A WOMAN WITH A PLAN

Eyghon

Author's notes: I have no idea what happened to Katya in the show, but in my story, she's out of jail. We're going to say that she somehow escaped, okay? This story was not beta read cause I was in too much of a hurry to post. All mistakes are mine and mine alone.

Summary: Katya is not happy about her sister's death, something that should have never happened. She's going to make things right again. She is a woman with a plan.

WARNING: I am no doctor, I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about, so please, keep an open mind and don't believe what follows to be true in the real world. I may have bent a few facts to suit my purpose.

Hey people from FF! You asked to nicely that here it is, the next chapter! Enjoy.

Chapter 3: Illness of a great mind

Sydney half expected to hear a 'dam dam dam dam' in the background, but there was none. She thought about her aunt's words for a second before releasing the breath she'd been holding. "I know. She was a lunatic." She chuckled, rolling her eyes at her aunt's flair for drama.

"No, she wasn't. I talk and you listen, remember?

Katya's condescending tone and the touchy subject ignited Sydney's anger immediately. "No, you are done talking. I am done listening. I will not sit there and listen to you make excuses for the woman who tried to murder me. You are not going to defend her, her beliefs or her actions to me. I don't need to hear that crap, she was a crazy fanatic who tried to kill her own daughter with her bare hands, just so she could gain more power!" She moved forward in the sofa, fully aware of the many guns and knives her aunt was probably carrying on her person. Now inches from her aunt's face, she said coldly, "you call that an illness? I call it blind faith. That woman has no excuses for what she did, none."

Katya was stunned at her niece's vehemence but quickly recovered and tried hard not to slap the girl silly. "Why do you have to be so damn stubborn? Everything is not always black and white Sydney, everything is never as it seems! You should know better than anyone by now!" Their voices rose, each feeling righteous anger toward one another. Their evening was going to be a roller coaster of emotions. Both had pent up rage, unfathomable sadness and a lot of frustration in them.

"She tried to kill Vaughn and tortured me! Then she beat me senseless and threw me around like a rag doll, hoping my skull would crack open. She wrapped a wire around my neck and squeezed the life out of me, never letting go no matter how hard I fought." She paused, the vivid memories playing out before her eyes. "You should have seen her Katya, it was like she didn't feel a thing. Her eyes Katya, her eyes were just so…demonic, and empty at the same time…I've never been so scared of her."

She sighed, averting her eyes to try and hide her tears. "She called me a 'complication in her life' and made it very clear she was going to kill me because I was in the way." Her devastation was pouring out of her eyes by way of rivers of hot, salty tears. More quietly, she continued her story. "I pushed her away from me. I just wanted her to stop, to tell me she loved me…and she did. That's what makes it so horrible, that's what makes me unable to not cry for her. She told me she loved me Katya, and then she still tried to push me off the rooftop. You know the rest."

She took a few minutes to compose herself, and regarded Katya with a defiant glare, although it was blurred by tears. "Tell me again how great a mother she was. Tell me she didn't mean it."

"She didn't mean it."

Her niece's tale was gut wrenching, and she believed every word that poured out of the girl's mouth, but she had to take a stand. For Irina. For her beloved, misunderstood sister. Because she, Katya Derevko, was partially responsible for her sister's demise. She would never forgive herself for not pushing Irina further, for not taking a stand against her. She took Sydney's hand in her own, and the girl let her. They both needed comfort, from anywhere and anybody they could get it. "I know it must have been terrible, I know Sydney, and I don't question what happened on that rooftop. What you saw in that woman, what you felt, what she did or said. You were right to defend yourself, that's not my point. I don't question your actions and I don't blame you. Just like I don't blame Irina." Sydney got an angry look in her eyes again but Katya raised her hands in surrender. "Please, please, listen to me. Listen."

Something in Katya caused Sydney to bite back on the retort she was about to make. Maybe it was the desperation in her eyes, the way her body seemed to fold over itself, or the tone of her voice, the pleading look in her eyes. That was just wrong. Katya Derevko didn't plead with people. She told people, ordered people, commanded people. She just didn't plead or beg or ask nicely.

Sydney had always seen her aunt in positions of power. When they'd met for the first time, Katya was wearing her SVR uniform, ordering soldiers around, shooting them and then daringly hitting on a guard. Sydney knew how deadly the woman was in the field. She wondered how things would have turned out if it were Katya that was sent to the US to spy on Jack. She shook her head until the disturbing idea left her mind and refocused on the few times she'd seen her aunt. Even when she'd visited her in the hospital and in jail, Katya always appeared in control, with that unique air of superiority of hers. But in that moment, Sydney didn't see that powerful woman who demanded attention and obedience. She saw a desperate woman and she took pity upon her.

