Happy Galentine's Day
Not so relevant to this post, except that it's a story about a woman who is awesome: against my better judgment I got antsy and posted fic on a Saturday evening, even though we all know that's a bad time to do these things if you want anyone to see it. So in case you're interested and missed it, A Fairer House than Prose (or on DW) is my long-
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Sydney stumbled back into her apartment-Julia's apartment-after a particularly harrowing job. Three people dead by her hand. At least two of them probably deserved it, and it's not as though she had never been forced to kill anyone in the line of duty before, but lines and duty were all but erased at this point. She could at least be this honest with herself: she was killing to maintain her cover. Soon she would either break or grow completely indifferent, and it terrified her that she couldn't decide which would be worse.
The apartment, at least, was starting to feel like home. Julia's home, perhaps, but it was a refuge from all that was wrong in her life. All the same, it was best not to get too comfortable in Julia's life.
Comfort was the furthest thing from her mind that evening, though, as she opened the door and realized immediately that the apartment wasn't empty. Sydney slipped her weapon from its holster as she crept silently through the entryway. She could just make out a figure in the shadows and couldn't decide whether the person had heard her when the figure spoke.
"Sydney, it's okay. It's just me."
Her mother stepped out of the shadows, a gun trained on Sydney just in case.
"What are you doing here?" Sydney snapped, her voice harder than she intended it. She distrusted her mother under all circumstances, but right now Irina Derevko was one of the most welcome sights imaginable. And Sydney knew exactly how dangerous it was to give her mother that information.
An unmistakable expression of pain flashed across Irina's face, and she slowly lowered her weapon. "We thought you were dead," Irina explained. "We were searching for your killers, and then we learned you were alive, and-"
"Who is 'we'?" Sydney interrupted. The last thing she knew, her mother was working with Sloane, and Sydney was not yet desperate enough to want to see him.
"Your father and I." Again, the flash of pain crossed Irina's face, and Sydney's stomach flipped so much in anxious reaction that her weapon wavered. "The CIA discovered he was working with me," her mother said. "They have him in custody, but I believe he knows you're alive. I continued the investigation and found you here, and discovered what you've been made to do."
Sydney cursed the tears she felt pricking behind her eyes. Her gun clattered forgotten on the hall table; perhaps she was being incautious, but she no longer cared as she moved toward her mother.
"Oh, sweetheart," murmured Irina as she pulled Sydney into her arms. "I know, I know."
The words were the kind of soothing nonsense that reminded Sydney of being a five-year-old with a scraped knee, taking comfort in her mother's embrace. But it wasn't nonsense, Sydney realized with a shock. Her mother did know about double lives and covers and destroying your soul to save your life. Sydney had spent twenty years wanting to follow in her mother's footsteps, but this was never what she meant.
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We'll call this a very rough pre-first draft snippet for the other Alias fic I intend to write, based on the premise that Irina and Sydney hung out some during that second year (and possibly going AU with the idea that Sydney didn't wipe her memories, but I'm not sure). But, um, I should probably watch season 3 first...
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:slaps on party hat with an on it:
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