Work Text:
Mal once said that university had radicalised Alina.
In fact, what university had done was show her the reality of life in Ravka – the prejudice, the inequality, the injustice – and how much it contrasted with the semi-utopian ideal that their state-sponsored group home had always emphasised, where you prosper if you work hard and suffer only if you are a criminal or a slacker.
She doesn’t speak to Mal anymore, hasn’t since she told him two years into her law degree that she wanted to go into legal aid work and he asked why would you want to help drug addicts and criminals when you could be making bank in corporate law?
Needless to say, she thinks she’s well shot of him.
It hasn’t been easy, the last few years.
Firms offering legal aid have dwindled with government budget cuts and the inevitability of a poor salary for those solicitors willing to undertake such work.
Alina has never been particularly materialistic, though. Growing up in care, where practically everything was communal and very few belongings were truly hers, she’s learned to cherish the small things. It doesn’t matter if she can’t afford fancy meals because it’s more important that she now has a space of her own, decorated according to her tastes and with her own personal touches, even if it is a cramped, one-bedroom apartment.
She might see Instagram posts occasionally of Mal on beach holidays and hunting trips – he’d joined the army and then gone to work at some private security firm that pays very well but which may, Alina suspects, be a front for arms dealing – but she doesn’t feel much envy for that, even if she did wish that she could afford to replace her brick of a phone and get a decent laptop.
She spends a year in her old hometown of Keramzin, until the firm switches fully to fee-paying clients because they can’t afford to run on the pittance of legal aid funding they get from the government. After that, she goes to Os Kervo for two years.
Finally, a friend from university – Nina, vivacious and mischievous, now a doctor who still has an incredibly macabre sense of humour – messages her to tell her about a job opening.
A legal aid firm in Os Alta called Grisha Law, a salary that is nothing like the corporate firms offer but certainly more generous than any of the legal aid positions she’s seen before.
I’ve found an apartment for you too, Nina writes, two-bedroom, nice view. The boss owns the building and he’s really fair on rent so you’ll be able to save for a deposit to buy somewhere eventually.
The director of a legal aid firm having enough money to own an entire building seems incredibly suspicious to Alina, but Nina insists it’s all legitimate.
He’s a distant cousin of mine. It’s all above-board, I swear. Aleksander is … well, you’ll see.
If I get murdered, Nina, then I’m haunting you forever.
Grisha Law is a three-floor brick building on a quiet road on the outskirts of the city centre.
It’s warm and welcoming, clean and bright. Not ostentatious by any means, but distinctly lacking in the faded, budget-conscious vibe that the firms she’s worked in before have exuded.
The firm does legal aid for matters where it’s available. They also provide Wills and other services at lower-than-average costs and with varied payment plan options available. The reviews she’s found online are great, emphasising the firm’s professionalism, the solicitors’ abilities and the friendly, compassionate service offered.
Her new colleagues are an interesting bunch.
There are Genya and Inej, who work primarily on cases involving human trafficking and domestic abuse, and whose beautiful faces distract many people from the sharp legal minds that are viciously determined to get justice for their clients.
Husbands Fedyor and Ivan seem like complete personality opposites to begin with, but it quickly becomes clear that they are equally determined to provide the best possible service even if one does it with a smile and the other with a severe frown.
They have regular contacts in and out of the office too. Zoya, when she’s not commanding eye-watering sums from private clients, offers her services to those clients of Grisha Law who require a barrister, and Alina soon comes to realise that half of the judges in Os Alta are terrified of her and the other half are stupid not to be. Kaz, Inej’s husband, is a private investigator who helps them out sometimes, and if his methods can be suspect then they tend to look the other way because it’s for a good cause.
And then there is Aleksander Morozov, the founder.
Aleksander, whose dark eyes can switch so quickly from warm and reassuring with his clients to cold and dangerous when dealing with those opposing him.
Who personally gave her a tour of the office and the apartment building only a five-minute walk away, where she’s now living in an apartment twice the size of her old one and in a much better location, for half the rent she was paying in Os Kervo.
Who buys lunch for the whole office at least three times a week, and orders in dinner if they have to stay late.
Who lets Ivan and Fedyor’s daughter have the run of the office during her school holidays, always bringing in her favourite pink cupcakes from the bakery across town.
Who switches effortlessly between Ravkan, Shu, Fjerdan, Suli and Kerch depending on which client he is with, wearing a soft, reassuring smile to put them at ease.
Who catches a glimpse of Alina’s old phone with its broken screen, and notices her blushing stammering when she says she can’t work from home because she has no laptop, and then promptly provides her with a new phone and her own laptop. Good, reliable models with all the latest software, without being so expensive that she’s afraid to use them.
Who remembers things Nina told him about her almost five years ago – like the fact that she is an orphan (he is careful and sensitive asking her about her family) and her favourite chocolate (which always appears on her desk when she’s had a particularly difficult day) – and also asks her about her hobbies and life, giving her his full attention when she talks.
Who offers to go to the Ravkan Museum and Art Gallery with her because she’s excited to visit but knows Nina will get distracted within an hour if she goes with her.
Who doesn’t tell her that her wrist tattoos – a blazing sun on one and blue irises on the other – are unprofessional like one of her former bosses did. Instead, he shows her his own three – the phrase like calls to like, a sun in eclipse that seems rather like a sort of twin to her sun, and the words we can change the world.
Who welcomes her and mentors her and doesn’t hesitate to offer the hand of friendship.
Who is handsome in a very distracting way. Dark hair shot through with silver, laugh lines on otherwise smooth skin, tall and strong and looking like he gives really, really good hugs.
For all her working conditions are almost idyllic, the work itself is hard.
Interesting and worthwhile, but the days are long and the clients are often nervous, scared, upset or defensive.
