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~Christmas 2002~
At six, Yennefer already knew that when she grew up, she was going to marry her best friend, Triss Merigold. She was so sure of it, she’d already picked out a wedding dress, the image of which she’d very carefully clipped out of a sewing catalog her dad had tried to throw away and pinned to her wall above her bed. It was a beautiful white dress made of soft-looking fabric, with a square neckline and 3/4 sleeves and embroidered flowers at the neck and cuffs, and it would make her look like a princess.
(She wasn’t as pretty as a princess. She wasn’t half as pretty as Triss. But Yenn could dream, and dream she did.)
Triss Merigold was eight years old and had thick curly red hair and silky-smooth light-brown skin and a ton of cute freckles, and Yenn loved her so much it sometimes mad her stomach hurt. She hated the thought of Triss loving anyone else more than she loved her, and would sometimes cry when she had to go to school and see Triss sitting on the “big girls” side of the lunchroom with all her third-grade friends. But Triss always made it up to her. Always. She’d come over every day right after school, and they’d do their homework together, and Triss always helped Yenn with the hard stuff even though Yenn couldn’t really help her that much in return, because Triss was wonderful and Yenn couldn’t believe she was so lucky to have such an angel for a best friend.
There was a pond behind Yennefer’s house, and all summer long the girls had swum together in it and they’d fished in it in the fall and now, now that it was frozen, they skated on it after their homework was done. Yenn would hold onto Triss’ hands tightly as the older girl skated backwards and coaxed her along, there you are Yenn, see you can do it, you’re a right natural Yenn look at you, no matter how uncertain and wobbly Yenn was on her skates.
But Triss could really skate. She took proper lessons every weekend and as soon as she was old enough she would compete in real skating contests. She could do all sorts of tricks on her skates, twirls and leaps and little tap-tap steps that made her look like she was flying, and Yenn loved to watch her so much. Yennefer liked to pretend she was a fairy princess, but Triss really was a fairy princess.
And then came Christmas Eve, and Triss snuck out of her family’s party to meet Yenn at their pond. “I’ve got something for you,” she said excitedly, and pulled out a small, thick envelope full of tissue paper. It was an American sewing pattern, McCall’s. On the front—Yenn squeaked in delight—was a photo of the pretty dress she’d tacked to her wall.
“It’s the pattern for the dress you like,” Triss explained unnecessarily. Her brown eyes suddenly were oddly bright, even in the dimming glow of the sunset. “So, you know. We can…I mean. You said you wanted to marry me, right?”
Her cheeks darkened with a blush and Yenn squeaked again, looking up at her best friend through adoring eyes. Triss knew. She knew, and she felt it too, and Yennefer decided then and there that as soon as spring came, they would move into her old tree house together and get married then and there. Why not? If Cinderella could do it, so could they. “I love you Trissie.”
Triss smiled and leaned in to brush her mouth against Yenn’s flushed cheek. “Love you too, Yenn.” The cheek-kiss turned to a nose-kiss, and then finally a quick, nervous peck on the lips. “I’ve got to get back,” she said sadly. “But we’ll have lots of time to play tomorrow. Mom and Dad never make me go to Aunt Fringe’s. And we’ll have lots of time through the holidays. Right?”
“Right,” Yennefer said happily.
Christmas Day wasn’t as much fun in her house as it was in Triss’—Triss had lots of presents and lots of time with her parents and then lots of time to play with her new toys, while Yennefer had to content herself with a few small, practical gifts and a quiet dinner with her stern father—but as soon as she was allowed to leave the table Yenn practically flew out the door to the backyard pond. Triss was waiting there, her face glowing, and she obligingly started the usual round of twirls and leaps on the ice, beaming with pride every time Yenn cheered for her.
“I’m going to make up a special dance to a song,” Triss told Yenn happily, “and then when I start to compete I’ll use it as my program. And then everyone will know you’re my favorite person ever.”
Yenn thought she might scream, she was so happy. Triss was the best girl in the whole world and even though people at school liked her, she liked Yennefer. Tiny, plain, boring Yennefer, who didn’t even have any good Barbie dolls to play with. Triss still somehow liked her the best.
“My parents got me a puppy for Christmas,” Triss told her just before they said goodnight. “I’ll share her with you. She can be our first…baby.”
Yennefer shrieked with joy and jumped up to give Triss a big hug. Triss giggled and happily squeezed her back. “I love you lots,” she said as she protectively cuddled Yenn to her chest. “I can’t wait to grow up so we can have our own house and everything.”
“Me too. And I love you lots too.” Yenn nestled her face in Triss’ perfect, sweet-smelling hair and hoped fervently that growing up wouldn’t take as long as Dad always made it sound like it would.
For five perfect, happy days nothing was wrong and everything was perfect. And then, the day after New Year’s, Yennefer was roughly shaken awake by a man even more stern and unmovable than her father, who informed her in a strange voice with a strange accent that she was a very lucky little girl and, if she behaved, she would be very famous when she grew up.
