A/N: Thank you SO MUCH to those that continue to review. :) I'm currently working on parts 22 and 23 (you've caught up to me), but I'm still hoping to be able to post chapters once per week. I hope you're all doing well!

Part 21

"No," Kendall growled as he pushed open the door to his office with Jack on his heels despite not receiving an invitation.

"Sydney's been awake for seven days, and this is the only thing she's asked for. She's the only person Sydney wants to see."

"And why is that?"

Jack's arms fell to his sides. "The psychologist agrees that it will be good for her. Irina has interrogation experience while also having the benefit of not seeing any footage of Sydney's...ordeal."

"We can't keep pulling an international terrorist out of prison, Jack."

"Steve," the father pleaded, the eyebrows of the director shooting up at the use of his first name. "It's been a week and she's refused to see anyone. I want to say that this is for her and it...it is, but...some of us desperately need this."

Kendall sighed and tightly closed his eyes, the crinkles on his temples deep and grooved. "Extra security Jack, and you're escorting to and from the cell. There's one way in and out, and I want three guys on it the whole time with one in the room. No exception."

A genuine smile hit the agent's face as he nodded and left, almost skipping with a hurried step down to the security floor. His stomach was flip-flopping and he wondered when he'd last felt this excited, especially when going down to see his ex-wife. The questions were still circling in his mind as the gates lifted, but he realized all too late that he would be passing by the third cell down the row in order to access the fourth where Irina was being held.

It was clear that neither Jack nor Kendall had thought of that, the standing order that the elder Bristow wasn't allowed to interact in any way with "Mister Flynn". The three escorting guards faltered when he stopped in front of the glass window mid-stride at the realization that he was staring straight at his daughter's "killer". That tamped down the flame of his excitement.

Gerald Davis sat on the metal cot with his forearms resting on his knees and hands clasped lightly, the same pose he took so many times in that room with Sydney. The father didn't realize he was unmoving until the man's voice yanked him back to the present.

"Jack Bristow. Here to fulfill your daughter's threats?"

His heartbeat pounded in his ears as the nasally British accent wafted around him, muffled from behind the glass. A hand on his shoulder reminded Jack that he was there for other reasons, and without answering he turned to walk through the last open gate.

"You and Sydney share a penchant for playing the silent game. Well...shared," the cocky man said loudly.

He found himself gritting his teeth against the desire to have the guard open the door so he could pull the still-beating heart from fake Mister Flynn's chest, though it began to dissipate as he stepped up to the glass between him and Irina Derevko. She sat on the floor perched atop a pillow with a book in her hand, a genuinely happy smile passing her lips when spotting him with his entourage.

"The request has been approved," Jack said mechanically, and anyone else would have thought it to be business as usual with the stoic man.

Irina could hear the small amount of excitement in his voice, however, and rose with a stretch. The door beeped and unlocked, the captive woman moving to set her book with the others on the small shelf. Turning to face the wall away from the door she clasped her hands behind her back waiting for the jingling cuffs to be attached.

"When we leave," Jack started, "don't look into the next cell. There may come a day where I let you out to kill him, but this isn't that day. I'm asking Kendall to move you to a closer cell so we don't have to see the jackass every time we meet with you."

Irina comprehended the deep hatred behind his words but knew that Jack felt it harder as he'd watched every moment of what that man had done to their daughter. After the time expired, Jack appeared in front of her cell in rumpled attire with tears streaming down his cheeks, and her heart had sunk into her stomach. While his news had been happy, it also had been cloaked by a shadow of the unknown.

That was the last time she'd seen him. Irina had requested that Vaughn meet with her in lieu of the Bristow's as the father wasn't allowed to access the hallway until the director thought he could handle Flynn's taunts, and Sydney was in unconscious traction somewhere in the building.

As the group passed the killers' cell, Irina kept her eyes high and forward as Jack had suggested, though the temptation to give her patented dagger-like glare at the man was hard to suppress. The elevator felt crowded, though she didn't mind. Whatever human contact she got these days was like a balm, that not something she was willing to admit out loud.

To Jack, the white door of Sydney's medical room loomed while to Irina, it looked like an escape. The shackles were removed as two guards took up positions to the right and left sides of the frame. The third was at least a foot taller than her and she had to tilt her head to look into the nearly black eyes, "I'll be watching through the glass."

"I thought you were to accompany me inside?" The lilting accent wafted up to the giant.

"She's earned more respect than that," he said quietly and stepped back once her hands were free of the confining metal rings.

