Déjà vu all over again.
The room was cold, familiar.
Irina kept her eyes closed as she sat in the corner, one knee pushed up to provide a resting place for her arm, head against the wall, lost in the art of breathing.
When she had been here before, there had never been a question of whether or not she would get out. She had leverage, the element of surprise, underworld contacts that trusted her penchant for betrayal.
Three years later, it was a different matter altogether.
Now, she wondered how long it would be before her execution.
Strangely, the thought did not fill her with any real emotion. Simple acceptance dominated the other feelings, almost as if she was not capable of feeling anything else.
It was a defense mechanism she recognized, brought back into active use to survive her breaking heart.
Irina. She smiled. Welcome back.
Metal screeching loudly made her eyes flutter open, and when she laid eyes on her visitor, she couldn't help the swell of morbid amusement.
Fitting.
Agent Vaughn looked tired, pale, older. His mouth locked into a permanent frown as he stood stiffly just beyond the glass wall, waiting for her to come to him, no doubt.
She would not give him the pleasure.
Her eyes lingered on his face, drawn and angry.
He was looking more and more like his father every day.
Breaking into his speech with a husky, angry tone, he began quickly. "I just wanted you to know. Sydney isn't the one that turned you in. She wouldn't do that to her father."
Irina gave him nothing.
Her lack of response made him falter. He opened and closed his mouth, breathing in raggedly. "I led the mission. I did it for personal reasons. I won't let you hurt her any more."
That brought a smile to her face. "You wish to protect my daughter from me?"
"Yes."
She burst into laughter, a crystal clear sound that was so unexpected, he took a full step back.
"That's funny to you?"
Shoulders shaking with mirth, she shifted on the floor, relaxing against the wall, as if he had just shared the world's greatest joke to her.
"Just that by doing this, incarcerating her father and myself, you might have just killed her. Good for you." Vaughn was a good agent, but he would never be exceptional. The man wore his heart on his sleeve. Every emotion he felt fluttered across his face. Sydney should have warned him that betraying such weaknesses to people like her were catastrophic.
"Tell me something, Mr. Vaughn," she continued after a moment. "Is it difficult, to see the face of the woman who murdered your father, mirrored so similarly, on the face of the woman you love?"
He jerked back, as if someone had slapped him on the face. Unable to contain the smirk, Irina waited for his answer.
"I'm married," he managed roughly.
"Yes," she answered breezily. "I know." Another flinch, another smile from her. "Since I have your attention, would you care to explain something to me? I've never been able to understand the CIA's hypocrisy. Have you ever killed a man, Mr. Vaughn?"
He didn't move.
"Of course you have. I'm sure you seldom think about the faces of the men and women you murder. Do you consider whether or not they have a son, a daughter, a wife? A brother or a sister perhaps? Of course not. You have a job to do, if you stop to believe that they may be human, you lose your life instead. So what makes you so different than me?"
"You can't make me even begin to understand you, Ms. Derevko." He finally lost patience. Her eyebrow quirked. It took him long enough. "I've never lived a lie! I've never abandoned your daughter!"
The knowing smile on her face made him suddenly falter. "Is that a fact?"
He flushed, taking another step away from the glass. "What's your point, Ms. Derevko."
"That a person is capable of tremendous things when bound by blood and love."
This was getting almost a little too easy.
Vaughn's face closed, and without a word he began to move to the hallway.
"They would have killed her."
He froze in midstep, turmoil raging in his head of whether or not to turn back. She did not need him to. "Had I not carried out my orders to the absolutely extreme the KGB had orders to eliminate my daughter, my husband, and myself, based on grounds that I would have become a liability. Who would you have rather lost? Your father or the love of your life?"
If he had been a dog, he would have exited with his tail between his legs.
It was a perverse thrill, really. He had broken her daughter's heart and as a result, she had toyed with him.
Still, it was gratifying. Less than five minutes, she had not moved an inch, and he ran from her like a little boy.
"Well," she said finally, eyes closing to return to her breathing exercises. "That was fun."
--
"You never told me that."
Only Sydney had the capacity to surprise her. Everyone else, she could hear coming, but Sydney...
For some reason she was always just... appeared.
Rising from the ground, Irina wiped the sweat from her forehead, eyes on her child, who seemed so very young on the other side of the glass.
"Sydney."
"You never told me they would have killed us if you hadn't done what they said," she repeated again.
Irina took in a deep breath, wiping strands that stuck on her sticky skin from her forehead. "You were perfectly safe as long as they never had a reason to question my loyalty." Coming closer, it was almost difficult to smile, so intent was the old Irina to keep herself shut away. Even at the sight of her daughter.
