fic: redefinition (one/?)
Title: Redefinition
Rating: NC-17 (violence, language, disturbing imagery, sexual content)
Pairings: Sark/Sydney, Jack/Irina; hints of Vaughn/Sydney, others planned but not announced
Characters: Think clowns in a clown car, from a bunch of the CIA to a ton of the “baddies”
Spoilers: S1, S2; eventually through S3 and S4 and up to and including certain aspects of S5
Timeline: Canon up to Sydney passing out after her fight with Allison
Disclaimer: Dude, if Alias was mine, we wouldn’t have gotten that shit S5, trust me.
Teaser: In the end, when the lies come apart, the truth is only a matter of perception.
One
Jack Bristow had not become the agent he was overnight.
Some of it was natural instinct, instinct that he saw reflected in Sydney more and more as the years ticked by, but it went deeper than that. It was a simple truth that he was only so capable because his Laura had betrayed him, had broken the man he had been and allowed him to become something else, to become someone capable of doing what had to be done.
Laura’s betrayal had allowed him to become someone who could handle Irina Derevko.
So he could admit, if only privately, that it was fitting that she was the only one he could depend on now.
It took two weeks to track her down after the memorial, another two weeks before she’d made contact, voice strained through the connection, strained but still somehow emotionless in a way that he envied. Laura had always been warm, slow-smiled and sophisticated certainly, but still warm, so it threw him even years later, to see that smile looking so cold.
He’d suspected but he hadn’t dared to hold his breath until she’d told him what she knew quietly, vague information that had filtered to her through countless contacts and estranged family members.
Sydney.
She was gone, hidden, but she was alive.
Jack could work with alive.
Four months he’d been doing this, struggling to keep the information he had managed to dig up in line- a rare phone call when she got close but usually just the relay chat, typed words that skittered across his screen and held his heart hostage. Felt oddly relieved when Irina became angry with him, swore at him through rapid lines of text, promising him that she was as undone and dedicated in this as he was.
He had betrayed his private loyalties countless times for Sydney, was prepared to do it again- he was her father.
But it wasn’t just Sydney.
It was Sloane handing himself over.
It was the fact that he couldn’t trust the CIA, that he trusted Irina when she said he couldn’t.
It was Teresa Derevko suddenly coming back from the dead after two years dead.
Jack had files on Irina’s family in Russia, his own private obsession that no one else had ever found. Irina’s mother and father, long dead and brilliant in their own right, who had sacrificed so much to give their two children everything they could have wanted. He had only vague information about her older sister, too little to be comfortable, only a few pictures of a woman with dark hair and strong features, a hard face that he was unsure about.
The niece that he had been sure for years was a lie, tall and dark-haired by the time he had proof that she was real, a perfect blending of Elena and her father, strong features and long limbs.
It had taken him several years to realize that it was what he had long suspected.
Sloane and Irina, they had Rambaldi.
Jack had the Derevko family, had features he could see when he looked at Sydney, a real family that Laura had told him about through lies. Everything he had ever found out about them, he had memorized-birthdays and anniversaries, addresses and public records, birthmarks and family pets.
When Irina gave him the name, he knew who she was, had a file devoted just to her.
And of course, Irina knew he did.
It was impossibly frustrating, that all he knew about Sark was his height and weight, birthmarks and scars.
No history or public records, no mention of family members living or dead, nothing but a smirk and an assurance during the interrogation that Irina was a “mother” to him and that it was understandable that Jack had become so obsessed. He didn’t have a birthday or a first name, had nothing, none of the certainty he felt when he tried to understand Irina’s history, tried to piece it together.
He knew nothing about him before he had showed up in Tokyo, had nothing to fall back on.
So he could admit that he hated Sark on principle.
If he could have gotten away with it, he would have put him down now when he had the chance.
But he was infuriatingly useful as a bargaining chip- and it was a simple fact that, as Irina had chuckled over their last communication, it was the only reason Jack was receiving so much information, not just what he needed but what he wanted, why he was receiving everything he asked for as the weeks ticked by.
Because Jack was in a position where he could help her get what she wanted.
Decades, he had been loyal to the CIA-except for when Sydney was involved.
And this was no different, he decided finally, than any other time he had chosen Sydney over the CIA.
When she had been young, Teresa had been spoiled enough to think she would get everything she wanted.
It was an understandable belief for her to have.
Between her aunt and her father, she’d had everything she had wanted for the first years of her life.
But then her aunt had left with a last kiss against her forehead, gone somewhere else to handle work she hadn’t understood then even as her father had worked hard to balance the power he wielded against the loyalty he had to her mother’s private interests. She had been handed into the careful arms of nannies, waiting for her aunt to come back and her father to bring her gifts the way he always did after long trips.
Then things had changed again, without warning.
Her mother had swept into her life, a stunning woman with startlingly clear eyes and a hard mouth.
Teresa wouldn’t know or understand until years later the woman her mother really was.
She had been just a child when her mother had spoiled her the way her aunt once had, taught her games and told her stories- and so she’d become fascinated with her real mother, the woman who had actually given birth to her. Besides, her father was there, always at her mother’s side and it was perfect even though she missed her aunt terribly.
Perfect until she’d understood what world it was that her mother had brought her into.
The world her mother had dragged her own sister into- blood, death, and safety that came only from those who needed something from you, only when you were lucky or talented enough to be truly useful.
She’d been confused, lost, until her aunt had come home, impossibly hard and silent, losses that were never spoken of darkening her eyes and leaving her warm smile cold. Teresa had realized it by then, that she was stuck, and so she’d never fought it, simply followed orders and clung even harder to her aunt in the moments she’d had with her, finding a bitter pleasure in the wedge it drove between them.
Her aunt’s arrival gave Teresa her only real amusement, her mother squirming with jealousy.
It had been her life and she’d finally accepted it, that she would never have the life she’d wanted as a child.
That she was stuck here, the weapon her aunt used to hurt her mother.