Jack sent her a look of both reassurance and desperation, and she felt his need, hurt, jealousy, scorn, and hope in that one glance. Her hand on the knob, it opened quietly. The smell of sterile cleaner hit her nose as beeping devices echoed in the otherwise silent room. Sydney was tilted slightly at an angle with her eyes closed and an oxygen tube hugging her slimmed face. A couple of small scars discolored her cheek, right eyebrow, and the left corner of her lower lip, but other than having lost a bit of weight and a tinge of paleness to her skin everything looked exactly the same she'd seen her.

Her quick eyes scanned deeper as she moved to the bedside. Jack had given her a list of injuries a week after Sydney's rescue, so Irina wasn't coming in with a complete lack of knowledge of her child's mistreatment, but hearing a list of injuries wasn't the same as watching them be administered.

Surgical scars ran the lengths of the fingers on her left hand, and in a long white line, another flanked with dots followed the radius length of her forearm. Irina reached out and pulled her daughter's hand lightly between hers. She didn't expect the sudden jolt from the young woman, the warm fingers yanked from her palm as Sydney woke with panicked eyes.

"Shh, sweetheart, it's alright." Transported back to when her daughter had been struck with a high fever flu at five years old, the soothing voice came back instantly even though it was something Irina hadn't used in almost thirty years.

The quickly beeping monitors settled down over a few moments as did Sydney's breathing.

"I wasn't sure if they would give clearance." Her voice was rough from lack of use and she cleared her throat.

"Of all the people in the world-" Irina left off hoping her daughter would fill in the blanks, but she just blinked the sleep from her eyes and stayed quiet.

What the estranged mother took as avoidance Sydney was using to put her words in coherent order to keep from rambling and venting.

"You don't have a t.v. in your cell. You're...the only person that didn't see everything - the…" she sighed tiredly, "the one person that-"

Her mother chuckled, "- has no pity. I know the feeling." With an exhale, Irina settled into the chair next to the bed and crossed one leg over the other as her eyes studied the twisting fingers in her lap.

"Sydney, if you close yourself off to the people that love you you'll never completely heal. I know what it's like to be broken."

Sydney frowned and looked down at the lump her feet created under the scratchy hospital blanket. "I didn't break. I...didn't give him anything."

Irina scoffed with a small huff, and Sydney whipped flashing eyes on her mother but settled when she saw the gentle smile and identical eyes filled with understanding, love, and a lack of judgment.

"You didn't give them any intelligence, but you were broken. That doesn't mean that you weren't - aren't - strong."

"How did you do it? How did you come back?"

Irina thought for a moment, now knowing that Sydney had asked to see her for advice on clawing back from what she'd been through.

"Part of you won't come back. A piece will always live in the back of your mind, and that's something you'll have to accept."

That was something the young woman hadn't wanted to hear, her mother noting the look of pain on Sydney's face.

"How much have they told you?" Irina asked.

The brown eyes dropped again and Irina saw the renewed slump in her daughter's shoulders. The mother nodded with a sigh. "That...may be the part that's hardest. That...I can't help you with."

"What if…" Sydney started but stopped.

"Keep going. Don't stop yourself, sweetheart."

"When...when you're ready to go, and you decide that you're done and then when that doesn't happen," she swallowed past the lump in her throat before looking up as a teardrop rolled down her thin cheek. "Why did he have to find me? Why do I have to live with what happened? I shouldn't be here any longer, mom. I...don't need to be here."

Her voice wavered and she sucked in a shuddering breath, the mother breaking along with her. Reaching slowly and gently, Irina wrapped her arms around and pulled her daughter against her chest. Minutes ticked by as Sydney finally let herself be held by someone for the first time since everything, and she used those minutes to raggedly sob into her mother's neck. She had tried but failed to lift her limbs and return the embrace, Irina whispering soft reassurances in mixed English and Russian against Sydney's ear.

Pulling back and cupping the wet cheeks, the mother pressed a kiss to the daughter's warm forehead before tilting the sniffling face up. "You are so loved, sweetheart. The world is better because you're still here."

Bringing her close into another hug, Irina didn't let go until Sydney's body relaxed and gave in to the affection.

"Tell me what things were like before they took you." her mother's voice was low but still loud as Sydney's head rested with her ear against her heart.

"What do you mean?"

Irina smiled and pulled back a bit as she felt Sydney's muscles tremble at the exertion of staying upright. "Tell me about your life."

"You know what it was like. I met with you a week before I went to London."

