Fic: "the elements" (Alias, S/V, 1/6)
"the elements"
Chapter: {fire}
Summary: After an angry separation, Vaughn and Sydney's lives come crashing together again.
Category: Sydney/Vaughn angst
Rating: PG-13
Canon: "The Solution"
Thanks: to Souris, for telling me this didn't suck. :)
As a rule, Los Angeles gets no rain in the summer. The days are sticky-hot, with the oven-like glass buildings and sizzling sidewalks bringing an unbearable, oppressive heat to the city. Some take refuge at the beach, though even beside the promising blue water of the Pacific, the white sand is hot enough to blister the soles of bare feet. Others are even unluckier, forced to entomb themselves in the searing city, sweating through their crisply ironed dress shirts and freshly pressed business suits. Everything is burning and sweltering and overbearing, as if the sun itself is pushing down just on Los Angeles, evaporating every drop of moisture and setting everything on fire.
It seems as if this Los Angeles July will be like any other. The air conditioner in the Land Rover picks the hottest day of the year so far to falter, so the back of Sydney's coolest blue dress shirt is soaked with sweat even before she arrives at Credit Dauphine. Feeling awkward and filthy as she parks in her usual spot, she grabs a hair tie from the never-used ashtray and pulls the damp, loose strands off her perspiration-slicked neck. She sighs, eager to get inside the building, to the stark offices that are always cold. She never thought she would be rushing to get inside this building.
"Morning, Sydney," a fellow employee greets kindly. She smiles in return; George, a middle-aged accountant on the second floor, actually does work at the beard-bank sector of Credit Dauphine. The people on the other floors have no idea what happens on hers. "Surviving the weather?"
"Marginally," she replies, smiling carefully. "How's Thelma?"
"Good, good. She's home with Richie today; can you imagine having chicken pox in July?"
She cringes, making a mental note to send something over for George's nine-year-old son. "I had them at his age, too. It was in February, though. Tell him I said hello?"
"Of course. He'll appreciate it."
"I'm glad. I'll see you later, George." She pushes the "up" button on the elevator. "Have a good day. Don't melt."
"There's really no way to avoid that today, is there?" he asks jovially as she gets in to the elevator. The doors slide closed in front of her, and she presses the button for her floor, leaning back against the chilled metal walls in relief.
It's an unconscious routine for her now. Through the white room, into the grim office, over to her desk: she doesn't even think about the mechanics of it all. The ramifications of it all, however, the reasons for her being there, never leave her mind. She's always completely conscious of her disgust for this place and her mission to end it. Today she's grateful for the coolness but still would rather that none of this ever existed, even if it meant that she had to sit in her car in traffic in July without air conditioning for an extra hour every morning.
At ten o'clock, she sits through a second briefing meeting with Sloane, Dixon, and her father about the upcoming mission to New Zealand; at eleven, she visits Marshall for information on a new tracking device they want her to take to Auckland; at twelve-thirty, she breaks for lunch and leaves the blessed comfort of the familiar-yet-unnerving office. She goes to a local deli to pick up a sandwich and drives quickly to the park, trying to pick up a refreshing breeze through the open window. The park is deserted except for a brave group of grade school boys playing a game of makeshift baseball with a tennis ball and a cardboard packaging tube.
She collapses onto a bench, trying to remember if she put on sunblock before she left the apartment that morning. Her skin isn't as young as it used to be; thirty-three years of California sun takes its toll on a pale complexion. She's certain that her usually-latent freckles will be popping out by mid-afternoon. A freckled spy. She'll look more like the girl on the old Wendy's signs than an international woman of mystery.
He comes a few minutes later than they had planned; though that could just be time differences on their watches. His dark hair is slightly dampened with sweat; she figures hers must be, too. She smoothes the top of her ponytail and has to pull her hand away quickly: her hair, protesting the direct sun exposure, is almost as hot as the metal rivets in the bench. "Mind if I sit?"
"No, go ahead," she acquiesces, moving her sandwich onto her lap and taking a bite. She swipes at a rivulet of mayonnaise that escapes onto her cheek. As she shifts to make herself more comfortable, the sheen of perspiration on her back slides against her shirt.
"The New Zealand mission details haven't changed?" he asks, and she takes another bite of her sandwich.
"No," she answers after she chews. She watches the kids launch the tennis ball at one another, laughing loudly through their heat-fogged haze. The switch has been helpful in one extent: she doesn't have trouble not looking at her handler anymore. "Everything is still as planned."
