Chapter 15: Fast Russian
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. Sorry!
Sydney snatched up her cell phone with more irritation than Vaughn had thought humanly possible without breaking the phone. She hated the damn things; they rang at the worst possible times.
"Bristow," she said crisply.
"Sydney. I need to talk to you."
Sydney froze for a split second, then resumed normal motion. Who knew whose side her mother might be on?
"I don't think that's possible," she commented. "I'm busy right now."
"I know. I can help you find the answers you're looking for," Irina promised.
"Now is not a good time." She had to wrap this up. Vaughn was giving her a questioning look.
"Now is the best possible time. Meet me on top of the building in two hours. Come alone, Sydney, or I'll have to leave. You don't want that."
"Who was that?" Vaughn asked as Sydney replaced the phone to its place, clipped to her belt.
"A friend," Sydney said after a moment of hesitation. "She wanted me to meet her for lunch. Of course, I couldn't tell her just how busy I am."
"Of course," Vaughn said warily. "This friend. Have I met her? I didn't think you'd had time lately to get too friendly with people outside the agency."
"She's an old friend," Sydney evaded. "Someone I knew when I was a kid. I run into her now and then." None of which was really a lie.
"How long has she had your cell number? That's a CIA issue phone," Vaughn reminded.
"Vaughn." She forced a smile. "I can take care of myself. Probably better than you could."
Vaughn smiled back, but he couldn't trust her. Something she didn't want him to know about was going down, and he wasn't sure she was up to handling it alone.
"Where are we going now?"
The ceaseless questions! She's forgotten. Sydney had been just as inquisitive as a child. Irina grinned. She might just enjoy having Kelly around a little too much.
"We're going to meet Sydney."
Irina had Kelly by the hand again, and Kelly didn't seem to mind. In fact, the child had surprised her by her agreeableness. Her hacking had also revealed psychological reports that suggested Kelly had been unbalanced after Sark's first attempt, almost paranoid in her distrust.
Irina took it that Kelly only trusted her because she wasn't Sark, and hadn't taken her to Sark.
Kelly felt as drawn to Irina on the same level as she felt drawn to Sydney and Michael Vaughn. She felt like she belonged there. But she still missed Sydney and Vaughn.
"Does Sydney know I'm with you?" Kelly asked the woman.
"Sydney's not really sure where you are, sweetie. That's why we have to go see her." Irina had reverted to referring to her daughter by name, since Kelly persistently referred to her that way.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Irina." She decided to leave it up to Sydney to tell her the rest. If she would.
A retractable climbing rope capable of towing 300 pounds solved the problem of how to get onto the CIA building. Strapping herself and Kelly into harnesses that were designed to hook together, Irina hooked one end of the rope to the top of the building several stories above and the other end to her harness, and they began to rise to the top.
Kelly whimpered at first, but Irina put her arms around her protectively.
"It's okay, sweetheart. We're perfectly safe," she promised.
Sydney left the group working to find Kelly--which had now been joined by the effusively apologetic and now conscious Quentin and Harte--alone, claiming to need a few minutes to herself. She left in one direction, but doubled back the first chance she got and went toward the elevators. She got out on the top floor, instead of on the roof, on the off chance that someone had followed her. Vaughn had acted suspicious, she acknowledged as she jogged up the final flight of stairs.
The roof was deserted when she stepped out of the door--which stuck--at the top of the stairs. A breeze blew lightly, but unlike on the street below there was no debris to tumble along like city tumbleweeds. If not for the pretentious meeting about to take place, it would be a most refreshing spot.
Irina appeared out of nowhere, standing amongst a slew of ventilation ducts. One hand was behind her back, no doubt on a gun. Sydney could almost feel happy to see her mother again if the woman wasn't so damn unpredictable. Sydney put her hand near her own gun.
Then her mother stepped away from the cover of the ducts, bringing her hand from behind her, and towing Kelly along with her.
Sydney knew several moments of unutterable dread.
Kelly looked up at Irina and said something Sydney couldn't hear at that distance, with the wind hissing in her ears. Irina nodded, never taking her eyes off of Sydney.
Then Kelly came running. Irina just let her go, didn't even try to stop her. Sydney couldn't help but assume it was a trick. But then Sydney was on her knees and Kelly in her arms, and she forgot for a moment that her mother had somehow wound up with Kelly. And Kelly had been kidnapped.
Sydney hugged Kelly, then moved her aside--out of harm's way--and looked back to her mother expectantly.
Irina shook her head, a soft smile on her face.
"I'm unarmed," she offered, strolling leisurely closer. "Kelly wouldn't have trusted me if I'd been armed still."
"What are you doing with her?" Sydney demanded.
"I saved her," Irina responded. "Have you seen Jack since he followed Sark's man out?" she asked, watching carefully for Sydney's reaction.
Sydney stiffened.
"He and the man were knocked out by a third party," she snapped disdainfully. "He didn't see who hit him."
"He sure as hell did,"Irina growled before she could catch herself. "I warned him beforehand that I'd kill him if he was a part of this."
"A part of what?" Sydney snarled back. "Are you a part of this, too?"
Irina, now back in control, shook her head gently.
"Not the way you mean," she said. "I can explain everything, Sydney, but I don't think this is the time." She glanced pointedly at Kelly.
Sydney paused for a moment, then shook her head.
"There's nowhere I can take her," she protested.
"Okay," Irina murmured. "If that's how you feel. We might as well do this all in one fell swoop." She turned slightly to project her voice toward the door Sydney had exited from. "Care to join us, Agent Vaughn?"
After a pause, Sydney turned to see the door--which was open just a crack--swing open, and Vaughn emerge, palming, then holstering, his gun at the same time.
