Chapter Text
The second thought that crosses Aliya Mustafina’s mind after being roused from her not-so-deep sleep — the first being ‘chyort…’ (damn…) — is to give up on the endeavor entirely. The incessant humming of the plane engine ensured that not once in the last 15 hours since departing Moscow had she gotten anything resembling ‘rest’. She knew she would need plenty of that if she was going to survive the next few weeks.
Another two hours pass.
Aliya shifts uncomfortably in her spacious seat, feeling the plane begin its descent. The pressurized air has taken on a cramped stuffiness, stoking her restlessness. She slips a well-worn copy of Anna Karenina back into her backpack. Cliché, she knows. A Russian-jacket-wearing Russian gymnast, reading a quintessential Russian classic. After all these years, it’s still her favorite book for the road. She smiles to herself. Who doesn’t enjoy being immersed in the tragic life of a woman struggling to break free of society’s strictures?
Peering out the tiny oval window, Aliya takes in the sea of bright lights, the brightest cluster of them dotting the contours of Rio de Janeiro’s beautiful coastline. Her heart rate picks up a little .
A crisp, female voice crackles throughout the plane. “Cabin crew, please prepare for landing.”
Turning to her right, Aliya looks over to where Seda sits, slumped over like a sack of potatoes. Her head tilts back against a Pikachu-emblazoned travel pillow, mouth hanging slightly open. Slow, deep breaths escape every so often. Totally passed out.
A grin tugs at Aliya's lips. She reaches over to gently pull up the woolly blanket slipping down Seda’s shoulders. The baby of the team stirs and mumbles something incoherent (“cookies?” Aliya hears), but remains about as conscious as a mummified Egyptian queen.
After stealthily snapping a photo of Sedate Seda she intends to post on Instagram later, Aliya sinks back into her seat. A sudden pensiveness comes over her. She stares absentmindedly past her own reflection in the window.
It’s been a whirlwind few days. Team Russia had been given the green light to compete in the Olympics just days before. Aliya remembers the torrent of mixed feelings that had swept over her after finding out they would be jetting off to South America after all. Angry, because much of the frenzied foreign media coverage of the high-level drug scandal seemed set on smearing the reputations of every Russian athlete, even the innocent ones; vindicated, because the girls had been killing themselves to train for these Games; pumped, because once again she would prove to all the doubters that injuries weren’t going to keep her from more Olympic glory; scared, because of what — and who — had happened four years ago…
Grimacing, Aliya forces her mind to back away from London. Luckily, the French accent-tinged English of a pleasant baritone snaps her out of her thoughts.
“Miss, can I get you anything before we land?” The chisel-faced Lufthansa flight attendant who has been surreptitiously flirting with Aliya since the plane took off is looking down at her, watchful eyes trained on her face. He’s holding some orange pieces of paper in his hand.
“No. I am good,” Aliya says curtly. She had caught little of what he had said, but it was enough, combined with the tone of his voice, to understand what he was asking.
He gives her a slight nod, but his feet stay rooted to the spot, as if waiting — or willing — for her to say more.
“Ah. Thank you. I am good.” Aliya feels a blush creep up her cheeks, realizing her first response had resembled a haughty marquesse telling a particularly useless manservant to please step off a cliff. She tries to ameliorate the situation by glancing up and flashing him a winning smile. He has been very attentive for the entirety of the flight, after all.
Chisel Face (he had introduced himself before, but Aliya hadn’t bothered to commit his name to memory) breaks into a pearly-teethed grin. “Did you finish your book?”
“My book?” Aliya is momentarily thrown. Then it dawns on her. He had noticed her burrowing into her novel. Or other things. He’s not what you would call beautiful, but does have a certain slick charm about him. “No, not finish. But I read, many times. Anna Karenina is… deep. Many people, many… meanings.”
The flight attendant nods distractedly, clearly not comprehending her words so much as spacing out, that all-too-familiar blank look sweeping over his face. Aliya only just stops herself from rolling her eyes. The awkwardness thickens, and she quietly clears her throat.
Chisel Face shakes his head dazedly, recovering himself. He leans carefully over a groggy, but now conscious Seda, to hand Aliya some immigration forms. “We’ll be landing soon. You’ll need these,” he says, bestowing another simpering smile on her.
Aliya thanks him, meeting his suspiciously rehearsed wink with outward indifference and an inward shiver of disgust. She silently rejoices when he continues, a little reluctantly, down the aisle to distribute forms to other passengers.
By now, Seda is fully alert. Shooting Aliya a smug-filled ‘I see what you did there’ look.
Aliya smacks Seda over the head.
“We flew over the Canary Islands. Tried telling you, but you’d passed on into the afterlife. You didn’t even feel anything when the flight attendant shook you to wake you up for dinner.” As Aliya speaks, her fingers instinctively move to smooth out several escapee strands of hair matted against her diminutive teammate’s forehead.
“Which flight attendant? The one who was about to get down on one knee just then?” Seda pokes Aliya’s arm playfully, laughing at the scowl on her team captain's face. “The one you would have totally jumped if I wasn’t in the way?” She stops mid-tease, brow furrowed. “Wait. That’s so cool that we flew over the Canary… well, whatever. You were so into him!”
Aliya raises a perfectly-shaped eyebrow. “Please. He can get in line.”
Seda struggles to think of a snappy retort. There is definitely a line — one populated by a string of smitten Russian celebrities, sons of oil barons, fellow Olympians, even an up-and-coming genius on the verge of discovering the cure for cancer… or something. Point taken. It takes a lot more than smart flight attendant attire, constant drink refills and over-practised winks to pique Aliya’s interest. A hellishly lot more.
“Here — we have to fill these in. I’ve got pens. We’re going to be in Rio soon!” Even the normally composed Aliya Mustafina can’t contain the waves of adrenaline coursing through her at the thought of another Olympics. She moves to hand Seda one of the orange forms, but not before another piece of paper with something scrawled on one side drops onto Seda’s open table tray.
Instinctively, Seda grabs the paper and brings it up to her eyes. Squinting in the dim light, she quickly scans it. Moments later, she lets out a noise between a high-pitched squeak and a gleeful guffaw. It’s a carefully hand-written phone number complete with international code, an email address, and several social media handles, most on sites Aliya doesn’t even use. Then in capitals: JACQUE MOREAU. And underneath Chisel Face’s actual name, in script befitting of a Russian pre-schooler: Ты такая красивая.
Aliya calmly plucks the paper out of a giggling Seda’s hand, scrunches it up, and lets it drop to the floor of the plane.
She has business to get on with in Rio.