Feedback: Positive or negative both welcome.
celli@fanfic101.com
Category: uh...general?
Rating: PG-13 for mention of violence.
Pairing: none.
Spoilers: Through "The Enemy Walks In."
Summary: "Now must I these three praise / Three women that
have wrought / What joy is in my days..." Sark ruminates on
his mother, his mentor, and his match.
Archiving: Cover Me, and my site (www.fanfic101.com);
anyone else please just let me know.
Disclaimer: Alias belongs to JJ Abrams, ABC, and various
other people with lawyers. Fortunately, this means that
Sark does not spend much time in my head.
Notes: Thanks to my beta-readers: Karen T and Robin, with
encouragement from Gail, JenC, and Jenai.
This story is for Rach, whose birthday was actually
October 15, but for me this is early. *g* Happy birthday!
***
Three Women
by Celli Lane
***
I. Fionna Hackett
One because no thought...
Could ever come between
Mind and delighted mind...
I was raised on stories of fairies and kings and saints,
each more magical than the next. (Yes, I know saints were
holy rather than magical, but I could never tell the
difference.) My ma and I were Hacketts, of a clan
descended from the little people themselves, to hear them
tell of it. And they told often.
She was always one to hedge her bets. She named me Patrick
for the saint and Conal for the king that the fairies
loved. And my ma's family, they were as close to nobility
as you could get in that little village outside Galway
without having any money or position.
Everyone always assumes I was abandoned in a churchyard or
whipped by my teacher or some such. Those with nothing
better to do with their time than hyper-analyze my
"deficits" like to blame them on my fatherless upbringing.
Truth is, I never needed a da; I had a grandfather, uncle,
and cousins, but mostly I had her. She raised me with love
and warmth and a joy that made even a hundred-times-told
tale seem new. I was everything to her, and she was
everything to me.
So of course she died.
***
I was seven. We'd gone all the way to Dublin--funny that I
don't remember why. Some sort of holiday, I suppose.
After two days of traveling, I remember being excited and
tired and, well, seven, so Ma probably had her hands full
with me. She took me into a side street, sat right down on
the curb with me in her lap, and started a story.
"There once was a great king of the west..."
She had nearly lulled me to sleep when a loud noise stopped
the story. I looked up, and to put it simply, her face was
gone.
She toppled over, still holding me. There were more loud
sounds. There was screaming. Then the soldiers. Then--I
don't remember the then.
***
As it happens, that side street had a boarding house where
British embassy workers lived. Ma was shot by IRA hotheads
who seemed sorrier for missing the British than for hitting
my mother.
My mother taught me that the Irish kill for love, God, and
politics. I kill for money, ambition, and, when the mood
is upon me, ego. But then, I'm not Irish.
***
II: Irina Derevko
And one because her hand
had strength that could unbind
What none can have and thrive...
The settlement from Sinn Fein, and some judicious
investing, bought me an entirely new identity (Sark is an
island which, as far as I could tell, was the furthest spot
in the country from Galway), enough education to eradicate
the last of my accent, and my first gun. I was using it to
make my name as an assassin when I came to Irina Derevko's
attention.
"So you're Philip Sark," she said.
I'd just been chloroformed and thrown in the back of a
sedan, but I tried to look blase about the whole thing. "I
am." I smoothed the front of my jacket as best I could.
"So, madam, did you bring me here to kill me or interrogate
me?"
She didn't laugh. Not once in ten years have I heard
Derevko laugh. But she smiled.
"Actually, Mr. Sark, I'm offering you an opportunity. If
you take advantage of it, more will follow. If you
fail...to take advantage...then let's just say I won't
interrogate you."
***
"Intelligence," she said once, "is not a man's business.
Oh, the men think so. But in addition to the obvious
sexual advantages our gender gives us, women can also take
advantage of the cultural bias against us. A fawning
mistress or a mother with a harried look and a diaper bag--
easily ignored. Women always, always have the element of
surprise, Mr. Sark."
Since she'd just used that element to garrote an African
head of state, I merely smiled and nodded.
She underestimates men, though. She underestimates me.
It's her one weakness, this assumption that she is superior
to all of us all the time. Perhaps it's true now, but no
one can prepare entirely for the element of surprise.
***
If Rambaldi indeed chose Derevko to further some grand
scheme--and from Haladki's intel, I find that likely--he
could not have chosen better. She is a woman who, having
once decided on an agenda, will not waver. I've seen her
work her way through seven backup plans to take out a
target. She takes some of her blackmail pictures
personally, to ensure the best possible coverage.
So when she gave me control of the organization and
promised to return in a year, there was no arguing with
her, no asking questions or expressing concern. This is
the greatest of many opportunities she's offered me, and I
intend to take full advantage of it. And when she
returns...well, that's another agenda altogether, isn't it?
Because it's the reason for her absence that has finally
revealed her weakness. Her attachment--I won't call it
love--for her child.
