Chapter 4: You've Never Been Here Before
Disclaimer: Recognizable characters in this story probably are not mine…
A/N: I think the title of this is so appropriate…don't you?
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"Hello, Dad." Sydney opened her front door and stepped back, but even she cringed at the frosty note in her voice.
"Sydney. It's good to see you," Jack Bristow said in his brisk tone, but now a slight note of discomfort slipped in.
"Lorrie and Jaime are in the kitchen. I'll put your jacket away while you go in and join them," Sydney offered with all appearances on being courteous.
"I'll just wait on you. I'm sure you'll only be a moment," Jack said.
"Oh, that's right. You've never been here. Strange, since we've lived here since before Jaime was born. I don't believe you've even seen Jaime since he was a couple of months old, have you?" Sydney asked cruelly. She instantly felt guilty, since she hadn't made any special effort to make sure Jaime saw his grandfather, but Jack had left her to stew over his self imposed dinner invitation to apologize. She also felt sad that he was missing his grandson growing up, with father's unruly hair and Sydney's soft brown eyes that occasionally took on a hard age when he wanted something he wasn't getting.
"Dad," she said, more civilly as she led him into the kitchen. "This is one of my students, Lorrie. She's having dinner with us tonight. I'm sure you'll be sorry to hear that Danny won't be joining us. He had to work late.
Jack shook Lorrie's hand and retreated into the far corner of the small kitchen. He had never cared for Danny, and he felt it was just as well that the man wouldn't be there to hear him say any of what he had come to tell his daughter. Of course, he'd prefer the little girl wasn't around either, but that could be dealt with later.
For a long time, jack watched Jaime bang happily on the tray of his high chair, smashing to crumbs the crackers Lorrie had left there.
To say the least, he was surprised by Sydney's phone call. He was downright suspicious of her request for information about her mother. Sure, he'd refused to tell her anything when she was a child, so she was still curious. But would she call him suddenly after over fifteen years to ask about her mother? No, he didn't think so; that wasn't what his gut reaction said. And his instincts had, in many cases, been the only thing to keep him alive for the past twenty-eight years. His instincts had failed him only once, and the result had been…
"Dad, surely you don't want to sit in here with the children?" Sydney said sweetly, tuning around. "Go sit in the den, you'll be much more comfortable and I won't be long." Lorrie flinched at being called a child, but to Sydney's relief she kept quiet. "As soon as I get done in here we can discuss Mom." She saw the way he glared at her for that comment.
"Fine. We can get it over with. I find it no business of the girl's what we're discussing," he added pointedly as he walked out.
Lorrie giggled as soon as he was out of earshot.
"Lorrie, I want you to come with me to talk to him. I'll bring Jaime, make it look like we're all moving into the den before we eat," Sydney added at Lorrie's look of horror. "Please, Lorrie, I want you to hear what he says too."
Lorrie nodded and they left the pasta to boil slowly while Jack explained some things that should have been covered 20 years ago.
Sydney walked confidently into the den holding Jaime, with Lorrie trailing behind her. They settled onto the couch across from Jack with Sydney holding on her lap.
"Okay, go," Sydney ordered.
Jack shot a stubborn glance at Lorrie.
"This girl has no business hearing anything I have to say," he snapped.
"I want her to hear it, so she's staying," Sydney replied firmly.
"She can't be trusted…" Jack began.
"You don't know that!" Lorrie cried indignantly. "You don't even know me!"
"All the better reason for you to leave," Jack snapped at her.
"Dad, she's not leaving. If you're concerned she'll repeat something, you don't have to worry. I trust Lorrie. Now, please explain before dinner is ready." Sydney stared impatiently at her father.
Jack looked furious, but he said nothing. Instead, he pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket.
"Don't smoke in here!" Sydney snapped.
Jack did not reply or stop, but simply opened the pack and struck the switch on the lighter. Instead of a flame, a thin pin popped out of the top of the lighter. Jack jammed the top of the lighter down into the cigarette pack and set the whole thing down on the coffee table.
"Bug killer," he said shortly.
