Work Text:
It's one of your earliest memories — you, standing in your living room, trying not to pull at the collar of the dress shirt your mother made and then forced you into. You couldn't have been more than three years old, but you can still taste the excitement in the air, will always remember the jubilation on the face of every adult who walked through your front door for the celebration your grandmother had put together for the town. It was the state-sponsored millennial anniversary of the Christianization of the Kievan Rus, and while that meant nothing to you at the time, you've come to understand just how crucial a turning point it was for the end of the Soviet Union.
Every time you hear an American Christian complain about their religion being persecuted, you want to roll your eyes. You've seen legitimate religious persecution in action; between the Bolsheviks and Khrushchev, only a twelfth of all churches in Russia managed to stay open throughout the twentieth century and the complex rules for worship at home were followed to the letter in fear of what might happen if even one of those rules was bent. American Christians really don't know how good they have it.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
You've been staring at a replicated icon of Our Lady of Saint Theodore for long enough that you zoned out hard enough to miss Mikhail Tanner joining you.
As Sonya Karp has become a close confidant, her husband has become just as much of a good friend, and, helpfully, without as much baggage. You're grateful for the two of them. Not only do you need more friends at Court that aren't already Rose's — nearly your entire social circle is flung out across the world — but in a way, they kind of remind you of Mark and Oksana, each interaction lending you a small amount of hometown comfort.
You shake your head. The Court cathedral — among the smallest you've been in, but it gets the name because of its lone onion dome above the altar — is largely empty, save a handful of people scattered around, praying and reflecting like you. The icon in front of you, the Virgin Mary with child, is a particular favorite of yours. The candle beneath that you lit when you first approached flickers away.
"This is about Rose, isn't it?"
Your mouth twists, a dead giveaway. You've said maybe two words to her in the past month and it's reaching a point where you don't know if you're both genuinely frightened of the Conversation That Still Must Happen or if you're both stubborn enough that this has turned into a competition of who can hold out the longest before saying something.
Mikhail's face is pensive and dimly lit as he looks up at the gold-flecked icon, the face of a man more at peace than you. "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." He glances at you watching him. "First Corinthians, chapter thirteen, verse seven and part of eight."
You raise an eyebrow.
"When Sonya . . . left," Mikhail says softly, eyes tracking over the wall in front of him, "I turned to religion. I tried to find her, but when I failed at that . . . I was desperate for something — anything — that would answer my questions. Mostly I wanted an answer to why she did it. Was I not good enough for her? Was there something I could've done more? I thought I was paying enough attention, that I was giving her all the love and support in the world to help her get through her bad days, when the magic became too much, and then . . ." He exhales slowly, past burdens slipping across his shoulders and weighing the moment down to the ground.
"Anyway, I had a lot of questions and no answers, and it's not like there's a support group for that kind of thing, so I started coming here when I needed solitude and quiet. Eventually I got curious and cracked open one of the Bibles in front of me. The first verse I read was John five-six: 'When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, 'Do you want to get well?'' I don't know your relationship with religion, so I'm sure it sounds ridiculous to you, but that spoke to me. I don't think it was God — my mother was an atheist, I have trouble coming to terms with some guy sitting up in the sky dictating the personal affairs of all seven billion people on this planet — but it was something. Fate. Coincidence. The universe. Religion gave me structure in a time when I had none."
"It's not ridiculous at all," you say. You give a minimal jerk of your head to the pews right next to you, needing to sit down, and Mikhail follows with a nod. He sits in the pew behind you, so you turn sideways to be able to look at him.
"I grew up going to church but I was never baptized," you start off. "My father didn't want religion touching any of his kids for reasons I still don't know." You swallow to take a moment and gather yourself. Seeing Randall Ivashkov in all his abhorrent douchery when you were out in Michigan recently, thus breaking a much cherished thirteen year dry streak that was his absence in your life, has done wonders for setting back your anger management skills by just as much time.
Deep breath. Six in, seven out.
