That Was Then, This Is Now
by
Chris AndersonDisclaimer: Alias is the property of other people, including J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot productions.
Written for the Theatrical Muse 'heart's desire' challenge.
---
1981
This is how it happens. This is how her world changes.
Sydney's birth changes everything. It changes things she did not think could be changed, even ideologies she had once thought rock solid. Before her daughter was born, she could still fool herself that she believed in what she was doing. She could still look in the mirror and lie.
When she cannot lie any longer, she begins to tell the truth. She takes her books, with their lines of Cyrillic code inked into the margins, and she makes visible the evidence of her lies, her betrayals. She wants to say that she is sorry, but there are no words in any language she knows to articulate this apology.
It is strange for a literature professor to wish her fictions true. Stranger still for a spy.
And yet...
When he looks up from the pages, the way that he looks at her hasn't changed. Inwardly she breathes a sigh of soft relief.
Sydney is asleep in her room, and she doesn't want to wake her; she tries to cry silently, letting the tears fall down her face without sound.
"Laura," he whispers, gathering her in his arms. "Laura. Shh. It's going to be alright."
"Forgive me," she says softly against his shoulder.
He does, and she doesn't wonder at it. He understands the Cold War, understands the world in which they live. Understands, too, that she probably never meant to fall in love with him, or their daughter- but that she has, and this changes everything.
"How do you want to handle this?"
There are words for this, and when she thinks of them, in her mind she no longer hears the Russian terms, but the American equivalents. Words like "defector", words like "walk-in" and "double agent."
"I'll walk to work with you tomorrow," she says.
Jack smiles. "I'll carry your books."
2005
This is where she is now. This is what she does.
She slides her card into the lock, punches in her code. The door slides open on hydraulics, and she steps through, into another world. Jack paces her. He carries her files and her laptop now instead of her books, an old-fashioned gesture which she lets him get away with now and again because it makes him smile. She likes his smile.
"Hey, Mr. Bristow, Ms. Derevko. G'morning." Marshall's hands fly over his keyboard as he shoves something back into a drawer, probably the PlayStation they pretend not to be aware exists.
Irina smiles. She'd renewed her vows a few years after her defection; this time, she kept her name. She still maintains Laura Bristow's cover, for different reasons, but for most of her daughters' lifetimes, she has been Irina Derevko. There are still friends and neighbors who know her as Laura, but as long as her family knows who she truly is, little else matters to her.
Thirty years ago the CIA took her at her word, and she is still amazed by it. They analyzed and they debriefed, they sought independent confirmations and subjected her to a battery of psychological testing, but in the end the CIA had taken her at her word. Desperate for all she could tell them about the KGB's agents in place and their assignments, desperate to gain the upper hand and keep it, they granted her a security clearance and put her to work.
They watched her, of course, and they're probably still watching her. She doesn't know that they'll ever stop, but she doesn't care. This simply would not have happened in Russia, and it still amazes her that they trust her even this far. The KGB would never have given someone like her a chance like this, no matter what she had done for them. They would have taken everything she could give them, and probably thrown it away, considering it tainted by its source.
Then they would have shot her, just to make sure of things.
Irina drops her coat off in her office, then meets the others in the conference room. She takes her seat at the table and watches her team file in, bringing with them the soft hum of friendly conversation.
APO is the kind of unit Irina never would have been allowed to form in old the KGB which had trained her all those years ago. To them this would carry the taint of elitism, a Western sort of quality the old Soviet Union could not, of course, have supported.
She's sure it existed, anyway, called by other names. But she knows without doubt that the KGB never produced a team like this one.
APO is SD-6 without the false flag. It is all of the things SD-6 pretended to be, and never was, and Irina looks upon it with a quiet pride.
Its core is little larger than that of SD-6. She watches them as they slide into their seats at the table; Sydney and Nadia, Marshall, Eric Weiss and Michael Vaughn, Marcus Dixon, and Jack, seated at her right hand. They are all, she has come to realize, family of one sort or another; Three are kin, two she suspects will be soon enough, and the others have been friends long enough to be counted in one way or another.
"So, this is kind of odd," Weiss says, "but I've got this contact, who knows a guy who knows a guy- well, anyway, my contact heard there was a contract out on Syd."
Vaughn asks, "What the hell?"; Jack glowers; Marshall knocks over his coffee; Nadia shakes her head; Dixon gasps. Sydney goes pale.
Irina Derevko raises an eyebrow. "Find out who-"
"Yeah," Weiss says. "I sort of figured you guys might want to know that, so I did a little digging. And what's really weird is that from everything I was able to put together, the person who put out the contract is, um- you."
Irina raises both eyebrows. She sips her coffee slowly, then sets the mug back down. She looks at Jack, wordlessly. He nods.
"Sloane," Sydney says. "It's got to be Sloane."
Irina shakes her head. "No."
"No?"
"Not Sloane. Elena."
"Elena," Sydney repeats. "Your sister?"
"Yes."
"Nice family," Weiss mutters.
"Um- Sorry, could somebody- you know, maybe, help me here?" Marshall is dabbing at the puddle of coffee on the table rather ineffectually with an old ops report.
"Here," Nadia says, pulling a packet of tissues out of her purse.
"Thanks- Hey, wait, did you just say-?" Marshall looks shocked.
And Sydney. "Mom, are you sure? I mean, why would she do this?"
"Because if we believed your mother had done this, the outcome would be predictable and to Elena's advantage." Jack straightens the papers before him on the table.
Sydney looks from one parent to the other for a moment. "Oh my God."
Irina nods slowly. "I think it's time we found my sister. Weiss, get in touch with your contact again, find out what else he knows."
"Right," Weiss says. He gives Irina a questioning look; she nods, and he leaves the room at a jog.
"Nadia, go and visit your aunt Katya. She had contact with Elena more recently than I did, she may know something. Sydney-"
"You know what she's doing," her oldest daughter says. "Don't you?"
Irina nods. "I have always know what she is doing. Call DSR. Tell them to inventory all their artifacts. If nothing is missing, tell them to increase their security measures. If she hasn't gone after the artifacts, she will. Marshall, inventory your op-tech. When I know what we need, I'll let you know. Vaughn-"
Irina makes a few quick notes on a piece of paper and shoves it across the table. "Fax that to Langley." She opens a file, turns a page, scrawls another few lines, and hands him the file. "Hand carry that to Director Chase." She pauses, looks at Vaughn for a moment. "Dixon, go with him."
"Ms. Derevko-"
"I will explain it to you later, Agent Vaughn. Right now I just need you to do it."
The room clears in a flurry of movement, leaving Irina and Jack seated at the conference table alone.
She sighs. "I've seen this coming, of course."
"Of course."
"I'm almost disappointed. I thought she could do better than this."
He gives her a thin smile. "Under the right circumstances, it might have worked."
Irina laughs softly. "Yes, perhaps it would have."
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