Chapter 18: Past the Point of No Return?
Summary: "The bridge is crossed, so stand and watch it burn. We've passed the point of no return."
A/N Credit for the title and summary for this chapter belongs to the amazing Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.
Fair warning folks, you might want the tissue box handy for the end of this chapter. Good news though – we're getting towards the end of the angsty arc (finally) and things will get better.
It's late when she wakes with a start. Since that last horrible and still only part remembered dream she hasn't had anymore of what she's taken to calling her waking dreams. Instead, her nights have been blissfully normal and filled with only the usual mix of nonsense dreams and the odd nightmare. Tonight is unfortunately one of the latter. The nightmare is an old one – one she has not had for years, in fact. It starts in a glade, dappled with light, filled with laughter and songs and a feeling of camaraderie and belonging. It ends in terror, blood and shadows. In it she sees again her father cut down by the faceless man she now knows to be one of the Fjerdan Drüskelle, she sees her mother pinned and screaming as her father's blood pools around her, and then she is flying and hiding and waiting, hidden beneath a cart, as darkness gathers around her.
It's as this point she wakes, chest heaving as she gulps in air - her dazed, half asleep mind, struggling to make sense of her surroundings. It takes a few moments for the dark shapes to arrange themselves in a way her still fear-riven mind can make sense of and with a moment of wonder she realises that somehow while asleep she has managed to turn sideways in the bed so that the headboard is no longer behind her but instead by her right hand and she is facing the wall away from the window. No wonder the room looks strange, she thinks, as she rights herself – tucking her knees up under her chin as she steadies her breathing and calms her racing heart.
Now awake and more in her right mind, Alina summons several glowing balls of light. They hover around her, dancing slightly in the air, and for a few moments she distracts herself by sending them spinning into complicated patterns as she continues to calm down. It's a nightmare she's not had in years, and yet it always leaves her heart pounding with adrenalin and her mind wracked with fear. Sighing, Alina shifts, straightening her aching knees. There's no hope of sleep after that particular dream, but she also has no desire to read and being on her own is just making her feel more anxious.
Glancing at the ornate clock on the mantlepiece, Alina sees that while it's late, it's still early for Aleksander who has always been a night owl and often retires long after midnight. At 23:30 it is late, but her friend should still be up and after the unsettling dream she longs for the comfort of his company and the protective presence of his shadows.
It's the decision of a moment to pull herself out of her warm bed and wrap the heavy grey dressing robe around her thin shoulders. With her feet tucked into warm fur slippers, she makes her way out of her rooms and down the silent corridors and staircase to the ground floor to where she remembered Aleksander's apartment is located.
Although the distance is not far, by the time she's reached the familiar door she's starting to second guess herself, and it's only the light peeping out under the heavily polished doors which gives her the push to gently knock. Almost instantly she hears Aleksander's beloved voice calling for whoever it is to enter and be quick about it.
"Am I disturbing you?" Alina asks softly as she steps through the door and closes it gently behind her.
Aleksander's face brightens when he sees her, and he shakes his head. "Not at all, Alinochka. Come in," and steps towards her, taking her hands in his and drawing her towards the warmth of the fire blazing in the large grate near his desk.
"Can't sleep?" he asks gently as he passes her a generous glass of kvas.
Alina shakes her head, the details of the horrid nightmare rushing back. "Not exactly," she hedges when it becomes clear that Aleksander expects an answer. She has no desire to go into or explain that particular dream, and especially not with Aleksander - not now that he is finally seeing her for the capable adult she is and not the child he remembers.
Instead, her eyes flit about searching for a distraction – something, anything, which could halt the questions she can see brewing in Aleksander's dark eyes – when her gaze lands on a large, precisely detailed map that has been laid over the top of the large meeting table in the centre of the room.
"Is that a new map?" she asks, moving to get a better look at it. It's a thing of beauty, that much is clear even to her inexperienced eyes. Every detail has been added with painstaking attention and thoroughness. Armies and battalions colour coded, the topography captured in exacting detail and through it all runs the thick dark smudge of the Fold. It paints a worrying picture – one of Ravka increasingly beset by attacks and with foreign armies closing in around them.
Aleksander nods. "It is."
