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A rustling and a grunt broke the stillness of the palace as the palace door—or rather what was left of it—opened and shut. There was shuffling around the makeshift barricade system the palace had in place.
Anya and Vlad jumped and their heads snapped to look at the entrance of the palace. Vlad had jumped up from his seat and held an arm out as if telling her to stay back. Anya thought perhaps with time she would get used to it, but she could never settle the feeling someone was invading the abandoned palace. She looked beyond Vlad to examine their palace intruder, and she exhaled and her shoulders dropped as she saw a familiar cap and mess of brown hair.
Dmitry walked into the room they had adopted as their own and pulled off his cap. He ran his fingers through his hair, his brow knit.
The trio had taken up residence in what Anya was certain the room was an old drawing room in the palace. The seclusion of the main halls of the palace made it cozy and she had grown to accept it as a permanent place, which she didn’t mind. It beat sleeping on the cold, damp streets of Leningrad.
“Vlad and I were waiting for you to come back before we ate,” Anya offered.
Dmitry nodded solemnly.
Anya’s eyes narrowed as she watched him. He was not usually this reserved.
He walked across the room to the chaise that had long been his unspoken spot, and Anya noticed there was a limp in his left leg. He groaned as he took a seat.
“Dmitry?” Anya asked. “Are you alright?”
She crossed the room and gingerly approached him. She paused and studied his face, her index finger tilted his chin. His right cheek was scraped and scuffed, and his right brow and eye looked slightly swollen. A trace of dry blood rimmed his nose.
Anya’s eyes scanned him over, checking for other injuries. It was hard to say what had happened to him from just the abrasion on his face, but it looked like he had gotten into a fight. She took his hand in her own and turned it over. A deep gash on the back of his hand glared back at her and she gasped.
“Dmitry,” Any said softly, “what happened to you?”
“It’s not important,” he replied. His face was stoic as he looked at her. The dimple in his cheek deepened as he grit his teeth.
She released his chin from her grip.
“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine,” Anya muttered as she pulled his cap from his grip. “But I used to work in a hospital, so I can at least clean and care for these wounds.”
Dmitry stared at her as she was inches away from him. He held his breath, as if he was afraid to exhale.
Anya’s fingers gently traced the edge of his coat. She began to peel it down off his shoulders, and he did not resist. “Where does it hurt?” Anya asked.
“Anya–“
“Tell me where it hurts.”
He glanced at her and his hand slowly rose to his lower abdomen.
Anya gasped and kneeled beside him on the chaise. She gently pried his fingers away to examine him and he winced as she touched his ribs.
She immediately started a checklist in her head of his injuries. Face, ribs–
She smoothed her hands over his arms and she caught his hands and examined them. The gash on the back of his hand and bruised knuckles still glared at her. Hands .
“Let me get something,” Anya muttered as she rose to her feet.
Anya disappeared as she went searching through their supply cabinet. She had stashed away a few supplies she had smuggled out of the hospital in Perm and carried with her for emergencies. Before returning to his side, she grabbed the bottle of vodka from the cabinet.
As she kneeled by his side, she uncorked the vodka and poured it onto a dry cloth.
“Anya that’s top shelf liquor!” Dmitry protested.
“Yes, and if I don’t use it you’re going to have a top shelf infection,” Anya retorted. “Bite down on this.” She handed him the belt she wore with her overcoat.
“What? I’m fine,” Dmitry brushed her off. “I can handle–”
Dmitry cursed and flinched away from her touch as she pressed the soaked cloth to his open wounds.
“Should’ve bit the belt,” Anya muttered. “It’ll clean the wounds—prevent infection.”
Dmitry winced as he tried to sit up. He grimaced as he used his arms to readjust himself on the chaise beside her.
“Your ribs hurt,” Anya stated.
“I’m fine,”
“You can barely sit up! What happened to you?”
“I told you not to worry about it.”
Anya felt herself shaking. Her stomach was in knots and she was afraid for him. He was badly beaten and wouldn’t reveal where he was. She clenched her fist to hide her worry from him. “Let me help you,” she said softly.
There was a beat between them and Dmitry’s rigid frame softened. He was surrendering a battle he knew he would never win. He knew she wouldn’t be at peace unless he let her do this, so he did.