"I won't interrupt you," she quietly agreed.

Katya was grateful. She settled sat back in her armchair and took a minute to put her thoughts in order. "After she first came back from the United States, Irina was very…withdrawn. She kept to herself, didn't talk, didn't smile…I used to think it was because of the loss of you and your father. That was until I found out she'd been extracted eighteen months before she returned to live with our family. They sent her to prison Sydney. Kashmir. I can't imagine what they did to her there."

Katya shifted in her seat. She kept glancing back and forth to Sydney, trying to gauge her reaction. "When she came back to us…that's when it all started. Rambaldi. She became The Man and found a purpose in life. She was so driven…it scared me sometimes. The hunt took priority over everything else in her life, including her family. I tried to make her come back to her senses but she reacted quite violently. She made it clear I should stop bothering her or be written out of her life. I didn't want to lose my sister. I let it go. I was selfish. That was a terrible, terrible mistake."

"So…she started to care about Rambaldi because…she was bored?"

"No. Because she'd lost her purpose in life, and needed a new one. One that she would never have to let go of," explained Katya, her voice filled with sadness.

Katya looked at Sydney hesitantly. "After Sovogda, I tried to get her to talk about it, but she refused and asked me to leave. She wasn't interested in bonding with me. I thought it would pass. I waited for her phone call for months. It never came.." She sighed, deep regret etched over her face.

"When I heard about Vaughn…I came to see her. I tried to get her to visit you, to offer her support…she said you weren't her concern and that she'd deal with you later. I knew there was something wrong with her then. She was moody, emotionally detached, sometimes she would simply ignore what went on around her. She'd go on Rambaldi related missions to God forsaken places, with no concern for her own life. She was ambivalent at best."

Sydney's forehead crinkled in confusion, trying to piece together the pieces of the puzzle that was her mother. "You're describing the woman I saw and fought in Hong Kong, the woman who helped me when Isabelle came. She was already…wrong then, wasn't she? She was mean to me but she was crying…why did she help me give birth to my daughter if her ultimate plan was to kill me? I was at my most vulnerable then, I even gave her a gun."

"I won't pretend to know the inner workings of Irina. But the most likely explanation I could think of was that, at that time, she believed you, both of you, may serve a greater purpose later. You were related to her so it was a safe assumption."

Sydney nodded in understanding. "She was kind to me at times, but mostly brusque and…cruel even. Why? What kind of sickness could make people act like that? Not care, thrive on other people's pain, behave at odds with themselves?"

"I wanted to take her to a psychiatrist but she refused…I was worried sick, I forced her to go. You don't want to know," she added when Sydney was about to ask how. "She eventually went willingly to see several other top notch specialists. Sydney, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia."

"What? How is that even possible?" Asked Sydney, expecting anything but…not that.

"It usually starts in the teenage years. Probably right after she entered the Academy, but there was no one she knew around to notice the changes. Then, there was the added pressure of being in enemy country, incarnating an alias fulltime…"

"That's crazy! She was a great Mom! She was normal!"

"I am not saying she was a bad mother. The symptoms back then were very minimal, she was basically fine. However, she took a critical turn when Yelena got her hands on her."

"But, I don't understand, she was fine when Nadia and I found her. A little shook up, but nothing you wouldn't expect." She tried not to choke on her dead sister's name, and sent a prayer of forgiveness for leaving Sloane alive for so long.

"No, she wasn't fine. Her time with Yelena affected her more than we thought. She was tortured for the better part of a year Sydney, left alone in tiny dark rooms or holes in the ground for weeks at a time with no food and very little water. She only had herself to talk to. She was, in a way, trapped in her own mind. Doctors think she went into shock several times during the course of her captivity. After everything that happened, Yelena, the Mueller device, Nadia…the shock eventually wore off and she started to act up. Sydney she suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That's why she withdrew from me. It was already too late when I took her to the psychiatrist. She was too far gone. Her fragile mental state following her ordeal, PTSD…it was all too much for her. She suffered a severe crisis of schizophrenia…"

Sydney, horrified, shook her head in realisation that everything her aunt had said was really true. "Schizophrenia is often provoked by intensive stress…"

