his windbreaker and buttoned it beneath his chin, then pulled the heavy door behind his back, secured it with the latch and covered the distance between the two buildings in a paced run, his heavy boots silently hitting the damp earth. The rain was thin, but blown as it was by the strong Northern gales, it hit his face like minuscule needles.
When he pushed the main door open, a draft of icy cold preceded him into the kitchen, making the woman’s back stiffen and her movements as she turned around towards the newcomer slightly robot-like.
She walked to him as he was locking the inclement weather outside, protecting that haven of warmth from them.
“Gahhh, it’s fucking cold out there”, he said, trying to prevent his teeth from chattering.
She put her warm hands to his cheeks, then lowered them, replacing his stiff, cold fingers with her flexible ones on the hood’s button and windbreaker’s zipper. She opened it and pushed it backwards, letting it slip over his shoulders and along his arms, and hung it on one of the hooks near the door.
“Did you manage to get the radio to work?” she said, moving her hands up and down his arms in an attempt to warm him.
“Yeah. It worked from the upper floor of the granary. The fog was thick all over the Highlands, and now a rainstorm is coming in from the North. Since we’ve found shelter, it made no sense for them to risk it tonight, so they’ll leave base tomorrow at dawn, if the winds calm down a bit. I have to radio the base at 6.”
His body was starting to take in the warmth of the small kitchen, where she had turned on the heater, and a lazy smile curved his lips as he gazed at her with his eyes finally wide open after the sprint in the cold.
“If we were one month more into the winter, we could end up trapped by 5 feet of snow on a night like this…”
She returned his smile and grasped his cold hands with hers, her brown eyes lightened up by sparks of gold.
“Sounds interesting…”
She stood on her toes and put her lips to his, firmly at first, then opening them and moving them on his mouth in a slow, sensual game which melted his heart and sent an aching arrow directly to his groin.
Then her lips stood still, but they did not leave his.
“Hey, I found some cans of tuna and peas. Wanna eat something?” she whispered.
Yes, he was hungry, but right now there was something he was even more eager to have. One thing he had learnt in those past few months was that, for reasons which were easy to understand, more difficult to solve, the moments in which her sensuality and desire overcame her rational defensive barriers were rarer than in the past, in their past.
Now there she was, trembling and supple in his arms, an unexpected and heart-warming surprise in that foreign place and weird situation, offering herself to him with her past trust. He didn’t want to lose that. He would rather starve than lose that.
“Maybe afterwards”, he answered softly, his tongue tickling the corners of her mouth before it found the tip of hers and tenderly touched it.
“There’s a bedroom in this cottage, I suppose?”
His tone was joking and light, but he was holding his breath in hope that she would choose not to interrupt their game and the shivers of growing excitement he could feel between them.
As she pressed her womb to his groin, he knew she wouldn’t, and a cry of victory resounded in his head.
“Yeah, with one double bed”, she replied. “Isn’t that strange for a CIA safehouse?”
His lips started to follow their favourite track from her mouth to her ear and neck. He knew that, whenever he whispered against her skin there, his breath send thrills through her spine, he could feel it in the way her breath always changed, and this was what he wanted right now to increase her desire.
“This is not a CIA safehouse”, he replied. “The safehouse was another 20 miles East, towards Inverness. We wouldn’t have made it with that car. This is the summer house of a friend.”
“This makes more sense.”
Yes, her breath was ragged. And the kiss she shared with him told him that she was past any rational control. She would be his, in this unplanned night they would spend together in a foreign land, in a foreign house, in a foreign bed.
The kiss accompanied them through the short corridor into the small bedroom, as their hungry hands started to lift their heavy pullovers above their heads. They landed on the quilt, bumping on the soft mattress, and rolled over each other twice, hard chest against soft bosom, taking in each other’s skin, breathing hard one against the other.***
His stomach grumbled with hunger, and his burning eyes were clear signs of want of sleep, besides the consequence of the cold winds of that night. But his busy mind and the joy of having her sleeping against his body, her back and buttocks cuddled in the natural haven his wide chest and hard legs formed, were more than enough to keep him from leaving that bed, and from falling asleep. Dinner and sleep could wait.