"I was born at the end of eighty-four, right before the start of the perestroika reforms . . . both my mother and grandmother were active in the movement to get our town's church reopened after it had been closed down in the fifties. I was five when the church was reinstated, and my sisters and I started going every Sunday, like clockwork." You smile wistfully as you give a single laugh, remembering the fights Sonya used to get into with the women older than her, including Kalya despite only being five years older, about having to go to church. You never minded it; your father never came with the family when he was in town, so it was a guaranteed two hours respite from the abuse and drunkenness that awaited when you returned home.
"My grandmother has a Bible from the imperial era, from her grandmother," you continue. "When I was learning English, she would make me translate verses from the Old Testament. It was ingenious on her part; she always took the time to give long-winded lectures on life and morals based on whatever I was working on."
Mikhail laughs softly.
It feels good to share, and you're struck with the thought that maybe you should keep doing this, opening up with others and letting them in. Rose has proven time and time again that others do, in fact, care about your life and what you have to say.
You'll probably spend your whole life realizing all the corners that were fucked up by your father's influence.
"Church was the eye of the hurricane that was my home life growing up," you say so quietly, you wonder if Mikhail even heard you. Your gaze is fixed on some unidentified point far in front of you. "I've always seen it as a sanctuary, as many do, where I have space to think freely." Your mouth turns up in a half-grin. "For as much peace as I've found in Rose, she's the reason I started praying. I managed to get through nearly twenty-five years of my life without ever really needing a reason to, but then she stormed in, and I was lost to her ever since."
A beat passes.
"You know about the vaccine?" you ask because you have a feeling he does and it's suddenly itching at you to get the words out. Tristan is great for being impartial, but the perspective of a friend is equally as helpful.
Mikhail nods.
You tell him what Adrian told you, skipping over as much of Declan's parentage as you can, and Mikhail's only initial response is to keep nodding. After a few moments of thinking, he looks at his watch and finally says: "I won't attempt to give my opinion. It's not a position I will ever be in, so I couldn't begin to hope to know what to tell you. But, something to kick around in your head I feel might be helpful?"
"Anything," you say, willing to latch onto anything that might help.
"James one-twelve comes to mind: 'Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.' A couple lines in first Corinthians, chapter thirteen also stand out: 'So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.' But: 'If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.'"
Stay realistic seemed to be Mikhail's message, and you hear that loud and clear.
"I would stay, but my lunch break is about to end, and I still haven't eaten," Mikhail says, and you stand with him, brows knitting together as you do.
"Why are you here?" Then, realizing how invasive that probably is, you tack on, "If you don't mind my asking."
Mikhail gives a tight-lipped smile that is nothing close to amused. "Sonya's been having a hard week," is all he says, but you know enough about spirit from Lissa and Adrian and even Rose to understand what a "hard week" means for someone like Sonya. He forces some lightheartedness into the smile and claps you on the shoulder. "I'd bet my money on you and Rose pulling through this and emerging stronger for it on the other side. I'm probably the most qualified to tell you that I know what Rose went through when you were gone. No one is going to be more devoted to you than her. If you think for even a moment that she won't go down without a fight, I'd recommend you go get an MRI for potential brain damage. And besides that—" His grin is full now. "—She's crazy about you. At my wedding last winter, she spent more time looking at you than me or Sonya during the ceremony. Even I noticed, and I was the one getting married."
You smile, ducking your head for a moment. Given the first year you knew Rose, your relationship with her being out in the open this second year is still new to you. It's not that you've never been in a serious relationship; it's more that no one has ever come close to making you feel like you'll fly away the way Rose does, even when it's something as simple as when she catches your eye from across the room.
"I'll see you around," Mikhail says and you murmur the same back, turning to face the Our Lady of Saint Theodore icon for another long, silent minute.
Two thousand years and some change ago, a teenager gave birth to a man billions consider to be the son of God, and you can't even tell your girlfriend you'll give up the promise of kids — again — if it means spending the rest of your mortal life with her.
You've told it to yourself before and you'll say it again.
Get it the fuck together, Dima.
