Title: The Art of Retrospection
Author: agent otter
Summary: "Later, he would flex his hand, over and over again, trying to rid his joints of the soreness that came from clutching the gun so tightly. Later, he would break down. Later."
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Alias is not mine. Damn. Neither is Bradley Cooper. Double damn.
Spoilers: Anything up through "Firebomb" is fair game, I suppose, though I don't think there's any major plot points given away or anything.
Author's note: This story comes to you live and unbeta'ed, and was written during hours when I should've been working. I hope you appreciate the company's sacrifice.

"It is more shameful to distrust one's friends than to be deceived by them."
-- Francois duc de la Rochefoucauld

Later, he would wonder about serendipity, fate, destiny, and the million miniscule decisions that were made in a single day to bring him to that place in that moment. Later, he would have all the time in the world to re-examine, down to the millisecond and in excruciating slow motion, the way the bullets ripped through her body, one after another, and the way the blood sprayed and spattered the walls, exploding from her ruined chest and the gaping exit wound that blossomed at the back of her head. Later, he would think about how he stood and stared for a frozen, incredulous moment, at the antique picture frame on the nightstand and the glistening wet splash that obscured the photograph inside. Later, he would flex his hand, over and over again, trying to rid his joints of the soreness that came from clutching the gun so tightly. Later, he would break down. Later.

* * *

He remembered that, in his younger days, he was more of a morning person. As a boy, there were early-morning hockey practices. In high school, he started a long-time habit of rising early so he could jog, shower, and eat a leisurely breakfast. Since he'd met Sydney Bristow, sleepless nights had chipped steadily away at that schedule, over time, and then he'd thrown it entirely out the window, because he'd discovered a very compelling reason to just stay in bed.

The radio suddenly snapped on for the third time that morning, and Sydney's arm reached out from under the covers just long enough to give it a firm slap to turn it off. Then she rolled over, buried her face in his shoulder, and flung her arm across his stomach. The brief contact with the air outside their cocoon had chilled the appendage, but he smiled anyway, covered her hand with his own, and rested his chin against the crown of her head.

"We have to go to work," he whispered.

A muttered grumble was her only reply. His smile widened, and his other arm, trapped under her neck, twisted downward to touch her back, up and down in light, even strokes. There was a soft hiss of rain on the roof, and he listened to it for a few moments before trying again.

"Come on, baby," he urged. "You need to wake up. We've been late the last three mornings in a row."

There wasn't even a grunt this time to acknowledge that she'd heard him. His eyes narrowed. So she wanted to play rough.

He shifted, just enough for his lips to reach her, and slowly, seductively, planted kisses along the pale arch of her neck. She murmured again, squirmed closer, but didn't open her eyes. He caught her earlobe gently between his teeth, planted another kiss in that sensitive spot just behind her ear, and then whispered to her, in a low, sultry voice.

"Will Tippin in a sequined evening gown."

Her eyes popped open and she made a small sound of distress. Then she shoved him bodily out of the bed. He hit the floor with a thud, but he was laughing even as he hauled himself up.

"Why did you say that?" Sydney groaned, pulling the covers up over her head. "I didn't need that mental picture! Now every time I look at him I'm going to laugh and it'll give him a complex!"

Vaughn smirked, retrieving "his" towel from the hook on the back of the bedroom door and wrapping it around his waist. "Woke you up, anyway," he said, and then ducked out the door just in time to avoid the pillow she threw at his head.

When they were late to work that morning, they blamed it on the rain. Drivers in Los Angeles, Sydney complained to the room at large, didn't know how to handle a little moisture. Vaughn nodded his agreement -- though they'd taken pains to arrive in separate cars, as if there was still anyone in the office who didn't know about the two of them -- and Weiss was kind enough not to point out in public that they were both full of shit. He liked to save that sort of thing for private conversations and small instances of blackmail.

Sydney had her own tasks for the morning -- a visit to her mother, first, and a 10 o'clock debriefing with Kendall -- and she left Vaughn in the rotunda, shooting him a small smile before she disappeared from sight. Weiss watched Vaughn watching Bristow, and finally clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"She could kill you without breaking a sweat," Weiss proclaimed.