Yenn thought for a moment that would be nice; if she were famous she would be rich, and then maybe she could get Triss a castle as a present—a castle would certainly be a good fit for her fairy princess—but then the man grabbed her out of bed and Yennefer screamed, and she was slapped and ordered to “stop behaving like a child.”
And for the next ten years, she soon discovered, that was to be her fate.
~Christmas 2012~
“Oh, they’re so cute, aren’t they?”
Triss giggled her agreement as she watched the Learn to Skate class stumble across the ice, led by the tallest, thickest, blondest man she’d ever seen. Illya Kuryakin, former world champion, was teaching a bunch of 6-year-olds how to skate and it was the most adorable thing Triss had ever seen. Gaby, Illya’s wife, had been cooing nonstop over it for the last ten minutes.
Triss had never achieved her childhood olympic dreams. But, frankly, that was all right with her. She’d enjoyed competing, but never as much as she loved being part of ice shows. And the minute she’d hit sixteen, she’d signed up to volunteer as a part time coach at her local rink and loved it. When she was newly eighteen her father went to New York, and she’d impulsively come with him and loved it so much he’d promptly set her up in an apartment with a few other skaters, girls they both knew from her time in the competition circuit, and helped her get a job as a coach at the Skating Club of New York.
It had only been about six months but it was her life, her grown-up life, and Triss could almost convince herself she was fully happy. Well. Mostly happy. She had friends. Her apartmentmates were nice enough, and Illya had taken her under his wing the minute she popped up at the SCNY, and his retired-ballerina wife, Gaby, had immediately shown herself to be a kindred spirit. Yes. Triss was happy. Mostly.
“You know,” Gaby said a moment later, “we’re having a dinner guest tonight. Well. Not exactly a dinner guest, but…”
“Gabs,” Triss cut her off with a sigh. “Please, not another setup, I’m begging you.”
There it was. Everyone else her age seemed eager to get onto the “dating scene.” College kids in the city dated like it was their second job, and all the girls in her apartment seemed absolutely obsessed with their boyfriends, or FWBs who might become boyfriends, or tinder dates who might become FWBs who might become boyfriends…and Triss just. Didn’t care. She’d never much cared to date men, and even when Gaby obligingly took that information and set her up with girls, there was just no spark.
It was…absurd, perhaps, to believe you’d met your soulmate at the tender age of eight. But every time Triss tried with someone knew, she couldn’t get those purple eyes and sweet, lisping call of her name out of her head. She couldn’t help but wonder what Yennefer Vengeberg looked like now. Was she taller? Curvier? Did she still have that thick dark hair? She’d be about sixteen now…had she gone through an awkward phase yet, with glasses and braces and bad skin and bad hair days? It didn’t matter. Triss knew she’d never find out, and it hurt.
Yennefer had just disappeared one day, into thin air. Her father was tight lipped and refused anything other than “she’s gone away to school and will not be back for some years.” He’d given away all of Yennefer’s things and Triss had been lucky to snatch a few treasures. The threadbare stuffed bunny that had once been the “baby” in their house-playing adventures. Yennefer’s worn little children’s bible, with the picture of her mom inside. A yellow scarf that Triss herself had crocheted as a gift, upon realizing that the poor girl had few winter clothes. A battered pink beaded necklace that might’ve come from a dress-up toy kit. And most important of all, the wedding dress pattern Triss had mail-ordered from McCall’s ten years ago, unopened and still waiting for a bride to bring it to life.
“It’s not a setup,” Gaby assured her. Then with a sigh, “Though if you ask me, you should go out a little more. Have some fun. You’re young, you know.”
“Gaby.”
“Fine, fine. Anyway. It’s not a setup. Illya and I are hosting a girl about your age who’s training with the NYCB. She’s from…I forget. Russia, I think Illya said? I know she was trained in a Russian school. Anyway, she’s young and scared shitless and she just got in this morning. She’s basically locked herself in her room and hasn’t come out, hasn’t said a damn word. I think if there was someone closer to her age around, a friendly face, she might be a little warmer.”
“I’ll be there,” Triss promised. And then her own students arrived, a group of eleven- and twelve-year-olds training for their first competitions, and it was her turn to go out on the ice. For the next hour, she would belong to them, and must do her absolute best to forget that anything else existed.
After the lesson, Illya approached her with a bear hug. “Good work, Hedgewitch.”
Triss giggled and nuzzled her head against him like a kitten, enjoying the warmth of his strong body. Illya gave the best hugs. “Same to you, Red Scare.” Having grown up an only child, Triss absolutely appreciated the value of having been “adopted” by Illya. She’d never had a big brother, but she liked to imagine it might’ve been like this.
“Do you want to go to the gym?” he offered, as he always did after their classes.
“Don’t you have to go home and help Gaby cook dinner? And get your dancer friend to come out of her hiding place?”
Illya shrugged. “Anya will hide if she wants, and Gaby will order from The Instant Cart.”
