Learning How to Love

By: Lindsay

Rating: PG13 for swearing

Spoilers: The Telling

Disclaimer: Alias, Michael Vaughn, and their plot lines do not belong to me. But, Alene Hardwick is completely mine!

A/N: Please review!!!! Please, please, please! This story is placed after the Season 2 Finale, but seen from an original character's eyes. I'm extremely S/V centered, so don't freak out.just read.

Prologue: I'd Never Amount to Anything

When I was seven years old my stepmother told me I'd never amount to anything. What kind of person says that to a kid anyways? I had kind of a Cinderella childhood, growing up with the bitchiest stepmother around and two equally bitchy stepchildren, all the while trying to deal with the death of both of my parents. No, she didn't make me her slave, but she attempted to squish every ounce of self-esteem out of me by the time I willingly moved out on my 18th birthday.

I guess I can thank her for this life I've led then.

I am a spy.

No, not an ordinary CIA agent who goes and looks for America's Most Wanted in foreign countries. I'm not even one of those double agents who pretend their working for the bad guys, but are really working for the good guys to infiltrate information.

No, none of that.

I'm a triple agent.

My parents had both been spies. A year after my father had remarried, he was killed in an.accident (if you could even call it that). They had to identify him by his dental records. Some woman by the name of Irina Derevko was involved with this.accident. And that's all they really told me.

I guess after college, I thought following in my father's footsteps sounded like an ingenious idea. I'd not only prove my stepmother wrong, but I could avenge my father's death (despite his horrible taste in women after my mother, I still loved him).

To make a really long story somewhat short, a rogue agency called the ICG recruited me before the CIA could. They pulled me in easily. Their main mission: track down Irina Derevko and kill her. It was simple enough. And appealed to me. And I was young and stupid. So I took the job, was stationed in Washington, DC, and given a false job cover as a computer programmer.

Eventually, the CIA came to me and attempted to recruit me. They took me into their custody and I learned the agency's real motive: using the agents who believed they were fighting against Irina Derevko, to work for her.

But the ICG found out about my meeting with the CIA, so I told them they had recruited me.

Now I work for the CIA, spying on the ICG, while the ICG believes that I am spying on the CIA. Confused? I don't think I'll ever get over the confusion.

I have no friends. I don't want to lie to them. Besides, my job's too confusing to explain to them even if I had any.

I live alone in a one-bedroom apartment, which is hardly ever used thanks to my frequent flyer miles.

I have never been in love or been loved. I don't believe in it. If there was such a thing called love, why did my father let my mother die that day in the hospital after I had been born? Why did my father marry the spawn of satan? Why did Irina Derevko destroy so many lives when she killed all of those officers? Why did my father have to be one of them? Why was I left with a family of strangers? Why do I live the life that I live? It was a cold, cruel world full of hatred and killing and torture- there was no love. Not the tiniest speck of it. That is why I have the job I have.

That's why I'm here, handcuffed in some random warehouse, looking up at the most gorgeous man I have ever laid eyes on, who has a gun pointed at my head.