A WOMAN WITH A PLAN Eyghon

Author's notes: FYI, I'm French, so I speak English as a second language, hence the little mistakes here and there. This chapter was beta read by Lenafan, and the next one will be too. Enjoy and review please!

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.

Chapter 5: The cave

After Sydney hung up with her aunt, she stayed in her car for several minutes, just staring at the water below her. There was something wrong with Katya's explanations. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she just knew the woman was lying. Quickly making up her mind, she dialled Marshall's number. He was back on the CIA's payroll with his wife's benediction on the condition that he sign a contract stipulating that he not be, under any circumstances, sent in the field.

He didn't ask any questions when Sydney told him to check the local airstrips to see if any private jets had taken off in the last few hours. There were many. She asked him to compare his results to the list of planes that had taken off on the day of her abduction. She assumed Katya wouldn't have stayed in Los Angeles in between visiting Sydney and stealing Irina's body. Marshall found a match but couldn't get any information on the flight's destination. Sydney thanked him and drove to the indicated airfield, praying that the controller on duty the previous night would be able to help her.

It was a lot of work based on a simple hunch but she rather liked the thrill of investigating, even if it turned out to be nothing. If her aunt's plane was headed to Russia, then it meant she was wrong and she would leave it at that. If not, she didn't know what she'd do yet.

The day shift controller was kind enough to give her his colleague's number after she waved her CIA badge in his face. It was the only thing she hadn't turned in after her resignation. She'd pretended to have lost it. The supply manager had glared at her but just said it was very common among retiring CIA agents to lose their badge. Now her little white lie proved quite useful. The night controller told her the pilot was a buddy of his who never left the airstrip after flying in his big shot boss. Sydney couldn't contain a gasp of shock when he told her the plane was headed for Mongolia.

After a long and tiring flight, Sydney easily found her way back to the cave where she'd killed Sloane. She was surprised to see it wasn't guarded, and that in fact, there was only one other jeep there beside her own.

At the entrance, she took a deep breath and checked her gun and her FLASHLIGHT before heading toward the chamber she knew to contain Sloane's remains and the altar of Rambaldi.

She was worried about what she might find down there. When the Medivac had arrived for her father, they couldn't find his body and told her rocks blocked the entrance of the cave. The agent in charge of the investigation strongly suspected that Jack had somehow gotten back in and blown up the place to keep anyone else from finding it.

She turned off her flashlight as she approached the foot of the stairs. There were a lot of rocks of all sizes piled up here and there. The room looked nothing like when she'd left it, half-carrying, half dragging her dying father with her. Someone cleaned up after the CIA medivac had left the area. Now someone else down there. Someone with the resources to remove thousands of pounds of rocks from a tiny cave no one was supposed to know about.

"Katya?" She asked as she made her way into the room. Her eyes riveted on the coffin that her aunt was kneeling by. She'd expected to see the woman, but not the coffin.

Her aunt jumped to her feet, startled.

"Sydney," she said, surprised. Spotting the girl's gun, she quickly cocked her own in Sydney's face, angry that she was going to try and ruin her efforts to bring Irina back to life.

"Wow," protested Sydney, taking a step backward. She didn't expect that kind of welcome, but then again, coming from Katya, she should have known better.

"You shouldn't have come here, why do you always have to put your nose where it doesn't belong?" Asked Katya tensely. She did not want to hurt her niece, but the girl was proving to be quite a nuisance. She discreetly looked toward the stairs leading to the room but couldn't see if Sydney had brought someone else with her. "Put your gun down. Put it down!" She ordered, louder, as Sydney remained unmoving.

"What…what are you doing?" Sydney asked, unable to take her eyes off the coffin after she'd kicked her gun over to Katya. She still held the flashlight and she had a spare gun at her ankle. The only problem was, the room didn't offer any cover and she risked tripping over rocks if she moved. She was a sitting duck and wouldn't have a chance to draw her gun before Katya shot her.

"Turn around!"

"If you're going to shoot me…" started Sydney.

"Don't be ridiculous. Now turn around."

"That's not necessary," Sydney complained while facing the wall. She didn't flinch when Katya RELIEVED her of her spare gun and her knife, but did sigh in relief when the woman didn't find her spare knife. It would offer very little protection against a gun in this crammed space but it was still something.

"Are you alone?"

