Title: Remember
Rating: PG
Genre: Historical, angst
Characters/Pairings: Russia/Anastasia Romanov
Summary: She wouldn't remember him, he didn't want her to remember him, but he wished that she was well. And she would live in some place warm.
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Maybe someday together we can be
The king and queen, so make me believe this
He could hear her screaming. That's all he could remember, her hand reaching out towards his. She was eighteen, yet so much...so much like a small child to him, still trusting him as he stood by watching as the soldiers moved in with their guns, and took her away from him.
Where they pulled out their guns, he wondered how anybody could be so heartless, to hurt such a young girl, such an innocent girl. And he cried for it.
He knows that he will go to hell someday, there was no other explanation for what he does.
But how could he go to hell, if God didn't exist? And so he decided to turn his back on an unforgiving man, an unforgiving man who had always made his life, in the bitter cold...such bitter cold, into a cold hell, a cold prison with sharp edges of snow and ice and sugar. And sometimes he dreamt.
He wanted to dream of sunflowers, but all he could see were an endless expense of land. He wanted to see her again, she had always loved sunflowers...she was just like him. She smiled easily, she cried easily, and she never seemed to fit in either.
When the other royal children were off with their toys, she was the mischief maker. Her mother was always taking care of the poor Tsarvich Alexei, and her three sisters were off dressing up...in limbo between grown up and a child.
But she was different. From when she was born, he had always loved her.
He had loved her when she was a small child, she had always called him her uncle. The other three children regarded him as just another general, as just another teacher, but she had always seemed so intrigued by him. She knew. He knew that she figured it out, she was always the smartest of the four children, she was beautiful, she was thrilling, and she was good at mysteries.
But she wasn't clever enough to find that her life was going to end in a short moment of time. She knew that a revolution was going to happen, and he begged her to run away, but she had clung to him, saying that she knew, she knew that he was going to protect her, protect her from the cold, from the mob, from the hungry peasants, from himself.
He hated himself so much for it, for he had promised he promised that that he would save her someday.
And instead of rebuking her gently, telling her that it was immposiible, and that it was the best to run away, to run somewhere far far away where the sunflowers would be blooming and that she would be safe.
He had made his boss promise that she was going to be cared for, exiled but save in some small town in England. She wouldn't remember him, he hoped that she wouldn't remember him, but he wished that she would be well.
And she would live in some place warm.
---
Someone holds me safe and warm, Horses prance through a silver storm
Figures dancing gracefully, Across my memory...
He knew that Russia was no longer a place for her. He loved her, and in that fateful night, when the gunshots rang out, he rushed in and wrapped her in his jacket. She was half faint, there was a bullet wound in her arm, soaking the silken dressing gown in red, and he tried to bandage it as best as he could.
She moaned softly, and managed to cry out his name. She was falling asleep in his arms, and he carried her through the fire, and through his citizens.
He would do anything for her.
It was as simple as that, and the snow started falling, covering the world...the insane world in a beautiful whiteness, a stillness that he had never remembered. She was so pale, her dark hair stood out, and she was shivering.
The coat wasn't enough to keep her warm, and so he pressed himself to her, trying to keep her warm. She was still shivering, and so he started to run, knowing that any moment now, she was going to...no, he couldn't say that word.
"Is this a game?" she managed to whisper, giggling weakly. Her eyes were half open, and there was a hollowness...a whiteness, a blandness that was so much like the snow covering the earth. She was so fragile now in his arms, and she was so insubstantial, a doll.
Her vision was no longer focused, her eyes were wide open, he wondered if she was blind. He hoped that she was, praying to could it be possible, God so she didn't have to remember too much. Yet he wished that he could have shown her the sunflowers again.
"It's so cold!" she whispered. "Mamma and Pappa would be back soon right? And we'd have hot chocolates, and Tanya would sing again...and we'd be happy, r-right Uncle Vanya?" she asked him, and he blinked. Didn't she remember any of it?
"Wouldn't we be so happy after we reach home?" she asked him, her smile still infectious. "Uncle Vanya? Why can't I see anything?" she asked him again, and he still didn't reply.
She must have fallen asleep again, leaning on his shoulder as he carried her. Where he was going, he didn't know quite yet, but that he just had to move on and on, that he had to get out of this wilderness, and that he had to find somewhere safe for her.
Somewhere she could rest for a few days, she was going to freeze if he didn't find a safe place for her.
Finally he reached the closest home. It was a small building, a small house in the lone wilderness of Siberia.
Maybe he could believe in miracles again, and he wanted to believe in miracles. But if he believed in them, he would also have to believe in God and Hell, and those two he couldn't bear to think about any longer. And so he told himself that it was a pure coincidence, and rapped on the door.
---
She pulled on his hand with a devilish grin
She led him upstairs, she led him upstairs, left him dying to get in
He could see her now. Her eyes were bright, and she was in a thin violet gown. The chocolate curls flew out of their restraints, and flowers were falling from her hair as she spun around and around again.
There were lights pouring down from the firmament, and she was dazzling. She wasn't real, he knew that she wasn't real as she held out her hands. She was giggling, spinning around and around.
He in contrast stood in the shadows. He was wearing a thick winter coat, there was a war raging on, and he was covered in blood. But she was standing right next to him, and she didn't seem at all worried.
She was so happy, her eyes shining, her small quick hands and feet moving to the rhythm of the waltz that was conjured by invisible players. Somewhere an unseen fountain bubbled, and she was in the middle of it. She was laughing joyfully, glittering and looking very much alive.
"What's the matter, Vanya?" she asked him, her laugher soft and sweet.
