Nothing to Write Home About

A Little Drop of Poison
By Misty Flores

Teaser:Moms, aunts, evil sisters, tortured cousins - it's a regular family reunion. Irina finally comes out of the closet - and it has disastrous consequences thanks to one of the betrayed.
Series: Nothing to Write Home About, Story XXVI
Crossover: Alias/The L Word
Characters: Think clowns in a circus car.

Introducing Laura Harring as Elena Derevko

The Derevkos, fabled women, weren't quite sure how to deal with each other. This was a family who killed and betrayed, lost and found their own loyalties for their own muddled purposes, thrown together in a room with bit players and guest stars.

It was a family reunion at its most dysfunctional. Love triangles were involved, lies, murders. All of it was trapped inside that building with them - in the rudest form of therapy imaginable.

History was said to be made in a building, a turning point when ten people entered a fight against the first assault Covenant targeted specifically at them, and eight were left. One betrayed them.

One was murdered.

One could argue that the Derevkos' strength, their ability to move on, no matter what was thrown at them, lay in their remarkable talent to forget the petty emotions in favor of their endgame.

Their destiny, they said, was unavoidable.

Eventually, they all knew it would get them all killed.

- excerpt from Legacy: The Downfall of the Covenant by Jennifer Schecter

Jack Bristow was a brilliant man - hardened by war, and softened by love.

Throughout the years, he found it remarkably easy to carry both men in his heart. The Lover. The Killer.

Occasionally, the killer consumed him, and it was only through the saving grace of Laura Bristow, that he managed to keep the other alive.

It was always a woman who consumed him. When his wife's treachery was revealed, he turned to his daughter to tame him.

Jack was a man who prided himself on his self- control. He was also prone to fantasy, to justification - to pushing dark realities away in favor of his own reasons, his own world.

In his mind, he had always carried the lingering hope that Irina Derevko carried Laura Bristow in her heart. It frightened him, in a dark place that resided in the bottom of his soul, to believe that Irina could be just like him and still face her realities - a task he found difficult.

Irina always had control - control over him, control over her life - and years went by when he tried to know her, tried to understand her capacity for control - what made her who she was. He still was unable to believe that Laura Bristow was truly a fabrication, no matter what she told him.

Laura's affair - Irina's affair - had torn his dream apart. It proved when he had never wanted to believe, that Laura Bristow - the woman who had controlled his instincts, who had given him his daughter, had never existed, and in her place, was a woman who could manipulate his mind and his heart with cool, calculating ease.

Sydney seemed to understand the shift in characters - how Laura and Irina were both her mother, how one could be dead and the other could be alive, and there could be no confusion.

Jack Bristow could never quite let Laura go.

His lower lip stung, blood long since dried, a pasty smear across his mouth. Irina hadn't hit him as hard as she could have. Most of it had to have been for show. She would have killed him had she truly desired it.

Consequently, he wished she had - because Jack Bristow was finally ready to kill Irina Derevko, his phantom lover, his dead wife, and despite the feeling of closure he was sure he would inevitably feel - he did not relish the idea.

She had turned him away from the monitor, but he heard the shots, and struggled to loosen the knots as soon as he heard the faint voice of his daughter. But Irina knew him too well, had removed his knives and guns, and clocked him in the temple, just the place that would distort his balance, blur his pain.

Ten minutes later, the door opened to reveal his daughter, wearing a scab on her cheek, bangs slick from sweat.

"Dad."

A thousand possible situations ran through his head, when Katya stepped in behind her.

Among them - the knowledge that Irina was certainly dead.

"Sydney," he said, straightening. "What happened?"

She set to work untying him, looking breathless and excited, eyes sparkling with unshed emotion. "Dad, Mom's on our side."

"Excuse me?"

"She's right," Katya said, his lover not sparing him a look, instead tapping at the monitor behind her.

Jack's hand sprang free, and quickly, he helped his daughter, unraveling the knots at his other wrist while she worked at his feet.

