Work Text:
December 1987
Florence stays with Svetlana and Anatoly as long as she can.
The consulate isn’t the most welcoming place. She knows Svetlana is terrified. Anatoly is harder to read, which is one of those occasional things that makes her heart pang. She can’t tell what he’s feeling now. She used to know him like the back of her hand.
Or maybe she had only convinced herself she did. It was years ago.
Florence had been terrified, too, until they crossed the threshold. The stakes were so much higher this time, but as soon as Svetlana, Anatoly and the children were inside, all the adrenaline from the last few weeks—from the tournament, from being with Svetlana in person for the first time, from the plan and getting the Sergievsky family here safely—it all drained away. She was exhausted.
Anatoly and Svetlana stand at the consulate counter and work through paperwork, and Florence hovers, helping them answer questions they don’t know the answers to. Soon enough, the two of them are taken to a private room, and Florence is instructed to wait outside.
“Do the children need to go?” Svetlana asks.
“They don’t have to,” the Englishman says, and Svetlana and Anatoly’s eyes both fall on Florence. Andrei and Katya are young and afraid, and there’s no telling what sorts of conversations will be had behind those closed doors. They don’t need to sit through that.
“We’ll watch them,” Florence vows, as out of her depth as she feels. And isn’t it funny? She’s helping a family defect. You’d think that would be scarier than watching a couple of kids in a contained environment.
Freddie has been taking turns sitting in one of the hard plastic waiting room chairs, his leg bouncing nonstop, and pacing. He’s been scolded for the pacing a couple times by consulate staff, but he doesn’t seem to be able to help himself. Florence sits next to him.
“How’s it going?” he asks, like nothing is wrong.
“I think it’s going well,” she says. “They can’t turn them down. It’s just a matter of waiting for help to come through.”
“I mean, they helped him out once and he basically threw it back in their faces,” Freddie says. “Maybe you should have picked a different country.
Florence gives him a look. Katya is staring at them now. She’s seated a couple chairs down, and Andrei is on the floor between them, playing with some toy soldiers. Katya has a book in her hands, but it’s closed on her lap.
She’s 11 years old, Florence knows that much. And she’s heard so many stories about the both of them from Svetlana’s letters, she’s come to love them. But she doesn’t actually know them, she realizes that with stark clarity. She doesn’t know how to talk to them, how to comfort them. There’s so much she doesn’t know how to say, or how much she should say, and it terrifies her. Svetlana, she understands—Florence doesn’t feel a single shred of doubt about her. But these kids? They’re another matter entirely.
“It’s going to be fine,” Florence says firmly. “They’ll finish the interview, and then we just have to wait for the ambassador to write the approval, and he’s in Madrid, so it might take a little bit.”
“Great,” Freddie mutters.
Florence isn’t entirely sure why he’s here. He’d helped get Anatoly here, by filming an interview with him in the city and then helping him slip away from his guards afterwards, but he doesn’t need to stay. Florence doesn’t voice that to him. She appreciates having him here, keeping her from being left alone with Svetlana and Anatoly’s children, just waiting.
Time crawls by. The consulate closes for the day and locks up, and many of the employees leave. No one tries to get Florence or Freddie to leave. The atmosphere is different when the place isn’t open for business. It’s so much quieter, it’s ministerial. Several times, Florence almost says something to Katya, almost asks a question, tries to start a conversation, but something in her catches. She can’t do it. Will it always be like this? Is she doomed to never have a relationship with them? Will they hate her for what she’s done to their family? Florence has known and loved each of their parents so intimately, and here they are, the products of two incredible people, and Florence can’t talk to them.
A door opens, snapping her out of her thoughts. One of the few remaining employees motions her over. She jumps up and nearly jogs across the waiting room.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
“Fine,” the man says curtly. “They just need some help with the paperwork. We don’t want to just let them loose with nowhere to go, you see, and they don’t seem to have access to many funds at the moment. They said you would help them find somewhere to go.”
“Of course,” Florence says.
She spends the next half hour writing out her address multiple times, going over living arrangement details, figuring out what the children will do for school. She doesn’t have the same flat she and Anatoly lived in together—she’s left London behind completely. Her new place isn’t very big. It’s going to be a stretch, to fit five people into it. She lies, and tells them she’ll help the couple find somewhere for their family to live long-term. They haven’t really gotten the chance to discuss this part of things yet, but once they leave this building, Florence isn’t going to let Svetlana out of her sight.
She and Anatoly look as exhausted as Florence feels. It’s getting late.
“Are they alright?” Svetlana asks in a hushed voice.
Florence finds herself nodding, even as she realizes she doesn’t really know the answer to that question. “They’re fine,” she says. “Just… quiet.”
Svetlana nods, but she looks sad. Florence feels like she’s done something wrong. Was this the right thing, to bring them all here?
She’s escorted back to the waiting area and the door shuts firmly behind her. When she looks across the room, though, the scene has changed.
