Title: Schism

Author: labyrinthine

E-mail: elabyrinthine@yahoo.com

Rating/Classification: PG/vignette, Vaughn's POV

Summary: Vaughn wants what he is not allowed to have.

Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.

Notes: This piece is 100% Will free - please excuse me while I hide in a corner and cry. This goes out to Hillary, for the suggestion and inspiration.

"There's nothing more fantastic than reality itself." -Dostoevsky

*****

He is an excellent listener. Vaughn has learned that silent pauses during conversations encourage others to open up, to divulge a little more about any given topic; things they might not consider or necessarily want to reveal. (Validation by others is a means to demonstrate one's autonomy. By lending an ear, he is acknowledging the speaker's existence.) He finds a small sense of power in extracting secrets from others just by listening to what they have to say, much like Sydney finding gratification in successfully extracting a forbidden object under someone's unsuspecting nose: slowly, patiently, with a payoff well worth the wait.

He would wait for Sydney. Having the opportunity to listen to her is something he does not take for granted. ("She needs someone to talk to. I think you'd appreciate that. I'm the only person she can confide in.") Discovering a means to start a relationship with her, on the other hand, is something he does not believe will ever become possible. Protocol forbids handlers engaging in relations with their agents that are the least bit deviant from approved contact. He forbids himself from engaging in relations with Sydney because (once he started, he wouldn't be able to stop) doing so would endanger both their lives. He has lost people he's cared for in the past - the risk is too high to risk something that would only hurt them both in the end.

*****

(Image: his grandmother, sitting on the outside porch in her chair. She was attentive and acutely aware of all that surrounded her. She would smile as his seven-year-old self approached, anticipating his arrival despite the deafness preventing her from hearing his advance. He considered his grandmother magical, because her other senses were far more advanced than his. It was as if she traded the ability to hear in exchange for eyes in the back of her head, or so he rationalized at the time. Only now does he fully contemplate this situation - if you lose something, does overcompensating with something else repair the damage? He fears for Sydney, who has not accepted the loss of a mother she never truly had. He fears that she will overcompensate for this loss by searching for another object of affection, one to replace the void once held by Laura Bristow. He fears that she will settle on him, and most of all he fears he will not be strong enough to hold her away.)

*****

"You like hockey, right? The Kings?"

He is startled, shaken from the barrage of mental pictures associating in his brain of Sydney, dead by the hands of some low-level SD-6 operative. He cannot conceive of her being so cavalier about her own life. (She didn't think Danny would die either) "Yeah, how'd you-"

"The pen you keep in your briefcase. It's a Kings pen." She states this with such obviousness, as if we all are such highly trained observers.

"Yeah, I got that at-"

"They're playing the Islanders next week." Pause. "We should go."

(Yes. Image: the two of them, sitting near the back of the arena with awful seats, surrounded by empty wrappers of an overpriced concession stand feast. He explains the finer details of a corner hook shot while she tries in vain to not burst out giggling, insisting that what he has to say truly is just as fascinating as it sounds. And then the game is forgotten, the scoreboard is moot, and…)

"Sydney, you can't do this." (I can't do this) He watches in silence as she makes eye contact, then after a moment turns her head away. He is almost relieved he can no longer see her eyes. ("I need someone in my life to be real.") His thoughts become distant and he does not notice her final departure.

("No. I'm not going into hiding.") Perhaps he should instead.

*****

He has handled relatively few agents in his career, and she is the first to whom he has become so attached. He honestly has very little idea how this managed to evolve; he certainly has not been conscious of treating her differently from other agents under his supervision, at least at first. (Tire swings. He used to love them, provided he was spinning exactly about the axis. Completely centered. The tiniest push or uneven weight distribution, however, would readily send the swing into a haphazard ellipsis, throwing him into a tailspin with his stomach not far behind. He hated the feeling then and he hates it now. His world has careened off-course; Sydney has become a catalyst disrupting the balance he has always sought to achieve.)

There is a gossamer line that holds his role as a CIA agent separate and apart from his growing (love) admiration for the woman under his supervision. He recalls early on in their partnership when the two of them had fought over her calling SD-6 in lieu of the CIA to solve the little problem of a ticking nuclear bomb. He was upset over losing the possession over the device, of course, but the work obligation was far overshadowed by his fear for her safety. What if SD-6's bomb disarmers were misinformed, if something had gone wrong? That sense of dread was nothing compared to when Sydney was then temporarily assigned to Lambert; he felt completely out of control with no means to ensure her protection in the field. He looked forward to their meetings, the short counter-mission briefings, and to the few moments during each meeting where he might have a chance to ask something altogether non-work related. He missed her when she wasn't around, and he still misses her, and worries for her when she is out of contact. And damn Lambert anyway. (there is no substitute for intelligence)

*****

Vaughn realizes he now holds a personal stake to successfully defend the theory of dualism. (Each human being is a complex entity consisting of a mind specially connected with a particular body - including the brain. But these two components, the mind and the body, are totally different in nature.) Letting himself believe that he desires Sydney is not a declaration specific enough to suit his needs. Yes, he is attracted to her. And yes, he believes at times that she finds him attractive as well. There are times when he wants nothing else but to wrap his arms around her. But his mind, thank god, is still behaving rationally. He needs this objectiveness to keep him in line, so he does not act on something impulsive and stupid and very, very dangerous. His body wants her, but his mind still acknowledges the sheer impossibility of ever having a safe opportunity.

He is desperate to keep this separation intact. Letting himself slip into the comforting and highly more enjoyable identity theory (a mind is not something above and beyond or separate from the brain; it is one and the same thing as a brain) would be a very bad move. He is afraid that, if given the chance, his body's wants would kick ass over his mind's needs. Syd means too much to him to risk her safety over what he thinks he wants. He is weak, vulnerable, and subject to change, and he hopes his mind knows better.

*****

Restraint, he tells himself, is the name of the game. It is literally impossible for the two of them to ever be together while SD-6 is still a threat. He knows this, and tries not to cheat fate. It is safer, and easier, and smarter to not contemplate the two of them together in a setting even remotely askew from the parameters defined by their working relationship. (How can one describe death without knowing the experience of death?) By keeping things platonic, he won't know what he's missing. And that is a much safer bet.

*****

(Image: In the future. The date is not important. SD-6 has become a thing of the past, Sydney is a free agent, and they meet in a crowded park. Surrounded by hundreds of other people, they maintain eye contact for as long as they desire. They hug each other, in plain site of anyone curious enough to look. He is not thinking of counter-missions, or covert operations, or discrete impersonal five-minute meetings. He is only thinking of her. For the first time, he is allowed to be himself in front of her, to let her in, with no dark consequences hovering on the horizon. He has never felt so free.)

*****

Schism

elabyrinthine@yahoo.com