DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters, except for the original ones. I'm only a poor high school student without cash to spare, so please don't sue.
CHAPTER NINE
Ana is facing a long corridor. As she looked ahead, she could see a door at the end of the hallway. Without thinking about the consequences, she walked forward, curious to see what the door is concealing.
The walk seemed like eternity, but she was able to reach it. As her hand hovered by the doorknob, a thought flitted in her head.
'What if something horrible is inside?'
She paused and stared at the doorknob. She assessed her situation for a while and decided to open it. Besides, is there any harm opening a door?
She opened the door and witnessed a scene that she tries so hard to erase from her memory.
"Daddy…"
Her father is dying in front of her again. Protecting her from those awful men.
She tried to run towards him and slammed into an invisible glass. She watched in horror as Andrei Vanlevko's body is being riddled with bullets countless of times before falling down the ground.
A scream was stuck in her throat. She's letting it happen again. Hysterically, she looked around, seeking for an adjoining door. She's not going to let him die again. Being two years old at that time, she was helpless. She's being given a second chance to stop it, and now she's just going to waste it?
She saw another door to her right. She ran to it and turned the knob. A hard gush of wind pushed her inside and slammed the entrance shut. She looked around. The room is painted white. White walls, white ceilings, white floor. This is not the place where she wants to be.
An angry sound tore her from her thoughts. She turned to her left and saw two women in black, fighting each other. At closer look, the women seem to look like her mother. They don't resemble each other, but they remind her of her mother.
They also seem bent to kill each other.
"Stop it." She whispered. Fear can be traced in her voice. She can't explain it, but she feels like she should break this fight. She walked towards them. One of them pinned the other and started to throttle her. The restrained woman made a gagging sound and suddenly stabbed her strangler.
The strangler stared at her blood-stained hand. She was then kicked in the head by the stabber that gave her a chance to stand up. They started to fight with their hands and feet again. Ana stared in morbid wonderment as droplets of blood began to cover the white walls.
It was only when both women magically acquired guns did Ana felt the urgency to stop them.
"STOP IT!"
The warning came too late as the sounds of the guns deafen her. She automatically closed her eyes as she felt blood spatter in her face.
When Ana opened her eyes, she saw both women dead by her feet.
-x-x-x-
The room is quite dark and only the light from the nightstand illuminates the room. Irina is stretched in her bed, trying to finish 'The Da Vinci Code' before going to sleep. The novel is exciting and quite fast paced. Jacob is fast asleep in his cradle, near the bed.
"Mom?"
Irina looked up from what she's reading and saw her daughter standing by the doorway, holding a pillow. She looked at the clock by the bedside table and saw that it is one AM.
"What is it, honey?" Irina softly asked.
"Can I sleep beside you?" Ana asked.
"Sure." Irina replied and patted the right portion of the bed. "What is it?" She asked after Ana climbed up the mahogany, king-sized bed.
"Nothing… just a dream." Ana said and curled up beside her. She yawned and closed her eyes. "G'night." She mumbled and went to sleep.
Irina looked at her daughter. She looks so innocent and so untouched with the hypocrisy of the world. Irina gently stroked Ana's head and closed her book. She turned off the lights and just sat in the dark, listening to the breathing of her two children.
-x-x-x-
Sydney rolled off the bed and left the sleeping Michael in the bed. She quietly crept out of the room and went to the kitchen to get something to drink. She can't sleep.
The additional documents she and Vaughn retrieved from one of her father's bank account gave further 'explanation' to the papers she got in Wittenberg.
The documents in Wittenberg said that her father documented her entire life. But the other papers said that it was because it was an exchange for her father's freedom after her mother's 'death'.
She found a false bottom in one of the boxes. Jack kept her mother's diary, and when she read it, Sydney found out that her father falsified the information on the first six years of her life.
When she read everything, she realized the reason behind her father's 'obsession' with his work when she was growing up. He didn't want to record her life. He didn't want to treat her like an experiment. He didn't want CIA to prove that she is the one in the 500-year old moldy piece of manuscript prophesizing the end of the world.
Jack Bristow abandoned his agreement with the CIA. He thought that he could get away with accepting missions left and right. He didn't know that Arvin Sloane volunteered to be the recorder of her life.
"Bastard." Sydney said out loud as she drank her glass of milk. Arvin Sloane managed to screw both her mother and her father, fool her, kill her fiancé, and fool her sister. Plus, deceive the CIA and The Covenant.
"Syd." Vaughn is standing by the doorway. His concern is etched on his handsome face. "Can't sleep?" he asked. But he knows that there is more bothering Sydney.
"Sort of." Sydney answered. Vaughn went closer to her and sat on a chair nearest to her.
"What's bothering you?" he asked. Sydney shook her head then smiled a bit at him. "It's the documents, isn't it?" Vaughn said. She just shrugged.
"It's complicated. I don't know what my reaction is supposed to be." Sydney said after a while. Vaughn touched her hand.
"Just remember, I'm always here for you." Vaughn said.
There was a momentary pause. After a few minutes, Sydney spoke again.
"Do you know where in Panama my dad is?"
x-0-x-0-x-0-x
Jack is going back to the house. He took his son out for a little walk by the cliffs with the morning sun kissing their faces as they looked over at the sea. The baby, at first was curious to who he is. He touched his face and poked every part of it, including his eyes. Irina laughed a bit when Jacob did that.
It made Jack happy to know that Jacob felt safe with him. He knows this because Jacob didn't cry for his mother when Jack carried him. He also seemed to love their stroll and didn't fuss at all.
As he entered the kitchen, he noticed Ana, whose face is still swathed with bandages, waiting for breakfast to be set on the table. Irina is by the stove, cooking something. Yelena, on the other hand is reading the newspaper. She was the first one to greet them.