The sweet, heated images of what had just happened played again in his mind. Their passion had been like a raging fire, devouring, unstoppable, wild, yet consumed almost in haste. Why had they run so fast? What had triggered that… desperate hunger? What were they striving at?
He closed his eyes as if to clear his mind. Why this need to always analyse what was between them? Probably it had simply been the adrenalin which was still filling them after the mission. Or maybe that strong, urgent desire to be together had been lightened by the contrast between the hostile, cold weather and landscape outside and the welcoming warmth inside. But wouldn’t the cosy atmosphere of the cottage have called for a more gentle, slow love-making?
He let out a sigh. His more instinctive side was at odds with his more rational self again. He didn’t have the answer to those questions and, after all, why did he care? All he should do was cherish what they had shared, hoping, as always, that it would be one further step in bringing them closer again, another brick in that patient, slow process of reconstruction of what they once had which had started in her apartment a couple of months before.
Of what they had, and lost. Lost because of the cruel tricks of life and of the endlessly unfolding shadows of their crazy world. And yes, lost also because of his weakness and stupidity.
He sighed again, as the unpleasantly familiar weight started to press his chest, dissipating all warmer, lighter feelings from there. When would he finally stop feeling guilty about what had happened? When would that cold grip that enclosed his heart like the tall wall of a prison, preventing it from breaking out and confidently take its path again, finally disappear? What did he need to do to take it down?
As he always did when that slimy anxiety came over him, inevitably accompanied by unwelcome memories of his recent past, he tried to rationalize and put some order in his thoughts.
Guilt. That was the easiest feeling to identify. Guilt because he had married too soon, instead of waiting, instead of hoping. Hoping what? That what appeared like the truth would turn out to be a lie? When that lie, in the months of delirium which had followed Sydney’s death, had only seemed like the illusionary life buoy of a man who was losing his mind? He continued to tell himself that he had not betrayed Sydney, but the sense of betrayal was still there, a cumbersome presence between them.
Anger, and shame. How could he have been such an idiot, as to not see the bitch behind the angel face? His misjudgement and her betrayal still hurt like hell. How could he had been so mistaken about that woman?
Hate. By now, he knew he didn’t hate Lauren because she had made him feel like an idiot, and appear as such in front of all the people who mattered for him. He didn’t hate her because she had betrayed him and everybody else. He didn’t even hate her because she had almost killed Sydney – somehow, he had known he would never have allowed her to hurt Syd. He hated Lauren because she had brought him to the point of killing her, of wanting to kill her, and because he had felt good about it. And knowing that she would have shot Sydney if he hadn’t pulled that trigger did not help, because he knew what was in his heart. What he had considered as his indestructible sense of morality till then had been totally discarded by that woman, and he was still trying to adapt to the new image of himself that that disruption had laid bare. This was what he was trying to say to that nurse in Sarajevo, in a desperate attempt to make Sydney understand what he had gone through, and why he had done what he did. Yes, because it was Sydney he was really talking to in that bar.
Fear. This was the most difficult thread to grasp in the confused tangle of his mind. He was scared, but of what? That he would hurt Sydney again? That she would not be able to love the new man he had become? Not in the way she used to love him? Well, he had better accept that fact. Ever since they had started … seeing each other again, she had never told him that she loved him. Not once.
There. He knew the single components of his anguish so well, and yet he could not defeat it. It was as if he knew the anatomy of every limb and every organ of the black beast which haunted him, but was never able to reach its heart.
But in that cold night in the Scottish Highlands, that last bit of knowledge he needed to finally overcome it and regain total control of his life seemed closer than ever. Just like in that smoky room in Sarajevo, when he had felt close to retrieving the last piece of the puzzle which would have finally allowed him to turn the page, and start to forget.
Something he had said that night…
He slid his right arm from under Sydney’s side and rolled on his back, smoothing his brows with his fingers.
Still, he had regained a lot already, he should not complain. She was not rejecting him, nor hating him. She was there, with him. True, she had never spoken about her feelings after they had got back together…. But then, had they got back together? What was this taking things slowly that they were talking about? That she was talking about? They had sex, true. No, it was more than sex. They made love. But it was not like their lovemaking of those past days, when she trusted him, when she hung to him, when he felt she opened up to him and gave herself to him totally, body and soul.
