By the way, the lyrics to Omaha can be found here.

Comments on the first three sections



IV. start turning the girl into the ground

***

"You don't have to do this," Vaughn said.

"Oh, I do." But she hesitated in front of the door. "Someone's with Francie?"

"Dixon. He won't leave her until you get back."

I remembered that Dixon went to Syd's Halloween party, so he obviously knew Francie and could be there for her. And did I mention, poor Francie? Again? I can't give this girl a break.

"Okay. Okay." She pushed the door open before her nerve could fail her.

"Syd! Oh, thank God." Will's familiar voice made her stomach churn.

She held up a hand. "Cut the crap, Sark."

The original idea for this scene was a conversation with Sydney and Will where you know he's done something but you don't know what. I just couldn't hold the sneakiness for an entire scene, so I started with it instead.

"Sark? What? Sydney--"

"Stop it! We found Will's body today. Your secret's out, Mr. Sark."

He didn't morph back into his real self, of course, although she'd have nightmares about just that for a long time. But his body language changed. He lounged back against the wall, giving her that half-sleepy look that had irritated her coming from the old him. And when he spoke, it was Will's voice but Sark's cool accent. "Very well, then. What do you intend to do about it?"

Okay. Stop. Imagine Bradley Cooper speaking with Sark's accent. Does it make you all hormonal and horrified at the same time? Yeah, me too.

"You killed a CIA agent."

"Tippin was a low-level analyst. And I didn't kill him."

"Neither of those small details matter to anyone here, least of all me." Meeting his eyes was easier when she was angry. "If you're lucky, you'll live until trial."

"Unless..."

"Unless you tell us everything you know about Sloane's operation. His plans. The Rambaldi device, and what he intends to do with it."

"And what guarantee do I have that you won't kill me anyway?"

Sydney could see her reflection in the mirror at one end of the interrogation room. There was something familiar about the look on her face.

It was her father's.

She jerked her attention back to--to Sark. "None. But the first time I can prove you're lying, I'll shoot you myself. Just like you shot Will." She touched the center of her forehead. "One shot between the eyes, right? Nice and fast."

"Not as fast as you think. Or so they tell me. He sniveled a bit first. Begged for his life. Begged for yours, and then--" He lifted his hand and mimed a gunshot to his own head. "Boom."

Or so they tell me. Nice distancing, Sark. And I'd also like to point out that we only have Sark's word for Will's behavior. I, personally, think he handled himself beautifully. (One in five!!!!)

It took Vaughn, Weiss, and Kendall to drag her off of Sark. She made a point of blacking both his eyes before she let them pull her away. With his face bruised and bleeding, he looked just like Will had in Taipei.

Vaughn sat with her on the floor of the observation room. She dry-heaved into his shoulder while they listened to Weiss and Sark yell at each other.

"I'm sorry," she said when she could breathe. "I blew it."

"I don't think so. You were pretty convincing. Violent, but convincing."

She struggled to her feet. "I need to get back to Francie."

"So she can yell at you some more?"

"I don't mind."

"Sydney." She could see his hand on hers, but she couldn't feel it. "This isn't your fault."

She raised her head. Sark was staring over Weiss's shoulder into the mirror. As she watched, he smiled. Will's smile.

*wig*

"Yes. It is."

***

V. turn a new leaf over

***

"Hey, Syd, I'm home!" Eric shouldered the door open and began the long and laborious process of sorting out his stuff. Keys on table; jacket on coat rack; laptop on desk. Shoes in the middle of the floor. Well, he wasn't entirely domesticated yet.

Hi, honey...sorry.

"I'm in the gym!" He was halfway down the hall when he heard, "And you better pick your shoes up before I run over them!"

He sighed and went back to move them.

She was sitting on the weight bench, concentrating on bicep curls when he stuck his head in, so he leaned against the doorframe and watched her for a while. It was his favorite spectator sport, watching Sydney exercise. Her hair was bundled back into a braid, her face screwed up in concentration, and--hello, nursie--she was wearing his favorite sports bra. The black extra-skimpy one.

"This is the best part of my day."

"It's the bra, isn't it?"

"No, it's the free weights."

*cough*it'sthebra*cough*

He walked over and snuck a kiss in while she was switching arms. "You might hit me over the head with them. Mmm, violence."

"Wasn't that in a movie once?"

"Honey, everything was in a movie once."

"I sense a bad day." She pushed her wheelchair out so it faced the weight bench, locking the brakes. "Sit down and tell me about it."

Why the wheelchair? I'm not entirely sure. From the first time I started to picture this scene, she was in one. Someone pointed out later that it was a great motivation for Eric to create a superhero-ish alter ego for her. Which is totally true, and wow, I wish I'd thought of it. :)

He eased into it and propped his feet on the bench, avoiding the weights stacked behind her. It was a bit awkward, as the table was elevated to accomodate Syd's workout and not his aching feet, but he didn't much care.

"I hate my job."

"You love your job."

