OOM: Moscow, USSR, January 1948

[redintheledger]

“Natasha? Natasha, it's fine, it's all over. Hey, Natasha, if anyone else comes, we'll protect you. You can trust us.”

“Natasha, we're not going anywhere. You can relax. We'll keep you safe. Try and think, and turn those gloves off, huh?”

“Natasha, it's alright. It's alright. Do you remember how to take them off? Good.”

“There. See, you're fine.”



“Hey! Excuse me, what the hell did you give her?”


– –

The roof keeps moving.

Swirls from the top of the columns Neo-Classical from Greece and Rome and Andrei would have critiqued it in his toga sipping tea except she'd ditched him, not playing Helen of Troy thank you very much no proper lingerie in Ancient Greece. But anyway the swirls are gold and dancing across the ceiling and it's pretty she should go dancing with Lyosha on the ceiling.

Darkness, and the next time she draws a breath, it hurts.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, motherfucking son of a cheap-

There is a pinch inside her elbow. The soft golden fur returns, envelops her, makes everything bad and sharp go away again.

– –

“I can't give you any more.”

“No, wait-”

“Romanova,” Comrade Doctor Somkhishvili says sharply. “I know your body is metabolising the morphine faster. But you're a tough girl, you can handle it.” She gently pulls her sleeve out of Natasha's grasp, and adds, “I'll check up on you soon.”

Helplessly, Natasha watches as the doctor walks away to tend to the other patients. It hurts when she breathes, and fuck, yes, she's a tough girl and a decorated solider, and all of that other shit Somkhishvili was implying, but God it was nice to just...not care. About anything. The whole world had been golden, nothing wrong, nothing to be careful of, everything safe like she'd never known.

There is a man mumbling nonsense beyond the curtain giving her some privacy. Lilka, he keeps saying, his voice fond enough that the woman is probably a wife. Natasha smiles a little, then fear slices through her.

Lyosha.

She'd been subjected to a couple pointed comments regarding the persistence of her relationship with the man. No matter Lieutenant Shostakov was a wartime hero with the medals and dogfight count to prove it, no matter he was loyal and shy enough not to cause any trouble; it's not his character that's the problem. It's the fact that she's still with him. Not getting distracted, are you? Tkachyova had asked.

But that was then, and this is now, with people dead and blood on her hands. Irritations and bending of the rules can become damning reports when your luck runs out, and she can't run. She can't even breathe without wanting to stab something. She's a witness to things going very, very wrong (she killed Dunya, she killed Dunya, she killed Dunya), and he's linked to her.

Natasha bunches the sheet in a tight fist.

If Alexei Andreyevitch Shostakov gets hurt because of her and her association with this place, she is going to burn everything.

Provided she isn't dead first.

– –

“Never break your ribs,” she gasps, leaning against a wall. The trip from the infirmary to the quarters she shares with the other Red Room students has always been a decent length, but now her hands are shaking.

“I shall endeavour not to,” Asya says, voice wry.

“Sensible.” She doesn't take a deep breath, because between the breaks themselves and the straps tying her ribcage together that's not a wise idea. But she steels herself, and then pushes herself off the wall again.

Her room has a bed. That's all the motivation she has right now.

They pass the small kitchen the students have been assigned, and Natasha can just make out the sounds of low conversation as she walks by. Lidiya Efimovna, maybe, and Gala. Even if Gala hadn't been....as much of a friend as anyone in this place is, three days ago, she stood with Natasha in a blood-stained hallway and calmed her down. Natasha would know Gala's voice anywhere.

“Do you need help with your shoes?” Asya asks once they are in Natasha's room, and she nods, sitting carefully on the bed.

“I feel like I'm three right now,” she says.

Asya snorts, and bends over Natsaha's feet. Natasha waits in silence until the first shoe is off, and then, quietly, she says, “Can you tell me what happened?”

Asya's fingers pause, and then she gets back to work. “You were in the infirmary,” she says, voice barely audible. “Zharkova and Kaminskaya...paid tribute to our training. The guards killed Zharkova. Bogolomova's also dead.” Then she glances up. “No one is telling us anything. Just to...stay here.”

“Thank you,” Natasha says, pitching her voice just as low. Asya nods, and gets to her feet.

“If you need any help, just call out. We'll be in the kitchen,” Asya says. It's not exactly a smile they share, but a silent awareness. The others will be in the kitchen, unless they are not. And if they are not, then...

Natasha tries to halt that train of thought. They all know what it means, and she can't think about that, she can't. They wouldn't get a sentence to the Gulag, they'd get a firing squad, and she can't...she can't....

Carefully, she reaches over to her bedside table and picks up the book there. The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes, in German. How Alex had managed to get it to her, she has no idea, but he did. She opens it, and brushes her thumb over the familiar words on the front page.

Natasha,
For your lessons, a reminder.
-Comrade Winter

Her lessons, and the fact that she took him to the circus, and that she did her best to kill him with the English version of this book, and god, she misses him.

She shouldn't. You don't miss people once they are gone. Too many people leave, you'd spend your entire life mourning them.

