Alias- Forever And Always

4) Reliving The Past

Music for this chapter (on repeat): Love Is A Battlefield by Pat Benatar, Back in Black by AC/DC, Crash by Dave Matthews Band, Harry Potter 7 Lily's Theme Music, Shape Of By Heart By Backstreet Boys, Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas, Why Can't We Be Friends by War.

FOUR

o

Los Angeles, California

"Oh my...I forgot all about these!" Irina smiled happily, immediately ripping her t-shirt off over her head and pulling the old one she'd just found in her Hope Chest over her head, looking down with pride. "I can't believe you kept them!"

"AC/DC! Signed by Gibson Angus Young!" Sydney reached out to graze the faded signature above her mother's left breast. "Oh God...Eric is going to die when he sees you have that! He loves them!" Sydney laughed with an enormous smile looking at her mother in the old rock group shirt that had definitely seen better days.

The shirt had faded in its color, and a hole had formed in the seam on the sleeve but it was a favorite nonetheless.

"Look at all of these!" Sydney was like a kid at Christmas pulling the stack of variously colored and faded t-shirts out of her mother's Hope Chest. "Def Leppard, Whitesnake, ZZ Top, Fleetwood Mac, Steppenwolf, Pink Floyd! Aerosmith! Metallica!" Her voice rose with excitement looking at all the old t-shirts her mother had collected at concerts when she was younger. "I remember looking at these in High School and desperately tempted to wear them but never did."

"Why not?" Irina quirked her eyebrow at her and took another shirt off the pile with a curious smile, inspecting the shirts she hadn't seen for decades as they went through her old Hope Chest for the first time since Irina had returned to their lives.

"They were yours." Sydney gave her a weak smile, folding the shirts in her hands and placing them back into a stack. "I was afraid to wear them out or ruin them in some other way and the last thing I needed was for Dad to get mad at me for destroying your shirts when I wasn't supposed to even be looking in your Hope Chest to begin with. I figured they must have meant something to him if he kept them out of all your clothing."

Irina's smile faded but not entirely thinking about the reasons Jack had chosen these shirts to save. The UCLA sweatshirts and t-shirts she understood because she worked there, as well as her Georgetown ones but these... her smile turned curious.

"I mean, I remember vaguely, you wearing them around the house when I was little; with the music blaring in the background while we cleaned on Saturdays." Sydney smiled widely thinking back to those days and laughing with her mother while they rocked out together.

"That's right." Irina laughed, smiling thinking about Sydney jumping around on the couch with her air guitar. "You always made me laugh singing along and playing your air guitar."

Sydney giggled deeply and blushed, "I remember Dad coming home from working and joining in. Teaching me how to slide across the floor in the kitchen on my knees like a rocker when you weren't watching." She laughed seeing Irina's mouth fall open in surprise.