Christian ends up in the clinic later that day after getting knocked unconscious by an uncontrolled punch to the head from one of the offensive magic users during the light combat training you lead every Thursday evening.
"Do you know your name?" the doctor asks, waving a pen light between his eyes to check his pupil dilations.
"You know my name."
"Do you know your name?" the doctor repeats, not having any of his games.
"Christian Ozera."
"Your birthday?"
"It's in my file. Why are you asking me this?"
It's like listening to Rose during her weekly trips to the clinic when you were training her. It's going to give you a headache in about twenty seconds.
"Fine. Who's the Queen?"
Christian grins. "Nice trick question." He then adds, "My girlfriend is our current Queen, because she's amazing."
The doctor huffs a sigh and clicks away her penlight, turning to you. "I'm ordering an MRI just to be safe, but I think he's fine. Have someone keep an eye on him — you, Her Majesty, it doesn't matter. You know all the signs and symptoms of a concussion, I'm sure."
The knowledge is right up there with how to do a roundhouse kick for guardians. You nod. Satisfied, the doctor turns back to Christian.
"Lord Ozera, keep your head up next time so you don't end up giving your amazing girlfriend an early death from worrying about you too much."
It's the kind of non-differential treatment that immediately puts a person in your good graces. You have no time for people who walk on eggshells around royals, treating them as if they invented toilet paper and other useful things. All that separates royalty is their name. Take that away and they're just like any random non-royal, if a bit wealthier.
Royals tend to forget that. It's what you suspect happened with Tasha — you were probably the first person to say no to her, and she snapped, a lifetime of being taught that she was above everyone else, including people like you, coming back to wreak havoc on anyone who stood in her path and denied her what she wanted.
They let you accompany him to the imaging room, and you take the opportunity of not being the one inside the doughnut hole machine to learn from the technician how everything works. It's the kind of thing your mother would love to sit in on.
Your mother opted to not become a guardian, knowing full well she wanted to have and raise lots of children, and she elected to get trained as a nurse at the request of your grandmother, who'd announced that her daughters weren't going to just sit around and wait for a husband to come along. Your parents met not even a year into the program, and she dropped out that summer when she found out she was pregnant with your older sister, a decision you've always wondered if she regretted making. Your grandmother wasn't happy, but given the way your parents' relationship ended, that's something you only know because your grandmother admitted it to you herself, swearing you and Kalya to secrecy.
Your day goes from emotionally tumultuous to pleasegodwhy — can't you just give me a break — pardon the whining but Jesus fuck when you're following Christian out of the clinic. He reaches for the door the same time as someone else, and his whole body lights up when he registers it's Lissa.
Right behind her is Rose, looking decidedly less thrilled. There's something in her hand, and she clasps her wrist behind her back when she notices your eyes flicking over her, hiding the small white package away from your view.
Lissa immediately jumps to know why Christian and you are at the clinic because shouldn't you two be off teaching Moroi how to punch in a field somewhere right now? and Christian responds it was that activity that landed him here but I'm fine, babe, they just took pictures of my brain and cleared me, I'm as good as new, but the conversation leaves you on edge with the way Rose is doing her very best to hide in Lissa's shadow.
You can't help it. Her gaze is fixed on Lissa and Christian, so you let your eyes jump from her face to her pelvis and back up again as you imagine her pregnant. Bile rises in the back of your throat and you focus back on your friends.
"What are you doing here?" Christian asks, which you have to agree is a very good question considering the work day just ended and it's not like Council meetings get that intense.
Rose and Lissa exchange glances and something wordless passes between them. The bond may be gone, but fifteen years of friendship does a lot for developing nonverbal communication with another person. Lissa juts her chin and Rose shakes her head.
"Girl stuff," Lissa settles on, flashing Christian a smile that says he'd rather not know. Her look at you is a bit more pointed, but you have no idea what she's trying to tell you. Women smile when they're mad and cry when they're excited. You grew up with three sisters and you still can't tell what they're actually feeling, so you don't waste your energy trying to figure out how the other gender really feels. You're of the mind that if someone wants you to know what they're feeling, they'll eventually say it out loud.