The days before she had died. The days before he had married Lauren.
He knew she still felt betrayed, and he knew she was afraid he would hurt her again. What he didn’t know was if she could ever forgive him. This was his worst fear. He was too scared to even ask. He was too scared to do anything.
So he simply lived on, hoping that time would cure things. Waiting for and taking joy at every sign, no matter how small, that she was steering towards him again.
But the dark beast was ready to leap out of the most hidden recesses of his mind and nail his claws into his swelling heart whenever he started to feel relieved. How could she forgive him, when he couldn’t forgive himself?
And he knew very well what she found more difficult to forgive, and forget. More than his getting married during those two years, it was his thinking that he still loved Lauren and that he still wanted to be her husband, after she had come back. He knew she had continued to suffer every time she had seen him with Lauren, every time she had been with him knowing he now belonged to another woman.
The worst part to him was knowing that he could have stopped it before he did. He had continued to hurt Sydney even after he had understood that he didn’t want Lauren anymore, that Sydney was the woman he belonged to. And he remembered the exact moment when that happened…***
There had been dinner at an elegant restaurant, one of those Lauren liked so much, refined food served by formal waiters in a classy room crowded by posh people.
There had been wine, good French wine, several more glasses than needed.
There had been her fingers on his neck when they had come home, and on his belly, sliding between the buttons of his shirt.
And they were in their bedroom and had fallen on their bed, still dressed, and had freed each other of their elegant clothes in a frenzy.
And now, her soft bosom lay naked beneath him, and her skin was soft under his fingers, her sighs and sensual movements an unmistakeable sign of her desire.
But, despite the wine, the gap between his mind and the actions of his hands and mouth was widening, and a feeling of … uncomfortableness was growing inside him. This was not making him feel good as it should have. Worse: it didn’t feel right. It felt plain wrong.
His hand stood still on her breast, where his thumb had mindlessly played with her nipple for a while, and he rested his forehead on the pillow, next to her head, for a few seconds. Then he rolled on the side and lay on his back, his eyes wide open, glaring at the white ceiling and the Venetian lamp he had never liked.
He knew the question would come, he was waiting for it, knowing he would be incapable of giving even a make-do, fake answer.
And it came.
“What’s wrong, Michael?”
Her tone was more understanding than he had expected, which made him feel guilty, besides empty, and sick.
It had happened again. He could lie to himself during the day, say to himself that things were simple, and right, but at night, when he shared their bed, and started to make love to her, the truth would suddenly swim to the surface with the urgency of a woman who has risked drowning and now seeks life-saving air.
The strong feeling that he was in the wrong place, in the wrong moment, doing the wrong thing, living somebody’s else life. Not his.
It had happened with Alice, it was happening again with Lauren.
He could not be the man who had sworn to live all his life with her, loving and protecting her, and yet he was. He lifted his hand to his forehead, trying to flatten his lines with his fingertips, as if by doing so he could disentangle his thoughts.
Her voice startled him.
“It’s Sydney.”
She was still waiting for an answer, he had simply forgotten it. He had forgotten that she was there next to him, in their bed. And hearing that name uttered by her now sharper voice triggered his immediate reaction.
“It’s not Sydney. It’s us.”
He didn’t dare look at her for fear that she could read things in his eyes. Things he didn’t want her to read.
“It’s us… since Sydney’s return”, she said.
Unwillingly, she had given him a hint to turn the conversation to his advantage and avoid being cornered by her pressing questioning.
.
“You’re saying it as if it were a bad thing, that she has come back, that she was not dead as we all thought.”
But he should have known she was to smart to let him sidetrack her so easily.
“The point is, Michael, who has come back? The woman you were in love with, or the woman you still love?”
He had not answered. He had just left the bed and the room. And, although the word “divorce” was only first uttered weeks after that, he had known then, as he knew now, that their marriage had ended in that precise moment.
He should have called Sydney, right then. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t talked to her about him and Lauren for days, weeks after that night, and this was probably the worst remorse he had.
Growing increasingly restless, he stood up from the bed, put his trousers and pullover on and headed for the kitchen, leaving Sydney asleep under the quilt.***
She woke up with a sense of privation: the warm surface against which she was resting was not there anymore. She was still warm and comfortable under the quilt, but she was alone. She knew it even before exploring the mattress behind her back with her left hand. He was gone.
