Chapter 7 - Revelations

Dixon was seated with his back to her in the middle of a small, gleaming-white room. The metal chairs and table made Sydney uncomfortable just looking at them, and she wondered just how many people were watching from behind the large mirror on the wall.

"Hey," she whispered, realizing that now she was here, she didn't really know what to say.

He turned around, and the emotions on his face caught her completely off guard. Shock. Betrayal. Anger. Fear. And immense sadness. She read them all and remembered the time she had felt them swirling within herself.

"Syd." His expression lightened slightly as he stood up. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, as he crossed the room to hug her. "I'm fine."

"I can't believe it," he said. "I just can't believe it." Dixon took a step back and looked into her eyes.

"You knew, didn't you?"

Sydney froze. "How could you tell?"

"I don't know," Dixon smiled weakly. "Instinct, I guess. Plus I haven't exactly had a lot of visitors."

And then he added softly, but powerfully, the question she had no idea how to answer. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Her eyes reflected his own hurt. "Dixon, I wanted to. God, I wanted to tell you so bad. Every mission, every time you talked about your duty to your country. I just...couldn't."

This explanation wasn't enough for either of them, but Dixon knew it was all she could give. He walked back across the room and sat down, motioning for her to join him. Leaning over, he covered his face with his hands for a few moments before looking at her again.

"You think you're doing what's right. You think you're helping to rid the world of evil. You think you're fighting the bad guys," he said. "And then you find out you're one of them."

Sydney remembered the words of her father, years ago — "there was a time when this was news to me, too" — and finally understood how difficult and painful that situation had been for him.

"It's not an easy truth to swallow," she said. "I was there too. But you're not one of the bad guys, Dixon. You were lied to, but your heart was always pure. That's the difference between them and you."

His voice was tortured when he spoke next. "I keep going over every mission in my mind. Wondering what wrong I've done." He looked at her, hoping for a reassurance that she had kept things on the right line.

He found none. Instead, Sydney's eyes filled with tears.

"Oh, God. Syd?" His eyes bore into hers until she finally whispered, "Badenweiler."

Dixon quietly recalled the mission. "You freaked out when I blew the buil..." He trailed off as he realized what had happened. "The CIA had a team inside, didn't they?"

Sydney nodded. "I disabled the bomb, but you—"

"—brought a second detonator," he finished. In all her time working with Dixon, all the missions they had been on together, she had never once seen him cry. But tears were streaming down his face now, and she began to cry with him.

"I'm so sorry, Dixon."

Sydney was unsure how long they sat there, but knew she wasn't ready for the knock on the door. It opened, and a dark-suited man said, "I'm sorry, Agent Bristow, but we do need to continue here."

She looked at Dixon. "Go ahead, Syd."

She stood up and fished two tissues out of her suit pocket, handing one to him with a soft "goodbye."

Vaughn was waiting for her when she left the room. "If I would have known how difficult this day was going to be, I might have thought twice about taking down SD-6," she said, giving him a feeble smile.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and led her away. "But it's over now." They walked quietly back to his office.

"Look, I've got a couple more things I need to check on before we leave, so why don't you go ahead out to the car?" He handed her the keys. "I promise it won't be any more than five minutes. Black Lincoln, license— "

"—R-T-Z-N. Eighty-nine, seventy-six," she finished, taking the keys from him and hoping she could stay upright long enough to make it to the car. The events of the day and her lack of sleep were really beginning to hit now.

Sydney still found herself scoping the garage when she reached it. That habit may be hard to break, she thought, and felt relieved when she finally got into the car.

Vaughn kept his promise, and was walking toward the garage four minutes later, when he heard someone calling his name. He turned and tensed immediately when he saw Jack Bristow walking rapidly toward him. Jack's tolerance of Vaughn had increased over the years, but his commanding demeanor still made the younger agent uneasy.

"Is Sydney still here?"

Vaughn tried to quietly release the breath he had been holding. "Um. No. Sorry. She already went out to the, uh, car."

"Good," Jack said. "I actually wanted to talk to you."

Oh shit, Vaughn thought. Whatever this is, it can't be good.

Jack's face seemed to soften slightly before he spoke. "When you work in this business, it's difficult to find someone you can talk to. Someone you can tell the truth. Someone you can trust. I thought I found that person," he said, allowing the pain to flash across his face briefly. "But I couldn't have been more wrong."

Vaughn recoiled as he realized who Jack was talking about. Jack's wife. Sydney's mother. His father's killer.

Jack paused a moment, giving Vaughn a chance to recover. "I just wanted you to know I'm glad Sydney did find that person." He slowly raised his hand, and Vaughn tried to shake the shock off of his face as he raised his own hand to shake Jack's.

"Tell her I'm proud of her." With that, Jack turned and walked away. Vaughn tried to choke out a thank you, but failed miserably. What the hell was that, he thought, slowly starting back on his walk to the garage.

He was still trying to process the exchange, scrutinizing his role in Sydney's life, when he reached the car. He peered in the window and chuckled softly. She was sound asleep.