"You have that dinner with the Badicas in a half hour," Rose says in Lissa's ear, still not looking at you, and you get the distinct impression that you're in for it the next time you're alone with her. Which, fair, you've been avoiding her for a month; this was bound to happen sooner or later. It's just that when Rose is pissed, Rose is pissed, and she has no qualms about letting you know, especially if you fucking up is the root cause.
"Oh, right." Lissa happily leans forward to give Christian a quick kiss. "It's in the west dining room, if you're up for it, Chris."
Must be nice to not be in exist in the vacuum of a relationship's ice age.
Lissa doesn't say anything to you as she and Rose leave, the latter of whom slides the mystery package around her body to keep shielding it from your view, and you send up a prayer to whoever's listening that it isn't . . . you aren't sure what.
You just want Rose to be okay above all else.
Maybe you're a masochist who enjoys suffering in silence — oh, who are you kidding? That's definitely your aesthetic — but of the thirty-two sleeps you've had since coming back from Palm Springs, twenty-eight of them have been at Rose's. You and she have occupied the same apartment longer than twenty minutes for only three of those sleeps.
You miss her, and it pulls at your fingertips, down to the ground and away from your body, that encroaching sense of you leaving yourself only she can fix. It's her, her, her that draws you back in and sets you on your feet again, and with little more than the scent of her pillow and the flash of her hair on her way out the door as you're coming in from another overnight shift, you're swirling down the very drain you're currently trying to unclog.
When work takes you from each other — not you cheating on her with work, like you have been lately — whoever's staying behind leaves sticky notes for the one travelling to find when they get home. After your first trip to California, you came home to an apartment covered in little yellow papers, her random thoughts scattered for you to read. I miss watching you shave on the bathroom counter. We need apples stuck sideways on the freezer door. Future scrawled and slapped on a couple dozen paperclipped printouts of two- and three-bedroom houses in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, Carbondale and Tannersville. Today was exhausting. I could never be queen in tired print on the bedroom door.
When she came home that night, you scooped her up in your arms and told her that she was already a queen — the Queen of Your Heart and World. She'd giggled and kissed you deeply, erasing the last month of distance, before punching you in the shoulder and demanded you put her back on the ground so she could take a shower.
Tonight, you'd come home to a sticky note carefully placed on the front of the kitchen faucet — Sink's clogged. Tag you. — and rather than eat dinner by yourself, again, for the millionth time, you decided to set about fixing a problem you didn't create. You're certain you've got the blockage and your mind has started to wander to the problem of figuring out dinner now that your twenty minute distraction is almost over when the door opens.
Your back is to Rose when she enters the apartment, but the kitchen is tiny — maybe ten feet long, five feet wide, bleeding into the nearly as small living room filled with standard issue furniture — so it's not like she's all that far from you. The unceremonious dropping of keys on the hook by the door reaches you through the sudden fudge-thick silence, and you brace yourself.
"Interesting choice of problem to solve," she notes dryly, and your grip on the drain snake tightens. Already you can feel her bristling, readying herself for a fight.
"You asked me to fix it," you reply, still working on getting the blockage and not turning around to face her.
Her most likely response occurs to you half a second before it comes out of her mouth, and it's every bit as annoyed as you imagined. "I asked you to talk to me about this."
"We're talking now," you say evenly, your own hackles going up even though you know you have no right getting pissed. This conversation needed to happen a long time ago — minimum three weeks ago, when you finally figured your shit out with Tristan — but angry is your instinct. Life has taught you an eye for an eye always produces the results you want despite you knowing, deep down, that isn't a healthy attitude for approaching life.
"No, we're not. I'm pushing you into talking to me because I decided I was going to stop letting you call the shots in this."
"I'm not calling any shots," you say, your brain racing to remember the meaning of the idiom. You can feel yourself starting to reach critical mass. You both are, really.
"Then what the hell have you been doing?"
