Hearts are odd, fragile things. Love was never something that Anya had given great amounts of thought to as a child. It was a given in certain amounts. Her parents would love her, as would her sisters, and God. She had expected to have loves that came and went, parts of the scenery of her adventures but not the main event. Her parents had an intense love, one that withstood so much and had pieces that still don't make sense as different as they were. Her own sisters had their own flavors of love: Maria with her young guard, Olga and her officers, Tatiana and her Malama. So many hopes in those loves, so many lives that never got led.
None of those had felt like they would be right for her and she had never paid love too much mind.
How her heart has betrayed her. She has two loves, powerful and overwhelming and completely unexpected. Here one stands in front of her, disheveled and hurting and all she wants to do is wrap her arms around him. To show him the power of her love for him.
"I know, but —" she stops herself, color high on her cheeks. Gleb is right; he did die for her. The feeling of his heart ceasing to beat under her hand will always be carried with her, a fear that she hopes to never be made real. That same hand is now clasped in his, her fingers worked between his as she lays her other hand over it, pulling it closer to her without meaning to.
Holding his hand near her heart, Anya fights the urge to smooth out his hair, to hold him, to tell him that it is fine, that she is here now and he can go back to sleep. How presumptuous of her, given that she assumes she is partly to blame for his exhaustion. She hasn't slept that much either. "Harder for me?" She balks, shaking her head. "Yes, but we can't change it. Would you rather that you hadn't told me? That I would forever be left to wonder what it would be like if you kissed me? If you held me close? To talk myself out of loving you thinking that you saw me as nothing more than fellow loyal Russian? I believe that would be so much harder."
Lifting her chin, she releases the hand that she laid over his, still grasping his hand with the other. Gently she reaches up to nearly touch his left cheek, her hand almost imperceptibly brushing over the scruff. "Love changes everything. There is nothing that we cannot get through because we are loved. We just have to want to fight for it."
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None of those had felt like they would be right for her and she had never paid love too much mind.
How her heart has betrayed her. She has two loves, powerful and overwhelming and completely unexpected. Here one stands in front of her, disheveled and hurting and all she wants to do is wrap her arms around him. To show him the power of her love for him.
"I know, but —" she stops herself, color high on her cheeks. Gleb is right; he did die for her. The feeling of his heart ceasing to beat under her hand will always be carried with her, a fear that she hopes to never be made real. That same hand is now clasped in his, her fingers worked between his as she lays her other hand over it, pulling it closer to her without meaning to.
Holding his hand near her heart, Anya fights the urge to smooth out his hair, to hold him, to tell him that it is fine, that she is here now and he can go back to sleep. How presumptuous of her, given that she assumes she is partly to blame for his exhaustion. She hasn't slept that much either. "Harder for me?" She balks, shaking her head. "Yes, but we can't change it. Would you rather that you hadn't told me? That I would forever be left to wonder what it would be like if you kissed me? If you held me close? To talk myself out of loving you thinking that you saw me as nothing more than fellow loyal Russian? I believe that would be so much harder."
Lifting her chin, she releases the hand that she laid over his, still grasping his hand with the other. Gently she reaches up to nearly touch his left cheek, her hand almost imperceptibly brushing over the scruff. "Love changes everything. There is nothing that we cannot get through because we are loved. We just have to want to fight for it."