“It’s just Instacart, hon.”
“You know my meaning. Come. We exercise. Keep you strong.” He playfully squeezed her bicep. “Your skaters will respect you if they fear you.”
“Is that what you tell yourself every time you let the little kids puppy-pile you?” Triss couldn’t help but tease him.
Illya gave her what might’ve been a glare, if his eyes weren’t sparkling just a little. “Don’t question my methods, witch, and I don’t question yours.”
“Fair enough. C’mon. I’m going to kick your ass on the rowing machine today.”
“Only in dreams,” he insisted, but he was smiling openly now and linked his arm through hers to escort her off the ice.
~
Illya and Gaby’s apartment was one of the bigger ones, effectively a townhouse, with an upstairs that held two bedrooms and a bathroom and a downstairs that had an eat-in kitchen, living room, and very tiny laundry room. To Triss, however, it didn’t matter how big or small the place was, as long as her friends were there it felt like home. Especially when she came in later that night, fresh from a long post-workout bath, and smelled Gaby’s signature roast chicken. “Oh, that’s heaven,” she sighed theatrically when Gaby came to the door. “If your new pet dancer doesn’t come down for a taste of that, she’s crazy.”
Gaby beamed and gave Triss a quick side-hug, holding the glaze-laden tongs in her hand carefully out of the way. “C’mon in. She’s in the living room with Illya. She’s adorable, Triss. I just want to scoop her up and put her in a little snowglobe.”
“That’s not creepy at all,” Triss teased, and Gaby pretended to smack her with the tongs.
“…are not from Motherland, then,” she heard Illya saying to the girl, whose back was to the door, as she and Gaby headed for the living room.
“No,” replied a soft, unmistakably English accent. “I was trained in a Russian school, but I grew up in South London.”
“Is all right. I take you to St. Petersburg someday,” Illya told her eagerly. “Show you the Winter Palace. You are beautiful, you could have been a Romanov.”
“That’s high praise, coming from him,” Gaby quipped as she entered the room. “Anya darling, come meet Illya’s favorite skater. It’ll do you good to know someone your age outside that exhausting school. God knows I could’ve done with that.”
The girl shifted uneasily, but obediently stood up. All Triss could see was a thick curtain of silky black hair, attached to a slender, long-limbed body that was nearly tall as hers. And then the girl turned fully around, and Triss’ heart stopped, because she knew those eyes, she knew them.
“Yennefer,” she gasped, and then before she could stop herself she’d flown across the room and hurled herself straight at the girl she hadn’t seen for ten years. For a moment she held a statue in her arms—she wondered, wildly, if she’d been wrong, if this wasn’t her Yenn—and then she was being hugged fiercely tight, and the tears came. “I missed you so much,” she sobbed into the thick dark hair. There was no verbal reply, just a tight squeeze, just the silent pressure of longtime friendship. I missed you too. She knew then that Yenn hadn’t forgotten her. Yenn could never forget her.
“What is happening here?” she heard Illya ask.
“They know each other,” came Gaby’s soft reply.
Yenn held Triss tight for a long time, until Triss’ tears finally slowed and she was able to withdraw her face from Yenn’s hair without feeling like a vital organ was being ripped out of her. Only then did she see Yennefer’s face properly for the first time in years. It was the same face…sort of. Baby Yenn’s face had been a little rounder, cheeks softer, her eyes brighter. This Yennefer’s face felt sharp and underfed, her full lips in direct contrast to her hollow cheeks. Triss’ first emotion was that of loss, followed by sharp anger. “They starved you, didn’t they,” she said indignantly.
Yenn just looked at her through sad, haunted eyes. She didn’t have to answer. Triss knew. She wasn’t angry with Yenn. Not a bit. She knew Yennefer would never, ever have left of her own accord. It was probably lucky, all told, that Yenn’s father was most likely back in England and, hopefully, dying of old age or one of those horrible diseases smokers were known to get. Because if he were here, Triss would have strangled him with the first rope she could get her hands on.
“I don’t understand,” Illya finally broke in. “Who is Yennefer? This is Anya Charlotra.”
Yenn shook her head and finally found her voice. “No. Triss is right. Yennefer is my real name” She swallowed hard. “Triss…I didn’t want to go.”
“I know.” Triss held both of Yenn’s hands tight in her own. “I know, love. I don’t blame you. But Yenn, sweetheart, what happened?”
“Let’s sit back down,” Gaby cut in. “And…Yennefer, is it? You just tell us the truth, darling. We won’t be angry, whatever it is.”
Yenn’s stony face betrayed no hint of anxiety, but Triss knew she very much doubted what Gaby had said. But she let Triss guide her into a chair, and gripped her hand tight as she began carefully, “When I was six, my father…sold me, I suppose you could say…to a man who promised to make me a famous dancer.”