"I love television writing," Eric said. "I loathe and despise writing for this show."

So I'm driving home from work, thinking about this. Eric and Syd are together, and she's in a wheelchair, and gosh they're cute, but what's the *point*? And then sort of wandered into my brain. Okay, Eric writes for a TV show about spies. So if that's the case, who else is there?

"What happened today?"

"It was like Attack of the Stuffy Suits. Sloane from the studio, and Devlin from the network."

Devlin! Remember him? Yeah, neither do the Alias writers.

"At the same time?"

He shuddered. "At least Devlin is just ineffectual. Sloane's an ass."

"I know. I met him at the wrap party last year, remember? He wouldn't stop looking down my dress."

"Well, you were wearing that red sparkly--" Sydney smacked him on the leg. "--stylish dress that I would never be so crass as to leer about."

The red dress from the pilot. :)

"Uh-huh."

He cleared his throat. "Anyway, he hates my new script."

"Bastard."

"Executive."

"What was it this time? Did you use a word with more than two syllables?"

Eric snickered. "My plot is too complex."

"Too what?"

"Keep that expression on your face. You'll need it." He leaned forward. "So I'm showing him the part in Act One where I set the twist up, right, and saying see, here's how it all comes together in the last few minutes. He says, 'Mr. Weiss, if you want a gun to go off in Act Four, it needs to be in a holster in Act Three.'"

Heh. Executive Sloane is like the anti-Chekov. All the TV references come from my old career ambition, to be a staff writer on a TV show. I still think it'd be the coolest job of all time, but man, some of the stories I heard from people in the trenches were scary. Eric's show, he wants me to tell you, would not be like this. It would have cool people working on it.

The weight thudded to the bench, narrowly missing Eric's foot. "That's just--just--wrong."

"I think this guy read Writing for Dummies once. In the dark. In a moving car."

She was giggling helplessly.

hehehehehehe! I have to tell you, writing Weiss is one of my favorite things in life.

"And that wasn't even the best part of my day. No, that would be the part where Laura fell down a flight of stairs and demanded that her stunt double do the shot instead."

"Well, a flight of stairs!"

"It was two steps high."

"...oh."

"Syd, she's such a bad spy," he groaned.

"Poor baby." She leaned over and grabbed his arms; with one practiced move, he swung her into his lap, arranging her legs over one side of the chair as she snuggled against him. "Poor, poor Eric."

Lyra was a godsend to me in this section. I usually choose my betas by the simple method of cornering the first person I see on AIM, and it happened to be her. However, in addition to doing a great job on betaing all five parts, Lyra also has experience with wheelchairs and paralysis and was able to make the scene work properly. I *heart* my beta. :)

"And Jack backed her up, the shit." As always. "Dragged Irina all the way out there. She did a great job, of course."

"Of course."

"Laura has been the star of this show for three years and she can't talk and hit a mark at the same time. Irina would be a million times better as a secret agent."

At this stage in the plotting, I'm giggling out loud in my truck. Okay, I have Jack protecting Irina/Laura. Who else can I drag in...?

"Honey, I'd be a better secret agent."

"You would. Man, I could write the best show around you."

"Secret Agent Sydney?"

"Yeah. No, Double Agent Sydney." He wasn't really sure who she'd be a double agent for, but who cared? "Grad student by day, spy by night."

She started laughing.

He hammed it up. "Agent Syd works for an agency so dangerous, so secret, that not even her closest friends know what she does. And then she tells her fiance, er," he cast about for a name, "Danny--"

"Danny? Why not--wait." She sat up straight. "Doctor Hecht?"

oho! Him!

"Shh. I'm brainstorming here. Anyway, she tells Danny, and you know how they say if I tell you, I'll have to kill you?"

"Ooh, really?"

"Yeah."

"Bold choice."

"I'm a bold guy."

Thought of this line in the truck and repeated it to myself over and over so I wouldn't forget it before I got home.

"Uh-huh. So what does she do after they kill Dr. Danny?"

"She turns on them. Offers herself up to the enemy to bring them down, and their evil leader Sloane, who killed her boyfriend and looked down her dress." She laughed, but his brain was already in overdrive. "But--but here's the twist, see. She finds out that the enemy really isn't the enemy. She finds out that her secret agency is really the bad guys, and they'd lied to her. So not only did they kill her guy, they've been lying to her about the fundamental nature of her job all along."

"Okay, kind of confusing, but really cool if you can pull it off."

"Yeah, so she ends up working for the good guys, spying on the bad guys, who still think she thinks they're the good guys..."

"You remember what I said about kind of confusing? I take the 'kind of' back. But don't stop!" she said when he halted. "You can make it work. So she goes to the good guys."

Yeah, not confusing at all, JJ.

"The CIA."

"Of course. She has a love interest there, right? Right? Is that where you come in?"

"That would be weird, don't you think?"

She rolled her eyes at him.

"No, her love interest is...let me think. He should be her agent on the inside, you know." He grinned. "Oh, it's perfect. Vaughn."