***
III. Sydney Bristow
And what of her that took
All till my youth was gone
With scarce a pitying look?
How could I praise that one...?
The first time I saw Sydney Bristow's dossier, it was on
Derevko's desk. She was paging through it with an
intensity she usually reserved for choosing dinner wines
and assault rifles.
"A new player?" I asked as I sat down.
"Not precisely. An older player coming into new
prominence." She passed me the folder. "Agent Bristow is
an SD-6 agent who has just been turned."
"By whom?" We'd been trying to get a good recruit from SD-
6 for several years, but they were all so damned patriotic.
Worse than the real CIA, even--although we'd had some luck
with the FBI. Then the last name registered.
"Any...ah...relation to Jack Bristow?"
"Daughter," she said simply.
"I see." Bristow does look remarkably like her mother. I
looked away from the picture and said quickly, "So the CIA
turned her?"
"Yes, although I doubt that's the terminology they used."
I shrugged. "One agency is much the same as another. What
matters is the work."
***
I read scattered reports on Agent Bristow over the next
several months. She figured prominently in many of Agent
Haladki's debriefings. After you filtered out the sexism
and blatant envy coloring his reports, it was obvious that
she was a gifted field agent. Given her DNA, I was not
surprised. But I found myself a bit bored with the
obsession Haladki, Derevko, and even Khasinau had with the
girl.
And then came Denpasar.
***
You understand, it wasn't until Dixon came in and she
panicked that I realized with whom I'd been fighting. But
she's good. She's very, very good. Agile, strong, and
clever--which she needs to balance out the bloody fools
working with her. They deserved to lose me to SD-6.
***
I won't deny the temptation to reveal Bristow's true status
to Arvin Sloane. Two things stopped me. One, Derevko
would remove my spleen with her fingernails once she saw me
again. Two...all right, I'll admit that my boredom had
shifted to just a hint of intrigue. Just what is Sydney
Bristow capable of? How many agendas can she juggle at
once? How far can she be pushed, and by whom?
I often fantasized, when I first met Derevko, about meeting
her in battle. Not necessarily hand-to-hand combat, but
the undeclared war that marks global intelligence. I was
content to be her employee, for a time, but I always wanted
to know if I could defeat a master of the game.
Bristow's attraction? I have the chance to watch her
become a master. To enjoy her position at the forefront of
the intelligence world. And then I'll break her.
--the end--
The poem quoted is "Friends" by W.B. Yeats. The fairy
stories used are from "Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland,"
which he edited. See what happens when my computer breaks
and I have to go to the library every day? :)
celli@fanfic101.com
Category: uh...general?
Rating: PG-13 for mention of violence.
Pairing: none.
Spoilers: Through "The Enemy Walks In."
Summary: "Now must I these three praise / Three women that
have wrought / What joy is in my days..." Sark ruminates on
his mother, his mentor, and his match.
Archiving: Cover Me, and my site (www.fanfic101.com);
anyone else please just let me know.
Disclaimer: Alias belongs to JJ Abrams, ABC, and various
other people with lawyers. Fortunately, this means that
Sark does not spend much time in my head.
Notes: Thanks to my beta-readers: Karen T and Robin, with
encouragement from Gail, JenC, and Jenai.
This story is for Rach, whose birthday was actually
October 15, but for me this is early. *g* Happy birthday!
***
Three Women
by Celli Lane
***
I. Fionna Hackett
One because no thought...
Could ever come between
Mind and delighted mind...
I was raised on stories of fairies and kings and saints,
each more magical than the next. (Yes, I know saints were
holy rather than magical, but I could never tell the
difference.) My ma and I were Hacketts, of a clan
descended from the little people themselves, to hear them
tell of it. And they told often.
She was always one to hedge her bets. She named me Patrick
for the saint and Conal for the king that the fairies
loved. And my ma's family, they were as close to nobility
as you could get in that little village outside Galway
without having any money or position.
Everyone always assumes I was abandoned in a churchyard or
whipped by my teacher or some such. Those with nothing
better to do with their time than hyper-analyze my
"deficits" like to blame them on my fatherless upbringing.
Truth is, I never needed a da; I had a grandfather, uncle,
and cousins, but mostly I had her. She raised me with love
and warmth and a joy that made even a hundred-times-told
tale seem new. I was everything to her, and she was
everything to me.
So of course she died.
***
I was seven. We'd gone all the way to Dublin--funny that I
don't remember why. Some sort of holiday, I suppose.
After two days of traveling, I remember being excited and
tired and, well, seven, so Ma probably had her hands full
with me. She took me into a side street, sat right down on
the curb with me in her lap, and started a story.
"There once was a great king of the west..."
She had nearly lulled me to sleep when a loud noise stopped
the story. I looked up, and to put it simply, her face was
gone.
She toppled over, still holding me. There were more loud
sounds. There was screaming. Then the soldiers. Then--I
don't remember the then.
***
As it happens, that side street had a boarding house where
British embassy workers lived. Ma was shot by IRA hotheads
who seemed sorrier for missing the British than for hitting
my mother.