He swipes at a bead of sweat that is rolling down his forehead. "Good. We want you to do a brush pass with the CD at the airport. I'll be the CIA contact; it will be the standard routine."
One of the boys sits down in the grass, breathing heavily from heat and exertion. She squints as the sun continues to press sharply down on the thirsty park. "My father will give you the flight numbers."
"We'll see you then," he says peremptorily and rises to leave.
She wants to ask him about office gossip; she knows that he's a friend of Vaughn's, and even if Vaughn wouldn't volunteer information about his feelings, others might have stumbled on a tidbit. She thirsts for something, anything. Her entire being feels as parched as the crumbling, brown grass beside the bench.
"Goodbye," she says quickly, continuing to eat her sandwich. She does not watch him walk away but instead keeps her eyes on the baseball kids, watching them each tire, dropping to the grass in a neat succession of fatigue.
She finishes her sandwich quickly and walks back to her car; the drive back to Credit Dauphine is quick and mechanical. She's in meetings for the rest of the day. She leaves for Auckland in two days, and she still has to write a paper on the themes of A Winter's Tale. Who ever dreamed that she would still be in graduate school at thirty-three? Not her. By thirty-three she should have been out of this business altogether, happily teaching undergrads about the delights of Edith Hamilton's Mythology or Henry Vaughan's poems. Instead she's still pounding the scorching pavement for SD-6, cursing herself for being stupid enough to get involved in the first place. For being stupid enough not to recognize when good things were put in front of her.
On the way home at six, she mulls over her latest introspective theory. Say, perhaps, she has some character flaw, inherited from her mother, that makes her predisposed to make bad choices. It makes sense to her that genetics could be to blame for at least some of her faults. She has isolated so many personal blemishes that it would be a blessing to be able to foist at least some of them off on someone else. By the time she pulls the Land Rover into the driveway, however, she's decided that she should really stop the introspectives completely. Nothing's going to change her life now.
Francie is making mai tais, and they settle down on the couch in front of the television to watch home improvement shows and drink themselves into a stupor. Francie has no idea what's been bothering Sydney, but she has hinted that she thinks it's about someone at work. Sydney hasn't denied or agreed with the suggestion.
"Sydney, I think we're going to end up like those old women with a hundred cats," Francie slurs after her fourth drink.
Sydney shakes her head, putting her drink down on the coffee table. "You'll get married."
"What about you? I think we'll end up in this apartment with a hundred cats."
"You're allergic to cats, Francie."
"We could get ferrets," Francie offers, standing on wobbly legs. "I really want a margarita. Do we have anymore mix in the freezer?"
Sydney considers this. "I think I finished it last Friday."
"Without me?"
"You had a date," Sydney points out.
"It wasn't a date," Francie counters. "It was a job interview."
"Whatever it was, I'm pretty sure I finished the margaritas."
"You really think that we won't end up being old cat ladies?"
She shrugs, lying down on the couch, face pressed into the cushions. "I hope not," she replies, her voice muffled.
She falls asleep in the same position and wakes there the next morning with a pounding headache. "No more mai tais, Fran," she mutters as she trudges toward the bathroom.
"You have a low mai tai tolerance," Francie grumps, pouring out a bowl of cereal.
"Yeah," she agrees, wandering into the bathroom and splashing her face with cold water. She looks at her reflection in the mirror and makes a face. Her skin is splotchy, her nose is sunburned, and there are dark blue circles under her eyes. It's going to be a great day already, she can tell.
The heat has not abated, and the wind has picked up, blowing dry, hot air across everything in the city. She muses that it sort of feels like a permanent blow dryer attacking her on high speed. Her journey to work is the same as yesterday, the same as every day. There is a comfort in routines. She's become so numb inside that she feels like a machine.
She arrives at the office, greets George, and steps into the elevator. White room, stark office, familiar desk. She finishes the Auckland preliminary reports before nine o'clock and considers walking to the bodega down the street to look for strawberries. After a few moments of deliberation, she grabs her purse and heads outside.
And that's when she sees him for the first time in three long months.
He's walking in the opposite direction and passes her on the sidewalk. She feels her mouth open slightly and has to grasp a street sign post to keep herself from turning and running after him. He gives her a piercing "don't look at me...don't talk to me...fuck you, Bristow" look as he walks by, leaving her feeling stung and empty. She can feel her cheeks burning, and she ducks into a humid, shaded alleyway, taking deep breaths and willing herself not to cry. The hot wind scratches across her dry cheeks, making it even harder to swallow through her already painfully scratchy throat. She scrubs her face with her suddenly clammy fingertips, then walks back into the blinding sunlight and heads back to work.