"Katya's working for the Covenant, Dad," Sydney said, voice suddenly gone cold as her glare flickered up at the woman. "She was leading us into a trap."

"What?" he breathed. The shock of it was blind-siding, and when her daughter nodded sagely, he turned, wrapped his palm around the neck of the evil woman and slammed her hard against the desk, tightening his grip. "You were leading us into a trap?"

"DAD!" He scarcely felt Sydney's hands on his arms. Instead his rage seemed to consume him, staring into the defiant eyes of Katya Derevko. "There's no time, Dad! They're coming now, and we have to fight them off - DAD!"

"Jack, kill me if you must," Katya breathed, "But you will never know the truth."

The truth. The truth was mottled and beaten, and possibly a lie, but he had fucked this woman, used this woman in an effort to cause some pain to his wife, believed her to be trusted.

"DAD!" With a sudden burst of strength, Sydney broke him free, pushing him hard away, leaving Katya to breathe heavily. "We don't have TIME for this," she snapped, and she motioned to her aunt, leaving the woman to get up, shaky. "Here." She slapped a radio in his palm. "Shane, Vaughn, Weiss and I are going to head them off. Work with Toni - see if you can give us their locations."

Katya was left behind, staring at him with her cold gaze.

"You women are poison," he breathed, hate consuming his words.

"We women are the reason you live," she murmured, and she left him, following his daughter out of the room.

Julian Sark was not a man easily beaten, but he was a man capable of a broken heart.

When Irina approached him, looking beautifully tragic with her long, auburn hair, sad, cat-eyes, he felt a slight splinter in his heart, seeping into his stomach.

The anger soon followed, but it was a hollow kind of anger; dangerous, but resigned. Irina Derevko made a habit of breaking his heart with her callous indifference to anything but her family.

He should have really known better than to believe he could ever be one of them.

She closed the door behind her, clanking it shut, deafening in the empty room.

"There was no plan, was there?" he asked calmly.

"No, there was," she said softly. "It hasn't changed. To defeat the Covenant is still my ultimate objective. I just refuse to sacrifice my daughters to do it."

"But you were willing to sacrifice me."

She knelt down in front of him, traced a soft fingertip across his face, a gentle, loving movement. "We make our choices," she said softly. "Our sacrifices. If I could have you by my side, Julian, I would. You were always like a son to me."

He didn't believe that anymore. Her words were poison.

"And what now?" he asked frankly.

"They're coming after you too," she said after a beat. "Lauren will have most likely told them what you have done to her. They will know you are a traitor. If you help us now, you will leave this place with me."

"If I don't?" he returned.

She didn't look happy when she said calmly, "Then we will leave you here to be found."

His loyalties were malleable - perhaps that was why she had never trusted him, never taken him as her own. She had been the only woman he had ever truly loved, but she had always loved others more.

"What do you want me to do?"

When the dagger slammed into the chair, vibrating from the impact, a foot away from Elena Derevko, she almost flinched, arching her neck back to study Marina.

"I could have used a little warning," she said, careful as she arranged the syringes into the suitcase.

"Sorry," Marina said, wincing a little as she knelt down, pulled the blade out of the chair. "I was just checking. It has been a while for me."

"Me too," Elena admitted, taking a moment to study the young woman. "It'll come back." Marina's warm brown eyes were not like her mother's, she noted. Elena had known of Marina's father, a dark, handsome man, who still traveled some of the better circles of Europe. Over the years, she had learned to hate him. Marina studied her, bore deep into her soul with her gaze, a slow, seductive blink that Elena recognized as unconscious, and she fought her smile.

"What do you do?" Marina asked, "When you're not here?"

"Here?" Elena repeated. "You mean pretending to be evil and following my sisters into impossibly dim circumstances?"

"Yes."

"I own a bakery," she said, a small smile on her face. "In a little town in this country." Marina regarded her, smile quirking on her lips. "I hear you have a café."

"I used to have a café," Marina admitted, stacking her papers. "I don't know about now..."

