Prompt #9: Sometimes I feel I've got to, Run away I've got to, Get away, From the pain that you drive into the heart of me 'Tainted Love' – Soft Cell
"Talk to me," Elena says. Irina's just been released from Kashmir and she shakes her head; she can't talk to anyone, ever, about what happened in there.
"Ira." Katya pours a shot of vodka and slides it across the table. "It's good to have you back."
Irina downs the vodka, then takes the bottle from Katya. If she can be numb enough to forget . . .
"Talk to me," Elena says, and they're children again. Katya and Irina look at each other and smile. It's Katya who speaks first, laughingly retelling how she and Irina successfully picked the pockets of people in Gorky Park.
"I'm going to tell Mama."
Katya pounces on Elena. "Don't you dare!"
Irina holds out a handful of kopecks and smiles; she's the youngest, but already knows how to ensure her sister's silence. "Come with us next time."
"Talk to me," Elena says, and Irina can barely breathe; she wonders how she's supposed to be able to speak. She looks around for Katya, then realizes she's not here because this isn't a dream and Katya's somewhere fucking Jack while Elena digs into Irina's mind.
Both her sisters have betrayed her, yet somehow it is Katya's betrayal that hurts the most. At this point death will be a welcome relief, if Elena would only let her stay dead.
Elena twists her hands in Irina's hair. "Talk to me."
Irina falls back into memory.
She holds her knife at Jack's throat. "You were supposed to protect her!"
"She's not dead."
Irina lowers her guard for a fraction of a second, but it is enough. In another second Jack has her pressed again the wall, his gun digging into her ribs but it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, because Sydney isn't dead—
"Talk to me." Something burns in her veins; a drug of some kind, but she doesn't care. She falls deeper.
A brush of his hand across her belly. She laughs. "Stop it."
"I think it's cute."
"I am many things, Jack. Cute is not one of them."
"Irina Derevko, terrorist. Ticklish."
She rolls, pushing him onto his back, then climbs on top of him. "I'll show you ticklish—"
There's a sharp pain in her chest and she's jolted back to reality. A cold, dark room. A machine. A table. Elena smiling.
Irina tries to control her breathing. She didn't tell Elena anything about Rambaldi, she thinks triumphantly. She didn't break.
But her throat is raw from talking and Elena looks too pleased with herself. Irina's smile falters as Elena bends forward and kisses her forehead.
"Thank you, Irishka. You can rest now."
It is a few days before Irina realizes she gave her sister exactly what Elena was looking for. She gave her Jack, and now she's dead, again.
The next time Elena says, "Talk to me," Irina knows she will never leave this room.
But she will not be broken.
Jack is there, holding her hand and telling her to breathe through the pain. She wants to kill him, but in the next instant it's over and Sydney's in her arms and she's so small and beautiful and perfect and Irina is terrified. Here is her weakness, this man and this child, and Irina knows she will do everything in her power to protect them.
"I'm scared of the dark," Sydney says. "There's a monster under my bed." And snuggles between Jack and Irina.
And it's dark and cold—
"Stay with me," Jack says.
"I have a class."
He pulls her back onto the bed. "Can I see you again?"
"Maybe." She wants to laugh at how easy this is.
"I don't like maybes." He rolls on top of her and his grin lights up his face. "I can't let you leave until you agree."
She thinks she's going to like playing with him.
Pain, worse than anything she's ever experienced. She feels like she's on fire. She wishes Elena would just leave her dead.
"Talk to me." Elena's tone is laced with frustration and she is no longer smiling.
Irina can no longer be sure what is memory and what is dream. They're at the park, watching Sydney and Nadia go around and around on the carousel. Jack has his arm around her and this feels so perfect, but it's not quite right—
Elena's stroking her hair when she wakes up again. "You always were so stubborn, Irishka."
Irina says nothing.
Elena hands her a photograph of three Derevko women: Elena has her arms around Sydney and Nadia; all three are smiling at the camera. Irina wants to weep.
"Michael took that," Elena says. "He's a sweet boy. He must love Sydney very much to look past her relationship to you."
Irina's not listening; all she can think is how beautiful her daughters are.
"I've been staying with them, you know." Elena smiles and there's a look in her eyes that Irina recognizes all too well. "It would be the easiest thing in the world to kill them."
She leaves the photo with Irina, who tears it into three pieces, and lets the piece with Elena's image fall to the floor. Then she clutches her daughters to her heart and cries.
When Elena returns, she sits next to Irina. She waits a while before she does anything, and it's in this time that Irina can see the machine is no longer in the room. She knows why Elena no longer has a use for it, and knows that her sister has beaten her.
Irina will give up the world to keep her daughters safe.
"Talk to me," Elena says, and Irina does.