Title: True Lies
Author: Puts hand up. Yes me! Aeria, Doona, donna__rose@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13
Please Read and Review
Summary: Jack and Irina have a chat
A/N: There you all go, be impressed cause this is becoming hard work, I'm absolutely loving all the reviews. So keep it up. Thank you to Samantha for proofing this, um and well enjoy. Yeah, hmmmm not much to say today. Weird.
Disclaimer: Duh, not mine, Wish they were.
Chapter Seventeen
Irina just grinned like a maniac, until Jack turned around, a glare that could have shattered rocks plastered on his face. Then she just returned her face to its usual composed smug smirk. Jack turned back around to plaster his ear to the door and listened hard; he heard a few whispers but couldn't make anything specific out.
Inside the room, Vaughn was trying to get a pair of pants on without dropping his towel. He'd laid in bed for a while to long and when he'd turned around he'd seen that it was after ten and shot out of bed. He'd gone and had a shower before coming out to grab clothes; typically it had been a sight to behold for Sydney who had been sitting on the bed which she had made, reading her book.
She had glanced up before looking back down, seconds later, what she had seen reached her brain and her eyes came back up to look at him again. Silently she wondered if she would ever get over the image of him half naked, standing in front of her, she'd seen him like this many times in the past twenty four hours and still when he came out of the bathroom, red towel wrapped around his waist, chest glistening in the growing light from outside and tiny droplets of water hanging from every curve and angle, she felt short of breath again. Eventually, Vaughn had moved from his stark still position and gone over to the suitcase; he'd grabbed a pair of pants and was half way to the bathroom when the knock had come.
Sydney had, for some reason been too close to hysterics to answer, so he had, his own voice shaky at what Jack Bristow would do if he found him wearing so little around his daughter, "Hang on a second." He'd then forgotten about getting back to the bathroom and tried to get his pants on, Sydney had a smug grin on her face by now and her book lay, bent in half on the bed as she watched him amused and still not offering him a hand. His jeans were half on and he didn't put it past Jack and Irina to barge in so he had hissed, trying not to be loud enough for people outside, in particular Jack, to hear, "Sydney! Pass me a shirt! A green one!"
Luckily, Sydney did so quickly and Vaughn looked up seconds later to find an emerald green that looked like the colour of his eyes, flying towards him. He grabbed it form the air and put it down, still trying to get his pants done up. Sydney was, by this time, crossing the room, Vaughn just glaring at her as her hand closed in on the handle. He finally got his jeans done up and dropped the towel to the ground. Sydney turned around and gave him a playful look that, at any other time, he would have enjoyed, but right now he was still standing in a room with Jack Bristow's daughter topless.
He quickly swiped the shirt form the ground and threw it over his head, pulling it down to see Irina and Jack poking their heads in through the doorway in a nosy fashion he didn't appreciate. It was only when Jack obtained a tense look of disgust and disdain and Irina a hand to her mouth as she tried to smother a grin, that he wondered why. Sydney turned back to him and laughed outright, her face splitting in two as she smiled broadly at him. Vaughn could have sworn he saw Jack's mouth twitch up, but decided it was merely an illusion and opted to try and work out what the two women found so funny.
His brow creased as he looked around, finding nothing out of place but the towel and eventually looked back up at Sydney, asking her with his eyes what they all found so funny. She just laughed again; her voice sweet and high pitched, and pointed at him. The normal little lines appeared on his forehead and he looked down at himself to find the back of his collar poking him in the chin. Looking down further he found that he was wearing the green shirt backwards.
Irina watched as he turned a deep shade of red and her smile grew, the humour it was bringing Sydney only making her feel better. Jack, of course, stood just off to the side, glaring at the poor man who was currently trying to turn the shirt around without exposing any more skin than he had to. She let her eyes slide to her daughter who had stopped laughing and was watching Vaughn, her mouth hanging a tiny bit open.
Irina's brow creased just as Vaughn's had and she could tell Jack was watching her now, but didn't care. Up close, Sydney looked like this was the first time she'd seen any of Michael Vaughn's skin, but that wasn't right, they'd been swimming for hours in much less the day before. Irina caught a flash of Vaughn's midriff and subdued a grin at her daughter's reaction. She filed away her observations for future reference and pushed past Jack into the room.