"Yeah," Sydney confessed after a few seconds of hesitation.

"Good." Katya seemed to relax and Sydney felt comfortable enough to take the first step in this standoff. "Look, I just came here to find out why you lied to me." Sighing, she turned her attention to the coffin again, as if hypnotized. "Is that…her?"

"Yes. It's Rishka."

"Why did you bring her here?"

"To fix a mistake."

"A mistake?"

"Irina shouldn't have died Sydney. She did nothing wrong, she was sick.

"I don't deny that, but…what are you trying to do?"

"I'm correcting a wrong, I'm bringing my sister back to life."

"What? My God, Katya, you're insane!"

"I am not. I'm reluctant to kill you but I won't let you try to stop me. There's nothing you can do, do you understand little girl?" There was a hint of warning in her voice.

Sydney was baffled, but she believed her and decided to stand down, for her own safety. Let her aunt be crazy, as long as she wasn't harming anyone.

"Where's Sloane?" Sydney suddenly asked, looking around her. There were smears of blood on the ground but no hint of a corpse. He should have been in the rectangular pool of blood where she'd left him. The explosion would have still left a few bits and pieces behind.

"Arvin made a mistake, Sydney. He thought the Horizon would give him immortality, eternal life. He was wrong."

Sydney gaped at her, trying to grasp everything her aunt was unleashing on her. As far as APO knew, Sloane had correctly interpreted everything Rambaldi had said on the back of Page 47. "What are you saying?"

"This doesn't keep people from dying," she said, again eyeing the pool of blood. "It revives them, it regenerates the body of a dead person, makes it alive again."

"My God…Sloane…"

"Probably woke up after you left his bullet-ridden body in that very pool. After that, I don't know."

"Dad blew up the place," Sydney said pensively, putting the pieces together.

Katya let out a short laugh. "Arvin must have been really disappointed. The fool thought he was immortal. My men found a few pieces of flesh on some of those rocks." She nodded toward the huge chunks of rock surrounding them.

"Dad…" Sydney shook her head, nauseated.

"I'm sorry," Katya said sincerely, feeling a twinge of compassion for her niece.

"What…" She cleared her throat. "What are you going to do now?"

"Revive her."

"How does it work?" Sydney asked after a long minute of silence. She didn't know what she was doing or saying, she was just acting on autopilot, not caring about the consequences.

"Will you help me?" Katya was suspicious, to say the least, but she'd seen the change in Sydney's attitude, and wanted to believe someone else who cared for Irina was willing to do this with her, to share the responsibility. It made things easier. She'd hesitated a long time before acting on her plan and ordering the cave cleared, and then stealing her sister's body. For days, she'd wondered if it was what Irina would have wanted. She'd struggled with the decision and still did.

"Tell me what to do." Sydney nodded firmly, jaw set, shoulders square. There was a new fire in her eyes.

Katya tucked her gun away and slowly ran her hands over the lid of the coffin. She pulled it open, as Sydney got closer. Without talking, they each took an end of the body bag and gently lowered it to the floor. Sydney gulped. She knew what the next step would be. Thankfully, her aunt took charge and, with unsteady hands, slowly lowered the zipper.

"She's…" gurgled Sydney, suddenly feeling light headed.

"They did an autopsy on her," realised Katya, spotting the ugly Y shaped scar at the same time Sydney did.

They were both kneeling beside the corpse of Irina, who was still mostly hidden by the sides of the body bag. Neither dared to move, shocked at seeing HER for the first time since…

With tears in her eyes, Katya eventually moved the sides apart, exposing Irina fully. She put her hands beneath the woman's shoulder blades and waited for Sydney to snap out of her trance and take her mother's ankles. Trying to ignore the feel of her mother's naked body between her hands, Sydney helped her aunt lower Irina into the pool of blood and abruptly pulled back.

"Now what?" Her voice was barely a murmur but Katya heard her in the deadly silence of the cave.

"We wait." Katya's answer was quiet and she went to Sydney's side and pulled her down with her.

They couldn't bear to look at Irina so they concentrated on the ground instead. Katya didn't know how long they sat there, didn't know why she wrapped her arm around Sydney's shoulder, or why she let her niece do the same with her. They didn't care really. Nothing mattered. Only SHE did.

Neither Sydney nor Katya noticed the water shimmer.

TBC