Teresa had gotten rusty after those two years she had spent in France.
That was the only explanation for waking up to a gun in her face, hard eyes that stared down at her.
It wasn’t comforting, the realization that she was handling this much business while still so out of practice.
Rolling carefully, she crossed her arms across her belly, knowing better than to reach for the weapon hidden under her pillow, knowing she’d be dead before she could manage it. There was another moment of silence in the shadows, as she studied him, taking in what couldn’t be noticed from the pictures. “You could have knocked.”
“This was easier.”
She doubted that but she said nothing.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Jack Bristow didn’t look impressed.
“I’ll have to ask Irina to stop giving strange old men the directions to get past the guards and into my bedroom.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched, gaze dark with annoyance, and she sighed, closing her eyes for a moment in exhaustion.
Irina was known for it, sacrificing her people to get others, but it was still irritated her.
“I’ll ask you again-”
She opened her eyes, stared up at him unhappily. “If I knew, I’d already have her.”
The look he gave her in response was intimidating but a childhood with Elena Derevko did not leave her easily bullied, allowed her to blow a breath out through her nose as she shifted upright in her bed, leaned her skull back against the headboard to meet his eyes when he spoke again.
“I traced our last communication.”
“You could not have gotten into this house and past the guards without someone telling you how.”
Teresa watched his face, saw the information flickering across it and saw the moment when something in him accepted it as he lowered his arm, looking steadier in his defeat than she would have thought possible. He still had the gun, yes, but she felt sure enough to push her covers off, slide out bed with a long sigh.
“I take it Irina told you who I was.”
“Something along those lines,” he acknowledged and she smiled, very slightly.
She was a gift horse, then, an offering from Irina to agent Bristow to do with what he would.
Which meant Irina wanted something.
She wondered if Irina knew…
Yes, of course she did.
Irina knew everything her family did, knew how to make everything benefit her.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
“Is he okay?”
“He wasn’t trained to withstand torture,” she bluntly informed him, pulling her robe off the side chair and sliding it on, standing long enough to tie it closed before sitting back again. “He hadn’t told them anything, if you’re curious-not that there was anything he could tell.” She stopped, tilted her head to stare at him, knowing by the sudden tightness in his jaw that he understood the meaning beneath the words and wasn’t amused. “Well… beyond the obvious, of course.”
“I could take you to the CIA. Not quite as impressive as you were some years back but you’re still a notable catch.”
She just stared at him, smiling more broadly when he gave her a disgusted look, moving forward to take a seat in the chair where her robe had been resting, gun resting on one knee as he stared her down. He blended into the shadows in his dark colored clothes, moved with more grace than most men his age possessed.
It was ridiculous, to be reminded of her father at such a moment.
“Irina betrayed Sark.”
“Like she betrayed you in India?”
Dimly, she decided that he looked unnerved, was amused by it even as she reached up to check that her robe was properly covering everything, even as she leaned forward to click on the lamp. In better light, she took him in again, a weathered face that had gotten stronger as he’d gotten older, still too comfortable in the field to sit on the sidelines.
Teresa had always been one for younger men but she could understand why Irina refused to eliminate him.
“You contacted me-”
“On Irina’s orders,” she finished.
“Where is she?”
“Trying to clean up a few other messes at the moment,” she explained, drawing her gun out from under her pillow and passing it to him with what she knew was Irina’s smile, pleased by the confused flicker in his eyes as he took it.
Teresa always had been one to cling to any amusement she could find in her life.
Her mother and her aunt, they had Rambaldi to live for, their obsessions.
Sark had Irina.
He was lucky, was still able to savor what he was given, Irina’s brutal maternal care, sincere even in its viciousness.
Teresa had nothing, just the lies her father had once given her, the final gift she’d received the last time he’d seen her.
Gone, a life she’d never have again even if the current mess could be resolved, even if she went back to France.
“Does Tippin know anything?”
“Of course not,” she muttered, annoyed somehow by the stupidity of the question and then irritated even further by the way he glanced at her, realizing she’d slipped and given him something to entertain himself with, Teresa Derevko as infuriated as a child. “I interrogated him myself when he was brought back.”
He didn’t look pleased and she was reminded of her aunt’s orders, her aunt’s request.
“Sydney?”
“She was moved by the time we got there.” She waited for a moment, until the grief on his face was put away, waited until he looked up at her and asked silently his other question. “He doesn’t know how the Project worked, knows only how they used the information in the tests.” Off his hard look- “It’s nothing they didn’t already know.”
Childish to be so desperately amused by his dirty glance, the anger in his face, but she didn’t care.
He had taken a risk coming here alone, assuring her that whatever Irina had given him, it was impressive.
Stupid, to come alone-
Then she thought of her father, the things he had done for her, the people he had betrayed for her, and understood.
“You’re sure about Sloane?”
When she simply stared back at him, he sat back in the chair, looking older than he was, looking overwhelmed as it sank in- she wondered how much her aunt had actually told him, how much she had dared to. He was not her father but there was an echo of him in this stocky man, a reflection that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with.
No wonder her mother had been so furious at who her aunt had decided to use.
The last thing her mother would have ever wanted to deal with was another Alexander Khasinau.
Teresa was always awake when Irina was on her way back from a mission.
She was a normal sight among her father’s men, the sharp-boned girl that no one dared to glance at too closely.
They all knew what her already vicious father was capable of when it came to her.
Teresa herself knew what her father was capable of when it came to her, had walked in on it once.
Nobody bothered her as she rested in her father’s own personal corner of the facility, legs folded under her and blanket thrown across her form, ears listening for the telltale sounds of Irina approaching even as she kept her eyes on the monitors lining the wall. At the table in front of the monitors, her father was reading, looking ridiculously gentle as he flipped slowly through ‘Knight of the Lion.’
Fatherhood had softened the lines around his mouth, made it easy for others to believe him when he played the role.