He reached out to her, but as he touched her shoulder, she rippled as if she was a reflection in a pond. "Hurry up!" she told him, as she began running, hitching up her skirts, and running up the golden stairs.
He tried to chase after her, but he was rooted to the position, and could only watch as she ran up head of him. She was now on the balcony, looking down. "Why aren't you trying to catch me? Catch me if you can!" she giggled again, and ran back downstairs, poking him lightly.
"Why are you no fun?" she asked him, her eyes glittering with mirth, and she took his hand, and gave it a light squeeze. There was blood on his hands, but she didn't seem to notice as she stood behind him.
She took his other hand, also covered in blood, and they began to waltz, and she chattered lightly to him. He tried to speak, he tried to ask her why she was standing in front of him when she should have been gone already.
"Mamma and Pappa are busy tonight." she informed him, with a shy wink. He tried to speak to her, to tell her that this wasn't right, that her parents were dead, that he had killed them. That the blood that was on his hands and hers were her parent's blood.
But she didn't listen, and he couldn't speak to her, and so he followed her in slow, sluggish steps, up up up the stairs. "It gets so lonely...when they're busy on some state matters. But you're here!" she said, as she pushed him onto the bed.
"You 're always taking care of me! I don't even need them!" she said to herself, in a self satisfied way. "...but why do you look so sad?" she asked him, and he couldn't reply, the world was spinning, and he was trying to gasp for air, and he could feel the coldness of that night, her hands were so cold, her hands were so pale, and there were snowflakes in her hair now.
Her breathing became ragged, and the illusions of grandeur were disappearing, and soon it was the cold night again. But she was still smiling. The last thing he saw was her smile, so innocent yet so devilish.
---
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
The war raged on, as she brushed her hair. The English air felt cold against her bare skin, and the maid was waking her up. I had such strange dreams last night, she thought to herself. She continued to brush her hair, it was almost tea-time, and she didn't want to be late.
She had always loved petite fours for some strange reason. And so knotting a ribbon, a tattered affair that she knew she should throw out but didn't, she ran downstairs to teatime.
Today was also important, that she was being released from the asylum, that she was fully healed, apart from some of the strange nightmares she had, she was perfectly fine. She reached out for a petite four, and cradled it in her hands, and took a bite out of it, licking the sugar and vanilla dust from her lips thoughtfully.
How strange, she thought again, as she took another bite and then another.
They said that she was healing fast. That she would be blind, but other the that she was sane.
She just shrugged, and continued on her petite four. Somebody turned the radio on, and she could hear the news of a war in the far north. Something about the second world war, she wondered what that was. The Great War was supposed to be over right?
She didn't remember any of it...besides a tall blond man with violet eyes, who had held her safe from something-how queer, she didn't remember any of it. What did happen next?
She knew that she had always been here, her parents died in the first war, and the violet eyed man had probably appeared from a fantasy of hers.
She had always loved to play princess, always loved the glitter of the court life, that she had lived out those fantasies only in a dream, and that although the domed buildings she remembered were only from a dream within a dream, and that she was living...that she shouldn't waste her life on fantasies.
But sometimes during a stormy night, or when she was feeling sad, she could remember the blond man's arms. And he was telling her that she was safe, and that he would protect her, from the cold, from the cold Siberian winds that would sweep in from the north-how did she know that? That was odd, but she was used to it. She just had a very vivid imagination, that was all. And that she had never actually met a man named Vanya before.
The news on the radio got worst, and every time she heard the word 'Russia', she felt a strange sort of longing. But then she rebuked herself gently, that she had always been here, had always lived in England, had lived there all her life.
Had always lived in a brown brick building with a rose garden, with a dog next door. But she could remember something, that would always slip out of her reach.
She could sometimes remember a man who held her, sometimes a beautiful gown, a warm thick coat, sometimes even little magical eggs that when opened, had a little dragon or a castle.
She could sometimes remember the waltzes that were played with such skill, those heartbreaking sonatas, and she remembered those fast, furious dances, and her feet would start to tap out a melody. And those violet eyes that smiled upon her with such love, that man who told her that he loved her.
She could remember his touch, she could remember his eyes, she could remember everything about him, the warmth of his coat, her head on his lap as the carriage continued to move, the hand that was steadying her on her horse. She missed him so much.
But how could she miss somebody she had never met?
But as hard as she could, she could never remember more then a few snippets. And so with a sad smile, she tilted her head to hear the faraway music one more time, eyes closed, feeling the sun shining on her face, the names, the faces that rushed in front of her, the smell of fragrant tea and vanilla sugar. The smell of wool, and the smell of snow.
And she could feel tears sliding down her face, and the music that grow louder, finally reaching into a crescendo.
---
Historical Notes:
Anastasia was the Last Grand Duchess of Russia. Due to the February Revolution, the royal family was exiled to Siberia.
Persistent rumors of her possible escape have circulated since her death, fueled by the fact that the location of her burial was unknown during the decades of Communist rule. The mass grave near Ekaterinburg which held the remains of the Tsar, his wife, and three daughters was revealed in 1991, but the bodies of Alexei Nikolaevich and one of his sisters — either Anastasia or her elder sister Maria — were not discovered there.
One of the theories, was that Anastasia somehow found her way to England. That's the one I'm using in this fanfic, that a soldier (Russia) saved her, and with the money he had, bought her a ticket to England, and she lived there.
Lyrics I used are 'Plea-Say Anything'
'Once Upon a December-Anastasia (Duh)
Remember Sunday-All Time Low
Remember-Christina Rossetti