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'Family' was still a new concept for Malyen Oretsev.
He'd heard of families all his life, of course – mostly in the context of his not having one. Growing up in an orphanage had been rough at the best of times, but even in his darkest moments Mal had never let himself imagine that there was a family waiting for him somewhere out there.
To look around at them now was ... unreal.
When Alina had come home a few months before from her new job at a fancy-and-secretive tech company with a couple coupons for free genetic background analysis, Mal hadn't thought much of it. He'd scoffed at the cheek swabs but she wanted to do it and he wanted her to be happy so he'd sent his sample in along with hers. When the emails arrived saying their results were ready, they logged into Alina's account first.
Alina was, the site had said, a carrier for several western African and Ashkenazi genetic diseases, a fact seemingly at odds with the heritage summary that had reported her genetic makeup as split evenly between a region of central China and an unspecified indigenous South American group.
Alina Starkov, the site had proudly announced, you have 0 potential relatives on our site. And then, in moment of exceptional cruelty: Click here to order some kits for your family!
Mal's results had been less surprising – the site reported that his brown hair and blue eyes came from some combination of the usual west and north European suspects. More unexpected, though, had been that he had five potential relatives on the site.
"Click to see who they are!" Alina prompted, but Mal had hesitated, unsure. In the morning, though, he had a message waiting from one of them.
Dear cousin, it began, and suddenly there was wind or maybe dust in the room because Mal's vision started to blur.
Ginny, his cousin a few times removed it turned out, had been doing a large scale genealogy project on her own family and had hoped that some people from branches for whom the records petered out might show up on the site. She was beyond thrilled to learn that he was an Oretsev.
She had told him about a family reunion she was planning the next month, conveniently close to where they lived. With Alina's new job (Mal understood just enough to know that it involved security, computers, and was very, very impressive) they could, for the first time, afford to travel. Unfortunately, Alina was practically chained to her laptop; she'd had to fight just to get the day off to come to the reunion. ("It's on a Saturday," Mal had said. Alina had rolled her eyes. "Our CTO says hackers don't take weekends.")
They'd rented a car and driven, nearly a three hour trip including a few routes more scenic than they'd meant to take, and they'd arrived late. Mal had gone to apologize to Ginny, but when she saw him she had just thrown her arms around his neck and hugged him.
Maybe this is what family is, he'd thought, amazed.
He and Alina had spent the last half-hour on the lawn, shaking hands with members of his very extended family. The Oretsevs were a bit of a lost branch and he hadn't met anyone who had a common relative closer than four or five generations back, but everyone was happy to meet him, welcoming and warm.
Alina was beautiful in a sundress and charming in a way he almost never saw her. She typically preferred to be behind her computer screen, often grumbling that she had more in common with hackers in other continents than with their neighbors. But here around his family she seemed energized, somehow, excited – none of the nerves that he had, all of the joy.
She squeezed his hand. "I'm going to go see if Ginny has any more of that lavender lemonade. Want anything while I'm in there?" Mal shook his head and she smiled, kissed him lightly on the nose. "I love you."
That was enough. It had always been enough.
Mal turned to see another late arrival to the party, inwardly relieved that he and Alina weren't the last ones to show up. A man, suited, escorted a much older woman with a cane – his mother, Mal supposed. The woman took a seat and was immediately engaged in conversation (or at least talked at) by several other matriarchs. Mal walked across the lawn towards the man.
"Hi," he said, holding out his hand. "I'm Mal."
A glance of cool grey, a nod towards Mal's name tag. "I can see that."
Ooookay. He smiled gamely and pointed at a nearby table. "If you want one, name tags are over there."
"I'm aware."
New strategy. "So you have much contact with this branch of your family?"
"None, actually."
Somehow Mal wasn't surprised. "What brings you here then?"
"My mother wished to come." He responded to Mal's look with an even gaze. "Haven't you ever done anything to make your mother happy?"
One part of Mal's brain reasoned that this man couldn't possibly know that he was an orphan. The other part of his brain insisted that he had intended that comment to hurt every bit as much as it did.
Mal had never been so relieved to see Alina as when she stepped out of the house at that moment. She saw him and smiled, her face lighting like the sun – just for a moment, before her expression was replaced by something much darker.
