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Smiling she held him closer, his chest rising and falling slowly. Her mind still a bit fuzzy from the wine, content, the tension worked out once more. She'd been a child when they'd married, naive and unprepared for how he would make her feel. It still amazed her, the way he would let go of everything. Trusting her completely when her hands found his skin.
It was always about her, about what she wanted. Nuzzling his neck she took him in. Their scent mingling with the smoke of the fire, now only glowing embers, the scent of the pine in the corner, only halfway dressed with holiday trimmings.
With heavy eyes, Laura Bristow, pulled the fleece throw off the couch and covered their spent bodies before she joined her husband in peaceful slumber.
********
Jack kicked the damp sheets from his body and pushed himself out of bed.
She should have stayed dead.
He couldn't help but remember those first Christmases together. The way he couldn't wait to leave the office. How she'd protest when he was called out of bed in the middle of the night. Her skin, like silk, against his skin. The way her fingers danced across his heated flesh, teasing, adoring, loving as they tasted him. Warm, soft, and tender.... Laura had been all those and more.
But Irina...
He hated her with a passion. But remembering Laura... Knowing every inch of Laura's body...
Well that caused a different kind of passion. One Jack Bristow was in no mood for remembering.
Jack paced the floor, grabbing the open bottle of scotch, quickly gulping down enough to make him choke and cough. Trying to burn all the thoughts Irina sent through his mind.
Irina made the line between love and hate too thin. She made him remember. Made him want. Ache. Despise and detest all at once.
Seeing her locked up in a glass cage made him want to use her like she'd used him. He wanted her to hurt like he had hurt, then beg for Laura again.
At one point she had been his life. His only desire. And erasing that, pretending that it had never happened, was something he didn't know how to do. But something he had better learn quickly. Each searing glance left him weaker then the last. Each word that dripped from her honeyed mouth chipped away at the shield he'd spent years developing.
Yes, Irina Derevko had a way of getting under his skin. She housed herself in an area reserved solely for his wife. Solely for Laura.
Problem was...which one of them was the lie?
Opening a window, searching for an escape from his thoughts, Jack stood with his bottle of scotch. Lost in memories of mistletoe. In a world where Caulder had never come for her.
*********
Laughter bounced off the walls. Jack watched Sydney put another piece of tinsel in her mother's hair.
"There. Daddy, don't you think Mommy is prettier now?" Her bright, inquisitive eyes, were his world. She was so much like Laura. He was grateful for that at least. Laura was ten times the person he would ever be.
Laura was beautiful, with or without the tinsel. Her warm smile, promises of later. He answered back with his eyes before grabbing his wife around the waist and pulling her to his side, to place a kiss on her cheek. Unable to keep his hands to himself any longer. Needing to feel her body close to his.
"I seem to remember a few Christmases where we never got this far." Jack growled in his wife's ear, nodding toward the tree. Intent on making her remember all the nights they'd made love by the fire, forgetting the tree and holiday trimmings.
"You know... Beautiful as it is..." Laura smirked, allowing herself to be lost in his arms.
Sydney cleared her throat and rolled her eyes, ending the kiss and causing them to break away.
Jack scooped his daughter up, laughing, he teased her.
"Santa can't come if you're still up. It's bed time carebear." He carried their daughter upstairs, glancing back to see if his wife understood his sudden need to have her skin next to his. She was almost to much for him. Without fail, being close to her, breathing the same air, was always his undoing. Always left him begging for more. Somehow though, he didn't seem to mind.
The fire in her eyes answered all his questions. He'd never seen her more beautiful then in that moment. A baggy sweat shirt and jeans with one knee torn out, tinsel in her mused hair. He hurried up the stairs.
They ended up spending the rest of the night in front of the fire, lighting a few of their own.
******
Irina sighed.
Wishing once more to have the freedom to lose herself in anything. But her cage locked all thought in and they didn't offer alcohol to prisoners. Jack didn't know how good he had it. Every time he was plagued with unwanted thoughts he could go drown it in his scotch.
She on the other hand was stuck without a trace of anything to help ease her discomfort.
Toaster...
It wasn't hard to remember why the toaster had started on fire... Fire seemed to be catching. It had very little to do with the alcohol. A lot more to do with the way he was distracted with her flesh. A lot more to do with the way he was moving against her.
He was a fool if he thought she had enjoyed leaving everything behind. A bigger fool if he thought she had no regrets. Didn't long for his contact. Didn't remember how good they had been.
She was young, foolish... and he would never understand that.
It was so damn frustrating.
Irina pushed herself off the ground and paced the small confines of her cell, pausing at the window. Aching for the only man who had ever made her feel... Feel real. Not the lie.
She wished she could be Laura.
It was too bad he'd never believe her. Too bad he'd never trust that she wanted the same thing he did.
Even if he was too afraid to admit it.
*********
"Jack don't be ridiculous." Laura whispered harshly so as not to disturb their sleeping daughter.