Yenn spared plenty of detail, but what she did tell of was utterly horrifying. She’d been forced to adhere to a training regimen that would have wrecked most adults. Force-fed medications to enhance her performance. Punished harshly when she didn’t achieve the goals set for her. She’d left in the dead of night, planning to either escape or die, when she discovered she was not in Russia, as she had been told, but rural England. She got back to London and obtained herself a false passport and birth certificate, which she used to get herself to New York. Quickly realizing she’d need a job and place to live, she’d tried to sneak into NYCB auditions but was instead redirected to the School of American Ballet. She’d auditioned, gotten in, and promptly realized she’d need a better cover story. She’d spun one about being an orphan and living in New York with an elderly aunt, whose signature she’d forged on her entry forms, and had planned to move into the dorms until the program director had suggested she stay with Gaby, who’d been known to host a SAB student now and then.
But, she now admitted, she still had the problems of no visa, no legitimate papers, no money, no place to live once the school year was out, and no explanation that wouldn’t land her on a plane back to England. Her father, Triss was disgusted to learn, was still very much alive and kicking and would demand her back in a heartbeat. There were anti-trafficking and child protection laws that would send Yenn, still a minor, back home if she were discovered.
At the end of it, Illya cursed furiously. “This was no Russian school,” he growled. “This was a disgusting pack of”—here there was another bout of explosive Russian cursing—“imprisoning children and pretending to be teachers.”
“Was it really so different from how you were taught?” Gaby prompted him gently. As a young skater Illya had been heavily pressured to use drugs; it was part of why he’d dropped out of competition and gone into teaching instead, trying to break the cycle.
“That was different. I had the choice. She did not.” Illya leaned forward and put his hand on Yennefer’s shoulder, tilting his head to catch her eyes. “I have friend here, Henry Solo, American government agent. He is… usually… good man. He will help you stay here. Give you papers and things. And you stay here with us and go to school. No one will give you drugs here.”
“I can’t—”
“You’d better,” Gaby cut her off. “I’m sure you’ve been told this before, darling, but you can trust us.”
“They’re good, Yenn. I promise.” Triss bit her lip. “You can…you can stay with me. If you’re scared here,” she offered. She didn’t know how the hell she’d cram Yenn into the two-bedroom she shared with three other girls, but she’d figure it out.
“I have a better idea.” Gaby stood up. “We could keep you both here, if you like.”
“You—no, we couldn’t—” Yenn looked anxiously between Triss and the Kuryakins. “You can’t, you don’t have the space.”
“Ask Triss, honey. We’ve been asking her to move in forever. If you girls don’t mind sharing a room…”
“Of course not.” Triss wrapped a protective arm around Yenn. “Trust me, they’re on our side,” she promised in a whisper when Yennefer seemed uncertain.
There was a long pause. And then, tentatively, “Well…if everyone is all right with it…”
“Nothing will make us more happy,” Illya assured her. “We move you in before Christmas. It is decided.”
“And next Christmas,” Gaby added with a grin, “we’ll all go on holiday together. I seem to remember someone,” she nudged Illya, “promising our girls here that they’d get to see St. Petersburg.”
Yennefer didn’t cry like Triss did, but she looked at them all with shining eyes and gripped Triss’ hands tight, and Triss hadn’t seen her in ten years but she knew Yennefer, she knew her, she knew when her best friend was happy.
~
“I have to show you something.”
Yennefer paused in her task of rearranging clothes in the small, shared closet and turned to see Triss carefully pulling the packing tape off a small carton. Her eyes went wide at the first thing Triss pulled out: a worn, small plush bunny with blue glass-bead eyes. Her bunny. “That’s…”
“I know. Here.” Triss pulled out the bead necklace, the little yellow scarf, the children’s bible into which a grainy polaroid of Yenn’s mother had been tucked. Last but certainly not least, she handed over the unopened wedding dress pattern. “Your dad gave away your stuff. This was all I could save. I’m sorry.”
Yenn looked down at the small collection of dilapidated treasures, ran a pinky finger over the glossy image of her mother, lovingly squeezed the little stuffed bunny. Finally, her eyes wet, she looked up at Triss, the bridal dress pattern held gingerly in her shaking hands. “Do you remember this?” she whispered, her voice low and hoarse. “You told me when we were old enough…”
“I meant it.” Triss swallowed hard and forced herself to not look away, even as she felt her cheeks heating up. “I still do. Yenn, I tried, I—I went, you know, on dates. I let Gaby fix me up a few times. Kissed a couple of girls, even tried kissing a boy. But—” She lost the fight to not cry. “None of them were you.”
Yenn hadn’t allowed herself to cry in front of Illya and Gaby. But now she put aside the dress pattern, handling it with the care a mother would give to her newborn. And then she flung herself at Triss and held on tight, and Triss could feel the shoulder of her thermal shirt getting very wet. She didn’t care. She pressed kiss after soft kiss to Yenn’s hair, her cheek, her ear, any bit she could reach.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you more than anything, Yenn. Always will.”
Yennefer was sobbing too hard to answer. It was all right. Triss didn’t need words. She just needed to never let go of the girl she loved again.