"But why do you…" Sydney started, but Jack held up a hand to silence her.
"Sydney, last chance. You're absolutely sure you can trust this girl?" Lorrie crossed her arms across her chest and Sydney nodded. "I work for the CIA," he said softly. He shook his head slightly. "And Laura Bristow never existed."
"Dad, you're crazy! What are you talking about?" Sydney burst out after several long minutes of tense silence.
"I work for the CIA. The woman we knew as Laura Bristow was really Irena Derevko, a Russian KGB spy. She didn't die in that car crash 20 years ago. She's wanted for the murder of numerous CIA and FBI agents." Jack's voice was flat, as though he was simply watching the scene.
"Dad, you're crazy!" Sydney repeated, but with less conviction than she'd felt before.
"I found out almost six years ago that she'd somehow survived the crash. The CIA in general believes she planned the crash in order to disappear." He shook his head again, something Sydney hadn't seen him do since her mother's…disappearance. "I've answered your question, Sydney, now I need you to answer mine.
Sydney nodded numbly, tears forming in her eyes.
"What prompted you to call me this afternoon?"
Sydney looked up quickly.
"I just…was talking to someone and she got me to thinking about Mom, and…" Sydney stopped when she heard Lorrie say her name.
"You said you'd tell someone if you found out something drastic," Lorrie whispered. "I think…I think you should tell him."
"Tell me what?" Jack jumped in quickly.
Lorrie looked at Sydney silently.
"You're right. And I meant it," Sydney said softly, then raised her voice to normal levels. "I got a phone call today at my school. It was Mom. I had been talking to Lorrie before the call, and she noticed something was wrong when I came back. I told her. She came home with me. She was here when Mom called again." Sydney looked over at Lorrie. "Can I tell him about your mother?" Lorrie nodded. "Her mother dies in a car crash four years ago, but her father is convinced that the woman ran away. They never found her body," Sydney said to explain the connection. She shook her head. "I never meant to get her caught up in something like this. I had no idea my mother was a murderer."
Jack studies them both before saying anything else. By his next statement, he must have decided they could handle more.
"Some people at the CIA suspected she might contact you when I told them how good a mother she had seemed to be. They thought she might play the great mother angle and try to get you on her side as an adult even though she left you as a child. Since she knew the numbers both here and to the school, it's safe to assume she knows where you live. I brought the bug killer because it's possible with you and Danny out of the house all day she could have easily bugged the house hoping to gain intel from me or even you."
"Mom may have the house bugged? But why?" Sydney asked, having trouble processing all the new and difficult information.
"In the hope of gaining valuable intel concerning the CIA," Jack repeated. "I'm going to talk to the director and have a guard placed here around the clock. It's highly likely that Derevko may attempt to speak with you face to face, and what better place than your home?"
"A guard? Dad, I don't think…"
"Yes, a guard. If I have any say he'll be starting first thing in the morning," Jack said firmly. "If Derevko shows up, I want someone here to nab her." His face hardened as he said it.
"Dad, I always thought you loved Mom," Sydney said softly.
She watched as his face softened almost unnoticeably before it contorted to fury. Jack stood and stormed from the room.
"Aren't you staying to eat?" Sydney called after him.
"No," he said loudly before he slammed the front door behind him.
Sydney set Jaime, who was squirming and trying to get away, on the floor and allowed him to crawl around on the carpeted floor and leaned her head against the back of the couch.
Lorrie stood up quickly.
"If you want to be alone, I'll…"
"Stay. Unless you want to leave. I won't stop you. But I have enough spaghetti in the kitchen for four, and I'll never eat it all by myself. I wouldn't mind some company right now," Sydney suggested.
"I'll stay," Lorrie said, moving across the room to keep Jaime from pulling something onto his head. She picked him up and came back to the couch. "Are you going to tell your husband all of this?" she asked carefully, setting Jaime between them.
Sydney sighed. "I have to. He'll know something is wrong, especially after calling here earlier. I'll have to explain."
