Chapter Thirteen -"Where Angels Burn"

All these mixed emotions

We keep locked away like stolen pearls

Stolen pearl devotions

We keep locked away from all the world

We twist and turn where angels burn

Like fallen soldiers, we will learn

That once forgotten, twice removed

Love will be the death,

The death of you... Savage Garden -"Tears of Pearls"

It took me about ten minutes of standing there shivering in the cool air whipping around the landing strip before I composed of myself and began to hurry back to the rendezvous point to meet Dixon. A half an hour, another bus, and a lot more running later, I finally found him waiting by the van.

"Good to see you're back, Sydney," he greeted me. I could have sworn there was something in his voice, a shade of something flat, or bitter. I shook it off quickly; my emotions jumbled and my nerves were skyrocketing. I just wasn't thinking clearly.

"Yeah… I went after the prisoner, but I lost him in a crowd further into town. I suggest we contact Sloane immediately, have a team set up to track him. He couldn't have gotten very far."

Dixon nodded. "Right. Couldn't have."

I paused. "So, what were you doing?"

"Searching the area around here; I questioned every civilian within three miles from the house who could have seen him escape on foot."

"Oh. Nothing?"

"Nothing. But we should go before we miss our flight window." He turned his back on me and climbed into the van without another word to me.

I took a deep breath and followed him in, my mind still in the clouds with the airplane that had taken off over an hour ago, headed for a place I couldn't name.

"He got away, I don't know what else to tell you. It's not easy to maintain cover with my eagle-eyed SD-6 partner while turning over my former handler to an Italian cultist! It's not like I let go of his wrist, shut my eyes, and counted to thirty!"

"Miss Bristow, now is not the time for your sarcasm," Kendall snapped back. "We have a very big problem here. Michael Vaughn is a prisoner of the Central Intelligence Agency, and now legally a fugitive. Do you understand the severity of the repercussions caused by your carelessness?"

"Of course I do. I'll do everything in my power to ensure that the 'fugitive' is found and brought back to CIA custody. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a debrief with Sloane that I'm fifteen minutes late to."

I turned on my heel and began to walk swiftly away. Kendall's voice stops me. "Agent Bristow?"

I swiveled back around. "Yes, Director Kendall?"

"Don't think I'm so naïve. I know all about Mr. Vaughn's assistance in extracting you from our custody last year. Just because we don't have enough proof to bring you in for the same doesn't mean you're not under keen suspicion."

I glared right back at him. "I do my job, Director Kendall. Sometimes, not often, but once in a while, I make a mistake. Do not accuse me of criminal acts just because I screw up my 'perfect record' one time. Now I really have to be going. Have a good evening."

I left this time. If he'd said anything to me as I pushed the doors open and exited into the hallway, I didn't hear.

I had a more important deception to worry about next.

"I'm immensely disappointed in you, Sydney. You let a highly dangerous prisoner go free, and you left the mission site for two hours without notifying your partner as to your whereabouts or actions. You put yourselves, and consequently, the entire nation at risk. I hope you fully understand the gravity of the situation you have forced us into?"

"I left my partner to try and re-secure the prisoner! What was I suppose to do, just shrug and let him run off to God knows where?" I exclaimed.

Sloane folded his arms and responded flatly, "It seems you managed that anyway."

"I did everything in my power to prevent it, but apparently that was the least desired course of action. I'll try harder to let the enemies escape next time. Forgive me."

The silence after my comment wrapped around us, and I allowed myself the moment to calm down my enraged nerves. Sloane continued to stare at me with narrowed eyes. I felt myself shiver. There was something in his eyes, something that went deeper than anger, or suspicion.

Finally, he commented quietly, "Yes, I suppose you have a point. You were obviously incapable of successfully retaining Mr. Vaughn. I apologize for putting you in such an awkward position." His voice was biting and full of contempt. A pang of fear shot through me that I automatically forced away.

What the hell is he saying?

Slowly, he reached his hand into the top drawer of his desk and brought it back out, holding a wide brown envelope, placing it on the desk and sliding it towards me. But he did not remove his hand from it. First, he pressed a button on his intercom. "Send him in."