"Vaughn? Who? Oh, no no no. Intern Vaughn? Michael Vaughn?"

...and right here, I thought of this and laughed so hard I almost drove off the road. I am such a ginormous dork.

Also, did you notice that her reaction to Vaughn was exactly the same as her reaction to Danny, down to the italics? Little author mistake there. ...you didn't? Well, hell, why did I just tell you then?

"Yes, he's perfect."

"He babbles every time I'm in the same building as him. He spilled punch down my dress at that same damn wrap party, and left me with Sloane trying to wipe it up."

"You didn't tell me that."

"I handled it." She grinned. "He wasn't using that hand for a while after I was done with him."

"You rock. But yes, Vaughn. Only he probably wouldn't look like Vaughn. He'd look like Noah or someone."

Snuck one more in!

She actually growled, and he blinked down at her. "Really? Damn, where was I at this party while you were being harassed?"

"I think Jack had you cornered and was patting you on the shoulder repeatedly while talking about your future in Hollywood."

This is my mild meta comment on "Jack being paternal is scary."

"Oh, God, I think I would have rather had Noah groping me."

"So the show has me--"

"Babe, you're the star!"

"--and Evil Sloane, and Dr. Danny, and, God help me, Vaughn. And probably Jack and Laura and Irina too."

"Of course." He smirked.

"Where are you?"

"Huh?"

"In the story. What does Eric do? Is he my older, more experienced partner? My loving but clueless friend? A dangerous agent for the other side?"

Okay, now I have to wonder who the people who "play" Dixon, Will, and Sark are in Eric and Sydney's universe. Damn you people! You have me thinking about this again!

"Eric..." He dropped his head back and looked up at the ceiling, which needed to be painted. "Eric is a company guy who does his job and doesn't cross the line. He's just in it for the money. Eric never does anything he shouldn't, even when he should."

And my final piece of motivation falls into place.

"Eric." Sydney pulled his head upright and leaned her forehead against his. "Quit."

*sigh* These two are quite possibly the cutest (and most emotionally stable) couple I have ever written in my life. Which is part of why this is three times as long as any of the other sections. I didn't want to let go of them.

"I can't. You know I can't. You don't finish school for another year, and then we have baby plans. I need this job."

"Not that much. Come on. We can make it work. Or we can wait for the baby."

"No. Next year I'm Executive Story Editor and I get another raise."

"And you're still on a show you hate with people who won't listen to you." She huffed out an exasperated sigh. "Fine, but you can at least work on the pilot on the side. Running your own show would be a totally different experience."

"Well, ye--what pilot?"

"What do you mean, what pilot? The story you just told me." She smacked his arm. "Spy Sydney."

Deleted bit: I was going to rename the show "Alias Sydney" for some reason. But then it occurred to me that if Sydney was her alias, what was her real name? And I gave up in a flurry of confusion.

"That was just--"

"Oh, no. It was great. Funny and interesting and dramatic and sexy--"

"Sexy?"

"I get to wear all sorts of fancy costumes, right?"

"Of course. And wigs. I love wigs."

"See? Write me a show, Eric."

"Sloane will hate it."

"Sloane's is not the only studio in town."

Yes, there's Kendall's, and Lindsay's...*g*

"They all might hate it."

"They will not."

"Seriously, Syd, I could get shot down big time."

Small nod to the season two opener, and Weiss getting shot.

"Maybe." She kissed him. "Maybe not."

"All right. All right."

"Yes!" She kissed him again.

"Mm. I think I need to see some sexy costumes first. For, you know, inspiration. We could start with that red dress--don't hit me, Agent Sydney! Ow!"

*rolls eyes at self* Not my best ending ever, but funny.

I remember showing this to someone and their first reaction was, this story doesn't fit with the other four. She's right. It's much longer, and where the other ones twist the show itself, this last bit was much more a meta commentary. I toyed with cutting this section, making it its own story, and writing a fifth section (I even had an idea for it, although I couldn't tell you now what it was). Eventually, I decided against it because I didn't think this section could stand on its own as a story, and I couldn't just leave it out.

Inevitable is probably my best Alias story ever (or for my ego, let's say "so far") but I think this story is one of the most fun ones I have ever written. It was a great chance to explore a bunch of different alternatives without having to commit too far to any of them. I also got to play with my limits: how far into each section could I start it and still have a comprehensible story, and where should I end it without saying too much or too little? I couldn't put it into words at the time, but I wanted each section to feel like you were flipping channels and caught the teaser to a different episode of Alias: enough to hook you, but enough left out that you knew there was a story beyond what you were reading.

I also haven't credited Lyra nearly enough, or the other people who either read it beforehand to reassure me that it worked, or listened to me whinge about it day after day. I was especially neurotic about this story, and they all did a remarkable job of not killing me. So, Robin, Jenai, Shelley, Aire, Karen, Jayne, and probably six other people I'm forgetting right now: Thank you, thank you, thank you.