a kind of life

One day she was gone.

It didn't really surprise him. No matter how good she'd been at the job, she'd wanted a different life once. A simple kind of life, really, teaching, living with a man who loved her and didn't have to hide it, a man who didn't live in the shadows. Having a family, a real one, without the secrets that had shaped hers all unknowing.

She hadn't taken anything with her. Her apartment seemed perfectly untouched, only the clothes she'd worn to walk away in gone. Slacks, blouse, sweater, heels, the sort of thing women wear everyday, nothing like the wild disguises she often assumed on missions.

Her ID showed up in an LAX garbage can, the first clue she'd done anything other than just walk away.

They were all seated at the conference table at the LA HQ: Jack, Dixon, Marshall, Vaughn, Weiss, when Kendall stalked in. They were all weary. They'd spent the night looking for her and come up empty.

Kendall handed the ID card to Jack., who looked at his daughter's photo on the California Driver's Licence, and then closed his eyes tightly. "We'll find out what happened, Jack," Kendall assured Bristow. Jack just shook his head, eyes still closed, mouth in a thin tight line. The man didn't show his pain beyond that.

Vaughn couldn't think of anything to say or do, but Marshall, awkward, nervous, babbling Marshall, patted the grey haired agent's shoulder.

"You know Sydney, Mr. B," Marshall said. "She can get out of anything."

Anything but this life, Vaughn thought to himself, but maybe she had. He hoped so.

The CIA kept looking for her, she was after all a top field agent, but discovered nothing for some time. Jack Bristow went on doing his job, his eyes just a little duller, his step somehow slower and heavier, his words colder and harsher than before. No one talked about his missing daughter to him.

Vaughn went on with his life too. He gave Alice the ring she'd mooned over in the jewelry store window and let her get together with his mother to plan the wedding. He went to hockey games with Weiss, walked his dog (but never down to the pier where he'd met with Sydney so many times) and took over handling Marcus Dixon in the field. Weiss got Healey, Sydney's replacement. Months passed.

He didn't think of her unless someone mentioned her. No one talked about her much to him. He'd been her handler, but more than that, he'd been her friend. Everyone knew he'd searched as hard as Jack had for any clue to what had happened to her. Except for Weiss and Jack, no one knew Sydney and Vaughn had been lovers for a time or that it had been over when she disappeared. It didn't mean Vaughn looked harder for her anyway.

Vaughn sometimes wondered if that had been part of why she went, though. Not that he thought he'd hurt her so much when he backed away from relationship or that losing a lover could have pushed her over the edge, but that he'd been part of it. He thought that. He didn't doubt that Sydney had loved him, once. Being together had become too painful in time though, maintaining all the pretenses, and they had slowly allowed the relationship to cool, deliberately grown distant so they could go on working together. He had, and Sydney let him. They were both professionals, after all. Emotions weren't allowed to interfere.

He thought about how cynical she'd become about the job over the last months before she went. She'd always had an idealistic image of the CIA, of serving her country, that had survived years as a double agent working within SD-6. Or maybe those years were why she'd held onto that innocent belief in what she did, because the Agency had seemed good in contrast with SD-6 and Sloane's ruthlessness and deceit. She'd wanted to believe in something so she could go on and she needed to do that so she could avenge Danny, her murdered fiancé. Once she had though, the blinders had come off, and Sydney began to see the CIA wasn't as different as she'd thought.

Her father must have sensed the change in her too. Jack had watched his daughter in each debriefing, his face a mask, with eyes that were sadder and tireder than anyone's should be. But Jack, like Vaughn, hadn't said anything. As an agent, Sydney provided nothing to criticize, and Jack Bristow had too tenuous a relationship with his daughter to speak to her of personal issues. Vaughn kept quiet because he'd forfeited his rights when he ended the relationship between them.

And Sydney drifted farther and farther away, saving her rare smiles for Dixon and Marshall, the ones who hadn't failed or betrayed her. But Dixon and Marshall, though decent and good hearted men both, couldn't give Sydney the things she needed.

So one day she wasn't there.

Vaughn didn't think anything terrible had happened to her. Just that she'd decided to quit and done it the very best way she knew how, so that nothing could come back after her. He liked to think of her some place quiet, some place she didn't have to hide the serene beauty of her face, the gentle and kind side of her, where she had those simple things she'd longed to have.

Life and the job went on.

