Chapter Text
Yelenea Moronova remembers her mother’s advice, “hatred will not fill your stomach.”
She also remembers her grandmother’s response, “no, but you will die warm.”
Ah, Baba, at least Yelena would be warm before she joined her.
The little one in Yelena’s arms makes a small noise, such a gruff sound for one so sweet and little. She gently bounces her grandson, and hums, low and quiet, so the tiny boy will feel the sound through her chest.
He settles, as he often does with a little motion, a little attention.
Yelena shifts the blanket just a bit, looks down at her little Valya.
She’d almost cried when the officer told her the little one’s name. Her daughter had barely been speaking to Yelena before she died, and she’d only sent Yelena a brief, bitter note, once so out of character for her bubbly, cheerful, stubborn daughter.
“Babe is born, a Rozanov.”
As if it was proof that man loved her, would care for her, that he’d allowed his only son to have his last name, even though he’d never give the same right to Yelena’s daughter.
Yelena would die warmed from her hatred for Alexei Rozanov.
She reaches down and brushes her lips softly against her grandson’s head.
He is too young to know who he would look like, his mother or his father. Yelena hopes he looks like Nadiya. She hopes that someday Alexei sees a picture of this wonderful little boy and knows, without a doubt, what Yelena had done.
She looks at the front desk and gently bounces the little bundle again.
Yelena wants a chair. She might need one, but she’s too proud to ask for one from this little girl with her wide eyes, her fluttering hands, in a language Yelena doesn’t really know.
But Yelena believes this little girl thinks she can outlast Yelena. In the long run, yes, of course she can. Yelena is sick, sick enough she is unlikely to make it through this coming round of treatment.
In her experience, people do not beat cancer twice. Yelena doesn’t want to think about Nadiya’s happy tears when she first went into remission, her Nikita’s kiss on her hand, unwilling to look her in the eye while he cried and cried, for the first time in Yelena’s presence since they had received the original test results.
Yelena does not know if she will be able to get back to be buried between them. If she died here, would they still bury her properly? Would they let Valya come and see her?
Maybe that would be alright.
She is not so sure she believes in an after-life. Her mother said she did. Her father did.
Her grandmother didn’t, a proper communist atheist to her death. She’d made Yelena’s mother cry when she told them all they could do what they wanted with her body.
“If you want to bury me somewhere, bury me with my sisters.”
Of course, there was no cemetery where Valentina Petrova could be buried with her sisters, her comrades, her fellow Night Witches. Yelena’s mother told the funeral directors to etch the tombstone with Valentina’s plane instead of her picture.
If Yelena allows herself to think about the best case scenario, Valya will know about Yelena’s grandmother, about what little family he has through his mother. She’s done what is possible to insure this.
Yelena had packed up her home and called her brother before she swore herself to this path.
He did not think it wise. Yelena thinks he was actually horrified. But none of his family could take on Valya. And he knew better than to get in the way of a woman in his family and their vengeance. Even their own sweet mother was frightful when her anger finally woke up.
So he had promised to send Yelena’s things to her when it was possible, if it was possible. He did not have money for the shipping, or for Yelena’s ticket and the necessary money to get the documents she needed in order, or “in order”, in some cases. But he had the space to keep her things in his home, now empty of his circus troupe of children.
It was their sister who paid for the documents, who found the best path from Russia to where Yelena was now, who talked to lawyers and embassy officials from her new home in Prague.
She and Yelena were not close.
They did not have to be.
This was revenge.
Yelena turns to look at the big picture on the wall.
Ilya Rozanov, ROZ-an-ov, they say here, like a giant from a children’s story, fierce, eyes glinting.
He did not look much like his older brother.
Yelena knows from what little Nadiya shared about the piece fo shit her daughter dedicated her life to that Ilya and Alexei had fallen out long before Ilya publicly declared himself. During the first meal Yelena shared with Alexei, one of only four total times she saw the man, she’d asked after his brother.
His jaw had clenched, teeth grinding together, eyes small, dark and angry, mouth a pout. She’d known what kind of man Alexei was then. A bully, but one who whined, one who could be violent, sure, but was just as likely to back down as turn violent, and even then more likely to throw something, to break something, to scream.
At the time, it had been a very small blessing in Yelena’s mind. Surely her daughter would see the truth of this man, this married man who was too old for her, her daughter would see that Alexei would never leave his wife, would never be so bold, so daring. No, he was small and bitter.
Nadiya did not see. Instead she felt sorry for the bastard, like he was some kind of bird with a broken wing, not a man who was now leaving two women unsatisfied and unhappy instead of just one.
And now she is dead.
Finally, someone comes to this entryway. It is not Rozanov, nor his… husband.
They are wearing a business casual kind of outfit, and a lanyard. Yelena does not think he is a lawyer. She’s worried this means they are not taking her seriously. She wants to reach down for her bag, all the papers she’s arranged.
Instead she waits.
“Miss…?”
She knows that much.
“Moronova. Russian?”
“Ah-”
And he says something that is not Russian, that Yelena does not know.
Yelena raises an eyebrow, like her father’s mother, that woman could silence anyone, could judge with a look. Yelena gives a pointed look to the giant on the wall.
The man flushes and clasps his hands in front of his chest, like he’s begging. Yelena tilts her head. The man steps slightly to the side, sweeps an arm back toward the direction where he came. Yelena glances at her bags.
The man comes over and grabs them. Thank god, she does not feel up to lugging all her baggage and Valya.
She is brought to the building’s second floor, to some conference room where Yelena is ushered to a chair, a fairly comfortable one for a room like this. She tries to hide her weariness and knows she has failed when Yelena glances at the man.
He holds up a finger, to wait, and then leaves the room, her bags bundled next to the door.
Yelena is so tired, and Valya will be hungry soon.
The man comes back with a phone. He looks unsure, uncomfortable even, but he puts the phone on the conference table.
“I am told you came to see me?”
Yelena did not think her heart would race, but it does. She had expected multiple layers of legal staff and red tape before she spoke to this man. His voice is nice, rich with pleasing lilt. Did he know he sounded a bit American, or perhaps she should say Canadian, now? It has been three days since Yelena heard anyone speak Russian. She will not cry. She is so close.
“Yes, I am Yelena Moronova. I have business with you.”
There was a long pause. She is sure these people would have told Ilya Rozanov all about the strange old Russian woman at the Ottawa Centaur’s administration offices with multiple bags and a baby.
“And what business do you have with me?”
She had not prepared exactly what she’d say to Ilya Rozanov. Yelena thought she had more time.
She will just be blunt.
“My grandson is Valentin Rozanov, your nephew. My daughter was not his wife. She’s dead and I am dying. So I brought him to you.”
There was a long pause. Yelena can not believe she is panicking now, after a month of planning this, she is panicking now, now?
“I have proof-”
“We are coming. We, we will be there soon.”