redintheledger | OOM: Moscow, USSR, January 1947

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OOM: Moscow, USSR, January 1947

Natasha should be in her room, studying. Unlike her fellow students at the Moscow State University, her semester breaks are spent back at the Red Room, where she has little time for her textbooks. Today is the first day she's been back in Moscow in (once she added up the hours) four days.

Four days spent in the nearest approximation to wilderness that geography had to offer near Moscow, which in the middle of winter was no joke. She is glad to be back in the warm and dry, with hot water and no need to try and melt the ice from her eyelashes. Not to mention the ability to wear a civilian girl's clothes, instead of a soldier's layers.

But after four days with the company of Comrade Winter, her room with a bed just for her seems too much like a cell for her to be comfortable in it.

So Natasha is in the common room, newly outfitted with amenities such as some sofas, tables, and a wireless. There is also a piano, old like the sofas but kept in good condition. Despite herself, she gravitates towards it, and walks her fingers across the keys. It reminds her of Papa, and today isn't a very good day for that.

Natasha sits down, and tries to play anyway. She can't remember any of the music Papa taught her, but she can stumble her way through some chords. It's better than sitting in her room and wallowing.

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Natasha clicks her tongue behind her teeth, and keeps herself hugging his arm to protect against accidental bumpings.

"Shame. So what flavour do you feel like?"

"There's something to be said for simple chocolate."

He smiles down at her.

"What about you?"

"Chocolate or strawberry, I'm being indecisive."

It is, after all, a night for indulgence, and indecisive is not a normal state for her.

"Chocolate."

"In that case, I could get strawberry, and we could share," he suggests.

(The vendor casts his eyes upward toward the ceiling, but forbears to say anything.)

Not expecting that, she suddenly smiles at him.

"I think that sounds perfectly acceptable," Natasha says, and the vendor looks relieved. She lets Alex pay, using the time to scout out a table for them, and then darts off to claim it as the current occupants leave. The table itself is a little rickety, but it's at the end of the row with a good view of the door, and no one has to have their back to a window.

It's acceptable enough.

He carries their ice cream over to the table and sets Natasha's in front of hers before taking a seat beside her and putting his own down as well -- within her reach.

"Nice place," he observes, looking over the shop.

"Mmmhmm," she says around her spoon.

Chocolate ice-cream; nothing like it.

"And, thanks."

"For what?" he asks, honestly uncertain, and scrapes up a spoonful of strawberry.

She steals some strawberry, only it's not stealing as he'd offered, and anyway they are communist. It gives her an excuse not to answer for a moment.

"It's my birthday," she says finally. "And...It's...I'm nineteen today. My parents only saw my fourteenth. I didn'twanttobealone."

Some more chocolate ice-cream is clearly called for.

"Ah."

He taps his spoon lightly against the edge of the cup.

"I didn't know." A heartbeat's pause, and then, quietly,

"But now that I do... I'm doubly glad to have been here."

There is a quick smile, but she doesn't say anything for moment.

(This isn't the place for we're going to get in trouble, but then again, there is no place for that.)

"I don't think we're meant to be alone. Although Moscow could stand to have some better housing," she says with a laugh, partly a genuine sentiment, and partly because it's what a Muscovite would say.

He smiles.

"To be sure, but we make do, do we not?"

It could be an answer to either of her observations... or both, in fact.

He helps himself to a small bite of chocolate ice cream, savoring the taste.

"Live in the moment," he murmurs, low enough to be intended for her ears alone. "When you can."

I know.

She doesn't say it.

Men, she is finding, like to cast themselves as teachers, as protectors, as mentors passing down life-lessons to the young in their charge. Particularly to wide-eyed girls.

She knows. She's already been living it. Taking a moment to lose herself in translation here, to dance there. She learnt it during the War, when a bomb she could do nothing about might land on her, when a bullet might get lucky - and she learnt it before that, when her parents were alive. Her parents taught her to be careful of the ears in the walls and the eyes in the streets, and they taught her to read. Her father would pick up his violin, and she'd dance with her mother in the safety of their room.

She knows, but to say so could all too easily be taken as a rebuff.

(Her parents taught her to calculate and plan, too.)

So Natasha smiles, a little, and nods. "Go to the circus when you can," is what she says, out loud, where there is always the chance that someone else might overhear.

He laughs, at that.

"You'll get no argument from me there."

He takes a last bite of ice cream, then sets his spoon down and leans back in his seat. It affords him the opportunity to do a fast scan of the room.

There's no one obviously out of place (including them), no sign that they're being watched (more than anyone else), but he's aware of the unease that's steadily growing within him, given how long they've been gone.

"Although ice cream's a good end to a great evening, too."

"Even in winter," she agrees cheerfully.

Finding bread might sometimes be interesting, but at least the ice-cream is consistent in peacetime.

"I should probably get back, though," she adds, as if they didn't live in the same building. "Roommates worry."

He's not the only one with a sense of time, and a wariness for punishment.

"I'll walk you back," he replies, gallantly - and, of course, more for any listening ears than for either of them.

Lower, though, before he gets up from the table:

"Happy birthday, Natasha. I had fun."

Mission successful, at least in part.

"I hope you did, too."

Her smile is open, just for a moment.

"I did. Thank you, Alex."

(It's going to be, she thinks, a very long trek back to where they are supposed to be.)

It's late enough now that the streets are far, far less crowded than they were before.

He finds it oddly familiar, for reasons he doesn't care to examine.

After a quick scan of the street and the rooftops, he gives her a tiny nod, and steps out of the shop into the winter's cold.

Natasha is silent for a street, and then she glances up at him.

"Alex," she says, quietly and very pointedly, "is the length of my degree a problem? With you, with...anyone else?"

"No."

Instantly, without even the slightest hesitation. He looks down at her.

"No, Natasha. It isn't, I promise. I was just ... wondering."

A crooked smile quirks the corner of his mouth.

"Like we were talking about before -- I was thinking we'd make a great team. In the field. If, that is, you were interested."

Part of her is delighted that he'd think that of her. The other is still - always - cautious.

"If we had choice of partners...hell, yes, I'm interested." A quick smile. "And I have semester breaks, too. A few months over summer is time enough to do missions."

His answering smile is quick and bright.

"That's good to know."

He looks around again, casually assessing, then turns his attention back to her.

"I don't know if either of us will have that choice," he admits, frankly. "But I do know that I've been asked to turn in my final assessment of your skills."

Ordered, rather than asked, of course; still, here between the two of them, it sounds nicer.

"Oh."

It's doubtful if the sound of a squadron of German planes coming in fast would make her heart suddenly start beating faster.

"Well, I guess we'll find out soon if I'm in the field, or just...being an office girl with translations."

"You'd be wasted there. And that's what I'm going to report."

Natasha smiles.

"I know you're just doing your job," she says. "But, thank you for that recommendation, Comrade."

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