This is a lot longer than the other two pieces....and is titled "Mockingbirds". You can read this either second or third...chronologically it takes place before "Betrayal is a Familiar Tune".

Feedback is always much appreciated!

DEDICATION - To all the wonderful reviewers here. I've read so much of your wonderful fic to realise exactly how inadequate this is compared to your work. So, thankyou for humouring this girl playing in someone's else's world.
TIMELIME - Set immediately after the end of "The Enemy Walks In" [which I haven't seen, but apparently will be in June! *does happy dance*]

Mockingbirds

It has been twenty four years, six months, and forty seven days, since I last saw my wife.

Twenty minutes ago I received a phone call informing me that Devlin had had a walk-in.

My wife is here. She sits in front of me. We are separated only by a sheet of glass.

She sits there on the floor of her cell mocking me.

She looks like a teacher, a literature professor. She looks normal. Sweet. The person you would never suspect, the one you would never give a second glance.  Like the woman she was when she died. Like my wife.

In my profession, we are taught that they are the most dangerous of the lot. I never realized exactly how true that was until the day I learnt the truth about the woman I had loved…the woman I had married. The woman I had had a daughter with.

I spend my life looking for traitors, for enemies of my country, and bringing them to justice. I trained for years in how to find and destroy my enemies.

And yet I loved one. She was there under my nose for all those years…

She must have thought I was an idiot…or at very least blinded by love.

She sits on the floor quite calmly, not moving a muscle. Staring blankly ahead, a calm, almost passive expression on her face. A mask, like the one she wore so many years ago as my wife.

Laura was never passive though. Energetic, beautiful, strong, graceful, delightful, angry, passionate, controlled, sad, happy….all these things, yes…but never passive. She played her part well, I will grant her that. She is by far the most gifted woman I have ever met – including our daughter…Sydney is extremely talented, but lacks the ability to maintain a cover for years on end like "Laura" did. Professionally speaking, the ability to maintain a deep cover like Derevko did is rare enough – the ability to maintain it to the level that she did…well, it's enough to give you quite a reputation in this business.

I suppose it should be some small consolation to realize that at least I was fooled by the best. She played her role well. I never once suspected her, did you know that? Never once. We were married for eight years, give or take a few months. And never once did I doubt her, suspect her questions about my work were anything but simple curiosity or concern for me. Poor love-struck Jack-that-was, I suppose. Her superiors must have laughed at my naivety…she must have laughed at my naivety.

I remember the first time I met her. It was yesterday, and it was a million years ago. Some things change…but I never forget, no matter how hard I might try, no matter how hard I try to shove my memories of her into the smallest, darkest crevice of my mind.

I was in a small bookstore somewhere in LA…the bookstore is long gone, and the beautiful little antique shopping district where it was located was long ago replaced by a big mall.

I was browsing in the classics section…looking for a new copy of To Kill A Mockingbird, if I remember correctly. A tree branch had broken a window in a rare storm, letting in torrential rain and soaking my book completely.

I couldn't find the book anywhere. Exasperated, I had turned to leave when a rather striking young woman had walked up behind me and handed me the last copy that the store had. I wondered out loud how she had known I was looking for it…she simply laughed softly and told me that I had been muttering the title rather loudly. I was quite embarrassed at this, I recall. You see, I was never the most confident of men with women…especially not those as beautiful as Laura was. She took pity on me and introduced herself.

"I'm Laura Young. And you're a fan of Harper Lee, I take it?" She offered her hand. I stared blankly for a few seconds before accepting it and shaking it lightly.

"Ah, yes. Jack Bristow. Pleased to meet you, Laura. My old copy got soaked in that storm recently and I…" I started to ramble a little, before she laughed again, and this time I noticed how musical her laugh was. I had turned red from embarrassment, she told me later.

"Well, Jack, I'm actually just about to have a cup of coffee. Would you care to join me? I hate to sit alone."

Well, how could I refuse such a lovely lady's invitation? I said as much, and followed her to a small table [that's right…I remember now the reason I frequented that store so much…its owner was a fantastic cook, and made incredible coffee] outside the store.

It was a bright, clear, fine day, a very unusual LA day. It was a beautiful day, the sun shone brightly, and I was having coffee with the most beautiful woman I had ever met. What more could a man want? 

