Title: wake
Author: Melanie-Anne
Rating: K+
Summary: They think I'm already dead.
Disclaimer: Not my charcters, alas.
A/N: For alias500 challenge anticipation.
if i smile and don't believe
soon i know i'll wake from this dream
Evanescence – "hello"
Curled up on the bed in her cell, she can hear screams from another part of the prison. She isn't sure if the person is a man or a woman – isn't sure if the screamer is still human. The sound has lost all trace of gender and is simply raw terror.
She absently rubs a hand over her belly and prays to a God she's not supposed to believe in. Not me, not that.
She tries not to think about the fact that God stopped listening to her a long time ago.
The screams come to an abrupt end, and the silence is more chilling than any noise could be. Irina hopes the poor soul is dead. To live through more torture is unimaginable.
She wonders what his crime was – she has to believe that it was a man, has to believe that they wouldn't be that cruel to a woman, to a pregnant woman – and wonders if it was worth dying for.
She's been in this cell for a week, and no interrogation yet. A short celebration in Moscow where she was toasted as the success of the party. (She caught her sister's gaze across the room and wanted to cry: Oh, Katya, you would have liked them.) A debriefing in which she told the KGB the lies they wanted to hear. (Oh, Jack, oh, Sydney, I'm sorry.)
And still, she's sent to Kashmir.
She hears footsteps approach and feigns sleep. Maybe she can buy herself a little more time.
The footsteps stop outside her cell. A key turns in the lock. She's pulled to her feet and instinctively resists, earning a blow to the head. And then—
Nothing.
When she wakes up it is so dark she cannot see her hand in front of her face. Slowly, she feels her way around the room; slabs of stone slightly warm to the touch, a metal door, more stone, back to the door. She doesn't want to believe it – it can't be this tiny.
(Laura once confided to Jack that she hated enclosed spaces. It wasn't that she was afraid, she said, she just preferred being in the open. He'd laughed, told her closed spaces had their merits, and pulled her into the pantry. Their guests hadn't noticed their disappearance.)
She feels something coil in the pit of her stomach, something she's unused to feeling. Abject fear. Suddenly, she's not sure she's going to make it out of here alive.
And thinks: they think I'm already dead.
Bile rises in her throat, and she remembers the child in her belly, and decides she is not going to die in here. She will do whatever it takes, but she will walk out of this prison alive, and she will see her family again.
(Jack promised her forever, and Laura smiled like a happy bride and said she loved him.)
The night before her extraction, Irina said she loved him. She wonders if he could tell the difference.
She chooses the corner facing the door, leans against the wall, pulls her knees to her chest, and waits.