~Christmas 2015~
Triss would never admit it to her family back in London, but she loved American Thanksgiving. The parade, the feast, the unrepentant shopping sprees the next day. It was just so…festive. Such a nice start to the Christmas season. And Triss loved holidays. There was no such thing as a bad excuse to celebrate.
So when she was invited to skate on a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade she eagerly accepted it. She’d always loved performing more than competing and you didn’t get a much bigger audience than a live television broadcast from New York. And she loved her costume for the show so much. It made her look like a snow princess.
The day of the parade she had to be awake at 4:30 in the morning to be ready on time. To be dressed, made-up, have her skates on, finish warming up, and be up on the float by 8:30, the official line-up time. At that point, she had to turn in her phone to her designated “assistant” because, well, it wasn’t like she could just tuck it into her ice dress.
She called Yennefer just before she got on the float. “Will you watch for my float?” she asked as she twisted the hem of her skirt. She loved performing, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t get a little nervous.
“Sure I will. And then,” heavy sigh, “I have to go back to the stupid Lincoln Center tonight.”
“Dress rehearsal?”
“Bloody dress rehearsal. I swear to every god in the sky if I have to hear the sugarplum variation tinkle-tink-tink-tink-tink one more time I’m going to vomit.”
“Have I got some bad news for you about the next six weeks, then.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“You know girls everywhere dream of being the Sugarplum Fairy? You could show a little gratitude.”
“Fuck off.” Yenn sighed dramatically. “Why couldn’t I just be in the damn corps?”
“Because you’re too good, that’s why, and once you put in your time as a performer, they’ll take you as a teacher,” Triss reminded her patiently. “Yenn, you know any time you want to quit and do something else, I’ll have your back.”
“I know. Only…even if it wasn’t my choice to do it…I did put all that work in to be good, you know?” Yenn sighed again. “It’d be my choice to quit, so it’s my choice to go back every night. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”
“It does,” Triss assured her. “It makes perfect sense.” The assistant was waving her to hang up and get on the ice. “Sweetheart, I have to go.”
“Okay. Skate extra pretty.”
“Will do. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Triss hung up and surrendered her phone to the assistant. She climbed up, pulled off her skate guards and handed them over, and glided over to her position. The float was sponsored by Riedell (of course) and was effectively shaped like a giant snow globe. Her job was to skate in circles and wave, then do a few simple tricks every time it stopped. Easy enough.
She skated in circles to burn off excess energy, until the float started to move and she did a quick single toe loop just to remind herself she knew how. The float moved down the street and stopped at the first station, where the taping would take place. Triss waved, smiled, turned into a perfect layback, and let the applause wash over her. Given that she was insulated in a little plexiglass bubble the cheers were muted, but she could hear them nonetheless. Buoyed by the admiration from the crowd, she glided out of the spin, did a few crossovers to build up speed, and launched herself into another toe loop, this time a double. More cheers. Triss could not for all the money in the world have stopped smiling. This felt good.
The parade route was only about two miles long, but of course going at a slow pace meant it took nearly an hour and a half to get to the end. The cold air was on full blast to keep the ice from melting, but as always, skating kept her nice and warm. Triss was practically walking on air when she finished; she couldn’t stop herself from excitedly hugging her assistant and the parade coordinator who came to check on her. “Someone’s happy,” the assistant remarked as he handed her phone and skate guards back.
“I love skating,” she said, perhaps a bit unnecessarily. For a moment she twinged a little; she wished Yennefer could love her dancing as much as Triss loved to skate. But then, she supposed the way Yenn had been taught to dance, that wasn’t going to happen.
Triss frowned a little when she saw she had no texts and only two missed calls from Gaby, but she figured either Yenn had mislaid her phone (wouldn’t be the first time) or they’d all been too caught up in talking to text her. She caught a cab back to the apartment and went upstairs, humming the parade music to herself the whole time…and abruptly stopped when what she found waiting for her was not a happy family preparing a giant meal, but her girlfriend curled up in visible anguish on the couch while Illya tentatively patted her back and looked around in visible distress at the presence of a crying female.
When he saw Triss he leapt to his feet, visibly relieved, and hurried to the door to greet her. “She receives bad news from her doctor,” he told her in an undertone. “Says you will not want her anymore.” His tone was perfectly low and calm, but his eyes screamed help, fix it.
Gaby came in from the kitchen with (Triss would’ve laughed had the situation not been so serious) a pitcher of beer and a handful of mugs. “Let’s have a drink, that’ll help,” she said brightly.
“Of course, this is German response to everything,” Illya said with a roll of his eyes.
“Coming from the country that invented vodka? Pot vs kettle, yes?” Gaby tried to hand Yenn a drink but the curled-up ball of misery on the couch only waved her away. “Darling, it’s really not so bad,” Gaby pleaded with her, setting aside the glasses and sitting down to give Yenn a gentle backrub. “Look, see, Triss is home, she’ll tell you.”