"Good morning. How was your walk?" Yelena asked.
"It was fine. Jacob seemed to enjoy it." Jack replied as he pulled a chair and sat down. Jacob was gurgling something, and Jack shifted the baby's position, so that he could see his face.
Jack made a funny expression. His son laughed and touched his father's nose.
Ana discreetly looked at Jack and Jacob. She smiled a bit when she saw Jack's face. He looked silly. But she immediately lowered her head when her mother turned around from the stove.
Irina placed a plate of pancakes and a glass of milk in front of Ana.
"What do you want to eat, Jack?" Irina asked as she put the bottle of maple syrup and a small plate of butter on the table. Ana took the bottle and tried to open it.
"Uh, pancakes will be fine." Jack replied as he watched Ana attempt to turn the bottle cap. It took her several tries but she opened it.
"What about you, Yelena?"
"The same." Yelena answered, not looking up from the newspaper.
Irina placed a plate in front of Yelena and another one in front of Jack then sat down on her chair.
When Jacob saw Irina, he started to reach for her. Jack handed Jacob to Irina. Irina knew that Jacob is hungry so, she unbuttoned her blouse and breastfed him on the spot.
Jack stared in amazement as his son greedily suckled his mother's breast with great focus. He is also surprised that Irina could breastfeed in front of them when before, when she was Laura, she had a hard time breastfeeding Sydney with him present.
"Aunt Yelena, could you please give me one of those bananas behind you?" Ana asked in Russian. She felt Jack Bristow look at her when she spoke the language.
"Eat your breakfast first." Irina interjected when she saw that Ana barely touched her pancakes.
"My fingers are tired." Ana said as she showed Irina her left hand.
"Do you want me to slice your pancakes for you?" Irina asked. Jack heard the slight teasing in her voice.
"Uh… no, thank you." Ana said. She lowered her head down and resumed eating. But Jack noticed that Ana is a slow eater. In fact, by the time Irina finished nursing and burping her baby brother, she still halfway done eating.
"Ana, by the time you finish eating your breakfast, it will be lunchtime." Yelena said. Her niece just nodded her head and tried to slice her food faster.
After a few minutes, she cleared everything in her plate. All she has to do is drink her glass of milk and she is done.
"May I be excused?" She asked Irina after she finished. Her mother is bouncing baby Jacob in her knee.
"Yes, of course." Irina replied and smiled at her daughter. Ana smiled back and patted her brother's head before leaving the room. Her brother just gurgled and drooled.
"Wow, drool factory." She said and smiled as she left.
Irina looked at her son and gently wiped his mouth with soft tissue.
"Irina, your daughter is rude." Yelena said in Russian, even if she knows Jack could understand them.
"No, she's not." Irina replied.
"Hmm… you're denying your daughter is rude because you're like that too?" Yelena asked good-naturedly.
"Whatever you say." Irina replied as she stood up. Jacob squealed in delight as he discovered that he is taller than the rest of the people in the room.
"Uh, I hope you don't mind but I want to spend some quality time with my son and daughter." Irina said and went out of the room.
Jack looked at Yelena and then stood up to follow Irina. "Irina, wait." He said as he walked towards her. Irina stopped and turned to look at him.
"You know, I would also like to spend some time with my son too. You know, before I go." Jack said.
Irina raised a brow. "Oh, you want to spend some time with Jacob before you take Ana with you to CIA custody?" she asked in a low voice.
"I can't force her. Clearly, she doesn't like me. What makes you think she'll go with me willingly?" he replied.
Irina shrugged and continued to walk away from him.
"I'm serious, Irina." He said and followed her.
"Fine. By the way, Ana wants a paternity test." She said and shifted the position of the baby in her arms.
"What?" Jack asked, a bit incredulous.
"A paternity test. She thinks her father was my best friend. He died almost fifteen years ago."
Jack gaped at her. "Fine. I'll go through it." He said. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Irina handed Jacob to his father.
"Where are you going?" Jack asked, a bit suspicious.
"I'm going to talk to Ana."
-x-x-x-
[Later, that afternoon]
Jack entered the living room, with Jacob in his arms. He spent most of the day holding and playing with his son. He discovered that Jacob hates baby carriers.
He saw Ana by the sofa, doing something in her laptop. She ignored him but said hi to her brother. Jack placed his son in his playpen and sat on a couch near Ana. He watched her for a while before starting a 'friendly' conversation.
"Why don't you like me?" Jack asked bluntly. The bluntness of the question surprised Ana. She looked at Jack, her gray eyes studying his face.
"Why do you ask?" she asked back in a challenging tone.
The manner in which she replied to his question reminded him very much of Irina.
"I'm interested." Jack said. Ana only responded with a raise of a brow and a shrug. She then resumed her attention back to the laptop.
"What are you doing?" Jack asked after a few minutes of strained silence.
"Visual Basic." Ana answered without looking at him. Jack stood up from his seat and took a peek on what she's doing.
She's playing solitaire.
"I play solitaire when I don't know what to do." Ana said defensively, looking up at Jack. Jack just shrugged then went back to his seat. He looked at the playpen and found Jacob playing with one of the stuffed animals.
After a few minutes, Byron entered the living room.
"Mr. Bristow, there is someone who came to see you." He said and led Sydney in.
Jack stood up and just stared at Sydney. He was speechless. He didn't expect her to come to Panama after what he 'did'.
Sydney looked at him and then their surroundings. She saw the playpen by her father's side and a girl who is staring intently at her. Sydney was going to greet them when the girl greeted her first.
"Hi Julia."
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A/N- so what do you think? You all know I love getting reviews, so click on that little purple button that says 'go', and leave me a message. I want to know what you think… especially an anonymous reviewer who named him/herself 'undersurveillance'. =)