The office is nearly deserted except for herself, Dixon, Marshall, and Sloane; almost every other employer has the day off, and her father is on assignment. It's the Fourth, and she didn't even realize it until she got to work that morning and looked at her palm pilot. Her days have started to bleed together, saturated with anger and contempt, hollowed with loneliness and emptiness, glaring with the fact that her life is nothing like she thought it would be. The glimmer of hope that was always just close enough to brush has faded and died in the summer heat, and she's resigned herself to the fact that it won't be revived. She continues to work and live like an automaton, and somehow that's enough. She meets with Weiss, smiles at Sloane, chats with Francie, and aches inside.
Marshall comes out of his office at four o'clock, bouncing around like a child at the prospect of fireworks later in the evening. He holds out the prototype for a new communication device, and she gingerly takes the faux-sapphire drop earring from his slightly trembling fingers, examining it thoroughly. "This is great, Marshall," she compliments, letting a measured smile perk at the corners of her mouth. "You've outdone yourself."
He flushes at the compliment. "Thank you, I--"
The cool of the office suddenly snaps. The door is wrenched open, and a sudden flood of men streams into the room, dressed in black, all wielding the kind of weapon that she knows how to fire but hates to even touch. A sudden shot from the direction of Sloane's office startles one of them, and then a rain of bullets ring out, the only rain she's seen in weeks. She hears herself emit a sound that's not a scream, not a gasp; she hits the floor, still clutching the earring, completely overwhelmed.
Shoes slam against the concrete floor. Weapons fire, their bullets shattering glass and puncturing metal. Voices shout: she isolates the gruff sound of orders from agents as they sweep through the room. And then SD-6 security arrives, and the entire floor is plunged into chaos and darkness.
And then silence.
The floor is cool beneath her cheek, chilled by the air conditioner and dampened by the tears of surprise that have leaked from her eyes. She does not move; she feels paralyzed, though she's certain that she's untouched by the incident. Her mind races. This couldn't be the CIA; they hadn't told her. This could be the CIA, and she is going to have a serious conversation with Devlin if she gets out of here because he didn't tell her. She closes her eyes, and jerks when she feels the scuffle of light footsteps beside her head and the trail of careful fingertips on her arm.
"Get up, Agent Bristow."
She opens her eyes slowly and turns to look at him; it's him, no question. She couldn't mistake his voice. He wears the same black mask that all of the agents are wearing, but his eyes are distinct behind the barrier.
"Vaughn--"
He shakes his head. "Don't say anything, just get up and follow me. You're okay?" he replies, his voice flat, cold, and business-like, not full of the fire and brimstone she expected or the low, seductive warmth it held last time she heard him speak.
She wants to cry. "I'm fine."
"Then, just..."
He stops and looks around warily. She follows his gaze, searching the room. He shakes his head, rubbing his eyes through the mask.
"...just get up, and--"
A shot, and then another, and he falls heavily against her.
She gasps loudly, moving in a frenzy, pulling off the mask, frantically searching his body. She pulls him under her desk, rips open his jacket and shirt, feels his sticky-hot blood coat her fingers. And then she finds it; the entry is in his chest, just above his heart, gushing. He isn't wearing a bulletproof vest, and she resists the urge to scream and berate him: What the hell were you thinking? His eyes flutter, and his hands move restlessly, and he says, softly, "Syd...?"
She pushes her hand up against the wound, then cranes her head out from under the desk. "Help me! Somebody, help me!"
The rest is a blur. Her father appears out of nowhere and helps her draw Vaughn out from under the desk. Suddenly Weiss is there, pulling off his mask and swearing loudly, and she's still pressing her hand against his chest, and then they're driving in her father's car, and she's in the back seat pushing carefully against his wound and wiping beads of sweat from his forehead and crying, an ugly, snotty cry that she can't hold in. He's drifting in and out and away and back, and she's trying to understand the gibberish word-sounds that fall incoherently from his lips. His glassy eyes find hers and lock on them, searching them carefully, and they're not angry or betrayed as they were on the street that morning. Instead they're vulnerable and tired, the gray-green color dulled from its normal piercing hue. She hears her name breathlessly torn from his lips, wipes the beads of sweat, and holds him tightly.