Her fingers gently caressed his cheek as she touched the cloth to the scrapes.
Dmitry winced and tried to pull away, but she gripped his cheek and kept him still.
Anya scanned him, looking for other injuries. She sat on her knees and peeled his vest off and pulled his shirt out of its intentional tuck.
Dmitry’s cheeks flushed and he swatted her hands away. He carefully pulled his shirt over his head, stripping down to his undershirt.
She examined his body and noticed a wincing as he tried to move with his lower abdomen.
Anya grimaced and ran her fingers over his chest until she hit his lower rib cage and he flinched.
“Bruising. Could be broken.” She assessed.
He panted with a shortness of breath, “I’ll be fine.”
Anya pulled away to grab some sort of remedy. As she turned on her heel in the low light of the evening, a slight tear in his pant leg caught her eye. She turned back and leaned over him as she examined the blood soaking through the knee of his pants.
“Oh God, Dmitry,” Anya said softly as her fingers grazed her lips. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and leaned down, her nimble fingers worked to roll up his pant leg to reveal the gash under his knee that was causing his limp.
“I need a couple things, how long has that wound been open?”
Dmitry stared down at his bloody knee. He hadn’t even noticed it happening as he had run back to the palace as fast as his feet could carry him. Now that it was glaring back at him, he prayed Anya had a solution to stop the bleeding. Leg .
“I don’t know,” Dmitry murmured. “not long?”
Anya scoffed and rolled her eyes as she ran back to the cabinet to grab more bandages.
As she returned to his side, she set to work wrapping his knee with pressure to stop the bleeding. Dmitry winced as she pulled the bandage taught and secured it.
He panted beside her, his breath was short. Anya watched him. She was a bit short of breath herself from holding it in while she worked on him. “Your ribs are definitely bruised.” She muttered.
She reached down to pull up his undershirt and his hand stopped her. She looked up at him and then down at his hand. His knuckles were also bruised and bloody.
“Dmitry,” his name rolled off her tongue before she could stop it. Suddenly her sight shifted and she was looking at him through a completely new lens. Up until now she had only known Dmitry to be ragged and tough. For the first time she was seeing him in his most vulnerable state. The closer she looked at him, the more he looked like he had been beaten within an inch of his life.
And her stomach dropped. She had never considered what Dmitry did in the marketplace to be dangerous. These days every man was out for himself, that much she knew was true. Dmitry was just making a few questionable lifestyle choices, but who wasn’t in Leningrad?
She felt a burn in her cheeks as she realized how she had always taken Dmitry coming home at night for granted. He always did, she had no reason to question it. She was suddenly sobered to the thought he could very well have been killed for the crimes he committed.
Anya shook her head to shake the thought. She swallowed hard to push the thought of losing Dmitry down. He was smart and expert at what he did, even if it was against the law. It was his quick tongue that got him in trouble, and she supposed he had to have had a bad scrape or two before this one.
She took his hand in her own and stroked her thumb over the bruising. He grit his teeth to hide his pain.
Anya’s brow knit as she wrapped his knuckles with bandages. She focused a little too hard and pulled a little too tight and he winced.
“Sorry.”
“I’m fine.”
There was a beat between them.
“Now about your ribs, I’m going to need to get you some ice,” Anya said as she thought where she could find some.
She pushed past Vlad, who up until now had hung back and let Anya do the dirty work of patching Dmitry up. Vlad was a tad squeamish and he was somewhat relieved Anya experience with these situations from working in the hospital.
Vlad nodded, in somewhat a state of shock that Dmitry had been beaten up so badly, but more that Anya had turned their little space in the palace into a hospital.
Anya returned shortly with a packed clump of snow she had grabbed from somewhere near the palace and wrapped it in spare cloth. She gently pushed his undershirt up to examine the bruising.
Her eyes caught on the definition in his abdomen and she paused and her mouth gaped open. As she caught herself staring she shook her head and hoped he hadn’t noticed.
“Just some regular bruising. The ice should help.” She said quickly.
She pushed the ice onto the bruising on his ribs.
He winced at the sudden rush of cold. “Anya!” He grimaced. And he writhed with pain.
Anya covered her mouth with her hand and froze as she retracted. “Sorry,” she said quietly.