"Ready for breakfast?" she asked, acting as though nothing had happened and getting an appreciative glance from Vaughn.
Sydney followed her in and nodded, "Starved."
Irina just grinned, the two men remaining silent. "Shall we?" Sydney grinned and walked back over to her mother, looking at her, she saw an edge of humour before it was quickly covered. Sydney followed Irina out the door and walked beside her to the elevator.
Jack just stared after them, trying his best to make up for the morning's performance of goodness with an extra thread of spite. He glared back at Vaughn before stepping outside the door and waiting for him to put a pair of shoes on. Jack sincerely doubted that anything had happened between Sydney and Vaughn, but still, he liked giving him the cold shoulder, so he figured he might as well.
Ten minutes later, no one had said another word and they were standing outside the most prestigious breakfast café they could find. It was large but with only four tables, extravagant furnishings, polished wood floors, full length glass windows that looked out to the Yarra that lay a story below and at least three knives per placing. They opened the door, it was one of the few cafes with a door and this only made it appear more up market, and walked in. Almost immediately a waiter, complete with white apron, black moustache and French accent, stepping out in front of them. He eyed them over and asked with disgust, obviously deciding they were too cheep to eat at such a place, "Mesdames et messieurs, how can I help you?"
Jack took over form there, "I'd like breakfast," thick American accent, "For the four of us."
The waiter again looked the foursome up and down, "And how will you be paying?" He still made no move to offer them a seat, but his eyes did linger on Irina who was just oozing an aura of splendor and upper class.
Jack grinned, "Charge it directly to the royal suite. Chris Pearson." The waiter looked them over as if he believed this to be some eloquent hoax before nodding.
"I will go and check," he left them together and Irina immediately rushed forward, taking a seat at the largest, most elegant looking table. Close to the windows. She looked back to find the other three watching here, a little undecided on what to do.
Vaughn eventually commented, "Shouldn't we wait?" Irina shook her head quite persuasively and soon she was joined by both Sydney and Vaughn, Vaughn across from her and Sydney to her right.
The waiter reappeared and he no longer shot them any degrading looks, instead nodding to the women sitting and leading Jack over to join them, "Everything is in order, right this way monsieur," he pulled Jack's seat out for him, right beside Irina and with Vaughn to his left. "I'll have the menu brought out to you straight away. Is there anything else you'd like? Any drinks?"
Irina nodded, "Yes, I'll have a café filtré and a café brûlot for my husband," she grinned sardonically at the waiter and waited for Sydney and Vaughn to order.
Sydney stopped looking at her mother and turned to the waiter, "Can I just have an orange juice?" The waiter looked at her, not impressed, so she added, "With a slice of lemon?" He looked at her, openly disgusted but nodded and turned to Vaughn who was smirking at Sydney.
"Just a black coffee please." The waiter nodded, thinking this was a family with no taste, except, perhaps the mother. She had taste, he decided. He turned and left the four, alone in the room. Jack chose to glare at Irina while Vaughn and Sydney alternated between looking at each other, trying to work out what Irina had ordered and staring at the woman in question, a firm smile placed firmly upon her face and her eyes directed towards the window which gave them a view of the hundreds of people walking along the promenade, Australian freckles, sun tans and thongs walking by, the noise blocked by the window.
Eventually Sydney decided to strike up some conversation, the waiter had actually only been gone a few minutes but the silence was deafening to three of the four of them, Irina the only one seemingly unaffected. "What were those drinks you ordered?" she asked with honest interest, both names foreign to her.
Irina looked back around, noting a glare from Jack which she felt was un provoked, but ignored it. "Mine's just very strong black coffee," she smiled at Vaughn, and turned to Sydney, "They're supposed to draw boiling water through an incredibly thin filter covered in coffee. The best is when they do it four or five times. It's always been my favourite."
Sydney smiled and nodded, "And the café brûlot?"
"Ahhh," her mother looked like she was remembering something for a split second but then came back to them and answered, "Your father's favourite, am I right?"
