Day 6 continued

Irina dressed and joined Jack in the living room, on the couch. She wasn't sure where their conversation would lead, but knew that Jack needed the closure it would bring.

"If you were so concerned with our daughter's well-being, why didn't you try to get in contact with me sooner?" Jack asked, calmly.

"By the time the KGB stopped watching me, it had been ten years since they'd extracted me. You wouldn't have listened."

He didn't argue, but asked another question, "What happened in Panama? Why didn't you stick to the plan?"

"I honestly didn't know what to do or think when Sark showed up instead of Sloane. I tried to improvise the best I could. I didn't know what Sloane had planned with the limousine. Once I met with him, I did the only thing I could: I went along with his plans in order to protect Sydney. I needed to know what, if any, danger he represented," Irina paused. "After we . . . made love that night, I had hope for us. I thought you did, too. Why didn't you believe in me? Trust me?"

"You made love to me countless time when we were married. There was no way I could be completely sure that you wouldn't betray me again. I had to cover my bases, and in this case I was technically correct."

"Then you didn't feel anything at all?"

"I hope for the best, but expected the worst."

Irina knew that Jack tended to avoid answering questions that made him vulnerable by giving a non-answer. The fact that he did it now made her sure that Panama meant more to him than he was willing to admit. But she took pity on him and changed the direction of the conversation.

"Can I ask you something, now?"

Jack was wary but nodded his assent anyway.

"What happened to the man I married?"

"Excuse me?"

"In the year and a half that I've been back, I haven't heard you laugh one. And I've barely seen you smile. You weren't like this when we were married."

"Being thrown in solitary for six months will change a man."

"What did they do to you?"

For the first time, Jack spoke about what the CIA had done to him. "For most of the six months, I was kept completely isolated. The only time I was allowed any contact was when I was being interrogated. They kept Sydney away from me the entire time; she was told I was away on business.

"They kept me in a room without any windows, I didn't see sunlight until I was released. It made it harder to keep track of the days and I never knew when someone would barge into the cell to ask the same questions over and over.

"After I was released, I didn't have much to smile about. So I tried to protect Sydney the only way I could think of. I shut her out; I didn't want her to feel the kind of pain she felt when 'Laura' died. If I pushed her away, then if anything happened to me, it would be quite as bad."

"But what about you, Jack?"

"You should know by now that everything I do is in service of protecting Sydney. It didn't matter the cost to me. But I always did what I could for her; I took her out to dinner, to the mall, and I was always there on important occasions, even if she didn't know it."

"What about SAB47?"

Jack's eyes clouded over with pain. He didn't question how Irina knew about the project, just assumed that Sloane had told her. "I never want Sydney to find out what I did! Project Christmas the over-arching operation. SAB47 was the detailed reports I gave the CIA. They contained information pertaining to how she could be trained for them.

"All operatives were required to open a file on their children. Some agents were urged to conduct experiments or train their children from birth. I originally refused. But after you were . . . gone . . . I thought, especially when I learned what you were, that Sydney should have specialized training to keep her from falling victim to what you did to me. The CIA chose the schools and programs and I followed, blindly until Sydney was 13."

"What happened when she was 13?"

"I quit drinking. She came home from school and found me drunk in my study. She gave me such a look of disgust . . .

"I decided to take control at that point. I hated how she looked at me, and I hated myself more for letting it happen. My superiors weren't happy when I took her out of their hands, but I finally realized that they were bent on turning her into a machine, someone who followed orders without questioning them. I was not about to let that happen. But instead, I lost my daughter to Arvin Sloane."

Neither of them spoke, but Irina moved from her end of the couch to sit next to him. She tugged his hand into hers.

"A grasshopper walks into a bar. The bartender looks at him and says, 'Hey we got a drink named after you!' The grasshopper says, 'You have a drink named Phil?'"

Jack smiled and let out a small chuckle. "What was that?"

"Sydney told me Mr. Vaughn told her that joke while they waited for the outcome of my hearing."

"It's probably the worst joke I've heard. But this is Vaughn we're talking about."

"But it got you to laugh," she pointed out.

"Yeah, it did." Then something occurred to him, "Oh, Jesus! The intel! I uploaded it to our server. We need to examine it!"

Once the intel was retrieved, Irina and Jack could see that there was no mention of Sydney. In fact there were only five names listed in the entire file: Deanna Carson, Andrew Edwards, Mathew Garson, Julia Thorne, and Blair Wilkins. Most of the file contained information relating to a brainwashing technique that the Covenant had devised called Total Personality Transfer. The organization had been testing it on the people whose names were mentioned.

"It's a dead end," Irina sighed.

"Not necessarily," Jack was uncharacteristically optimistic. "There are three female names here. They could mean something. We should do some checking into them; you know they could be aliases." He turned to face her. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For giving me hope." Jack leaned in and kissed her, letting his tongue lightly trace her lips.

When she responded, he let his hands roam over her body. He moved to lift up her shirt but she stopped him.

"Jack, wait a minute. I need to say something . . ."

"No, you don't."

"Just . . . humor me, ok? I need to say this, but I am not expecting anything from you." She took a deep breath, "I love you."

Jack didn't move. He didn't speak. He didn't breathe. Irina thought she'd ruined the moment and decided to leave the room. She was just inside the bedroom when she heard Jack say, lowly, "I love you, too."

Tears sprang to her eyes as she turned back to face him. He was standing now, looking at her expectantly. She closed the distance between them, carefully putting her arms around his waist.

Jack kissed the top of her head. "You know, as much as I would like to, taking you into that bedroom and making love to you is not really feasible in our conditions."

"I know. But that doesn't mean we can't engage in some heavy petting." She gripped him through his cotton sweatpants and led him to the bedroom.