Anya stepped back and pushed past Vlad. “I need some air,” she said quickly as she walked across the drawing room and out of the room.
Dmitry closed his eyes and exhaled.
Anya ran out into the palace hallway. She slumped against the wall and sat on the floor. Her mind wasn’t thinking straight and she was now doing more harm than good.
She closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing. She needed to think of Dmitry as just another patient at the hospital. Except he wasn’t just another patient, he was Dmitry, and this wasn’t a hospital, it was an abandoned palace.
She exhaled slowly and rose to her feet. She padded softly back to the entrance of the sitting room, where she could see Vlad standing over Dmitry.
Dmitry groaned in pain, and Vlad shook his head.
Anya stood back against the wall. She inhaled and exhaled slowly. She needed to keep her head level.
The days had started to blur together with going to work, purchasing small amounts of food on her way back from work, and doing tasks around the palace sitting room to keep herself busy while Dmitry rested.
His deep wounds were healing nicely, but she worried about his ribs. She worried if he did not sit up enough as he rested, he would have trouble breathing.
After cleaning up from their meal, Anya rounded back to where Dmitry was resting. He was staring at one of the palace walls.
“How do you feel?” Anya asked. She sat down beside him and fixed her skirts around her to sit comfortably.
His breathing was shallow, and he struggled to find the words. “Not great,” He panted.
Anya sat up straighter. Her brow knit as she racked her brain for any sort of remedy.
She could see the discomfort in his face as he sat himself upright. He had broken a sweat and his face looked pale.
“Dmitry,” Anya said in a low voice.
For once the charm in his eyes had extinguished and was deeply unsettled with fear. The usual lash in his tongue was gone and for once he was quiet. Somehow the grown man she had learned to survive with suddenly looked boyish and small.
“It’s going to be alright, right Anya?” He panted as he stared at the floor.
Anya felt a knot in her throat as she looked at him. He looked scared in a way she had never seen before. She had learned it took a lot of work to dishevel Dmitry Sudayev, but she was beginning to learn he did have a limit.
She hadn’t worked on many cases of bruising and broken ribs. She didn’t really know how long it would take to heal. It could be weeks, or months.
She bit her lip and swallowed her own fears as she nodded. “Yes,” she finally replied. “You’re going to get better.”
The news didn’t really seem to reassure him. He stared blankly as he sat upright and hunched over. He winced as he crunched his abdomen, and grit his teeth.
His hair fell in his eyes and he looked like a shade of his former self. He had brushed this all off, but perhaps it was just a front for his fears.
Anya reached up and gently touched his cheek. She felt for a fever, and her thumb caressed his cheek as she rounded his jaw. She used her index finger to tilt his head toward her.
“Look at me, Dmitry,” Anya said softly.
He looked at her.
“We’ll survive this together.”
This would have been where Dmitry’s signature smirk would have appeared—but it didn’t. He was worried.
His focus turned away from her as he watched the fire in the fireplace.
Anya wrung her hands as she looked at his profile, silhouetted by the fire. “You have to,” she said in a faint whisper.
A week had passed since his initial injury and his spirits had seemed to have lifted. Dmitry was spitting jokes with Vlad and still had enough bite left over to poke at Anya when he was done.
She didn’t mind so much, she was just glad to see he had made it through what seemed to be the worst of his healing.
Dmitry rested on the chaise after trying to walk around the palace. Anya had warned him if he sat in place for too long it would make him ill. So he begrudgingly tried to move around the palace, even with his faint limp.
On the chaise, fast asleep he was so still and peaceful, after having spent most of his days leading up to his brush with death barking and brooding in the palace.
Anya quietly approached him and kneeled beside him as she brushed his hair out of his eyes and touched his forehead. She was constantly checking him for a fever, afraid if he did not heal properly he would become ill, and it would push their plan to escape back even further.
He was still cool to the touch, but she worried he might have an aftershock.
She took his hand in her own to examine the bandages. His knuckles had been taking longer than she expected to heal, and still occasionally split and bled if he moved his hand too much. He let out a soft groan as his eyes opened.
“Sorry to wake you,” Anya whispered. “I need to change your bandages.” Her fingers carefully set to work on untying the soiled bandage from his hand.
