Betrayal is a Familiar Tune
You'd think that after being betrayed so many times, one would become accustomed to it, develop an immunity to it.
But it only seems to hurt more.
Laura. Irina. My wife. My partner in love and war.
I tried to see her as just another CIA prisoner, just another enemy of the state. But every time I look at her, I see my past, my present and my future. She haunts me everywhere I go. I see all the things which I thought I had left behind forever.
Toasters used to be just another household appliance; I had almost forgotten that…let's just say, memorable week at the "hotel with the sundaes", as my daughter calls it. The sight of her dredges up the pleasant memories of the man I used to be. These memories make me weak; they make me susceptible to her charms…a dangerous thing, given our past.
Last night I gave into those memories. Last night I gave into the need I have had since I saw her again. Last night, I removed a tracking device from a prisoner's shoulder, and I slept with my wife.
She's not my wife, though, is she? My wife was Laura Bristow. The woman who until so very recently occupied Cell #7447 of the CIA office in Los Angeles is Irina Derevko. She is Laura. And she isn't.
She is Laura, and Irina, and everything in between and I hate her and I love her, and I trusted her, and she betrayed me, and she came back and I gave into her again, let myself care for her again, and she betrayed me.
I wanted to trust her, but knew I couldn't. So instead, I made it look like she tried to kill our daughter. She would have died for that, if my daughter's adoring "handler" hadn't interfered. Her death would have made everything so much simpler. It would have been much less messy. I could have gone back to my life of ignoring Jack-that-was, and I could have done my job.
She cooperated fully. She got us everything we asked for. I began to let myself care for her again…began to see how not only she was Laura, but how she was an equal to me in a way Laura never could have been. She was enigmatic, beautiful, intelligent, and talented. Everything my wife was and more. Slowly I began to become fascinated by her. In Kashmir, I fell in love with her.
We spent one night together, in a little hotel room in Panama, before she went off to help us bring down my former friend and boss, one Mr. Arvin Sloane. Or so we thought.
She betrayed us again. She stole the Rambaldi manuscript…for what reason, I have no idea. I cannot begin to comprehend her fascination with Rambaldi. Sloane wants to live forever, I know. Irina….what does she want? I lived with her for ten years. And then she "died" and my bubble burst forever. Everything I knew about her went up in smoke. And yet she is almost exactly as I remembered…I still love her, you know. Every inch of me aches for her as much as I did the day we were married. I never stopped loving her, even when I hated her. I never, ever stopped loving Laura, even while I hated Irina. And I still do hate her…or part of me does. The other part of me sees the part of her which is Laura and loves her and wants her and wants a normal life again. That other part me is dangerous, a little ghost of Jack-that-was. Weak. Human.