Freddie sits on the floor, now, and he’s rearranged the furniture somewhat, pulling a little end table over to sit in front of Katya. Freddie’s bag is lying open, and he has a chess board laying on the table. The pieces are all over the place, and Andrei has taken a few to add to his toy soldier game. On the board, Freddie has laid out a small setup, and in a mix of simple English and clunky Russian, he’s explaining each piece to Katya.
Florence hangs back and watches for a while. She’s never seen Freddie with children, save for signing autographs. But all the time he’s spent doing chess commentary for general audiences has clearly been good practice. “This is the pawn,” she hears him explain. And he demonstrates some illegal moves while shaking his head. “One square, one way. It attacks like this.”
Katya scrutinizes the board. “Pawn is bad,” she says, finally. Then, in Russian, “weak.”
Freddie looks so calm, so still—the fidgeting is gone. He smiles. “It looks weak,” he says. “But there are a lot of pawns. They’re strong together.”
It hits Florence so suddenly—Anatoly hasn’t taught his children to play chess.
It feels so impossible. He must have started when he could barely walk. But then… when he and Florence first ran away, chess was a deeply complicated subject for him. It was both a prison and a way out. Maybe he just didn’t want his children to experience the same thing.
Florence stays where she is, leaning against the wall next to the door, and watches Freddie walk Katya through simple exercises with their limited shared vocabulary. He praises her when she gets one right, and she actually smiles—it’s hesitant, but it’s the first time Florence has seen her smile outside of photographs. It’s sweet.
Beyond that, something about it feels deeply familiar.
The sun is setting, casting long shadows through the consulate windows. They’ve only let the lights on over the waiting area, so the rest of the building grows dim and shady. A little girl sits hunched over a chess board, her brow furrowed as she studies the pieces, trying to fit the puzzle together in her mind. A kind man gently encourages her and shows her what she’s missing. It distracts her from the world outside.
The memory hits her like a pile of bricks. All they’re missing, here, is the sounds of gunshots and tanks rolling through the streets.
Florence watches. She doesn’t know for how long, and she doesn’t realize there are tears streaking down her face until the door opens and Svetlana and Anatoly come out.
Anatoly freezes when he sees her, his arm stuck out halfway as if he’s had to abort an instinct to comfort her. Svetlana is at her side in an instant.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, quiet but urgent.
“Nothing,” Florence shakes her head, and she quickly wipes her eyes. “I was just thinking about something else. Are you all finished?”
Svetlana sighs. “For now,” she says.
“We have to wait for word from the ambassador, and they have to arrange for our travel. We’ll be spending the night here,” Anatoly says.
“At least you’re somewhere safe,” Florence says. Maybe the children are still young enough that sleeping in a strange place like this will be exciting instead of uncomfortable. “I think we’re all stuck here tonight.” It doesn’t seem like the doors will be opening for them any time soon. Florence wouldn’t leave even if she could, and Freddie doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. There’s no doubt the block outside is still crawling with Soviets, and Florence doesn’t want him to risk trying to get through them back to his hotel.
“We may as well try to make the best of it,” Svetlana says. She walks over and starts rearranging the waiting area, careful to step around the chess game taking place.
Anatoly hangs back with Florence. They’re both watching the same thing, she realizes. What is he waiting for?
“I never would have pegged Freddie as being good with kids,” she comments.
“Neither would I,” Anatoly says. There’s something off about his voice, but she can’t quite place it. And again, it brings a tiny echo of loss to her chest. Had he changed, or was she only fooling herself years ago?
She glances over at him and notes the wrinkle in his brow, the downturn at the corners of his mouth. He almost looks nervous, and she doesn’t have any idea if it’s from the larger situation he finds himself in, or if it’s the prospect of approaching and interrupting what’s happening not 15 feet away, of Freddie teaching his daughter to play chess.
A part of her wants to say something. The rest of her knows Anatoly is not her responsibility anymore—maybe he never was. She leaves him standing by the door to make his own way back to his family, and goes to help Svetlana make something resembling a place to sleep for the night out of embassy furniture.
One of the employees comes by a few minutes later with a stack of blankets and pillows, and Svetlana folds a couple of them over to make a bed for the children. “Alright, no more of this. It’s time for bed,” she says firmly. Freddie grins up at her apologetically, and starts clearing off the board so she can convince Andrei and Katya to lay down. The hardest part proves to be getting the pieces back from Andrei—Freddie gives up on that one fairly quickly, probably deciding to snag them back once he’s asleep.
Svetlana takes a seat with a blanket rolled up behind her neck and a chair in front of her to prop her feet up. Florence takes the seat next to her. It’s going to be a long night, and she’s not going to get much sleep. But she’s here. When the lights go out, Svetlana reaches for her hand and threads their fingers together.
They’re all here, and safe, and soon they’ll be home.