Dmitry winced as she unwrapped his knuckles. They were still swollen and the scrapes on the ridges of his knuckles had struggled to heal over. Anya swallowed hard and pressed a bit of alcohol to the open cuts and wrapped them with clean bandages. Her thumb stroked over the back of his hand as she was careful to wrap this time.
He looked at her as her eyes fixed on his hand.
She secured the bandage and her fingers lingered on his. He was still and she gasped as she caught him watching her. She muttered an apology as her cheeks flushed.
His eyes cast away.
She examined the rest of him. There wasn’t much she could do for his ribs other than to keep ice on them to numb the pain. She looked down at his side to see a puddle and his shirt was dampened by the ice.
“The ice has melted,” she said quickly as she gently moved his arm and pulled away a soaking cloth and the remains of a block of ice. It dripped on her skirt as she moved it away, and she held it out where it dripped on the floor. Anya looked around frantically to dispose of it.
She ran out of the sitting room and shortly returned with a spare shirt of Dmitry’s.
“Here’s something dry,” she said as a blush spread over her cheeks.
He winced as he pulled the damp shirt up and over his head.
Anya felt her cheeks burn as she watched the fluid motion of his muscles working as he removed the shirt. She stared for just a moment too long.
“Here,” he said softly. It broke her daze.
Anya cleared her throat. “Thank you.”
She handed him the dry shirt and he pulled it on over his head. He smoothed it out and sat up to tuck it into his pants. He reached back and winced and pulled himself straight again.
Anya could see he was struggling to reach his suspenders. She kneeled beside him and picked them up from his waist, and helped them over his arms as she looked away.
He thanked her and fixed his suspenders on his shoulders.
Anya had never been this bashful when she worked at the hospital, and she had no idea why she was so embarrassed now. She knew Dmitry better than any patient she had ever worked with at the hospital.
Dmitry cleared his throat and looked away.
“Can I look at your leg?” Anya asked.
Dmitry looked at her and his brow arched.
“The bandages on your leg,” Anya clarified.
“Right,” Dmitry pulled his pant leg back.
Anya looked and muttered something as she hurried to grab fresh bandages.
She was silent as she set to work fixing the bandaging on his leg.
For the first time he held still for her. She wasn’t sure if it was intentional, or pure exhaustion.
Anya had gotten into the habit of sitting nearby as Dmitry rested. She often pretended to busy herself with a book, but she was listening to the rhythm of his breathing. He still was taking shallow breaths a few weeks into his healing. She reminded herself that among princess lessons he would need to do breathing exercises to keep himself from getting sick.
Tonight she sat beside him by the fire. Dmitry had grown uncomfortable with the chaise he so dearly treasured in the room, so Anya has collected blankets to make a place to sleep by the fire. She had pulled a sack of lentils out form storage to prop him up and keep his chest elevated.
As he slept, she could hear he was struggling to breathe, and she had moved from across the room to right beside him to monitor him. She picked up the book about the Romanovs and began to read by the light of the fire.
Dmitry’s brow knit, his breath was shallow. Anya felt her stomach drop.
She turned a page in her book and continued reading. However her mind had wandered out of place as she heard his short inhale.
Anya knew Dmitry usually slept on his side or his stomach, and sleeping on his back while his ribs healed was likely uncomfortable for him.
Dmitry tried to turn on his side and groaned.
Anya turned to look at him and gasped. She set her book down and turned him back on his back.
“Give him a stiff glass of vodka, Darling,” Vlad said softly.
Anya turned over her shoulder. “That won’t alleviate the pain,” she said quietly.
“You’re right, it won’t,” Vlad replied. “But it’ll make him forget.”
Anya gently stroked Dmitry’s cheek as he turned over.
Vlad handed her his flask.
Anya took the flask and gently woke Dmitry.
“Take a drink of this it’ll help you sleep,” she said softly.
“Vodka?” He laughed, and then he winced as his smile faded. His hand snapped to his side.
He gestured for the flask with his free hand. Anya handed it to him, and he took a sip.
Anya scrunched her nose as she watched. She had never cared much for vodka, but Vlad and Dmitry seemed to have lost any sense of taste the way they drank the vile liquid down.
Dmitry swallowed hard and handed the flask back to her.
He settled down and gave up on trying to sleep on his side. He was tense as he tried to fall asleep.
