(no subject)
Title: Smoke and Mirrors (also known as In Gorodets, also known as Paint by Numbers, etc…)
Author: Lisek16 (Lisek16@yahoo.com/lisek16@gmail.com)
Date: July 19, 2005 - August 5, 2005
Ships: S/V, N/W
Raing: PG-13
Spoilers: Seasons 1-4 spoilers and season 5 speculation (which is not based off anything remotely true, lol). The timeline takes place after the season 4 season finale, and the ending might seemed rushed mostly because it is, I’m going away for two weeks tomorrow and needed to get this done. Enjoy.
Author’s note: This piece was written for the Derevko Ficathon for Freya (freya86).
The requirements were Nadia, Sydney/Nadia spycest, and Cambodia. The requirement of spycest was not something I felt comfortable addressing so instead I focused on Nadia and Sydney in a different way.
Word Count 6,973
***
With her hand on his thigh he hesitates just long enough to convince her he’s not a pushover, but she expected it wasn’t going to be that easy. This wasn’t something a well-placed hand and a few complements were going to solve; she needed to bring it up a notch.
“Take me upstairs” she murmurs in his ear as she flashes him a seductive smile.
“To my room?” he asks suspiciously following a knowing look, “exactly what kind of business is it that you conduct Mariya that requires my hotel suite?”
“The things I plan to do for you, to you, are better left unsaid. Let me show you instead…upstairs.” She said in flawless German.
He sighs uncomfortably, “I can’t right now, I have a business meeting in five minutes. It’ll have to wait.”
She knew about the business meeting, it was set up by her partner to get him out of his room. It was her job to get him to give her the key. It wasn’t an easy job. As she brushed a strand of her brown hair behind her ears she seductively says, “I don’t think I can wait” as she straddles him on the couch in the middle of the hotel’s lounge. Her breasts push up against him she continues to climb over him and leave. His hand grabs hers and forces something into her palm. It’s the key.
She tilts her head and smiles, he says “five minutes, I’ll meet you up there in five minutes”
She shakes her head, and says “if your late, I’ll have to start without you,” as she winks.
“Feel free to make yourself at home up there” he says as she begins to walk away, she thinks to herself, don’t worry I will. He watches her until she reaches the stairwell. At which point she activates the stopwatch feature on the dial of her watch and notices she now has four minutes, fifty-eight seconds until he’ll join her upstairs.
***
In Gorodets, the sisters Derevko, with their long brown hair and matching gray school uniforms, sat by the fountain in the courtyard whispering feverously to one another. The three sisters huddled together outside their school after classes ended that day. No one knew exactly what they discussed in hushed whispers but it was assumed it was what all young girls are prone to speaking of, gossip. But Ekaterina, Elena and Irina were not giggling gossiping girls, they were not like their fellow students, they were something entirely different and they knew it.
Though only sixty kilometers away from the third largest Russian city, Gorky (now known as Nizhniy Novgorod) seemed unreachable to the girls in Gorodets. The tiny town they grew up seemed smaller and smaller each day as each of the girls grew older. That Tuesday afternoon after classes had ended, Irina pulled her sisters aside and confided in them that upon graduation she wanted to leave Gorodets to see the places they had read about in their text books.
Elena had stifled a laugh and told Irina, “The only way you’ll see the world is if you become a mail order bride for some rich obese man who makes you clean and cook and be his slave.” Ekaterina smirked and Irina grimaced, even if Rada, their cousin, had been married off to the highest bidder and sent home letters that could bring tears to one’s eyes, that was not what Irina meant. Irina wanted to leave the slow moving, quiet town she had grown up in, she wanted to explore the world, not as a servant, but as a solider. She had already been approached to her sisters’ surprise to join the Russian military. The man that had approached her, had told her she was selected because of her superior test skills and Irina had accepted, considering it a great honor to be viewed an important facet of her country’s government.
For a woman to be asked to serve her country was a great complement which Irina proudly accepted. And when she explained the offer for a better life to her two sisters they looked at her with newfound respect, four years at the military academy was not a decision to be lightly made.