But her aunt said his eyes had darkened since she’d been born, that he was capable of things he’d never done before.
Teresa believed her aunt.
“I think you would like this.”
She flicked her eyes away from the monitors, glanced at her father, found him holding his place in the book with a finger as he waved it at her in a vague way. “What?”
“It’s a classic,” he explained thoughtfully, thumbing the pages. “My mother always said to read the classics.”
“She’s not my mother, and she’s dead anyway.”
He smiled slightly, and she laid her head back in the chair again, eyes settling back on the screens.
“Why don’t you go to bed? I can wake you when she gets back.”
“I’m already awake.”
Her father made a face as he finally gave up on reading for the moment, pushed the bookmark in and set it aside, leaning back in his chair to set his feet on the desk. The sickeningly expensive desk, she elaborated to herself- her father had a weakness for material possessions, spoiled himself with his ability to have the best brought in no matter where they were.
It was something that always drove her Spartan mother insane.
He looked nothing like what he really was and it was awkward to her, her inability to match this man to her father, match this man with the too long limbs to the man who had only become more dangerous as he got older, who moved with grace nobody ever really expected. She knew she had it too, had long since given up on her hope that she would ever fully outgrow the angles she inherited from her father.
It still irritated her, though.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Therese...”
But he stopped when he saw her straighten, dropping the blanket as she sat upright. Somehow, her father was on his feet faster than she was when he caught sight of the image on the monitor, his own eyes narrowing suspiciously as he moved past her out of the room. He reached behind him once as she rushed after him, touched a pistol but left it holstered, ignoring the orders being thrown around him as he took a sharp turn and rushed up the concrete stairs.
By the time she got on the ground level, her aunt had managed to climb out of the truck even with the object wrapped in her arms, shifting her hold on the-
Teresa tripped over her own feet but caught herself, forced to job to keep up with his long legs.
Then she got closer and realized that, no, she wasn’t seeing things.
“Where is he?” her father demanded, grabbing hold of her aunt’s arm and yanking her forward hard, furious in his confusion as Teresa stood there and gaped at the image, her lithe aunt carefully holding a small body. “I told you to get him and bring him to me Irina-”
Teresa could count on one hand the number of times he had lost his temper with her aunt.
Irina stood bruised and soot-covered, looking exhausted even as her face flushed in anger, even as she twisted her arm away from him and shoved him back in the same movement, other arm never loosening the grip she kept on the boy.
He hadn’t moved.
Maybe he was dead.
Her aunt spotted her then, a spark of genuine warmth filling her eyes as she gestured, face hardening when Teresa simply stared back in confusion, left dumb by the unexpected arrival. “Teresa!”
The tone broached no argument and Teresa stumbled forward on pure instinct, her arms falling open as the child was roughly shoved against her, leaving Teresa to grab him or let him fall to the ground. She just barely prevented the latter, nearly dropping him a second time in complete surprise when small arms looped around her neck in a chokehold, when a wet face suddenly smashed into the curve of her neck.
“Uh…” she managed but neither of them paid attention to her.
He smelled like smoke, she realized uneasily and glanced at her aunt again, bruised and soot-covered.
“…house was on fire when we got there!” her aunt was raging. “His office was already destroyed and he was gone, no sign of him.” Behind her, another man was pulling several cases out of the truck, completely unphased by the argument between his two superiors. “Someone tipped him off-”
“You had enough time to get him,” her father snapped, jerking a thumb back at the boy.
“Only because he had somehow made his way downstairs-” She stopped, glancing at the man waiting with the cases. “Take them to his office,” she ordered, waiting until he had obeyed before turning back to Teresa’s father, anger banked into something quieter, more savage. “I couldn’t even get to the right area of the house,” she grated out softly, small form easily intimidating his larger body into stillness. “He came running at me as I was trying to escape myself.”
“Maybe we can use him as ransom,” her father started slowly, eyes shifting to the boy curled tightly against his daughter but her aunt shook her head, lip curling in some emotion that Teresa found herself confused at.
“He left the boy there, Alexander. Do you really think he’ll hand himself over?”
Silence then and she watched her father process Irina’s words, face darkening as he accepted it.
“We have no use for him then.”
“Not yet.”
Her father grunted, casting Irina a sideways look before he stepped around Teresa, reaching out to seize hold of a small chin and tilt it back, grunting again when the boy jerked away and shoved his face back into Teresa’s neck. “He looks nothing like Andrian,” he said a long moment later as he stepped away, wiping his palm on his trousers. “Maybe you even got the wrong boy.”
“He’s inherited his mother’s looks.”
The silence this time was thicker and Teresa frowned at the look that crossed her father’s face, eyes hard and jaw tight, something vicious in his gaze as he tossed a short glance at Irina. When she simply stared back coolly, unaffected, he curled his lip, shoulders locking up as he stiffened.
Curious, Teresa waited, glancing between the two in interest.
But then her father simply turned away, slowing only long enough to tell Irina to follow before he was gone, disappearing down concrete steps to whatever it was that was in the cases.
It left Teresa to hold a boy awkwardly and wait for instructions from her aunt, now standing and staring at the small shape with that same confusing look on her face, a curious expression darkening her eyes.
“Irina…”
“Take him to your room until I’m done speaking to your father,” Irina finally stated quietly. “Clean him off if you can, feed him if he wants to eat, and then put him to sleep.” She stopped, noticing the slight hysteria in her niece’s gaze as her eyes softened. “He’s an obedient child, and he’ll do what you say.” A last glance at the boy, voice lifting. “Won’t you, Julian?”
Without raising his face from Teresa’s neck, he nodded, lifting a leg to lock it more tightly around her hip.
Her aunt turned and strode away, strong legs carrying her down the steps and to her father’s office.
Leaving Teresa to take care of the boy.
It was long past dawn, when Teresa set the breakfast on the tray, folded the carefully edited newspaper and put it by the glass of juice.
