Lies Disguised
by
Chris AndersonDisclaimer: Alias is the property of other people, including J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot productions.
Written for the Theatrical Muse 'perfect evening' challenge.
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She cultivates silence, nurtures it like a living thing, something she has planted like Laura Bristow's roses. (Laura had been the kind of woman who grew roses; Irina is not.) She hasn't said a word in hours, feeling she had said everything she needed to earlier. But as she stands now before the mirror, she does speak.
"Thank you."
He doesn't answer immediately, and she wonders if he is regretting this. Anything is possible, of course, but she thinks his curiosity will win out over his instinct not to trust her. He wants too badly to witness this meeting, to see where it might lead.
He wants to believe he does not care how this turns out, and she does him the courtesy of not calling him on it. He is, after all, doing her a favor.
"I don't like the amount of risk in this," he says at last. Not as if he thinks he will be able to talk her out of this- he won't, of course- but as if he feels it necessary to make the statement anyway.
She laughs, her own laugh, though Katya's face is the one gazing back at her from the glass.
It is hardly the most complex disguise she has ever worn, but they are sisters, after all, and shared DNA has done much of her work for her. Only minor things are required- a darker wig to mask her own hair, sweep of a brush ever so delicately across her face, there and there, to disguise that which is not quite identical.
"Some risks are necessary, Jack," she says, and the voice is her sister's. She sees his reflection's shudder, and wonders, not for the first time, what twisted games Katya has been playing at while her own back was turned. Irina has a great respect for her sister's skills, and even loves her in a peculiar sort of way, but she has not trusted her since childhood. Has not trusted her since then, and is not likely to do so again.
"Irina-"
She turns quickly, Irina's anger on Katya's face. "No. Later, if there is time."
He seems to smile sadly, but his face is in shadow, and the expression is gone so quickly, she can't be sure she has really seen it. "There won't be. I know you too well to believe anything else."
"I must do this," she says. Katya's tones, Katya's inflections, but the words are her own, beneath that. "Tonight. You know why."
"Do I? Just because I know you're using me this time, just because I allow it-"
"I cannot allow this to go any farther," she says, cutting him short. "Nadia is vulnerable, and I will not leave her like that."
"She's your daughter," he points out. "I can't imagine she couldn't find her own way." Pretending, still, that he does not care one way or the other.
Irina shakes her head. "There is too much she doesn't understand. She trusts her father too deeply, and if he reaches her before I do-" she shakes her head again. "I can't take that chance."
She eases Katya's sidearm into its holster- not her sister's original; it is no more Katya's than the uniform is, only a close copy- and it is his turn to shake his head.
"They won't let you keep that."
"No, I don't imagine they will," she says. "But she would carry it as far as she could, regardless."
And if anyone is foolish enough to think they have disarmed her by taking one small pistol away, well...
"Yes, I suppose she would."
She can see then, can hear in the tone of his voice, that it is time to have what is perhaps a long-overdue conversation with her sister Katya, on the subject of Jack Bristow.
She glances once more into the mirror, checking her appearance one last time. Then- "Alright. Let's go."
Katya's voice comes quite easily to her, and it's almost frightening how easily she slips into the role.
She'd like to believe that she and her sister are very different in some essential way, but the truth is that Katya simply has less to lose, and knows it. She has no one she is trying to protect, no one she is trying to bring to any sort of understanding.
And Irina... Irina has too many.
It is a brief few miles to the safe house, a distance covered quickly in light traffic. She feels a strange mix of nervousness and anticipation. It has been so many years...
She wants it to be different this time. Her first meeting with Sydney as an adult ended as it was necessary for it to end, but in her own way Nadia is far less of an innocent. Oh, she has not seen and done as much as Sydney, has not faced so many betrayals or so much heartaches, but she knows better than perhaps Sydney ever will, the truth of her mother's world.
Nadia's guards seem to take their appearance in stride; "Good evening, Agent Bristow," says the first, as his partner checks their IDs. Jack's, of course, is genuine, and in a way so is hers, having at one point not so long ago belonged to the genuine Katya Derevko.
Jack greets both men by name, asks after their families, and introduces Irina. They acknowledge her politely.
"You've picked a good time to stop by, Ms. Derevko," the first agent says. "You'll have a chance to say hello to Agent Bristow- the other, of course- before you head home, too."
Irina raises her eyebrows in polite surprise. "Oh? She's here, then? Lovely."
She has not seen Sydney in so long, and that they should meet again like this after so many years... It is not at all the way she would have planned it.
"You're all clear, sir," says the other agent. "Agent Bristow should be upstairs with our guest."
