Title: Amor Vincit Omnia
Word count: 500
Notes: Written for the rewind challenge at alias500: cold. Companion piece to Ghosts, Lost and Memento Mori. Jack and Irina, after Sevogda.
It is dusk when he steals into the dacha; the sun hangs low on the horizon, the sky already pink. He has not dared come here in almost two years, not since that awful night when he killed a woman he believed his wife.
He finds Irina asleep in the master bedroom – and he cannot help but remember the last time he was in this large bed with her. The cat curled up against Irina's belly senses Jack's presence in the room and wakes; Irina sleeps on.
He studies her: she is still too thin, but less pale than when they pulled her out of that hole in the ground. As always, her beauty is breathtaking. In sleep her face is softer, losing some of the harshness she wears when she is awake.
He steps further into the room. A floorboard creaks and Irina wakes. The cat jumps off the bed as Irina sits up and aims a gun in Jack's direction. For a moment, neither speaks, then Irina slowly lowers the gun.
"Hi," Jack says.
Irina scowls at him, then flops back down and pulls up the covers. Jack smiles; she is always cranky when she is tired.
She mumbles something then and he has to move closer to hear her.
"What?"
"You chased the cat away."
"Ah." He considers that. "Sorry."
She reaches for his hand and tugs him onto the bed next to her. "I'm cold," she says, an explanation for why she has been in bed all day.
Jack kicks his shoes off then crawls under the covers as well. He wraps his arms around her, pulling her close against him.
"Better?" he asks.
"Mmm."
They lie in silence for a while. Jack thinks of all he had planned to say – I'm sorry, I love you, forgive me – but he cannot bring himself to speak. If he closes his eyes he can pretend they are in the past and he never pulled that trigger.
"How's Nadia?" Irina finally asks.
Jack's grip on her tightens; he wishes he had better news. "She's in hospital. The doctors are trying to bring her out of the coma."
Irina falls silent again. Jack feels wetness on his neck and realizes it's from Irina's tears. He rubs her back, out of practice at giving comfort.
She lifts her face to his, and then they're kissing. Jack feels as if he's drowning – he had thought she was lost to him, that they would never do this again.
"I'm glad you're here," she says later. They're lying skin-to-skin and he feels her pulse flutter beneath his lips as he kisses the column of her throat. "I've missed you."
He props himself up on an elbow and looks at her. She is no longer the woman he married all those years ago. Neither is she the woman he knew two years ago.
But he is not who he once was either, and despite the impossible, they can still look at each other with love.