He noticed she'd been on edge lately. Every time he got close to her she shied away from him, then came to him a few hours later with arms open and eyes streaked with red. Sorry, she was always sorry, she didn't know why she had snapped. It wasn't his fault.
Christmas this year wasn't anything worth remembering. Sydney had been down with chicken pox. Things at work hadn't been the best for him either. Apparently somewhere there was a leak. He hoped they caught the bastard soon, he knew it was starting to effect his home life more then it should. Perhaps that was why Laura was so distant.
"I don't see how us going to Arvin's party together on Christmas Eve is ridiculous." Jack tried softly as he pulled his wife gently away from their sleeping daughter's door.
"We've always spent Christmas Eve at home.... With Sydney," she added, quickly ruling out any late night love making by the fire.
She refused to look at him. How had things gotten so out of hand? Had he been so distracted by his work that he'd neglected his life at home?
It made no sense, and when she pulled at his grip he let her slip away.
Later that night when he reached for her, his arms achingly empty... She wasn't there.
**********
If she lay still enough she could hear her heart beat in her chest. The only thing left that remained unchanged over the years. Time had aged her skin, added a few new scars to her flesh and feelings. But still her heart beat in her chest, reminding her that she'd lived through worse, telling her she was still alive and would live through more.
The heart...
Romantics gave the heart properties it did not possess. They claimed it housed feelings, that it was not merely the vessel through which blood passed. Thinking on their stand point, Irina could see how certain passions, feelings, desires could pass through the body. The heart sending them like blood through veins and arteries. She was no stranger to the way a man could light a fire inside that did indeed seem to pass through the blood.
But as her love had changed and grown for her daughter and her husband... she knew the heart could not house such feelings. There were no changes to that vessel. Nothing that could be mapped or spotted on any medical test.
Rising from her bed... her hard metal bunk disguised with a flimsy excuse for a mattress...she paced her cell a few times. Ten steps from one side to the other. Ten steps back.
Pausing in front of her glass wall, the one that separated her from life, finally a physical manifestation instead of the mental one she'd hid behind for so long. She'd realized long ago the importance of staying behind that wall. Behind the wall it was easier to do what had to be done.
She'd managed for years to live two lives. The wall only separating her two personas. Laura Bristow stayed outside of the wall, the ideal that Irina as a young child had always wanted. To bring honor to her country and yet still have a man to warm her bed and help raise her child. In that order. It took a lifetime to realize the mistake, the disorder of her priorities.
But she blamed the wall. It kept her from ever achieving that dream.
She could number the times she's stepped beyond it on one hand, all of which ended badly.
It was comforting to know that she couldn't step beyond it now...even if she wanted to.
When Jack visited his sharp words could not pierce her, they refracted off the glass. When Sydney came....it was harder...because somehow she still had not learned how to keep her daughter on one side of the wall. Sydney's words haunted her. She never should have abandon her daughter...there was no excuse.
She could not rectify that sin. Could not forgive herself for the pain that she had caused.
She could blame it on the foolishness of youth. But even then she'd known that playing with fire lead to a heat that could not be escaped and often left burns that never healed completely.
Jack was her fire. And despite everything...her desire to play with matches had only intensified in his absence.
She could resist the urge...but sometimes when he looked at her.... Shivering she refused to finish the thought. Finishing the thought would weaken her, destroy her.
Footsteps drew her eyes to a figure that loomed in the shadows, a figure her hands had spent countless hours tracing. The man who had every inch of her worthless being memorized, and who on more the one occasion seemed to enjoy it's company over any other.
When his eyes met hers she knew there would never be any escape from him. He was so terrified of her. Acted as if she welded some kind of magical power over him. But Jack had no idea what his look did to her. Made her ache so badly that she'd do anything for his touch. It was inhumane, the control he had when he looked at her as if he wanted to devour her. As if she two was fire...
And maybe both of them only wanted to get burned.
*******
That last Christmas together was anything but pleasant.
She'd come to realize too late how much those Christmases had meant to them, to her in particular. And now that it was time to make her grand escape, Laura Bristow...Irina Derevko, found she'd let herself do something very stupid.
She'd let herself fall in love. And not only with her husband... no it would be easier to break away if all she was leaving was a man she loved, a man who loved and adored her. But now there was a child to think about. A child she found herself worrying about. A child whose future she was not going to be a part of.
Leaving would mean she would never see that part of her again. Jack would be crushed and it would be her fault, she would have to live with the knowledge that she had betrayed him and then left him alone to raise their little girl. Her mission had never before seemed so unforgivable. She had believed that her country should come before her family. That it was possible to keep her assumed family far enough away. That she was strong enough to keep them assumed and never let them become real.
There wasn't a Laura Bristow anymore. Only an Irina Derevko in Laura's skin.
When Jack touched her it was no longer possible to keep Irina quiet. And the number of times she had almost told him who she really was, was quickly becoming too high.
It was unbearable, denying Jack when she wanted to be with him in every way possible for the rest of her life. But it was too hard not to cringe every time he moaned Laura's name. Even if she knew that the two had become one long ago. He had never known that they were two.
