FAMILY MATTERS

Eyghon

Chapter 8: The Man

The little girl ran past Sydney straight into Irina. She quieted down and looked at the second woman with wide eyes, slowly backing away from her. She realised she was trapped between the two intruders. Her bottom lip quivered as she clutched a yellow stuffed animal in her little arms. For a few seconds, nobody moved. Finally, Sydney caught Irina's glare and regained the ability to move. She fumbled with her jacket for the needle she had packed and eventually stuck it into the child's arm, careful not to give her everything. She was grateful Tanya had her back to her, so she didn't have to see the pain and terror she knew to be written all over the girl's face.

"Sydney?" Asked Irina as she knelt down beside her daughter, who held Tanya's head on her lap.

"I…she looked so scared…I just froze" she murmured, still a little dazed.

"That's why I wanted you to use this," she said, pointing to the syringe Sydney had thrown to the ground as if burned. "So they wouldn't have time to get scared."

"I'm sorry, I screwed up."

"It's okay; she probably won't remember a thing." Then, more forcefully, "Come on, snap out of it Sydney, the doctor is probably already on her way."

Sydney nodded mutely, still in shock.

Even in her sleep, Tanya looked terrified to Sydney, and it was all her fault. If only she hadn't hesitated, had done what she was supposed to do, the child would have peacefully gone to sleep and would have made beautiful dreams of princesses and Teletubies.

Sighing, she took in the child-like decoration of the room and couldn't help but smile when she spotted the stuffed Pikachu lying on the ground. She had bought one for her cousin last Christmas. Without thinking, she picked it up and stuck it under her arm before reaching down for the girl. Mindful of the little body she was now cradling in her arms, she quickly made it downstairs.

Irina was sliding a piece of paper in the nanny's hands just as the phone rang for the umpteenth time. Probably the children's mother trying to get in touch with their caretaker. She would have a hell of a surprise when she came home. Sydney nodded approvingly and went for the door. Irina frowned as she spotted two giant yellow ears protruding from under her arm, oddly reminding her of Jack's own oversized ears.

"Where's the boy?" Asked Sydney as they passed the door.

"Out cold in his room."

They made it to the car where Sydney laid the little girl on the backseat. Irina turned up the heat so Tanya, who was wearing only her PJs, wouldn't get cold. Sydney was surprised by the attention but didn't comment. Her mother might not be such a btch after all.

Irina swore as she spotted the BMW SUV that she knew the doctor was driving, but sighed as she remembered her own car had tinted windows. It would have been messy, had the doctor spotted her. They drove to the airport without being stopped and reached their final destination within five hours of flight.

Irina had called her 'housekeeper' to set up a guest room for the girl in her secluded home. When they reached the house, Sydney was in awe by size of the house.

Irina was cooking breakfast while Sydney was watching her from the island in the middle of the kitchen. They had talked a little on the plane and her mother told her it had gone well. Her conscience still bothered her but she had something more important to worry about now. She was alone with her mother and the women had nothing to plot. It was the perfect time to tackle a painful subject. "Mom."

"Yes Sydney?"

"There's something I've been meaning to ask you for awhile." For years, actually.

"What is it?"

Sydney took a deep breath. Ever since she knew her mother was 'The Man,' she had had two questions that wouldn't leave her. The first one, the reason why Irina had shot her, had been answered. The second one held even more importance to her, but the fear of what her mother would tell her had discouraged her from asking every time she had thought about doing so.

"When you…unleashed Cole and his band of mercenaries on SD-6…did you know I was there?"

"Sydney…"

"I asked a simple question, demanding a simple answer, yes, or no." Sydney's voice was strained. Her mother's expression gave her the feeling she wouldn't like the answer Irina had to give.

"Yes. I knew you worked for SD-6 and that there was a chance you would be here on that day."

"Should I be shocked?"

"Sydney, I never meant for you to get hurt."

"So what? You crossed your fingers and prayed I wouldn't show up for work? That I would somehow slip on a banana skin, break my arm and take a medical leave? Well, no such luck. Did you know that, right after I came back from Taipei with a bullet hole in my shoulder, thanks to you, they held me for two days in handcuffs with a fucking sling?"

"Sydney…"

"Your men started to line us up against the wall, all grouped so they could fire into the crowd, kill us like a bunch of rabid dogs!"

"I saw the tapes, Sydney. Everything from the moment your colleagues were gassed to the moment you ran out of the vault's room behind Cole. I never meant for anything to happen. Cole and his men were supposed to secure everyone and get to the vault. They just weren't expecting resistance."

"I see, so it's not your fault; it's ours, mine. And where did you get those tapes anyway? The CIA confiscated them so Vaughn wouldn't be seen by SD-6."

"Agent Haladki."