Anya gently touched his arm, her face softened as she gently rubbed her hand over his arm to ease him..
Dmitry slipped into sleep, and Anya sat by his side, making sure his chest rose and fell and that he was still breathing. He struggled from time to time, a soft groan escaping his lips.
She sat guard over him. Anya picked her book back up, keeping an eye on him as he slept.
She tried to focus on her book but found she wasn’t absorbing anything from it. She set it down and watched the fire as she sat beside him.
Eventually her eyes grew heavy and she closed them for just a second. She snapped back and shook her head to wake herself. And she nodded off again.
After spending her days working and caring for Dmitry, she barely recalled getting any sleep herself.
She slid down, it was just for a second, and gently rested her head on the blankets beside him. Before she knew it, she dozed off beside him, curling up next to him.
Anya jolted awake. She couldn’t believe how careless she was to let herself fall asleep without checking all of her surroundings. And then the second wave hit her. She looked up to see she was resting her head on Dmitry’s shoulder and she pulled herself away. The palace was dark and she knew it was well into the night.
His brow was soft and she paused for a moment. She swept his messy hair out of his eyes as he slept and gently ran her fingers over his cheek.
She got up to grab her book and returned by his side. Dmitry’s injury had set them back several days of Princess lessons, and she figured the least she could do was try to read on her own.
Dmitry stirred slightly and Anya looked down at him as she settled into a comfortable position beside him.
He gently woke beside her and looked at her.
“How are you feeling?” Anya asked.
“Like death is upon me,” he replied. At least his sense of humor hadn’t been bruised too badly along with the rest of his body.
Anya rolled her eyes. He was always so dramatic.
“What are you reading? A history book?”
Anya nodded. “I just figured, since we’re behind-“
Dmitry reached up with his free arm and pulled her book from her hands. “We’re not behind. You’re doing just fine.” He set the book beside him out of her reach.
Anya watched him for a moment. “I need to check your leg again,” she said quickly.
“Anya,” Dmitry held a hand up to stop her. “I’m fine. I’ve been in bad scrapes before.”
“Have you ever bruised your ribs before?”
“Well, no,”
“You need to rest. I need to check for infection.”
“Anya, you just changed them,” he said softly. “I’m fine.”
Anya paused and sighed. “Can I have my book back, please?”
“No,”
“Dmitry,”
“I want you to tell me a story instead,” he said as a smirk wiped across his face.
“Well,” Anya began. “Anastasia,”
“No,” Dmitry stopped her.
She paused and shifted her weight uncomfortably as she looked at him in the low light of the fire.
His face softened. “Tell me a story about Anya.”
Anya hesitated. She wasn’t used to talking so much about herself, and her life stories weren’t nearly so much a fairytale as Anastasia’s were.
“I don’t have any stories you would want to hear,” Anya replied as her eyes cast away. Her hands folded nervously in her lap.
“That’s not true,” Dmitry quipped as he shook his head. “You have lived a whole life I’ve never heard about.”
“Because they’re either stories of survival or stories I don’t remember,” Anya said as her brow knit.
“A story of survival is still a story, Anya,” Dmitry grinned.
“I don’t have grand tales like you do!” Anya shook her head. “I haven’t become a legend of my own kind.”
Dmitry’s brow arched. “You walked halfway across Russia, didn’t you? That’s a grand tale in itself.”
“It didn’t feel it at the time,” Anya replied quietly. “It felt like I was trying to escape.”
“So then surely you have a story to tell me,” Dmitry smirked as he reached out and poked a finger into her side.
She smiled and gently caught his hand and placed it back on his chest.
“Well if I was Anastasia,” Anya began.
Dmitry reached up and held a finger to her lips. “I don’t want to hear about Anastasia tonight. I want to hear about Anya.”
Anya was silent. The lines were beginning to blur in her head as he filled her with stories of the late grand duchess.
“When I worked in the hospital in Perm, I got to have a meal at supper,” Anya began. “And most of the nurses ate in the kitchen, but this was one of the few hours I could have completely to myself—where no one needed me, and I didn’t need to give attention to anyone or anything.”
Dmitry looked at her in the low glow of the fire.
Anya’s mouth gaped as she recalled from her memory. This memory was one of the more clear ones among the haze of feelings and ghosts in her mind.
