My Good Friend Aleksander.

Shadow Ⅰ | Year 10: "Mal, I Have Something to Say."

The sunlight weaved a pattern through the air.

The golden light bounced and refracted in the glass ball that was held up to the window by a woman. Her dark eyes gazed at the ball gently, her expression nostalgic and one of yearning as the light reminded her of a time where she would be the one who weaved the light. 

She closed her long lashed eyes to the sunlight, drinking in the light in a way only she could. Her longing for its warmth curled in her and reached for a place where the warmth had once resided, a place where the sunlight would pool and flow within her freely. A single tear slipped from her closed eyes, as the time for such warmth has long since passed from her.

"Alina? What are you doing?" 

A deep voice reached and pulled her from nostalgia's bittersweet grasp, forcing the white haired women's attention from her beloved sunlight. 

She quickly brushed the tear away as she turned and replied with a bright smile, "Nothing, I was just appreciating the warmth. It's so nice winter is over..."

She rose, her white dress crinkled as she stood from her crouching position and walked away with a bright smile on her face. 

"I'll begin the Spring cleaning now, Mal. Can you hunt dinner, I'll cook it when you get back-" 

"Alina, look at me."

Mal grabbed her thin arm, stopping Alina from moving forward. Her white, gleaming hair covered her expression from Mal, and because of that, he did not see the discomfort nor the pain in her face as the nostalgia of the moments prior ran through her again. He did not, could not, see the tears that fell down her face.

But he could feel her trembling. He could see how her shoulders curled into herself. He could hear her silent sobs.

"Alina, what's wrong? Please, tell me, I want to help you."

"... Okay. You want the truth?"

The truth was, she missed it dearly. 

She missed the warmth. 

She missed the light. 

She missed a time when she felt alive and beautiful, of sweet candy and Genya, of talks and walking in moonlight. She missed her precious friends and small comforts and summer evenings and a harsh, ageless old women who was fiercer but wiser than anyone. 

Nikolai, Zoya, Baghra, Genya, David... even...

She ripped the last name from her thoughts, refusing to think of the burning pyre, of hushed meetings in the night, and gray quartz eyes as sharp as his features. She couldn't, her husband was with her for heaven's sakes. She didn't understand why her emotions bubbled up so greatly within her, but she suspected it was because of what she now carried within her; her legacy, her secret, her precious, darling child.

It had been six months since they'd built a home. Six months since she had last felt the ache of her power. Six months since her hands were stained with the blood of a boy so lonely he'd gone mad. Six months for her to reflect and truly dwell on all she'd really lost.

It hurt. 

She felt scarred, raw.

 Imperfect, like something was twisted in her and it was so badly hurting her, that she didn't know what to do; she didn't know if she'd ever feel whole again, with all this grief bubbling up and scratching at her heart. 

She was terrified at the prospect that she'd never feel whole again; she needed to adjust to this new life, she knew that. But even then, she wasn't confident she could. 

The truth was, she didn't truly want to go back to the old Alina, the pale, sickly, weak, bitter girl. The girl with the brown hair and the sunken, tired eyes and the sallow skin and the frail body. The girl who was innocent. The girl who yearned for love from her best friend. The child who never wanted to leave Mal. 

Even now, she didn't want to leave him. But, in her separation from him, she had learned how to grow, how to live. 

How to suffer.

How to cry. 

How to laugh.

And how to lie.

Truth was, she didn't want to be Alina Starkov or Sankta Alina. And, though she loathed to admit it, sometimes... sometimes she didn't want to be Alina Oretsev. Right now, she just wanted to be Alina; right now, she needed to find who Alina really was. And to do that, she desperately needed space, and time.

Time to think about and fully absorb what had happened, to work her way through the trauma that still haunted her in her dreams at night.

Space to be alone and to allow herself to grieve the things and family and friends and comrades she lost. Space to cry over the girl she could never be again.

But... she didn't say that. She couldn't. 

So, she said something else, a half-truth.

"Mal, I have something to say."

She turned to him and with a soft smile said, "Mal, I'm pregnant with our child. I will be very emotional, and very tired. So when I'm like this, please leave me be, okay?"

Mal's blue eyes widened and a smiled curled up his face in delight. He pulled Alina to him and whispered over and over again that he was happy, that he would care for her child and her, that he'd always be by her side, that he'd make it as easy for her as possible and would be her hand and foot...

He mistook her tears as happiness. But they were not.

Alina's heart broke when she realized that Mal hadn't listened to any of the truth asides from her pregnancy in her words.

For some reason, in this single moment, while she was crushed and held in Mal's joyous embrace... she'd never felt so very alone.

In his happiness, he did not notice how Alina did not hug him back, nor wonder why she made no sound.

There was no warmth for her within his wintery embrace; not anymore.

How she longed for the sunlight's sweet grasp...