"Irina was prone to schizophrenia on our mother's side of the family. Our grandmother had it and so did our mother. Hell, for all we know, Yelena did too. I consult a psychiatrist every six months, and you should too. You're at risk as much as I am, as much as your mother was. I read the statistics Sydney. Twelve percent of children with one schizophrenic parent will develop symptoms. She changed Sydney. In the months between Sovogda and the incident on that ship she became colder, more distant, more driven. We weren't around so we just didn't notice it until it was too late for her. Split identity syndrome is part of schizophrenia. It's the worst affliction of the illness and it happened because she had no grounding points at a time in her life when she was vulnerable. She had nothing but Rambaldi because I listened to her and I left her alone to deal with her pain."

"What are you saying? She turned to Rambaldi AGAIN because she'd lost me and my dad AGAIN?"

"And Nadia, and Yelena, and herself. She lost herself Sydney. That's why."

"This can't be true, that's just not possible…Mom with a mental illness?" She knew it was true but she couldn't quite grasp what it meant and found the idea of her mother being mentally ill horrifying. She would worry about the risks to herself later.

"If you think back, you'll understand, you'll see. It was always there. She was high risk since she hit her teenage years because of the family's genetics, and her lifestyle only made it worse. Her captivity in Kashmir was the first phase. After her return, in two years time, she brutally left the role of loving mother to become a ruthless criminal organisation boss. Yelena's treatment of her is what drove her over the edge. According to the shrink we saw in Paris, it's a miracle she didn't succumb sooner. The illness made her…lose the part of her that made her human, to simply be a fulltime Rambaldi fanatic. Trust me Sydney, we consulted with five top notch specialists. From New York to Geneva, they all gave the same diagnosis."

"Jesus…so…that night, in Hong Kong…you're trying to tell me she wasn't herself? That…that…that it wasn't her fault?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

She wasn't buying it completely but she had to admit it explained why her mother was so at odds with the woman she remembered from not so long ago. "Isn't schizophrenia treatable?"

"To a degree, yes. It takes some time to find the right medicine and adjust the dosage, but it is treatable. Many people in the United States live with it everyday. They can have a normal life, have a family, hold a job…as long as they take their pills."

"Did she?"

"Yes. Once we found the right combination of drugs and dosages, she started to get better, more stable, more like herself. Sydney, you do understand, none of it was her fault. What happened in Hong Kong…she never meant to hurt you, it was the illness…" Sydney had told her as much a few minutes before, but Katya could tell she was questioning her judgement now.

"You said it yourself, she would have been fine if she'd taken her pills. None of this would have happened. But she choose to go off her meds, and became this crazed lunatic I met in Hong Kong. She's no innocent in this, she made the choice, it might as well have been the real her who tried to kill me."

Sydney didn't want to think about what would have happened if she'd known then, that her mother's behaviour might have been affected by a mental illness. Would it have changed anything? Would she have held back her kicks and punches? She would never confess it to anyone but when she'd understood her mother had been behind everything all along, Vaughn's 'murder', her own kidnapping and torture, she'd wanted to kill her.

She, Sydney Bristow, had felt death course through her veins, the call of blood resonate through her head. The thirst of revenge had almost consumed her, but she'd held back. Irina had inflicted the first strike. And so Sydney's anger had vanished, to be replaced by sorrow, for she knew her mother wouldn't spare her, that it would be a fight to the death. She put on a stony façade ià la Jack Bristow/I and tried to ignore her gut feeling. That this was wrong, that it wasn't supposed to be like that. She told herself it was okay, that she would never be able to go that far. To kill her own mother.

She'd always lied to herself where her mother was concerned. Sometimes she'd refuse to see the good in Irina, and sometimes she'd refuse to see how evil she was. Now she would never know the truth. She would never know if she could have been capable of killing her mother. She was glad she didn't know though. Glad Irina's cupidity had killed her. Glad it was an accident that took her mother away from her, and not her own anger. Not her own hands.

Katya shook her head; not in anger but in frustration. "After she started her treatment, we got closer, and suddenly, she started to get worse again. We didn't know why. One day, she was just gone. Then, a few weeks later, I heard you'd been kidnapped, and I knew. I just knew it had started again. Rambaldi."

"She had me…tortured for information, she watch the whole thing, althought I didn't know it was her. When I got home, she was there, waiting for me. We hugged, she looked so beautiful, and so happy for me, because of the baby…Dad and I…we let her in, we told her almost everything we knew, took her with us to recover the Horizon. That's what she was looking for when she had her doctor poke around in my head. And we served it to her on a silver platter."

