Fic commentary, very late: Ice and Glass

[urbandruid]

Fanfic commentary, shamefully late. Alias, "Ice and Glass" for dagnylilytable. I should have done this a lot sooner, but I was so buried under school stuff all the time, and the words were never quite there. Suddenly they seem to be.


Ice and Glass
by
urbandruid

Disclaimer: Alias is the property of other people, including J.J. Abrams
and Bad Robot productions.

[This commentary is for my friend MC, who asked for it a long time
ago. She's always liked this story a lot, and I've got to admit that
it's one of my favorites, too.

In a way Ice and Glass could have been a direct sequel to "Without
Light", my moody Jack/Sloane slash fic. It takes place in more or less
the same time period, anyway- second season, around the time Ariana
Kane is sniffing around. I never can remember the episode titles; even
with the DVD set in my living room, I still can't tell you for sure. I
could guess, but...]

---

Once, this hall led nowhere. A glass dragon's lair, without the dragon.
Once. But now... Now, the dragon has come home, and she is glass as well.

[I was kind of fascinated by the cell. And I liked the image of Irina
as the dragon in her lair at the end of those long, twisting passages. I
wanted to convey the way I saw Irina making the cell her own, so that
after a while you weren't sure if they were locking her in, or
themselves out. I think I started out thinking of using a tiger/zoo
metaphor, which works too, but that's I thought it was kind of cliched.
Irina is way cooler than clichés, so I came up with this. I also have to
admit that the title of a book I never finished called "The Glass Dragon",
might have been floating around in the back of my head. I like this first
bit a lot, I think it came out perfectly for what I wanted it to say. The
last couple words- "and she is glass as well"- somewhere deep inside,
she's still human.]

I think that I can see straight through her- but everything seen through
her is distorted, different. Unrecognizable even if I knew it by heart.
But she is glass, all sharp edges and clear blades of crystal. Cutting,
always cutting, and every stroke draws blood.

[Keeping up with the glass metaphor, because it works. And also
literally, Jack thinks he can see straight through her. You've got to
feel sorry for him, really- he thinks he's got her all figured out, that
she can't possibly surprise him anymore. Of course, it's been nearly
thirty years since he's seen her. And then he starts to figure out that
maybe he doesn't know everything, that maybe she's more complex than
that. She knows what she's doing, knows exactly how to wound him when
she wants to.]

It's midnight when I go to see her. Midnight, and a raging thunderstorm
outside. I come in out of the rain, coat but no umbrella, soaked to the
skin but too tired, too weary, to care.

[Mood weather. And a little bit of that slightly daring/depressed/what
does it matter anyway? stuff that Jack does so well.]

The others surround me with exclamations and looks of concern, offering
towels, hot coffee, offering ears to listen. From somewhere far away I
hear a voice ask if they ought to call my daughter.

No, I tell them. I'm alright. I needed to walk, clear my head. The
clouds opened up while I was out there. That is all I tell them.

[I have this idea that most of the co-workers, the ones who aren't
really in on the interesting stuff, have about given up trying to figure
him out. I just picture them trying to be average normal co-workers,
"Hey, you okay? What's wrong? Do you want to talk about it?" and him
just giving them that look...]

Walking the paths through the park, past the carousel dark and empty,
the way we used to walk together. Almost waiting, almost looking,
for some fool to try to mug me. Yes, of course, you can have my wallet and
my watch, a hundred dollars and a Timex, and there's just one more thing
before you go...

It's happened before. Once. He wasn't in any shape to identify me, but my
dear old friend doesn't take chances. Arvin Sloane had him killed.

And so I don't do that anymore.

[I don't write anything I can't see in some way, but I can
really see Jack picking fights with random LA muggers when he's really
pissed off... Almost makes me feel for the muggers, you know? And then
Sloane has the guy killed, just in case, and Jack gets a little case of
the guilts, and has to find a new way to relieve the stress.

Normal stuff like talking to people probably wouldn't occur to him.]

I used to go to the range to shoot, but you can only practice so many
hours before they take note, begin to ask questions you cannot answer. But
I have to do something.

[This actually fits in pretty well with the view we get of S3 Jack, a
bit bloodthirsty and big on the whole payback thing, with the storage
facilities full of weapons and other assorted scary stuff.]