They sat in silence for a long time. Sydney was thinking of birthdays and Christmases and trips to the park with her parents, and how they'd all been lies. Her mother, for some reason, hadn't felt the love she and her father had imagined she did, and she'd left. Her father might as well have said he didn't ever love her mother. All those times she'd felt her life was perfect had been a lie, every one of them.
Lorrie was, in light of what she'd just heard, beginning to harbor the slightest of doubts that her mother was really dead. It was crazy, she knew; what were the chances that both of their mother's were mysteriously alive? Almost nonexistent, she acknowledged. She'd have to talk to her father when he got home that night. She'd probably have to convince him that she fully believed him without a doubt before he'd tell her what she wanted to know.
Lorrie broke away from her thoughts when she smelled something burning. About that time, Sydney jumped up yelling, "The spaghetti!" Lorrie, laughing, picked up Jaime carefully and followed her.
By the time she reached the kitchen, Sydney had already snatched the bubbling pan of sauce off the stove.
"I think it's still okay," Sydney laughed weakly. "Today's lesson, class, is never leave the kitchen when you're cooking," she told Lorrie and Jaime.
"Duly noted," Lorrie commented, hiding a grin.
Sydney glanced up to see Lorrie holding her son.
"You seem to have gotten used to him," she said calmly, grinning.
Lorrie just adjusted Jaime at her hip. "He's pretty calm now. I'm not afraid of dropping him."
"Good. You two just have a seat, I'll have this ready in a minute. We'll have to eat quick, though. It's already a quarter after six," Sydney informed her.
She prepared two plates complete with sauce, and she gave Jaime one with just noodles.
"If I give him the sauce he'll have it all over all three of us," Sydney explained. "I'll give him some when I'm done so I can keep an eye on him."
The normalcy of the dinner amazed Lorrie. Even with the heartrending revelations of earlier Sydney sat and calmly talked to Lorrie, then calmly fed Jaime. Lorrie was reluctant to leave when 7:00 rolled around.
"I guess I'd better go," Lorrie finally said around 7:30 after helping Sydney put Jaime to bed. "I have to be home when Dad gets there."
Sydney and Lorrie walked toward the back door so Lorrie could cut across the backyards to her backdoor. At the door, Sydney put her hands on Lorrie's shoulders.
"Lorrie, I want you to try to talk to your dad. You saw how my dad and I are. He's unresponsive and I try to bait him. I don't want you to be like that. Try to talk to him, form the bond I'm sure was there before your mother's accident," Sydney pleaded.
"I'm going to," Lorrie said quietly. "But only because I want to know what he's found out about the accident. May be he'll finally listen to me when I tell him about her brakes."
Sydney's eyes grew wide.
"Lorrie, you don't think he's right, do you? It's impossible, you know that."
"You were sure your mom was dead," Lorrie said pitifully. "I don't really believe him, but I need to know what he's found. I want to know if it's enough to raise doubts or to be suspicious."
Sydney sighed. "Even if she is alive, it's probably not a good thing," she cautioned.
Lorrie nodded and struggled to hold back tears. "I just want to know," she cried. Then she twisted free and took off toward her house.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Lorrie," Sydney whispered into the dark, Lorrie having already disappeared.
She walked slowly, dazedly, back into the kitchen and sunk into a chair. She stared blankly at the bare white wall for a long moment, tears forming in her eyes. Looking after Lorrie had been a welcomed distraction after the news her father brought. Now there was nothing left to think about except the shocking truth. Her mother, who she'd thought the world of, had run away from Sydney and her father. That had changed him. He'd been a warm, loving man when her mother was alive. After her death, he'd become withdrawn. At some point, which must have been when he found out the truth, he'd become sullen and distrustful.
Finally, Sydney lowered her head into her arms on the table and sobbed, all she could think was that her parents had betrayed her, and where was Danny when she needed him?
That was how Danny found her some twenty minutes later, when he came in without her hearing him.
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Melodramatic, I know, but Alias is supposed to be dramatic. Besides, I wrote this chapter right before I watched the season premier, and time just wasn't passing fast enough!!!!