Elena and Ekaterina were shocked at this development, but their mother Natalya was proud at their sister’s achievement. As time progressed and Irina’s future began to unfold her sisters decided that they would stay together no matter the cost.
***
As she tugs at the tiny pink skirt that has generously ridden up on her thighs she hears her partner on comms say “good work” as she continues running up the stairs to the third floor hotel suite.
By the time she’s reached the suite she’s down to three minutes, thirty-two seconds and her partner is negotiating the terms of the documents her agency wants to acquire, of course the buy is a no-go which is why she’s sifting through the suite searching for the briefcase containing some very important information.
The third member of her team asks her “have you found it?”, she unfortunately hasn’t and asks “can she buy me any more time?” but she knows the answer is no, and knows if she doesn’t find it within the next two minutes and sixteen seconds she’s going to have hell to pay. She sees a briefcase, it’s open and empty, which means that the documents aren’t where their source claimed. Finally she reaches the north wall and removes the old master knockoff to reveal a safe. “Do we have any intel on a Worthington safe?” she asks the voices in her ear.
“No” a female’s voice hesitates, “abort, you have a minute twenty-seven, you’ll never make it”
But she’s determined and she asks “what’s his wife’s birthday?” when the voice on the other end asks her to abort, begs her to get out of there, she calmly states, “Just tell me when she was born.” After all he seemed like the type who’d use his wife in his nefarious acts; the type who tells his mistress how much he loves his wife before he takes her to his hotel suite; the type of man that was disgusting and naïve in his own special way.
A second later the first voice reports that the target is on the move. One of the voices, she isn’t sure which finally says “twelve, sixteen, thirty-two” as she quickly twists the dial and unlocks the safe she hears a knock on the door, “Open up honey, I’m came back early, and I want my reward.”
***
As Sydney comes into the living room she can hear Nadia talking to someone, someone who she feels comfortable with to simply repeat that she can indeed speak Hebrew, she can speak Hebrew a little and that she can’t speak Hebrew. Even though her sister is clearly contradicting herself in a foreign language, Sydney is comforted that her sister is there, in her house, on the same continent. Not all sisters were that lucky.
As she comes in with bags in both arms from the grocery store she watches Nadia pace around the kitchen with earphones over her ears asking some invisible presence if they are American and if they speak English. Frankly Nadia’s doing quite well, her pronunciation is on par and her intimation is perfect. After all in Hebrew it’s all in how you say it that makes all the difference and can change a declarative sentence to an interrogative sentence. As Sydney continues to make her way into the kitchen she inadvertently startles her sister.
“I’m sorry Sydney, I didn’t hear you come in,” she says as she pulls the earphones from her ears and blushes.
“Beseder. Ata mvena ksat Ivrit. Ma chadash?” Sydney quickly retorts in Hebrew as she complements Nadia’s lingual feats and asks her how she is.
Nadia responds that’s she fine after a moment or two to catch her bearings, she has barely completed the first lesson and hasn’t begun conversational Modern Hebrew, yet nonetheless Nadia stammers “anee tov”.
Sydney smiles and resumes English, “the market was crowded, I never thought I’d live to get out of there. Lebanese prisons are a snap but American supermarkets are miserable”
Nadia begins to help Sydney unload the two huge bags of groceries, “Did you pack these?” she asks her sister.
“Yeah” Sydney says and she puts a bushel of radishes into the refrigerator along with carrots, lettuce, cucumber, zucchini and squash.
“The bags are so full” Nadia begins, “It’s so efficient. No wonder there were only two bags…”
Sydney laughs, “It’s more environmentally friendly, and…” lets her sentence trail off as she gets a glimpse at Nadia’s APO laptop on the counter, “Sloane’s sending you to Tel Aviv?” she asks noticing the computer’s internet browser displaying travel arraignments for a flight into Ben Gurion Airport.
Nadia sighs, “Sydney you weren’t supposed to find out like this.”
