Sydney looked around in horror as all of her co-workers stopped trying to avoid her eyes and began trying to gauge her reaction to the news that she had a sister.
"This can't be right," Sydney finally said after a few moments of thought. "I can't have a sister. My mother was in hiding for twenty-four years so I doubt she would have found time to get pregnant. And my father? Through all the years he spent trying to raise me, he couldn't even find time to play with me, sorry Dad, let alone form a healthy relationship with another woman. Where did you get this supposed solid intel, Director Kendall?"
"From a reliable source we have working undercover in Paris to infiltrate whatever organization Irina has set up. I'm sorry, Sydney. The woman in the photograph is your sister, and the woman she's having lunch with is your mother."
Sydney looked at her father in confusion. Now not only did she have a sister, but she also had a sister who was probably working with her mother on whatever Rambaldi plot Irina was currently planning. "Why can't my life ever be just a little bit simple?" Sydney thought to herself.
"Could you explain a little more?" Vaughn asked Kendall. He realized that Sydney wasn't her normal, rational self so someone had to help her gather all the information on this new development.
"Sure," Kendall said as he passed out folders to everyone present. "The woman in the photograph has been going by the alias Viviane Auteur, but the CIA has discovered that her real name is Kaylee Derevko." As Kendall said her real name, the photograph on the screens changed to a series of surveillance video captures. In all of them, Kaylee Derevko was stealing a Rambaldi artifact from different European locations.
"If I didn't know better, I would have thought those were pictures of Sydney on her missions," Marshall babbled. "I mean, Sydney on her missions for the CIA trying to keep the artifacts away from SD-6. Not stealing them for her mother or anything. Because we all know, she would never turn on us. I mean, she's Sydney Bristow, super spy."
"Marshall," Dixon said lightly.
"Sorry."
Sydney smiled softly to herself. No matter what drastic changes occurred in her life, she could always count on Marshall to make her laugh with his incoherent babbling.
"As I was saying," Director Kendall continued, "Kaylee Derevko has been doing work not unlike what we have had you doing Sydney. She's collecting Rambaldi artifacts for some unknown use, presumably for your mother. We haven't been able to successfully tie her thefts to Irina Derevko's operations, but we do that the two are in constant contact. This could just be attributed to a regular mother-daughter visiting schedule, but I really think that Irina has her tied up in both the personal and professional life she leads."
"That's great and all," Sydney said, "but what I still want to know is how the hell do I have a sister! Can we please explain that and then we'll continue with how this fits into the U.S. government?"
"I think Sydney's a little overwhelmed right now," Jack Bristow finally spoke up for the first time. "Why don't we call this briefing to an end for now? I'll answer some of Sydney's questions and then we can move on to missions and how we'll be dealing with this new intel."
"Agreed," Director Kendall said. "I want to see everyone back in this conference room in two hours."
Sydney watched everyone slowly leave the room murmuring words of support as they passed her seat. Vaughn squeezed her shoulder sympathetically as he passed, and Sydney found the small gesture oddly comforting. Now that the room was clear, she turned to her father, "So, start explaining. Is this Kaylee Derevko my half-sister, stepsister?"
"Full sister," Jack Bristow explained. "Kaylee is twenty four years old which means the CIA have placed her birth about eight months after Irina's disappearance. When your mother staged that accident to be extracted from the United States, she must have been already pregnant with Kaylee. I'm guessing she chose to keep it a secret so that I wouldn't get more attached to her as a wife."
"Or maybe she didn't want to hurt you by adding the grief of losing a child on top of a wife," Sydney said hopefully.
Jack sent her a skeptical look and continued on with his explanation. "Your mother raised Kaylee in one of her hideouts in France. Irina told her that her father had died in a car crash outside of Marseilles when she was still in the womb. She didn't mention you at all, Sydney. I'm sorry."
"No big deal," Sydney said with a smirk. "I mean, why should the sister I never knew about know about me? It makes sense."
"We're still not sure of how much involvement she really has in Irina's organization. It's obvious she's stealing Rambaldi artifacts for some purpose, but we can't pinpoint it. No agent has managed to get any intel on when she transfers the artifacts over to another party, and there has definitely not been any visual proof." Jack paused in his explanation to take a good look at Sydney to determine how she was taking this new advance in the investigation of Irina Derevko. Sydney was staring hard at the computer monitors almost like she was on the verge of realizing something. "Sydney?" Jack said, hopeful that she had come up with a lead.
"She seems to have my love of wigs." Sydney turned her computer screen towards her father.
Jack realized that Sydney was right. In every picture they had, Kaylee had a different wig on, including a few that looked very similar to ones Sydney had worn on previous missions. "What do you think that means?" he asked.
"Well, it could mean two things. One, it's genetic that the Bristow children love wigs." Sydney paused to look at the skeptical look on her father's face. "No, I didn't think so either. Two, someone wants to make it look like I'm stealing Rambaldi artifacts for my own agenda. I think the only reason my mother has risked Kaylee stealing these artifacts is to make the CIA doubt my intentions for about the millionth time. We both know what happens when they think I'm involved in unofficial ops." Sydney paused to remember the countless times the CIA had strapped her down to some chair in an effort to decide whether or not she had gone double or triple agent on them.
"That would make sense," Jack admitted. "But why would your mother risk us discovering Kaylee wasn't you? She hid her from our sights for twenty-four years. There had to have been a reason for that. Why is the risk suddenly good enough to take?"
"That I don't know," Sydney admitted. "But I think that we might want to bump up the reassembling time to right about now. I want to meet this Kaylee."