Please review and let me know what you think!!!
Disclaimer: Recognizable characters in this story probably are not mine…
A/N: I think the title of this is so appropriate…don't you?
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"Hello, Dad." Sydney opened her front door and stepped back, but even she cringed at the frosty note in her voice.
"Sydney. It's good to see you," Jack Bristow said in his brisk tone, but now a slight note of discomfort slipped in.
"Lorrie and Jaime are in the kitchen. I'll put your jacket away while you go in and join them," Sydney offered with all appearances on being courteous.
"I'll just wait on you. I'm sure you'll only be a moment," Jack said.
"Oh, that's right. You've never been here. Strange, since we've lived here since before Jaime was born. I don't believe you've even seen Jaime since he was a couple of months old, have you?" Sydney asked cruelly. She instantly felt guilty, since she hadn't made any special effort to make sure Jaime saw his grandfather, but Jack had left her to stew over his self imposed dinner invitation to apologize. She also felt sad that he was missing his grandson growing up, with father's unruly hair and Sydney's soft brown eyes that occasionally took on a hard age when he wanted something he wasn't getting.
"Dad," she said, more civilly as she led him into the kitchen. "This is one of my students, Lorrie. She's having dinner with us tonight. I'm sure you'll be sorry to hear that Danny won't be joining us. He had to work late.
Jack shook Lorrie's hand and retreated into the far corner of the small kitchen. He had never cared for Danny, and he felt it was just as well that the man wouldn't be there to hear him say any of what he had come to tell his daughter. Of course, he'd prefer the little girl wasn't around either, but that could be dealt with later.
For a long time, jack watched Jaime bang happily on the tray of his high chair, smashing to crumbs the crackers Lorrie had left there.
To say the least, he was surprised by Sydney's phone call. He was downright suspicious of her request for information about her mother. Sure, he'd refused to tell her anything when she was a child, so she was still curious. But would she call him suddenly after over fifteen years to ask about her mother? No, he didn't think so; that wasn't what his gut reaction said. And his instincts had, in many cases, been the only thing to keep him alive for the past twenty-eight years. His instincts had failed him only once, and the result had been…
"Dad, surely you don't want to sit in here with the children?" Sydney said sweetly, tuning around. "Go sit in the den, you'll be much more comfortable and I won't be long." Lorrie flinched at being called a child, but to Sydney's relief she kept quiet. "As soon as I get done in here we can discuss Mom." She saw the way he glared at her for that comment.
"Fine. We can get it over with. I find it no business of the girl's what we're discussing," he added pointedly as he walked out.
Lorrie giggled as soon as he was out of earshot.
"Lorrie, I want you to come with me to talk to him. I'll bring Jaime, make it look like we're all moving into the den before we eat," Sydney added at Lorrie's look of horror. "Please, Lorrie, I want you to hear what he says too."
Lorrie nodded and they left the pasta to boil slowly while Jack explained some things that should have been covered 20 years ago.
Sydney walked confidently into the den holding Jaime, with Lorrie trailing behind her. They settled onto the couch across from Jack with Sydney holding on her lap.
"Okay, go," Sydney ordered.
Jack shot a stubborn glance at Lorrie.
"This girl has no business hearing anything I have to say," he snapped.
"I want her to hear it, so she's staying," Sydney replied firmly.
"She can't be trusted…" Jack began.
"You don't know that!" Lorrie cried indignantly. "You don't even know me!"
"All the better reason for you to leave," Jack snapped at her.
"Dad, she's not leaving. If you're concerned she'll repeat something, you don't have to worry. I trust Lorrie. Now, please explain before dinner is ready." Sydney stared impatiently at her father.
Jack looked furious, but he said nothing. Instead, he pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket.
"Don't smoke in here!" Sydney snapped.
Jack did not reply or stop, but simply opened the pack and struck the switch on the lighter. Instead of a flame, a thin pin popped out of the top of the lighter. Jack jammed the top of the lighter down into the cigarette pack and set the whole thing down on the coffee table.
"Bug killer," he said shortly.