Jack just glared at her, his eyes colder than usual and his mouth closed tight as he waited for her to continue, but she didn't. Waiting for an answer, almost bullying it out of him as all three pairs of eyes focused on him; Sydney and Vaughn, both wondering what had happened the during the night to upset him even more. He ultimately got sick of the attention he was drawing and grumpily answered, "Yes."
Irina pushed harder, the rude coldness he'd adopted, upsetting her especially in respect of the alliance they'd made the night before not to cause problems for Sydney. "It's still your favourite after what, twenty years?" He nodded, curtly and still glaring. "Good," her words were full of spite, perhaps more than necessary but the malice perked him up a little and they would have probably spiraled into another fully fledged fight had the waiter not reappeared at that moment.
Irina grinned broadly and turned to him as he handed the cream coloured, thick menus out. "Anything else?" he asked, mainly directing the question at Irina, positively ignoring all three other guests.
She shook her head, "No thank you. Just the drinks." He nodded and scurried off to the kitchen. For a moment Irina wondered whether it was worth starting up the argument again, but decided not to, instead just opting to explain what the drink was to Sydney, "Café brûlot is supposed to be from New Orleans, but personally I think it probably came from Russia." Another glare form Jack, "It's a strong brew, with spices, orange and lemon." She looked at Vaughn, "You'd like it."
Vaughn smiled and nodded, "You think so?" Irina nodded back as she opened the menu to begin the hard task of choosing her breakfast.
Okay, you see, not a cliff hanger at all, just stopped in the middle because I went over my 2000 words. All of my reviewers who are begging me to raise my bar a little, bad luck, my fingers still hurt from the fish hooks. Lol, thanks again for the reviews and tell me if this is getting boring, I'll speed it right up. Read and review! Ahem, thank you, yes all four tonight, lots of hard work today, been listening to Bond non stop and it keeps me high, along with the coffee, coke, pain killers, morphine, well yeah, anyway. I've noticed that I seem to get just as many reviews if I update two instead of four, so then what would the incentive be for updating al four when I can get the same praise for half, hmmmm? Joking, anyway, please review everything you read, I appreciate it. Thanks again.
Author: Puts hand up. Yes me! Aeria, Doona, donna__rose@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13
Please Read and Review
Summary: Jack and Irina have a chat
A/N: There you all go, be impressed cause this is becoming hard work, I'm absolutely loving all the reviews. So keep it up. Thank you to Samantha for proofing this, um and well enjoy. Yeah, hmmmm not much to say today. Weird.
Disclaimer: Duh, not mine, Wish they were.
Chapter Seventeen
Irina just grinned like a maniac, until Jack turned around, a glare that could have shattered rocks plastered on his face. Then she just returned her face to its usual composed smug smirk. Jack turned back around to plaster his ear to the door and listened hard; he heard a few whispers but couldn't make anything specific out.
Inside the room, Vaughn was trying to get a pair of pants on without dropping his towel. He'd laid in bed for a while to long and when he'd turned around he'd seen that it was after ten and shot out of bed. He'd gone and had a shower before coming out to grab clothes; typically it had been a sight to behold for Sydney who had been sitting on the bed which she had made, reading her book.
She had glanced up before looking back down, seconds later, what she had seen reached her brain and her eyes came back up to look at him again. Silently she wondered if she would ever get over the image of him half naked, standing in front of her, she'd seen him like this many times in the past twenty four hours and still when he came out of the bathroom, red towel wrapped around his waist, chest glistening in the growing light from outside and tiny droplets of water hanging from every curve and angle, she felt short of breath again. Eventually, Vaughn had moved from his stark still position and gone over to the suitcase; he'd grabbed a pair of pants and was half way to the bathroom when the knock had come.
Sydney had, for some reason been too close to hysterics to answer, so he had, his own voice shaky at what Jack Bristow would do if he found him wearing so little around his daughter, "Hang on a second." He'd then forgotten about getting back to the bathroom and tried to get his pants on, Sydney had a smug grin on her face by now and her book lay, bent in half on the bed as she watched him amused and still not offering him a hand. His jeans were half on and he didn't put it past Jack and Irina to barge in so he had hissed, trying not to be loud enough for people outside, in particular Jack, to hear, "Sydney! Pass me a shirt! A green one!"