***
She grabs the folder from the safe and doesn’t even bother to check to see if the documents are all there, she runs to the door despite two objections from her tactical team and when she sees the sleaze ball who she seduced she smiles and invites him in. She says she was just admiring the bathroom; she wants to know if it’s a granite or marble countertop. He walks into the bathroom to show her the difference when she slams the door and shoves one of the dining room chairs under the doorknob.
He calls out, “is this another game?” and she calls back “Just wait and see!” on her way to the door. She runs down the corridor towards the service stairway until she catches a glimpse of herself in the hallway mirror, she looks a mess with her hair out of place and her mascara clumping around her eyelashes, no one would believe that this was a girl from Gorodets, Irina truly looked the part of a working girl in Gorky.
This was the beginning of the end, this was the mission she’d remember as her first, and she stood there a moment reapplying her lipstick and fixing her silver barrette, with Ekaterina and Elena screaming for her to leave, she smiled and slowly made her way down the service stairs to the first floor. She walked out the employee entrance and met her sisters in the parking lot.
Elena asks, “What took so long?”
Irina answers, “What was the rush?”
What Irina remembers most about the mission was that there wasn’t even a mention of the mishap in the newspaper; it was as if it never happened and that was an accomplishment all in itself.
***
Nadia sighs, “Sydney you weren’t supposed to find out like this.”
“If he’s sending you on an unauthorized mission you should have told me… ” Sydney begins.
Nadia quickly interjects saying, “Sydney, Don’t you think after everything we’ve been through, after all the lies that I would have enough sense not to go behind your back, the agency’s back and go on Rambaldi scavenger hunt just because my father asked me too. Sydney you need to trust me, I wouldn’t do that. I’m learning Hebrew because Eric invited me to Jerusalem next week. I was going to tell you tonight, but first I was going to tell you that my father is giving us next week off as a good will gesture.”
“So you’re learning Hebrew to impress Eric?” Sydney asked cautiously.
“Yes” Nadia said, “I borrowed my father’s Hebrew audio books this afternoon after we went out to lunch, the three of us.”
Sydney turned from the cabinets to face Nadia and gave her a truly sympathetic look, “I’m sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusion, but you know I don’t trust him”
“He’s changed Sydney, I know it’s hard for you to see but he has. I’m not asking you to trust him, but you could at least give me the benefit of the doubt,” Nadia reminds her sister.
“So Israel?” Sydney says, “It’s nice this time of year…”
***
“Director Chase, Jack and myself have decided to give you the next week off, but unfortunately a certain international crime syndicate didn’t get the memo. So tonight you’ll be going to Cambodia, the plane will leave in an hour and the mission specs will be given to you en route, after you complete the mission the APO jet will be at your disposable for the next week. I trust you will be responsible with your decisions…” Sloane began in the APO briefing room.
Nadia smiled at Weiss and Sydney was happy the two of them had found one another. She was also surprised that Sloane was giving them such a loose reign, granted they were all responsible adults but for an agency that didn’t exist this wasn’t exactly in character.
After the meeting ended Vaughn, Weiss, and Nadia were chatting.
“He’s giving us the jet. I mean, seriously, he’s giving us the jet. ” Weiss said.
“I know” Vaughn replied.
“But this is a jet, it’s not like a helicopter or a car. It’s a private aircraft at our disposal. When I used to work for Pizza Hut back when I was in college they didn’t even let me borrow the Delivery van to pick up my mom from work when her car broke down.”
Nadia smiled, “Somehow I can’t picture you being a pizza delivery boy”
At which point Vaughn said, “I was there, and he was… the worst pizza delivery guy in the history of pizza delivery. He delivered like one pizza an hour on a good day. I think the only reason he took the job was to pick up girls…”
“Hey, I resent that, but it worked didn’t it. Remember Stacey Mancini…huh huh?”
“I remember she wanted to get a restraining order”
“You don’t remember the good times, she loved me and that delivery van”
“She was certifiable. She didn’t know what she was doing… Hello Mr. Sloane!”
“Mike, Please. That’s the oldest trick in the book, as if Sloane is just standing there behind me. Please. He’s creepy, but I don’t think even he’s that creepy, and anyways just because you know I’m right doesn’t mean you have to…”
“Have to what, Agent Weiss.” Sloane said from behind Eric.