"But why do you…" Sydney started, but Jack held up a hand to silence her.
"Sydney, last chance. You're absolutely sure you can trust this girl?" Lorrie crossed her arms across her chest and Sydney nodded. "I work for the CIA," he said softly. He shook his head slightly. "And Laura Bristow never existed."
"Dad, you're crazy! What are you talking about?" Sydney burst out after several long minutes of tense silence.
"I work for the CIA. The woman we knew as Laura Bristow was really Irena Derevko, a Russian KGB spy. She didn't die in that car crash 20 years ago. She's wanted for the murder of numerous CIA and FBI agents." Jack's voice was flat, as though he was simply watching the scene.
"Dad, you're crazy!" Sydney repeated, but with less conviction than she'd felt before.
"I found out almost six years ago that she'd somehow survived the crash. The CIA in general believes she planned the crash in order to disappear." He shook his head again, something Sydney hadn't seen him do since her mother's…disappearance. "I've answered your question, Sydney, now I need you to answer mine.
Sydney nodded numbly, tears forming in her eyes.
"What prompted you to call me this afternoon?"
Sydney looked up quickly.
"I just…was talking to someone and she got me to thinking about Mom, and…" Sydney stopped when she heard Lorrie say her name.
"You said you'd tell someone if you found out something drastic," Lorrie whispered. "I think…I think you should tell him."
"Tell me what?" Jack jumped in quickly.
Lorrie looked at Sydney silently.
"You're right. And I meant it," Sydney said softly, then raised her voice to normal levels. "I got a phone call today at my school. It was Mom. I had been talking to Lorrie before the call, and she noticed something was wrong when I came back. I told her. She came home with me. She was here when Mom called again." Sydney looked over at Lorrie. "Can I tell him about your mother?" Lorrie nodded. "Her mother dies in a car crash four years ago, but her father is convinced that the woman ran away. They never found her body," Sydney said to explain the connection. She shook her head. "I never meant to get her caught up in something like this. I had no idea my mother was a murderer."
Jack studies them both before saying anything else. By his next statement, he must have decided they could handle more.
"Some people at the CIA suspected she might contact you when I told them how good a mother she had seemed to be. They thought she might play the great mother angle and try to get you on her side as an adult even though she left you as a child. Since she knew the numbers both here and to the school, it's safe to assume she knows where you live. I brought the bug killer because it's possible with you and Danny out of the house all day she could have easily bugged the house hoping to gain intel from me or even you."
"Mom may have the house bugged? But why?" Sydney asked, having trouble processing all the new and difficult information.
"In the hope of gaining valuable intel concerning the CIA," Jack repeated. "I'm going to talk to the director and have a guard placed here around the clock. It's highly likely that Derevko may attempt to speak with you face to face, and what better place than your home?"
"A guard? Dad, I don't think…"
"Yes, a guard. If I have any say he'll be starting first thing in the morning," Jack said firmly. "If Derevko shows up, I want someone here to nab her." His face hardened as he said it.
"Dad, I always thought you loved Mom," Sydney said softly.
She watched as his face softened almost unnoticeably before it contorted to fury. Jack stood and stormed from the room.
"Aren't you staying to eat?" Sydney called after him.
"No," he said loudly before he slammed the front door behind him.
Sydney set Jaime, who was squirming and trying to get away, on the floor and allowed him to crawl around on the carpeted floor and leaned her head against the back of the couch.
Lorrie stood up quickly.
"If you want to be alone, I'll…"
"Stay. Unless you want to leave. I won't stop you. But I have enough spaghetti in the kitchen for four, and I'll never eat it all by myself. I wouldn't mind some company right now," Sydney suggested.
"I'll stay," Lorrie said, moving across the room to keep Jaime from pulling something onto his head. She picked him up and came back to the couch. "Are you going to tell your husband all of this?" she asked carefully, setting Jaime between them.
Sydney sighed. "I have to. He'll know something is wrong, especially after calling here earlier. I'll have to explain."