Irina laughed and cupped her daughter's cheeks, the pads of her thumbs wiping at the tears. "Sweetheart, you never talked to me. I only know about your life from inflections in the words you used."

Sydney sniffled and shrugged with her right shoulder. "Everything was...okay." Pulling her face free, Sydney looked at her lap with eyes full of longing and regret.

"Just okay?" Irina let her move but continued to hold her hand and maintain some form of contact even if Sydney wasn't interested.

"Parts of it were really great but...some things were really hard."

"Tell me about it. All of it."

An hour ticked by and she shared more than she had even to the psychologist in the last week. Sydney got it all out. Every bit of truth about SD-6 and what they learned in Luxembourg, Sloane's betrayal, Dixon's doubts, her father, and even the start of her relationship with Vaughn.

"When you walked into that room in Taipei...it crushed me. Even before that, learning everything about you...the truth...the way I did - it was," Sydney met Irina's eyes, no longer afraid to speak truths to those that may not want to listen, "heartbreaking. And I still carry that. Everything that you've done against this agency - this...country...I've had to carry. Being in love with the son of one of the agents you killed - that truth is there every time I'm with him."

The admission seemed to affect her mother more than expected, and the hurt look that passed across those brown eyes revealed more secrets than Sydney had kept her whole life. Mother and daughter lapsed into silence for several moments as each thought of what to say next.

"I'll be completely honest with you if you'd like, Sydney. Do you want that?"

"Seriously?"

Irina smiled, "you've earned every bit of truth I have."

For the first time in a long time, Sydney held all the power, and it was a strange but good feeling.

'Do you really want to know all of your mother's secrets?' The Bristow brain voice had been absent since the last moments she'd spent in that room.

'Died. Since you died in that room.'

She wasn't exactly thrilled that it had returned.

At the tiny nod, Irina began. "I told you briefly about being held in India but that - that wasn't my first internment, nor was it the worst. My own government put me in a cell and interrogated me for six months." Sliding the chair closer to the bed, Irina settled down with a resigned sigh and wrung her fingers in her lap nervously.

Finally looking up she saw her daughter's studious brown eyes, Sydney asking, "why?"

Tears filled Irina's eyes taking Sydney off guard, "because I didn't kill Bill Vaughn."

The silence hurt, and for the first time in days, Sydney couldn't hear the beeping of the machines through the roar of blood that rushed to her ears. The honesty sucked the air out of the room, and she couldn't stop her mother's words from bouncing around in her head over and over again.

Irina continued, "one thing I never explained to you, or...Jack, was that my leaving wasn't the plan. My assignment was meant to be deep and long-lasting. Which," she sighed, "was only bearable because I fell in love with my family. Sydney...in the beginning, I was so naively loyal that when they gave an order, I obeyed. They taught me about Rambaldi and that...my child would be part of his prophecies, and I fell for the magic in those words."

More tears fell from Irina's eyes as she looked wistfully at the far white wall, Sydney focusing on her mother's face. "That's why you had me?" She couldn't keep the creeping whimper out of her voice, and the heartache was compounded by the mother's nod. The two fell into silence, neither knowing who needed the break more.

Irina knew exactly why her daughter was pushing people away and what it would take for Sydney to regain her sense of self. She needed control over something - anything - and Irina was the one person that could give her that. It would cost some of her biggest secrets, but the mother thought it was a worthy cause, all things considered.

"Make me understand," Sydney demanded after a few minutes ticked by, her curiosity gagging her desire to be alone.

Those familiar words pierced Irina's heart, and she swallowed before continuing. "The more my division gained interest in Rambaldi, the more I realized that they would one day harm you, or ask me to. I began to lose faith in my government, Sydney." Standing, the suddenly nervous Russian moved back to her daughter's bedside and rested her arms atop the railing surrounding the sides of the medical bed.

"My target was a man in charge of two special operations codenamed A. FINCH, and I would find him in Cuba. My instructions were to leave nothing but dental records. I wasn't given any other information."

Irina pulled her daughter's hand between her own, Sydney realizing that this time it was her mother that needed comfort. Though it was beginning to recede, her brain still triggered her muscles when someone touched her skin, and the phantom familiar burn licked her nerves for a fraction of a second before being chased away by reality. This was a lot, and definitely wasn't what she thought their conversation would cover.

"His team was...easy to find. The assignment was covert surveillance, so he was easy to track as they never left their hotel in Havana. His partner left to get food one night and I went in. It wasn't until my knife was at his throat that he knew I was there, but - those green eyes - they looked into my soul and stopped me dead in my tracks."