(Nadezhda Yurievna Zharkova, Nadya, had been the youngest, and had thrown herself into learning how to read and write, trying to match the rest of them. Mariya Ivanovna Bogomolova – but they called her Marisha, all of them. She'd been like that. She'd never again sit down at the piano. Avdotya Iosifovna Kaminskaya. Dunya. Dunya knew where to find books, and would always tell her, and she killed her...)

Natasha shuts her eyes, and presses the closed book against her mouth. She can't cry, her ribs will hurt too much, but she breathes in the smell of the book and tries to shut everything out.

– –

Just over a week after the Incident, Natasha is sitting carefully on her bed, watching as Bruskin paces in her room, drunk at ten in the morning. She's been under his command since she was fifteen, and she's never even seen him take more than a glass of wine.

Her hands twist in her lap. She could be in the gym with the others; even exercising with broken ribs in front of too many guards with loaded rifles would be better than this.

Fuck it. “Co-Comrade Colonel?”

Abruptly, Bruskin pulls over the stool from her dressing table, and sits in front of her.

“You remember in Stalingrad,” he says, breath reeking of vodka, “I told you that you'd be under my care? I'd look out for you?”

Cautiously, she nods.

He smiles a little, and takes her hand. “That doesn't mean much at the moment. I'm sorry, my girl.”

Natasha swallows. “But we're still here,” she says, sliding her voice up to mimic cheer and hope.

“We are. So far. I'm...responsible,” he manages to get out, “for you, for the other girls. For what happens to you, and for what you do. They are shutting us down, Natashenka. Do you, you understand?”

Carefully, “Tell me. Please.”

Bruskin reaches into his pocket and takes out a flask, but he doesn't drink from it. He frowns, mouthing a few words. “I still have...friends. I still can talk them into sense. Isolated groups, control groups, whatever the fucking scientists talk about. Batches! Like you are all little pies, and they do one thing to one batch to see what happens, while the others are still edible. Means you girls, you're stable. What went wrong before, won't again.”

Do you promise? Natasha keeps her mouth shut, just concentrates on looking young and in need of information.

“If nothing happens in two days, I want you and the others to leave. Find other places to live, and keep your heads down. I will find places for you to have jobs, if I can. Useful places. And then we can rebuild. Or live! You can marry that boy of yours.” Bruskin grins. “Living sounds good. Doesn't it?”

She manages a smile through a lifetime of practice, and nods.

“You tell the others. You're a good girl, Natasha. Too good to be shot just yet, or exiled forever. Good girl,” he repeats, and gets to his feet. He makes his slightly haphazard way out of her room, but she doesn't move until after his footsteps have faded.

Then, having finally been given a clear objective, she carefully gets to her feet to find her bag. In it go a change of clothes, the letters she's chosen to keep (most go into the small oven, but those deemed either useful, or both sentimental and harmless, are wrapped up), the two medals given in thanks for surviving the damn war and killing an awful lot of people, whatever roubles she has on her, a couple books for university, and...

She stands for a long moment at the oven, Sherlock Holmes in hand. She could burn the whole book. She could burn just that one page.

Natasha puts the book in the bag for the same reason that she keeps Lyosha's letters – she's survived once with nothing but the clothes of her back.

She'd prefer avoiding that again.

– –

“Well, this is the politest eviction I've ever experienced,” Olya says, cheerfully, as she links her arm with Natasha's. The leggy blonde is practically floating over the snow, and Natasha spends two seconds hating her for it. After that, she's too busy just trying to walk.

They move in silence until they cross the street, and then Natasha glances at her.

“Whatever it is that you want to say, please just say it.”

“Where we headed?” Olya's smile is bright, and Natasha regards her a touch sourly.

“'We'?”

“I have nothing better to do, I thought I might...keep you out of trouble,” Olya replies, innocent as last night's snow. Somewhat to her own surprise, Natasha doesn't scowl at her. Company would be...nice, given everything.

“Tsvetnoy Boulevard,” Natasha says finally.

Olya's amusement fades into bemusement. “Tsvetnoy? Why? Thinking of joining the circus and riding the pretty horses?”

“I know someone who works there. He might know where I can stay.”

Olya's smile flickers into something older. “People aren't kind when you go looking for help, Nataliya Alianovna. Actually, they tend to be shitheads.”

“I know.”

Olya looks sceptical, and then she bumps into Natasha's shoulder. Natasha tries to whirl around, but her ribs spike and scream; she ends up staggering and swearing instead.

“The hell?”

“Congratulations. On your birthday. You've made it to twenty!” Olya grins.

“...I forgot,” Natasha admits, and then she gives Olya a considering look. The woman is frankly insane, but Natasha is fond of her. And she's around. Gala, Asya, Olya.

It takes guts to stick to someone when things get tense.

“Given you aren't doing anything today, how does ice cream sound?”

“I think, Romanova, that it sounds fantastic.”

“So, Uspenskaya, shall we?” She offers Olya her elbow, and arms linked, the women keep walking away.