Amber Memories
Disclaimer: 'Alias' belongs to ABC, Bad Robot, and JJ Abrams.
Summary: Deep betrayal never goes away.
Spoilers: "Dead Drop".
Feedback: pharo@newyork.com
'fear makes you fragile, darling, hate is so heavy when you're weak…'
– Goo Goo Dolls, 'What Do You Need'The last time she came to me with a problem was years ago. The last time she called me 'daddy' and looked into my eyes for comfort. The last time she needed help with something that wasn't work-related – something that didn't have to do with vaults and access panels, escape routes and high-tech gadgets. The last time my little girl needed me.
Everything in my study room had looked so huge when compared to the little girl in white cow pajamas.
"Daddy, can I talk to you?"
"Sure sweetie, but aren't you supposed to be getting ready to go trick-or-treating with Lola?"
She shook her head sadly and climbed onto my lap.
"I can't go. I can't – Mommy didn't finish my costume. I was supposed to be a princess, but…"
"I'm sorry honey. I could've picked something up if I—"
"I miss her."
"I know."
The single moment is preserved in the amber trappings of my mind, protected by coats of facts and layers of memories. They can strip all that away slowly, unravel my life using as many different methods as they wanted, and they still wouldn't be able to get to that. That core – the last warm remnants of Jack Bristow when he was the loving husband, caring father – when he wasn't afraid to be happy.
She hugs me like that now. Dismal surroundings – a drafty warehouse at 2 am with nothing but a line of overhead lights and a noisy fence in the background. It's not exactly the kind of thing that amber memories are made of, but then again, the circumstances aren't exactly picture perfect either. They never were.
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"There was a time when I would've done anything for you."
"And now?" she asks walking to the seat in front of the barrier.
"If you so much as try to hurt Sydney again, I won't even blink when I shoot."
She smiles the way she used to when she took breaks while working on her garden. When she would look at the sky and beam or read a novel and grin. I didn't think of it much then, but with the barrier of plastic between us at that moment, I realize that it's the same smile. The same smile from years ago that made me go on my knees and ask her to share my life with me.
"Don't…don't do that," I say and take my eyes off her smile.
"You can't even look at me," she says with a smirk. "Jack, you're still naïve. You still see things in black and white. You wear that suit and think you're the good guy? Jack, I'm not the one who's hurting her. You are."
"I'm protecting her," I say bitterly.
"From her mother?"
"Her mother is dead. I'm protecting her from you."
"You're protecting yourself," she says with disgust. "All these years and you haven't changed Jack."
I hate the calm way she shoots daggers into my heart as she says my name. The way it rolls off her tongue with such ease and insignificance while I can't even bring myself to say her name. I hate the way she seems disappointed in me and I hate the fact it actually matters to me that she does.
There's a dash of the woman who drove into the water years ago in the corners of her eyes – a hint of Laura Bristow that hasn't disappeared as the tales of Irina Derevko have gotten more elaborate and the list of dead agents greater.
"Who the hell are you?" I ask and it seems to catch her off guard.
"Who do you think I am?" she asks, her head snapping me straight in the eyes.
"You're the enemy."
"Well, trust was never your strong point."
"The last person I trusted betrayed me."
Her smile seems to lessen and her eyes appear softer. I tell myself that it's just one of her tricks to reel me in.
"I am trying to do the right thing—"
"What do you know about right? You haven't done a right thing in your entire life."
She nods.
"I married you," she says softer now.
"I'm not Sydney. She thinks she knows you, but she doesn't. I do. I know how you work, so don't think, for a second, you can get me to believe that you have turned over a new leaf. I'm not going to let you hurt her. I will destroy everything if I need to."
"So what's stopping you?"
"Nothing," I say before leaving.
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The parking lot of the office building has long been deserted. The meeting ended ten minutes ago yet I'm sitting in the same position in my car looking at the rain hitting my window.
There was so much rain that day too. I kept looking out the window and seeing strands of lightning illuminate the sky. I looked at my watch over and over again as I waited for the little maroon car to pull into the driveway. I waited to greet her as she stepped out of the car and ran up the little path to our front door.
I remember the call of carefully chosen words and somber tones telling me that there was an accident.
"I'm terribly sorry for your loss," a relatively young sounding agent who didn't know better than to call me 'Mr. Bristow' rather than 'Agent Bristow'. "Sir, are you alright?"
I hung up on the poor kid and ran out into the rain. Jumped into my car, started the ignition, and made it past two blocks before I couldn't see straight anymore. Before I had to put my head in my hands and stop the blurring. Before it sunk in that my wife was never coming home. Before I realized that I had to pick up Sydney and tell her that her mother was dead.
She had cried so much when I told her. Tears and raindrops mingling on her red cheeks as she sobbed. There was so much pain in her little face that all I wanted to do was take it all back.
I shake my head and force the memories back down. Everything's been taken care of. She'll never have to feel that pain from her mother again.
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She clings on to me tighter now than when she was six because she's trained to be strong. She cries harder because it's not an unfinished costume but betrayal of her trust.
"I'm sorry," she says. Her voice is muffled by my suit and she seems afraid to talk any louder as if it'll be harder to stop crying if she talks about it louder, if she makes it seem more real.
"Dad," she whispers just like last time only she's older now and calling me 'daddy' is no longer an option.
She tries to hold her pain in, limit her sobs, stop the tears, and go back to plastered smiles and fake laughs, but she can't. I say the stupid things that people tend to offer as comfort. Things that I don't even know are true, but have to make her believe somehow.
"You won't have to deal with her again," I say, not quite sure why I'm whispering in an empty warehouse. "It'll be ok now."
But I don't know that. I don't know anything except the fact that Sydney is safe now.
"It's ridiculous, isn't it?" she asks.
"You wanted a mother," I say slowly.
"Her actions show that she never cared about me but here I am, unable to stop crying," she says, trying to apply one of her fake laughs.
"She never cared about anyone, Sydney. Anyone."
She was just doing her job when she married me. The family was a natural progression of the job. The orders were probably quite simple and in the end she had succeeded. She got me to love her like no one ever could or ever would and then she took everything I had. She took my trust, my secrets, and became the basis of my life for years. She turned me into one of those guys who smiled on plane rides back from missions and called home at every secure line.
"I feel like I'm losing her all over again," she says, sniffing as she pulls back.
I can feel her search my eyes for recognition. I know she's trying to cut through the layers for some sort of statement that tells her she's not sinking alone and that I feel the same way, but I don't. I never had her to begin with.
"You have me," I say into the dark hair that she shares with her mother.
"It hurts so bad like something is stinging my soul. How could she do this to me? I thought she – she made me think that she cared."
"I know."
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Kendall tells me that they're ready for transport, but she wants to see me one more time before they take her. I nod and go through the layers of security gates to get to her cell.
"What did you do?" she asks, her eyes showing emotion. "Why did you—"
"I'm taking care of her."
"You were always supposed to be better than me, Jack," she says with a sigh. "I thought you would never have resorted to these means—"
"I'm protecting her."
"Because you think I am the enemy?"
"I know."
She sighs and for once you can tell that the lies have gotten to her.
"No Jack, you and I are the same now. You're afraid of her getting hurt but you're causing her more pain than I ever could."
I shake my head.
"You have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not letting you betray her the way you did to me."
"At what costs? By betraying her yourself?"
"I will not lose my daughter to you," I say. "I can't."
I start to walk away before turning around to look at her through the plastic once more.
"Goodbye Irina."