Marina's sorrow was noted, but the kinship Elena suddenly felt was slightly brighter. It kept a small smirk on her face when she whispered, "It's nice to get away from this, hmm?"

"I didn't miss it."

Steps moving lightly down the hallway called their attention, and Elena's smile faded when Julian Sark turned into the room, staring at them both with dead, angry eyes. "Irina said to report to you."

Julian Sark had had a rough day. Elena forced herself to remember that as she stood, acknowledged the boy who had been her lover just once. She remembered the infatuation in his eyes.

"Come," she said crisply, evenly. "We have our own task."

Marina snapped up the cases, handed one easily to Elena, and hitched her dagger into her belt, pulling the rifle over her shoulder.

She followed them out.

"Allright." Toni Cummings always insisted on her chairs having wheels, and for good reason. She nearly collided into Jenny as she pushed her away across her monitors. "What do we got?"

Jenny Schecter had a good eye for detail, and Toni had long since learned to use what she got and play up on their strengths.

Marina's little girlfriend was useful when she wasn't blubbering, and Toni kept her busy, scratching away at a notebook. "Twelve using the same back entrance as Marina and her aunts," Jenny chirped, squinting at the camera, looking comical in the borrowed glasses she had taken from Jack Bristow's case. "Using..." she looked down at her books. "MP5's," she said after a moment, "Right?"

"You got it," Toni confirmed, a small smatter of keys being pressed sounding like small spurts of gunfire. "Okay, get on the radio and I want you to relay exactly what you see to Sydney, all right?"

"Okay," Jenny said, sounding nervous and ill, but remarkably calm as she reached for the headseat, placing the over-sized muffs over her ear.

"Good," Toni said, taking in a haggard breath. "Now let me see how I can fuck up our boys from the Covenant."

"Headquarters, this is Boyscout, Come in, Over."

Jack leaned forward, pressing at the button on the side of the radio, carefully tapping at the controls. "This is Headquarters, over."

Vaughn's voice was a soft, barely there whisper. "We're closing in on the back entrance," he said. "We need to know where the other four went..."

"Roger, Boyscout," he said. "Standby."

"There's only one other entrance," came Irina, directly behind him. He didn't look, but in weakness imagined how she would look, standing against the doorway, pushing it closed with her palms and her ass. Her tone was low, flat, void of emotion, fluxing up and down with a 'fuck me' voice that seeped into him like poison. "I have Elena, Marina and Sark covering it - they're using it for their own purposes. Odds are, the four that are left will try to sneak through."

She caused an ache, one that he, in his training, immediately isolated, closed off, even as his throat became a desert and his abdomen hardened.

He didn't look at her, as he spoke, struggling to keep himself calm, even, "Do you suggest we break up the group?"

"No," she said, settling down beside him, sleeve brushing his arm, and he finally looked at her, the beautiful face, the cat eyes. "We'll need Sydney and her team to cover the twelve that are entering the other way. They can handle it. I've sent Katya to help."

"I've loved and hated you," he finally said, a mangle of words he found himself unable to control. "I am unable to decide which pains me more."

She paused, fingers on her keyboard, before she turned and said smoothly, "You never loved me, Jack. But a manifestation of a dream. For a time I fooled myself into believing it was truly me you loved. I've decided, that is no longer the case." He stared hard at her, before she looked away. "We don't have time for this. Watch Sydney."

If she had to choose for an ambush, this really wouldn't have been it.

The tunnel leading to the basement was hollow and filled with beams, a narrow corridor leading to an entrance, and dark windows right above it, painted black with patches filtering in moonlight.

She could barely see those around her, and her heart was beating unnaturally. Vaughn was a flickering shadow, a glimmer of a barrel of a gun, ten feet away, hidden by a large wooden beam. Shane's breathing was a gasp, recognition of her fear that made Sydney tighten on the butt of her gun, keep her eyes on the entrance.

Only Weiss was completely silent, hidden in the corner.