“Tell her what?” Triss asked as she peeled off her coat and tossed it aside. She knelt in front of Yenn on the couch and patted her knee. “Yenn, honey, tell me what’s going on?”
Dead silence, utter stillness. Then Yennefer yanked her phone out from somewhere underneath her and shoved it at Triss, who took it and saw that the MyChart app was open and Yenn had indeed been reading a note from her doctor. Triss’ heart sank. Earlier that month, Yenn had gone to her gynecologist to see why her periods were, as she put it, “utterly fucked.” According to this note, the results of the blood tests and the scans had come back, and they were…not good. Triss could’ve guessed; steroids and restricted food intake and years of combining rigorous exercise with lack of sleep and delayed puberty were not a good recipe for fertility. But she hadn’t realized it would hit Yenn this hard.
She crawled up onto the couch and pulled the human cue ball that was Yennefer into her arms. Yenn initially stayed tense, but when she recognized it was Triss cuddling her and not Gaby or Illya she melted a little and pressed her face into Triss’ neck, silently seeking comfort. “Sweetheart, it’s okay,” Triss said softly. “If you want a family we’ll find a way to have one, all right?”
“Not okay,” Yenn grunted, her complaint muffled in Triss’ shoulder. “They took everything else from me. I want this choice back.”
Triss could feel her heart shatter at the genuine pain behind Yenn’s words. She’d strived so hard to give Yenn some of what she’d lost. But there was no way to give her this. Still— “If you want kids, I’ll carry them,” Triss promised desperately. “I’ll have all the babies you want. Ten kids, if that’s what’ll make you happy. I don’t care. Anything. Okay?”
Yenn made a broken little snuffling sound that Triss had long learned was her last effort to not cry. “You shouldn’t have to.”
“Yenn, sweetheart. I love you. I’ll do anything to make you happy, don’t you know that? If that means having a baby, hell, I’ll get pregnant right now.” She heard a quiet sniff and assumed it was Gaby. “You’ve been through so much honey, and none of it was your fault,” she whispered, cradling Yenn close as if she were the baby they spoke of. “This is just more of the same. You’ve always had to be strong, love. It’s okay to be upset over this. It’s okay. I’m here. And I’ll help. Okay?”
More sniffs, too many to come only from Gaby. Triss looked up and saw that both Kuryakins were in tears, holding each other and watching the display before them with something like reverence. Triss turned away from them and focused on the silent, trembling Yennefer again. “I love you,” she whispered again. “I know you’re hurt. I know you’re upset. I’m trying, okay? I’ll fix this anyway I can. I promise.”
There was another pause and then, at last, a tiny broken sob. Yenn pressed herself into Triss’ embrace so hard it was as if she were trying to conjoin them. “You deserve better,” she whispered, her throat tight, her voice full of tears.
“I don’t want what you think is better. I want you.”
Yennefer cried rarely, and when she did, she cried very quietly. It had taken Triss far too long to realize it was because she had so often been punished for it as a child. But at least she did cry, and now Triss felt something wet at the crook of her neck. “I’m sorry,” Yenn choked out. “I’m so sorry, Triss.”
“Don’t you be sorry, love. You’ve done nothing wrong.” Triss kissed her fiancee’s wet face and cuddled her close. “You’re okay, Yenn. I’ve got you. You’re okay.”
They ended up not having The Big Dinner that day. Triss and Gaby took turns cuddling Yenn on the couch while Illya made them some kind of flaky fish pastry that smelled and tasted like heaven (“Kulebyaka. Mama’s recipe. Will fix everything,” he promised eagerly as he served them up giant slices), and then they had coffee and cookies and watched endless bad Christmas movies.
Triss had never really loved Hallmark Christmas movies before. But she decided if she ever had money she’d invest in them, because the first time she heard Yennefer laugh all day was during a particularly poorly-acted scene in one of those dumb movies, and that sound was a better holiday gift than anything that came from the store.
~Christmas 2019~
Yennefer paced back and forth in the basement greenroom on the night before her wedding with her heart pounding. It was the opening night of The Nutcracker and she’d just finished the first night of what she hoped would be her last run as the Sugarplum Fairy. At twenty-three they were finally, finally thinking she might be old enough to start as an assistant teacher next year, at which point she’d be demoted to the corps and not have to take on any lead roles in the company.
That was all good and fine. But now she had a whole other thing to worry about. She had the next three days off for—gulp—her wedding.
Triss’ parents had come the week before and helped the girls move out of Illya and Gaby’s townhouse and into their own place. The new apartment was only fifteen minutes from the Lincoln Center by subway and it was just… nice. Hardwood floors, two bedrooms, a little kitchen with a real dishwasher. Windows that really opened. A bathtub and shower. It was unreal, and Yenn had been sleeping there three nights now and still didn’t quite believe it was her new home.
