Alias fic: Strange Bedfellows (6/12)
Story Title: Strange Bedfellows
Chapter Title: Zandery
Fandom(s): Alias
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,139
Summary: One minute Eric Weiss is covert operations coordinator with the NSC. The next, he's hiding out deep in South America with a baby that isn't his and no idea when, or if, they can stop running for their lives.
Author’s Note: Fic origin here.
Strange Bedfellows
Chapter VI: Zandery“Ella es hermosa. Al igual que su padre.”
“Sí. Su padre.”
“Bienvenido a Surinam, Señor Hale. Y tú, pequeña.”
“Gracias.”
A drive, a safe house, a gun, a postcard.
Not yet.
Weiss sits in the room’s wobbly chair, a migraine sandblasting its way through his skull. His ears haven’t stopped ringing since…he can’t even remember how long, it feels like a construction crew is going to town on his forehead, and there’s an ache down his spine that won’t go away. It’s not like a usual migraine, though-he knows precisely where this one’s coming from.
“Shh, Isabelle,” he begs. “Please, please calm down.”
He can’t readily recall a time before she started crying. More mysteriously, he can’t figure out how in the hell she has so much energy and air in her lungs. A side effect of being the offspring of two of the most tireless people on the planet, and a very irksome one to boot.
“Isabelle, please,” he tries again. Not that he has much hope for success. He’s been doing this nonstop. He wonders if the people after Isabelle have heard her (he’s pretty sure people in Zimbabwe can hear her) and are staying away because they simply don’t want to deal with the screaming. Weiss wouldn’t blame them.
He briefly contemplates trying the picture thing again, but doubts it’ll work. Isabelle’s concentration is laser-focused, and it’s not on quieting.
“Isabelle, I will leave you for some wild pig to find.”
Nothing.
“Isabelle, I will offer you up as eagle food.”
Nothing.
“Isabelle, I refuse to heat up your bottles.”
Nothing.
“Isabelle, I’ll sing.”
Nothing.
Weiss groans in frustration, pondering the merits of hitting his head against the wall. It couldn’t possibly be any more painful than how he feels right now. This happened once to him. Back in health class of junior year of high school when everyone had to take care of a baby for a week. Except then, getting the thing to shut up was as simple as taking out the batteries. He’s decently certain that won’t fly this time.
“Okay, look, squirt,” Weiss says, staring intently at her as he holds her out in front of him. “I know spending time with Uncle Eric in weird places isn’t your definition of fun, but it’s not mine either. And I know you’re having a grand old time making Uncle Eric crazy, but it’d be great if we could quit that. So you know what’s going to happen? I’m going to go to bed. And you’re coming with me. And you know something else? Women have no trouble falling asleep next to me. Usually prematurely. Don’t you dare break that pattern.”
As far as he can tell Isabelle heard absolutely none of that, but Weiss is literally at his wits’ end. He kicks off his shoes and pulls a blanket out from the diaper bag, swaddling Isabelle in it until she’s more or less like a very loud chrysalis. He tugs on the lamp chain next to the bed to shut it off, and lays down on the lumpy pillow. The darkness doesn’t do much to help his headache, but it’s not making it any worse either.
“Kids like bedtime stories, right?” he asks no one in particular. “Okay, so I could just recap Disney movies…”
He peers at her calculatingly.
“No…you’re Syd and Vaughn’s kid. So…did you hear of that time I got shot?”
Isabelle hiccoughs and Weiss’s feeble beacon of hope shines. “It’s a great story, really. I mean at the time it sucked, but now it’s fun to tell.”
He dives into the story, the bullet scar on his neck twingeing, using as expressive of voices and extravagant of vocabulary as his migraine allows, praying it’ll distract Isabelle. He embellishes a few aspects of what really went down, pointedly neglects to mention that it was Isabelle’s grandmother who shot him, and extends the story to much longer than it actually needs to be, doing his best to verbally recreate the scene. He doesn’t think it’s exactly an appropriate story to tell at Mommy and Me classes, but he also doesn’t think Sydney or Vaughn would get caught dead at such classes, so.