So I tell them about needing some time to myself, to sort things out.
About being caught out in the rain.

The others smile with relief; I am not quite as crazy as they feared I
might be. I do have the sense to come in out of the rain, after all- I
was close by, and so I thought, why not? They nod, assure me that all is
well, everything quiet. No trouble.

[I'm sure they still think he's crazy, myself. Just a bit.]

I let them get back to their work.

And then, as I knew they would, my steps turn down that hall. I walk, slow,
ID held up for the guards to see. I think every one of them knows me by now.
I am sure they have heard the story, whatever version of it races around
these halls on wings of whisper and rumor. They know why I come.

[I'm sure they swapped rumors. Those random uniformed guards and
various other people one used to see around Irina in S2; they must have
heard the whole sordid story. And passed it along.]

I, too, know why I do this. Know it in my heart, though the rest of me
would rather not admit it.

I come in the dark of night, out of the storm, and it is fitting, so
fitting.

Though it is late, the lights burn. They fear her in the dark. I can feel
their fear, can feel it in every inch of this place. In every millimeter of
glass. How safe we should feel, with the dragon behind the glass. But the way she
has owned that space since she entered it tells all- It is not she who is
prisoner, but us. We are prisoner to our fear, to her dark eyes, to her silent,
mocking laughter.

[I think this is true, too, of course. Half of them were scared to
death of her. Of what she'd done, of what she could still do. And I
think one of the things that scared them most was that she never really
behaved like a prisoner. She didn't act like someone whose rights and
freedoms had been taken away. She acted like somebody who was still in
control, and I think that scared them to death. Which I'm sure amused
the hell out of her.]

I know, though they have never said a word to me- they wouldn't, of course-
that her guards understand why I loved her. Because she is beautiful, strong,
sure of herself... but more than that, so much more.

One of the other agents said it best when they thought I was out of
earshot; "She could have been one of us."

Oh, yes. Could have been, should have been...

[I'm not sure where this came from, the whole "she could have been
one of us" thing. But she's just that good, and now it's one of my
favorite AUs. CIA!Irina. Kicking ass and taking names on the side of
the, ahem, good guys. Someone please shoot me before I end up with
another project...]

The gates rise and close again behind me, and I walk forward. Little
puddles of rainwater in my wake.

I am suddenly chilled. It is colder here than anywhere else in the building.
My eyes narrow, and I make note of this. On my way out I will speak to
someone. This is cruel. It also reeks of disrespect, and I will tell them- as I
have told them before- that if you do not respect this woman she will do nothing
for you. And why should she? She has nothing to lose, they have made sure of
that.

They can kill her, of course. They can, but they won't. They need her
too badly.

[I really think that killing Irina is about all they've got left to
threaten her with, the only thing they might do to her that might bother
her. But then again, it's Irina, so maybe not. And there was that whole
thing in S2 when she waived all those appeals, manipulating the hell out
of Sydney in the process...]

She sits on her bed, and she has stripped it bare to wrap both thin blanket
and thinner sheet around her. She huddles there, curled over her pillow,
wearing every bit of clothing she still owns, her jaw set in that firm line I
remember so well. Too proud to plead, to beg, she will freeze to death before she
asks them for anything. Which will gain none of us anything, and will also
upset my daughter.

[I can't remember if it was a pillow or a blanket that she argued
for, but I kind of figured the other ought to come with it. I have this
image of Irina just looking at them, that "why is your paper so bloody
late?" professor stare, until the rest showed up.

The last line amuses me to no end. It'll upset Sydney. Typical, so
typical...]

To say nothing of what it would do to me.

[Ah. Honesty, at last. Poor, poor Jack. I'm really not very nice to
him sometimes...]

She looks as if she hasn't slept in days. Shadows under her eyes, deep
shadows. She shivers, a sign of weakness she would never allow herself to show
under normal circumstances.

I realize then that this can't wait.

"This is inexcusable," I tell her. "I'll be back."

[Because he doesn't, you know, care about her or anything. No way.
Absolutely not.]

I sweep out of the inner room, past the gates again, startling the guards
as I rush by. "I need to see Kendall as soon as he gets in," I call over my
shoulder to them. Running now, running across the main floor, down another side
hall...

