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A Sorta Fairytale
by Nicola
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: #2.01, 'The Enemy Walks In' (AU for the rest of the series)
Once upon a time, Sydney met Will.
Time didn't stop. The sun didn't rotate backwards. It wasn't love at first sight. Or truly, madly, deeply. It just was.
1.
Will tossed a piece of popcorn at Sydney's head. "Why are you making me watch this movie?" he complained loudly, in mock outrage.
"I think it's sweet," Sydney countered, pulling the popcorn kernel from her long hair and bouncing it back off his forehead. "Anyway, you picked the videos the last three times. And I don't think I could stand to watch His Girl Friday again."
"It's ridiculous. Schmaltzy, unrealistic, boring . . ." Will declared authoritatively, in a manner that suggested if he ever grew tired of investigative journalism, he'd try his hand as a hard-nosed film critic.
"Why do I need to watch Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal dance around each other for fifteen years before they realize they should be together?" he continued. "Couldn't they just save us all a lot of annoyance and get married straight off?"
"It's called conflict," Sydney argued good-naturedly.
Will glared and threw more popcorn. "How's this for conflict?"
Changing tack, Sydney said slyly, "According to your theory, we should just get married right now. Save ourselves all the trouble of dating other people, and just marry each other because we're friends – and we don't want our audience to get bored or annoyed while we dance around each other for fifteen years."
"Okay," Will said with a small smile. "Let's do that. If we leave now, we could be in Vegas by morning, and try the breakfast buffet at the Elvis Chapel."
For a moment they were silent, contemplating the imaginary sight of their faux-fairytale wedding.
"I'm sleepy," Sydney said finally. "Would it matter too much if we get married tomorrow night?"
"Nahh, we still have to finish the movie, anyway," Will agreed.
"I thought you weren't enjoying it."
"I'm not."
Sydney brushed the spilled popcorn off his chest and settled comfortably with her head on his shoulder. On screen, Harry and Sally played at being friends and pretended not to love each other.
2.
One frantic, red light busting trip to the hospital (somehow, Jack Bristow's voice, transmitted through the telephone wires, managed to make even the most benign prognosis seem ominous), followed by a less frenzied, though still eventful – interspersed with Sydney's delirious ranting (spies? Corsica? terrorists?) – trip home (his home; Jack had already left by the time he reached the hospital), and Will was left with a sleepy, heavily medicated girl sprawled across his bed. Arm in a cast. Full recovery expected.
Once she'd settled, or at least, the delirious ramblings and frequent tossing and turning had calmed a little, he tucked a blanket around her and switched off the main light. In the soft light of the bedside lamp, she looked flushed but peaceful. Careful not to disturb her, he took a seat next to her on the bed. A lock of hair had fallen across her face, and he gently tucked it back behind her ear. He paused, and awkwardly began to stroke her loose head of hair – just because it seemed like the sort of thing you were supposed to do.
"Oh, Sydney," he murmured, only half aware the thought had become speech. "How on earth do you break your arm on a business trip?" He smiled fondly. "You big dumb klutz, you."
Will liked tough girls; he'd dated enough of them that it had become a 'type'. His girlfriends were invariably strong, vibrant and unpredictable. They would tell him his endless anecdotes were annoying (Sydney would just listen and smile); they would swear and spit if he did anything wrong (Sydney always forgave gracefully). Most of them could have taken him in a fight, and were spoiling for the opportunity.
Sydney was easy to pigeon-hole as WASP-y and weak; most of the time he let himself believe that it was true. It was easier than having to think about the enormous amount of strength – real strength, from within; not like those alt.cliche girls he dated – that she possessed.
He let his thoughts spin briefly into the oft-considered fantasy of he and Sydney in blissful coupledom. Maybe it would be great; the big L. (This recent thing with the doctor guy couldn't last long, he was sure; he was entirely too bland for her.) Of course, there was the all too real possibility (certainty?) that he would somehow manage to fuck it all up. And it was this scenario which made him quail. Sydney would not shout at him; she would not punch or kick – he knew, she would just walk away. Bruises and swear-words he could handle, but in the end it was her strength which could shatter his heart into a million pieces.
Will sighed, and switched off the lamp. He curled up around her and drifted into warm, dream-filled sleep.
For a moment, when they awoke the next morning, it was as if they were lovers.
Consciousness kicked in, and they were just good friends again. Sydney was woozy and distant after all the painkillers, as she told of falling down some stairs in Boston. Will made coffee and burnt the toast. They ate at the kitchen table, and Will recounted comically something his uncle had once done with cat food. Sydney smiled and listened patiently.
3.
Sydney found him at the docks, slobberingly drunk and devastated after a break-up with Paulette. She'd dumped him, or he'd dumped her; it hadn't seemed clear on the phone. Either way, it appeared their two-year relationship was conclusively over.
She sat down beside him on the concrete ledge, black water invisible beneath their dangling feet.
"What happened?" she said simply.
He muttered incoherently, before looking up at her with a sad, yet unfocused blue-eyed stare. His face was wet, moisture droplets clinging to his cheeks like tears; although it was difficult to tell whether it was the result of crying or the recently fallen rain. At the sight of her, his face cracked into what could have been a smile or a grimace. His water-dark hair formed tiny perfect curls, and she reached out to gently touch them.
"I don't know what the point of this is." He was speaking more clearly now, although his voice was still rambling and vaguely detached. "To devote so much time and energy and—and—love to building a relationship, only to wake up one day and realise you've found yourself in a place you never expected, never wanted, and what seemed right just doesn't fit anymore . . ."
