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 10: Sharp Realization
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: Brenda-wood, Jack is just gone. He went back to LA. That sounds like Jack, doesn't it? I couldn't force myself to change his character that much. After all, in this AU he not only found out his wife was a traitor, but she also stole his daughter and trained her to be a Russian spy. So, if he's odd…well, it's mostly intentional. And I loved having Jeffrey throw him off balance, too! Hehee!
She burst in without warning, an almost wild aura about her. For a moment, the activity in the room stopped, then burst into action again.
Vaughn shoved a curious Alex back and stepped between him and their guest. Jeff lifted Emily hastily off of her play mat spread on the floor. Weiss shot to his feet and darted a few steps in front of Vaughn and Jeff, shouting, "What the hell?"
"You shouldn't be here," Irina said, ignoring the frenetic atmosphere she'd created. "You have to leave. All of you," she ordered.
Weiss and Vaughn stared warily at Derevko, neither having a clue what to make of her sudden appearance. Jeff, however, was furious. He pulled Weiss back and handed him Emily and lurched forward threateningly.
"What in the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "Get out. Now. I warned you…"
"You…what?" Vaughn and Weiss sputtered together.
Jeff barely heard them. Alex darted from behind his father to pull on Jeffrey's hand.
"Who's she, Unka Jeffy?" Alex asked curiously, a note of fear creeping into his plaintive tone.
"Leave," Jeff demanded again. "Now."
"Please, you have to listen to me," Irina said. "You don't have time to argue. Sloane knows you're here. He sent operatives. You have to tell Sydney…"
"Shut. Up," Vaughn growled. "Do not say another word in front of my son." Vaughn put a hand on Alex's shoulder and turned to Weiss. "Take Alex in the bedroom. There aren't any windows in there…she's probably got backup…"
"She's alone," Jeff said in a clipped tone, holding Derevko's gaze. "Just take Alex."
Weiss reluctantly took Alex's hand and pulled him away.
"What's goin' on, Unka Eric?" Alex asked as Weiss shut the door.
"Sydney went after Sloane," Jeff said as soon as they were out of earshot. "What do you mean Sloane has operatives here?"
"Wait, how do you know she's alone?" Vaughn broke in, a wariness overtaking him. He did not like to be the one out of the loop. The one out of the loop too often wound up with a bullet in his head. "Why are you telling her anything for? She's ex-KGB, Jeff!"
Jeff ignored him and continued to stare at Irina, waiting for her to answer him.
"Sloane found you. His resources…they're good. There are twelve operatives of SD-6 disembarking at the airport this very moment. You have to get out now."
Jeffrey looked at her, and for a moment that's who he was. Sixteen-year-old Jeffrey, looking at his best friend's mother, a woman who'd been nothing but kind to him. Then he was Jeff again, looking at a traitor of the United States, himself, and his best friends. But the sensation left him with more than a vague feeling of unease.
"And where will we go?"
"I have a place. But if we don't leave now, it won't matter…"
"Listen to her," Jeff said to Vaughn, turning his back on Derevko in a hopeful gesture of trust. "She's trying to protect Alex." Vaughn still clearly hesitated. Jeff took a step closer and said quietly, "Look, I grew up around this woman. I saw what she did to Sydney. I saw what her people did to Jessie. I know what she is, Michael. But I'm willing to trust her with this. That should say something."
"Jeff, she's a…"
"Man, we don't have a choice, okay? If Sloane's guys catch us here, there's nowhere to run. Are you willing to risk Alex's life on the idea that she's not really here to help? What does she stand to gain, Vaughn?"
"Somebody better start explaining…" Vaughn began finally, but Jeff turned away from him with sharp motions.
"Where is Sloane?" He asked Derevko.
"Nepal." A note that almost sounded like despair laced her voice. "Sydney will never get close enough to him alone…"
"Misty's with her," Jeff said harshly, almost as if it was a reassurance if present company hadn't known it to be a worsening factor.
Arvin Sloane glanced around his hotel room nervously, though he was really calm enough. It was a foreboding kind of nervousness, not of the paranoid sort.
The hotel security guard sitting across form him assured him the commotion down in the lobby had been nothing. Since he'd requested to be kept advised of security issues with a sizable tip, after all.
"Eet was just a radder teepsy, as you say, lady. She had a feet of DT's I tink," he said with a heavy accent.
Sloane nodded, but his instincts were all that had kept him from being murdered in his bed, literally, years ago, and his instincts were screaming that something was wrong.
