A/N

This is a story I started for the Anastasia Musical fandom, but the animated movie was of course my first love.

Disclaimer: There are a few references to the musical universe, but these are few and far between. If you've never seen the stage adaptation, the only significant difference between the film and the musical is that instead of Rasputin, the antagonist in the stage version is a Soviet officer, Gleb. This character does not appear in my story, but it's useful context to know that even after the events of the film/musical, Anya and Dimitri are still very much in danger from the Soviet regime.

The way Anastasia and Dimitri meet as children is also different, but not integral to know for this story. If you're interested, I highly recommend listening to A Crowd of Thousands from the musical's cast album.

Alright, enough with disclaimers. Let's get this show on the road.

Anya could not be entirely sure she was not dreaming.

She was accustomed to vivid dreams— nightmares that soaked her bedclothes with sweat and left her scrambling, half awake, for the door. Others were only strange in their realness, like fragments of half-remembered stories told out of order: a puppet show, a picnic on a hill, gentle fingers brushing back her hair. A result of a too-hungry belly and an overactive imagination, she used to think. But now, having crossed her grandfather's bridge with Dimitri by her side, never had wakefulness felt so much like falling into a pleasant - if baffling - dream.

For almost ten years, she had drifted westward, carried only by her certainty that the answers to all her questions were waiting for her in Paris. And then she had met— no, stumbled upon the only man in St. Petersburg who could take her there. Coincidentally, the same man who had caught her eye on a hot, clear day in June, years and years ago. The same man to whom she had just implored, breathless from kissing, Run away with me.

And running they were, with Nana's blessing and a bag packed with clothes and a small portion of her "inheritance" with which to start a new life. The train station was within sight, and with it, countless possibilities.

Dimitri slowed and set down their bags, gesturing for Anya to look behind them at the sunset arching over the Pont Alexandre III. He took her hand and squeezed.

"Pinch me," Anya said, breaking their silence as they stood and watched the sun begin its descent.

Dimitri chuckled, shaking his head. "That sounds like some form of treason, your highness. "

She laughed and bumped his shoulder. "I mean it, I feel like I'm dreaming! There's this great big world out there and we get to explore it!"

Dimitri smiled at her excitement for a moment before his expression faltered. "And you're sure about this?" he asked, a shade of trepidation creeping into his voice.

"Leaving Nana? She knows why I can't stay in Paris, she knows it isn't safe." (Although Gleb's conscience may have intervened earlier that day, there was no guarantee he would not change his mind, or that his superiors back in Russia would believe him. At least for now, at least until the rumors died down, Paris could not be her home.)

"But are you sure about—" he stopped, his jaw twitching.

"About what?"

He opened his mouth to speak but looked down and away, fidgeting with the leather strap of his bag across his chest.

"Dima?" she said softly, placing a hand on his back. He took a breath and looked at her, his lips twisting in a sort of brittle smile.

"About me, Anya," he said, taking her other hand and holding it loosely by her side. "I don't have much to give you, and I need you to be sure that this is what you want."

She tensed, gripping his hands like a vice. "You think...you think that I'm not sure?"

She had left her homeland behind, jumped off a moving train, and walked the span of Europe with him, and he thought this was where she would get cold feet? Dimitri might have been a con man, but she hadn't taken him to be delusional too.

He huffed a shaky laugh. "I think you've had an intense, emotional few days. I don't want you making a decision you might regret."

Unspoken was his fear that he would be her regret, but Anya heard it loud and clear.

This ridiculous man.

Frustration bubbled up in her throat, next to something sad and aching and so familiar. She took a fistful of his shirt and tugged him down to her level, kissing him with a bruising force. Caught off guard, his mouth was slack for a moment before crushing against hers with equal desperation. He grabbed her face with both hands and held her flush against him, groaning when she nipped his bottom lip sharply. When she broke away, her voice trembled as she spoke.

"What did I say about contradicting me, Dimitri?"

Dimitri blinked and looked at her blankly. "What?"

"What part of 'Run away with me' did you not understand? I want you, and I plan on grabbing the first holy man I find— Orthodox, Buddhist, or Jew— and making him marry us. Understood?"

He stared dumbfounded, and then with joy, a slow grin widening on his face. Taking her by the shoulders, he tugged her to his chest and buried his head in the crook of her neck.

"That's a hell of a way to ask a guy to marry you, Anya," he said, his voice muffled against her hair.

She laughed and laced her arms around his back, running her hand up and down his spine. "I had to make sure there was no room for confusion this time. You're mine."

He hummed and pulled her tighter, nuzzling her throat sweetly. Anya could have stood there with him forever, sheltering each other from the uncertainties that hid just out of sight. But she was a whole head shorter than him, and that angle could not have been comfortable for his neck, cozy and warm as it was for her.

She took a step back, and he straightened but kept one hand on her waist. A whole, shining city behind them, but nothing could have been more beautiful in that moment than the look on his face as he smiled down at her. The Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov, back from the dead and reduced to a quivering mess from a smile …

If this is a dream, please, no one wake me up.

"That brings me to my next question, then. Where do you want to go, Anya?" he asked, gesturing towards the train station. "What do you want to see?"

"The world is a big place," she started, reaching into her dress pocket for the folded map Vlad had given her. "But I want to stay in France for now."