That he would find out... became her greatest fear. She knew that a man capable of so much love also carried the ability to carry that much hate. And she knew him well enough to know that all of his anger and frustrations would be directed at her.
The idea of staying had crossed her mind. Telling Jack the truth...how she'd made a mistake. But even if Laura wanted to deny it, Irina knew it would mean death for those she loved. She'd stayed longer then was necessary already. And "Caulder" had already come calling once. Making it clear that she had no other option.
Still she delayed the inevitable...even though she knew it would only make things worse.
***********
He'd come to a decision. Foolish as it was he was going to get the truth out of her, though how he would prove it to be truth, Jack did not know.
And as he dressed he couldn't help but think about how her hips curved just right, the way she felt under his hands. He blamed the alcohol.
If there was one thing he knew, it was that tonight he had to be in control. He'd show her that she couldn't make a fool out of him any longer. He'd get what he wanted regardless of how Irina Derevko felt about it.
It was raining outside now. Cold, sharp barbs that only increased his resolve.
This Christmas Eve would not end with him missing Laura. Laura was a lie and he would prove it. End the torment that illusion put him through, and hopefully silence the siren that called to him from her glass cage once and for all.
Only a few men guarded her cell tonight, men more interested in the card games they were playing, more interested in holiday cheer then their job. Most of them probably resenting the fact that they were stuck baby-sitting on a night like tonight.
"Mr. Bristow. Merry Christmas." One of the guards waved.
"Do you mind if I have a few minutes with the prisoner?" He tried for polite but it came out as gruff and demanding anyway.
"Go on back." The guard nodded knowingly and it took everything in him not to ring the idiots neck. He was not here to spread any Christmas cheer. He was here to end this.
The walk to where she was caged seemed endless. His salvation lay at the end one way or another, but his resolve to find out which way weakened with every step. If he wasn't so drunk he never would have found himself there. And more then once he thought about turning back.
But her memory beckoned him on, luring him deeper into danger. Holding him captive once more.
Irina Derevko was standing with her forehead pressed to the glass, her eyes cast down.
When their eyes met he had no other option.
He unlocked the door.
***********
The night before she left him she gave him everything.
She knew it would have to last her the rest of her life. And his murmured "Laura's" were easily blocked out.
Every movement was recorded, all of his skin memorized, every sound and taste locked away.
Somewhere around three he had asked her if something was wrong. Almost causing the tears she felt to become a reality. More then anything she wanted to cling to him and tell him everything. Yes something was wrong... she was loosing her soul. Instead she'd smiled and straddled him once more, kissing his nose. "Nothing you can't fix." had been her remark before moving her lips to his chest and encouraging him once more.
They'd collapsed, sweat staining their skin, sex staining the air, around six.
The last time she'd been with him as his wife, the last time she'd woken up next to him and traced his features with her soft hands. That morning she slipped out of bed before he did. Dressed quickly, and left the house.
He would see the truth written all over her face. So she hadn't let him see her face again.
And when he came home that night his world had been crushed.
**********
She met him as he rushed through the door. His need as evident as hers as he pushed her back against the glass wall, trapping her with his body, before he let his lips descend on her neck.
"Your drunk." she protested weakly before mimicking his movements, rocking against him and licking his neck.
"So are you." he smirked. Both of them knowing alcohol had nothing to do with her intoxication.
"God....don't...mmmmmm." She smiled as his hands slipped under her shirt and reclaimed her.
"Don't what Laura?" She pushed him away. He was drunk and he thought she was someone else. He didn't want her. He never had. This time the sob couldn't be choked back and it burst free as she turned her back on him and locked her arms across her chest. Instantly cold.
He'd broken her. Jack hadn't believed it possible. Hadn't believed that she really could have cared. But wasn't this evidence to the contrary? Why else would she have pulled away? Why else would she be standing in the corner, her back to him, trying desperately to get a hold of herself?
It amazed him. And terrified him at the same time. He never imagined he had so much power over her. It had always been her. She had always had him wrapped up in her hand.
"Go." her voice was empty.
For the first time in a long time, he ached for her pain and found that he couldn't leave her.
"I can't." He couldn't. And he had no idea how he'd gotten that way.
She turned to study his stunned face. "Jack....I'm not her. I never have been."
She hesitantly stepped toward him, reached out, and when he didn't flinch away, traced his cheek. "Go." Her voice, soft as her features.
"You really did care didn't you." It erupted from his mouth before he could consent to it and she flinched.
"I think you already know the answer to that." she answered, detached. "Please Jack... just go before you do something that will make you hate me even more. I can't....I couldn't...just go."
If her eyes hadn't been so open he would have thought it all a dream. She was begging him to have mercy on her. Even though she knew she didn't deserve it. He'd come looking for answers and would leave even more confused. Turning to leave her he paused.
"Irina?" He questioned.
"Yes." she answered a little too eagerly as he swung around to face her.
"Who was Laura?"
Her smile was bittersweet.
"The only person I was ever truly jealous of. The only person I ever wanted to be... Your wife... And for awhile... She was me."