The words echo strangely close to something you heard your father say to your mother once. The memory floods back, careening into your conscious space and knocking the wind out of you. You and Sonya at the top of the stairs, listening; Kalya standing over the two of you, disapproving. Vika hadn't been born yet, or if she had, she was too young to be sitting with you guys right then. Your father, voice beginning its wind up into shouting. Your mother, timid and fearful in reply.
"Dammit, Rose." The crash of the drain snake against the sink registers an octave lower than the plate that broke against weathered kitchen linoleum. Later, you'll find a dent in the beaten metal, but at the moment, it doesn't register.
You inhale harshly through your nose. There's something about her that always gets you going — emotionally, sexually, mentally — and this is no exception. She pushes your buttons and it keeps you honest, makes you a better person, even if you don't always see it at the time.
"I asked you," she says, voice quiet with all the rage she's doing a much better job of controlling than you right now, "To talk to me. To not shut me out. I told you that I was here."
The muscles in your forearm jump from irritation at being called out as you grip the edge of the sink. "I know that."
"Then why the fuck has Lissa gotten a longer conversation out of you in one morning than I have all month?"
"Because I can't look at you!" you shout, wheeling around, fists clenched at your sides as you try to keep yourself together.
Rose is still by the door, arms crossed over her chest, and her eyes are burning like yours. She's Fury incarnate, the wild, avenging angel of your dreams with bags under her eyes and weariness set around her mouth. If you had to guess, she's probably gotten less sleep than you have in recent days. She's never looked more ethereally beautiful, and you've never felt more far away from her.
"You can't look at me," she repeats, like she's trying the words out for herself, trying and failing to believe you. She runs her hands through her hair, roughly pulling out her ponytail and then gathering it all back again, her fingers tangled tight between silk strands of molten chocolate.
A step to the left, deeper into the apartment, and then back to you, hands dropping to her sides. "Here I thought childbirth was supposed to be this wonderful, miraculous thing, but I guess I was wrong if you, the only man I'd ever let father my children, can't even look at me."
Your head starts spinning as you read between the lines. You know you should be focused on something different — how mad she is, how fucked you are — literally anything else but the fact that she's considered having kids with you.
Probably not, if you don't pull your head out of your ass.
The fight's starting to leave you; your whole being is a fraction calmer when you ask her, "You know why I can't look at you?"
"Why, Dimitri? Please, enlighten me with all your world-weary Zen wisdom." It's like she's siphoning off all your anger. A tiny part of you is relieved she's still herself enough to crack jokes, even if they're at your expense.
"Because . . ." Your eyes flit around the room before landing on hers, deep coffee swirls pulling you under like they do a thousand times a day.
She gives you a look and jerks her head, very sarcastically prompting you to go on.
Deep breath. Six in, seven out. When you speak, it's barely above a whisper.
"Because when I look at you, I see everything I've ever wanted, and the longer I look at you, the shittier I feel for dragging you into things you don't want."
"Like what?" she asks, voice nearly as quiet, though her tone is a lot less potent now. Her frozen edges are softening under your gaze. You unravel her just as quickly as she does you.
"Kids. Marriage. Being with me."
The last thing thuds to the floor, a gothic, one o'clock church-bell chime.
Her faces writes a story as a million emotions shift and morph across her features. Shock. Sadness. Hatred. Hurt. Nothing you ever want her eyes to sing or her cheeks to chant, and you realize what you just said. Fucki—
The coffee boils over and she flings the door open. "Get out."
"What?" you breathe, your earlier muddle of anger and stress rearing its head again. Logically, you know what's she saying, but it's as if your brain won't process until she says her intentions aloud.
"I said get out." Of what — her apartment, her life — you're not sure, but she adds, "Get out and don't come back until I can talk to my boyfriend and not the stranger who pushed me away last year."
You, the wordsmith in this relationship, figured out early on how to phrase things for the ultimate emotional punch. It's taken her a bit longer, but now that she has, it's a simultaneous kick to the groin and slap to the face as she pushes you off a cliff in a straightjacket.