"Yeah," Vaughn agreed, and he tacked a dreamy sigh onto the end for Weiss' benefit. "I've got a meeting with Tippin this morning. Have you seen him yet?"

Weiss nodded, pointing toward the corridor which led to the maze of analyst cubicles in the next room. "They brought him in the back way an hour ago."

Finding Tippin in the maze of cubicles was something of a time-consuming undertaking, and looking out over the makeshift analysis division -- temporarily housed here until renovations were finished in another part of the building -- he began to wonder whether he'd need a map to navigate. After at least five minutes of searching, he finally found the tall man crammed into a frighteningly small cubicle, hunched over a laptop and folded in on himself like an origami crane in his cramped quarters.

"Nice office you've got there," Vaughn said. When Tippin turned to look at him, he was somewhat surprised that he managed not to continue with, 'And you'd look hilarious in a sequined evening gown.' He was getting a vivid visual and it was every inch as difficult as he thought it might be to avoid laughing. Apparently, he mused, he'd also cursed himself with that particular wake-up call.

"Yeah, but I don't think it's very Feng Shui." Will answered, closing the laptop. "You guys offer workman's comp if I end up injuring myself trying to squeeze in and out of here, right?"

Vaughn just couldn't help it. He'd always been jealous of Will, that he could walk around with Sydney in the open, that they were so close, that he had a relatively normal life. But somehow despite it all, Vaughn liked the guy. There was something about the former reporter that made it impossible not to like him. Although, Vaughn admitted, it may also have had something to do with the fact that Vaughn himself spent his nights in Sydney's bed, now. Will hardly seemed like any kind of competition anymore.

The pair of them walked back to Vaughn's somewhat more spacious office, once Will had extracted himself from his cube, and Will sank with a satisfied sigh into the guest chair on the opposite side of Vaughn's desk.

"So how's the job going?" Vaughn asked, leaning back in his own -- yes, he admitted it, extremely comfortable -- executive chair.

"It's pretty interesting stuff, actually," Will replied, perking up a bit. "Kendall has me doing some analysis on the Rimbaldi puzzle. I've even gotten a look through some of your old mission briefs. Did you really bust Sydney out of FBI custody?"

"Ah... yeah. I guess we did. Anyway, I've got another research project for you, if you're up for it."

Will nodded eagerly, accepting the thick file folder that Vaughn offered him.

"It's a device called Helix that we came across not too long ago. Simply put, it's capable of restructuring a person's DNA to turn them into someone else. The man who invented the device used it to disguise himself as a CIA agent, and it was impossible to tell the difference. Intel suggests that an ocular scan would allow you to tell the original person from the double, but we don't know if that's accurate. What I've given you is everything we have on Helix. The device itself has been destroyed and we weren't able to recover schematics. It was sort of a mission that went south."

Vaughn winced a little and Will got the distinct impression that Sydney had been on that mission.

"Is there something specific that you're looking for in this data?" he asked.

Vaughn nodded. "Intelligence gathered on the mission that destroyed Helix -- the case file's in there if you need to review it -- indicates that the device had been used twice. One double is already dead. The other... the other, we don't even know who it is."

Will flipped through the file in his hands, pausing to squint at photos of the two identical men. "It even gives you the other person's voice?"

Vaughn nodded.

"What about their personality? Their memories? You'd just have to mimic that one, right? Be a good actor."

"As far as we know, yes."

Will hummed thoughtfully in the back of his throat, then stood. "I'll see what I can figure out, but it doesn't sound like there's a lot to go on," he said.

"I know." Vaughn shrugged, shaking Will's hand across the desk. "Just see what you think about it. You never know what might be helpful."

Will nodded and wandered out the door, his nose already buried in the file. Vaughn watched the other man go, then let his eyes drop to the growing stacks of paperwork on his desk. Sighing the heavy sigh usually reserved only for martyrs and mothers, he reached for the first stack and braced himself for a very boring day.

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