Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters nor do I profit when I write these stories.
A/N- Hello. Hope you like this chapter (of course you can review it...) thanks...
CHAPTER NINE
"So, how is your father?" Irina asked Sydney. They were in the living room, drinking tea, talking for about almost four hours. The subject solely about Jack never came up in those four hours.
"He's fine. Still the same... I guess." Sydney replied. They were alone in the living room. Paris left them an hour and thirty minutes after they had eaten lunch.
"Is he seeing... somebody?" Irina asked her.
"I don't really know. I don't think so, though." Her daughter answered. "Why do you ask?"
"Nothing. I was just curious." Irina answered. Sydney nodded knowing that there was something more to the question but didn't pursue it.
"What did dad tell you back in the basketball court before lunch?" Sydney asked her mother. She wanted to know what her father said to make the great Irina Derevko cry.
"Nothing, just something from the past. It doesn't really matter." Irina shrugged but didn't look at Sydney.
'It must have meant something to you since it made you cry.' Sydney thought. She looked at her watch. 5.00 pm. Her mother has another hour before her 'freedom' will be taken away from her again.
"Was Sark as obnoxious when he was younger?" Sydney asked.
"No, he was a darling..." Irina answered.
---xxx---
Paris was in her room, using one of the computers lent to her by the CIA. They had their debriefing an hour before lunchtime and she was challenged by Marshall to penetrate his mainframe and leave a message. He boasted of 99% non-penetration of hackers in his system.
"Oh, but it's in its early stages." Marshall said to her when he issued the 'challenge'.
'Let's see what Mr. Flinkman has in store for us.' Paris thought as the fingers in her left hand began to tap on the keyboard. She left Irina and Sydney almost four hours ago and both of them were still probably chatting. She also has her feet up the chair. A bad habit her mom tried- still tries, to correct.
There was a knock on the door.
"Come in." She said, looking at the screen. A couple of numbers flashed in her screen.
Jack entered. There is less than an hour before Irina returns to her prison. 'She might want to see her mother without a glass separating them.' He thought. Paris was staring at the computer screen when he entered, so he closed the door and waited.
It was a while before she finally acknowledged his presence because she doesn't know whether to be angry with him or not. For one thing, he was the cause of the bruise in her mother's wrist and the tears in her eyes. But her mother slapped him. She knew because she saw a faint imprint of Irina's hand in his left cheek. 'He was slapped quite hard.' She thought as she turned to look at her father.
"Yes, how may I help you?" Paris asked in a formal tone that matches her accent. 'I sound like a receptionist.' She thought.
"Your mother will leave in forty minutes. I thought you might want to say goodbye." Jack answered. He noticed the formality in the tone but didn't mind it. He knew that she was angry.
"Yes, thank you for telling me. I'll be downstairs." Paris said to him and turned her attention back to the computer. She was dismissing her father like she was flicking a fly off the table and it feels bad doing it to him. 'Yeah, and he does that all the time to you.' she thought.
The look on Paris's face resembles the one that Sydney gives him when she doesn't want to talk to him. He mentally sighed and thought 'Stubborn as mules. All of them.' He turned around and proceeded to go out.
"She loves you so much. Do you know that?" Paris said, not looking away from the computer.
Jack turned his head to look at her. "Smart as you are, I'm afraid that you can be quite naïve sometimes."
"Why, are you afraid I'm right?" she asked.
"No. I'm afraid that your mother might have fooled you after all." Paris looked at him. He turned back from her again to go out of the room. But her next question made him stop in his tracks.
"Do you still love her?"
"No." he answered, but his back was facing her.
"You're lying." She said.
"What?" he asked and faced her.
"You're lying." She repeated. "The tone that you used when you said that it was your friend who was seduced by my mother, the tone that you used when you said that, that same friend is now dead and the tone that you used this morning after your phone call is the same tone you are now using."
Jack opened his mouth to say something but closed it again.
"She told me a lot of times that she loves my father very much. She also told Sydney that she loves you. She tells it to us but not to you. With what she did to you, I understand that you will not really believe her. But ask Sydney. Ask her about the skating rink." Paris said and returned her attention back to the computer.
Jack stared at her then went out of the room, thinking about what he had heard.
---xxx---
"Goodbye mom." Paris said as she hugged her mother (its not really a hug since her arm's in a sling.)"I'll see you when you visit." Irina said and kissed the top of Paris's forehead. She kissed her mother's cheek. "I love you. Take care." Irina said.
"I love you too." Paris replied in Russian. She stepped back and went behind Jack's back. Sydney stepped forward to say goodbye.
"Bye mom." She said. Irina hugged her. Sydney remembered the last time she and her mother hugged. Armed guards separated them. She relished this moment.
"I love you. Take care of your sister and your father." Irina whispered to her and kissed the top of Sydney's forehead. She stepped back and smiled at them.
"Are you ready to go?" Irina asked Jack. He lifted his left eyebrow and showed her the handcuffs.
"You will be wearing this until after you are safely inside your cell." Jack said. Irina shrugged and allowed her to be cuffed. They walked out of the house, with Jack's coat covering Irina's shackles. They walked towards a dark blue SUV, their vehicle to the Operations Facility. Vaughn and Sydney will be sitting up front, with Vaughn driving. Jack will be at the backseat with Irina. Back-up security will be following them.