She's as serious as as she is wholly done with you, so you listen to her, not wanting to screw this up anymore than you already have, and you stalk across the kitchen. It's to the door in two strides, a third out into the hallway, and the slam of door meeting frame rings in your ears for a good five minutes.
Tristan once gave you his emergency number. This is the first time you've been compelled to even look at it, let alone dial the number and call him.
He meets you by one of the smaller fountains toward the edge of Court opposite guardian housing. He sits on the edge, not minding the droplets landing on his back, and listens to your recounting of your day as you pace with the kind of patience you wish was natural for you.
"I'm going to ask you one thing, Dimitri," he says when you're done and you nod, eager for anything he has to say.
"Have you reconsidered your stance on taking anti-depressants?"
It's the same fucking question he asks every week.
You itch to throw something, but you keep your fists to yourself. He's just trying to help, even if it's the most ridiculous thing you've heard all week.
"Listen to me, Dimitri. I ask you every time I see you because I know you haven't really thought about it," Tristan says, watching you closely.
"Yes I have."
He shakes his head. "No, you haven't. You rejected me the first time I asked and every time since, you've only humored me." He pauses, taking in the way you're shaking with everything today has brought you.
Above the world, deep reds and purples chase away the stars, reminding you that the day's almost over; the sun will be over the horizon in a half hour, in the sky an hour after that.
Just as the good ends, so does the bad. Time pushes on recklessly, healing wounds and building tension. It doesn't care if you need more or less of it; the hands of the universe's clock push on, landing on three, sweeping down to six, pushing up to nine and twelve. You can get through this.
"What do you think medication does?" Tristan asks.
You shrug. You're not quite sure.
"When you sprain an ankle, what do you do? You wear a brace. What's the purpose of the brace?"
"Immobilizes the joint to help it heal," you rattle off.
"The same concept applies to medication," Tristan explains. "Our brains react to emotional wounds the way our bodies do to physical wounds. What's happening to you, to the best of my knowledge, is that life keeps hurting you emotionally without giving you time to heal. It's hard for your body to work on clotting a stab wound in your stomach when you're getting shot in the leg not five minutes later. Medication helps your brain clot all your emotional wounds by bracing it, if that makes sense."
It does. Nobody's ever explained it to you like that, but it definitely makes it more appealing.
"It's not a crutch, where you end up leaning on it more than yourself, not the stuff I want to put you on, anyway. Rather, medication is designed to give you the internal stability you need to work on your external problems. Like the stabbing and shooting, you can't fix your outside issues if your inside issues aren't addressed."
Much more appealing.
"My professional opinion is this — right now, you should go home and apologize to Rose. Letting that fester isn't going to do anyone good. On Tuesday, I think we should discuss you and medication a little more. That sound like a good plan?"
You nod, adrenaline kicking in, giving you the sudden feeling that ready to take on the world. You'll apologize to Rose, you'll go on meds, you'll fucking fight a bear if it means she never kicks you out again.
Somehow, though, you don't think this is the last time. You're prone to screwing up everything in your life at some point or another.
"Great." Tristan stands and claps your shoulder like Mikhail did not a quarter of a day ago. "I'm glad you called me. It's better to talk than wander around aimlessly in your own thoughts." He flashes a smile before leaving. "I'll see you Tuesday."
The apartment's silent when you let yourself back in an hour later. Everything's as it should be, save the fist-sized hole in the wall next to the door, and you have a sneaking suspicion Rose is going to be accessorizing around a giant bandage for a while.
She's in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. The knuckles on her hand are thickly wrapped in gauze and medical tape, and your heart aches that she's now hurting physically, too.
A song you haven't heard before is floating through her phone's speakers; she turns it down when you move into the doorway, keeping her gaze fixed on her reflection.
"I've been—" You clear your throat, needing your voice to be steadier than the broken, wavering thing coming out. "I've been thinking."
"Shocker," she interjects, dry as a desert and you don't argue against the insult because yeah, you kind of deserve it right now.
"Tristan's been pushing me to take anti-depressants. Low dose, something not too strong. Just enough for me to get my head on straight."