"How long have you been there?" Sydney demanded.
Vaughn glared at Irina a moment before he answered.
"Only a few minutes," he relented finally. "You can't hide from me." He shrugged. "I only planned to be there in case you needed backup."
Kelly tore out of Sydney's grip and launched herself at Vaughn, who barely caught her.
"Hi!" she giggled.
Vaughn smiled.
"Hi, yourself, kiddo. You okay?"
"Uh-huh. Irina saved me. See? She brought me back," Kelly added when he frowned.
Vaughn looked up at Irina, keeping Kelly's hand in his as he set her on her feet.
"Thank you," he said grudgingly. "Care to explain how it came about?"
Sydney looked at Kelly, then at Vaughn.
"We were just getting to that, I think," she began. "But Kelly really shouldn't..."
"I'm not going anywhere," he said quickly.
Irina sighed.
"Kelly doesn't speak Russian," she relented in Russian. She looked from Sydney to Vaughn. "Does he?"
"Aa," he responded.
So they switched to Russian.
"Five years ago, Sydney, when the Covenant captured you, they discovered what they termed a problem. Sydney, you were pregnant. A week, may be two, along."
Sydney gasped and might have dropped to the nearest sitting place--in this case the concrete rooftop--but she felt Vaughn slip his arms around her waist. She leaned on him gratefully, and looked expectantly at her mother.
"Most of the operatives thought it would be best to simply terminate the pregnancy, but someone, I don't know who, opted to preserve the zygote, in the same way they preserve gametes in in vitro fertilization. When you destroyed their lab, the zygote was in a freezer a thousand miles away."
Shock overrode all thought. Vaughn and Sydney listened paralyzed, only vaguely aware that Kelly cast them an occasional annoyed look because she couldn't understand them.
"Sark was informed by a source, after he escaped custody, that your child, not you, would be the Chosen One. Sark located the preserved zygote, implanted it in a surrogate mother--I never found her name--and, I assume, stole the child when she was born."
Irina paused, giving her audience a moment to soak it all up. Kelly looked ready to wander off any second, so Irina picked her up and settled her on her hip as if she'd done it for years.
"I contacted Sark and joined the Calling because I found out part of what he'd done, "she continued, still in fast Russian. "I planned from the very start to take her from him. Then I learned of the mysterious contact Sark just call the Informant, but he called himself Fallocieux Une. I traced him, Sydney, and-" She stopped to collect her thoughts. "Sydney, your father did go after the Calling's operative, with the intent of taking Kelly form him, but he had no intention of returning her to you. Jack in the Informant, Sydney."
Sydney and Vaughn, the former leaning heavily against the latter, didn't move or speak for several long minutes.
"Then Kelly...has to be..." Sydney began haltingly in English now.
"Mine," Vaughn finished, a confused panic filling his voice and eyes.
Kelly whispered something in Irina's ear. She broke out in a wide grin that was both uncharacteristic and completely inappropriate under the circumstances.
Vaughn glared at her, but Irina continued to smile. She set Kelly on her feet, facing Vaughn and Sydney and kneeled down to whisper in her ear, intentionally loud enough for the rest to hear.
"Yes, sweetie, they're your mommy and your daddy."
Irina could have laughed at Vaughn's reaction to the word. He paled even more, so that his bright green eyes seemed like orbs of light. His arms dropped to his side, and Sydney stepped away to stand beside him.
Kelly stood for a moment, obviously unsure how to proceed now. Sydney saw that, and she smiled and held out her arms.
"My baby," she murmured, pulling Kelly into a bone-crushing hug.
After a few moments, Vaughn was in the middle of the fray, too, still so filled with terrified awe that he couldn't speak. Something else bubbled just below that awe, something that made him feel like he'd do anything to keep the two people he held close to him.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," Irina said sadly. "But you realize Kelly can't stay with you now. Sark will be--" She stopped, then switched to Russian. "Sark will be furious. He'll know I have her, and when he can't find me, he'll look at you. I can hide her. You two can't stay here where you're needed and still hide her."
"You're not taking her away from me," Sydney said in Russian. She said it matter-of-factly, but so quickly that Vaughn had trouble following her.
"Like hell you're taking her!" Vaughn bit out fiercely, though it lost much of its effect with his less than rapid Russian.
Sydney stared down Irina, until finally she wavered.
"Kelly, honey," she said softly. "Would you like staying with-" She looked up at her own mother. "Does she know?"
Irina shook her head.
"Honey, Irina is your grandmother. Would you like to spend a few days with her?" Sydney asked, forcing a smile.
Kelly looked up at Irina.
"How come you didn't tell me that?" she asked.
"Because I figured Sydney would want to tell you herself," she said without missing a beat. "So how about it?"
Vaughn pressed close to where Sydney keeled by Kelly, and Sydney could practically feel him demanding to know why she was doing this.
"I want to stay with you," Kelly pleaded, pouting a little.
"You'll get to, honey, I just have to take care of some things first. It'll only be a few days, I promise," Sydney assured.
Kelly sniffed pitifully. Sydney doubted that was a learned habit. May be it was just engrained I toddlers.
"Okay," she mumbled miserably.
Kelly is finding out everything now! See, I like this idea a lot better. Instead of a twenty-something woman finding out her parents are frauds, yada yada yada, we have here a three year old that is traumatized, but nonetheless she just goes oh she's my mommy he's my daddy? and goes on with her life. I am required to use so much less angst this way! Plus, Kelly is, in my opinion, well portrayed as a person. Isn't she? Because that's an important aspect of this fic and my writing, is Kelly being a person. I got that, right? Lemme know what you think!