Before I had adequate time to wonder who 'him' was, the door opened and slammed again behind me, and I turned to see my stone-faced partner enter the room. "Dixon."

He looked past me. "Good evening, Sir."

"Evening, Agent Dixon. I was just about to show Agent Bristow the interesting photographs you brought back from Italy for me."

The photographs? The ones Dixon took with Marshall's pen, from Giovanni's lab? That's what this is all about? Then why is Dixon looking at me like that, and why are they speaking so strangely?

"Go ahead, Sydney. Take a look," he pushed the folder towards me. With fingers I hadn't even realized were trembling, I reached out and slowly pulled it forward. Taking a slow breath and trying to remain collected, I lifted it up and began to unwind the string holding it shut.

Silently, I lifted the flap and slid the glossy black and white photos from the envelope. A horrible lightning bold of a heartbeat struck through me as I identified the images frozen in my hands.

Vaughn and I, at the landing strip in Italy, standing face to face as the plane waited in a blurry shadow behind us.

Vaughn and I with our arms around each other, holding each other tightly to forget that those moments were our last together.

Vaughn and I lost in that last, bittersweet kiss before he had walked onto the plane and out of my life forever.

Then, a few final shots of him boarding the plane and me standing in the bitter cold as I watched his plane disappear into the clouds.

I knew there were tears in my eyes when I looked back up at Dixon. "Oh, God, Dixon… I can explain…."

"When Giovanni captured you, I went back to help you," his voice cracked as he began, "That's when I saw him. Michael Vaughn, heading back to the mansion in the same direction I was going. It seemed odd to me- he wasn't contained, and both of his captors were preoccupied. A perfect opportunity to escape. Yet, he was returning to the place where one of them was being held. I couldn't imagine why. I stayed back. Moments later, he left the building. With you. You can imagine the… the confusion I felt at this point. So I did the only thing I could. I followed you. I followed you to that landing strip, and I hid and watched. And I saw… I saw everything."

"Dixon, please… I…" my voice managed in a weak, pathetic, pleading tone, "Please, I can explain everything-"

"I know you can," he replied, his tone dark and heavy. "You can always explain. And your explanations are always brilliant, and fitting, and cover every suspicious detail. They are so perfect, and you're always so convincing, that I can't… I can't believe I didn't realize sooner that it was all an act."

I shook my head, knowing there was no way out of this. The tears were streaming freely now. "No, Dixon…."

Sloane passed him a pair of handcuffs and he wordlessly snapped them around my wrists. When they were secure and pressuring on my skin, he quietly spoke again. "Sydney Bristow, you are under the arrest of the Central Intelligence Agency for the undertaking of espionage, relations with known terrorists, and the betrayal of the United States of America."

He leaned forward, his dark eyes burning through me as I tried to hold back sobs. "You betrayed me, and you betrayed your country. If you spend the rest of your life in a cell downstairs, just remember this: you may have deceived me, but I know the truth now. And you are nothing to me."

With those words burning into my brain and heart, he turned and left the room, never glancing back.

"You see, Sydney?" Sloane's voice rang in my ear inches away. I hadn't noticed him approach me. "You see what happens when you betray those you care about?"

I turned around slowly and halted the remainder of my tears. My eyes locked onto his, I heard myself speak in a tone I had never known myself to possess. "…You bastard. You heartless son of a bitch…."

"No use in wasting your energy with meaningless insults, Sydney. I promise you, you'll need it later."

The Conversation Room. A place I'd heard of and prayed I'd never see. Very few of my prayers in life have ever been answered, and this was one of them.

"I have to admit, Sydney, I can't say I was entirely surprised when I found out. I've suspected you of being a double agent before, more than once. True, I could have continued to deny it all I wanted: the possibility that someone I have always held such high regards for, as both an agent and, yes, a figurative daughter, could betray me-"

"-Betrayal is such a foreign concept to you, isn't it?" I snapped as Sloane pulled the belts of the chair down over me.

"-I can't tell you how much that hurt me," he continued, turning behind him to reach for an object I couldn't define.

"Really? Oh, I'm so sorry then. Now I feel awful."