When the crash came from the window, the room burst in an explosion of sound. Sydney opened fire, rising to her knees against the force of the gun, catching in the small slivers of moonlight, the man who were mowed against the walls, four brought down by the rat-tat-tat of Sydney and her companion's guns.

The others were smarter, using their friends as sheilds, and she had to duck to reload, as the shooting frenzy began, chunks of cement eaten out of the beam she used as a shield by bullet, splatters of concrete biting into her cheek.

They were coming fast, too fast.

She heard Vaughn's yowl of anger, another burst, and she closed her eyes for one quick second, praying they all would make it out alive.

"Guys," she spoke haggardly into thin air. "I could really use another pair of eyes."

"On your right, Sydney," she heard, Jenny's voice muddy with static. "On your right, NOW!" Immediately she jerked, shot without thinking, catching a dark blob straight in the chest, sending him back into a spasming figure that disappeared in the simmering gunfire.

"Thanks," she said breathlessly.

"We have someone on the inside," Elena explained. "Who's attempting to cut off communication with this group from whoever sent them."

It was said as an aside, to Marina, and her niece nodded quickly in return.

Julian Sark was in front of them, always in front of them, loaded pistol aimed in the direction of the darkening hallway, as the trio inched their way closer to the entrance.

When the sounds of the fire-fight started, Julian didn't look surprised. He had a smirk on his boyish face, and Elena swallowed down the urge to smack him, instead peering down the hallway.

Marina looked noticeably ansty, frozen in her horror.

"They're too many," she said after a moment.

They were purposely cut off, a decision made by Katya and Irina, preferring that Sark not know exactly what the other team was up to. Elena only wore an earpiece, detailing the back and forths from the groups in the control room, to Toni, back to Sydney at the front.

"Elena," she heard, a snap from Irina, "You need to send Marina with the cases. You might be meeting up with four of the rest and we can't risk them getting the fluid."

It was a split second decision, but she made it, when Sydney yelled something and was cut off in a blast of fire.

"Go," she said quickly, pushing both cases in Marina's hand. "Help them. We'll be fine."

"I was told-"

"If he tries anything he's a dead man," Elena said, motioning to Sark, who watched them both with darkened eyes of a snake, simmering in his bitter anger. "GO."

Marina was torn, but she went, locking eyes with Julian before she ran down the corridor with the cases, back where they came from.

"Is this really you then?" Julian Sark asked in the silence that followed, regarding her with a practiced ease. "Are you this woman? Who would fuck me for the sake of an alliance?"

"I fucked you Julian, because it felt good," she said stiffly, a small smirk dancing on her lips before it retreated for a scowl, "And because you seemed to want it badly enough to forget yourself."

She hurt him, and she wondered at it, wondered for even a second if Julian Sark had truly fallen in infatuation this quickly, if her blood had seeped into him like poison.

Shaking it off, she moved past him, steady and strong toward the exit, gun leveled in front of her.

"What you are," he said coldly, "Is a whore."

Frozen, she took in a calming breath, fighting the justifiable anger that slid into her soul. She turned back, discovered a frighteningly young man, nearly trembling in his emotion.

She took another step, then another, until she pressed her lips against his, a soft sweep of a tender kiss that, to her surprise, he returned gently.

When she pulled back, his eyes had clouded.

"Don't kid yourself, Julian," she said softly. "In this, we're all whores."

When Katya arrived, Irina lost no time in ordering her around.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, thick and angry. "Why aren't you with Elena?"

She stared hard at her, an even gaze as she lifted up the briefcase that contained her precious fluid. "Marina gave this to me on her way to help the others."

Jack Bristow looked haunted, a stoic mask hiding what she imagined was a world of pain. She wondered if this was awkward for him, his lover standing in the same room as his wife. The so-called love of his life.

Perhaps it was bitterness that drove her to betray Irina, bitterness that she spent her life always in the tailspin of her baby sister - that her daughter was tortured and mangled because Irina's own daughters were too special for such treatment. Because she had lied to, manipulated, tormented Jack Bristow for decades and the man could still not shake his evident love for his wife.

