Alias- Jack & Laura

42) Assassinations

Jack came out of the bathroom to find Laura changing into her nightgown; she glanced at him as he got into bed. He watched her back as she slipped the gown over her head and then disappeared into the bathroom, thoughts whirling through his mind. He couldn't wrap his brain around the idea that he was going to lose her, one way or another; he'd only just been starting to believe that things might work out despite who she was.

She came out of the bathroom and got into bed beside him, then reached over and turned out her lamp, leaving the room in darkness. Jack considered for a moment, then reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. "If you were never supposed to have children, why did you tell me that you wanted two?"

Laura rolled to face him. "My handler told me to agree with whatever you said about children. At the time, no one anticipated that my mission would last this long."

"If it were up to you, if they didn't care, would you have wanted children?"

She frowned and was silent for a moment. "Under the circumstances, no. Because I don't think it would be...fair to choose to conceive a child that I'll have to abandon one day. But Jack, if things were different...if we were normal, I'd want Sydney to have a brother or sister."

Jack debated for a moment whether to voice the idea that had been forming since Laura had first made the situation clear. If there were any way out of this mess, he decided, they had to try to find it together. "What if we just disappeared? You, me, and Sydney? Away from both the KGB and the CIA?"

"You would do that?" Jack could hear the surprise in her voice. "Just abandon your country?"

"If it's the only way to keep our family together," he answered.

"Jack, are you sure you want to live like that? We'd spend our whole lives looking over our shoulders, waiting for one government or the other to catch up to us. And then, when one of them does find us, what happens to Sydney? Even if it's the CIA and they don't kill her, she would lose both her parents instead of just one."

"If we plan it carefully, Laura, I know we can disappear. People get found because they make mistakes. But we know how they would look for us. I know the CIA, you know the KGB...between the two of us, we can make it work." He hadn't acknowledged it before, but he realized as he spoke that Laura was just as good a spy as he was, if not better. If anyone could successfully disappear from the eyes of both the KGB and the CIA, the two of them ought to be able to do it.

"Maybe you're right," Laura said after a long silence. "But Jack..." He waited to hear her reasons why it wouldn't work, but she surprised him. "Are you sure you want to live with me for the rest of your life? I'm not the woman you thought you married. I've killed people, Jack." He said nothing, not knowing how to respond. After a moment, she continued softly, "When Sydney was a year old, my handlers gave me a side assignment. I suspect it was meant to be...my payback for being allowed to keep my child. Over the course of a year, I assassinated twelve CIA agents."