She hadn’t slept anymore, knew there were heavy bags under her eyes.
But she didn’t spare Bristow a thought as she watched her guard unlock the door and step back, locking the door behind her when she stepped in, muscles tense in preparation and tray held before her to use as a shield if he should try anything. He’d grown quickly out of his fear of her, retained a healthy respect that she was glad of- he wasn’t trained to defend himself, wasn’t in good shape even if he was, but he was smarter and more determined than she was comfortable with. The torture had made it easy to do her job, had made him dependent on her as he recovered but she knew better than to relax.
She found Tippin on the couch, looking too much like a child, slouched out and looking miserable.
“Did you sleep well?”
Stupid question, to judge by the heavy bags under his eyes, the shaky way he flipped through the channels.
He gave her a dirty look, a childish glance, and she chuckled, setting the tray down on the coffee table.
She’d worked hard to set him up in a comfortable room, spoiled him with everything she suspected he was missing with the loss of his own life. American soda and chips and over-processed meals that she unhappily cooked in a microwave that he insisted were better than her cooking.
All now stocked in the safe house for him along with other things he craved that she would never touch.
“Scrambled with a drizzle of maple syrup, sausage links on the side,” she explained, holding the plastic ware up until he took it with another dirty look.
“How do you know how I like my eggs?”
Teresa simply looked at him, amused at the frightened twitch it caused in his jaw.
It always had been frighteningly easy, to disarm someone without trying.
“Are all of you born with that?” he muttered unhappily, snatching the plastic fork and pulling the tray possessively towards him, flinching when he stretched out his leg wrong.
“It’s a trait,” she admitted, straightening, arms folding across his chest.
“It’s weird. Stop it.”
“I apologize for my family.”
He just gave her a glance, earlier anger dimmed but not gone, before lifting a piece of egg to his mouth.
She had gone in for Sydney and she had instead found him in a cell, bloodied but still refusing to talk, an impressive show of control for someone never trained to survive such interrogation. But she’d seen it before countless times, in those dedicated to her mother or her aunt, the devotion that would destroy them before anyone could break them, that had them offering themselves as sacrifices even knowing they would never be missed.
It was little wonder that the KGB had become so obsessed with her mother, had become so captivated by her, so willing to offer their own throats in order to keep her close to them.
Teresa wondered if Sydney had any idea how many people had already become obsessed with her, watched her.
She doubted it.
Teresa certainly hadn’t realized it, when she had been that young.
It had been years since she’d been anyone’s babysitter, and it was strange now, to take care of him.
Then she glanced at him, wounds healing but body still fragile, and sighed softly, weighing his importance to her aunt. Shaking her head to dislodge her thoughts, she simply stood and watched him pick mulishly through the food, nibbling to get nourishment but not looking satisfied as he did. “Drink your juice.”
“Last time you drugged it.”
“Would you rather I stabbed you with a syringe?”
He looked confused at that, unsure of what the correct answer was, and she smiled to herself.
If she had to take care of him, she might as well entertain herself as she did.
He decided to be a good boy, and started sipping the juice.
“You can leave.”
“I’ll be taking the tray with me.”
“The guard could feed me.”
“You would try to fight the guard.”
A pause, a hesitation, his face losing some of its color as he set the glass back down, poked a sausage link.
She’d watched his first attempt in the monitor room, had watched him take down two guards by sheer willpower and luck before she surprised him. Before she’d greeted him in the hall with a smile and a dart and then dragged him back to the room herself, swearing in French at idiot guards that were overwhelmed by a mentally traumatized cripple.
He would try another escape attempt, of course, but it was more than that.
Teresa simply didn’t trust the guards.
Things were too complicated, too dangerous, for her to trust any of them with this, with his care.
Hell, she was tempted to chain him in her own room, just to keep an extra eye on him.
But he was already fragile enough as it was, she knew, no matter how calm he seemed.
“You were late this morning.”
She glanced down at him, found him watching her intensely, frowned at it.
He’d picked up too much from Irina’s little girl, civilian or not.
“I burned your first eggs.”
He didn’t seem impressed by her blatant lie, chewed the sausage slowly.
With his mouth open.
He’d been doing such things the last few days, tasteless things that got under her skin, left her infuriated.
He was annoyingly aware of how much she was letting him get away with.
Sydney must have inherited many of Irina’s qualities, for him to absorb such things in his time with her.
Teresa remembered Julian when he had been young, how he had absorbed everything around him like a sponge.
It was frustrating, to be reminded of that boy while playing babysitter to this man.
“Yes?”
“Nothing,” he replied, drawing the other sausage link into his mouth.
The cloth of her sleeves was soft under her palms as she watched his hands, ready for him to throw the glass at her.
“I thought your name was Teresa.”
“It is.”
“Then who’s Therese?”
She was more startled than she could deserve to be, spike of emotion causing her breath to catch at the name.
It had been two years, since she’d been called that.
And she’d gotten rusty, in those two years… that was why it felt the way it did.
“That was my father’s name for me, once.” She was proud of her voice, unwavering. “My name is Teresa, Mr. Tippin.”
“Who gave you that name?”
She stared at him, Will Tippin who had somehow held out against her mother’s torturers, who was as devastatingly loyal as any of the many people she’d seen take bullets for her mother. She could respect him for it, could admit that she understood why her aunt was hesitating in what to do with him, weighing his importance in the grand scheme of things.
But heart stinging at the memory of her father, she wanted to hurt him more than her mother had.
“How did it feel, fucking Allison while your Francie rotted?”
Something her mother would say, and she watched his face, watched him shove the plate away looking sickened.
He said nothing as she gathered up the tray, lifted it and turned away, listened to his quick breathing as she crossed to the door and heard the locks being disengaged. But she paused as it opened to flash a smile back at him, knowing that he picked up Sydney in her face the way Jack Bristow had seen her aunt.
Sometimes, rarely, this trait was useful.
“Lunch is going to be sandwiches,” she informed him and left him to simmer quietly.