His arms flailed expansively, his range of emotions magnified by the amount of tequila in his bloodstream. In a burst of undirected anger, he flung the near-empty bottle at the concrete's lip, watching with sudden, sullen passivity as it broke into two jagged pieces. Ignoring the serrated edge, he lifted the broken bottle to his lips and guzzled the remaining contents. Blood blossomed suddenly at the hairline cut on his lip.
Sydney reached out reflexively to him, but almost before she could react, he had closed the gap between them, his lips covering hers. It was a sloppy, though not unpleasant kiss. Her tongue flicked forward, and her senses clamoured at the strange and metallic taste of blood nettling above a lingering sweet-and-sour tequila residue.
The moment passed, and she broke the kiss, though did not push him away. His head lolled back dizzily, but he looked pensive rather than disgruntled.
He began to fumble briefly in his jacket pocket, and she watched as he extracted a shiny loop of gold which centred at a sparkle of diamond. It was an engagement ring, so recently yanked from Paulette's finger.
"I don't know why I bought this thing," he said. "I guess it's supposed to signify . . . something. The promise of . . . happiness. Forever.
But I never intended it for Paulette. Not really, anyway."
He reached over and placed the ring in the palm of her hand. He smiled again, the same painful smile/grimace as before.
"Marry me, Syd," he said.
Her thin arms reached out around his neck, and he moved his head so that it was resting awkwardly on her shoulder. The hard edges of the ring moulded themselves into the soft flesh of her closed fist. Even though she'd had none of Will's broad alcohol binge, she suddenly felt drowsy and drunk, in the oppressive, thunder-filled air, with warm breath on her neck and his kisses lingering on her lips.
"Yes," she murmured in his ear. "We'll get married, and we'll live happily ever after," she lied.
4.
It was a placid summer evening when they met up again. The air was still and dry atop the dusty oil fields which looked out upon Los Angeles. A lucent blue sky rose above them; two loosely drawn stick figures all but lost in the magnitude.
With comforting ease, they fell back into their playful patter of old; good-natured jibes and pleasant talk of nothing at all.
Five years had elapsed since their last meeting; too long to dismiss with a casual shrug of doesn't time fly? Maybe if their lives were filled with the usual stockpile of marriage, kids, steady job, it would be easier to explain away. As it was, Sydney's life was too full (of all the wrong, unmentionable things), and Will's too empty.
Paulette had been his last long-term relationship. Never a great believer in love, he'd simply stopped trying to find it. Since his career as a reporter had screeched to a halt, his working life had devolved into a string of increasingly menial jobs, which he would periodically jack in, in order to drift further away from LA. As it was, the trip back had all but cleared out his life's 'savings'. Sydney appeared unchanged by the years; a little skinnier, perhaps, and even more remote, but with the same ageless grace which made him want to climb a mountain.
The thread of conversation unravelled and stretched into a slow silence.
"So here we are," Sydney said at last, her thoughts gathered at the horizon, which was slowly spitting fire into the clear sky. "Older and . . . wiser?" She laughed softly. "Is that was this feeling is? Wisdom."
Catching her dark laughter, Will supplemented, "No, I think this feeling is cynicism and sadness and regret."
"Don't forget loneliness. That's the biggie." A shadow passed across her face, like a stray hair blowing in the wind.
Slowly, she began fumbling beneath the neck-line of her shirt. He watched as she pulled a long chain out, holding its golden charm between her fingertips.
"I still wear this, you know." She smiled thoughtfully.
"Not on your finger," he countered.
"Well, of course not. Why would I do that?" she shot back.
They lapsed back into silence, and Sydney continued to finger the diamond ring absently. I don't have very good luck with engagement rings, do I? she thought, with more wryness than sadness. With a swift pang, she remembered Build Me Up Buttercup and a more extravagant ring which she'd never really liked all that much. She was sometimes abashed at how seldom she thought of Danny these days; over the years he'd been reduced to a small box in her heart, labelled "loved and lost" – he, like that other ring, was tucked away in her attic along with dusty childhood photographs of days she no longer wished to recall.
It is better to have loved and lost, than – she looked over at Will – never to have loved at all . . .
"Why did it never work out between us?" Will said suddenly, reading her thoughts.
Excuses formed immediately on her lips: Wrong places, wrong times; too many feelings or too few. Her thoughts trailed off and she shook her head resignedly. "I guess it just wasn't meant to be."
She paused, and then smiled. "You know, for pretty much the entire year after I met you, I was waiting for you to ask me out," she said. "I turned down so many dates from other guys, Francie started to think I had serious issues."
"God forbid either one of us should have issues," Will said dryly. He ran a hand through his hair, and continued unevenly. "The two years you were dating Danny, I kept waiting for you to dump him and come running to me. I had this whole elaborate damsel-in-distress/handsome prince routine worked out in my head."
"So why didn't you say anything?"
"Why didn't you?"
Will reached out and put an arm around her shoulders. Exhaling, with a light pulse of repose, she rested her head against his.
"I think I would have liked for us to be meant to be," he said softly.
"Me too. What happened to our happy ending? our fairytale . . ."
"I think this is it."
Together, the two tiny figures watched as the sun slid slowly down to the horizon.
May 2003
Muse music: 'A Sorta Fairytale' by Tori Amos
Dedication: For Jessica; for being my partner in S/W fangirliness.
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