“And so then I finally got to go back to work and make everyone’s days enjoyable again,” he concludes. “Let me tell you-people always get a kick out of these sorts of stories, especially the ladies. Your Aunt Nadia totally fell for me right after she heard it.”
Weiss pauses to take a breath, and it’s then he hears it. Rather…doesn’t hear it. He stills, listening, and hears only the chatter of cicadas outside and a kind of snoring that’s at once hilarious and precious. Primarily because snoring means not crying. Weiss nearly starts crying himself out of gratitude.
“Finally,” he moans.
He never expected his life to come to this. Sleeping next to a baby girl, not his own, somewhere deep in hiding in South America. He’d meant to marry, have kids, get out of the spy game altogether maybe. He’d be the epitome of a cheesy American dad, helping carve out pumpkins on Halloween and stringing colored lights around the roofline for Christmas and having one too many glasses of champagne on New Year’s Eve.
But instead he’s here, lying on a ratty bed moving not even the slightest of muscles, not only because he’s afraid any errant twitch could cause Isabelle to wake again, but because he’s utterly exhausted. They’re safe, for tonight at least, and he really wants nothing more than to fall asleep, but he keeps one eye on the downy top of her head, just in case.
It’s been three months. He’s been with her every step of the way, fulfilling Jack and Sydney’s desperate request with aplomb.
In the delirium of fatigue and darkness, he allows himself to wonder what-ifs. What if he’d refused to take Isabelle, just got back in his car and drove to his house? What if he got to Brussels with her, decided it was too much, and handed her back? What if he’d just gone back to his job the next day? What if instead of involuntarily going into hiding with someone else’s child he’d stuck to normalcy? He might have concerns about what would have happened to Sydney and the baby, but at least he’d be safe in D.C.
The imagining of these scenarios makes him nauseas with guilt. He clenches his hands into fists, willing it to go away. It doesn’t, and he glances around the blackened room aimlessly.
He turns over, one hand on the gun underneath the pillow, and fixes his eyes on the small, dark outline of Isabelle’s body. Looking at her, he remembers why. He gently rests his hand on her stomach, listening to her rhythmic breaths, and closes his eyes.
Next
Chapter Title: Zandery
Fandom(s): Alias
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,139
Summary: One minute Eric Weiss is covert operations coordinator with the NSC. The next, he's hiding out deep in South America with a baby that isn't his and no idea when, or if, they can stop running for their lives.
Author’s Note: Fic origin here.
Strange Bedfellows
Chapter VI: Zandery“Ella es hermosa. Al igual que su padre.”
“Sí. Su padre.”
“Bienvenido a Surinam, Señor Hale. Y tú, pequeña.”
“Gracias.”
A drive, a safe house, a gun, a postcard.
Not yet.
Weiss sits in the room’s wobbly chair, a migraine sandblasting its way through his skull. His ears haven’t stopped ringing since…he can’t even remember how long, it feels like a construction crew is going to town on his forehead, and there’s an ache down his spine that won’t go away. It’s not like a usual migraine, though-he knows precisely where this one’s coming from.
“Shh, Isabelle,” he begs. “Please, please calm down.”
He can’t readily recall a time before she started crying. More mysteriously, he can’t figure out how in the hell she has so much energy and air in her lungs. A side effect of being the offspring of two of the most tireless people on the planet, and a very irksome one to boot.
“Isabelle, please,” he tries again. Not that he has much hope for success. He’s been doing this nonstop. He wonders if the people after Isabelle have heard her (he’s pretty sure people in Zimbabwe can hear her) and are staying away because they simply don’t want to deal with the screaming. Weiss wouldn’t blame them.
He briefly contemplates trying the picture thing again, but doubts it’ll work. Isabelle’s concentration is laser-focused, and it’s not on quieting.
“Isabelle, I will leave you for some wild pig to find.”
Nothing.
“Isabelle, I will offer you up as eagle food.”
Nothing.
“Isabelle, I refuse to heat up your bottles.”
Nothing.
“Isabelle, I’ll sing.”
Nothing.