The beautiful McCalls dress had become a reality, with Illya’s help (was there anything that man didn’t know how to do?) over many long nights of carefully cutting out the pattern and diligently sewing it together, one careful seam at a time. Yennefer had always been decent at mending her own clothes, but she’d never sewn a whole dress from scratch before and she’d been terrified the whole time. Still, there was something cathartic about sewing her own wedding dress. It made her feel almost like she was making an offering to Triss.
And her dress was so pretty. A-line white satin with a square neck and ¾ sleeves, with a panel of delicate floral-embroidered trim on the bodice. Yennefer felt more like a princess in that gown, than she ever had when dancing. She had no idea what Triss was wearing—she didn’t even know if it would be a dress. She wondered if Triss would wear the soft, delicately-clinging ivory suit she’d worn to Yenn’s promotion ceremony, when she’d been moved up from apprentice to proper NYCB ballerina. She almost hoped so; Triss looked good in that suit.
Triss. God, Triss. She was so good. Yenn didn’t think she’d ever deserve to be with someone so good. Triss was sweet and pretty and she never had an unkind word to say about anyone. Yenn, meanwhile. Yenn was just. Rotten. And she knew it, down to her core. Since she was a child all she’d ever heard was that she wasn’t good enough, didn’t do enough, couldn’t be enough. Nothing she’d ever done in her first dance school was good enough, and it had frankly shocked her in her days at SAB when she’d been praised.
Because, and Yenn knew this innately, she didn’t deserve to be praised. She was too cold and bitter and, as she’d learned that fateful Thanksgiving day four years ago, barren. What purpose did she serve, really? She could dance pretty and that was all. She was, she supposed, not too bad to look at. But really, what good was she? She wasn’t kind and gentle like Triss (and God only knew what kind of teacher she’d make, really), she wasn’t good at every-freaking-thing like Illya, she wasn’t smart like Gaby—why would someone like Triss ever love her?
Yenn let out a frustrated little shout and kicked over a chair…only to be shocked by the sound of a tiny gasp. “Who’s there?” she demanded, her voice instinctively sharp.
There was a pause and a little scuffle, Then, “Sorry, didn’t know anyone was down here.” A tiny girl, hair so blonde she could be Harry Potter’s classroom enemy, poked her head out from behind the piano. “Just came back down to get my water bottle, I left it…” She pointed somewhere behind Yenn. “My dad’s upstairs. I’m not. Um. Spying on you. Or anything.”
“Didn’t think you were.” Yenn looked around herself and saw, on the card table a few steps away, a pink Barbie water bottle with half the design worn away. She scooped it up and brought it the half-dozen feet or so to the little girl, who accepted it carefully. “I don’t bite,” Yenn offered with a forced smile.
The girl looked up at her through big, wary blue eyes. “You’re the Sugarplum Fairy.”
“Actually I prefer Yennefer.” She tried not to roll her eyes. Was that all these kids were ever going to see her as, the stupid fairy?
“Yennefer. Hi. I’m Cirilla. Ciri.” The girl bobbed on the balls of her feet a little. “You have an accent. Kinda like my dad. He pretends he doesn’t though. He says I had one when I was little but it went away when we came here.”
Yenn tried not to care about the kid, she really did, but there was something about the girl that just made her want to scoop the sweet little thing up and bring her home to Triss. She was tiny, looked like she was about six, but she was smart. And she looked a little familiar, too. “Weren’t you an angel last year?”
Ciri’s face lit up. “Yeah. I had a lot of fun. And you were really good. You didn’t seem really happy though.”
Yenn didn’t bother to hide her laugh. She hated people, she’d be first to admit that, but kids were great. Honest. You never had to worry about a kid saying they liked you when they meant they wanted to see you hang. “I’m really not. I wish I could be an angel. Or whatever the hell else they let little kids do these days.”
“I’m not little.”
“Please, I could fit you in a bread basket with room left over. How old are you anyway?”
“Eight.”
“No way.”
“I was in the party scene this year.” Ciri looked proud of herself, as well she should; usually anyone her age and size would still be an angel. “I’ll get to be a poli or a hoop next year.”
“Good for you.” Yenn looked away. She wondered, with a sharp pang, if she would have been this happy to dance if she’d been trained at SAB, instead of…well. Where she was.
Ciri’s proud smile faded as she toyed with the cap of her water bottle. “You look sad.”
“I’m not. Just…nervous, I guess.”
“About what?” Ciri asked innocently.
Fuck. She’s a kid. Say nothing. “I’m getting married tomorrow,” popped out before Yenn could stop herself.
“Oh. Do you like him? The person you’re marrying,” Ciri quickly clarified when her question netted her a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, well…it’s her… and yeah. I like her a lot. I love her, that’s…kind of why we want to get married…anyway. You’ll understand when it’s your turn.”
Ciri nodded thoughtfully. “It’s okay, though. I mean. I love dancing but I got nervous when I went onstage tonight. You can be nervous and still want to do something and be happy about it, right? Anyway…” She shoved her water bottle in her little ballet bag and flashed Yenn a bright smile. “Have fun at your wedding. It was nice meeting you, Miss Yennefer. I gotta go find my dad.”