"I wouldn't say you're in any position for sarcasm right now, Sydney."

"I wouldn't say I'm in any position for breathing. Care to loosen these straps a little?"

A sardonic smile crept across his face. I wanted more than anything in the world to punch it so hard that he'd never be able to smile again. "Ah, Sydney, I'm usually quite keen on your wit but to tell you the truth, I just don't have time for it now. So let's get to the point, shall we? Where is Michael Vaughn."

"Who?"

"Alright, let's try that again, rephrased this time. Tell me the whereabouts of Michael Vaughn."

"I have no idea," I answered flatly.

"I hate to do this, Sydney. Please don't make this harder on both of us."

"I already told you, you bastard. I don't know where he is."

He glared at me for a few moments, as if trying to decipher a puzzle. "…I'm sorry to hear that. And I'm sorry for this."

I didn't scream out loud as he jabbed the three inch long needle he'd been holding into the bend of my arm.

My veins did that all on their own.

When the pain had faded enough that it was possible for me to think about forming words, I took a deep breath and locked my gaze on Sloane, needing to show that I was not even close to defeat yet. "You know, I don't quite understand your desire to detain Mr. Vaughn. Him being such a 'highly threatening arms dealer,' I'd expect you to be begging for his services."

"Where the hell is he?"

"If I knew, I'd have him drop you a postcard."

The needle slid through my skin and I was on fire again, buzzing and disintegrating from my toes to my drowning eyes.

Time, lots of time, maybe hours went by. I'd lost count of how many times the needle had punctured and how many times he'd asked me the same question, how many times I'd spat back an 'I don't know.'

I couldn't feel anything anymore, I could barely move or see. All I could do was breathe, and hope that would last.

"Sydney, it pains me from the bottom of my heart to say this, but you know too much. I can't let you leave this room unless I know I can trust you, and I can't trust you if you don't talk to me. So tell me, Sydney, this is your last chance. Where is Michael Vaughn?"

"I… don't… know… you Goddamn… asshole…."

"Okay. Well then, I guess that's all. I can see we're not going to reach an understanding. So, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to inject this cardio toxin into your bloodstream. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept," he grabbed my wrist and I tried to bite back my gasp as the needle stabbed through my neck. "You have twenty minutes before suffering massive and unquestionably fatal cardiac arrest. If there's anything you want to tell me, I suggest you do so now, while there's still time to apply the antidote."

I gathered up all the strength I could, every tiny inch of force that I had tucked away deep in my bones, ignored the dry, cracking feeling in my throat, and spat at him.

He wiped it away calmly, but I knew he was seething. "You know, we'll find him eventually with or without your assistance. You're only making things worse for yourself."

He was bluffing. He had to be.

But I knew it was only my pain and exhaustion thinking those thoughts. He could, and would, and I knew it.

"Alright…" he said simply after a few minutes of silence.

I felt myself sweating, and it was becoming harder and harder to fill my lungs with each breath. I didn't have much time left, I could feel it, life, slipping away with every second.

"…Wait…just… wait…."

He looked up.

"I don't know where… you can find… Michael Vaughn. That's… the truth. But I can… help you."

"How?"

I took a deep breath and settled my eyelids back over my already half-shut eyes. "If Giovanni… was so eager to get his hands on… the man from the prophecy… how far do you think he'd go… to obtain… the prophecy woman?"

/CUT TO BLACK/

ALIAS

END

Ok so, guess that was unexpected... sorry, don't kill me. lol.

Anyway, this fic has been in the works for like, almost two years, so I've got a couple of emotional little thank yous to get through:

First and foremost, Sandpiper... if you don't know why, go check out every single author's note in this fic. lol. Thanks so much, hun!

Also, Courtney, who hates S/V, Alias, and everything of or relating to either (save for MV,) but who also inspired the original concept of this fic. Keep the morbid ideas coming, Court. -)

And finally, Holly (ItsADuckStupid), who doesn't really post here anymore but was helping me out with this in the beginning, and Penny for also lending a hand a few times when I needed it. You guys all rock -)

And with all that said, thanks to all you guys for sticking around and reviewing and, for not killing me because of this ending of course.