Luckily, Sydney did so quickly and Vaughn looked up seconds later to find an emerald green that looked like the colour of his eyes, flying towards him. He grabbed it form the air and put it down, still trying to get his pants done up. Sydney was, by this time, crossing the room, Vaughn just glaring at her as her hand closed in on the handle. He finally got his jeans done up and dropped the towel to the ground. Sydney turned around and gave him a playful look that, at any other time, he would have enjoyed, but right now he was still standing in a room with Jack Bristow's daughter topless.
He quickly swiped the shirt form the ground and threw it over his head, pulling it down to see Irina and Jack poking their heads in through the doorway in a nosy fashion he didn't appreciate. It was only when Jack obtained a tense look of disgust and disdain and Irina a hand to her mouth as she tried to smother a grin, that he wondered why. Sydney turned back to him and laughed outright, her face splitting in two as she smiled broadly at him. Vaughn could have sworn he saw Jack's mouth twitch up, but decided it was merely an illusion and opted to try and work out what the two women found so funny.
His brow creased as he looked around, finding nothing out of place but the towel and eventually looked back up at Sydney, asking her with his eyes what they all found so funny. She just laughed again; her voice sweet and high pitched, and pointed at him. The normal little lines appeared on his forehead and he looked down at himself to find the back of his collar poking him in the chin. Looking down further he found that he was wearing the green shirt backwards.
Irina watched as he turned a deep shade of red and her smile grew, the humour it was bringing Sydney only making her feel better. Jack, of course, stood just off to the side, glaring at the poor man who was currently trying to turn the shirt around without exposing any more skin than he had to. She let her eyes slide to her daughter who had stopped laughing and was watching Vaughn, her mouth hanging a tiny bit open.
Irina's brow creased just as Vaughn's had and she could tell Jack was watching her now, but didn't care. Up close, Sydney looked like this was the first time she'd seen any of Michael Vaughn's skin, but that wasn't right, they'd been swimming for hours in much less the day before. Irina caught a flash of Vaughn's midriff and subdued a grin at her daughter's reaction. She filed away her observations for future reference and pushed past Jack into the room.
"Ready for breakfast?" she asked, acting as though nothing had happened and getting an appreciative glance from Vaughn.
Sydney followed her in and nodded, "Starved."
Irina just grinned, the two men remaining silent. "Shall we?" Sydney grinned and walked back over to her mother, looking at her, she saw an edge of humour before it was quickly covered. Sydney followed Irina out the door and walked beside her to the elevator.
Jack just stared after them, trying his best to make up for the morning's performance of goodness with an extra thread of spite. He glared back at Vaughn before stepping outside the door and waiting for him to put a pair of shoes on. Jack sincerely doubted that anything had happened between Sydney and Vaughn, but still, he liked giving him the cold shoulder, so he figured he might as well.
Ten minutes later, no one had said another word and they were standing outside the most prestigious breakfast café they could find. It was large but with only four tables, extravagant furnishings, polished wood floors, full length glass windows that looked out to the Yarra that lay a story below and at least three knives per placing. They opened the door, it was one of the few cafes with a door and this only made it appear more up market, and walked in. Almost immediately a waiter, complete with white apron, black moustache and French accent, stepping out in front of them. He eyed them over and asked with disgust, obviously deciding they were too cheep to eat at such a place, "Mesdames et messieurs, how can I help you?"
Jack took over form there, "I'd like breakfast," thick American accent, "For the four of us."
The waiter again looked the foursome up and down, "And how will you be paying?" He still made no move to offer them a seat, but his eyes did linger on Irina who was just oozing an aura of splendor and upper class.
Jack grinned, "Charge it directly to the royal suite. Chris Pearson." The waiter looked them over as if he believed this to be some eloquent hoax before nodding.
"I will go and check," he left them together and Irina immediately rushed forward, taking a seat at the largest, most elegant looking table. Close to the windows. She looked back to find the other three watching here, a little undecided on what to do.
Vaughn eventually commented, "Shouldn't we wait?" Irina shook her head quite persuasively and soon she was joined by both Sydney and Vaughn, Vaughn across from her and Sydney to her right.
