Another Woman's Life
by
Chris AndersonDisclaimer: Alias is the property of other people, including J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot productions.
Written for the Theatrical Muse 'trading places' challenge.
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She has spent the better part of her life playing roles, has spent years living other lives. Some lasting hours or only moments, a cover necessary for a mission, a job, and then never seen again. Others, under deeper cover, with far more to gain, or lose...
She's forgotten so many of them over the years- the one-shot covers, the travel identities; unlike many in her profession, she has never clung to any particular alias that has outlived its usefulness.
She changes identities quickly and easily, dons a new name and a new history as simply as she might don a coat. She does not let sentiment guide these actions.
Except for the one alias she has never been able to let go of.
In some ways she has never stopped being Laura Bristow, has never ceased to believe in the legend that was Laura, even as she returned to the old country, and the old world, even as she became again Irina Derevko. Of all the identities she has hidden herself behind over the years, Laura Bristow was the one she has worn the longest. Some days she thinks that she is still wearing it- not always, but sometimes, in her dreams, and in her most unguarded moments.
After all of those years playing that role, she's learning how much of herself she put into Laura.
Taking on the guise of another is no more than a day's work for those like her. But it is in being herself, or the part of her that created Laura, the part that still thinks like her- it is in being herself that Irina finds the most difficulty.
She had little in common with most of her aliases, but Laura was different. She had not thought so at first, had not cared enough to do so- Laura had been a mask then, nothing more. Being Laura was what was necessary to do the job. But somehow, gradually, that changed. She had thought Laura only a fiction, but it had not been so.
In the final analysis, Laura Bristow was something more than a clever fiction meant to deceive. She became, somehow, the bright reflection to Irina Derevko's dark, a sister of the soul and spirit, born and raised to freedoms Irina could only have dreamed of. She has hated that woman and envied her, held her in contempt and longed to step into her shoes forever. She has killed her, and held herself responsible for that death, only to find that the fiction of Laura's death, Laura's murder, had caught her in its web of complex secrets as well.
She has no need to trade lives with anyone. She has been living another woman's life, along with her own, for many years now.
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