The owner, a Mr. Martov, rushed over to our table and took our order – she took her coffee black, no cream or sugar. A very Russian trait, now that I think back upon it. I must have been so…intoxicated by her presence, even then, that I ignored the little things that must have been so glaringly obvious to others. I wonder now perhaps how much of our chance meeting was chance, and how much a carefully orchestrated ploy. Mr. Martov, I've long since come to the conclusion, was a KGB operative. The bookstore located so close to my apartment, a setup. The destruction of my book? Well, that might have been a coincidence.

As we sipped our coffee, we talked – first of the weather, as strangers are prone to do, then of the neighbourhood [she lived three blocks from my building, I learnt], and then of books. She was a post-grad literature student, and Oscar Wilde was one of her favourite authors.

We sat and talked for hours. I learnt the name of her dog [Darcy, after the Pride and Prejudice character]; I learnt that she was originally from Wisconsin and that she loved the cold and hated the heat; I learnt that she was an only child and that her parents had died two years ago in a plane crash. I told her that I worked for the government [just boring stuff, though]; I told her I'd never been in love, and I told her that I preferred reading to watching television. I told her that I had a degree in politics and international relations, and that I had nearly chosen a degree in engineering over politics, but had been sucked in by the promise of serving my country. I told her that I liked classical music, especially Gabriel Faure, but also the Beatles. I only realized many years later that the odds were that she knew my past better than I knew it.

It was nearly four hours later when she announced that she had to meet some friends for a friend's birthday party. I asked if maybe we could catch the local production of To Kill A Mockingbird together sometime.

"I'd be delighted, Jack. Here's my number," she replied, tearing a corner of her napkin off and scribbling a number with a pen fished from her backpack. And like that, she was off.

I just stared numbly. She was graceful, witty, beautiful, intelligent…but she had an indescribable quality that surpassed physical beauty. She was…she had charisma. I was drawn to her like moths are drawn to a lamp – hopelessly entrapped by the light, even as it lures them unknowingly to their doom.

I was hooked, sunk and captured. I just didn't know it yet.

They say that a man's life can be condensed into a few, crucial, pivotal moments. What if your life was one moment? One decision? One chance conversation that led to something more? In that one moment, that one conversation with the woman I would love more than life itself, my life was changed forever. That one conversation was enough to convince Jack-that-was that he had just met the woman who he wanted to marry. Oh, yes, she played her part very well. Anyone who says that a man cannot be forced to fall in love has clearly never met Irina Devreko. Although "forced" is perhaps a misleading term. Jack-that-was went along like a lamb. He was a perfectly happy victim…and it was a very pleasant ride.

But in the end, when she left, she had achieved her mission – she had killed 12 CIA agents, including the father of my daughter's handler. She had sabotaged, directly or indirectly, a countless number of missions. And she had achieved just a little more without even knowing it. She had taken a naïve, good man, and by the time she was finished with him, he was a killer. Once Jack-that-was had been put through the entire spectrum of emotions – love, grief, sorrow, anger, hate, betrayal, rage, hate, hate, hate, hate…always the hate…he was a different man. That different man was me.

I was trapped by her from the first moment I met her. She has always had a certain power over me. She has always been my weakness.

I watch her still. She hasn't moved in all the time I have been standing here. She mocks me in her silence.

The mockingbird sings sweetly, and asks for nothing, but in the end is turned upon and destroyed.

 We are both mockingbirds, in a way…she sang sweetly, and I asked for nothing, except her hand in marriage. She turned on me once, and destroyed me. Now I am in the ascendancy. I have the power, for once in our lives. She was always the dominant one with Jack-that-was. She has never met the Jack that she created. Now I have the power…and the question is, what do I do with it?

How will the mockingbirds sing tonight?

What will they sing, and who will be destroyed on this night?

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, I know it's a bit weird...it's both my favourite and my least favourite of all three pieces...my favourite because it was so easy to write...but my least favourite because I'm not entirely sure how much of the ending makes sense.

PLEASE read and review! Feedback rocks my world - both good and bad [as long as it's constructive], cause I'd like to know how to improve my writing.