The waiter reappeared and he no longer shot them any degrading looks, instead nodding to the women sitting and leading Jack over to join them, "Everything is in order, right this way monsieur," he pulled Jack's seat out for him, right beside Irina and with Vaughn to his left. "I'll have the menu brought out to you straight away. Is there anything else you'd like? Any drinks?"
Irina nodded, "Yes, I'll have a café filtré and a café brûlot for my husband," she grinned sardonically at the waiter and waited for Sydney and Vaughn to order.
Sydney stopped looking at her mother and turned to the waiter, "Can I just have an orange juice?" The waiter looked at her, not impressed, so she added, "With a slice of lemon?" He looked at her, openly disgusted but nodded and turned to Vaughn who was smirking at Sydney.
"Just a black coffee please." The waiter nodded, thinking this was a family with no taste, except, perhaps the mother. She had taste, he decided. He turned and left the four, alone in the room. Jack chose to glare at Irina while Vaughn and Sydney alternated between looking at each other, trying to work out what Irina had ordered and staring at the woman in question, a firm smile placed firmly upon her face and her eyes directed towards the window which gave them a view of the hundreds of people walking along the promenade, Australian freckles, sun tans and thongs walking by, the noise blocked by the window.
Eventually Sydney decided to strike up some conversation, the waiter had actually only been gone a few minutes but the silence was deafening to three of the four of them, Irina the only one seemingly unaffected. "What were those drinks you ordered?" she asked with honest interest, both names foreign to her.
Irina looked back around, noting a glare from Jack which she felt was un provoked, but ignored it. "Mine's just very strong black coffee," she smiled at Vaughn, and turned to Sydney, "They're supposed to draw boiling water through an incredibly thin filter covered in coffee. The best is when they do it four or five times. It's always been my favourite."
Sydney smiled and nodded, "And the café brûlot?"
"Ahhh," her mother looked like she was remembering something for a split second but then came back to them and answered, "Your father's favourite, am I right?"
Jack just glared at her, his eyes colder than usual and his mouth closed tight as he waited for her to continue, but she didn't. Waiting for an answer, almost bullying it out of him as all three pairs of eyes focused on him; Sydney and Vaughn, both wondering what had happened the during the night to upset him even more. He ultimately got sick of the attention he was drawing and grumpily answered, "Yes."
Irina pushed harder, the rude coldness he'd adopted, upsetting her especially in respect of the alliance they'd made the night before not to cause problems for Sydney. "It's still your favourite after what, twenty years?" He nodded, curtly and still glaring. "Good," her words were full of spite, perhaps more than necessary but the malice perked him up a little and they would have probably spiraled into another fully fledged fight had the waiter not reappeared at that moment.
Irina grinned broadly and turned to him as he handed the cream coloured, thick menus out. "Anything else?" he asked, mainly directing the question at Irina, positively ignoring all three other guests.
She shook her head, "No thank you. Just the drinks." He nodded and scurried off to the kitchen. For a moment Irina wondered whether it was worth starting up the argument again, but decided not to, instead just opting to explain what the drink was to Sydney, "Café brûlot is supposed to be from New Orleans, but personally I think it probably came from Russia." Another glare form Jack, "It's a strong brew, with spices, orange and lemon." She looked at Vaughn, "You'd like it."
Vaughn smiled and nodded, "You think so?" Irina nodded back as she opened the menu to begin the hard task of choosing her breakfast.
Okay, you see, not a cliff hanger at all, just stopped in the middle because I went over my 2000 words. All of my reviewers who are begging me to raise my bar a little, bad luck, my fingers still hurt from the fish hooks. Lol, thanks again for the reviews and tell me if this is getting boring, I'll speed it right up. Read and review! Ahem, thank you, yes all four tonight, lots of hard work today, been listening to Bond non stop and it keeps me high, along with the coffee, coke, pain killers, morphine, well yeah, anyway. I've noticed that I seem to get just as many reviews if I update two instead of four, so then what would the incentive be for updating al four when I can get the same praise for half, hmmmm? Joking, anyway, please review everything you read, I appreciate it. Thanks again.