redintheledger | OOM: Khabarovsk, Siberia, USSR, March 1955

Natasha is trying to repair her typewriter when the front door of the field office opens. She always looks up when it opens - habit, and she's not the only one - but today she freezes when she sees who it is.

Valeriya Iosifovna, the wife of Lyosha's commanding officer, is a kind woman. She also shouldn't be here. Valeriya Iosifovna glances her way as she walks towards Tokarev's office, and icy fear slides down Natasha's back.

"Shostakova," Tokarev says a few minutes later, standing at the door to his private office. "We need to talk to you."

Natasha nods, clenches her ink-stained hands, and gets to her feet. She can feel the looks of her co-workers, and whatever this is about (he's hurt, he's just hurt, Lyosha's just hurt and people can get better), she wants them all to go away and stop watching.

"Take a seat, Comrade Lieutenant," Tokarev says, and it's the nicest thing her superior has ever said to her.

"Natasha," Valeriya Iosifovna begins, and Natasha shakes her head sharply.

"What's happened to my husband?"

"His plane went down over the Pacific," Valeriya Iosifovna says in that annoyingly calm voice. "Officially, he's missing, but-"

The world is distorted, gravity twisting until nothing is solid.

"If it's all the same to you," Natasha says, her voice coming from a distance, "I'm going to go with 'missing'."

Valeriya Iosifovna presses her lips together, and nods. "I think we should get you home. I'll drive you, and I'm sure Colonel Tokarev will allow you some days off."

"...of course," Tokarev says, and normally Natasha would be able to write a report on the dynamics going on. Normally. Now, she's just staring.

Officially, he's missing. Officially, he's missing. Officially, he's missing, but-

"Good," Valeriya Iosifovna says. And then Natasha feels an arm around her shoulders, and she's walking out of the office to the Shchetinins' dark car. She's never been in a car before, but all she does is keep her hands in her lap.

It wouldn't do to get ink stains everywhere.

Valeriya Iosifovna makes her tea. Makes her tea, when it should be Natasha. It's Natasha's kitchen, and Lyosha can't be gone. He can't. He can't.

He promised.

They'd found each other in Gorky Park after the war, when nearly everyone else they knew had been killed during it. The only ones left from their street, except for one of his sisters and Ivan Petrovitch. Everyone else they knew in Stalingrad, gone. Their parents, their friends, their teachers, their neighbours. Missing.

Dead.

He promised.

Natasha buries her face in a cushion, and screams.