Sydney's lips trembled slightly, her eyes moistened. "Mom."
"Sydney."
She heaved a gasp inward, glancing back at the monitor that taped their encounter and glanced back. "They're questioning Dad now. He's not being very cooperative."
A bitter grim smile floated on Irina's face. "He's a stubborn man, Sydney. The last time this happened he succeeded in angering the NSC to the point where he was locked in solitary. You must do what you can to help him."
Sydney's teeth sank down on her bottom lip. "He loves you."
"No," Irina answered softly. "He loves you." Coming forward closer, she angled her face away from the camera, eyes growing cold with intensity. "Sydney answer me, do they know?"
Her daughter's eyes widened, flittering nervously to the guard's corner.
"Do they know?" she repeated again, harder, more firm.
Swallowing hard, Sydney shook her head quickly. "Only the director."
Irina breathed a minute sigh of relief. Nodding quickly, she came forward, voice a barely audible whisper. "Whatever happens, I want you to eliminate Sark at the first opportunity. He knows too much. If he is captured, he WILL trade your information for his release. He knows, Sydney. I don't know how, I was taken before I had a chance to re-earn his trust, but he is the key to getting the information from the Convenant. Do you understand?"
Her beautiful daughter was nearly shaking in her reaction, but she nodded ungracefully.
"Good." Stepping back, Irina kept her hands at her sides, too afraid she would give in, attempt to reach her daughter through the glass. "Then leave me. There is no hope here. Help your father."
"Mom-"
"NOW."
Turning away, she did not look back at her daughter, who stood outside the glass for another minute.
Only when the tell-tale sign of metal crashing indicated her daughter was leaving, that Irina buried her face into her hands, and wiped at her tears.
--
"Mom."
The word slurred in her grogginess, and Irina found the shaking of her shoulder most obtrusive.
"MOM!"
The harsher whisper prickled at her sleep, and eyes fluttering open, Irina discovered the pale face of her daughter, the rest of her blurred into the blackness of the cell.
Sydney?!
Sitting up quickly, Irina glanced quickly around the glass cage, to find it wide open.
"Sydney, what are you doing?"
"I'm getting you out of here," she answered, crouching. "The decision came from the NSC last night. They're going to take you into custody - Kendall's made it clear they're going to seek the death penalty. They'll kill you, Mom."
Irina didn't move.
"Sydney! We don't have much more time!"
Jerking her head to the corner of the corridor, Irina spotted an equally darkly dressed Agent Vaughn.
"Well... that's surprising."
"Mom, we have to go!"
Her daughter was close enough to touch.
Irina smiled, reaching up to cradle Sydney's soft cheek in a loving caress.
How was a hardened animal like herself, a numb killer who had never given any thought to anyone else in favor of her own survival, capable of feeling such love for one being?
"Sydney," she whispered finally. "I love you, but I am not leaving this place."
It was unexpected, to say the least. Her daughter froze, eyes widening and mouth dropping open.
"MOM!"
"If I leave this cell unoccupied it will only be replaced by you," she answered quietly. "I have done enough running in my life."
"Sydney!" Vaughn ducked into the cell, motioning with a jerk of his head. "They'll wake up any second!"
Sydney swallowed hard, teetering toward panic. "Mom," she began thickly. "Mom, you were right, okay? I need you out there protecting me, helping me find out what happened."
"I cannot protect you that way. Your father and I were foolish. By this time the Covenant has discovered of my liaison with your father. My cover is blown. Forgive me for being prudent, but the CIA is slightly more humane about execution."
"Mom you can't GIVE UP!"
Irina smiled, leaning up to press a gentle kiss on the forehead of her trembling daughter's head.
"You are my life, Sydney. Believe me when I say, I would never give up on you. And that I cannot jeopardize you this way. I love you, Sydney. Now leave me. The guards will wake up any minute."
"SYDNEY!"
Jerking her head back to Vaughn, her child was caught between worlds. For a moment, Irina wondered if her daughter would insist, force her to leave at gunpoint.
"Mom..." she whispered brokenly.
"I would not have us share a cell, or a death sentence. Tell your father I love him. And go."
She ran out of time. Vaughn reached in, dragged her away by the arm, Sydney struck dumb by her mother's passive expression.
Soon the glass closed in on her again, and she was left alone in the darkness.
When guards ran in, panting and heaving, they waved flashlights on her face, and discovered a woman sitting cross-legged, glistening tears on her cheeks, wearing a sad smile.
--