The door opened, causing Laura to stop her pacing. She had felt like she had been coming out of her skin for the last few days, and right now she would almost welcome the chance to fight someone. A hard physical fight with no real winner, where both sides went home with broken bones.
Every muscle in her body contracted, prepared for the fight. Then everything relaxed when the pale face of her daughter appeared in the opening. "Sydney?" She rushed forward and hugged her. Telling herself that it didn't matter that Sydney didn't return her hug, although it did, Laura pulled away and caressed her daughter's face.
She could see the swelling and the hints of bruises that Sydney had so expertly covered with makeup. Her eyes had seen a lot of disguised bruises on her own face over the years. "Sloane called me earlier," she said. Sydney somehow managed to become more reserved, more distant. "He told me that you'd gotten the Rambaldi device from FTL."
"Yeah," Sydney said as she pulled away from her and walked over to the refrigerator. "I thought that was the only thing I could do."
Laura hugged herself. "You could have gone to Switzerland like I asked."
The water bottle stopped within inches of Sydney's mouth. She lowered it without taking a drink. "What would you've told Dad? Does he know?"
Walking over to the sink, Laura put her hands into the tepid water. She let out some of it and then began refilling it with hot. "No, he doesn't know," she admitted. Every muscle, bone, and tissue in her body protested the thought of Jack Bristow knowing the truth. It would mean the end of her life.
"So, you've been lying to him, too?" Sydney challenged.
Laura spun around to look at her daughter. Seeing her standing there with that sullen look on her face reminded Laura of the teenage years. The walls in this kitchen had heard many arguments between mother and daughter. Poor Jack had often been caught in the middle of a tidal wave that he hadn't understood; he had never been a daughter or a mother.
However, right now, the argument was far more serious than staying out past curfew or wearing a dress that revealed too much at too young an age. Teenage fights were to be expected; they could be worked past as the daughter grew into a woman. How could she expect Sydney to ever understand her choices?
"You've been lying to him since your freshman year," she replied, knowing it would hurt Sydney to be reminded of that truth. However, she wouldn't dare tell Sydney the truth about Jack's lies. If Sydney knew that her father worked for the CIA instead of exporting plane parts, she would know exactly how deep Laura's betrayal was.
Angry tears filled her daughter's eyes, but Sydney refused to cry. Laura could see the determination on her face. "I thought I was doing something good."
She nodded. "I know."
Sydney shook her head. "Exactly. You knew what I thought, and you knew the truth, and you never told me. How could you have not told me?"
She opened her mouth to say something, but she couldn't explain. Not without revealing more truth, more than Sydney needed to know. More truth than Sydney could accept.
Mother and daughter stared at each other for a long time. Finally, Sydney guzzled down the water from her bottle, tossed it into the recycle bin, and said, "I'm going to bed. I'm going to crash."
"What do you want me to tell your dad when he gets home?" Laura asked.
Sydney's back straightened. "Tell him--tell him I had a great time on my vacation."
Laura watched her walk away and sighed. The tightrope that she had been walking most of her life had just gotten more slippery.
***
"There is going to be an investigation, Jack," Devlin told him. They were standing in a vacant office. Personnel hadn't moved anyone into Larry's old office yet, and Jack had sought its quiet refuge after sending Sydney home.
Jack's head dropped down, and he rubbed his forehead. "Why, Devlin? Because I was so stupid I couldn't see that both my wife and my daughter worked for the enemy? Why should they hold that against me?" he snarled.
The night surrounded them. He hadn't bothered to turn on any lights when he had entered earlier, and Devlin hadn't either when he followed a few minutes ago. Jack stared out into the night, understanding someone he had never before understood.
"Arvin Sloane once told me that he always felt darkness approaching," he whispered. "Now I know what he meant."
"Jack--"
"Don't, Devlin." He sank down into the office chair behind the empty desk. "Don't tell me that you understand, because the simple fact is that you don't."
He looked up at the dark shadow that was his friend. "Did you read her statement?" The silhouette nodded. "I read that and felt like I was reading the words of a stranger. My daughter is a graduate student who works at a bank. I taught her how to fire a weapon, but she's not an expert at it. She's had some self-defense classes, but she couldn't do what she did in Taipei."
Jack closed his eyes as his mind replayed her words, her description of what happened. They had been detached, analytical, but each one had burned their way into his memory. The scenes he had not seen were now vivid memories that would haunt him for the remainder of his life.
"Before today, the last time I saw Sydney," he said as his shoulders slumped. "I was dancing with Laura. We were laughing and singing Brown-eyed Girl. When she walked into the kitchen, we stopped. I apologized for waking her, but I was really trying to tell her that I was sorry for laughing, for not respecting her grief."
Spinning on the chair, Jack looked out of the window. "I didn't even know what she was feeling. My God, Devlin, she blamed herself for what I thought was a random act of violence. He died because she told him the truth."