Rating: NC-17 (violence, language, disturbing imagery, sexual content)
Pairings: Sark/Sydney, Jack/Irina; hints of Vaughn/Sydney, others planned but not announced
Characters: Think clowns in a clown car, from a bunch of the CIA to a ton of the “baddies”
Spoilers: S1, S2; eventually through S3 and S4 and up to and including certain aspects of S5
Timeline: Canon up to Sydney passing out after her fight with Allison
Disclaimer: Dude, if Alias was mine, we wouldn’t have gotten that shit S5, trust me.
Teaser: In the end, when the lies come apart, the truth is only a matter of perception.
One
Jack Bristow had not become the agent he was overnight.
Some of it was natural instinct, instinct that he saw reflected in Sydney more and more as the years ticked by, but it went deeper than that. It was a simple truth that he was only so capable because his Laura had betrayed him, had broken the man he had been and allowed him to become something else, to become someone capable of doing what had to be done.
Laura’s betrayal had allowed him to become someone who could handle Irina Derevko.
So he could admit, if only privately, that it was fitting that she was the only one he could depend on now.
It took two weeks to track her down after the memorial, another two weeks before she’d made contact, voice strained through the connection, strained but still somehow emotionless in a way that he envied. Laura had always been warm, slow-smiled and sophisticated certainly, but still warm, so it threw him even years later, to see that smile looking so cold.
He’d suspected but he hadn’t dared to hold his breath until she’d told him what she knew quietly, vague information that had filtered to her through countless contacts and estranged family members.
Sydney.
She was gone, hidden, but she was alive.
Jack could work with alive.
Four months he’d been doing this, struggling to keep the information he had managed to dig up in line- a rare phone call when she got close but usually just the relay chat, typed words that skittered across his screen and held his heart hostage. Felt oddly relieved when Irina became angry with him, swore at him through rapid lines of text, promising him that she was as undone and dedicated in this as he was.
He had betrayed his private loyalties countless times for Sydney, was prepared to do it again- he was her father.
But it wasn’t just Sydney.
It was Sloane handing himself over.
It was the fact that he couldn’t trust the CIA, that he trusted Irina when she said he couldn’t.
It was Teresa Derevko suddenly coming back from the dead after two years dead.
Jack had files on Irina’s family in Russia, his own private obsession that no one else had ever found. Irina’s mother and father, long dead and brilliant in their own right, who had sacrificed so much to give their two children everything they could have wanted. He had only vague information about her older sister, too little to be comfortable, only a few pictures of a woman with dark hair and strong features, a hard face that he was unsure about.
The niece that he had been sure for years was a lie, tall and dark-haired by the time he had proof that she was real, a perfect blending of Elena and her father, strong features and long limbs.
It had taken him several years to realize that it was what he had long suspected.
Sloane and Irina, they had Rambaldi.
Jack had the Derevko family, had features he could see when he looked at Sydney, a real family that Laura had told him about through lies. Everything he had ever found out about them, he had memorized-birthdays and anniversaries, addresses and public records, birthmarks and family pets.
When Irina gave him the name, he knew who she was, had a file devoted just to her.
And of course, Irina knew he did.
It was impossibly frustrating, that all he knew about Sark was his height and weight, birthmarks and scars.
No history or public records, no mention of family members living or dead, nothing but a smirk and an assurance during the interrogation that Irina was a “mother” to him and that it was understandable that Jack had become so obsessed. He didn’t have a birthday or a first name, had nothing, none of the certainty he felt when he tried to understand Irina’s history, tried to piece it together.
He knew nothing about him before he had showed up in Tokyo, had nothing to fall back on.
So he could admit that he hated Sark on principle.
If he could have gotten away with it, he would have put him down now when he had the chance.
But he was infuriatingly useful as a bargaining chip- and it was a simple fact that, as Irina had chuckled over their last communication, it was the only reason Jack was receiving so much information, not just what he needed but what he wanted, why he was receiving everything he asked for as the weeks ticked by.
Because Jack was in a position where he could help her get what she wanted.
Decades, he had been loyal to the CIA-except for when Sydney was involved.
And this was no different, he decided finally, than any other time he had chosen Sydney over the CIA.
When she had been young, Teresa had been spoiled enough to think she would get everything she wanted.
It was an understandable belief for her to have.
Between her aunt and her father, she’d had everything she had wanted for the first years of her life.
But then her aunt had left with a last kiss against her forehead, gone somewhere else to handle work she hadn’t understood then even as her father had worked hard to balance the power he wielded against the loyalty he had to her mother’s private interests. She had been handed into the careful arms of nannies, waiting for her aunt to come back and her father to bring her gifts the way he always did after long trips.
Then things had changed again, without warning.
Her mother had swept into her life, a stunning woman with startlingly clear eyes and a hard mouth.
Teresa wouldn’t know or understand until years later the woman her mother really was.
She had been just a child when her mother had spoiled her the way her aunt once had, taught her games and told her stories- and so she’d become fascinated with her real mother, the woman who had actually given birth to her. Besides, her father was there, always at her mother’s side and it was perfect even though she missed her aunt terribly.
Perfect until she’d understood what world it was that her mother had brought her into.
The world her mother had dragged her own sister into- blood, death, and safety that came only from those who needed something from you, only when you were lucky or talented enough to be truly useful.
She’d been confused, lost, until her aunt had come home, impossibly hard and silent, losses that were never spoken of darkening her eyes and leaving her warm smile cold. Teresa had realized it by then, that she was stuck, and so she’d never fought it, simply followed orders and clung even harder to her aunt in the moments she’d had with her, finding a bitter pleasure in the wedge it drove between them.
Her aunt’s arrival gave Teresa her only real amusement, her mother squirming with jealousy.
It had been her life and she’d finally accepted it, that she would never have the life she’d wanted as a child.
That she was stuck here, the weapon her aunt used to hurt her mother.