"Thank you," Irina says, flashing Katya's best flirtatious smile at him as they pass. She is amused by the man's use of the word 'guest', but also somewhat annoyed by it. A guest usually has the option of leaving when they wish it; Nadia, she is certain, does not.
Though perhaps she does, at that. She is Irina's daughter, after all, and there are ways in which this must show.
Nadia's door is slightly open, and as they approach it they can hear the sound of voices; Sydney speaks, then Nadia, and the sisters laugh.
She wonders, as they pause at the door, if that laughter is about to end. Jack knocks.
"That will be my keepers, I think," Nadia says quietly. Louder she calls, "Come in."
Irina enters first; Jack shuts the door behind them. He greets both women, but Irina pays little attention to his words. Her focus is on her daughters.
"What is she doing here?" Sydney asks, and Irina is proud of the defiance in her voice, the anger. Sydney is not pleased with her aunt Katya these days, not pleased at all.
"I came to see Nadia, of course," Irina replies, and she does not allow Katya's voice to slip, not yet. "Are they treating you well, darling?"
"They had better be," Sydney says darkly, and she is proud of this, too.
"I can't-" Nadia begins.
She is cut off by Sydney's sharply hissed, "Nadia," as she pushes her sister behind her. "Katya Derevko is in Moscow. What the hell is going on here?"
Irina nods to herself. It is time. Moving slowly, she removes the wig, and shakes out her own long hair. "Hello, Sydney."
"Mom." Her voice is flat, cool.
Sydney hesitates, emotions fighting with one another upon her face. She hesitates, but Nadia doesn't. She pushes past her sister, and Sydney is too surprised to stop her.
"Mama," Nadia says as she goes to her mother. "Years ago they told me that you were dead."
Irina embraces the daughter she has not seen in so many years. "I did all that I could to keep you safe, Nadia. And your safety came to require certain sacrifices. They did not trust me-"
She is startled into silence when Nadia begins to weep against her shoulder. "They took me from my mother, and told me lies about her. They kept me in a cold room in a lab, where they injected me with drugs. I began to draw- but I was taken from them before I could finish."
"How were you certain these were lies?" Jack asks. It seems he can't quite resist posing the question.
"Because they worked so hard to convince me they were true. I knew my mother, and I knew she loved me," Nadia said.
"If you think that actually means anything, you don't know her at all," Sydney tells her.
Nadia sighs, and looks back at her sister. "She hurt you. I understand that. But until I met my father, my mother was the only person I knew who cared for me."
"Nadia-" Irina takes her younger daughter's face between her hands, turns her gently back to face her. "Your father is-" And then she stops, for how can you explain Arvin Sloane's endless capacity for treachery to one who has known only his charming, charismatic facades?
"I know what he is, Mama," Nadia says. "He is my father, and he saved me from the Covenant."
"Because you had something he wanted," Sydney says. "Mom's right. Rambaldi is his obsession, and he will sacrifice anyone and anything for it. Including you."
Nadia shakes her head. "It is the same with him as with our mother-"
"No," Sydney says, "it's not. I trusted Sloane once. He was my father's oldest friend, and he claimed to look on me as a daughter. I believed him. Until one day I learned the truth, when he had my fiancée killed."
"Do you think I don't know these things?" Nadia asks. "Sydney, I know them. But he is my father."
"You must rely on yourself," Irina tells her. "Above and beyond your reliance on others, you must do that. You've become important to many people, Nadia, but not all of them will value you equally."
"You don't think I would be safer with my father than the Covenant?" Nadia asks.
It is Jack who answers her. "You might want to err on the side of caution, and avoid both."
Irina laughs.
"I did miss you, Mama," Nadia tells her. "But there is so much I don't understand..."
Irina nods. "I know. And now is not the time for me to explain."
"You owe us both a lot of answers," Sydney points out, and Irina nods again.
"Yes. But not tonight, Sydney. You're going to have to trust me a little while longer."
Irina does not explain farther. Now is not the time, and this is not the place, for a story that could be hours in the telling, when their time may be measured in moments alone...
These moments, though, comprise an evening as close to perfect as she has come to expect anymore. Simple pleasures; seeing her daughters, seeing Jack, and knowing that all of her secrets they know are safe with them tonight, that they will keep their silence and not betray her. And knowing a single fragile thread of normalcy when Nadia's guard calls up the stairs that they are ordering Chinese, and, after the food arrives (having resumed her guise) of sitting down to a meal with her family.
Irina Derevko is spoken of only in the third person, someone they know and have not seen for a while. And of course, someone they do not trust.
The fact that they are all lying for her makes her smile.
It is an evening so much closer to perfect than she has come to expect.
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