Alternate Termination
Sequel to Alternate Existence and Alternate Infatuation. Sydney and Michael finally had a perfect life. A real family with no lies. Friends who knew the truth. And then they lost it all.
Chapter 8: A Little Rusty
Disclaimer: No, Alias is not mine. Nor is Sydney, nor Vaughn, nor Irina, nor Jack, nor Khasinou, nor Kendall. But Jeffrey is! He's all mine! No touchy!
A/N: I'm sitting in a tech class typing this, kinda wasting time, but the effect should be the same. I'm also trying NOT to get caught, so any horrific typos should be attributed to that. Crap, here comes Mrs. G...
Despite poor sleeping accommodations, the kitchen was teeming with people by sunrise. The smell of frying tortillas filled the tiny apartment, drawing even Jack from his post in the living room. Sydney had never had time for cooking much in her old life, just as Vaughn had never had a particular affinity for any sort of liquor, but a necessity to blend in forced her to, at the very least, master basic Spanish working habits.
Her family was delighted with the breakfast burritos she fixed. An Americanized concept without a doubt, but so many things in modern Mexican society were that no one looked twice at a woman whose accents was so perfect.
Everyone, at least for a moment as they dove into the delicious smelling food, seemed to forget that they'd left their home and their possessions and everything they'd achieved behind.
Sydney smiled at the irony as she nibbled on a burrito. She'd given up so much and worked so hard to protect these people from the world she lived in. Yet here they were, perfectly okay even after having been displaced by her own irrepressible past demons.
As the mob dispersed, sated and content, Jack followed Jeff outside onto the patio. He looked, Jack noted, like the last thing he wanted was company, but there were things Jeffrey should know. Things Sydney had confided in a moment of defeat, that she, being such a controlled person, was not likely to repeat.
"Khasinou threatened her friends and family," he said without preamble, as soon as the door was closed between them and the kitchen.
Jeff turned, surprised.
"That's why Sydney made the choice she did." He shook his head slightly. "She won't justify her own choices, but you should know the truth. Sydney was protecting all of you from Khasinau."
"Khasinau is dead," Jeff blurted, nearly as stoic as Jack.
"What?" Jack asked with undisguised surprise. "How do you know that? The CIA can't even track him down…"
Jeff held Jack's gaze silently for a long moment.
"I was contacted by Irina Derevko," he said deliberately. "Khasinau is dead."
Jack Bristow proceeded to do an amusing representation of a guppy before he managed to snap his mouth shut and walk away.
Sydney would once have reveled in the quiet, mundane task of cleaning up the kitchen after a family meal, but a year away from everyone they loved had quickly taught her and Vaughn to despise the quiet and the mundane. Sydney was grateful to turn and find Misty behind her, gathering plates from around the rooms. They worked together in silence for a long time, each uncomfortable with the other's presence.
"I wanted Alex to know who he was," Sydney finally said in answer to the unspoken question hanging in the air. "I…I didn't want him to ever have to question that."
Misty paused in drying a heavy ceramic plate and looked up. After a moment, she left the plate on the counter and pulled out one of the two chairs at the tiny kitchen table.
"You're going to find this hard to believe, but I understand," she began, gesturing at Sydney to sit. "What's more, I understand why that personal identity is so important to you." Misty flashed a conspiring grin at her friend as she sat reluctantly in the other chair. "Syd, I know about your mother, about everything. I knew there was a lot in your past even before anyone told me anything. Jeff…" She shook her head affectionately. "He's loyal, you've got to give him that. Plus, he's got this misguided notion that I'm some innocent, fragile creature that need to be sheltered. My point is, I can understand how you feel and why you reacted the way you did."
Sydney would have argued that's she'd only done what was best for her son at the time, but she stopped when she looked up to find him standing in the doorway with a puzzled look on his face. His gaze shifted restlessly from her to Misty, and his forehead wrinkled.
"What, baby?" she asked.
