Chapter 8: This is Irina Derevko

Disclaimer: If it's recognizable, it's probably not mine.

A/N: Oops! I posted this chapter half-finished before…It must have been some glitch somewhere along the line, but I can't be sure, since the disk where I keep my originals got screwed up…Anyway, sorry about that!
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"I left an agent with you, Sydney. He can handle whatever has come up," Jack said coldly.

"Dad, I think you should see this first," Sydney said quietly, wrapping the cord of the phone in Lorrie's kitchen around her finger. She hadn't wanted to make the call with Agent Vaughn around. "There's something about that guy…I don't quite trust him."

"I left an agent there to handle anything that comes up about Irina Derevko. Unless you have her in custody now, it's not my problem," Jack stated. "Agent Vaughn is more than qualified for his job."

"But Dad, I really think…" Sydney stopped and sighed when she heard the phone on the other end being hung up with a decisive click.

"Is he coming?" Lorrie asked. She'd gotten anything but a good impression of Jack Bristow, but she was sure he'd know exactly what to do. She'd agreed with Sydney once she'd calmed down: the only reasonable thing to do was call Jack Bristow.

"No, he's not," Sydney said huffily, starting back toward Lorrie's room where they'd left all the pictures and other things. "I don't like this at all, but we have no other choice," she added, almost to herself.

"Other than…?" Lorrie prompted, knowing the answer but not wanting to be the one to say it.

"We have to take this to Michael Vaughn," Sydney said resignedly, like a person who's decided to simply face facts.

"Sydney, are you sure we have to talk to that guy?" Lorrie whined. "He's weird. Did you see how he looked at me before?"

Sydney nodded. "I don't like it either, but right now Michael Vaughn is our only link to the CIA. We have no other choice."

By this time, they'd reached Lorrie's room. Sydney piled the folders into the box as quickly and orderly ads she could, anxious to get the meeting with Michael Vaughn over with. Just as she lifted the amazingly heavy box and started toward the door, they heard a car pull into the drive. Lorrie looked at Sydney, her eyes filled with panic.

"We have to get out of here! I'm not supposed to have people over, and he'll kill me if he finds out I took this stuff from his office!" Lorrie hissed.

"I'm trying! This is heavy!" Sydney gasped. "Help me with it!"

With both of them carrying it, they just managed to get out of the back door before the front door opened. They walked as fast as possible under the weight of the box, but both felt that they weren't moving fast enough. Danny stared at them when they burst in the back door.

"Sydney? Where have you been? I've been worried…honey, what's wrong?" Danny asked, noting his wife's wild eyes.

"Where's Michael?" Sydney asked instead of answering him.

"He's in the kitchen. But what's going on?" Danny asked again, looking from his wife to Lorrie, who seemed to be waiting for someone to burst through the back door behind her.

Sydney ignored him again and carried the box into the kitchen. She dumped it onto the table and pulled out one of the manila folders containing pictures, but didn't open it.

"Mr. Vaughn, could you identify Irina Derevko if you saw her?" she asked quickly.

"Of course. I…" Michael started.

Sydney pulled out one of the pictures, carefully avoiding looking at it herself, and handed it to Lorrie. "Tell him who this is," she ordered.

Lorrie took a step closer to Michael and held up the picture, offering it to him to get a closer look at.

"This is my mother," she said quietly as his eyes narrowed distrustfully.

Danny, the only one oblivious enough to notice such things, saw the man's face contort into a hate-filled stare as he looked at the picture now in his hand.

"Who is she, Mr. Vaughn?" "Sydney asked forcefully, watching him carefully. Suddenly she, too, saw the hate in his look.

"Irina Derevko," he said through gritted teeth, fighting to get his emotions under control.

Danny watched him warily, as though afraid he was about to snap. Michael saw it, and it only irritated him further.

"What's going on?" Danny growled again, throwing up his hands in frustration but glad for the momentary lull in the conversation that allowed him to get a word in edgewise.

Sydney finally turned around to face him, an apologetic look in her eyes. She started to explain it the best she could.

"My mother's real name is Irina Derevko. She faked her death…"

"I know that…"

Sydney held up a hand.

"Lorrie's mother, it seems, also faked her death." She pulled another photo from the folder she had absently tossed on the table. "This is Lorrie's mother."

Michael stepped up and looked at the picture for a second.

"This is Irina Derevko," Michael muttered quietly.

Danny stood in shocked silence.