Chapter: {fire}
Summary: After an angry separation, Vaughn and Sydney's lives come crashing together again.
Category: Sydney/Vaughn angst
Rating: PG-13
Canon: "The Solution"
Thanks: to Souris, for telling me this didn't suck. :)
As a rule, Los Angeles gets no rain in the summer. The days are sticky-hot, with the oven-like glass buildings and sizzling sidewalks bringing an unbearable, oppressive heat to the city. Some take refuge at the beach, though even beside the promising blue water of the Pacific, the white sand is hot enough to blister the soles of bare feet. Others are even unluckier, forced to entomb themselves in the searing city, sweating through their crisply ironed dress shirts and freshly pressed business suits. Everything is burning and sweltering and overbearing, as if the sun itself is pushing down just on Los Angeles, evaporating every drop of moisture and setting everything on fire.
It seems as if this Los Angeles July will be like any other. The air conditioner in the Land Rover picks the hottest day of the year so far to falter, so the back of Sydney's coolest blue dress shirt is soaked with sweat even before she arrives at Credit Dauphine. Feeling awkward and filthy as she parks in her usual spot, she grabs a hair tie from the never-used ashtray and pulls the damp, loose strands off her perspiration-slicked neck. She sighs, eager to get inside the building, to the stark offices that are always cold. She never thought she would be rushing to get inside this building.
"Morning, Sydney," a fellow employee greets kindly. She smiles in return; George, a middle-aged accountant on the second floor, actually does work at the beard-bank sector of Credit Dauphine. The people on the other floors have no idea what happens on hers. "Surviving the weather?"
"Marginally," she replies, smiling carefully. "How's Thelma?"
"Good, good. She's home with Richie today; can you imagine having chicken pox in July?"
She cringes, making a mental note to send something over for George's nine-year-old son. "I had them at his age, too. It was in February, though. Tell him I said hello?"
"Of course. He'll appreciate it."
"I'm glad. I'll see you later, George." She pushes the "up" button on the elevator. "Have a good day. Don't melt."
"There's really no way to avoid that today, is there?" he asks jovially as she gets in to the elevator. The doors slide closed in front of her, and she presses the button for her floor, leaning back against the chilled metal walls in relief.
It's an unconscious routine for her now. Through the white room, into the grim office, over to her desk: she doesn't even think about the mechanics of it all. The ramifications of it all, however, the reasons for her being there, never leave her mind. She's always completely conscious of her disgust for this place and her mission to end it. Today she's grateful for the coolness but still would rather that none of this ever existed, even if it meant that she had to sit in her car in traffic in July without air conditioning for an extra hour every morning.
At ten o'clock, she sits through a second briefing meeting with Sloane, Dixon, and her father about the upcoming mission to New Zealand; at eleven, she visits Marshall for information on a new tracking device they want her to take to Auckland; at twelve-thirty, she breaks for lunch and leaves the blessed comfort of the familiar-yet-unnerving office. She goes to a local deli to pick up a sandwich and drives quickly to the park, trying to pick up a refreshing breeze through the open window. The park is deserted except for a brave group of grade school boys playing a game of makeshift baseball with a tennis ball and a cardboard packaging tube.
She collapses onto a bench, trying to remember if she put on sunblock before she left the apartment that morning. Her skin isn't as young as it used to be; thirty-three years of California sun takes its toll on a pale complexion. She's certain that her usually-latent freckles will be popping out by mid-afternoon. A freckled spy. She'll look more like the girl on the old Wendy's signs than an international woman of mystery.
He comes a few minutes later than they had planned; though that could just be time differences on their watches. His dark hair is slightly dampened with sweat; she figures hers must be, too. She smoothes the top of her ponytail and has to pull her hand away quickly: her hair, protesting the direct sun exposure, is almost as hot as the metal rivets in the bench. "Mind if I sit?"
"No, go ahead," she acquiesces, moving her sandwich onto her lap and taking a bite. She swipes at a rivulet of mayonnaise that escapes onto her cheek. As she shifts to make herself more comfortable, the sheen of perspiration on her back slides against her shirt.
"The New Zealand mission details haven't changed?" he asks, and she takes another bite of her sandwich.
"No," she answers after she chews. She watches the kids launch the tennis ball at one another, laughing loudly through their heat-fogged haze. The switch has been helpful in one extent: she doesn't have trouble not looking at her handler anymore. "Everything is still as planned."