She finally looks at you, just her head turning the ninety degrees from mirror to you. A few moments pass as she studies you, trying to figure out if you're telling the truth.
"Good," she says, turning back to the mirror. "I haven't said anything because I know that needs to be a decision you make for yourself, but I think it'll be good for you."
Silence falls. You want to ask her how she's doing — horribly — what she's up to — feeling horrible — what she's thinking — horrible things, about you, probably — but nothing seems right, so you let her come to you since she's already let you approach her.
There's a tired beauty in her, this feeling that she's overwhelmed and strung out; that could never take away from the fire in her soul. It's a fire you recognized the moment you met, a fire that matches yours and what drew you to her, like a moth to a flame. The chance she'll burn your wings is miniscule — her bonfire is smoldering right now, fighting against the wet and too big logs of silence you threw on top of her.
The song on her phone fades into a new one, and she grabs a thin piece of plastic from beside her, dread on her face. After a moment, she exhales shakily and holds it to you.
"I missed my period last week," she says and oh shit, pregnancy test runs through your mind as you palm the stick but then she adds, "The woman at the clinic assured me probably about a dozen times that this was the most accurate one she had."
It looks expensive. Someone had bothered to design and build in a computerized screen to say the results in actual letters. NOT PREGNANT blinks up at you, and some part of you breathes a sigh in relief. It occurs to you only then that as much as you want kids, you don't want them right now. You aren't even married yet. Speaking of which . . . .
"I can't believe that after everything we went through in the past two years, you think you're pushing me into this relationship," Rose says quietly, turning away from the mirror. She tucks one arm across herself — you're distantly aware of the way it pushes her breasts up and against her shirt but you make yourself focus on her and her problems, the intense make-up sex will come later — and braces her other elbow against her fist. Her fingers play with her lower lip as she stares into some void the bathtub holds that you can't see. "If anything, I'm the one who pushed you."
She did. It was a long couple of weeks, between the initial post-restoration hype and fear you were still Strigoi and then the handful of days you spent on the run with her, where all she did was invade your senses, invade your space, invade your dreams and nightmares and literally every single moment of your life until you crumbled against your own willpower.
There was one time — you were curled in the corner, unconsciously seeking as much of a protective embrace as you could in a jail cell, and she was talking to you, pleading for you to let her back in. All you registered at first were the memories: her, sprawled on a three thousand dollar down duvet, her neck a bloody, bruised mess of bites and her eyes like an addict's, vacant and lifeless. Your two greatest fears had been realized that spring — you'd lost your soul and, more importantly, you'd become the evil, immoral creature who once stalked your house and used your mother in much the same way you'd used Rose.
But nothing — nothing — could ever squeeze your heart until it burst inside your chest, bleeding everywhere without so much as a rag to stop the flood, like the look on her face when she reached out to touch you. Utter hopelessness and despair, fear that you would never come back to her.
You want to talk about images of her that still haunt you? The clang of her hand against the cell bars and the defeat in her expression that you didn't reach back — as much as you wanted to, as much as it killed you not to, because you knew one brush of her fingers would send you to your knees and you weren't ready to face what you did just yet — it still sends you into an upright panic at least once a week. She always wakes up with you when these nightmares happen, but you brush it off as Strigoi memories.
It'll be a while before you admit that nothing you did as a Strigoi could ever match the pain you inflicted on both of you when you kept her at a mile's reach from you.
Your knowledge of her is intuitive by now; you're tossing the pregnancy test on the counter and closing the gap in one stride, pulling her into your arms for the first time in a month as she starts to sob, her face buried in your chest and her hands gripping the back of your t-shirt like you'll leave if she doesn't. Your heart breaks all over again and you don't know how much more of this you can take.
She's crying, heaving, wet breaths and hot, salty tears soaking your shirt, but you're starting to relax now that she's pressed against you. Normally, you keep your arms low around her waist to keep her from feeling too short or like you're dominating over her, but right now, you throw that out the window. One arm crosses down from mid-back to hip, the other wrapping around her shoulders and holding her to you, fingers running soothingly through her hair. If you weren't so tall, you'd tuck her under your chin, so you settle for ducking as much as you can to press your lips to the crown of her head.