Teresa had gotten rusty after those two years she had spent in France.
That was the only explanation for waking up to a gun in her face, hard eyes that stared down at her.
It wasn’t comforting, the realization that she was handling this much business while still so out of practice.
Rolling carefully, she crossed her arms across her belly, knowing better than to reach for the weapon hidden under her pillow, knowing she’d be dead before she could manage it. There was another moment of silence in the shadows, as she studied him, taking in what couldn’t be noticed from the pictures. “You could have knocked.”
“This was easier.”
She doubted that but she said nothing.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Jack Bristow didn’t look impressed.
“I’ll have to ask Irina to stop giving strange old men the directions to get past the guards and into my bedroom.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched, gaze dark with annoyance, and she sighed, closing her eyes for a moment in exhaustion.
Irina was known for it, sacrificing her people to get others, but it was still irritated her.
“I’ll ask you again-”
She opened her eyes, stared up at him unhappily. “If I knew, I’d already have her.”
The look he gave her in response was intimidating but a childhood with Elena Derevko did not leave her easily bullied, allowed her to blow a breath out through her nose as she shifted upright in her bed, leaned her skull back against the headboard to meet his eyes when he spoke again.
“I traced our last communication.”
“You could not have gotten into this house and past the guards without someone telling you how.”
Teresa watched his face, saw the information flickering across it and saw the moment when something in him accepted it as he lowered his arm, looking steadier in his defeat than she would have thought possible. He still had the gun, yes, but she felt sure enough to push her covers off, slide out bed with a long sigh.
“I take it Irina told you who I was.”
“Something along those lines,” he acknowledged and she smiled, very slightly.
She was a gift horse, then, an offering from Irina to agent Bristow to do with what he would.
Which meant Irina wanted something.
She wondered if Irina knew…
Yes, of course she did.
Irina knew everything her family did, knew how to make everything benefit her.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
“Is he okay?”
“He wasn’t trained to withstand torture,” she bluntly informed him, pulling her robe off the side chair and sliding it on, standing long enough to tie it closed before sitting back again. “He hadn’t told them anything, if you’re curious-not that there was anything he could tell.” She stopped, tilted her head to stare at him, knowing by the sudden tightness in his jaw that he understood the meaning beneath the words and wasn’t amused. “Well… beyond the obvious, of course.”
“I could take you to the CIA. Not quite as impressive as you were some years back but you’re still a notable catch.”
She just stared at him, smiling more broadly when he gave her a disgusted look, moving forward to take a seat in the chair where her robe had been resting, gun resting on one knee as he stared her down. He blended into the shadows in his dark colored clothes, moved with more grace than most men his age possessed.
It was ridiculous, to be reminded of her father at such a moment.
“Irina betrayed Sark.”
“Like she betrayed you in India?”
Dimly, she decided that he looked unnerved, was amused by it even as she reached up to check that her robe was properly covering everything, even as she leaned forward to click on the lamp. In better light, she took him in again, a weathered face that had gotten stronger as he’d gotten older, still too comfortable in the field to sit on the sidelines.
Teresa had always been one for younger men but she could understand why Irina refused to eliminate him.
“You contacted me-”
“On Irina’s orders,” she finished.
“Where is she?”
“Trying to clean up a few other messes at the moment,” she explained, drawing her gun out from under her pillow and passing it to him with what she knew was Irina’s smile, pleased by the confused flicker in his eyes as he took it.
Teresa always had been one to cling to any amusement she could find in her life.
Her mother and her aunt, they had Rambaldi to live for, their obsessions.
Sark had Irina.
He was lucky, was still able to savor what he was given, Irina’s brutal maternal care, sincere even in its viciousness.
Teresa had nothing, just the lies her father had once given her, the final gift she’d received the last time he’d seen her.
Gone, a life she’d never have again even if the current mess could be resolved, even if she went back to France.
“Does Tippin know anything?”
“Of course not,” she muttered, annoyed somehow by the stupidity of the question and then irritated even further by the way he glanced at her, realizing she’d slipped and given him something to entertain himself with, Teresa Derevko as infuriated as a child. “I interrogated him myself when he was brought back.”
He didn’t look pleased and she was reminded of her aunt’s orders, her aunt’s request.
“Sydney?”
“She was moved by the time we got there.” She waited for a moment, until the grief on his face was put away, waited until he looked up at her and asked silently his other question. “He doesn’t know how the Project worked, knows only how they used the information in the tests.” Off his hard look- “It’s nothing they didn’t already know.”
Childish to be so desperately amused by his dirty glance, the anger in his face, but she didn’t care.
He had taken a risk coming here alone, assuring her that whatever Irina had given him, it was impressive.
Stupid, to come alone-
Then she thought of her father, the things he had done for her, the people he had betrayed for her, and understood.
“You’re sure about Sloane?”
When she simply stared back at him, he sat back in the chair, looking older than he was, looking overwhelmed as it sank in- she wondered how much her aunt had actually told him, how much she had dared to. He was not her father but there was an echo of him in this stocky man, a reflection that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with.
No wonder her mother had been so furious at who her aunt had decided to use.
The last thing her mother would have ever wanted to deal with was another Alexander Khasinau.
Teresa was always awake when Irina was on her way back from a mission.
She was a normal sight among her father’s men, the sharp-boned girl that no one dared to glance at too closely.
They all knew what her already vicious father was capable of when it came to her.
Teresa herself knew what her father was capable of when it came to her, had walked in on it once.
Nobody bothered her as she rested in her father’s own personal corner of the facility, legs folded under her and blanket thrown across her form, ears listening for the telltale sounds of Irina approaching even as she kept her eyes on the monitors lining the wall. At the table in front of the monitors, her father was reading, looking ridiculously gentle as he flipped slowly through ‘Knight of the Lion.’
Fatherhood had softened the lines around his mouth, made it easy for others to believe him when he played the role.
But her aunt said his eyes had darkened since she’d been born, that he was capable of things he’d never done before.
