This Is Love
by
Chris AndersonDisclaimer: Alias is the property of other people, including J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot productions.
Written for the Theatrical Muse 'love' challenge.
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This is love: Pain like she has never known, tearing through her, screams pulled from the depths of her soul as she struggles to bring her daughters into the world- Sydney first, Jack's hands holding hers, his voice encouraging her, his love and her own pain and joy so strong that for a moment she thinks that this is real, that there are no secrets, no Cyrillic codes in the pages of any books.
And then Nadia, years later and worlds apart- she is alone, no drugs or comforting presence to ease her pain, only cold stone walls, iron bars, her screams echoing through empty halls. She is a prisoner, alone, but she smiles when she sees the face of her younger daughter. Smiles when she sees her strength and knows that this child, too, like Sydney, will be stronger than this world will yet know.
This, too, is love: bruised, battered and bleeding, yet still she fights, her last breath and her last ounce of strength to keep them from taking her daughter from her arms.
And this is love: dark eyes burning with anger and fury, passion smoldering, and she buries it deep, but she swears- one day there will come a reckoning for this.
Years of sheltering Nadia as best she could, watching over Sydney, Jack... Her tears and her rage, as she saw them all tangled in Rambaldi's web, in Sloane's web... this, too, is love.
This is love- Two years of sleepless nights, desperately seeking answers, seeking a reason behind Sydney's death, seeking someone to blame. Two years of walking in darkness, grief and pain and rage, and this is love- that she was not alone in it, that despite their past Jack walked with her, willingly, and that she could look to him and see everything she felt reflected back.
Hands in the dark, arms holding her as she weeps, and though her tears could be weapons in his hands, he never uses them, never once calls upon them or turns them upon her; this is love.
And this- that when plans laid down years ago had gone as far as they could, when events had begun to spiral as she had thought they might, she had called upon him and he had come. He had killed her and made the lie of her death a believable one; he had helped her to disappear, to literally vanish off the maps, into the most rugged country her homeland had to offer.
This is love- that she had asked, and he had consented to this plan, to claim her death upon his own hands to give her room to work, to keep her secret, safe.
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