My mother taught me that the Irish kill for love, God, and
politics. I kill for money, ambition, and, when the mood
is upon me, ego. But then, I'm not Irish.
***
II: Irina Derevko
And one because her hand
had strength that could unbind
What none can have and thrive...
The settlement from Sinn Fein, and some judicious
investing, bought me an entirely new identity (Sark is an
island which, as far as I could tell, was the furthest spot
in the country from Galway), enough education to eradicate
the last of my accent, and my first gun. I was using it to
make my name as an assassin when I came to Irina Derevko's
attention.
"So you're Philip Sark," she said.
I'd just been chloroformed and thrown in the back of a
sedan, but I tried to look blase about the whole thing. "I
am." I smoothed the front of my jacket as best I could.
"So, madam, did you bring me here to kill me or interrogate
me?"
She didn't laugh. Not once in ten years have I heard
Derevko laugh. But she smiled.
"Actually, Mr. Sark, I'm offering you an opportunity. If
you take advantage of it, more will follow. If you
fail...to take advantage...then let's just say I won't
interrogate you."
***
"Intelligence," she said once, "is not a man's business.
Oh, the men think so. But in addition to the obvious
sexual advantages our gender gives us, women can also take
advantage of the cultural bias against us. A fawning
mistress or a mother with a harried look and a diaper bag--
easily ignored. Women always, always have the element of
surprise, Mr. Sark."
Since she'd just used that element to garrote an African
head of state, I merely smiled and nodded.
She underestimates men, though. She underestimates me.
It's her one weakness, this assumption that she is superior
to all of us all the time. Perhaps it's true now, but no
one can prepare entirely for the element of surprise.
***
If Rambaldi indeed chose Derevko to further some grand
scheme--and from Haladki's intel, I find that likely--he
could not have chosen better. She is a woman who, having
once decided on an agenda, will not waver. I've seen her
work her way through seven backup plans to take out a
target. She takes some of her blackmail pictures
personally, to ensure the best possible coverage.
So when she gave me control of the organization and
promised to return in a year, there was no arguing with
her, no asking questions or expressing concern. This is
the greatest of many opportunities she's offered me, and I
intend to take full advantage of it. And when she
returns...well, that's another agenda altogether, isn't it?
Because it's the reason for her absence that has finally
revealed her weakness. Her attachment--I won't call it
love--for her child.
***
III. Sydney Bristow
And what of her that took
All till my youth was gone
With scarce a pitying look?
How could I praise that one...?
The first time I saw Sydney Bristow's dossier, it was on
Derevko's desk. She was paging through it with an
intensity she usually reserved for choosing dinner wines
and assault rifles.
"A new player?" I asked as I sat down.
"Not precisely. An older player coming into new
prominence." She passed me the folder. "Agent Bristow is
an SD-6 agent who has just been turned."
"By whom?" We'd been trying to get a good recruit from SD-
6 for several years, but they were all so damned patriotic.
Worse than the real CIA, even--although we'd had some luck
with the FBI. Then the last name registered.
"Any...ah...relation to Jack Bristow?"
"Daughter," she said simply.
"I see." Bristow does look remarkably like her mother. I
looked away from the picture and said quickly, "So the CIA
turned her?"
"Yes, although I doubt that's the terminology they used."
I shrugged. "One agency is much the same as another. What
matters is the work."
***
I read scattered reports on Agent Bristow over the next
several months. She figured prominently in many of Agent
Haladki's debriefings. After you filtered out the sexism
and blatant envy coloring his reports, it was obvious that
she was a gifted field agent. Given her DNA, I was not
surprised. But I found myself a bit bored with the
obsession Haladki, Derevko, and even Khasinau had with the
girl.
And then came Denpasar.
***
You understand, it wasn't until Dixon came in and she
panicked that I realized with whom I'd been fighting. But
she's good. She's very, very good. Agile, strong, and
clever--which she needs to balance out the bloody fools
working with her. They deserved to lose me to SD-6.
***
I won't deny the temptation to reveal Bristow's true status
to Arvin Sloane. Two things stopped me. One, Derevko
would remove my spleen with her fingernails once she saw me
again. Two...all right, I'll admit that my boredom had
shifted to just a hint of intrigue. Just what is Sydney
Bristow capable of? How many agendas can she juggle at
once? How far can she be pushed, and by whom?
I often fantasized, when I first met Derevko, about meeting
her in battle. Not necessarily hand-to-hand combat, but
the undeclared war that marks global intelligence. I was
content to be her employee, for a time, but I always wanted
to know if I could defeat a master of the game.
Bristow's attraction? I have the chance to watch her
become a master. To enjoy her position at the forefront of
the intelligence world. And then I'll break her.
--the end--
The poem quoted is "Friends" by W.B. Yeats. The fairy
stories used are from "Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland,"
which he edited. See what happens when my computer breaks
and I have to go to the library every day? :)