It was almost pathetic.

It was almost as pathetic as the jealousy that singed her now.

"I do not trust Sark alone with her," Irina said, eyes on the monitor, while Jack Bristow favored ignoring her completely, speaking instructions into a handset, apparently being the eyes for Michael Vaughn. "Elena had to compromise herself to gain his trust."

"Then you should not have let him out," Katya said stiffly.

"Would you prefer I locked you up as well?" Irina said, still facing away from her, as if she were not important enough to speak to face-to-face. "I don't trust you either. At the moment, we have similar interests - and now is NOT THE TIME, Katya-"

Similar interests. It sparked a smile, and absurdly, Katya felt like a petulant child. But it did not stop her.

"Similar interests," she repeated. "Indeed. I always rather did enjoy Jack's curious mole. I didn't understand your penchant for it until I tasted it for myself."

It was the worst thing Irina Derevko could have heard, and she smiled, saw the flash in Irina's eyes that told how deep she had cut her. Jack Bristow could ignore this no longer, swiveling back to look at her with nearly horrified eyes - as if he had not fucked her for this moment all along.

Irina was visibly struggling for even breath. "Fine," she managed, in a dark, deadly tone. "If you will not go, then I will. Continue the transmission with Toni."

She stood, ready to push past her, ready to ignore it completely, and Katya couldn't handle that. Not anymore.

She reached forward, did the unthinkable - grabbing at Irina with flashing eyes - and she got what she wanted.

Her sister lost control, shoving Katya hard until she nearly lost her balance, and suddenly there was a blade at her throat, Irina's murderous eyes dark in their anger.

"Ten down," Jenny chirped in her ear, breathless in her excitement. "You've got four left, Sydney."

"I've also got zero ammunition," she snapped under her breath, dropping the now useless rifle, pushing her bangs out of her eyes, sticky in their sweat, and reaching into her belt to pull out her pistol. "I'm alone, Jenny," she said softly. "Where the hell is everyone?"

In a dark corner, she heard random shots and scuffles, but she kept her back pinned to the wall, pistol cocked and ready, straining to hear a familiar voice above the beating of her heart.

"Weiss is stuck in the next room," Jenny said after a moment, "He's okay for now. Shane..."

"Shane what?" Sydney breathed, suddenly frozen. "Shane WHAT!?"

"She's cornered," Jenny said. "She's cornered, two doors down, Sydney- GET OVER THERE-"

Sydney was up, moving when suddenly Vaughn shouted, a faraway din in the opposite direction.

"Vaughn," she snapped. "Where's Vaughn?"

"He's surrounded," Jenny said, sounding panicked and scared, and it only infected Sydney more, caused her heart to thud painfully, churning. "He's got two on him-"

Shane - VAUGHN...

Nausea welled into her throat, and Sydney glanced frantically from left to right, completely lost as to what to do.

Her heart tore itself in two, and still, she couldn't move either way.

SHE COULDN'T CHOOSE.

"SHIT!"

Weiss gasped, pressed himself tighter against the desk, casting a dirty look toward his useless rifle. The ammunition had run out too fast, and now, he was stuck, pistol dropped in a scuffle with the last guy he had killed, impossible to find in the dark excuse for a basement.

Step, by step, he heard the man walk, patience - a man looking for a rat in a maze.

He couldn't call out for help - he would be heard and then he couldn't even use surprise, his only advantage.

The man came closer, closer, and Weiss shut his eyes tight, taking a moment to pray to whoever was listening before he tightened his grip, ready to slam the butt of the rifle into the knees of his assailant.

One... two...

A whir, A thud, a strangled choke, and Weiss, still frozen in position, watched with impossibly wide eyes as the body of the man sent to kill him slumped down in front of him, a blade protruding from his throat.

"What the..."

The light flicked on, and he blinked, wincing against the assault on his orbs.

