CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

"We are quite the outsiders to this gathering, aren't we?" Sark said as he sat down next to Jack Bristow. They were on the patio, watching the small party happening inside the dining hall. Frankly speaking, he had had no idea that this day would come—the day that he and a CIA agent would be staying on the same property, having dinner together and not killing each other. It was something that he and Irina had in common.

Jack didn't say anything and concentrated on how Sydney, Nadia, Nathan and Sofya interacted with each other. Each of them was holding something back, but they related to each other very well.

"They hide their emotions quite well, don't you think?" Sark asked as he sipped his wine, "And I meant Nate and Iya, of course."

This time, Jack looked at the young man beside him, "You shouldn't really be surprised." He flashed Sark a steely glare, warning him to stop talking to him, and then turned his attention back to his children.

"It's really surprising how they can act so much like you when things go out of hand. Although I must say that their temper is very much like Irina's." Sark leaned forward in his chair, "Nate has a cooler head, though."

Jack ignored him. He didn't need reminding that Julian Sark knew his twins better than he did. The Derevko's could be a very twisted family if they wanted to be, and hearing how deviant his children could be from an equally deviant distant relative was very wrong.

Irina suddenly came into his view. She was smiling and seemed to have no care about the world outside her family. Also, the 'night adventures' that posed a problem for her every night didn't seem to come to light during the day.

"Irina Derevko is one remarkable woman. Imagine, raising two feisty children while at the same time trying to make them invisible to everyone in the intelligence community, finding her lost daughter, watching after her eldest child, running an organization to discover the extent of Rambaldi's prophecies and deceive almost everyone she works with. She did all that without having a nervous breakdown." Sark looked at Jack, waiting for his reaction.

He gave him another steely glare, "I don't need you to tell me about Irina or my children."

"Why, because you know them better than me?"

They glared at each other. Sark coolly gazed at him with his clear, blue eyes. He didn't really know why he was taunting the man. It was fun watching his reaction, but most of the time, his reaction was so dull that he'd ask himself why he'd bothered in the first place.

"Hey, Julian."

Both men looked towards the speaker. It was Sofya.

"Do you have any plans to have lunch with us?" it was sarcastic, but Jack could see that there was a hint of genuine concern in her eyes.

Sark glanced at Jack, "In a while-"

"Grandmamma says now." Sofya interrupted, smirking, "And take… Mr. Bristow with you."

Jack looked at his daughter, who, as usual, avoided his gaze. She was so stubborn, like her mother.

At the same time, Sark emptied his glass of wine and stood up, "Come on, Agent Bristow. You don't want your daughter and your son to wait for you, especially on their birthday."

He heard Sofya snort upon hearing his comment. Sark looked at her, but she had already turned her back to them.

Sark went after her. He didn't look back to see if Jack was following them.

-x-x-x-
(that night)

Nathan peeked through the gap in the barely-open door, looking for his sister. He was going to ask her if she wanted to play his new PS2 game with him. Sofya had always been an avid fan of fighting games— the bloodier, the better. These games showed how competitive she was and what a sore loser she could be.

"Iya?" he called out, pushing the door slightly. Frasier, the puppy, was already asleep in his doggie bed. Sofya was nowhere in the room.

'That's weird.' He thought and stepped into the room. Sofya always retired to her bedroom earlier than him so that she could play with her computer. Or 'chat' with her friends from the other side of the world.

"Iya?" he called out again. Nathan looked around, trying to find a clue to his sister's whereabouts. Her bathroom door was closed and seemingly without light. She couldn't be downstairs because he saw her go up. She couldn't be with Sydney because she was with Nadia in her room, watching a movie. She couldn't be in the East Wing because they're already asleep, and she would certainly not be found in their mother's room since Jack Bristow was there. Her room was the most logical place where she could be, and yet, she was not there.

'Maybe she's upstairs.' He thought. When he turned around to leave though, he heard a sobbing sound. It was coming from the bathroom.

Nathan walked towards it and knocked, "Iya, are you there?"

She didn't answer. He sighed and tried the knob. It was unlocked. Nathan opened the door and looked inside.

His sister was sitting on the cold, tiled floor by the sink. Her back was facing him, but Nathan could see that her shoulders were shaking. Her brown hair was messy and she seemed to be crying.

"Iya, are you okay?" Nathan asked worriedly as he went in.

"Yes." She answered in between sobs.

Forgetting about the video game, he approached his twin and kneeled beside her. He looked at her face. It was pale and tear-streaked, "Hey, what's wrong?" he asked and smoothed his sister's hair.

Sofya bit her lip and shook her head, "I'm fine." A spasm of pain went through her and she clenched her fist as a new batch of tears fell.

"Yeah, right." Her twin replied sarcastically. He then surmised that it was one of her wounds acting up again, although he could be wrong since she had just been wrestling over the remote control with him. Maybe she was having a bout of hyperacidity?

"Just leave—oh, bloody hell!" she muttered. She could feel her shirt getting wet with her blood. This couldn't be happening. She had been fine until a few minutes ago, and even if this murderous pain had occurred a few times in the past, it didn't end up with her stab wound tearing open.

"Do you want to stand up? Maybe it wouldn't hurt that much if you move a little." Her brother said, concerned.

"I can't." Fear was apparent in her tone, "It might bleed even more."

Nathan immediately looked at the location of her stab wound. A big blotch of blood was staining the white shirt and it was getting bigger.

s. He thought and lifted her shirt. The dressing was already soaked in crimson, "What did you do, Iya?" Nathan exclaimed.

A ripple of pain went through her again, "I didn't do anything." She hissed.