His expression is grim, and for the first time Alina sees how tired Aleksander looks, how worn out and defeated. There are new lines around his eyes, marks which speak of his exhaustion and of how hard he has been pushing himself. To Alina, it makes him look human for perhaps the first time over the course of their long friendship. To her, Aleksander has always been this enormous presence in her life, one who was almost godlike – wise, clever and powerful beyond reckoning and so very far beyond her, even as she claimed him as her closest and dearest friend. But here, tonight, in this dark familiar room, he looks less like the infamous Darkling and more like just another man worn out and stretched too thin by war. Perhaps it's the exhaustion to blame, or maybe Aleksander is just desperate for someone to confide in, but to Alina's amazement instead of falling quiet as she expects, the man keeps talking - his voice gaining in volume and speed, becoming almost frenzied and despairing, as the words spill out of him. "We're losing, Alina. Inch by inch, day by day, we are losing ground, losing men and losing hope. Our enemies are threatened by your mere existence – by what it means to have a united Darkling and Sun Summoner - and they are seeking to move now, to hit hard and fast before you come into your own in the hope they can crush us before you become the new player on the board. The incursion east of Caryeva was just the opening salvo; a way for Shu Han to test our defences and they found us woefully underprepared. It won't be long before they try again, this time with greater numbers and even crueller tactics – and they won't be the only ones. Fjerda will try as well. We're fighting a war on two fronts, and I don't know if we can win." Reaching out, Alina grasps his hand, holding it between her own as she wills Aleksander to look at her. "No!" she says sharply, "I don't believe that. If anyone can do this, it's you, Aleks. I believe in you and in Ravka. We can come through this. We will come through this!" Aleksander's expression is bleak as he raises his free hand to brush a loose strand of hair back behind her ear, his fingers soft as a butterfly's wing against her cheek. "Oh, Alinochka, my precious girl, what spirit you have. If that was the end of it, I might agree with you, but there's so much more going on that you don't understand." "Then tell me," Alina replies firmly. "I'm not a little child to be coddled, Aleks. I want to help." He turns from her then, drawing her by their held hands over to the map and pointing at red dots of the Shu army and the blue-black dashes marking the Fjerdan forces. "There are two other problems, Alina. Our first is that the Tsar grows bored with these wars. They have dragged on too long, swallowed too many resources with too little gained. He grows impatient, and impatience leads to mistakes and poor decision making. Already he is pushing for riskier tactics with little care as to the cost it will have on both the First and Second Armies." He hands ball into fists by his side, eyes dark with worry and grief, as he stares sadly at the map. "The second problem is that Ravka's only chance of surviving – of winning - is if we present a united front." Alina frowns, studying the map as she tries to puzzle out the point Aleksander is trying to make. "And we're not united?" He shakes his head as he taps the black line of the Fold with a long, elegant finger, dark eyes watching her expectantly. It's like being back in those critical thinking lessons with the eternally impatient Baghra. Her eyes flit over the map again, this time falling on Novo-Kribirsk and West Ravka. Oh. A smile flits across Aleksander's shadowed features when he sees her get it, but it dies quickly and is instead replaced by a look of dark despair. "There is talk of an uprising in the West, one led by our esteemed First Army General Artem Zlatan, and supported by renegade Grisha. Our own people are turning their backs on us. I have been fighting this war alone for so long, Alina. I have buried so many good soldiers. Friends. The coffers are running dry, the noose tightens and the people of Ravka are turning against Grisha, just as their kin once did."
The expression on Aleksander's beloved face is pained and full of dark desperation as he stares at the large map. It's the look of a man who has been pushed too far and for too long. He's even said it - how alone he's been for so many years, how he's longed for a partner, someone to share his struggles with. Around them the room grows dark as his shadows react to their master's anguish and fear, cocooning them in their dark embrace.
It's heart wrenching witnessing such torment and Alina feels her heart pound in desperate sympathy for him. All her life she's had her mama and Aleksander to buttress and support her - but who has Aleksander had? It's a sobering realization that drives home the importance of her role as the Sun Summoner: she alone is his equal, and she alone can be his partner in all things.
Eyes molten and soft with the force of her love, Alina stretches to cup his face in her hand, her fingers stroking soothingly over the faint stubble on his cheek as light blossoms out of her, summoned by his pain to intertwine with his shadows and create a protective bubble around them.
She meets his wild gaze, her own firm and resolute. "You're not alone," she says fiercely, "not anymore - you have me," And reaching up, Alina kisses him. For a long moment all is perfect and all she's knows is how right this moment is, how right it is that they are like this, but then reality intrudes once more as hands gently but firmly push her away and the connection is broken.
Blinking her eyes open, it takes a few moments for Alina's lust befuddled brain to understand what she is seeing.
Over the years she's imagined this moment many times, she's imagined passionate kisses, gentle kisses, kisses full of emotion, kisses that come with a declaration and kisses that are a declaration by themselves, yet somehow in all her imaginings this scenario never came up.
Instead of looking overjoyed, or pleased, or indeed any positive emotion, the look on Aleksander's face is raw and wrecked. His eyes are dark fathomless pits of swirling shadows, and his hands are balled into fists. He looks… destroyed.
Confused and alarmed, Alina reaches for him only to stop abruptly as he steps back, hands raised to keep her away. "No! Alina." He barks in a tone so foreign and alien that Alina cannot but halt, trepidation and anxiety curdling in her stomach until there is an acidic burning in her throat.
"Aleks?" Her voice is quiet, unsure, diffident - so unlike the usual way she speaks to the other man. She tries to move forward, the need for reassurance overriding the command in his voice, but again she's thwarted as Aleksander steps backwards, shifting so that the war table is now between them with each on opposite sides.