She stomped over to where he was, furious, and he didn't understand why until she walked right past him to the suited man, grabbing his arm and turning him around.
"What happened," she practically shouted, "to 'hackers don't take weekends'??"
It took Mal a moment. Then he looked at the man, back at Alina. "You're the ..."
"He's my CTO." Alina scowled.
The man seemed unperturbed. He was silent for a moment before turning to Mal. "That stands for Chief Technology Officer."
"I know what it stands for," Mal ground out. Alina had been complaining about the CTO nearly since she started the job; Mal was beginning to understand why.
She narrowed her eyes. "It's quite a coincidence that I take one day off in the last three months and you show up to my boyfriend's family reunion."
"Your boyfriend," the man repeated. He glanced between the two of them and something like relief crossed his face, replaced quickly by something like irritation. Then boredom. Mal wasn't sure which he liked least.
He didn't have a chance to decide, however, because Ginny chose that exact moment to appear. Her mouth formed an excited O as she looked up at the man in front of her. "You must be one of the Morozovas!" His lack of response didn't discourage her, and she continued: "You look just like the photos of your grandfather Ilya."
"Fascinating," the CTO replied.
Ginny beamed despite his tone, either ignoring or failing to notice the fact that he hadn't looked at her once. All his attention was on Alina, who glared back at him, hands clenched to fists at her sides. Ginny waved at someone across the lawn and excused herself, leaving the three of them alone again.
"On my way here, I received word that that contract we'd been hoping for came through," the man told Alina, his tone deliberately casual in a way to indicate that it was anything but. "We'll need to get started immediately."
Alina's fists didn't unclench, but her eyes widened just enough to dim her scowl.
"What sort of project?" asked Mal.
"The classified sort." Morozova hadn't looked his way and Mal thought he wouldn't elaborate, but after a beat he continued. "The reporting structure will be different for the duration of this project – Alina will be working directly under me."
Mal furrowed his brow. Did he just –
The CTO turned towards Mal, met his eyes. "It's going to require a lot of long, hard nights."
Mal's jaw dropped. HE DID.
Alina's scowl was back. "Come on, Mal," she bit out as she grabbed his hand. "Let's go talk to someone from the non-asshole side of your family."
Mal let her lead him away and glanced back at the CTO who seemed, shockingly, almost amused. "I'll see you at the office this evening, Alina."
She waved back at him using one particular finger and led Mal straight across the lawn. Mal regained his capacity for speech somewhere past the table full of tiny cucumber sandwiches. "He's even worse than you said."
"I know." Alina dropped his hand, put hers on her hips and scanned the yard, a deep line formed between her brow. "But I can handle him – other than that, it's my dream job."
"Won't he fire you if you talk to him like that though?"
Alina exhaled loudly and shook her head, frustration evident in her movements. "No, he needs me too much."
Mal knew he should keep his mouth shut, and he tried to – and failed. "Long, hard nights kind of need you?"
If she had stormed off and taken the car back to the city, leaving him in the yard in the middle of nowhere, he would have deserved it. For a second there, he thought she might. But then she laughed, and this time when she shook her head it was light. "More like I'm the only reason we got that contract in the first place. I think I'm going to go see if Ginny has anything stronger than that lemonade. Can you drive us home?" She grabbed his hand again, and at her touch he felt the tension in his chest release.
He smiled. "Anything for you."
She smiled back before leading him across the yard to a table with drinks where more family members waited, eager to meet him, unlike the one they'd left behind. I guess you really can't choose your family, Mal thought, amazed at the aptness of a saying he'd never thought would apply to him.
When, sometime later, Mal looked back towards where the CTO stood, the man was still staring at Alina. Mal was about to mention it to her when the man's gaze shifted towards him and something about his expression made Mal think better of saying anything at all and anxious to leave. It wasn't until a couple hours later, relieved to have concrete passing below him at 70 miles an hour and Alina snoring lightly in the passenger seat, that he realized that he hadn't really escaped, that family was the one thing he wouldn't be able to just leave behind.
Alina shifted towards him, maybe dreaming, and Mal sighed, turning back to the long stretch of highway in the approaching dusk. After a moment he reached towards her, the only family he had chosen, and grasped her fingers in his. In her sleep, Alina smiled.