His blurry vision beheld a beautiful woman, pulling the blade from the man's throat, ignoring his yelp of pain and wiping it on his sleeve.

"Marina?"

She became clearer, outline defined, and when he pushed up, she met him with a worried smile.

"Weiss-"

He cut her off with a kiss, searching her mouth hungrily, tasting her for just one second before he got his control back, held her breathlessly, staring into her now befuddled expression.

"I love you," he blurted. "I mean... I really... love you." Utter silence. Marina stared at him with a bewildered gaze, as if disbelieving, frozen stiff in his arms. In the cacophony of gunfire and yells, he suddenly felt so fucking stupid. "Probably not the best time to mention that..."

She blinked, suddenly shaken out of the moment, pulling away from him, and motioning to the door. "Come on. We have to go."

Katya twisted Irina's, ignoring the flashing blade as she wedged a space between them, managing a boot foot on Irina's abdomen and pushing hard.

She flew back, caught herself, but Katya already had her knife ready, in a defensive crouch.

"This is the animal you've become, Irina," she whispered. "You cannot fool me the way you fool everyone else. I alone know what you are capable of."

"Yes," Irina said, straight and tall, deceptively at ease. "Because you are capable of so much worse."

The click of a gun distracted Katya, and she swallowed when she saw the angered, calm, dangerous sneer of Jack Bristow, holding a gun, aimed directly at her chest. "Enough of this," he said crisply.

They encountered no one when they reached the entrance, absolute quiet when Julian pulled the door open a half inch, observing.

"Well," he said, a small smirk of a grin on his face. "That was surprisingly easy."

"Come on," Elena said, moving past him, face downcast, eyes on the small sliver of moonlight that was brought in by the open door. "We have to find the van - take what information we can get..."

"Spying, are we?" Julian asked, amused at the suggestion, and Elena found herself suddenly smiling back at him, a moment of relief, the moment slightly anti-climatic.

She should have known better.

The first shot nicked her on her shoulder, and she ducked back, cursing when Sark grabbed her hand and pulled, dragging her to safety, already shooting back.

Elena sucked in her breath, cursing herself for her foolishness, hand on her shoulder, trying hard to control the bleeding.

"Are you allright?" he asked, shouting above the gunfire, ducking against the men, shooting back, pushing them back all the way.

"Let them get inside," she said, breathless in her pain, managing to get to her feet. "Once they enter we can pick them off..."

They didn't even need to do that.

The men crashed through, but they didn't even have a chance to squeeze off one shot, before their heads exploded with two bullets.

As the mutilated bodies slumped to the floor, Elena recognized Lauren Reed, a smoking gun in her hand, a smile on her face.

"Well," she said softly. "Just who I was hoping to run into."

Never in her life had she felt so damned inept.

She had to think like an agent, and in her agent's mind, she could convince herself to go after Vaughn - bceause Vaughn's life meant more than Shane's -

She had sworn to leave her heart out of this!

But her heart pulled her in both directions, and Sydney had to MOVE NOW, because if she didn't they would BOTH be dead - she would lose them both-

"Sydney!" Jenny screamed, a screeching shout that rung in her ear. "Just go-"

"Jenny-"

"Marina and Weiss are on their way for Vaughn, just GO-"

And she did, sprinting as fast as she could, ignoring the coward's relief in her heart.

Julian Sark should have expected it to come to this.

His grip tightened on Elena's shoulder, careful as the blood seeped over her palm, staining her palm red.

Lauren Reed, magnificent in her utter capacity for cruelty, looked very much like a cat well fed on milk, smug smirk taking over her face, pistol leveled directly at his head.

She had absolutely no care at all for the fact that his own gun was pointed straight at her.

"It seems you've been filled in," Lauren observed, laughter in her tone. "For some reason, I feel absurdly happy about it. How does it feel, Julian?"

"How does what feel, Lauren?" he asked, rising carefully to the floor, watching his former lover like a hawk, careful, never her eyes, always her gun.

"How does it feel to be betrayed?"