“Have to… you know Mr. Sloane it’s not really all that important.”
“No. Please, Agent Weiss, enlighten me. Your conversation sounded fascinating.” Sloane said.
“… have to practice my French before we go to Phnom Penh, you know me work, work, work.” Eric covered.
“Agent Weiss…stop by my office before you leave, that is if you can spare a moment from all your… hard work.”
As soon as Sloane removed himself from the conversation, Vaughn taunted, “Eric’s in trouble”
Eric muttered under his breathe, “Shut up”
Nadia giggled, and Eric said “he really is that creepy”
“Agent Weiss!” Sloane bellowed from his office.
“Au revoir mes amis,” Eric replied in French as he made his way into Sloane’s tastefully minimalist office.
It was as if nothing had changed, but it had, it just wasn’t painfully obvious yet. Meanwhile Sydney had pulled her father aside after the meeting.
“Dad, why is Sloane really giving us the week off?” she asks skeptically. They have sequestered themselves into the APO briefing room, the blinds had been drawn and the room had been checked for listening devices.
“Sydney, I wouldn’t worry about it, take the time off, you deserve…” Jack began.
Sydney interjected, “Dad, what is he planning?”
“Sydney, you and I both share a certain level of suspicion when it comes to Arvin Sloane and his activities, but do you honestly believe that I’d assist him in sending you away providing him freedom from all watchful eyes?”
“Dad, something just doesn’t seem right. Nadia just thinks I’m being paranoid, but even after all my years at SD-6 Sloane never gave an entire department vacation time.” Sydney explains, though it’s clear Jack was stonewalling her.
“I know you’d like to believe that you, your sister, Agent Weiss and Vaughn comprise the entire APO team, there are other efficient and talented agents that work for this taskforce. The agency won’t cease to exist without your constant… assistance. ”
“But Dad…” She began as she tried to rationalize why Jack would be saying this, it didn’t make any sense until Jack brushed into her and she felt his hand drop something into her jacket pocket.
“Sydney, if there isn’t anything else, I have a great deal of work to complete and you are leaving for Cambodia in less than hour. Perhaps you should pack?”
Jack didn’t wait for a response instead he left the room and returned to his office. Sydney, bewildered and curious made her way to her own desk. She opened a file on the upcoming mission and put the note discretely into the folder. To an observer it would appear that Sydney was brushing up on the general mission plans, but in all actuality she was reading her father’s note, “Sloane’s watching. I’s Café, five minutes.”
I’s Café was a block away; it sold smoothies and the Asian specialty Bubble Tea. As Sydney made her way out of APO to the café outside the subway station she kept her eyes pealed for security details and her father. After reaching the tiny beverage establishment she looked around for Jack to no avail. She went to the counter to buy herself a drink, a jasmine flavored iced tea with tapioca balls on the bottom, after paying for her bubble tea the owner handed her a receipt, which was strange because this wasn’t the type of place that handed you a receipt unless you specifically asked for one. She thanked the man and read the receipt. It directed her to the alley behind the building; she took the path towards the public transit lot and then ducked into the alley. Her father was waiting, amused at her beverage choice.
“Did you go ape for grape?” he asked her slightly smirking.
Sydney herself smiled, she too had seen the advertisement about the new Grape variety and its mascot, a dancing purple ape. “I managed to resist the temptation and stuck with jasmine.” She replied. If anyone else had asked her such a silly question she would have laughed, but coming from her father’s mouth as amusing as it was, it wasn’t all that funny. He had asked her the question with the same tone, and intimation that he would have used if he asked her, what the weather prediction was or how to find the nearest post office.
“Sloane has been surveying the office, I didn’t think it was an appropriate risk to discuss his plans for world domination while he watched us over the surveillance feed. But you’re right, this vacation he single-handedly suggested to Chase seems off kilter, but if he is up to something, he hasn’t confided it in me. For right now, I’d take the vacation time and chalk it up to a moment of humanity that Sloane is experiencing.” Jack explained as Sydney sipped the sweet tea out of a large green straw.