The metaphor is not lost on Alina, and she feels the power of it and the wrongness. They are two sides of the same coin - partners, equals, each other's balance - they should stand together, side by side, not opposite; they are not opponents and she is not his enemy. So why does it suddenly feel like she is?
Aleksander's breathing is ragged as he stares across the gulf between them. He looks lost, she thinks as she watches him rake a hand through his perfectly arranged hair over and over.
"Aleks?" She tries again. Her voice is stronger now, and she sees him flinch as he looks away, breaking their silent stare.
He shakes his head again, hands dropping to grip the edge of the table with such force his knuckles bleed white. "Go to bed, Alina," he says at last in a resigned, almost dispassionate tone.
"No." It's a simple word, yet the power of it resonates in the quiet room. The atmosphere has changed, morphing from their easy camaraderie to this charged uncertainty. "Not until you explain."
"Explain what?" Aleksander demands dangerously, his eyes flashing.
Refusing to feel cowed by either his show of temper or the sudden ominous quality of the shadows around them, Alina straightens her shoulders and meets his heat filled glare. "This," she replies, waving an expressive hand between them.
For a moment the fierce expression on his face softens, "go to bed, Alina. It would be better to forget this night." His tone is more gentle now, but there is steel behind the soft words, steel which has the opposite effect to the one intended. Instead of soothing her and softening her upset sensibilities, it stokes her ire. She isn't some child to be coddled and managed, she's a grown woman and right now she wants answers.
"I kissed you, I can't just forget it." She points out wryly. "Especially now. I thought you…"
"What did you think?" There's an ugliness to his tone, a snarl that reminds her of a wounded animal, but it's his eyes that transfix her - they are like burning embers buried in shadows; dark, powerful and seductive in their intensity.
"I thought you wanted it, that you..." Aleksander looks away, his dark eyes fixing on the bookcase. "I don't bed little girls," is all he replies.
Alina stumbles back feeling the full force of his words. "Is that all I am to you?" She demands hoarsely, her heart aching and her skin tingling as the sun rushes forward to protect her.
He still won't look at her. "I'm over 500 years old, Alina. You're all children to me."
"Such ethical qualms didn't stop you bedding Zoya, though, did they." She replies, jealousy and anger forcing the words out in response to his evasive non answer. She regrets them even as she says them, but what's said is said and now all she can do is wait for the fallout.
Aleksander laughs, but there's no humour in it. "I've never claimed to be a saint, but I know my limits. I will not taint you, Alina. I am not a good man, I've done terrible things, but forgive me if this is one sin I do not add to the weight on my soul."
There are tears in her eyes now. Heart break is a terrible thing. Just days ago her heart had ached with fear that she might lose him to death, now it appears she will lose him anyway but to something worse - he will withdraw from her now. The peace and beauty of their friendship forever marred by her rash actions that evening.
He doesn't love her.
He has never loved her.
The man before her looks exhausted as he leans against the war table. "Go to bed, Alina," he says again. "And in the morning this will be but a bad dream."
"A bad dream?" Alina croaks, "you think I can forget this?"
"We both will forget this night happened. We must. There is no alternative." His words ring as hollow as his tone and still he won't look at her. Her heart is breaking - he is breaking it - and yet he won't even afford her the courtesy of looking at her while he does it. "You'll thank me one day, Alinochka," he murmurs softly as he turns and leaves, his black dressing gown swirling around him like one of his shadows. His reassurance is a poor and pale comfort to the pain coursing through her, one made worse still by the use of her his usual endearment for her. Hearing it now is akin to a poisoned barb, the final nail in the coffin of her feelings. His words slice through her with all the force of the cut and the same devastating effect. Still he sees her as a child.
Aleksander is wrong. How can everything be okay when it feels like this?
Still rooted to the spot, Alina is powerless to act as the man she loves sweeps from the room. The click of the lock to his private chambers is like a gunshot to her heart, echoing loudly in the silent room. There is a sense of finality, of a bridge not just crossed but torn asunder, in the ringing hollowness of the now empty space – the same space she had once hoped would become theirs.
How she makes it back to her room she later has no recollection. One minute she's in the war room, the next she's curled into a miserable ball amongst the familiar blue cushions of her bed.
She loves him - endlessly, passionately, devotedly, but he doesn't love her, not like that, not in the same way she feels for him.
Aleksander is wrong. There is no going back, not for her, anyway. For Alina, nothing will ever be the same again. Something precious has been broken. Something she has no idea how to even start trying to fix.
To Aleks, she will always be his little ghost, the child he rescued and watched grow up. It was foolish of her to hope otherwise. Sitting on her bed, Alina cries. She cries for the past that has chained her present, and she cries for the future she so desperately wants that is dissolving before her eyes. Yet for all the pain, still her heart - that cantankerous organ - refuses to concede defeat, it will not let him go.
She cannot let him go.
A/N *Author hides*