Chapter 5 - Blue

"Who am I talking to?" Weiss asked. He had switched the intercom in the operations room to the CIA agent's microphone, leaving only Vaughn to listen to the silence from Sydney's. She hadn't spoken in several minutes, and he hoped he wasn't just imagining her shallow breathing.

"This is Sparrow," the agent responded.

"Okay, Sparrow," Weiss responded. The closest agent to the mansion had been pulled off of covert duty, and he knew a lot of people weren't very happy about that. "Where are you?"

"Walking up the front steps."

"Slow down for a second!" Weiss said, hearing the music grow louder. "If I don't give you directions now, you'll never hear." He grabbed the CIA's copy of the blueprints from a nearby table and proceeded to instruct the agent on the fastest route to the basement. Then the music grew louder. 

Vaughn turned at the sound of the room's door creaking open and found himself facing Jack Bristow. The most frightening thing about the tortured look in Jack's eyes, he realized, was that it was probably mirrored in his own. He stared at Jack for a second before turning to look at the rest of the room. 

He was surprised to see Devlin and several other senior officers standing in the back. He had been too focused on Sydney to notice their entry. Vaughn briefly pondered just how much of his conversation with Sydney they had heard, then decided he didn't care. The only thing he cared about was the faint sound of shallow breaths in his headset.

The music on the intercom began to fade, replaced by the sound of doors opening and closing. After the final door closed, the agent's footsteps increased their cadence, stomping quickly down the stairs and across the basement.

"I'm at the vault door," he said. "Working on the lock." A second later, they heard the beep and clank, followed by the sound of the door opening.

"Shit." Vaughn imagined him picking up Sydney's limp, unconscious — possibly dead — form from the vault floor, rubbing her arms and legs, pulling her close to try to give her some body heat. "She's unconscious, but I've still got a weak pulse." Vaughn released the breath he had been holding, and heard Jack do the same.

"I can't do this myself. I've got to get her to a hospital." They could hear him climbing the steps, and opening and closing the doors.

"How are you going to get out of there?" Weiss asked.

"She looks just like an OD," the agent replied. "I'm sure she won't be the first blue-lipped woman they cart off tonight."

Vaughn's imagination hadn't produced that color. Quietly, he excused himself, yanking his headset off. He barely made it to the restroom before spilling the contents of his stomach in the sink.

A few minutes later, he heard the door open and looked up, trying to figure out who it could be. He quickly decided on Devlin, there to take him off the case and give him a lifetime supply of meetings with Barnett, and prepared for the worst.

It was only Weiss. "He's got her on the way to the hospital." Vaughn was still leaning slightly over the sink, hands resting on the countertop for support. 

"You do know you're too emotionally attached." Weiss' words were an odd cross between a statement and a question.

Vaughn nodded dully and glanced up, eyes pained, to look at Weiss's reflection in the mirror above the sink. "Did Devlin say anything?" He cared slightly now, and realized he would care much more if news from the hospital was positive.

"Yeah," Weiss told him. "He wanted to know who Will and Francie were."