“The timing isn’t a bit… suspicious. Nadia only recovered a few weeks ago.” Sydney reminded him.
“Perhaps, the revelation of how fragile this life is has reminded him to stop and smell the roses…” Jack said as his eyes glazed over deep in thought.
“Dad?” Sydney asked, breaking Jack out of his memories.
“Sydney, you leave momentarily, stay safe, we’ll talk about this after you return. Until that time I’ll keep Sloane under observation, you and… Vaughn should spend this time without these preoccupations and concerns. ”
Sydney nodded and made her way to the fleet of taxis outside the subway station, she understood entirely, this wasn’t office politics; it was a power play between Jack and Arvin.
***
It was a rainy day in London six weeks after Irina had disappeared. This was after she had abandoned Sydney but before she had learned she was pregnant with another child. She was on a mission for her Russian superiors, it was a simple recon mission, which upon completion would enable her to return to Russia, to her mother and her sisters who she hadn’t seen since she began he deep cover mission as Laura Bristow.
Irina had gone into another posh hotel and charmed another rich older gentleman with her female wiles. She had found her way into his hotel suite and convinced him to let her tie him up. The S&M scene was all the rage. As soon as she promptly did, she ransacked the room and found a metal disk that her superiors had requested. This was around the time that Irina still was out the loop, though she believed she knew everything, she had no idea how wrong she could be.
But something had gone wrong, her gentleman friend had realized he was being duped and had pulled at Irina’s flimsy restraints. Unbeknownst to her, he had a gun hidden beneath the pillow case Irina hadn’t thought enough to check; she was preoccupied with thoughts of her homeland. As Irina made her way to exit the room he shot a bullet into her left shoulder. The pain of course seared and slowed Irina down considerably but she continued to make her way down the stairs and by the time she reached the hotel lobby she looked at her reflection as she quickly passed by and thought, this isn’t how it was supposed to be.
***
The private jet was divided in such a way that there were two living areas, Nadia and Weiss were examining the mission specs in the larger of the two. They were sipping coffee and pooling their resources. In the other expansive space Sydney and Vaughn were not quite as productive. After their car accident in Santa Barbara things had changed considerably. For one thing, Sydney still lived with Nadia rather than her fiancée. Sydney didn’t know if she could trust herself around Vaughn, especially now that she knew the truth about his identity.
Since that first moment she had seen him everything he had done and said had been a guise. She didn’t know how she could trust him, even after all these years, even though he had done everything for the right reasons he had never confided in her until that moment when the guilt and deceit had even gotten to him. Even though he was still the same person who she had loved for years, she really didn’t know him at all.
True, their car had been hit by Sark, who had borrowed a large truck to make their lives a living hell. It was from Sark that Vaughn’s story was told, not by Michael Vaughn himself. Sydney cried and sighed in disbelief when Sark revealed her fiancée as someone she had known for some time, yet not really known at all. She never knew if her mother put Sark up to it, to force Vaughn’s hand into admitting who he really was in case he was faced with cold feet, but the truth was a welcomed slap in the face.
Her fiancé was the man of a thousand faces, and as much as she loved him right then she hated him just as much if not a bit more. When Sark was satisfied that this kidnapping had been orchestrated and executed perfectly he let them go. He just opened the front door to an abandoned warehouse off the highway near Santa Barbara and let them leave, not before Sydney slapped Sark in the face which followed a swift and slightly harder slap to Vaughn’s face as well. She snapped, “I trusted you” before she bit out “I don’t even know who you are anymore, how can I love you” she had taken one look at the totaled car which she could tell was smoking even miles away and hotwired on of Sark’s lackey’s vehicles and taken off without offering him a ride. Vaughn called out “Sydney” to no avail. She was gone, and all the potential he had seen in Santa Barbara was lost.
