Alias- Forever And Always

48) Balcony Love

AN: Music for this chapter (on repeat): Time by Hans Zimmer from Inception Soundtrack, A Small Measure of Peace, Where Are We Runnin? by Lenny Kravitz, Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys, Beautiful by Snoop Dog featuring Pharrel, The Mummer's Dance by Loreena Mckennitt, The First Kiss by George Fenton from Ever After Soundtrack, The Balcony Scene by Craig Armstrong from Romeo & Juliet Soundtrack.

FORTY-EIGHT

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Lena was practically shaking from nerves when she got home, everyone else was conspicuously absent, in bed already, had gone out or in their own parts of the palace. She quickly took a shower, changed into some comfortable yoga pants and a t-shirt preparing for the long haul of twelve hours of movie watching and headed out, pausing by the door and then spinning around to grab Mr. Yellow Bear from her bed that she still slept with every night. "Come on, Nana." She whispered softly to her giant companion and the dog quickly followed her out.

She gulped when Sydney locked the door behind her to the theatre and flipped the switch on the security camera to turn them off as well, not wanting one of the younger ones to stumble into the kitchen and 'see' what they were watching in the theatre.

Sydney had retrieved the disks from the wall vault and put the first one in, preparing herself to see all of this again and grabbed a cup of tea from the cart that had tea, juices, water, soda, snacks and other things to eat during their long hours of movie watching.

Lena settled in with Sydney beside her on one side of the sofa and Nana on the other, her hand petting the dog with small circle on her head to ward of the nervousness she felt.

Sydney paused with her hand on the remote, turning her head to the side and studying Lena's face for a long moment with a pensive look before tears slowly filled her eyes.

Lena shifted uncomfortably under her stare. "What?" She finally asked, "Why are you looking at me that way?" She asked with a hint of anger and angst mixed in with anxiousness at the way her big sister was staring at her.

"I just wanted to look at you and try to commit this moment to memory. The way you look right now." Sydney answered quietly and a single tear slipped down her cheek. She sighed deeply looking away before reaching up to brush the tear with the backs of her fingers.

"Why?" Lena asked feeling her voice catch in the back of her throat at her sister's odd behavior.

"Because a large part of your innocence is about to be stripped away." Sydney answered her feeling more tears welling and blinking them back as her eyes found her little sister's again. "And I want to remember what your eyes looked like before that happens. They'll never be the same again." She added quietly and looked away.

Lena swallowed hard still staring at Sydney and feeling the sense of foreboding return. She couldn't imagine what was so horrendous in the truth of their mother's past, her family's past, that would have Sydney wanting to memorize the way her eyes looked telling her they'd never be the same again. Lena was starting to have second thoughts about wanting to see this, wanting to know this truth her family kept from her, if it was going to change everything in the way she saw her world but at the same time, it only flamed the her desire to know more.

To know the truth; all of it. That they were finally treating her more like an adult rather than a child by showing her this and she was sure, she was ready and capable of handling whatever this truth was. She couldn't imagine any 'truth' out there that would possibly change or explain or justify her views on how unfair her mother and father were being. How controlling they were and how oppressed she was feeling with her mother's obsessive need to protect her all the time or justify her mother's refusal to let her run in the Olympics claiming it was for reasons of protecting her.