Kendall charged into the briefing room on a Friday after the latest in a series of failed missions directed by Vaughn or Weiss. They'd only succeeded partially in the two that Jack had advised on thanks to Marshall's clever gadgets. Dixon's new partner, Healey, had been shot and remained in the infirmary.

The rest of them were prepared for a brutal debrief from Kendall, but the rage on his face took Vaughn aback. Despite their failure, it seemed out of proportion. Beside him at the table, Weiss scrunched down, muttering, "What crawled up his ass?" Vaughn sat up straighter.

Kendall threw a file folder down on the black table top between them. The edges of several photographs slid out, but not enough to identify their subjects.

"Did you know about this!?" Kendall snarled at Jack. His glare turned on Vaughn, Weiss, and Dixon next. "Did any of you?"

"Know about what, sir?" Vaughn asked apprehensively.

Kendall stabbed a finger at the folder.

Jack slid it closer and opened it, staring down at the pictured woman like a man turned to stone. He quickly paged through the rest of the pictures, then slapped the folder closed. Only the violence of that movement betrayed any emotion.

"No."

He pushed the folder toward Vaughn.

"I didn't know."

Jack's voice sounded like gravel was being ground into an open wound, like he'd swallowed ground glass. Vaughn didn't want to look at the photographs. He couldn't make himself move. It was Weiss who opened the file and looked at it, while he stared straight ahead. He flinched when Weiss began swearing.

"I can't believe it," Weiss said. "I can't believe ... Damn it."

Kendall stared at Vaughn.

"Agent Vaughn?"

Vaughn looked down at last.

Sydney's lovely face shown from the color shot, caught somewhere sunny by a long lens. She was tanned, smiling, wearing a filmy white shirt-dress that glowed in the sunlight. Her hair was loose. It looked like she was on a boat, there was a stretch of blue water beyond her and then a slice of a town with the sort of whitewashed, sea side architecture seen along the French Riviera.

None of that would have infuriated Kendall or broken Jack. It was the other figure in the picture that had done that, made Weiss curse, made Vaughn's stomach clench with a sudden excess of bile. The man in the open, pale shirt and faded jeans, right next to Sydney.

They all recognized the blond, blue-eyed man standing with her, one hand tucking a strand of Sydney's hair behind her ear with the surety of someone who touched her often.

Sark.

The CIA had gone after him, just like they'd gone after Sloane and then Irina Derevko, after they shut down SD-6. Sydney had hated him, or said she did. Sark had gone up against her more than once, so often they'd each come perilously close to killing each other, then he'd slipped away each time. He was an international criminal, a terrorist, an assassin, and most disturbingly of all, Irina Derevko's right hand man. But no one had heard of him for months.

In fact, he'd disappeared at the same Sydney had.

"Agent Vaughn?"

Vaughn swallowed hard.

"No, sir. I didn't—I never knew about—this," he choked out.

God, how long had she been with Sark? Since she disappeared? Before? When, when had it started? Vaughn felt sick and furious.

Dixon looked at the pictures next. They all showed Sark and Sydney together, one of the two of them at an outdoor café sharing a meal with Irina. That was the one that made Vaughn pinch the bridge of his nose, not sure if he was trying to stave off a headache or tears. She was with Sark. She was with Irina, that manipulative, murdering bitch. That was the one that got to Jack too, the one that made him take in a harsh breath, as though he'd taken a hard blow.

Of course, he had.

Sydney hadn't left the CIA to find her simple kind of life. She'd gone to her mother, the woman that had betrayed Jack, the CIA, even Sydney, who had twisted and warped the lives of everyone around her with her lies and schemes. The woman who had, by the way, killed Vaughn's own father on KGB orders. God, was this how Jack had felt when he first found out his wife Laura was actually a KGB plant, real name Irina Derevko?

Vaughn squeezed his eyes shut.

No, it must have been worse for Jack. He'd married her, had a daughter with her, had still been in love with her. Vaughn and Sydney had been done. He didn't love her, hadn't even before this hideous revelation.

Dixon's dark face betrayed nothing. His features were another mask, a burnished creation of high cheekbones, arched nose, deep set eyes, wide mouth unsmiling. He leafed through the photos, studying Sydney's expression, then Sark's, their body language, the tableau with Irina.

"Agent Dixon?" Kendall demanded. "Do you see anything you need to tell us?"

Dixon raised his gaze to look at the irate LA director.

"Sark and Sydney are together. Whether they're with Derevko isn't as clear. The body language is tense. Sark seems almost hostile, for him," Dixon said. He almost smiled. "Not that he ever gave away much."