An instant after that thought flashed through his mind, the door flew open to frame two figures. One wore a maid's uniform, and the other was all in black, a tranquilizer gun in her hand. The latter quickly dropped his bodyguard and the hotel security agent and turned toward him where he'd wandered behind his desk. He realized belatedly that the one in green had a gun trained on him.
"Sydney Bristow," Sloane said quietly, turning back to the one in black. He seemed far from shocked. "You were dead, my dear." He smiled, all the while reaching imperceptibly under the edge of the desk. "Welcome back."
The gun he held seemed to appear out of thin air. Sydney saw it only when it was too late.
"Gun!" she yelled hopelessly, throwing her weight into Misty. She heard the explosion, saw the thick red line tear across Misty's arm when the bullet grazed it as they began to fall, felt the useless tranquilizer gun slip from her hand.
Misty's gun skittered across the floor as they hit the floor. Sydney heard Misty's head crack against the floor and felt her body go limp.
And then Sloane was standing over them, and Sydney kicked, trying to draw him away from Misty as she scrambled for the gun at the same time. Sloane fought back, surprisingly strong. She could almost reach it, her fingertips were touching it…
Sloane kicked the gun away and landed a vicious kick to her ribcage, forcing her breathlessly onto her back.
"We are destined to work together, Sydney," he said right before he clipped the side of her head with the butt of the pistol he held and everything went dark.
The house wasn't a mansion by far, but it was big. And grand. And…much better all around than anything used as a safe house had a right to be. Even if it was the only house for two miles on either side, it overlooked the western Panamanian coast, for crying out loud, right by a miniature inlet that would be ideal for a sailboat.
"Just one of the places I kept up with over the years," Derevko had explained when Weiss and Vaughn had pressed her. "One not even Khasinau ever know about."
Now she and Vaughn sat on the back deck, poring over more papers than most could get through in a month's time. Somewhere within them all was a loophole, a discrepancy, a back way into Nepal and to Sloane. Because if Sydney hadn't found one, they wouldn't be here now.
"Sloane probably has them already," Irina said nervously, which only served to further agitate Vaughn's irritability at having to work with a woman he despised. "They had no idea what they were up against…Arvin Sloane will stop at nothing this time, once he has Sydney…"
"Stop," Vaughn interrupted finally, sounding much as if he'd have preferred to wrap his hands around her throat. "Do I need to remind you that the only reason you're not dead right now is that I need someone to help me get Sydney and Misty back and you're my only option? I don't have the kind of contacts Sydney made pretending to be Lina Derevko, and I need someone who does. I will use you to save my wife, and I will still despise your very existence," he spit.
Irina stared at him blankly for a moment, hurt but knowing it would only serve to hinder their efforts to express as much. She just nodded.
"As long as my daughter is safe, and back with her family, I'm okay with that," she said strongly, betraying herself by implying it didn't matter.
Before Vaughn could respond, Weiss slipped out of the sliding glass door.
"Man, you should let me do this. You should stay with Alex. I'll go get Misty and Syd, and bring them home…"
"I have to go," Vaughn said in a strong voice that left little room for debate. "I have to help Sydney end this." No one noticed the little face that pressed itself to the glass door as Vaughn shook his head. "I wish I'd stuck around to help her when she and Jeff were just kids." His face lost the faraway look and crashed back to the present with a jolt. "Besides, I know some of these circumstances better. I have to go."
Alex threw all of his weight into ripping the sliding glass door aside to launch himself at Vaughn.
"No, Daddy!" he cried, latching onto Vaughn's leg where he stood. "Don't leave, Daddy! Where are you going? Please don't leave me!"
Vaughn looked down with a confused, blank look on his face. Never once had he considered that his charging of to rescue Sydney would affect his son. What kind of person did that make him? Sydney was already gone again, and Misty too. Poor Alex couldn't understand it, with all of these people popping in and out of his life with no explanation. Not to mention the strange woman for whom nobody had shown anything but contempt, yet Alex knew they were in her house.
Vaughn kneeled, gently moving his son away.
"I have to go, Alex, but I promise you…" He paused, his voice catching painfully in his throat, and swallowed. "I will come back for you. I'll come back, and I'll never leave you again."
Vaughn hugged his crying son to him and the little boy wrapped his arms around his father's neck.
"What about Mommy? And An' Missy?" Alex sobbed. "I miss them."
Vaughn said nothing as a feeling of helplessness unlike anything he'd ever known pervaded his conscious thoughts, driving home the sharp realization that they might already be dead.
Ooohh…I just love suspense! Sorry it took me so long to post this…spring break kicked my ass…but review, and hopefully I'll have the next chapter up real soon!