"Ya tebya lyublyu moya Roza," you murmur into her hair, over and over, until she calms down into quiet sniffles. You've found that nothing grounds her like when you whisper your love to her in Russian, and this is no exception.
You offer up the bottom of your shirt for her to use since she's soaked the top of, and she steels herself with a couple deep breaths, letting the fabric fall around her hands pressed to the small of your back, your warm skin heating her shaking hands. Her gaze is still distant, somewhere just to the left of your arm.
"If I told you I didn't want kids," she says slowly, fingers twitching against your back. She looks up at you, tears still in her eyes. "Would you leave?"
"God no, Roza, not at all," you breathe, crushing her back to you for a long moment. "The only thing taking me from you is Death himself, in this lifetime and the next."
"But you . . ." She trails off, and you pull back, tilting her chin up with a crooked finger.
"I've given up a child to be with you before, and I'll happily do it again." Your thumb traces the jut of her chin, sweeps up under her mouth. Her eyes flutter shut. "You come before anything else, including any hypothetical children."
She's silent for a few minutes, simply standing in your arms and taking you in. Your hand on her face follows her eyes on yours — smoothing across brows, down the nose, curves around cheekbones and brushes against temples. Your fingers drift across her mouth when she glances at yours, and she kisses the pad of your thumb, lips cashmere soft and feather light.
"I'm still . . ." She sucks her lips in, and your hand skates up to tuck her hair behind her ear, lingering. She takes as much comfort from your obsession with her hair as much as you do. "I don't know what I want. I never thought about having a kid, at least not until I met you. But it was in the abstract, you know? It was 'I feel bad that I can't give him a baby' more than 'We have the option, what do I want?' But now . . ." Her eyes start to water again, and her voice has dipped lower than a whisper. You cradle her face, thumbs brushing under her eyes to help keep her calm. "I'm going to need some time. I'm not sure how long. I've been thinking about it all the time lately, for obvious reasons, but I haven't made up my mind. I just don't want you to hate me if I decide I don't."
The last part is said so quietly, you're not sure if you heard her right; the terror in her eyes tell you that you did.
"I could never, in a million years, hate you for deciding you don't want to have a child." You lean your forehead against hers, the bend pulling at your back awkwardly, but you ignore it because she's digging her fingers into your skin, not letting you go if you tried. "You are all I need to be happy."
She's silent, still not fully convinced.
"Roza, solnishko, listen to me," you say, pulling back to look her straight in the eye. "I had the opportunity to have a very easy life, with children, and I chose you. I chose to love you and cherish you, to fight with you and make up with you, to spend however many days I have left on this planet by your side. I chose a life with you that will never be fully private because I would follow you to the ends of the earth just as you did for me. I made peace with not having kids a long time ago, long before I ever even moved to America. I could never be unhappy with you in my life and loving me."
She pushes a smile through her tears, and her hands slid up your back, pushing your shirt up. She cuddles into you, turning her head to the side so she can speak and lean against your chest as the same time.
"And what if I decide I want kids?" she asks. "Maybe not now, but in the future?"
Your voice is steady and sure. "Icing on the cake. And I find icing extraneous, anyway."
Her hands keep sliding up until they're hooked on your shoulders from behind and she takes the opportunity of her position to pull herself up, wrapping her legs around your waist. Your hands jump from her face as she moves, your grip strong on the backs of her thighs even though she's doing all the work at the moment and probably doesn't need the support from your hands slowly sliding up to her ass. She's quick to pull your hair out from its elastic so she tangle her fingers in it when she kisses you, pouring out her heart and every emotion for you to pick up and hold tenderly.
"We need to talk about this more," she says into the space where your jaw curves, nosing intently up to your temple, soft pecks dropped in her path. "But it's been a month and I can only do so much on my own." Into your ear: "If you know what I mean."
You carry her out of the bathroom and make sure to hold her close every time you show her you definitely know what she means.