Alias- Forever And Always

55) Nadia And Irina

Music for this chapter (on repeat): Matrix Reloaded Theme by Enigma, Smuglyanka by Red Army Choir, PM's Love Theme by Craig Armstrong from Love Actually Soundtrack, Thunderstruck by AC/DC, To Russia My Homeland by And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Russian National Anthem- inst. by Moscow Kremlin Choir & Presidential Orchestra, Say by John Mayer.

FIFTY-FIVE

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*Matrix Reloaded Theme*

Nadia's routines for gymnastics were in the evening so she was free to attend her sister and brother's competitions during the day. After watching Lena at the shooting range in the early morning racking up her first Gold Medal for the 50m rifle like it was nothing, there was little doubt where she got her dead-eye aim from, and everyone was crying as it was Irina, who placed the Gold Medal around her daughter's neck and kissed her cheeks, standing proud looking at Lena as the flags were raised and the Anthem of Imperial Russia was played.

Each member of the Imperial Family was wearing their baby blue sashes of the Order of St. Andrews and the female members with their tiaras on throughout the entire games over their regular dress clothes allowing them to be regal as the official hosts of the games and comfortable at the same time.

"You look more nervous than he does." Irina smiled nudging Julian watching as Nicholas climbed the ladder preparing to make his final dive for medal contention on the 10m Platform.

"He can win this, I know he can…he gets this from you." Julian smiled softly speaking in almost a whisper as everyone silenced watching the muscular young man all of sixteen and one of the youngest divers, walk out onto the edge of the platform turning around and setting his toes on the edge high above the pool. Julian couldn't help but think of the many dives he'd watched Irina pull off over the years when they were running around the world as rogues and it made him smile to see his younger brother with the same finesse.

Nicholas was currently in second place in the standings and as the last diver and if he performed a nearly perfect dive, the Gold was his. "Deep breath." Julian seemed to chant with Nicholas and they all watched as the moment he said that, it seemed Nicholas heard him and he inhaled deeply and let it go relaxing his stance and then jumped backwards off the platform twisting and turning like perfection before piercing the surface of the water like a torpedo with hardly a splash at all and everyone jumping to their feet with cheers at what had to be a perfect dive and all their faces flashed to the board for scoring.

Nicholas came darting up to the surface with eyes locked onto the boards as he swam to the sides waiting for the scores to go up while his dive was shown again in slow motion on the massive screen showing off his perfected form and angles. He'd just jumped out of the pool when the first scores started coming up and everyone gasped at the first almost perfect score and then cheered loudly as every single other score was either .001 of a point away from perfect or perfect raising him to number one and securing his first Gold Medal that had his entire family and crowd roaring with applause and tears for him.

His gaze immediately darting to the crowd and pointing with two fingers and a raging smile at his older brother who had taught him to swim and then double-handed kisses of his fingers gesturing towards his mother for his grace in movement. Irina had shown him through certain taught movements of ballet, how to perfect his dives. He wasn't exactly thrilled with the ballet idea when she suggested it a year ago but he was raging with excitement and happiness now as it had been that ability to move so fluidly that had won him his Gold.