Weiss groans in frustration, pondering the merits of hitting his head against the wall. It couldn’t possibly be any more painful than how he feels right now. This happened once to him. Back in health class of junior year of high school when everyone had to take care of a baby for a week. Except then, getting the thing to shut up was as simple as taking out the batteries. He’s decently certain that won’t fly this time.
“Okay, look, squirt,” Weiss says, staring intently at her as he holds her out in front of him. “I know spending time with Uncle Eric in weird places isn’t your definition of fun, but it’s not mine either. And I know you’re having a grand old time making Uncle Eric crazy, but it’d be great if we could quit that. So you know what’s going to happen? I’m going to go to bed. And you’re coming with me. And you know something else? Women have no trouble falling asleep next to me. Usually prematurely. Don’t you dare break that pattern.”
As far as he can tell Isabelle heard absolutely none of that, but Weiss is literally at his wits’ end. He kicks off his shoes and pulls a blanket out from the diaper bag, swaddling Isabelle in it until she’s more or less like a very loud chrysalis. He tugs on the lamp chain next to the bed to shut it off, and lays down on the lumpy pillow. The darkness doesn’t do much to help his headache, but it’s not making it any worse either.
“Kids like bedtime stories, right?” he asks no one in particular. “Okay, so I could just recap Disney movies…”
He peers at her calculatingly.
“No…you’re Syd and Vaughn’s kid. So…did you hear of that time I got shot?”
Isabelle hiccoughs and Weiss’s feeble beacon of hope shines. “It’s a great story, really. I mean at the time it sucked, but now it’s fun to tell.”
He dives into the story, the bullet scar on his neck twingeing, using as expressive of voices and extravagant of vocabulary as his migraine allows, praying it’ll distract Isabelle. He embellishes a few aspects of what really went down, pointedly neglects to mention that it was Isabelle’s grandmother who shot him, and extends the story to much longer than it actually needs to be, doing his best to verbally recreate the scene. He doesn’t think it’s exactly an appropriate story to tell at Mommy and Me classes, but he also doesn’t think Sydney or Vaughn would get caught dead at such classes, so.
“And so then I finally got to go back to work and make everyone’s days enjoyable again,” he concludes. “Let me tell you-people always get a kick out of these sorts of stories, especially the ladies. Your Aunt Nadia totally fell for me right after she heard it.”
Weiss pauses to take a breath, and it’s then he hears it. Rather…doesn’t hear it. He stills, listening, and hears only the chatter of cicadas outside and a kind of snoring that’s at once hilarious and precious. Primarily because snoring means not crying. Weiss nearly starts crying himself out of gratitude.
“Finally,” he moans.
He never expected his life to come to this. Sleeping next to a baby girl, not his own, somewhere deep in hiding in South America. He’d meant to marry, have kids, get out of the spy game altogether maybe. He’d be the epitome of a cheesy American dad, helping carve out pumpkins on Halloween and stringing colored lights around the roofline for Christmas and having one too many glasses of champagne on New Year’s Eve.
But instead he’s here, lying on a ratty bed moving not even the slightest of muscles, not only because he’s afraid any errant twitch could cause Isabelle to wake again, but because he’s utterly exhausted. They’re safe, for tonight at least, and he really wants nothing more than to fall asleep, but he keeps one eye on the downy top of her head, just in case.
It’s been three months. He’s been with her every step of the way, fulfilling Jack and Sydney’s desperate request with aplomb.
In the delirium of fatigue and darkness, he allows himself to wonder what-ifs. What if he’d refused to take Isabelle, just got back in his car and drove to his house? What if he got to Brussels with her, decided it was too much, and handed her back? What if he’d just gone back to his job the next day? What if instead of involuntarily going into hiding with someone else’s child he’d stuck to normalcy? He might have concerns about what would have happened to Sydney and the baby, but at least he’d be safe in D.C.
The imagining of these scenarios makes him nauseas with guilt. He clenches his hands into fists, willing it to go away. It doesn’t, and he glances around the blackened room aimlessly.
He turns over, one hand on the gun underneath the pillow, and fixes his eyes on the small, dark outline of Isabelle’s body. Looking at her, he remembers why. He gently rests his hand on her stomach, listening to her rhythmic breaths, and closes his eyes.
Next