Teresa believed her aunt.
“I think you would like this.”
She flicked her eyes away from the monitors, glanced at her father, found him holding his place in the book with a finger as he waved it at her in a vague way. “What?”
“It’s a classic,” he explained thoughtfully, thumbing the pages. “My mother always said to read the classics.”
“She’s not my mother, and she’s dead anyway.”
He smiled slightly, and she laid her head back in the chair again, eyes settling back on the screens.
“Why don’t you go to bed? I can wake you when she gets back.”
“I’m already awake.”
Her father made a face as he finally gave up on reading for the moment, pushed the bookmark in and set it aside, leaning back in his chair to set his feet on the desk. The sickeningly expensive desk, she elaborated to herself- her father had a weakness for material possessions, spoiled himself with his ability to have the best brought in no matter where they were.
It was something that always drove her Spartan mother insane.
He looked nothing like what he really was and it was awkward to her, her inability to match this man to her father, match this man with the too long limbs to the man who had only become more dangerous as he got older, who moved with grace nobody ever really expected. She knew she had it too, had long since given up on her hope that she would ever fully outgrow the angles she inherited from her father.
It still irritated her, though.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Therese...”
But he stopped when he saw her straighten, dropping the blanket as she sat upright. Somehow, her father was on his feet faster than she was when he caught sight of the image on the monitor, his own eyes narrowing suspiciously as he moved past her out of the room. He reached behind him once as she rushed after him, touched a pistol but left it holstered, ignoring the orders being thrown around him as he took a sharp turn and rushed up the concrete stairs.
By the time she got on the ground level, her aunt had managed to climb out of the truck even with the object wrapped in her arms, shifting her hold on the-
Teresa tripped over her own feet but caught herself, forced to job to keep up with his long legs.
Then she got closer and realized that, no, she wasn’t seeing things.
“Where is he?” her father demanded, grabbing hold of her aunt’s arm and yanking her forward hard, furious in his confusion as Teresa stood there and gaped at the image, her lithe aunt carefully holding a small body. “I told you to get him and bring him to me Irina-”
Teresa could count on one hand the number of times he had lost his temper with her aunt.
Irina stood bruised and soot-covered, looking exhausted even as her face flushed in anger, even as she twisted her arm away from him and shoved him back in the same movement, other arm never loosening the grip she kept on the boy.
He hadn’t moved.
Maybe he was dead.
Her aunt spotted her then, a spark of genuine warmth filling her eyes as she gestured, face hardening when Teresa simply stared back in confusion, left dumb by the unexpected arrival. “Teresa!”
The tone broached no argument and Teresa stumbled forward on pure instinct, her arms falling open as the child was roughly shoved against her, leaving Teresa to grab him or let him fall to the ground. She just barely prevented the latter, nearly dropping him a second time in complete surprise when small arms looped around her neck in a chokehold, when a wet face suddenly smashed into the curve of her neck.
“Uh…” she managed but neither of them paid attention to her.
He smelled like smoke, she realized uneasily and glanced at her aunt again, bruised and soot-covered.
“…house was on fire when we got there!” her aunt was raging. “His office was already destroyed and he was gone, no sign of him.” Behind her, another man was pulling several cases out of the truck, completely unphased by the argument between his two superiors. “Someone tipped him off-”
“You had enough time to get him,” her father snapped, jerking a thumb back at the boy.
“Only because he had somehow made his way downstairs-” She stopped, glancing at the man waiting with the cases. “Take them to his office,” she ordered, waiting until he had obeyed before turning back to Teresa’s father, anger banked into something quieter, more savage. “I couldn’t even get to the right area of the house,” she grated out softly, small form easily intimidating his larger body into stillness. “He came running at me as I was trying to escape myself.”
“Maybe we can use him as ransom,” her father started slowly, eyes shifting to the boy curled tightly against his daughter but her aunt shook her head, lip curling in some emotion that Teresa found herself confused at.
“He left the boy there, Alexander. Do you really think he’ll hand himself over?”
Silence then and she watched her father process Irina’s words, face darkening as he accepted it.
“We have no use for him then.”
“Not yet.”
Her father grunted, casting Irina a sideways look before he stepped around Teresa, reaching out to seize hold of a small chin and tilt it back, grunting again when the boy jerked away and shoved his face back into Teresa’s neck. “He looks nothing like Andrian,” he said a long moment later as he stepped away, wiping his palm on his trousers. “Maybe you even got the wrong boy.”
“He’s inherited his mother’s looks.”
The silence this time was thicker and Teresa frowned at the look that crossed her father’s face, eyes hard and jaw tight, something vicious in his gaze as he tossed a short glance at Irina. When she simply stared back coolly, unaffected, he curled his lip, shoulders locking up as he stiffened.
Curious, Teresa waited, glancing between the two in interest.
But then her father simply turned away, slowing only long enough to tell Irina to follow before he was gone, disappearing down concrete steps to whatever it was that was in the cases.
It left Teresa to hold a boy awkwardly and wait for instructions from her aunt, now standing and staring at the small shape with that same confusing look on her face, a curious expression darkening her eyes.
“Irina…”
“Take him to your room until I’m done speaking to your father,” Irina finally stated quietly. “Clean him off if you can, feed him if he wants to eat, and then put him to sleep.” She stopped, noticing the slight hysteria in her niece’s gaze as her eyes softened. “He’s an obedient child, and he’ll do what you say.” A last glance at the boy, voice lifting. “Won’t you, Julian?”
Without raising his face from Teresa’s neck, he nodded, lifting a leg to lock it more tightly around her hip.
Her aunt turned and strode away, strong legs carrying her down the steps and to her father’s office.
Leaving Teresa to take care of the boy.
It was long past dawn, when Teresa set the breakfast on the tray, folded the carefully edited newspaper and put it by the glass of juice.
She hadn’t slept anymore, knew there were heavy bags under her eyes.