She unfolded the map and held it up to catch the light of a nearby streetlamp. Dimitri crossed his arms over his chest, leaning over her shoulder to study the map.

"Have you heard of any of these places?" he asked, "I, uh, can't read the map."

Anya had almost forgotten that Dimitri did not know French— or the Latin alphabet, for that matter. She supposed he would have to be dependent on her to communicate for the both of them, for at least a little while. A nice change of pace, after the last few months.

"Some, yes. My parents traveled to France before I was born, when Olga was a baby. My mother talked of Versailles constantly…" she trailed off, not wanting to fall too deep into the memory. Her eyes scanned the map before landing on the country's southern coast. "But we're not going to Versailles. We're going here."

Dimitri leaned in to see where she was pointing. "By the water?"

"Marseille. And that's the Mediterranean sea. It's warm, and I think it's a port city, so there should be work, and from there we could eventually go to Italy, or Spain, or...or...Algeria!"

He raised an eyebrow. "What's in Algeria?"

"I don't know, but we can find out if we want!" She hugged the map to her chest, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "But I can just feel it, Dimitri! Marseille is where we're supposed to be. It's calling me."

"In that case," Dimitri said, offering her his arm. "We shouldn't keep Marseille waiting."

The 6 o'clock train to Marseille was quiet— not too many Parisians were leaving for the French Riviera on a Wednesday night. Anya had secured them their own compartment for the journey, which would last all through the night and well into the next morning. Dimitri was stretched out on the opposite bench, his jacket bunched up under his head as a makeshift pillow. Once the conductor had come to punch their tickets, Dimitri had closed his eyes, telling Anya: "wake me up in 20 minutes."

She did no such thing. Her attention was torn between the book in her lap (the work of Gertrude Stein, gifted to her by Sophie) and the man snoring quietly in front of her. In waking hours, Dimitri was always in motion; his arms and legs were rarely still, even while seated. So, sleep afforded Anya the opportunity to study him. His face had always looked rather boyish to her, but in sleep he looked particularly young. Almost fragile.

Anya snorted, imagining his reaction if she were to call him fragile. He had seen terrible things and survived a childhood raised on the streets, but he was strong like the willows that once grew in her family's garden. Swaying and bending under the weight of heavy rain and snow, but never snapping. He had changed immensely since the day she first saw him as a boy, but his face still held the same softness.

Nineteen years ago, a boy had darted between guards to follow the royal procession. Thin and filthy and all alone, but absolutely beaming when she returned his smile. How long had he been an orphan at that point? How had he not resented the family who were in some way responsible for his anarchist father's death?

Dimitri had spoken of his father a few times during their journey to Paris— passing mentions of a soup his father would make for him, or a pier they would visit together. She knew the bag he carried once belonged to his father. But that was it— they had spent the bulk of the journey discussing her family, her past. She didn't even know his father's name.

Anya sat up with a start as realization dawned on her. Not only did she not know his father's name, but Anya did not know any name by which to call him, other than Dimitri. He had only been introduced to her by his first name, and the names on their passports were of course fakes. They were running away to Marseille with plans to elope, and she didn't even know his family name. The thought made her almost queasy with guilt.

Bolting from her seat, she crouched besides Dimitri and shook him awake. "Dimitri! Dimitri, I need to ask you something."

His hand clamped on her wrist but his eyes remained shut. "Hmph?"

"Dimitri, what's your surname?"

His eyes fluttered open. "What?"

She shoved him again. "Your surname, Dimitri. What is it?"

He propped himself up by his elbow, pushing his matted-down hair out of his face. "You don't know?"

Anya felt her cheeks flush. She shook her head. "It never came up, and I...I didn't ask." Absolutely idiotic, traveling across Europe with a man and not knowing his name. Not thinking to ask him the bare minimum about his past. How selfish she'd been...

To her relief, he didn't look annoyed by her apparent obliviousness. "It's Sudayev," he said. "Though to be fair, I haven't used it much since my father died."

"Sudayev," she tested the weight of it in her mouth. "And your father's name?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Why, do you want to scold me?"

"I want to know how to introduce my husband in polite company."

The fact that this was the first time the word husband had left her lips did not seem to escape him. His face softened, and he sounded almost wistful when he spoke. "Anton. Pa's name was Anton."

She considered it. "Dimitri Antonovich Sudayev. So that's your proper name."

One mystery solved.

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and chuckled. "It's been a very long time since anyone has called me that. Maybe Vlad once or twice, if he was trying to rile me up. But you know, I sort of like it coming from you."

Dimitri then righted himself to a sitting position and patted the spot next to him. Anya clambered onto the seat, tugging her legs beneath her. They sat in silence for a moment, watching the lights from Paris in the distance growing dimmer in the night.

"Do you like it?" He asked suddenly, tapping a hand on her knee. "Sudayev, that is. Like I said, I don't have much to offer, but...I can give you that."

For ten years, she had neither name nor family to call her own. Then this morning, Anastasia Romanov had felt like donning a warm, familiar coat, but one that no longer fit comfortably. It was never the name she was looking for— it was the family that came with it.

Anya fought back the joy welling inside her as she pretended to ponder his suggestion. "I suppose...but, I'll warn you. I'm not giving it back."

He leaned in, lifting her chin to kiss her sweetly. When he withdrew, his eyes were dark and burning with something that Anya could feel in her chest but couldn't quite name.

"I'm counting on it."