She listened carefully and heard the clinking noise of cutlery against a tin. He was eating in the kitchen. She could join him, she was hungry too, but she didn’t feel like leaving the warmth of that bed, and of the memories that still filled it. She turned round and pressed her face into his pillow, breathing in the familiar and beloved smell he had left there.
She moaned, satisfied, stretching her limbs like a kitten. The sensuality of their intercourse was still with her as if he were still there next to her, as if she could still touch him, and kiss him.
She always felt fulfilled after making love with him, but slowly, a familiar sense of uneasiness sneaked in into that bed and into her mind. Something which started to bother her as soon as the physical satisfaction simmered, something so flimsy that she could not stop it long enough to fully put it in focus.
But she knew it was there. And that stormy, windy night, in that foreign bed and country, it was stronger than ever. Like a bug. Like a memory you cannot place. Like a sound you hear but can’t understand the origin of.
So she stepped back a bit, and thought of her feelings that night. For a moment when he had entered the cottage, pale and cold after facing the storm, she had suddenly felt transported three years back in time. He had looked like the old Vaughn she knew, the Vaughn she felt like protecting, but from whom she felt protected at the same time. The Vaughn who would never hurt her.
It was not the fist time it happened. And every time, she clung to that feeling, and to that man, in a desperate attempt to stop it from vanishing again.
But it always did. The two innocent, trusting lovers they had been did not exist anymore. They emerged like memories from a distant past, with the same inconsistent, bitter-sweet texture of a happy dream, and then dissolved again, leaving behind them two imperfect lovers in the flesh.
Two lovers who tried to fill the distance between them with their heated passion. But when that temporary bridge was gone, the cleft was still there, life a steep canyon, and they helplessly stared at each other from the two opposite rims.
They still wanted each other, loved each other, but seemed unable to fill that distance and be close again, as they once where.
As her jumbled thoughts unrolled in front of her, like a film whose plot you do not know, an even more painful doubt hit her like the sting of a bee. Loved each other. Yes, she still loved him, had never stopped. Not for one moment, not even when he seemed happily married to Lauren. She had loved him even when he belonged to another woman, and spent his nights in a bed which was not hers.
But what about him? Did he still love her as she knew he did before she disappeared for two years? Or was it just passion, what was left between them? He had never spoken words of love since she had come back. “I was so in love with you”, this is what he had said in that French class. Past tense.
A sound of steps in the corridor dragged her from her thoughts. By the time she turned towards the door, he was there, staring at her, a smile brightening his beautiful face.
“You’re awake? Do you want to eat something?”
She stretched her limbs and returned his smile.
“I’m not sure …”
She hoped he would come to the bed and hug her. She needed him to hug her.
And he did step to the bed and sat there, close to her knees, but he didn’t bend down to her.
Her need to restore at least a physical contact between them was so strong that she sat up and posed a quick kiss on his lips. There, close again now. But not enough.
She sighed.
“What is it?” he asked.
Vaughn. Always sensitive to her slightest change of pace, mood, gaze. And yet, incapable to see the elephant in the room, as Weiss would say. Incapable, or unwilling to.
She had told him that she wanted to take things slowly. He had never asked more, she had never said more. Maybe it was time to have that talk, even if she didn’t know yet what exactly she wanted to tell him, or ask him. But maybe it was time to start.
Now, that they were away from the hurly-burly of everyday life. From cell phones and pagers. From fathers, sisters, and colleagues. From duty… and excuses.
Both hands. Take your courage with both hands, Syd. You won’t go anywhere with him if you don’t.
“Vaughn…” How often did she start her questions with his name, when they were difficult ones? It was like a small trick her mind had to gain time, or break the ice. She was perfectly aware of it but could not prevent it.
“Can I ask you a question?”
Delaying it even more.
“Sure.”
She took a deep breath, unsure where to start. And uncertain that she should start at all.
“Do you sometimes feel something weird, between us?”
No, that was not the question she wanted to ask, the one she desperately needed to have an answer to. This was taking things cautiously, from a distance. But it was OK.
“What do you mean?”
Speaking of gaining time…
But fair enough.