“And so I would often take my meal from the kitchen and carry it up to this empty room. The nurses never put anyone in it. But there was a big window in that room where you could see over the city. And at night I liked to climb up and eat my supper while I watched the city.”
Dmitry’s face softened with a certain understanding.
“And it was a moment I got to have alone, every night,” Anya mused. It was as if she had forgotten he was there and was just going through the memory on her own. “Except I always dreamed one day I’d get to live in a big city, but even more that I’d have someone to share it with.”
Anya’s voice trailed off as she turned to look at him.
“Has that feeling… changed?” Dmitry asked. He cleared his throat. “Now that you’re in Petersburg?”
“Leningrad?” Anya corrected. “No.”
Dmitry grimaced. He nodded softly as he was lost in thought.
“Can I get you some water?” Anya asked. She cleared her throat to change the subject. The Petersburg topic seemed to be a pretty sore one for Dmitry.
“I’m fine,” Dmitry said quietly.
Anya nodded. She sat for a moment too long and fixed her skirts as she started to stand.
“Did you want to be a nurse?” Dmitry asked.
Anya turned to look at him.
His face was soft as he barely lifted his head to look at her.
“Once, maybe,” Anya replied as she paused. “The hospital brings a certain familiarity I can’t explain.”
Dmitry swallowed hard.
Anya rose to her feet and walked across the room to the cabinet where they stored supplies.
“I think you would have been good at it,” Dmitry said softly.
Anya turned to look at him across the room, “hm?”
“Can you get me a glass of water, too,” Dmitry said as he cleared his throat.
Anya smiled softly as she poured him a glass of water. She crossed the room and handed it to him.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
She nodded.
Dmitry hid his rosy cheeks in the glass as he took a sip, thankful for the low light of the fire.
Anya checked Dmitry’s wounds less frequently as the weeks passed. His scrapes had healed over nicely, and he wasn’t struggling to breathe nearly as much.
She grew nervous. Dmitry had become much softer with time, but as his spirits rose, she knew he would be back to barking orders and their nights would be long with studying.
And her heart sank a little, but she didn’t know why. Of course she wanted him to get better. The way her heart had nearly stopped when she examined him, she was relieved he had healed nicely over a few weeks. His ribs were still healing but he could walk short distances without growing out of breath.
She was afraid it was morbid she had enjoyed getting to take care of him. He was much kinder to her as she cared for him, and she felt privileged to have gotten to see a side of Dmitry so few had the chance to see.
“You’ll be back in the marketplace in no time!” Vlad teased as he clapped Dmitry on the shoulder.
Dmitry grinned and laughed and on a sharp inhale he still winced. He clasped his side and Anya turned to look at them from the spot she had claimed by the window.
Anya turned back and stared out the window. She drew her knees to her chest.
Her heart sunk and she had never felt this way before.
“Anya!” Vlad called.
Anya turned to look at him. She looked past Vlad to Dmitry.
Dmitry cleared his throat as he looked at Vlad, “Would you like to join us? Before we pick back up with lessons?”
Anya slid off the window sill to her feet.
She walked across the palace floor to where Dmitry and Vlad were drinking from a flask.
Dmitry held the flask out to Anya, and she politely pushed it away. She smiled up at him.
The scrape on his cheek had healed into a faint scar.
Anya’s brow softened. She reached up and gently touched his cheek, her thumb running over the scar.
Dmitry smiled as he looked down at her.
But even as she missed her nights of sitting by the fire while she slept, they were quickly forgotten as she looked into the warm glow in his eyes. Nothing could compare to seeing Dmitry healthy and in high spirits again.
Dmitry wrapped his arm around Anya and pulled her close. She smiled against his chest and laughed as he pulled Vlad in too.
Anya had never known what it felt like to have a family, but she was sure this must have been close. Dmitry messed with the ends of Anya’s hair and she frowned and pulled away. He wore a playful smirk and she knew he must be feeling better.
“Come, Anya, let’s go for a walk!” Dmitry suggested. He hadn’t left the palace in weeks, and Anya knew he must be itching to get back on the streets.
She turned and looked out the window of the palace. The snow had stopped falling, but a fresh layer covered the ground.
“Anya?” Dmitry called, with a boyish impatience.
She turned back to him and skipped to catch up and join him.