Nathan carefully peeled off the gauze. Her blood began to stain his fingers. It was quite a reminder of the first time his sister's blood was in his hands.

"First aid kit?"

"I don't have one." Nathan looked at her incredulously, and she continued, "You dared me to throw it away, remember? So I did. And besides, I think its needs re-stitching."

Her brother looked at it closer and found out that she was right. Her grabbed one of the face towels from a rack and pressed it on her wound, "I'll get mama." Both of them know that he couldn't help her in the stitch-the-wound aspect of their problem.

Nathan stood up and rushed out. He headed straight towards the door of his mother's room and barged inside without knocking.

"Mama?"

The deep and commanding voice filled with so much concern pulled Jack's attention away from the book he was reading. He looked up and found Nathan coming inside the main bedroom.

"Bathroom." He said. Irina had been in the bathroom for almost ten minutes, and it was quite worrying since he was not hearing a single sound from inside. He was going to wait till after fifteen minutes before knocking, but since Nathan stepped in…

Nathan ignored the man stretched on his mother's bed and headed straight towards the bathroom.

"Mama?" he said and knocked on the door. Remnants of Sofya's blood in his knuckles tainted the door.

Almost immediately the door cracked open.

"Mama, Iya needs-" he stopped short, "Have you been crying?" he asked after seeing his mother's eyes.

"I'm fine." Irina opened the door wider, "What's wrong with Iya?"

Nathan took a step backwards as his mother stepped forward, "She needs stitches. Her wound opened up."

Irina blinked. It was almost as if she didn't hear the words, "Where is she?"

"She's in her bathroom. And she doesn't have a first aid kit…" he trailed off when his mother went back to the bathroom and took her first aid kit from one of the cabinets.

Without saying a word, she went out into the hallway and turned towards the door to her right, which was Sofya's room. Nathan was trailing behind her.

"Mom?"

Irina knelt beside Sofya. She looked at her daughter's face and gave her a reassuring smile. She then lifted the towel and inspected the bleeding wound, "Are you okay?" she asked, however she knew that Sofya would lie about her current state, and she started to clean it. The stitches had become undone and the skin had forced itself to open. It was nothing serious, but it needed to be stitched again.

A few minutes later, Irina turned to her son who is standing by the doorway, "Could you get Jack here please?" in the corner of her eye, she saw Sofya give her a horrified glance.

Nathan started to protest, "But he's not a doctor! Aunt Lena is!"

Impatience glittered in Irina's eyes, "It's already late. He can help." When Nathan didn't seem to budge, she glared irately at him, "Now, Nathan."

When he left, she turned her attention back to Sofya, "What have you been doing? There are bruises around this wound."

Sofya heard the reprimanding tone, but didn't say anything. Fear and pain were overwhelming her. Jack Bristow was going to help in the re-stitching process. What if he does something totally unhelpful?

Jack appeared at the door a few seconds later.

"Irina."

She motioned for him to come closer, "I don't trust my hands right now." She said and handed him the antiseptic.

Jack saw the terrified expression on his youngest daughter's face. She was afraid of him and she doesn't trust him. It was something of his own doing, and he was regretting that he had been very harsh on her.

He looked at the wound before rummaging through the first aid kit for the things he needed.

Tears began to flood Sofya's eyes as she watched Jack. She feels like fainting. Or running away. Her mother wants him to do the re-stitching.

Is she insane?

Her mother took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. But Sofya felt that no amount of squeezing or hugging would take this fear away.

"This will hurt a bit…" Jack muttered as he inserted the needle in her flesh.

A few minutes and a river of tears later, Sofya's wound was being covered with a new dressing.

"Are you okay?" Irina quietly asked as she smoothed the edges of the gauze. Her daughter's face was so pale and she was staring at her father, who was cleaning up the equipment.

Sofya shook her head. "May I stand?" she asked. Her butt was numb from sitting on the cold floor.

"No." Jack answered. She looked at him and he continued, "Your wounds open up easily. If you stand up, odds are it'll bleed again."

"Do you have to drag me to my bed?" Sofya replied, almost snottily. She would not thank this man for stitching her up because in a sense, he had inflicted pain on her again.

'Was she testing him against their daughter?' Jack thought as he closed the first aid kit. He then stood up and looked at Sofya.

He placed the supplies on top of the sink before lifting her off the floor.

Sofya stared at him, almost shocked by his action. What was he doing?

Jack carried her out and across the bedroom. He gently placed her on the queen-sized bed. He looked at her with his usual stoic face and she looked back with the same expression.

After a few seconds, he left the room.

Nathan approached her and sat at the foot of the bed. He was a bit surprised with what Jack did, and he realized that he really was an unpredictable man.

"Hey. You're okay, right?" Sofya nodded her head, "Good. We'll play Tekken tomorrow." He smiled at her and then stood up, "Good night."

"Good night."

Her mother was next to sit down on her bed. She was looking at her with motherly concern. "Has this occurred before?" she asked.

"No." Sofya answered. Irina looked at her, trying to gauge if she' was lying.

"I want you to stay in bed all day tomorrow." Irina said, "Please don't scare me like that again." She saw this child grow up. She tried to keep Sofya away from the things that she had been doing and was only partially successful with her task. However, she would not let her experience this pain, worry and exhaustion again.

"Okay."

Irina embraced her. Sofya felt safe again.

"Good night."

"Good night to you too, mom."

She watched as her mother left her room. Thoughts began to race through her head. She couldn't understand it. He had done terrible things to her, to them. How could she still have a drop of trust in that man?

A little part of her realized that her mother wanted her to trust him and not to view him as the evil enemy.

She began to mull things over and over again. What was she going to do?

And then she realized that a little part of her… does trust him.