"Russia sends its regards, A. Finch," her harsh words squeezed between her clenched teeth. She caught the man as he spun around in surprise, his back crashing atop the desk as she brought her knife to his neck.

"Laura?"

Her normally steady hands gained a tremble and her eyes went wide, the sharp knife edge biting the skin of the man's neck and letting loose a pearl of blood. Despite the adrenalin driving her muscle memory, she froze.

"Bill?"

"You're...you have a knife to my throat. In...in Cuba." Hurt flashed across his eyes as his expression changed from panic to surprise to worry to recognition before landing on betrayal. "You...you-" he stuttered, unable to find the words.

Her body acted before her mind and she stepped back to allow him to stand back up.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Bill...I-"

"What...the hell...are you doing here?" His words were punctuated by the gun he now pointed in her direction.

Irina lifted her hands level with her head, the knife still held between her thumb and palm. The two locked eyes as seconds ticked by, and for each, it felt like an eternity. Questions they asked in their minds were abundant, yet their throats didn't know how to put it into order. He found his words first, however.

"You're KGB."

"Bill...I-"

"You...does Jack know?"

The tight ponytail bounced back and forth as she vehemently shook her head. "No. He…"

"You're KGB?" He repeated, this time as a question, and his heart sunk at the glistening tears filling her suddenly scared brown eyes.

"Bill please, you don't understand."

"Make me understand," he demanded, his piercing green stare as steady as the gun in his hands.

"I'm sorry." It was all she could think to say.

"You're sorry? For what? For the fact that you were sent by Russia to kill someone and it happened to be me or for betraying your friends and family?"

Her sigh was watery. "Just...I'll just leave."

Bill let out a harsh chuckle and dropped his hands to his sides as sadness slumped his shoulders. "Laura…?"

"You can just let me go, Bill."

He wasn't prepared for that, and the harsh laugh that left his throat was entangled with the sorrow written on his face. "This is going to crush him, Laura."

A frown creased her forehead, "Jack can never know."

He continued as if she hadn't spoken, "and Sydney. What...what was your plan? Just...kill me and go home to your family? What about my family, Laura?"

She didn't have an answer for that one. Obviously, she hadn't planned on killing a friend today, and though she had been prepared for every scenario, this one hadn't even crossed her mind.

Bill kept pressing. "What about Michael? You...you babysat him when he was little."

"Stop," she ordered, her eyes filling with tears. "I'm...not going to kill you, Bill."

"But if I wasn't who I am - you would have killed me?"

"Yes," she growled. "Because my country ordered me to. Much like you're here to find an enemy of the state, and later your country will kill them. Don't play the angel card with me, Bill - I know this mission, I just didn't-"

"-know it was my mission?"

His normally friendly green eyes turned a dark stormy emerald, and he retrained the gun on the woman across from him. He had a hard decision to make, though it was becoming clearer the more he thought through the consequences. Sure, he'd always been a company man, but her words rang true in his mind. He knew this mission would result in the death of the man he was surveilling. Carlos Santiago was a drug kingpin, and Bill was aware of that. He was also aware of the fact that the surveillance intelligence he was supposed to gather was going to lead to the man's death, and that did not sit well with him. Still, he pushed it down and boarded the plane to Cuba.

Bill was now sure of two things. First, Carlos had friends in Russia. It was probably where Brezhnev got the cocaine for his parties at the Kremlin, and because Bill was the lead on this mission, he'd become a target. Second, he didn't want to die and he knew she no longer wanted to kill him. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed as thoughts raced through his head.

"Bill...are you going to let me go?"

Could he just let her go?

Probably not. The company line was digging at him - 'for god and country' - and even though he knew the Bristow's, he knew what was at stake if he kept his silence.

"Bill," she pleaded.

Her nervous voice pulled him from his thoughts and he refocused his green stare on her tear-filled brown eyes. "I don't know. I...don't think I can," he admitted, the gun still aimed.

"I'm not going to kill you," she said softly, hearing voices on the other side of the door. "But you need to tell me now. Think...think of Jack and Sydney."

Bill scoffed, his mouth opening to retort as the window behind him shattered. She jumped and a startled sound squeaked from her throat as something wet and sticky splashed across her eyes forcing them closed in reaction. She held still and reopened, her ears only dimly hearing two suppressed gunshots just outside the room.

