isn't it lovely (all alone)

Oneshot

The knife sank into his body, and Alina regretted it almost immediately. She tried to stop the flow of blood, but by the way it spurts out in coughs, Alina knew that she hit true. Her hands stained red, so red it seemed like they never had been another color; vaguely, she wondered if cleaning them would ever get them rid of the smell of iron.

"I'm sorry." She muttered, and Aleksander's eyes flashed for a moment. He laughed, but it was humorless, and all it did was stain his teeth red as he fell. Alina grabbed him, holding Aleksander in her lap. He would be gone soon, so this was meaningless.

The pain inside her was blindingly white, like her own powers - she can't feel them as strongly as before, as if they're oozing out with Aleksander's blood -, and Alina bit her lower lip.

"Are you, Alina?" He asked. With weak hands (who'd have thought Aleksander could be weak? Alina's mind can't rationalize this, not right now), raising his hand to touch her face. His skin grew cold, clammy, and Alina held it in place as she felt her powers fading.

"I... I..." Gagged words: the truth stuck itself in her throat, but how could she admit she regretted it the moment she felt it enter his body? A sob wrecked itself through her, and Aleksander smiled.

"You'll be alone now. Such a shame. I would have enjoyed eternity with you, you know?" He said, closing his eyes.

The hand that had been touching Alina's face wanted to slip from her grasp, but Alina refused to let it go, refused to be alone.

Her powers returned to her: she could feel them, but different, as if they were inverted. She closed his eyes, and couldn't help but notice how the little remains of the Fold clung tightly to her fingers, like they were trying to not fade away in the light.

No, she thought, everything suddenly too fast as reality crashed around her. Please, no.

When she met with her friends once more, Alina did not tell them her suspicions: instead, she said she was not a Grisha anymore. They looked at her with something between disappointment and pity - Alina, after all, has lost her powers, her friend, and her enemy in a span of two hours. What was not to pity? From one of the most powerful Grisha alive to a normal person; this loss would haunt anyone else.

Nikolai convinced Alina to not live alone in the countryside. She agreed because it sounded better than solitude, Aleksander's last words echoing unpleasantly in her ears. They let her fake her death, Genya tailored her hair an inky black, and all politely pretend she's a cousin of Tamar and Tolya who doesn't speak much Ravkan.

They gave her a nice room with a view to the grounds, the smell of flowers thick every time she opened her window, pleasant and lovely in warm days.

Coincidentally, it did not face the Keramzin. Alina laughed herself hoarse when she realized that.

Then, in the safety of her own room, she tried: reached for the power dwelling inside of her, pulled onto it like the lifeline it was. From Alina's hands darkness poured itself, heavy and familiar.

"Very funny." She says to the ghost of Aleksander.

He does not reply.

Alina learned to cope. She used his powers - they aren't hers. Sometimes, Alina feels as if she's just holding onto them, but that's a ridiculous notion: Aleksander was gone forever - sparingly, mostly to sleep in a cocoon, unbothered by the outside world.

The pure dark is a comfort: it was almost as if she was dead, too.

Would admitting she had feelings about a dead man, one she had killed, be weird? Alina stared at a painting of the Darkling, embroiled in the darkness that she was only borrowing.