Sometimes it seems they’re fighting a battle that can’t be won. Two steps forward and one step back. News of budget cuts or unfair new legislation being introduced, terrible and harrowing and heartbreaking tales told in whispers by their clients.
“We make a difference,” Aleksander tells her when she lets despair take over her mind, “I know it doesn’t seem like that, some days, but this work is so important. We change lives here, Alina.”
He taps the words on his wrist – we can change the world – and she knows he uses it as a reminder every day.
“I just … sometimes I feel like the world is such a dark place.”
“Often it is,” he squeezes her shoulder gently, “but you can be a light in the darkness, Alina. You already are.”
“Nina,” Alina says at brunch one weekend, “is Aleksander rich?”
It’s the only explanation she can think of. He’s not flashy or careless, but he never hesitates to cover everyone’s meal or update old equipment quickly or make a hefty donation to any charitable cause that catches his eye (from the small, with Ivan and Fedyor’s daughter’s sponsored walk, to the large, in writing a cheque for £150,000 when the children’s hospital Nina works at have a fundraising drive).
Nina laughs, “you really don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“He’s Aleksander Morozov. As in, the old money Morozovs. And he’s basically the only one left since his sister Ulla decided she wanted to go off sailing around the world and have nothing to do with the money.”
Thinking about it, Alina has a vague recollection of an article about the Morozovs.
“Weren’t they involved with oil?”
“Oil, weapons, secrets, gold. Even worse stuff too, if you go back more than half a century. Blood money, Aleksander told me once. He hates where it came from, so he tries to spend it on good causes. He might well have given it all away before now, but he decided there’d be more long-term benefit if he used it to ensure Grisha Law could keep running. And then what’s left generates so much income, even with an ethical portfolio, that he can just have fun giving to every charity and community project his heart desires.”
Alina stares, “you’re saying he … he’s an ethical millionaire? I didn’t think they existed outside of fiction.”
“I mean, he was an ethical billionaire, at the start, but it’s down to the high hundreds of millions now.”
“You realise how insane that sounds.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much. He’s human, just like the rest of us. Makes mistakes. Snores like a sailor, so I’ve been told. He and Ivan actually like herring, which I personally think is the sign of a psychopath. He tells absolutely terrible jokes and irons his underwear. He currently owns nine cats and an insane little dog called Volcra because he can’t go away from an animal shelter empty-handed. He needs his beauty sleep or he’ll be awful and that’s why people call him the Darkling sometimes. He’s been arrested nine times at protests and he somehow argued his way out of any real punishment when he egged Prime Minister Lantsov two years ago.”
“I think some of those are green flags, Nina, not red ones.”
“He once … voted conservative.”
Alina winces.
Nina shrugs, “to be fair, he was just eighteen and all he really knew was his family’s country estate and his posh boarding school. He changed his tune quickly enough in uni – it’s probably for the best that his parents died before they realised or they’d likely have disinherited him.”
“Don’t feel bad for them,” Nina adds quickly, “his father was a monster and his mother was a sociopath. Really, it’s a blessing that his quirks are things like ironing his underwear.”
Alina is now thinking about Aleksander in just his underwear. It’s rather a delightful daydream.
“He’s single too, if you’re interested,” her friend winks.
“Nina!”
“I’m just saying. He has a terrible habit of falling for women that turn out to like his money more than him and then they get into a real snit and dump him when he refuses to buy them diamond necklaces or private islands. We both know you’re not going to do that.”
“He’s my boss.”
“Only technically. He’s very much a fan of collective decision-making and it’d be easy enough for you to report to one of the others rather than directly to him.”
“It’s a crazy idea,” Alina mutters, even though she wishes it could be real.
“No,” Nina says, smiling as she drenches the waffles and bacon the waiter has just brought her in syrup, “I don’t think it’s crazy at all.”
He’s kind to everyone at the office. They’re all friends.
Alina isn’t special, even if he does seem to go on outings with her one-on-one a lot more than he does with the others.
He’s just showing her around the city or indulging in their shared interest in history and art.
Her mind wars with wanting to crow over every sign of partiality he shows her and also wanting to rationally remind herself not to ascribe more meaning to it than she should.
They work well together, a productive and effective pair.
He starts to call her solnyshka and no one at Grisha Law says a thing about it.
She visits his house and meets all his pets. His most aloof cat takes a shine to her where she’s liable to scratch everyone else but Aleksander.
They get mistaken for a couple at least once a week. She hears Genya mutter something that sounds suspiciously like just kiss already under her breath. They do couples activities but they’re not a couple … not technically.
A year after Alina starts at Grisha Law, they’re walking around the nearby park with Volcra.
They take a seat on a bench, not letting Volcra off the lead (he gets near manic when he’s around pigeons) but lengthening it so the dog can enjoy a good run around, and Aleksander takes Alina’s hand.
He’s done it before, but never so deliberately.
“Alina, solnyshka.”
She turns to look at him and is startled by the expression in his dark eyes. He always looks pleased to see her, but this is more than that.
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he tells her.
“I’ve never met anyone like you either,” she admits.
“And is that … good?”
He’s uncharacteristically nervous, a strange look for him.
“Of course it’s good. You’re the best man I know, Aleksander.”
His eyes brighten, “you are remarkable, Alina. I’ve never been happier than I am now I know you.”
His words are so sweet, so sincere, that Alina loses all sense and does what she’s wanted to since almost the first moment she met Aleksander.
She kisses him.
And he kisses her back. Extremely enthusiastically.
In the end, it’s all settled without any need for words.
No one is surprised. In fact, Alina just rolls her eyes when she discovers there’s a bet about the two of them (which Inej wins).
It’s a wonderful life.
And the two of them change the world one client at a time.