***
Irina ended up passing out on the curb of the street near the hotel after a great deal of blood loss and exhaustion, she hadn’t slept in four days and she probably wouldn’t have slept for four more if the bullet hadn’t broken skin. She was admitted into a hospital as a Jane Doe. After the bullet had been removed and the wound properly bandaged, Irina left. Se had regained consciousness in a small room all alone in the hospital, and it was the middle of the night, the night nurse was probably preoccupied with other patients; which made Irina’s escape even easier. Before she left she looked at her chart and to her surprise the hospital stay had revealed that she was pregnant, and that’s when Irina realized how much she wanted to go back. Not back to Russia, but back to Jack and their daughter.
***
Cruising at an altitude 60,000 feet the couple reviewed the mission specs from the comfort of their private jet, though they were both a little uncomfortable reading about Jean Luc Devereux, the man they were meeting in Cambodia. He was a twenty-two year old hit man, arms dealer and all around bad guy. He had killed a few dozen of his superiors in a Pan-Asian crime syndicate and Nadia and Sydney were meeting him for brunch. Nadia wondered if this was how it would always be. If there would be this unspoken tension between Sydney and herself. It was more than just her father’s betrayals, she had a feeling Sydney was harboring resentment and unmistakable sadness and she wasn’t sure if this was the type of thing they could work past. She understood on some level how hard it must have been for Sydney, after all her father did have her fiancé assassinated, and Arvin Sloane had repeatedly lied to her.but aside from Sloane’s presence in Sydney’s past, she often wondered if all those years apart could really stop them from being together…from being sisters?
Nadia stopped internally debating her relationship with her sister. She stopped re-reading the acquired information about the man she’d be meeting, she stopped listening to Weiss talk about what it was like to swim in the Mediterranean Sea or hike in the Golan Heights. Instead Nadia excused herself and visited the airplane’s bathroom; she splashed some cold water on her face and looked at herself in the mirror. What she saw staring back at her scared her, these years in espionage had changed her. Her eyes were a little less innocent and her expressions were a little more vacant.
Israel will be good for us, she thought, Eric and I need a break, I don’t bounce back like I used too. Nadia knew she wasn’t too far gone, she had almost been killed by the Rambaldi plague a few weeks prior, but she had survived, a little wiser and a little less naïve. The fact that the woman who raised her as if she was her own daughter was really Elena Derevko still haunted her some nights and when she awoke she’d reach out for Eric, the nearness of a warm body and a confidante comforted her greatly, but one day she knew he might not be there to caress her and tell her everything would be okay. She tried not to think of missing him especially while he was still here.
She left the bathroom and made her way to the rear of the plane, to the smaller living quarters. Later after she had pulled back the curtain to visit Sydney, she really wished she hadn’t. There are some things in life that are never meant to be shared; there are others that you wish you never knew or overheadr in Nadia’s case.
***
When she finally made her way back to Russia she was imprisoned in Kashmir, India which was not what she had planned. She was pregnant and alone locked in a jail cell day after day. At the first the treatment was sub-par. She had been placed in this facility because she was suspected of treason against Russia so they imprisoned her and when her second daughter was born they took her away and Irina knew deep down she’d never see this child again when she asked, begged and pleaded to at least be able to hold her newborn baby and they told her to shut up and took the child into another room never to be heard from again. When Irina finally escaped months later after being tortured, questioned and ultimately mistreated, she promised herself and the two children she’d never really know that she would give purpose to her life and theirs, she would find the reason they had to be separated, she would find the ultimate good in all this pain. This was back when Irina still believed there was good in the world and that bad things only really happened to people who deserved it. She considered herself and her missions for Russia to be a necessary evil in the process of making the world a safer place, she was idealistic, she was so disillusioned that it would take years of the awful truth to set her straight. But any journey begins with just one step which Irina took by enlisting her sisters help to find her daughter and to resurrect her family.
***
Sydney and Vaughn were seated at the table in the room sitting in plump air chairs talking in circles. They were obviously getting no where and the only thing that really stuck Nadia as odd was that Sydney kept muttering people aren’t spies forever. Finally just as Nadia decided now was not the time to visit her sister, Sydney said, “I still don’t understand how you could lie to me all those years… Danny” and that’s when Nadia realized that something wasn’t right. She left the curtain slightly pulled back and just as she was trying to make a hasty return back to her seat, Weiss snuck up behind her and scared her. She nearly jumped out of her skin and her involuntary surprised yelp caused both Sydney and the man she knew as Michael Vaughn to snap their heads around to examine the intruder.