He swipes at a bead of sweat that is rolling down his forehead. "Good. We want you to do a brush pass with the CD at the airport. I'll be the CIA contact; it will be the standard routine."
One of the boys sits down in the grass, breathing heavily from heat and exertion. She squints as the sun continues to press sharply down on the thirsty park. "My father will give you the flight numbers."
"We'll see you then," he says peremptorily and rises to leave.
She wants to ask him about office gossip; she knows that he's a friend of Vaughn's, and even if Vaughn wouldn't volunteer information about his feelings, others might have stumbled on a tidbit. She thirsts for something, anything. Her entire being feels as parched as the crumbling, brown grass beside the bench.
"Goodbye," she says quickly, continuing to eat her sandwich. She does not watch him walk away but instead keeps her eyes on the baseball kids, watching them each tire, dropping to the grass in a neat succession of fatigue.
She finishes her sandwich quickly and walks back to her car; the drive back to Credit Dauphine is quick and mechanical. She's in meetings for the rest of the day. She leaves for Auckland in two days, and she still has to write a paper on the themes of A Winter's Tale. Who ever dreamed that she would still be in graduate school at thirty-three? Not her. By thirty-three she should have been out of this business altogether, happily teaching undergrads about the delights of Edith Hamilton's Mythology or Henry Vaughan's poems. Instead she's still pounding the scorching pavement for SD-6, cursing herself for being stupid enough to get involved in the first place. For being stupid enough not to recognize when good things were put in front of her.
On the way home at six, she mulls over her latest introspective theory. Say, perhaps, she has some character flaw, inherited from her mother, that makes her predisposed to make bad choices. It makes sense to her that genetics could be to blame for at least some of her faults. She has isolated so many personal blemishes that it would be a blessing to be able to foist at least some of them off on someone else. By the time she pulls the Land Rover into the driveway, however, she's decided that she should really stop the introspectives completely. Nothing's going to change her life now.
Francie is making mai tais, and they settle down on the couch in front of the television to watch home improvement shows and drink themselves into a stupor. Francie has no idea what's been bothering Sydney, but she has hinted that she thinks it's about someone at work. Sydney hasn't denied or agreed with the suggestion.
"Sydney, I think we're going to end up like those old women with a hundred cats," Francie slurs after her fourth drink.
Sydney shakes her head, putting her drink down on the coffee table. "You'll get married."
"What about you? I think we'll end up in this apartment with a hundred cats."
"You're allergic to cats, Francie."
"We could get ferrets," Francie offers, standing on wobbly legs. "I really want a margarita. Do we have anymore mix in the freezer?"
Sydney considers this. "I think I finished it last Friday."
"Without me?"
"You had a date," Sydney points out.
"It wasn't a date," Francie counters. "It was a job interview."
"Whatever it was, I'm pretty sure I finished the margaritas."
"You really think that we won't end up being old cat ladies?"
She shrugs, lying down on the couch, face pressed into the cushions. "I hope not," she replies, her voice muffled.
She falls asleep in the same position and wakes there the next morning with a pounding headache. "No more mai tais, Fran," she mutters as she trudges toward the bathroom.
"You have a low mai tai tolerance," Francie grumps, pouring out a bowl of cereal.
"Yeah," she agrees, wandering into the bathroom and splashing her face with cold water. She looks at her reflection in the mirror and makes a face. Her skin is splotchy, her nose is sunburned, and there are dark blue circles under her eyes. It's going to be a great day already, she can tell.
The heat has not abated, and the wind has picked up, blowing dry, hot air across everything in the city. She muses that it sort of feels like a permanent blow dryer attacking her on high speed. Her journey to work is the same as yesterday, the same as every day. There is a comfort in routines. She's become so numb inside that she feels like a machine.
She arrives at the office, greets George, and steps into the elevator. White room, stark office, familiar desk. She finishes the Auckland preliminary reports before nine o'clock and considers walking to the bodega down the street to look for strawberries. After a few moments of deliberation, she grabs her purse and heads outside.
And that's when she sees him for the first time in three long months.
He's walking in the opposite direction and passes her on the sidewalk. She feels her mouth open slightly and has to grasp a street sign post to keep herself from turning and running after him. He gives her a piercing "don't look at me...don't talk to me...fuck you, Bristow" look as he walks by, leaving her feeling stung and empty. She can feel her cheeks burning, and she ducks into a humid, shaded alleyway, taking deep breaths and willing herself not to cry. The hot wind scratches across her dry cheeks, making it even harder to swallow through her already painfully scratchy throat. She scrubs her face with her suddenly clammy fingertips, then walks back into the blinding sunlight and heads back to work.