He looked at his watch and noted the time. When had it gotten so late? It didn't seem all that long ago that he had left his home for work. It had been a beautiful day. "She called me before she left. Told me she was going on a little vacation. She didn't sound like she had just narrowly avoided being assassinated. She didn't even sound a little upset about having just found out that her world was lie. I never thought anything about it. I just told her that I was glad she was going, that she needed the break from the routine.
"A break from the routine," he sighed. He shook his head. "They tied her up, Devlin. Tortured her. Pulled a damn tooth without any painkillers." His fist clenched. The taste for blood filled his mouth, overpowered his senses.
He heard Devlin take a few steps closer to him. "She's good, Jack."
Thinking about the words, written in Sydney's familiar script, discussing assignments, Jack nodded. "She's really good, Devlin, and that's what scares me the most. Low-level desk clerks don't get noticed. Sloane pays special attention to Sydney."
His stomach rolled at the thought of Arvin Sloane being anywhere near his daughter. They had been friends once, but that had been a long time ago. Before Sloane had forgotten what they were fighting for, what they believed in, before Sloane had let bitterness overtake him. Now that bitterness watched over his daughter.
Jack's cell phone rang, stopping whatever words of comfort Devlin had been about to share. "Bristow," he barked.
"Jack? Sweetheart, where are you?"
"Laura?" How could a dead woman be talking? Then he remembered that there was still a living, breathing woman out there with his wife's face and with his wife's name. It was his dreams, his beliefs about her that were dead. She was dead to him, and he was numb from grief.
"You're late for dinner. Our girl has finally came home from her vacation with a new haircut, and Jack, you are not going to believe what she did! She dyed it the same color as Will's sister. Do you believe it?"
What could he say? I know. I've already seen it. Please, tell me the truth. "We all need a change sometimes."
"She's lucky to have you for a dad, Jack. My father would have yelled up a storm if I came home with red hair." Laura's familiar laugh didn't bring a smile to his face this time. The sound of a lie couldn't bring him joy. "Even at Sydney's age."
"Well, your dad and I would have never gotten along," he muttered.
Laura sighed. "No, you wouldn't have. So, when are you coming home?"
"Coming home?" He didn't have a home anymore. The only real home he had ever known was a lie. He opened his mouth to give an answer, to tell her the truth; he would never be coming home again. Devlin's eyes drilled into him from the shadows, and he knew then that Sydney would not be the only one learning to live in a lie. "I don't know, sweetheart." The word somehow didn't choke him.
"I don't know." He struggled to come up with an excuse. Unable to even hint at the truth, he lied. She would know it was a lie, but she would accept it without question. In his job, he couldn't use unsecured lines to tell her the truth, and she knew it. Remembering his cover, the one everyone but the CIA and his wife believed to be his real job, he said, "Things have gotten to be a mess here. One of our biggest customers just called to tell us that the parts they got were not what they ordered and--"
He gulped in air from the stuffy room. "I should have called. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," she told him. "I understand. I'll leave a light on for you."
"Is Sydney okay?"
She hesitated before answering. He knew that Sydney had still been angry with Laura for her lies, and he knew that her homecoming had probably been an emotional confrontation between mother and daughter. In that brief hesitation, he now heard the workings of a devious mind coming up with an untruth. He wondered if he would have even noticed that brief pause if he still believed in the lie. "Yeah, she's fine. Tired. She went straight to bed."
"Well, she needed to get away." Away from the lies. Away from the death. Away from you.
"Yeah, she did." Laura sighed. "I'm glad she's home though."
"I am, too." He just wished the same Sydney had come home. His innocent little girl, untouched by his world. No, that was wrong. She was the same; he was different. His eyes were opened.
"Don't work too hard. Wake me when you come home if you want," she told him. He often did, but he wouldn't tonight. He didn't want to see her, didn't want to hear her deceitful voice. "I love you."
"I love you, too," he whispered. He had said the words every day for almost thirty years. Now they sounded wrong, and he realized why. For the first time ever, they were a lie.
The cell phone landed on the desk with a loud bang. "I can't do it, Devlin."
Taking a step closer to him, his boss replied, "You'll have to, Jack. It's our turn to spy on her, find out what damage she did."
Jack shook his head. "I don't--"
"Jack, you'll need to do it for Sydney, too. You suddenly leaving would sound all kinds of alarm bells for Arvin Sloane. SD-6 would investigate, and I'm not sure Sydney can handle the added pressure."
Looking back at his boss, Jack felt the desire to strangle him. "Just leave me alone, Devlin."
"Jack--"
He held up his hand. "Please, Devlin. Leave me alone. You don't need to worry about me. I've always done what the CIA wanted. You know where my loyalty lies."
"Yes, Jack, I do. I also know how much you love Laura--"
"Loved." The word was flat with not a hint of emotion. Jack was proud of that word.
Nodding, Devlin finished. "Loved. However, I also know that's not enough to keep you there in that house. Sydney's safety is the only thing that will make you stay."
Jack clasped his hands together, squeezing them together until it hurt. Leaning forward on his elbows, he said, "You're right, Devlin. It's the only thing making me stay. Now please leave me alone."
Devlin left, but the thoughts crowding in on him didn't.
***