Weiss not realizing that anything was wrong barged into the room with several cans of soda and announced that it was time for a well-deserved break. He sat down and propped his feet up on a leather ottoman and patted the empty seat next to him indicating that Nadia should join him as he popped open a carbonated beverage. “Man this guy is a dirty sleaze…” he begins referring to Jean Luc but instead of venting about the mission he notices Sydney glaring at Nadia and Nadia shaking her head with a strange expression on her face. “What’s going on?” Eric Weiss asked noting the tension, “Are you guys having a fight or something?”
“Yeah Nadia, what’s going on?” Sydney asked her sister coldly.
“Nothing” Nadia lies, “I’m just tired, flying always wears me down, I just need to rest…. Excuse me.” She says as she leaves as abruptly as she entered.
Weiss looked confused but continued to babble to Vaughn about how cool it is to have the black op’s version of the company car at their disposal. Meanwhile Sydney excused herself and made her way to the front of the plan in search of her sister and an explanation. When she found Nadia she was trying too hard to look busy, reading and re-reading the mission specs. Sydney sat down next to her as Nadia tried not to notice.
Sydney realized that her sister must of overheard her conversation and needed some explanation to rationalize what she heard. “So you know” she began, “don’t you? You know he’s not really Michael Vaughn …”
***
After spending twenty years behind the scenes trying to find her lost daughter and trying to thwart an apocalyptic prophecy Irina was tired of running. This life was no longer fun and it pained her to think of all her sacrifices, Jack, Sydney, her unnamed daughter, even her sisters. It was rare that she spoke to Ekaterina, to Katya but she had completely lost touch with Elena. Her mother had passed on and she had never known her father. Everyone who mattered was gone and Irina just wanted to stop hurting, because the longer she was in the spy game the more disassociated she became and she hated that. That’s partially why she turned herself in though she’d never admit that to Sark. She told him it was a convenient ploy to get the CIA’s Rambaldi artifacts, but really it was a chance to get to know Sydney.
So when Jack offered her the opportunity to surrender and reveal her endgame in order to be offered a private resistance in Puget Sound, part of her ached inside to take it. But she knew she never could, a mother’s work is never done. There were too many secrets left to be told and too many prophecies that Irina had to sever. She couldn’t let Rambaldi win, she would continue this Rambaldi hunt until everything was destroyed. She wouldn’t let a five hundred year old prophecy destroy her children, not the way it destroyed her and her sisters.
***
With the new seating arraignments came new questions.
“How long have you known?” Nadia asked to which Sydney responded “since the crash”.
“How is it possible?” she asked, and Sydney explained “after I believed he was killed by your father, there were a few months before I returned to SD-6 and covertly joined the CIA. He had gone through the genetic doubling process, not project helix but its American predecessor, and with the help of plastic surgery he looks the way he does now. He faked his own death and resumed his place in the CIA. He was sent to spy on me and got too close. He’s always loved me though, that’s why he went through all of this, for me. To keep me safe” she confided.
“All along these last few weeks you’ve been harder on my father and always reminding me how he killed Danny and ruined your life and now you tell me it was just a big misunderstanding?” Nadia asks.
Sydney just shakes her head as the two of them continue talking. Meanwhile Vaughn and Weiss begin to notice a little bit of turbulence and go to check on their significant others.
As Michael, or rather Danny, hears Sydney rehashing his past he knows everything is about to change. This was a secret he wished he never had to reveal. He loved Sydney and he knew that nothing would ever be the same now that she knew it was Danny not Vaughn who she had loved these last few years. Sydney had felt betrayed and it was all his fault. Weiss hears the conversation as well and puts two and two together, his friend is not who he thought he was. The story didn’t make sense. He had gone to college with Michael Vaughn. He looks at his friend of so many years and he punches him hard in the gut. “Who are you” Eric screams “and what have you done with Michael Vaughn?”