The office is nearly deserted except for herself, Dixon, Marshall, and Sloane; almost every other employer has the day off, and her father is on assignment. It's the Fourth, and she didn't even realize it until she got to work that morning and looked at her palm pilot. Her days have started to bleed together, saturated with anger and contempt, hollowed with loneliness and emptiness, glaring with the fact that her life is nothing like she thought it would be. The glimmer of hope that was always just close enough to brush has faded and died in the summer heat, and she's resigned herself to the fact that it won't be revived. She continues to work and live like an automaton, and somehow that's enough. She meets with Weiss, smiles at Sloane, chats with Francie, and aches inside.
Marshall comes out of his office at four o'clock, bouncing around like a child at the prospect of fireworks later in the evening. He holds out the prototype for a new communication device, and she gingerly takes the faux-sapphire drop earring from his slightly trembling fingers, examining it thoroughly. "This is great, Marshall," she compliments, letting a measured smile perk at the corners of her mouth. "You've outdone yourself."
He flushes at the compliment. "Thank you, I--"
The cool of the office suddenly snaps. The door is wrenched open, and a sudden flood of men streams into the room, dressed in black, all wielding the kind of weapon that she knows how to fire but hates to even touch. A sudden shot from the direction of Sloane's office startles one of them, and then a rain of bullets ring out, the only rain she's seen in weeks. She hears herself emit a sound that's not a scream, not a gasp; she hits the floor, still clutching the earring, completely overwhelmed.
Shoes slam against the concrete floor. Weapons fire, their bullets shattering glass and puncturing metal. Voices shout: she isolates the gruff sound of orders from agents as they sweep through the room. And then SD-6 security arrives, and the entire floor is plunged into chaos and darkness.
And then silence.
The floor is cool beneath her cheek, chilled by the air conditioner and dampened by the tears of surprise that have leaked from her eyes. She does not move; she feels paralyzed, though she's certain that she's untouched by the incident. Her mind races. This couldn't be the CIA; they hadn't told her. This could be the CIA, and she is going to have a serious conversation with Devlin if she gets out of here because he didn't tell her. She closes her eyes, and jerks when she feels the scuffle of light footsteps beside her head and the trail of careful fingertips on her arm.
"Get up, Agent Bristow."
She opens her eyes slowly and turns to look at him; it's him, no question. She couldn't mistake his voice. He wears the same black mask that all of the agents are wearing, but his eyes are distinct behind the barrier.
"Vaughn--"
He shakes his head. "Don't say anything, just get up and follow me. You're okay?" he replies, his voice flat, cold, and business-like, not full of the fire and brimstone she expected or the low, seductive warmth it held last time she heard him speak.
She wants to cry. "I'm fine."
"Then, just..."
He stops and looks around warily. She follows his gaze, searching the room. He shakes his head, rubbing his eyes through the mask.
"...just get up, and--"
A shot, and then another, and he falls heavily against her.
She gasps loudly, moving in a frenzy, pulling off the mask, frantically searching his body. She pulls him under her desk, rips open his jacket and shirt, feels his sticky-hot blood coat her fingers. And then she finds it; the entry is in his chest, just above his heart, gushing. He isn't wearing a bulletproof vest, and she resists the urge to scream and berate him: What the hell were you thinking? His eyes flutter, and his hands move restlessly, and he says, softly, "Syd...?"
She pushes her hand up against the wound, then cranes her head out from under the desk. "Help me! Somebody, help me!"
The rest is a blur. Her father appears out of nowhere and helps her draw Vaughn out from under the desk. Suddenly Weiss is there, pulling off his mask and swearing loudly, and she's still pressing her hand against his chest, and then they're driving in her father's car, and she's in the back seat pushing carefully against his wound and wiping beads of sweat from his forehead and crying, an ugly, snotty cry that she can't hold in. He's drifting in and out and away and back, and she's trying to understand the gibberish word-sounds that fall incoherently from his lips. His glassy eyes find hers and lock on them, searching them carefully, and they're not angry or betrayed as they were on the street that morning. Instead they're vulnerable and tired, the gray-green color dulled from its normal piercing hue. She hears her name breathlessly torn from his lips, wipes the beads of sweat, and holds him tightly.