Author - Dot (and_so_it_begins)

Rating - PG-13

Disclaimer - Yes, i own all of Alias. NOT! Usual people that i dont know.

Distribution - Yeah, if you want it when i'm done, sure! Just tell me where its going

Setting - End of Trust Me. (Which was all i'd seen when i'd first written this! I was debating for ages whether or not to actually post it)

Note - I love Irina, so, y'know, expect no less than everything! Plus, since we dont know much, obviously i made stuff up!

**

It's quiet in here. It always is. I hum to myself sometimes, almost silently. Often, it is the songs that i'd sing to Sydney when she was asleep as a child. Perfect times, with the man who loved me, and a child who i adored, more than words can express. The times when even i could forget the person i was.

How things can sour. I should have guessed that it would come to a head the way it did. The way i cried on the plane back to Moscow, the bruises from the accident still discolouring my flesh, and the chill form the icy water still chilling in my veins.

My motives are something noone could comprehend but me. Evem *i* sometimes struggle with the person i am. Cold, distant, powerful. How Irina Derevko evolved in the 33 years since her recruitment to the KGB. How a 21 year-old optimistic young woman degenerated into the 53 year-old battle worn woman i see in the glass before me. My hands show my age, but my face still gives the illusion that i may be younger than i am.

Faint scars adorn my body, faded with age, yet i can place every one of them. There's a line across my stomach. November 22nd 1981. The KGB's way of telling me to forget my family. To forget Laura Bristow. The illusion of her remains powerful, even to this day. People treated me with respect as her, as they did later, but it meant more that the teacher commanded respect.

They blamed me for all the misdoings of the KGB, despite all the things i had done for them. I'd savagely murdered the 12 agents on their list. It was the 13th i had had the problem with. That i couldnt bring myself to kill. After Vaughn, i didnt believe in the things i stood for. The sickening crack of bone... the smell of gasoline... tangible to me. I close my eyes. The others had been easy, but he'd fought me. Fought to stay alive. For his wife and their little son.

The son who tries to help Sydney. I cant say sorry to him. I did it to keep myself breathing. To keep Khasinau from doing what he threatened. Killing Sydney. My reason for being. My Angel. The unification of a patriot and his deceptive Russian wife. So i ran. I couldnt leave Sydney without a Father, and i had to leave before the CIA discovered me. Destroyed Sydney's view of me, left her with no good memories.

I remember before the accident. I kissed Sydney goodbye and i drove. Alone. I liked the quiet. I knew Valenko was there. To kill me because i refused. So i plunged.

His gun pointed at me... the shot... the pain in my shoulder... the pain when he told me he was taking me 'home'. But home was nowhere. My mother was dead. My true family believed i had drowned.

Home was a cold prison camp. Starvation. Torture. Shocks. They couldnt reach inside me and pull out any spark that still remained. They tried, but i killed that spark myself. Mottled scars on my arms, my back. There's a technique that i taught myself; disconnecting pain. Difficult, and exhausting as hell, but it can be done. That's why i stopped sleeping. It was faster. I discovered meditation as a way to erase the pain.

I was released in July 1982. Project Xmas was in full swing, we had our recruits. Fast forward 10 years, the fall of the Soviet. I was free, finally, of the KGB, it's rules and it's enforcements upon me. But it couldnt be. I knew. I knew i was the creature they had created me to be. I knew i had nowhere to go. I knew exactly what was expected of me.

What is it they tell you? 'We all find our destiny when we're tested'? It was then that i found, finally, my true fixation. On a 15th century inventor and his legacy, that i needed to solve. Milo Rambaldi. Rounding up displaced agents was easy. Teaching Khasinau who the real boss was; more difficult. The harder task was accomplished. A dead woman could be 'the man'. I was better than them; and i knew it.

7 years to collect assets, artefacts, and then we took over the underground. Simple. They were dogs looking for masters. All of them. I allow myself to smile at that. The smiles fades almost as soom as it came on.

When i think about the things i learned in that time, i have to shudder. That my husband, disillusioned with the CIA, had switched sides with the rather repulsive Arvin Sloane. But, he was better than that. God, i always hated Sloane. Still do. Especially learning the things he has done to my Sydney over that time. I think Sloane wanted someone like me in his organisation.

Fatal miscalculation. Sydney does have parts of me in her; determination, driving desires, tints of darkness buried within. But, she does bury them. She's her Father's child, and for that i'm proud of them both.

I'm proud of her. She could have fallen to me, cried, but she hasnt. 'Agent Bristow' wants me to address her as a superior. I love it. Reminds me of myself at her age.

She'd weaken, eventually. Only when she's weakened will she ever know who i truly am, what i truly feel.

And what my motives are. Back To Alias Fic