He looked at her, and she thought she saw traces of fear in his green eyes. No, Vaughn, she thought. I’m not trying to break up with you. I don’t want less. I want more. Only, I don’t know if we can have more, not yet.
Why were words so easy to utter in one’s mind, and so difficult to say aloud?
Try again, Sydney.
“Vaughn… I think we won’t be able to go anywhere, or to build anything solid, and real, if we don’t sort things out.”
Talk, she wanted to talk, Vaughn thought. Maybe she was right. Or maybe words would hurt them even more. For some reason, he had thought he would be the one to start that talk, if he ever felt the need to come to it. Not the other way round. Now, he didn’t know how to tackle this.
“Do you think talking about it will help?”
Despite the words sounding harsh, his tone wasn’t. On the contrary, she felt a helplessness in it which made her want to hug him close and tell him that no, they didn’t need to talk about anything if he didn’t want to, that everything would simply be alright with time.
But she knew this was simply the easiest way. And Sydney Bristow never chose the easiest way. Not when the truth lay elsewhere.
“I don’t know”, she confessed. “But understanding would. It would help.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I told you, between us…”
“No, Syd. If you want to talk, let’s talk. So, why don’t you tell me what you really want to know?”
Was she ready for this? Why couldn’t she have waited a bit longer? For another occasion? Why risking spoiling this night they had together?
Spoil? If they really could bring out the unsaid and put it behind their shoulders, it wouldn’t be spoilt. They were about to open the door to the secret chamber. Now it was time to see if they were both brave enough to step in.***
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PollyM.
User deleted
“You’re right. It’s a two-way street. I’ve been keeping a lot to myself, too.”
“We both have.”
“But we can’t…”
“I know. And maybe you’re right. I mean, we can at least try. So, go ahead.”
She lowered her eyes, she had to, but she found the courage to lift them again and look at him when she finally uttered that name, a name they had chosen to avoid for all those months.
“Lauren…”
“Yes…”
He waited, his eyes into her eyes.
“Why did you marry her?”
She was there naked, in front of him. He admired her courage in admitting her doubts, and showing him her pain.
He had asked himself the same question so many times, and he thought he finally had found the answer. He had loved Lauren like a man can love a glass of water he finds in the desert when he’s dying of thirst. But he couldn’t tell her that. He doubted she would understand.
How could he explain, then? How could he not lie to her without hurting her? He probably couldn’t. After all, he had not left Lauren the minute Sydney had returned, this was a fact which could not be changed. He had stood by her like an idiot, thinking it was the right thing to do, thinking that his present life had a priority over the past life he had considered lost for two years.
And all the time, the wife he thought he owned loyalty to had manoeuvred behind his back and betrayed him. This was the thing that burnt the most, having caused so much hurt for nothing.
But that was him. What hurt Sydney the most was, that he had married another woman less than two years after her death.
“I loved her. Or better, when I met her and felt something inside me after months of… nothing, I thought I loved the woman I saw in front of me. And clung to that image like a man who has risked drowning clings to a life-buoy. Thinking about it now - and believe me, I thought about it a lot… how I could be so deceived… how I could be so … gullible… I …”
He paused, at a loss for words. No, he would never find a plausible enough reason for her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, her tone just a touch harsher than her usual one.
“It means…they chose their victim well, Lauren and the Covenant. A broken man. A disillusioned man. With you gone… But yes, this will just sound like excuses to you. I know you still think I gave up on us…”
“No, I don’t. I told you it was only…”
“At least part of you does. And will always do. And I’m afraid that nothing I can do or say now can ever change that.”
She had already seen that expression of frustration on his face after she had come back. It belonged to the new Vaughn she had found, a different man from the one who was planning their weekend in Santa Barbara. Different, and yet the same.
Seeing that she said nothing, he went on.
“I know you won’t like this, and it’s difficult for me to speak of her in these terms, considering what we know now but… Lauren was the first person that made me feel alive after your … supposed death. But I think what you should keep in mind is, if you had been at my side, I wouldn’t have given Lauren Reed a single thought, or gaze.”
She looked at him, her eyes wide and her expression attentive like a child who listens to a story. He saw no trace of disbelief on her pensive face.