"That's why she died, because of that Horizon, that's what you told me?"

Sydney nodded. "She teamed up with Sloane, gave it to him and took it back when he was dead."

"Sydney, I'm so sorry…" surprising them both, she went to sit by Sydney and wrapped her arms around her. "I don't know what provoked her last crisis, but she wanted to get better. She really did. She was afraid of what she'd become without proper treatment. The psychiatrist who took care of her after her diagnosis made it very clear bad things would happen if she went cold turkey. When she was a child, she suffered from our mother's condition, and she would have never inflicted the same thing upon you or me, or your father. More than anything, she was afraid she would hurt you in the name of Rambaldi. She would have never gone off her meds Sydney, never."

If there was ever a thing Katya was certain of, it was this, but Sydney didn't answer, prompting Katya to try a different approach. "She would have stopped Sydney, if she could have taken control, if it meant saving your life, she would have given up on Rambaldi in a heartbeat that night."

"But she didn't, even when she was fine. She could have before, many times, and she didn't!"

"I don't deny she has always been a fanatic, but not to the point of jeopardizing what she held dear, her family. Yes, she could have stopped before, but knowing all the answers was a way to protect you from the others like her. If she'd abandoned her quest, who knows what would have happened to you? Somebody else would have gotten their hands on the prophecies, and they would have come after you!"

Sydney blinked, her mouth working soundlessly. She'd never thought of it this way.

Katya felt she was gaining ground. "This illness took the worst in her and heightened it until it dominated her completely. It wasn't your mother in the driver seat that night, it wasn't her who beat you and tried to kill you. It wasn't her who had you tortured and later delivered your daughter. It was the Rambaldi fanatic she'd become so long ago to make up for the loss of her family. Our Irina was gone, had been for a long time."

Sydney let out an anguished cry that stopped Katya cold. She sounded like a wounded animal.

"Sydney?" Katya wasn't used to displaying emotions around people, and people usually reciprocated. She wasn't sure what to do, what to say?

Sydney wanted so bad to believe her aunt, to believe that in the end, Irina truly loved her and would have never attacked her so ruthlessly. But she'd be hurt so many times by her mother…there was no trust, no capacity to believe left in her. She couldn't help but try and find a loophole in everything she'd learned tonight.

"I want to believe you Katya, I really do, but…I've been deceived and betrayed so many times before…I can't take it anymore. My mother is dead. I made peace with that. A long time ago."

Katya was disappointed by her niece's reaction, and couldn't understand it. "You can't give up on her Sydney! I know you are angry, I understand, but it wasn't her Sydney. You have to know it wasn't her. Look at her medical files. It's all I ask of you. Please."

Sydney stood up and paced around. "I know it's the truth! I know she was ill! I believe you. But she's dead. What does it matter to you? Why did you go out of your way so I would know she didn't mean anything of what she said and did that night? Is it to make me feel guilty? Are you enjoying it"

Katya slapped her, hard. "Everything is not always about you. It matters to me because she was my sister, and I need to make you see the truth about her. I need you to know she loved you."

"I do. I do know she loved me, at some point in time. I do. And I loved her too. I worshipped her, and I'm not talking about when I was a child. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry she's dead and I can't make peace with her. So sorry…"

Katya nodded pensively. "Thank you," she whispered.

Sydney took a minute to compose herself. "Thank you. For going through the trouble of telling me the truth. I needed to hear it. It makes me feel better, to know that, maybe, she didn't mean all the things she said and did to me over the last few months."

"She would have loved to meet her granddaughter."

Sydney smiled and sighed. "Can I go now?"

Katya nodded and put her arm around her niece's shoulders. "I'll drive you back, we're just one hour outside of LA."

This time, Sydney rode in the passenger seat, free of bonds. Katya parked a few houses away from Marshall's.

"I guess I won't see you again, will I?" Asked Sydney.

"It's for the best. I'm still wanted in this country, and I know you don't really like me."

"I could have, under different circumstances. Do you think that maybe you could give me some way to contact you?"

Katya was slightly taken aback by the request but agreed readily. "Of course. Here." She gave her a business card with a single cell phone number written on the middle.

"Thanks. Even if we don't get along, it still feels good to know I have an aunt to count on, out there somewhere."

TBC