Title: Running Forever
Summary: Sydney left that life behind her to save those she cared about from pain. Will it ever catch up with her? Or will she be free of it and trapped in her new life? AU
Disclaimer: ::glances around:: idonotownvaughnoralias. Okay, now that that's is said, I feel much better. Okay, so that's a lie, I feel like crap. But I'll live, I guess.
A/N: Okay, this is going to be confusing, so I'll try to explain it. The Telling did not happen. Most of season three did not happen. The only part of season three that happened was Sydney finding the papers on Project: SAB 47. I don't know exactly who tipped her off on the existance of the papers but it was not Lauren because I deny that Lauren ever existed. Assume Sark or Sloane or Irina told her about the bank in Wittenberg. Everything else in season two did happen up until The Telling. It starts somewhere in there.
Happy reading and Merry reviewing!
Prologue:
I started running and I couldn't stop. There was no stopping. I could never stop running. If I stopped for too long, someone always ended up hurt. I realize that now.
Staying with him was all I had ever truly wanted. I wanted to stay and let him bath me in his love. To have him comfort me and whisper sweet nothings, that meant everything to me, in my ear late at night. I wanted to soak in the bathtub and have him sit next to me on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, watching and helping me relax. I wanted to have him hand me a glass of wine and watch me sip at it slowly. I wanted him to reach his hand out to touch my cheek, silently telling me that everything was going to be okay. Now I know that my baths must forever be taken alone.
We had finally taken down SD-6. That was quite possibly the best day of my life. Not because SD-6 was gone, though I was incredibly happy that it was. No, it was because I would finally have Michael Vaughn without fear of either of us losing our lives. After two years of pent up tension and longing, we had each other and it was perfect. No other word could describe how I felt with him but perfect.
Soon after, I uncovered something that I was never meant to see. It was an old CIA project, headed by my father. He had signed away my life. After my mother had faked her death, he had given my future away to the very people I hated the most. He gave them complete control over me, deciding how things would play out. That, I think, is what finally made me snap. They played with my life; causing the ones I loved the most, pain. I wouldn't give them that control, not anymore.
I visited Michael in the hospital before I left where he was recovering from a mission that had ended him up with a few broken ribs, a fractured wrist, and a mild concussion. I didn't tell him I was leaving. He would only try and convince me to stay. And I knew that if he did ask me to stay, I would have. I would have thrown all caution into the wind and stayed right there next to him, refusing to leave forever. So, I didn't tell him. Instead, I told him that I would be there in the morning to take him home. And in a way, I hope that he's still waiting for me.
He knew that something had happened in Wittenberg. That I had found something that upset me greatly. But he never pressed me on it. He never asked me what had truly happened there. He took the lie that I fed him, saying that I had found some clues on tracking down Sloane. I could see in his eyes that he didn't believe that crap for a second but he knew I wouldn't talk about it unless I wanted to.
I left that night after my visit to him. He was almost asleep when I left and I prayed that he wouldn't notice me leaving call out for me to stay. He didn't. I left the room and stopped just outside the doorway. I could almost feel his heart pull mine back in. Momentarily lapsing in my resolve, I quietly snuck back into the room. He was completely asleep now. He always seemed so peaceful when he sleep, like an angel. My guardian angel. I lifted his hand to my lips and kissed it softly, slipping a folded paper in-between his fingers. Gently, I laid his hand back down and walked away again. Only this time, I didn't look back.
For days, I just drove. I didn't care where I was going or where I finally ended up. All I cared was that I left the world of lying and betrayal behind me. Somewhere along the way, I changed my name. I was no longer Sydney Bristow. Sydney Bristow brought pain into people's lives. Those who cared for her, only ended up in pain or under the ground. I left Sydney behind on the side of the road becoming Paige Waters in her stead. In hotel rooms, I created the documents necessary to prove Paige's existence, driver's license, birth certificate, diplomas, things of that nature. My next step was to sell my car. I traded it at some cheap dealer's and left that town a new woman.
I was in a Wal-Mart in South Dakota, I think, when I saw the first signs that he was looking for me. It was one of those missing posters on a wall full of missing posters, barely visible in the crowd of faces littering the wall. But it was there nonetheless. I expected him to look for me. I knew he would. He wouldn't give up on me, not after the note I had left him. But I had perfected the art of covering my tracks, and I knew it would take him years just to find my old car.
I went to a salon that day and had my hair dyed. It's now a rich red color with darker red highlights spread throughout. The stylist said she hadn't seen anyone take to becoming a red head so easily, that the color just fit me somehow.
I wandered across the Midlands for a while before finally my money began to give out in Colorado. I knew I had to find a job and settle down. So I did, in Denver, more specifically a suburb called NorthGlenn. I got a job at a local high school, teaching English. That was one of the few things of Sydney's I allowed to stay.
My students had questions. Like where I came from and what I was doing in Colorado. I told them that I came from California and had relatives in Colorado, so I came to the state to be closer to them. They bought it and soon that was the story I was telling everyone. A few people wandered where these relatives of mine where and I told them they lived in a small town and didn't like to come to Denver, so I went to them. And just to add a touch of truth to my story every few months or so, I would take the weekend off to go visit my "relatives". In truth, I just drove to tourist towns in the mountains and spent the weekend relaxing and shopping.
Slowly over the course of three years, I became comfortable in Paige's world. I learned to love my teaching and adore my students, I became friendly with some of my neighbors, I volunteered at a local homeless shelter, I helped out with community plays put on at the community center every three months or so. I even allowed myself to make friends with some of the other teachers at school. But I allowed no one to come too close to me. I wouldn't allow them to be hurt.
I finally convinced myself that no one was looking for me anymore and if they were, they wouldn't find me. I was free of the hold they had had on my life. I was actually deciding how my life would go without fear of someone totally evil stepping in and ruining it. I love this new life. But that doesn't keep me warm at night.
My baths are taken alone with no one to sit next to me and give me quiet comforting. My meals I eat alone and in quiet. My nights are spent alone in my queen sized bed. Sometimes when I wake from a nightmare in the middle of the night, I reach out for him only to find cool sheets. Then it all comes back to me. I'm reminded of what I left behind. And why. I remember why I left him and that world behind and I am no longer in that dream world where I still live there. It only makes the longing worse.
At work, they ask me why I don't go out on dates and why I wasn't interested in marriage. I tell them that I loved once and the memory of that love was still too strong to even think about loving someone else. I assume they took that as I was in love, probably engaged or married and he had died, and I was still grieving over it. I let them assume that for it was partially right.
I wasn't running physically anymore, except for my daily mile run, but the rest of me ran. I sit alone in my apartment sometimes, telling myself over and over why I had done it and I believe myself because I need something to believe in. I had never been religious and if anyone ever said the word Rambaldi around me again, they would regret the day they were born. While a part of me always longs for my old life, another part, the stronger part, knows that I will always be running from that life. My fate was to run forever. That's what I tell myself before I fall asleep at night. You run because you have too. You're running forever.
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