 Credits: Kat – the magnificent beta. Thanks :) Disclaimer: Alias? Not mine. That's all there is to it. Rating: R, I think, for the suicidal things. Classification: Angst. Drama. Bad stuff. Summary: Things happen. And all that is heard is the background noise. * Arizona. A nondescript motel room by a highway, furnished with nothing other than a single bed, a rickety chair and a small, cheap table. The carpet is worn and brown, there are cigarette burns on the bedspread, and the room smells of petrol and fading marijuana smoke. Light filtering in through the large window, light that indicates another day’s demise, light that closes another chapter; pale, poignant light that signifies an end. Except for the shadows of leafless trees flickering against the stained, mustard wall, there is no movement. Somewhere in the distance, a child screams for its mother, a bird chirps, and a car roars down the gravel drive towards asphalt futures. In the middle of the stillness, the static, the pure white silence of the room, she sits. She sits, staring at the box in front of her. At the bottle. At her future. The floor is dirty and hasn’t been vacuumed – she can feel the dust rising to attack her nostrils, but she doesn’t care. She lost all semblance of feeling, of caring (of a soul) in Los Angeles, on the blood-splattered floor of a forgotten warehouse. The one thing she feels now is the cold. The air is hot, yes; it’s humid and sticky. But her teeth chatter, and she has gooseflesh on her arms. Her fingers are cold, numb. She fleetingly thinks that this could be delayed shock – that she should wrap herself in a blanket, get warm. But she can't move. A tear (hot on ice skin) slips from her bloodshot eye, falling down her silk cheek and onto the carpet, the wet trail on her face immediately becoming just as cold as her skin. She doesn’t wipe it away. I deserve this, she tells herself. I deserve so much more than this. She wants to throw up every time she remembers their faces. The momentary shock in Francie’s eyes as the bullets ripped Will apart, before turning on Francie and tearing through her pinstripe blouse, staining the white with crimson blooms of blood. I ran, she remembers. I stopped breathing and I ran. The stern look on her father’s face as he explained the situation: that they’d found out she was the mole, a mole – that they were going to kill them both. The look on his face as he said they’d leave together, fatherly love shining in his eyes, before the window shattered and the insides of his head splattered all over the leather seats of the sedan, the car careening to the side of the road. I ran, she remembers. I wiped his blood from my face and ran. Vaughn. The determined look on his face as he gathered her in his arms, his strength making her forget everything, the kisses to her lips reminding her only of the love she felt for him, the whispers in her ear calmly reassuring her. She remembered the look on his face as he pulled back and half-smiled at her, wiping away one of her tears with his thumb, the look of pure adoration and respect that turned to shock and numbing fear as he suddenly fell to his knees on the concrete floor, the blood from the shot to his chest flowing fast and freely, covering Sydney’s hands. She fell to her knees next to him as his eyes started to lose their focus and he started to choke, lose breath, and then die. His eyes stared into her, through her, showing his every feeling, his every thought, his hand still on her face, cupping it gently, tenderly. He’d managed to gurgle out ‘Sydney’ before his head had fallen to the ground and his hand from her face, and she’d frozen. Sat there, unmoving, for a good five minutes before she’d slowly touched his cheek, scarlet wet hand shaking uncontrollably, tears flowing like they’d never stop, breathing coming to her in short spasms of gasps and catches. She could still see the look on his face, the love, the loyalty, the pain, the fear… His skin had become almost immediately cold, and his blood covered her hands, her skirt. Cherry-coloured drops, sticky and warm and real, and when she leaned over him, the blood covered her shirt, mixing with the spatters of her father’s. She’d broken down, sobbing, until she sat back, hands clasping Vaughn’s lifeless fingers as she screamed. Can’t you aim?, she’d yelled. You want to kill me? Go ahead! She’d stood up, stretched her arms to the side, smiled almost cruelly through the tears and blood, turned around. Just shoot me, she’d screamed hysterically. Kill me. Please! The answer had been a laugh which seemed to echo all around her, unfamiliar and harshly frightening. She’d dropped her arms, kneeled next to Vaughn’s body, kissed his forehead, whispered and cried ‘I’m sorry’. Then she’d stood again. She’d left him there, blood puddling on the floor, eyes closed, face slack, now nothing more than a dead body. I ran. I ran and ran and ran until I ended up here. And I don’t want to run anymore. She’d figured out their game: they wanted to make her insane, crazy, then they’d catch her and torture her until she couldn’t feel anything (too late. I’m numb already), and then they’d kill her. She wouldn’t die a hero’s death; instead, she’d be degraded, simply another torture victim (a number) eventually begging for death. Already broken in life. After everything, this is all I deserve, she tells herself. A motel room of truckers and hitchhikers and quick sex. She moves for the first time in an hour. She knows they’re still chasing her; knows they’re close. Knows what they want. But I won’t let them, she whispers in her mind adamantly as the tears flow silently, I won’t let them find me, get me. Never. The only things that can testify to who she is – was – are photos of her father, of Vaughn, of Will and Francie, all taken from her wallet. Small things, small photos, memories that are no longer alive, and yet they breathe against her neck in anticipation and fear. She opens the bottle of water, opens the box, pops the pills from their foil packaging. She swallows them methodically, one pill, one sip, until all twenty are gone. Then she lies down on the ground, photos clutched in her hands, clasped on her stomach. She closes her eyes and lets sleep (death) take her. You want me, she thinks, come get me. A silent ‘fuck you’ to those who want her. A car drives past the motel, a child screams, the light fades, the shadows flicker. There is background noise, but the room is enveloped in pure silence. She closes her eyes, blackness surrounding her. And she dies. * This is © to me, 2002 (yeah, like you'd steal anyway) |