Elena, pushing to her feet, bloody hand still pasted on her shoulder, made only a whimper of pain, kept quiet, more than likely assessing the situation.

"Not well," he admitted. "But I rather say we're even now, Lauren."

"Even," she repeated, chuckle under her breath, as if the idea itself was ridiculous. "Even, how?"

"I stabbed you in the back, however figuratively..." she smiled at that, and he easily followed with, "And you did the same to me, quite literally."

"Ah... so all this doubt and betrayal puts us even, does it?" Lauren seemed to consider that, and Sark knew better, knew much better. She had already made her decision, and now, his only hope was to judge how quickly he could shoot before she shot him first.

Until she surprised him.

"I know how we make things square," she said finally, and her eyes shifted to Elena.

His beautiful lover still bled profusely, and she looked slightly pale now, but to her credit, Elena did not show her fear to Lauren. She held her ground, caught between two vipers, catching Lauren's gaze and throwing back her own glare.

"Here's a hypothetical situation," she breathed. "For... judgement's sake. Elena Derevko shot me, Sark. And it hurt. What would you do to make things square?"

Elena's swallow was a hard, angry bob, but she still did not speak, and Sark, for the first time in quite awhile, was confused.

Michael Vaughn was good at hand-to-hand, but he was exhausted, and the ammunition had long since ran out on his end, leaving his two attackers with plenty of rounds, and a sitting duck.

With his pistol, he winged one, before he dove, shimmying along desks and overturned tables, while the blasts of gunshots followed.

"HELP? Would be GREAT ABOUT NOW!" he snapped into his radio.

And he got it, when the whizz of a knife took an attacker by surprise, slamming into the side of his face.

He rose, taking his shot at the other, bringing him down fast and easy.

Marina frowned at him, coming forward, to pull her knife out.

"DAMN," Weiss said, coming up behind them. "That was..."

Vaughn had no time for thanks or appreciation. "Where's Sydney?"

Sydney Bristow nearly skidded to a stop, turning into the room specified by Jenny to find Shane embroiled in a bar fight, and on the losing end.

Her friend had long ago lost her gun, her right cheek had a bruising line, and at the moment, Shane was doing she could to keep her pursuer away from her. The room was a wreck.

And Shane was so very close to dying.

One aim, one shot, and Sydney's enemy slumped, his blood splattering on Shane.

She saw her then, her beautiful hairdresser with her spiky hair, and Sydney's heart broke for the bloody vision of Shane, who slumped to the floor, exhausted, gasping, eyes closing as she fought for breath.

"Syd..."

"Shane..." Her mouth dry, Sydney licked her lips, stepping forward, kneeling down in front of her, almost scared to touch her. "Shane... are you okay?"

"I think... I think I might..." Shane grimaced, and managed a pained smile, holding up a wrist that seemed bent oddly. "I think I might have broken this."

Sydney's heart twisted, and she nodded, fighting the lump in her throat, careful as she gingerly handled it, wincing when Shane hissed at the contact. "Okay... it's definitely broken," she agreed. "We're going to fix that, I promise."

"Syd, I'm sorry."

Shane looked up, eyes locking with hers in an intense, bewildered frown. "Why are you sorry?"

"I almost fucked up."

Sydney couldn't stop herself from reaching forward, tracing her thumb alongside Shane's face, lining her lips with a gentle caress. "You fucking kicked ass, Shane."

Shane had never been so beautiful than she was at that moment, when she gave Sydney a startled, bewildered smile, bright eyes shining with a moment of proud joy that had been produced by Sydney.

She was absolutely amazing.

She didn't know what it might have led to, on that floor in that basement, staring intensely at Shane's lips, tracing them with her fingertips, if Marina hadn't interrupted, brought the world with her.

"Shane."

Sydney nearly jumped, turning back to find her cousin in the doorway, followed quickly by Weiss, then Vaughn.

"Marina-" Marina gave her a fierce hug, her cousin sweaty but that was all.