They sat in silence for a long time. Sydney was thinking of birthdays and Christmases and trips to the park with her parents, and how they'd all been lies. Her mother, for some reason, hadn't felt the love she and her father had imagined she did, and she'd left. Her father might as well have said he didn't ever love her mother. All those times she'd felt her life was perfect had been a lie, every one of them.
Lorrie was, in light of what she'd just heard, beginning to harbor the slightest of doubts that her mother was really dead. It was crazy, she knew; what were the chances that both of their mother's were mysteriously alive? Almost nonexistent, she acknowledged. She'd have to talk to her father when he got home that night. She'd probably have to convince him that she fully believed him without a doubt before he'd tell her what she wanted to know.
Lorrie broke away from her thoughts when she smelled something burning. About that time, Sydney jumped up yelling, "The spaghetti!" Lorrie, laughing, picked up Jaime carefully and followed her.
By the time she reached the kitchen, Sydney had already snatched the bubbling pan of sauce off the stove.
"I think it's still okay," Sydney laughed weakly. "Today's lesson, class, is never leave the kitchen when you're cooking," she told Lorrie and Jaime.
"Duly noted," Lorrie commented, hiding a grin.
Sydney glanced up to see Lorrie holding her son.
"You seem to have gotten used to him," she said calmly, grinning.
Lorrie just adjusted Jaime at her hip. "He's pretty calm now. I'm not afraid of dropping him."
"Good. You two just have a seat, I'll have this ready in a minute. We'll have to eat quick, though. It's already a quarter after six," Sydney informed her.
She prepared two plates complete with sauce, and she gave Jaime one with just noodles.
"If I give him the sauce he'll have it all over all three of us," Sydney explained. "I'll give him some when I'm done so I can keep an eye on him."
The normalcy of the dinner amazed Lorrie. Even with the heartrending revelations of earlier Sydney sat and calmly talked to Lorrie, then calmly fed Jaime. Lorrie was reluctant to leave when 7:00 rolled around.
"I guess I'd better go," Lorrie finally said around 7:30 after helping Sydney put Jaime to bed. "I have to be home when Dad gets there."
Sydney and Lorrie walked toward the back door so Lorrie could cut across the backyards to her backdoor. At the door, Sydney put her hands on Lorrie's shoulders.
"Lorrie, I want you to try to talk to your dad. You saw how my dad and I are. He's unresponsive and I try to bait him. I don't want you to be like that. Try to talk to him, form the bond I'm sure was there before your mother's accident," Sydney pleaded.
"I'm going to," Lorrie said quietly. "But only because I want to know what he's found out about the accident. May be he'll finally listen to me when I tell him about her brakes."
Sydney's eyes grew wide.
"Lorrie, you don't think he's right, do you? It's impossible, you know that."
"You were sure your mom was dead," Lorrie said pitifully. "I don't really believe him, but I need to know what he's found. I want to know if it's enough to raise doubts or to be suspicious."
Sydney sighed. "Even if she is alive, it's probably not a good thing," she cautioned.
Lorrie nodded and struggled to hold back tears. "I just want to know," she cried. Then she twisted free and took off toward her house.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Lorrie," Sydney whispered into the dark, Lorrie having already disappeared.
She walked slowly, dazedly, back into the kitchen and sunk into a chair. She stared blankly at the bare white wall for a long moment, tears forming in her eyes. Looking after Lorrie had been a welcomed distraction after the news her father brought. Now there was nothing left to think about except the shocking truth. Her mother, who she'd thought the world of, had run away from Sydney and her father. That had changed him. He'd been a warm, loving man when her mother was alive. After her death, he'd become withdrawn. At some point, which must have been when he found out the truth, he'd become sullen and distrustful.
Finally, Sydney lowered her head into her arms on the table and sobbed, all she could think was that her parents had betrayed her, and where was Danny when she needed him?
That was how Danny found her some twenty minutes later, when he came in without her hearing him.
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Melodramatic, I know, but Alias is supposed to be dramatic. Besides, I wrote this chapter right before I watched the season premier, and time just wasn't passing fast enough!!!!
Please review and let me know what you think!!!