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The truth is: he does not truly see her the first time.
Criston first sees Alicent at the tourney to celebrate the birth of King Visery’s heir, her hair in soft auburn ringlets falling over her shoulders and her lips pursed into a small, rigid half-smile, the same as she always puts on when she is trying for a pleasantly neutral expression that would hide the cacophony of emotions inside her. She is still the Lady Alicent then. Criston only has eyes for the princess.
The truth is: she shows him more mercy than he deserved.
When he confesses his sins to her, he sees the shock on her face. She turns from him and his stomach sinks. Not because he is afraid for his life – it feels fairly worthless then – but because he is afraid that he has wounded her. He sees her wringing her delicate hands, the long fingers clenching and unclenching as she tries to process everything he has put upon her. When she tells him he can leave, he feels more loss than relief. He wishes to touch her face and apologize for intruding on her. Her delicacy melts what remains of his tattered heart, and he wonders why he had imagine that Rhaenyra might afford him the same.
The truth is: she saves him.
She comes to him like a vision in that godswood – the maiden and mother reborn in flesh. She knights him with a touch to the shoulder, the green silk of her skirts falling over the blood-stained white of his armor. He weeps at her feet and she touches his cheek to comfort him. When he looks up, she is crying as well.
When there are calls for his head later, to answer for the death of poor Ser Joffrey, who had not, in truth, deserved his wrath, she finds a way to shield him, to spin a story that is neither untrue nor entirely correct.
He kneels to her and swears to be her shield. He is reborn in her light, her honor.
The truth is: her children are his.
Criston trains them, helps raise them, loves them and appreciates them where their father does not. He encourages Aemond when he struggles after losing his eye, writes to Oldtown to Daeron and praises the drawings of his dragon, tries to talk some sense into Aegon.
He will defend these boys as though they are his own. Not because they are princes, but because they are Alicent’s.
He watches Aegon fall from the sky and runs to him with his heart in his throat. That is his king. That is his son. Criston knows what Aemond has done, but protects him. Because that is his son too.
The truth is: she is hurt and angry and he cannot always take that away.
Alicent fights the feelings she knows are real. She pushes him away, forbids him from saying her name, blames him for shielding her. But he lets her do it, because he knows that sometimes she just needs someone to blame who isn’t herself.
Before Criston leaves for war for the last time, he kisses her with everything he has, tries to etch the lines of her face into the back of his skull so he may see her face every time he closes his eyes. He tries to memories her so that she is always with him.
The simple truth is: she is the love of his life.