I have a small cubby here to call my own, which they term an office. I
keep a few items in that room, changes of clothing being the only thing I am
concerned about now. I rifle through the file cabinet that takes up half the
office space, a cabinet which has been converted to a cunningly disguised closet. I
pull the heaviest overcoat from among the hangers, and leave the room at a run.

I return to the glass room with the coat over my arm, and beckon one of
the guards to follow me.

"Open the door," I tell him, and my voice is as cold as that room.

[This is, of course, the DangerouslyAngry!Jack we've seen so many
times. The one who is maybe the teeniest bit unstable.]

He hesitates. "Sir-"

Irina watches all of this from her place within the glass box, curled
into a ball now to conserve heat. Her expression looks impassive, but I know
better. I feel her eyes on me. The eyes of a bird of prey. Does she see an ally,
or a potential victim?

[He's begun to figure out now that there's more to her than meets the
eye. Bit late, I suppose, but...]

I have no time to care, no time to question. There is no choice. She is
glass, but she is also becoming ice, and love her or hate her, I can't let
her freeze.

[I think it might be some of both, actually.]

I look at this guard and his hesitation, and fury sweeps over me.
Watch your temper, I tell myself, as she had told me once.
He's not worth it.

Something of my inner turmoil must have shown in my face, because the
guard nodded slowly. "I'm going to have to report this, Agent Bristow-"

"Fine. Do so, then. Now-"

He turns, keys in the code that raises the last barrier. I duck under it
before it is more than halfway up, run to her.

The temperature drops even further as I cross that line. As I reach her
I realize her lips are turning blue.

I don't hesitate; I can't. I throw the coat over her shoulders, wrap her
up in the coat and in my arms, hold her to me. I tell myself that I do this
because she will die without the warmth, because she needs it. Truth told,
though, I have wanted to do this for a long, long time.

[Did anyone else kind of see that little revelation coming? It's hard
to be subtle when you're trying to drag the Jack-muse towards Irina,
sometimes.]

I grasp it then, everything I have known all along but have been too afraid
to face. It no longer matters what she is, what she has done- it never has.
I hold her and feel a fierce protectiveness, such as I have only felt for two
souls in all the world. Sydney, and this woman.

For the first time I know her, really know her. Know everything about her,
where she had been, what she had done. And I understand it then, that we
were not so very different. I held myself to the moral high ground, but I
had sacrificed it too many times for the sake of my daughter, for the
things I told myself were good and just, and above such petty
considerations of morality.

Irina is my mirror then. I no better than her...and she, she no worse
than I. Touching her this catalytic revelation, after so very long...

[The above three paragraphs are really the heart of the piece. Glass
is reflective, after all, even when it isn't meant to be. In truth, I
think Jack and Irina are really a lot alike, that they aren't so very
different. Which is a theme I play with a bit more in the sequel...
well, okay, maybe a lot more. It's really difficult to hate a
person for having done certain things when you get to a point where you
realize that you just might have done them, too, under the right
conditions... "and she, she no worse than I." I like that a lot. First
'I'm no better than she is', and then 'but she is no worse than me,
either.']

"Irina... Irina."

"Jack." Her voice barely a whisper; even so close, I strain to hear.

I shout to the cameras and the microphones then, call for the blankets,
the coffee I set aside before.

"Stay with me, Irina... Talk to me. What year is it?"

[I don't think even I could get him to admit it, but he's worried
about her now. How tragic would it be if she died now, when he's just
started to figure it out? And the lovely and terrible thing about fanfic
is that anything is possible- I mean, I could have done it. You have no
idea if you can trust the author or not, you know?]

She curses me in her native Russian. I try not to smile.

[There's this point in "Passage", part one I think it was, when
they're (I think) discussing the toaster, and he's trying really hard
not to smile, and I'm thinking, "Don't smile, Jack, don't smile. It
might be really bad if you smiled..." And it was just kind of funny for
some reason. My mother used to do this thing where she'd tease me and
say "Don't smile" and of course I couldn't help smiling...]

"Tell me your name... Birthplace. Where are you now?"

"Irina... Derevko... Moscow... the old... USSR. A very- cold glass box."