"So…she," Danny gestured at Lorrie, "Is your half sister?" He asked Sydney, introducing a rather pleasant idea that had not entered into Sydney or Lorrie's mind.

There were four very confused people in that kitchen, each with their brains working overtime trying to process the almost unthinkable information flying all around them.

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Taylor Miller was surprised, and a little angry, to come home to find an empty house. In the years he and his daughter had lived in that house, Lorrie had always been in the house somewhere. After a thorough search, he became angry that she'd left and not left a note anywhere. Plus, it was late; nearly eight o'clock. That, he decided, is too late for a twelve-year-old to be gone without telling anyone she's going to be. He'd make that very clear when she got home.

Meanwhile, he might as well take advantage of her absence. He wanted to go through his files on Angie, then he'd have to hide them; he was sure, now that Lorrie was curious, that she would find them if he left them where he'd kept them for years.

Angie. He sighed, realizing that even after all he'd found out he still thought of her using an affectionate nickname. Hell, it probably wasn't even her real name. He still hadn't found out about that. He did know that when you poked around Angie's past more than a few years before they met, she didn't exist.

Taylor walked into his office and straight toward the corner where his files should have been. Then he stopped dead. The box wasn't there.

Lorrie wasn't home. His box of files on her mother was missing. It didn't take a genius to guess Lorrie had decided to do a little digging of her own. He was afraid she'd found something disturbing enough to disappear. What if one of those many things locked away in her thoughts helped her to make a connection he'd completely missed?

But what could she have found? All that was there were financial reports from the time they were married. And those photos, but Lorrie wouldn't realize they were from after the woman supposedly died.

I have to find her, he thought. But where did he start?

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"I have to notify Agent Bristow of this…twist," Michael said, attempting a tight grin but ending up in a sort of grimace.

"I already did," Sydney said, deciding she wanted to see what their Mr. Vaughn was like in action.

"He's on his way?" Michael said absently, settling himself at the kitchen table with the rest of them.

Sydney laughed, sort of a disbelieving snort. "If my father was coming, Mr. Vaughn, I would not have brought this to you."

"He's not coming?" Michael asked in amazement, staring at her for a moment before averting his gaze.

"He said you were more than qualified to handle whatever came up," Sydney said, feeling only the slightest bit guilty about lying to him.

Michael shook his head. "You're sure?" he asked reluctantly.

"That's exactly what he said," she replied, sounding sure of herself.

Michael sighed. "Okay. Let's get this straight, then."

"Yes, let's," Danny said sarcastically. "You two haven't said one thing that makes sense to me since you walked in that door," he complained at Sydney and Lorrie.

"Sorry," Sydney said, "But you'll have to wait until later to make sense of it all." She turned and shuffled through some files until she found what she was looking for: a printout clearly labeled with a date and "Spending for May." "This was when Lorrie was five," Sydney said to Michael. "You can see the things this mother did with her daughter by what was spend. A trip to the zoo, and a stuffed tiger. Fairly common, but exactly the type of thing my mother did with me. Now look at this." She pointed further down the page. "The admission to an art museum. What woman in her right mind would take a five year old to any museum? If you keep going through this file, month by month, you can see that trips to museums were common." Sydney pushed the file across the table to Michael. She continued quietly. "When I was little, my mother took me to museums. She said children should enjoy learning, and that was one way she knew to make it fun."

Lorrie stared at Sydney in surprise for a moment, then the surprise gave way to logic. Of course, Sydney could see her think.

"Mom said it, too," Lorrie whispered sadly, sliding down in her seat and wrapping her arms around herself. She sat silently for a moment then suddenly sat up again. "My dad! He'll know the box is gone by now! What am I gonna tell him?" she moaned.

Michael gave Lorrie another odd look, but instead of intimidating, this one had a comforting effect.

"Tell him you went to a friend's house. Don't explain this," Michael warned. "This is an ongoing investigation."

"I should really get home," Lorrie said, hearing Michael's advice but not taking time to discuss it. "Dad's probably really mad by now."

Michael smiled calmly. "You'll be okay. We'll be ready to help you if you need it."

Michael walked with Lorrie to the back door, just to comfort her a little. As he left the kitchen, Sydney caught his eye. Perhaps it had to do with the look in her eyes, a mixture of curiosity and sympathy, that caught his attention. Whatever the cause, he held her gaze until he disappeared from the room. The haunted look Sydney had glimpsed, however, did not leave with him. A mental picture of him as he left followed her for days to come.

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Dang, I've really got to fix whatever is screwing up my disks…half of my chapters keep disappearing!