"One of your agents, Agent Marlowe?" Irina asked a few minutes after they left. Vaughn and Sydney seem not to hear their conversation.
"What about him?" Jack replied.
"You can't trust him."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "And why not?"
"He used to work for me. And he might be working for another organization other than the CIA."
"And how did you know that this Agent Marlowe was one of yours? His record is spotless, no direct or indirect ties to terrorists or any criminal organizations."
"I saw him this morning, when he talked to Agent Vaughn. I recognized him but he didn't recognize me. Khasinau gave me his file when he was recruiting people for my organization. It seems to me that he fancied the young man." Irina answered. She saw Jack's eyes tightening.
"How do we really know that he doesn't really recognize you? Or that you didn't plant him in the CIA?"
"Khasinau recruited him. And he was a Khasinau personal henchman." Irina replied. She was particularly alarmed when she saw Agent Marlowe, who according to Khasinau's files has no distinguishing characteristics in hand- to-hand combat or in the weapons department, being greeted like an old friend by Sydney and Paris.
'What the hell does she mean by that?' Jack asked himself and took out his cell phone. "Yes, this is Bristow. I want to have a copy of Dean Marlowe's files on my table in fifteen minutes. This is urgent." He said and ended the call. He looked at Irina and expected to see a smirk on her face. He didn't see it.
"They greeted him like he was an old friend of theirs. It will be hard to fight a friend." Irina said. She thought of Francie clone and Sydney. 'Its especially hard to fight an enemy who looks like your best friend.'
They both looked at the front, remembering all what they passed by. A few minutes later, they arrived at the Operational Facilities.
[Two weeks later]
"Hey." Vaughn said as he sat down opposite Sydney. It was nearing dinnertime and they were still in the office.
"Hey." Sydney greeted then looked up to Vaughn. She smiled at him.
For a split second, their eyes locked. Then, Vaughn grinned.
"What?" Sydney asked.
"Nothing... it's just that... never mind."
Sydney smiled then shook her head.
"Hey, since its nearing dinnertime, Why not eat out? There's this new place near your apartment. It's a Spanish Restaurant. Café Ysabela."
"Michael Vaughn, are you asking me out?" Sydney asked, smiling.
"Yeah. I'm asking you out." Vaughn, who was also smiling, replied.
Before Sydney can give an answer, Marshall appeared behind Vaughn.
"Uh... Hey... Dixon wants us in his office... its about... you know, your mission in Madagascar. Its about the thing you've retrieved." Marshall said excitedly.
"Thanks, we'll be right there." Vaughn said.
Vaughn and Sydney stood up. "Guess I'll take a rain check, then." Vaughn said.
"Nah, this might not take long." Sydney replied as they walked towards Dixon's office. They met Weiss on the way.
When they entered, they found that Dixon, Jack and Marshall were already there. They closed the door and Dixon waited for them to be seated before he started.
"The artifact you've retrieved in Madagascar is, unsurprisingly, a Rambaldi artifact. What is surprising is that it is not part of the forty-seven relics that Rambaldi had described."
"You mean there's the forty-eight?" Sydney asked.
"Possibly. Or it maybe a part his book, we don't know. What we know is that it's a prophecy. A continuation of the prophecy on page forty-seven. Marshall and the rest in the linguistics translated it." Dixon said as he motioned Marshall to start.
"Well, as you can see..." Marshall said as he clicked on the projector on his right.
"This is the prophecy on page forty seven. While this is the prophecy on the other page that was retrieved in Madagascar." He continued as he turned on the projector to his left. The pages were almost identical but the images were not. If it was Sydney on page forty-seven, it was Paris on the unknown page.
"Looks the same right?" Marshall asked. He waited before someone actually agreed to what he said. "But its not. As you can see the images are not really the same and the design on their dresses are different. The text is also different."
Marshall took one of the folders on the desk. "The text on this unknown page is complementary to page forty-seven. But in here, it says that 'this girl in this page will possess the same unseen marks as the woman I had earlier described. She is one of the three that can contain her destructive force and balance her unbinding fury. Once they meet for the second time, they will be inseparable. But if she will not see the beauty of the sun or be separated eternally from the chosen one, she too will unleash this unbinding fury. They will separately, but surely, destroy everything in their path.' Its complementary, but at the same time, contradictory."
"Sydney, you have shown several proofs that you are Rambaldi's prophecy. It is possible that your sister is also part of this great... unknown." Dixon said.
"But it's also possible that it's mom and her sister who's in the prophecy." Sydney answered.
"Its possible, but think about it. You've read her psychological profile. She keeps her anger until the she snaps. You found her inside a metal box that doesn't let in light. And her eyes had almost been destroyed because she lived in a dark for almost twelve months. Then you. You have this anger that never settled down until she arrived."
"Yes, but-" The ringing of Dixon's phone interrupted Sydney. He immediately answered it.
"What?! Are you sure? Send in a team, right now! Another one will follow in ten minutes." Dixon said and slammed down the phone.
"We have to cut this meeting short. The safe house is being attacked."