After the fight breaks out, Nadia and Sydney rush out to see they men in their lives beating the crap out of each other. Sydney puts her fingers in her mouth and emits a nearly deafening whistle, to which Nadia responds, “How did you do that” and Sydney answers “I’ll teach you, it’s easy” and then addresses the situation at hand. “Let’s air our dirty laundry” she says as the four of them make their way into the nearest living area.
“We have twenty hours until Cambodia and we can’t keep second guessing each other in the field. so let’s just work it out…” she says as she eyes Weiss and Vaughn “in words.”
***
There was a long time when Irina would question the identity of Nadia’s father. Her KGB handler, Khasinau had forced her to sleep with Arvin Sloane foe security clearance around the same time Nadia was conceived, it was possible that Nadia was either Jack or Arvin’s daughter. Either way Irina was ashamed of her indiscretion. She had a long time to reflect of that mistake and all of her others while being held hostage by Elena. It was Elena who had always felt insecure and paranoid because she had not been asked to serve in the KGB, she had been the baby of the family and she had always marched to the beat of her own drummer and now she had kidnapped her sister and nearly killed her through starvation, torture and isolation. But it wasn't until she was rescued by her family that she had a chance to see not just Sydney but her sister, Nadia. What no one knew was how happy Irina was to have her family together, but even she knew it would not last for long. But before they parted ways she told Michael Vaughn to tell Sydney the truth because it was all of Irina’s lies that had destroyed her relationship with Jack and hindered her life with her children. She wanted better for her daughters, better than the failed relationship of the Derevko sisters, where the missions brought them together until they tore them apart and age old prophecies made murder a form of sibling rivalry. Irina just wanted more.
***
There he was forced to explain how he was born not Michael Vaughn but Daniel Hecht once again. He recounted how his father had an affair with his mother and how he spent many years tracking his father William and his brother Michael down. He went to the same college as Weiss and Vaughn and when he finally got the courage to introduce himself to his half brother the agency that had just recruited him shot his brother down and they forced him to take his identity. But this was after Danny had graduated Med school and this was during Michael’s three month visit to France between the summer after he graduated college and the fall when he’d start clandestine service training. Michael’s death was in Nice and it was all Danny could do to follow orders and take over his brother’s life. So after some conditioning and some plastic surgery he went from Danny to Michael while Sydney grieved for her dead fiancé. It was perfect timing and when he came back to the states everything just worked itself out. He resumed Michael’s relationship with Alice and kidded with Weiss and began working as a double agent for The Man, later to be revealed to be Irina Derevko and his primary job was to protect Sydney for her mother but also because he already loved her. it was surreal and confusing but it was honest and true. After the man’s organization fell he was asked to join the covenant but he wanted out, he wanted to be with Sydney and when he believed she died He only dated Lauren because he was lonely.
Now that everyone was on the same page, there were far fewer questions and bar room fights and paranoia. No one was listening in to each other’s conversations because they all knew the same information. They were finally behaving like a team. The only question left was from Weiss who asked “Should I call you Michael or Danny?” to which he responded “I haven’t been Danny since this all began and I've never really been Michael. You can call me whatever you want…” and Weiss shook his head “Man, when you came back from France you really did change. I thought it was just because you were helping your Mom move into her little French chateau and hadn’t… geez, this changes everything”
“Yeah” Nadia agrees “it really does”.
Given a few hours of rest and new found level of understanding the mission in Cambodia went off without a hitch, Nadia and Sydney flirted and giggled and got a very bad man to give them a hotel key after which they took the jet to Tel Aviv but never arrived. Instead the jet had been run out of fuel and Weiss’ piloting and a bad storm resulting in the quartet parachuting to safety and spending three days incommunicado in the Golan Heights before they contacted Sloane.
After all, Trust is a tricky thing, and truth takes time; and it’s true some rules are there for a reason and others are meant to be broken. But there are fine lines everywhere if you look hard enough, and one thing that they can all agree on is that no good can come from crashing the company car, even if it wasn’t their fault.
The End