"You don't seem surprised," Vaughn accused.

Dixon shrugged.

"At SD-6, after Sloane introduced him, he'd watch her. I could see Sydney intrigued him. I doubt he'd ever come up against anyone but Derevko who really matched him. And he knew she was a double, analysis has proven Geiger never knew about Server 47. Sark told Sydney about it knowing she would feed the info to the CIA."

"And that didn't bother you?" Weiss asked, curious, not as wounded as Jack or Vaughn, not as involved.

"No, I thought it might help her if she came up against him."

Dixon sighed.

"I believe they were sleeping together before Sydney left, but it never impacted a mission and I felt she deserved something better than just being alone."

"You knew she was sleeping with that—that monster!?" Vaughn exploded, rounding on Dixon, coming up out of his seat and meaning to slam his fist into the other agent's face. The glossy photographs slid in a scatter over the conference table. Dixon pushed his chair back, ready to defend himself. Weiss dragged Vaughn back down though.

"Stop it, Mike! It's done. You think Dixon could have changed anything, except pushing her into leaving sooner?" Weiss yelled at him, holding Vaughn in his seat. "Face it, Mike, you blew it! You couldn't deal with her, couldn't deal with who her mother was, couldn't deal with her being able to kick your ass in the field. You walked on her, so you get no say in whatever she did to get by." Weiss was as angry as Vaughn had ever seen him. He gestured to the photographs. "Even if it was this."

"I can't accept it," Vaughn said. "Why Sark?"

"Sark ... Sark's a killer, but Sydney's killed too. He can keep up with her. Maybe he's giving her what you couldn't," Weiss finished. "Christ, if they're working together it's no wonder half our missions are failing."

"Interesting analysis, Agent Weiss," Kendall commented. He looked over them all, finishing with Vaughn. "Don't think I didn't catch that you were involved with Ms. Bristow, either, Agent Vaughn. You broke Agency regulations and initiated a personal relationship with an agent you were handling. That very well may have precipitated her subsequent defection. Expect a reprimand and possible suspension once this has been evaluated."

Kendall stormed out, even angrier than he'd been on arrival.

"Oh God."

Vaughn dropped his face into his hands.

He heard Jack rise, the sound of his chair scraping back, followed by Dixon's. Weiss stayed beside him.

Jack's voice echoed through Vaughn's head.

"Do you think she's happy, Dixon?"

A shuffle of paper.

"Look at her. Look at him."

"Dear God," Jack whispered.

Vaughn knew what he was seeing. He'd seen it too. The light in Sydney's brown eyes, the smile on her lips, those had once been for him. Now they were for Sark. She loved the bastard.

She was gone forever.

Because that same light lit the blond assassin's gaze when it rested on Sydney, that same soft smile met her's, a look no one had ever seen on Sark before.

In the last photo, Sydney was standing in Sark's loose embrace, leaning back against him. Her head was tipped up and he was smiling into her eyes. Neither of them were in disguise. They were just two people who were together, watching the sunset from the deck of a boat. Sark's eyes were alive in a way Vaughn wouldn't have believed before.

Sark loved her.

Sydney would never betray that love. She would never have let go of Vaughn, never have stopped loving him, if that hadn't been what he made it clear he wanted. Vaughn knew that. He knew Sark was too bloody smart to give her up now he had her. Sark in love would be twice as ruthless as Sark just doing his job. Sark wouldn't choose duty over Sydney either. Sydney would be first with the assassin. Maybe that was why Sydney had made him her choice.

Maybe it wasn't such a bad choice Sydney had made. Sark would be faithful to her, Vaughn thought ruefully. He was strangely confident of that. He opened his eyes, looked at that last picture once more, then tucked it away in the folder with the rest.

Weiss patted Vaughn's shoulder.

"Sorry, Mike."

"What kind of life can she have with him?" Jack asked.

"Jack," Dixon said. "Let it go."

Aching grief for own his dead wife sounded in Dixon's voice. It was that loss that let Dixon accept what had been such a cruel blow to the rest of them. Dixon knew about being alone. Vaughn had Alice to go home to each night. Jack had his hatred of Irina to keep him company. Weiss had his girlfriends. Marshall lived in his head. Even Dixon still had his children.

But Sydney had been alone and Sark had been, too.

It was that simple, that complicated.

She wasn't coming back.

"You were right," Vaughn said to Weiss.

No one wanted to be alone.

-fin-