“OK”, she finally said. “But… this is what happened when you thought I was dead. What about after I had returned? You stayed with her, Vaughn… I was the third wheel. I was the odd man out. I was the one who was rejected… How can I ever forget that you only decided to dump her after my father told you she was Covenant?”
Jack. This was another hard pill to swallow. Of all the people he had revealed himself to as a puppy, Jack Bristow was the one which incensed him the most. But right now he didn’t have the right to protest.
“No, wait, this is not true, and you know it. At the beginning… There was my present, and suddenly there was my past again. I think… it just felt wrong to discard Lauren because she had suddenly become a second choice. I’m… just not like that. Or maybe I’m just an idiot who needs time to acknowledge his mistakes. But after that… I told you I wanted to break up with Lauren before finding out about her betrayal.”
“Yes, but then you changed your mind again!”
They both remembered that night, that phone call, and it was still painful. He gazed down at the bed, then lifted his eyes again.
“Damn… They were playing me around. They were playing with my life, with our life. I know, I was a dumb-ass… I know you must see me with different eyes after that, how could you not? I do!”
The frustration had turned into anger, and despise for himself. She didn’t want to see him like this. She lifted her hand and put it on his cheek, the first physical contact since they had started to talk.
“I don’t want you to be hard on yourself. This is not why I wanted to talk about this. I just need to understand…”
He turned his face and kissed her palm, then they both shifted in the bed so that they were now sitting with their knees and forelegs touching.
Now, he was the one with the back against the bedpost. He put the pillow to a vertical position against the wooden structure and the wall, and rested his head there.
“Have you ever thought that Lauren and the Covenant could have killed Senator Reed because they didn’t want me to divorce her? Because I can’t help but think it. I mean… I know it sounds crazy but… You remember when I broke up with Alice, the first year we were working together?”
“I do.”
“And then I was back with her… around the time her father became sick and then died. I’ve always wondered… What if the Covenant knew that? I’m sure I never told Lauren about it… but maybe they knew…”
“Maybe. It’s funny you’ve brought up Alice, though…”
“Why?”
“Because that’s exactly the point, in a way. You had feelings for me, but you stayed with them, so maybe I’m…”
“What?”
She didn’t go on, her mouth twisting as if denying what she was about to say.
“What? Second best? You think you were second best? Never. How could you even think that?”
He shifted his leg around her, bringing her closer to him.
“What if it happens again?” she asked shyly.
“What?” he said at first, confused. Then he understood what she meant, for how irrational it may sound to him. But to her, it was not.
“How could it happen again? If you’re here with me? Because you want to be here with me, don’t you, Syd? I mean you said you wanted to take things slowly, and I think I understood why at the beginning. But now? What do you want to do now?”
Her face was distressed, and in pain, and he didn’t know what to do, or what to say, anymore, to ease her pain, and solve her doubts.
“I love you, Sydney. I hope you are not doubting that. Because I’ve never loved Alice or Lauren, not even remotely, like I love you. Nothing that we’ve been through has changed that, and nothing ever will.”
A tear rolled down her cheek, and he suddenly realized these were the first words she had really wanted to hear that night, maybe the only words. And he couldn’t believe the joy and relief he saw in her eyes. He never thought she doubted that. He thought she had doubts about him, about the man she had found when she had come back, not about his feelings. But she had.
He lifted himself and bent towards her. Their lips met, wet by her tears, drinking their saltiness, before his fingertips lovingly tried to dry them from her cheeks.
“How could you ever have doubted that?” he said, when they finally parted.
She gave him a timid smile, her eyes bright with the unshed tears and with sheer happiness.
But for him, there was still something left to say. She might have found the answers she needed, but he hadn’t. The beast was still there, in the shadows.
“Syd… Do you think you will be ever able to forget, and forgive?”
And he suddenly knew it. There it was, the heart of the beast. Not something he didn’t know, or understand, but something he needed to ask, and to hear. Sharing the pain, the doubts. Curing each other’s wounds, and beginning again from there. Hopefully. If they could.
Was this to be the night when the beast would finally be defeated?***
She passed the back of her hand on her eyes, to remove the last traces of wetness, and swallowed twice. Then she put her hand on his, and their fingers crossed.
Now it was her time to speak.