They arrive then with blankets and steaming Styrofoam cups, but no one
wants to cross that now-invisible threshold. No one... But I hear someone
talking quietly to the others, see hands taking the items, and then the
group parts.

[Again with the everybody's scared of Irina thing. I may have gone a
bit overboard with this, but I don't see many people wanting to walk in
there. I really don't.]

Michael Vaughn steps forward. Into the chill, into the light. Into the cell
which holds the woman who killed his father. I don't want to think of what
it costs him to do this. He brings me what I've asked for and retreats
without a word, and as I lift the blankets, take them to Irina, I hear Vaughn
speaking to the gathering again. They trickle out of the room, back to their
posts. I think Vaughn remains, but I am not certain.

[It's hard looking back on this paragraph after having seen S3
Vaughn, who is frankly scared of his own shadow. But this was back when
I was trying very hard to believe Vaughn was a human being of some form,
to treat him like any other character in the series. And given the point
in S2 when I wrote this, Vaughn was pretty much my only option. I just
wanted to see him making progress, somehow growing into something I
could put up with, since Syd/Vaughn is the One True Pairing That
Wouldn't Die. It's, you know, possible I gave him more credit than he
was ever due.]

I hold a cup to Irina's lips. "Drink this." And I can see that she is
trying, but-

She struggles for breath, quick little gasps- and then the struggle
fails.

I swear. Throw the cup aside. And I breathe for her. No thought, only
reflex, reaction, movement. Counting the chest compressions, breathing
into her mouth again, and her lips are cold, so cold...

Another breath, given. Hers without thought, because she needs it and I
don't.

[It's not that I don't think he could, under the right circumstances,
see her dead. But watching her die is not the same thing as killing her,
and I think maybe he could do the latter, but not the former. I think
it would break him somehow to watch her die. And that's not what this is
about, anyway.]

A flicker of movement, then, her lips pushing back against mine. Kiss of
life, and she breathes. Oh yes, she breathes.

[To me it seems so very Irina to do this, because the opportunity is
there, and even with someone who's just saved her life, I don't see her
missing a chance to keep him off balance. I imagine she was rather
amused by it, really.]

I pull back. Not because I want to. Because I have no other choice.

"Are you alright?"

She nods. Softly, then: "I don't know who I am anymore, Jack. Irina
Derevko or Laura Bristow."

[I keep waiting for some reader to yell at me over this. To tell me
that Irina knows who she is. But I just think it's more complicated
than that, and there must be times she wants to be Laura, or to be
Irina without the complications of having been Laura, and she can't.]

My heart stops. Pain as if it will break, again. "Who do you want to
be?" I ask her, dreading the answer, needing it.

[I love this question. I love how it came out, raw and honest. Like it
hits a place where Jack normally doesn't go...]

"Laura could hold her daughter, kiss her husband. I see the sun now,
once in a week." I know this; in a way I helped arrange it for her. "I
only wanted to hold her, Jack. Just once. I wouldn't hurt her, any more
than you would."

[When they pulled those guns and made Syd and Irina back away from each
other, it just about had me in tears. I saw the mother in Irina then more
than the manipulator, or the monster we're at some points apparently
supposed to believe she is. I think deep down, she knows she should have
expected what happened, but is still hurt by it.]

Those words, my love, so double-edged... for I have hurt her, too,
though I only wanted to protect her.

No, we are not so different, are we? If you were telling the truth about
having shot her. And I believe, suddenly, that you just might have been.

[And again with the parallels. Because Project Christmas hurt
Sydney too, even if it did in fact make her stronger.]

But all I say to her is, "I know." I tell her I am sorry because this is
what you say. Not because I understand what I am sorry for, or why I am
apologizing for others. Perhaps because they never will.

[Getting back a little here to the fact that there are those times when
Jack can seem totally inept. I really see him as the kind of person who will
say "I'm sorry" at those times when people say stuff like that, without any
clear understanding of why it's said then. Of course, sometimes I
don't totally understand that stuff either.]

"Don't," she says. "Don't apologize as if you were one of them."

"Aren't I?"

"No. Which of them would have come in here?"

"My- our daughter."

"No, Jack. Sydney is no part of them, either."