"I want some apple juice." The puzzled look remained, and his focus continued to shift.
The reason become painfully clear when both Sydney and Misty rose.
"Sure, baby."
"Okay, sweetie."
Both on their feet, Misty and Sydney's eyes met, and Misty sank slowly back into her chair.
"Sorry." She grinned nervously.
Sydney quickly poured her son a glass of juice and sent him back to his father and Eric, who were entertaining him and amusing themselves all in one fell swoop, the details of which she probably didn't want to know. If her son reappeared blue, or purple, or missing limb, then she would worry about it. After she yelled at the ones responsible, of course.
"Don't even go there," Sydney warned quickly before Misty could apologize. "I knew what I was doing when I left, I just never thought I'd face exactly these consequences."
"I'll back off," Misty promised.
"No, if you just back down all at once, Alex will feel like he's loosing one to get back the other."
"But…"
"No. just do whatever you normally would. We'll figure this out as we go."
Long after everyone else was fast asleep, Sydney was once again awake and alone in the dark. She sat outside on the edge of the narrow cement patio, her arms looped around her knees.
It was painful to see her friends give up so willingly all they knew and loved to protect her son.
Misty had been right about one thing, though. Too many people tried to protect her because her entire persona exuded innocence. Sydney knew Misty to be a fierce fighter. It was unfair for her to be bent and broken by something so far out of her control, and so far out of the realm of her reality.
Ever as Sydney thought these things, Misty stepped out of the door and silently sat beside her.
"You're going to run," Misty said steadily after a moment, continuing to stare unseeingly into the night. "I can see it in your eyes."
"I'm not running away," Sydney protested in surprise.
"That's not what I said," Misty corrected quietly. "You're going after Sloane."
Sydney sat in silence, trying to decide whether it was best to deny it vehemently or brood that her friend could read her so easily.
"I'm not letting you go alone."
The calm, steady remark sent Sydney shooting to her feet, and she looked down at Misty as if she had just sprouted horns and a tail and now hovered three feet off the ground with the components of some dark ritual floating above an alter to Satan before her.
"Are you crazy? You're a teacher, Misty! Have you ever even seen a gun?"
Misty snorted, a sound that did little to dispel the horns-and-a-tail scenario.
"Let me tell you a little about how I grew up. My parents own a cattle ranch in Montana. I have four older brothers. My mother taught me how to shoot one of my father's pistols when I was eleven so that, by the summer I was fourteen, I could move thecattle by myself without fear of wolves or coyotes. I took a martial arts class from the time I was five because I wanted to be able to beat up my big brothers." Misty stood and grinned. "They were a mean lot, too. The younger two, anyway. One and three years older than me. Whooped their asses out bythe barn oncewhen we were teenagers for pestering my favorite horse. My point, honey, is that I'm not defenseless," she concluded, deliberately slipping into her small hometown's habit of calling her friend honey.
Sydney nodded slowly, gradually turning her back to Misty and hoping like hell she wasn't exaggerating. If she was, even a teensy bit, this was going to be one hell of a black eye to explain…
She swung a quick punch around toward Misty's face, turning into it.
Misty caught and countered the attack automatically. Sydney twisted and used Misty's own momentum to spin her into an awkward fighting stance. Misty flipped Sydney forward over her right shoulder. Sydney rolled harmlessly and regained her feet just in time to feel a blow glance painfully off of her shoulder.
"I guess I'm a little rusty," Misty deadpanned as Sydney caught and held her wrist.
Sydney smiled through the darkness. While fear had always drove her through her sparring matches with the likes of fellow KGB agent Anna Espinosa, she found her impromptu match with her friend exhilarating.
"Okay," she agreed. "I believe you."
That wasn't too all over the place, was it? I don't think so. Don't ya'll just love the badass chicks thing? I love it. Girl power, ya'll! Now, review so I'll tell you how our girls fare against the perpetuously evil Mr. Sloane...