Sydney gave her a disgusted look. "Haladki. Of course. That slimy piece of sht!"

"My point is I apologise for what happened. Cole was not supposed to kill anyone except if the mission was threatened. It wasn't. He was out of line."

"Out of line? He was insane!"

"Yes, I guess he was."

"Too bad you didn't see me kick his ass in the parking garage. He never even got to throw a punch."

Irina smiled broadly. "I did see the way you handled him, when he talked about your previous encounter. You have such wit! Tell me, you did remember him, didn't you?"

"Yeah! He was such a pig, 'insanely inappropriate' doesn't even begin to cover what he said to me in that break room."

"You've gone so far on your own Sydney. You're a wonderful woman. If it hadn't been for you, the mission would have been a success…"

"And my colleagues and friends would be dead. And me as well probably. All because you hired a lunatic."

"I'm proud of you Sydney. That's all I meant to say."

Sydney nodded and changed the subject, feeling oppressed by the heavy silence between them. "Cole was insane but he hit pretty hard and pretty good. I had bruises for weeks. The only good thing about that day is that it brought everybody closer."

"What do you mean?"

"Well…usually, we don't interact with each other outside of our own team. That day… things happened, things that should never have happened, that nobody could have ever imagined. Many of our colleagues were killed or injured. Agents, security guards, analysts…We never mixed, we didn't know each other. But after, when it was time to pick up the pieces and the bodies, people just helped each other, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Before we were all so unfeeling, uncaring for one another, event though some of us had been working side by side for years.

We were all shocked; we thought our office was the safest place in the world, away from the field, the bullets, and the dead. This changed everything. You saw the tapes, I can't explain it, but it was beautiful. Among all that horror, that mayhem, perfect strangers managed to comfort each other, to make everything better. Perfect strangers hugged one another!"

She sighed, shaking her head. Irina nodded pensively, but felt she had no right to try and comfort her daughter. She was responsible for her pain and had made 'the' decision to send Cole in, thinking he could not be trusted.

"But the most horrible part was not the loss, the destruction. No. For me, it was the congratulations. The next day when I came back, everybody was here. We looked like sht, battered and bruised, but we were all there. And when I came out of the conference room, they had all gathered, waiting for me. They were all around me and started clapping, thanking me, with such bright smiles on their faces. It made me want to vomit, because all those good people…were working for the devil and almost died for him without knowing it."

"Now he won't cause any problem. The CIA won't make the same mistake twice. He'll never see the light of day again." Irina said it convincingly, but she knew how the CIA worked.

"I hope not. Though that reminds me, there 'is' a bright point to this day. Sloane was tortured and Dad had to cut his finger off! Too bad the surgeons managed to attach it back."

Irina smiled, glad her daughter was done with her somber thoughts. It eased what little guilt she felt. "Yes, indeed, I heard about that. I only regret there was no camera in the 'conversation room' as Sloane nicely put it."

"I've been there a couple of times. Didn't enjoy myself much." Irina looked at her, surprised. "Hey, I was a double agent. At SD-6, an incoherence, or someone's hunch can get you good to go for a psych evaluation, an interrogation, a torture session or simple murder, no questions asked."

"The CIA can be quite hasty as well."

"Yeah, I won't disagree with you on that. You know, it's somewhat ironical. Since the beginning, you claimed you want me out of the business, and that day…I had come in to resign, no matter the consequences. I wanted out."

"I'm sorry I foiled your plans of early retirement."

"You mean my suicide mission! Don't be sorry. I would have been killed. I was just too shaken up to realise it at the time. Or I knew and didn't care. I don't know. Plus, I messed up with your plans for SD-6 so we're even."

Irina smiled. "You should go check on Tanya."

"Yeah. I'll do that." She got up and reluctantly walked to the door. She stopped, hesitating, but didn't turn around and left Irina there alone with her thoughts. Sydney had her answer. Her mother had known the risk to her and had sent Cole in anyway.

Taking a deep breath, Sydney poked her head in the room and gasped at what she saw. Tanya was wide-awake. She slowly backed away from her bed when she saw Sydney, and stopped when she hit the window. She apparently remembered everything from last night, to Sydney's dismay.

Her guilt reared its ugly head and she cursed herself for hesitating and screwing everything up, but also for not changing her clothes. She had been wearing a mask when she had attacked the child. The word made her shiver. 'Attack'. She might have fooled her into thinking she was not the evil woman from her room that had scared her and taken her away, if only she was now wearing different clothes.

She had been so shaken up by the previous day's events that a shower and a change of clothes had been the last thing on her mind. She watched in utter horror as Tanya's bottom PJs darkened. The poor little thing had dirtied her PJs, and she was sobbing. She probably interpreted Sydney's expression as one of anger, aimed at her. "Tanya, its okay, it's nothing, don't be upset…" she tried to reassure her, but in vain.