She ran out of the room, and a moment later Yennefer heard the tap-tap-tap of a kid’s feet on the stairs. For a moment, all she could feel was raw hurt— that’s as good as it gets, I’ll never hear someone call me “mom,” I’ll never see my eyes or my smile on my own kid’s face— but then she felt an inexplicable rush of warmth. She’d been afraid that if they finally let her teach she’d upset the kids. Now she knew there was at least one who liked her. And if she could win over one, well, maybe she could get the others to like her enough to learn something from her.
She pulled on her coat and scooped up her bag. It was time to go home. She had a big day tomorrow, after all.
~
Triss did wear a dress. Its skirt was made of the same heavy satin as Yenn’s dress, with a soft, sheer white overlay that flowed around her like a cape. The top closed with a row of tiny buttons and had puffy, sheer off-the-shoulder sleeves decorated with floral lace. And Triss, with her hair loose and her jewelry simple, looked like a woodland princess in it.
It was a small wedding. Barely twenty guests, all settled in the party room of Triss’ skate club—but the small room was hardly recognizable. Triss’ mother had teamed up with Gaby and covered the bare gray walls in flower garlands, and made gorgeous centerpieces out of white silk roses, blue satin ribbons, and plain glass bud vases. White and ice-blue tablecloths and chair covers transformed the plain folding tables and chairs. At one end of the room an arch had been made out of an old arbor that had been doctored with white and blue gossamer, an aisle runner from a party store marking the way for the two brides. It would’ve looked cheesy. Cheap. Store-bought. But all Yennefer could see was the sheer amount of work that had gone into it all.
She held Triss’ hands tight, and looked into those unfathomably kind brown eyes, and let herself believe that she could be wanted. “I love you,” she said when it was her turn to speak. It was all she had to say. All that really needed to be said.
You waited for me. You wanted me even when I thought you’d forgotten me. You knew the whole time that I would never stop loving you. You know I’m broken and you love the pieces anyway. I don’t know how I’ll ever be enough for you…but you do. You know. That’s enough.
Triss just looked at her with those big, beautiful eyes, and squeezed her hands back tight, and Yennefer honestly thought if she lived to be 100, she’d never forget the way she felt at this exact moment.
~Christmas 2022~
December 23rd in the Merigold household was always spent power-wrapping their Black Friday toy haul and stuffing bulk-bought candy into dozens of tiny felt stockings. Triss knew Yennefer was well aware it wasn’t in her job description to throw a Christmas party for the kids, but Yenn had gone without enough Christmases as a kid to feel it keenly whenever a kid was asked to do so even for a benign reason. “They’re kids. I don’t care if they’re paid,” she’d said her first year as a teacher, working furiously to get the toys wrapped. “They’re not just dancers, Triss, they’re little kids. They deserve a holiday even if they want to be here.”
“Not arguing,” Triss assured her, and picked up an off-brand Barbie doll and started to wrap it up. If this made Yenn happy, she’d go with it. She’d have robbed every bank in New York, burned down the Rockefeller tree, commandeer the whole subway, if it made Yennefer happy.
It still blew her away that Yenn had insisted on taking her last name. Honestly, it blew her away that Yenn loved her so much. Sometimes it scared her, how much they loved each other— we’re too young, we started too soon, will we still feel this way about each other in forty years? —but it was so easy to shake those doubts when Yenn held her close at night, when they wrapped around each other like vines and lived off each other’s scent.
Maybe they hadn’t done things “normally.” Maybe their love story was strange. Who cared? They were happy now and that was all that mattered.
~
At the Christmas Eve show, Yennefer let Triss hand out the presents and candy while she did her normal duties. Ciri, her first and only favorite student, had been chosen as one of the double-cast Maries this year, and nabbed the coveted Christmas Eve show. Yenn couldn’t have been more proud. She’d known Ciri would get it, but knowing and seeing were two different things. “You did it,” she whispered as she buttoned the back of the iconic grey-purple Marie dress and fluffed Ciri’s freshly curled hair. “Now go knock their socks off.”
Ciri turned around and gave her a giant, rib-crushing hug. She mumbled something into Yenn’s shirt that might’ve been I love you. Yenn hugged her back tight and let herself believe.
Back in the main green room, the kids had finished tearing into their presents and were now bouncing off the walls playing with their new toys, or stuffing candy into their mouths much to the concern of the watching parents. Yennefer caught the eye of Ciri’s hulk of a father, Geralt—he reminded her so of Illya sometimes—and they exchanged a silent, brief nod. We’re both watching out for her.
Triss came up and linked her arm through Yenn’s. “Are you ready?” she asked.
She meant the show, but Yenn meant so much more when she said, “As long as I have you, yeah.”
It was a cheesy, fairytale line. But Yenn didn’t care. After all, she’d earned her happy ending.