But she didn’t spare Bristow a thought as she watched her guard unlock the door and step back, locking the door behind her when she stepped in, muscles tense in preparation and tray held before her to use as a shield if he should try anything. He’d grown quickly out of his fear of her, retained a healthy respect that she was glad of- he wasn’t trained to defend himself, wasn’t in good shape even if he was, but he was smarter and more determined than she was comfortable with. The torture had made it easy to do her job, had made him dependent on her as he recovered but she knew better than to relax.
She found Tippin on the couch, looking too much like a child, slouched out and looking miserable.
“Did you sleep well?”
Stupid question, to judge by the heavy bags under his eyes, the shaky way he flipped through the channels.
He gave her a dirty look, a childish glance, and she chuckled, setting the tray down on the coffee table.
She’d worked hard to set him up in a comfortable room, spoiled him with everything she suspected he was missing with the loss of his own life. American soda and chips and over-processed meals that she unhappily cooked in a microwave that he insisted were better than her cooking.
All now stocked in the safe house for him along with other things he craved that she would never touch.
“Scrambled with a drizzle of maple syrup, sausage links on the side,” she explained, holding the plastic ware up until he took it with another dirty look.
“How do you know how I like my eggs?”
Teresa simply looked at him, amused at the frightened twitch it caused in his jaw.
It always had been frighteningly easy, to disarm someone without trying.
“Are all of you born with that?” he muttered unhappily, snatching the plastic fork and pulling the tray possessively towards him, flinching when he stretched out his leg wrong.
“It’s a trait,” she admitted, straightening, arms folding across his chest.
“It’s weird. Stop it.”
“I apologize for my family.”
He just gave her a glance, earlier anger dimmed but not gone, before lifting a piece of egg to his mouth.
She had gone in for Sydney and she had instead found him in a cell, bloodied but still refusing to talk, an impressive show of control for someone never trained to survive such interrogation. But she’d seen it before countless times, in those dedicated to her mother or her aunt, the devotion that would destroy them before anyone could break them, that had them offering themselves as sacrifices even knowing they would never be missed.
It was little wonder that the KGB had become so obsessed with her mother, had become so captivated by her, so willing to offer their own throats in order to keep her close to them.
Teresa wondered if Sydney had any idea how many people had already become obsessed with her, watched her.
She doubted it.
Teresa certainly hadn’t realized it, when she had been that young.
It had been years since she’d been anyone’s babysitter, and it was strange now, to take care of him.
Then she glanced at him, wounds healing but body still fragile, and sighed softly, weighing his importance to her aunt. Shaking her head to dislodge her thoughts, she simply stood and watched him pick mulishly through the food, nibbling to get nourishment but not looking satisfied as he did. “Drink your juice.”
“Last time you drugged it.”
“Would you rather I stabbed you with a syringe?”
He looked confused at that, unsure of what the correct answer was, and she smiled to herself.
If she had to take care of him, she might as well entertain herself as she did.
He decided to be a good boy, and started sipping the juice.
“You can leave.”
“I’ll be taking the tray with me.”
“The guard could feed me.”
“You would try to fight the guard.”
A pause, a hesitation, his face losing some of its color as he set the glass back down, poked a sausage link.
She’d watched his first attempt in the monitor room, had watched him take down two guards by sheer willpower and luck before she surprised him. Before she’d greeted him in the hall with a smile and a dart and then dragged him back to the room herself, swearing in French at idiot guards that were overwhelmed by a mentally traumatized cripple.
He would try another escape attempt, of course, but it was more than that.
Teresa simply didn’t trust the guards.
Things were too complicated, too dangerous, for her to trust any of them with this, with his care.
Hell, she was tempted to chain him in her own room, just to keep an extra eye on him.
But he was already fragile enough as it was, she knew, no matter how calm he seemed.
“You were late this morning.”
She glanced down at him, found him watching her intensely, frowned at it.
He’d picked up too much from Irina’s little girl, civilian or not.
“I burned your first eggs.”
He didn’t seem impressed by her blatant lie, chewed the sausage slowly.
With his mouth open.
He’d been doing such things the last few days, tasteless things that got under her skin, left her infuriated.
He was annoyingly aware of how much she was letting him get away with.
Sydney must have inherited many of Irina’s qualities, for him to absorb such things in his time with her.
Teresa remembered Julian when he had been young, how he had absorbed everything around him like a sponge.
It was frustrating, to be reminded of that boy while playing babysitter to this man.
“Yes?”
“Nothing,” he replied, drawing the other sausage link into his mouth.
The cloth of her sleeves was soft under her palms as she watched his hands, ready for him to throw the glass at her.
“I thought your name was Teresa.”
“It is.”
“Then who’s Therese?”
She was more startled than she could deserve to be, spike of emotion causing her breath to catch at the name.
It had been two years, since she’d been called that.
And she’d gotten rusty, in those two years… that was why it felt the way it did.
“That was my father’s name for me, once.” She was proud of her voice, unwavering. “My name is Teresa, Mr. Tippin.”
“Who gave you that name?”
She stared at him, Will Tippin who had somehow held out against her mother’s torturers, who was as devastatingly loyal as any of the many people she’d seen take bullets for her mother. She could respect him for it, could admit that she understood why her aunt was hesitating in what to do with him, weighing his importance in the grand scheme of things.
But heart stinging at the memory of her father, she wanted to hurt him more than her mother had.
“How did it feel, fucking Allison while your Francie rotted?”
Something her mother would say, and she watched his face, watched him shove the plate away looking sickened.
He said nothing as she gathered up the tray, lifted it and turned away, listened to his quick breathing as she crossed to the door and heard the locks being disengaged. But she paused as it opened to flash a smile back at him, knowing that he picked up Sydney in her face the way Jack Bristow had seen her aunt.
Sometimes, rarely, this trait was useful.
“Lunch is going to be sandwiches,” she informed him and left him to simmer quietly.