"Yes, but-"

"Jack? Shut up."

This is probably the wisest course of action; I nod.

"Thank you," she says. Her eyes flick past the barrier line, to Vaughn.
"And you. Thank you."

Vaughn looks at her, at us, for a moment. "I think it's something my
father would have done."

[Again, let's try to pretend if we can that Vaughn isn't a
two-dimensional idiot. That's a place I can't really get to anymore,
but it seemed the appropriate time for the boy scout to invoke his
father.]

He leaves with this parting shot, doesn't see it strike home. She
winces. "Yes," she says, "yes, he probably would have."

"Are you alright?" I ask her, for the second time.

And for the second time she nods. "Go. Go back to your side of the
glass."

[Underlying all of this really from Irina's perspective is a very
subtle, I know what you did for me and I know what it cost you, but
you don't belong here anymore.]

I realize as she speaks that I do not want to, and that is why I
hesitate. "Irina-" But I have no words, none that would express what
I really want her to know before I go. I do all that I can.

[He could have said it, of course. I knew the words I wanted to
see there, even if Jack didn't, but there are times when you can
force stuff like that and times when you can't. Mostly you can't.
I let it go, let them do it the way that they wanted to.]

I kiss her. The way I used to, meaning it, all of it.

[Not as much detail as I could have used, but I kind of liked
the look of this, spare, just enough to get the point across.
Sometimes actions do speak louder.]

"It will be warmer here in a moment. Keep the coat."

I rise, and the glass comes down behind me as I cross the first line.

Her voice calls after me. "You should get out of those wet clothes."

I answer without turning back, because if I were to look at her now I
could not continue on as I must. I could not walk away. "Yes. Probably."

[This exchange really reminds me of the kind of banter normally seen
in a good MC fic (not that there are too many bad ones I can name off
the top of my head here.) I like it because it's so normal, and yet so
totally out of the ordinary for them.]

There is more I want to say; at the very least I want to promise her I
will be back. But I have learned of the folly of promises...promises I
may not be able to keep. I go on, while I can still place one foot
before the other.

[He doesn't know how to walk away from this, not really. He just knows
that he has to. I think the angst is subtle enough to not be too annoying. :)]

I don't so much request of the guards that the heat be turned up, as I
tell them they will do so. Perhaps I am starting to look a little mad,
or maybe they are impressed by the fact that I crossed the line, entered
the dragon's lair- that I touched her and lived to tell the tale. But in
any case, it happens that suddenly no one is arguing with me. So I leave
them with the heat restored and orders I know they'll follow, to see that
she has anything else she needs.

[There comes a point where you just don't mess with Jack Bristow. You
don't argue, you just do what he tells you to. For Irina's guards, this
is that moment.]

Vaughn waits for me beyond the guards, on the main floor. He hands me a
blanket, which I take with a nod of thanks.

"You still want to see Kendall?"

"Yes."

Vaughn watches me for a second or two before speaking. "It's your call,
Jack. But I'm not sure that's such a good idea."

[I'm not going to mention my issues with Vaughn again. He does
Vaughnish things, they annoy me. But he says stuff like this, no
matter how stupid said statements might be.]

I consider this. "You may be right, Agent Vaughn. I'll take it to
Devlin."

We are friends, of a sort, Devlin and I. There are things he doesn't know,
things he carefully never learns. He understands, much as anyone can. He
won't ask the questions with awkward answers. Kendall would want to know
why I kissed her- probably still will, when he finds out. Devlin won't ask.

Vaughn, I notice, doesn't ask, either.

But then, there is more of Irina in Sydney than I might once have liked
to admit.

[I used to think that this story could have been a lot more romantic
that it was, but I think it works for the best the way it is. Keeping things
sort of understated seems to have worked out well. And I almost wish that
more planning had gone into this- a lot more- so that I had some record of
the process that went through my head as I wrote it. I'd like to be able to
do this again, or something like it. Even though there's no way to write the
same story twice...

And the last line works a hell of a lot better if you don't have a simmering
annoyance and "just die already" attitude towards S3 Vaughn. Because when I
wrote this, I thought that he might just be good enough to deserve Sydney.
And, well... he's not. So that parallel doesn't work as well as it used
to.]