Sfumato by R.J. Anderson (PG)

[brigid31.livejournal.com]

Fandom: ALIAS
Pairing: Jack/Irina
Author on LJ: synaesthete7
Author Website: Here or here
Why this must be read: Jack and Irina intrigued me from the moment we learned that she was the double agent instead of Jack. When Lena Olin showed up I was lost. It's the history that gets to me. I like this fic because it takes a scene from the show and fleshes it out. This is an almost perfect glimpse into Irina, and how and why did Irina become Laura and how did it feel to go back? It keeps Irina perfectly in character, you can see the love she has for Jack but doesn't compromise herself.


"I may have been under orders to fabricate a life with you," I say, looking steadily into his eyes, "but there were times when the illusion of our marriage was as powerful to me as it was for you. Especially when Sydney was born."

I have lied to him about many things and I will lie to him again, but I can tell him this much truth, because I know he will not believe me. He does not know with what relief my younger, so much more naïve and uncertain self first looked into his face -- a handsome face then, and kind -- or how perilously easy it soon became to play the role my KGB superiors had mapped out for me. Even the mixed feelings that attended the discovery that I was pregnant had been swept away when the nurse laid our baby daughter in Jack's arms and I saw his eyes brighten with wonder. For all that I reminded myself daily that Jack was the enemy, and that he was as deceitful in his own way as I was in mine, I still found much about him that I could appreciate. There had been very little that was unpleasant about becoming Laura Bristow. The hardest thing about that life was leaving it.

Nevertheless, when the time came, I did what had to be done. Because ironically, an absolute commitment to duty, that willingness to make any sacrifice necessary for what I believed in, was one of the few real things Jack and I ever had in common.



Sfumato