“I won’t lie to you, Vaughn. I think part of that pain will always be with me. Images… Alice arriving at the hospital and introducing herself as your girlfriend, when you were sick… I know…” she added quickly, preceding his retort. “It was a long time ago, and there was officially nothing between us at the time, but…”
She sighed, before going on.
“Or when I saw the wedding ring around your finger, in Hong Kong. And the images of you and Lauren together, those I have seen and those I have simply imagined, which are the worst ones. So, will I be able to forget? I don’t know. Do I want to forget? I don’t think so.”
“Why? Is it a way to punish me?”
She moved her head in a quick sign of denial.
“No, not at all. What I’m saying is, what happened to us changed us, made us the people we are now. We are not the same people we were three years ago. And we can’t go back. This is what we have, and what we should learn to accept if we want things to work between us. Besides… I’m not sure the change was totally negative.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you talked to that nurse, in that bar in Sarajevo… I was hearing you talk about your pain, and torn feelings of love and hate, for the first time. But I was also hearing myself… talking about my mother, and what she did to me.”
“What are you saying, that Lauren brought us closer?”
“She didn’t, until tonight. She was still threatening to draw us apart. But now… yes, this is what I’m saying. But only if we won’t let her be between us anymore.”
Their fingers straightened, then laced again, in a stronger bond.
“As for forgiving…” she said, and soon paused. A few second passed before she went on. “I thought I had forgiven… I realized over time I hadn’t… Now I’m starting to.” Her eyes were into his eyes, piercing into his green depths. “But Vaughn… I don’t need to. Because I love you.”
A half smile shaped his lips.
“Still?” he asked softly.
She nodded, lifting her hand to his chest, then to his neck.
“Yes. And I want to be with you. This is the only thing that matters.”
He pulled her close to him and held her against him.
Could it be so easy? Coming to terms with their past and start again? Was this all she needed from him? He had always thought the price to pay for his mistakes would be higher. He had feared she would find it more difficult to love the changed man who had rung at her door after Lauren’s death, and that crazy summer, after they had started to work together again.
Maybe, that man was not so different from the one she had fallen in love with after all. Maybe he was just older, battered by life, hopefully wiser. And Sydney Bristow still loved him, and she still wanted him to love her, and be with him.
“I’m not going to lose you this time, I won’t let you go anywhere, promise”, he thought. But he didn’t say it aloud. It was a promise to himself, and more than saying it to her, he would show it to her. “Just give me time, Syd.”
He stroked her soft, smooth hair, her face lying on his chest. She lifted it slightly and caught a glimpse of him from there, then rested herself on her left arm and reassumed a sitting position.
“Your pullover…”
“My pullover what?”
“It’s hard against my skin.”
He saw the spark in her eyes before she went on.
“You’re wearing too many rough clothes to come with me under the quilt”, she said, thrusting her long, naked legs under the soft cover.
“But if you take them off…”
A big smile appeared on his face. She was teasing him. How long had it been, since he had last seen her tease him?
He stood from the bed and took off his jumper and heavy trousers with swift movements, before joining her again in the bed, in the space she had made for him, lifting the quilt to let him in.
Their legs crossed under the cover.
“I’ll play with you, Sydney”, he thought, “as long as you like.”
No haste this time. No fear that the desire to be together would fade, replaced by doubts and shadows from the past.
He pressed her down in the soft pillows with his weight and covered her lips with his.
“Just give me time.”THE END
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»Kartika«.
User deleted
Oh noooo!! Io e l'inglese abbiamo litigato XD
Lo so che è vergognoso ma non riesco a farmi stare dentro la testa più di una ventina di parole...
Che dire... ti faccio comunque i complimenti per il fatto di essere stata registrata su un forum americano!! Quanto vorrei capirci qualcosa anch'io.... -
PollyM.
User deleted
Gli Americani hanno un paese molto più grande del nostro, sono molti più di noi, e attirano sui loro forum anche tutti gli anglofoni (quindi inglesi, sudafricani, australiani) più chi sa districarsi con l'inglese. Quindi, hanno forum normalmente enormi 
Per chi scrive fan-fiction o racconti, l'ideale Quel forum su cui postavo aveva, se non ricordo male, 21.000 iscritti 
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CloseAlias Sydney/Vaugh fanfiction |