At a loss of what to do, she called out for her mother, praying Irina's maternal instincts were not buried too deep.

"Oh Mom, thank God! I don't know what to do! I think I'm scaring her…"

Thankfully, her mother immediately knew what to do. She knelt down before Tanya and rubbed her back, smiling in a way Sydney hadn't seen her do in years. "Hey baby. Don't cry, its okay, we're not mad at you. It was an accident that's all." Irina had such a warm smile, a honey like voice, Sydney felt light-headed. She was seeing a ghost. She snapped out of it when her mother asked her to get Mary, the maid, to clean up the stain on the carpet. By the time she came back, a minute or so later, Tanya was merely sniffling.

Irina led them to the adjacent bathroom and motioned for Sydney to start a bath. She added bubbles and watched, fascinated, as Irina stripped the little girl, and wiped her bottom with a paper towel. Sydney found herself unable to tear her eyes away from the pair. Her mother set her charge in the bath and finally seemed to take notice of her own daughter

"Sydney, are you okay?"

She nodded numbly and walked out, her head full of the memory of herself being bathed by her mother. For a minute, she could totally picture Irina as a grandmother, which felt really weird. She sat on Tanya's bed to wait and picked up the stuffed toy she had placed in the girl's arms as she was laying her in her bed the previous night. She was disturbed by the fact that the child was scared of her but not of Irina. It was she who was the bad guy in this story, not her mother, and she hated the role reversal.

Irina exited the bathroom and asked Sydney to help Tanya get dressed while she herself would finish preparing breakfast. Sydney was slightly panicked by the idea of being alone with the little girl but realised that if her mother could do it, then so could she. She uncomfortably waved her hand at the child when she poked her head out of the bathroom. The little girl seemed more settled than before; she merely stared at Sydney warily while letting her dress her.

Growing up, Sydney had always wondered what it would have been like to have an elder or younger brother or a sister. Never in her wildest dream had she imagined she actually did have a sibling, born from the union of her mother and the devil himself. Thankfully, Nadia was nothing like her father, and Sydney would do anything to get her back.

"Breakfast should be ready, let's get downstairs." Seeing the little girl wasn't moving, she added, "You can take Pikachu with you if you want." She stepped in the corridor, giving her space. Tanya hesitantly followed her, clutching the little beast.

Irina had set the table for three, with orange juice, pancakes, butter, jam, scrambled eggs, bacon and syrup. "Hi, come on in, don't be shy." She smiled, inviting Tanya to step forward.

Sydney helped Tanya up on the stool and took her place before Irina.

"Orange juice?" Asked Irina before pouring them all a drink after no answer but from her daughter.

"His name is Pika-Pika." Tanya timidly said, breaking the silence.

Sydney looked up from her plate. "Excuse me?" She asked, aware the remark had been directed to her.

"It's a Pikachu but everyone calls him that. I wanted mine to have a special name, just for him," she waved her yellow stuffed animal by the ear.

"Oh, that's nice," replied Sydney, amused at the child's spirit.

"Who are you? What am I doing here? Where's my Mom?"

Sydney and Irina looked at each other hesitantly. They had expected such questions, but Sydney wasn't sure how to answer to a five year old. Thankfully, Irina did.

"My name is Natalia, and this is Nina. You're going to stay with us for a few days and then we'll bring you back to your Mom."

"She's not here?"

"No, she's home, with your brother."

"Oh."

Sydney was stunned. Her mother was being honest and non-cryptic. Except for their names. That was a first. She smiled to herself though; her mother was brilliant. The kid would never drop it unless she thought she was being treated as an adult, and that's exactly what Irina was doing, by explaining to her the situation. She made a complicated thing sound so simple.

As a child, Sydney was curious of everything; she remembered asking many questions, to which Irina always had answers that she could comprehend.

Irina felt the girl was not satisfied with her answer but didn't dare ask more questions. She decided to clarify. "I want something from your Mom, but she doesn't want to give it to me yet, but as soon as she does, you'll get to see her again."

"Why she don't want to give you your thing?"

"I don't know, sweetheart. I don't know."

Sydney too would have liked the answer to that question. Irina was merely asking the doctor for files, so why had she refused? It didn't make any sense. Sydney had taken a liking in the little girl already. She was that kind of kid who made you want to have children of your own someday. She couldn't understand why in heaven Dr Varnina would give her up to protect her ex-lover's work.

TBC

Next in Family matters: "Chapter 9: Closing the deal". Sydney and her mother talk about losing a child and move on to their respective 'love life'. Sydney is getting obsessed with Irina hiding things from her but will she eventually get her way? Will Irina?