"Are you all right?" she asked, accent thick in her emotion, palms cradling Sydney's face.

"Yeah... Shane's broken her wrist-"

Immediately, Marina knelt, embracing her friend, speaking to her in low murmers that Sydney couldn't hear, because her relief took hold and she wrapped Vaughn in her arms, taking in his musty scent, feeling his living body next to hers.

"Thank God," he whispered, brushing a kiss on her cheek.

"Hey Guys..." Weiss looked uncomfortable, almost red really, and Sydney couldn't stop to think of a reason why, because he asked, "Where are the others?"

"After all this," Katya whispered, eyes flashing with emotion. "It's still me you point a gun to."

"It's still you who would have killed my daughter without a second thought," he said crisply. "And quite frankly, I have never been known for my objectivity, when it comes to my daughter."

"Jack," Irina whispered. "This has nothing to do with you."

"It has everything to do with me, Irina," he snapped. "Everything."

"Have you always been this close-minded?" Katya wondered. "This self-centered?" Once again, she was ignored.

"Is it really?" Irina's glare sparked like flint. "In that case, Jack-"

And she smiled, when Irina backhanded him across the face, a surprise attack that left him slumped in the chair, Irina settled on top of him, arms crossed over his chest.

"You've lost any right you ever had to hurt me the minute you fucked Katya," she heard, whispered and dangerous, and so like Irina.

"You have no right-" he whispered, words Katya could barely hear. "You have -"

"And I have done much worse, thirty years ago," she snapped. "Much worse. Such a man, Jack - I kill agents, I lie to you, give you tainted vows, and your unforgivable sin is sleeping with a man I was ordered to sleep with - much like I was ordered to sleep with you." She paused, let it sink in, before she said, almost in afterthought, "The only difference was, I enjoyed it with you."

She pushed off of him, turned her attention back to her sister, and by then, the steam had run out.

Katya's sanity had returned the moment Irina struck her husband, and somehow, her bitterness dissipated, for the moment.

The radio, forgotten in the chaos that had overtaken the room, now sparked to life, static making it almost impossible to hear, until one name was repeated. "Elena."

Katya's chest ached in a severe spike, and without another word, she nodded, and followed her sister in a sprint, out the door.

"- In the front entrance pointing a gun to Elena's HEAD!"

Jenny's voice was near shrill, her husky quality gone in her panic, and Marina jolted up, catching Sydney's gaze, breathless.

"Watch SHANE!" Sydney shouted, and immediately, they left the others, sprinting as fast as they could.

He was at a crossroads now, unsure, indecisive, Lauren behind him, and Elena in front - each so distinctive.

"Julian..." Elena spoke now, eyes wide, staring down the barrel of the gun pointed directly at her forehead, held in his calm, cool hand.

Julian's loyalties were malleable, and he was a killer.

Lauren, a devil on his shoulder, pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, triumphant. "The world will be ours," she whispered. "There is nothing more we can do to each other - no one else to live for."

Freedom.

He swallowed, found to his surprise, his own beating heart, his soul, in the glitering eyes of Elena Derevko.

He spoke.

"I was once told," he began, "That to love a Derevko was to encounter a little drop of poison. Just a taste, you see, that seeped inside and infected, spread through you like a cancer." He considered this, and suddenly smiled. "I was told there was no cure." He cocked the gun. "Perhaps this is the antidote."

There was no sound, nothing but a black and white image.

But when it happened, Jenny screamed, covering her face and turning away, into the arms of Toni Cummings, who kept watching, with a throat that ached, a soul that died, and tears.

She hadn't cried since she was a little girl.

They were too far away - the shot came, and Sydney jerked in reaction, faster now, pumping her legs, Marina right behind her.

Turning the corner, they nearly collided into her mother and her aunt, who both took one look at their daughters before pushing past them.

Sydney and Marina weren't far behind.

There were four Derevko women, a twisted family reunion, who encountered the bleeding body of Elena Derevko, lying in a pool of her own blood, in an empty corridor.

FIN