A heavy boot hit the particle-board door to the shoddy hotel room, but her shocked and now blood-splattered pale face couldn't look away from the surprised green eyes of the man that had been her friend. He fell to his knees and brought a hand up to absently touch the gaping exit wound in the center of his chest. She fought the rough hands that grabbed her from behind as tears blurred her vision, though not enough to keep from seeing Bill Vaughn's eyes roll back as he fell face down on the shaggy yellow carpet that was now turning orange underneath his body.

"I'd never felt more like the betrayer than that night," Irina said softly, both mother and daughter wiping at their cheeks. "We lived in Virginia for the first year of your life, and Bill, Jack, and Arvin not only worked closely together, but they were genuine friends."

"Dad never mentioned that he knew Bill Vaughn." Sydney was still trying to come down from the shock of the initial revelation, now accompanied by detail, but genuine surprise filled her at the revelation of the Bristow's and Vaughn's being old family friends.

"Did...did you kill those other agents?"

Irina nodded, "yes. That was blind loyalty. At the time, I...I was serving my country. I didn't question my duties any more than you did when working for SD-6. Truth takes time, darling, you and I both have been victims of that fact."

Sydney was still trying to wrap her brain around everything her mother was telling her.

"I was taken back to Russia for interrogation. The excuse was that my sister was in a terrible accident and I needed to be there to help her - and Jack was, of course, supportive. They held me for four months and...the things they did, Sydney," Irina paused with a quiver to her chin, "made me lose the rest of the faith I'd put in my agency."

Sydney's eyes darkened and she broke from her mother's gaze to look at the blanket across her lap. She was beginning to feel exhausted, this being the longest she'd stayed awake in one stint this week.

"My sister Katya got me out but...damage was done. I still wake up some nights in a cold sweat and I still flinch when a man touches me if I'm not expecting their hand. It's...part of it will always be there. It won't all go away. I closed myself off for years afterward, and I can say that...that was the wrong way to handle things."

"I'm sorry, mom," Sydney whispered.

"Don't let yourself be consumed by it, sweetheart. The people that love you want so much to heal you, and you should let them. Not all of it will work, Sydney. Be ready for failures, and setbacks, and a lot of hard work, but you don't have to do it alone."

A tear rolled down Sydney's cheek. "I don't have any secrets left, mom. Everyone but you knows everything and...that's all they're going to see."

"They don't know everything. The camera turned off and there were hours only you experienced. It'll be up to you to share those details or not, but...don't hold it in from everyone. Tell those you feel it would be necessary to tell, but no more. Did...when you weren't being filmed, did he-"

Irina had never thought it would be so hard to ask a single question. Relief flooded her soul when her daughter gave a negative shake of her head, "no, he...but he threatened it a lot and...it doesn't mean he didn't touch me. I'm thankful for that, at least."

They lapsed into silence. "I don't know what to say to anyone," Sydney mumbled.

"Let them do the talking. Don't shy away from honesty." At her daughters 'are you serious' eye-narrowed glare, "I know, I know. Do as I say and not as I do."

Sydney thought for a moment. "Can...can I tell Vaughn the truth? About his dad?"

Irina passed a genuine smile to her daughter, leaned in, and kissed her on the forehead. "It was something I should have told you both a long time ago, and I'm sorry I didn't." Sydney's eyes began to droop. "Okay, that's enough for now."

The young woman protested, Irina seeing for the first time the fact that Sydney was fighting to stay awake.

"No, I'm not...please don't go yet."

"Sweetheart, you need rest," the mother started, unprepared by the panic on her daughter's face.

"They'll never let you back out and...I have no idea when I'll be able to see you again. Mom," she said harshly. "You're the only one that can help me right now."

Irina smiled sweetly, leaning in to press a kiss to Sydney's forehead, "they'll let me come back in, Sydney."

Again, the mother was taken back to the time she spent as Laura Bristow and the frustrating moments it took to get Sydney in bed and asleep as a child.

"But...I'm not tired." That garnered a laugh from the Russian that was quickly followed by an eye roll.

"Yes, you are."

"Mom-"

"You need to see your father. If anything...you need to do it for him as much as for yourself, sweetheart." Tucking the blankets around the fatigued shoulders, Irina tugged her fingers from the weak grip and turned toward the door.

"All he's going to see is me broken. How can I make him see anything else?" Sydney's voice was a strangled sob, and Irina had a hard time not turning back and pulling her against her chest until the guards broke in and forced her back to her cell.

"Right now, Sydney - right now you are broken. You are his broken daughter. You have to admit that before you can start to be fixed."

The tears that spilled from the wounded brown eyes punched the mother in the chest, but she still made her way to the door and knocked twice. It opened slowly and she stepped out without a backward glance.