A/N: Kind of a crossover fic, but not really, between Hetalia and the film Anastasia. You don't need to have seen the film to understand it, although certain bits will mean more if you have. I tried to reconcile the film's dodgy historical take with real Russian history and it was harder than I expected, but wonderful to find out so many things about Anastasia's family.
Unbeta'd and written in one go in about an hour, this was a gift for my flatmate Twilight-Falls.
I dont own Hetalia, or the film Anastasia.
The first time he sees her she is so tiny, pink and squishy and ugly the ways babies are all ugly screaming things, and beautiful the way all babies are beautiful shreds of life and passion in such a small container. He is present as she is shown to the family and when the child is passed to him reverently, respectfully but with such love and joy in the eyes of Alexandra that he cannot help but smile down at the scrunched up face and the perfectly formed hands, despite the ache in his heart that is always present, the pain and suffering of those who live outside the walls of the palace a harsh and unwelcome contrast to the softness in his arms.
–
She grows, like the others, like Olga and Tatiana and Maria and Alexei, like Nicholas had done before her and both Alexanders had done before him. He has watched each of them grow and never becomes close to them, for he knows better than that and one thing Yao and Arthur and all the others know far too well is that time is for other people, and that every boss will die eventually, and that it hurts more if you care for them at all.
He knows they are all hypocrites, though. He still sees the hollowness in Arthur's eyes that tells him that Victoria meant more to him than he had been willing to admit, though all of them could see it, and knows he will not get over her death for many years yet. He can still remember the screams Francis cried for his people over two hundred years previous, and the way Marie's death at the hands of the guillotine had been the final blow that pushed him into madness, the horrors of Revolution no longer something he was able to handle.
He shivers when he thinks of it, and tries to ignore the growing ache in his belly on bad days that makes him vomit and curse and smash things as even the vodka leaves him cold and the terrible hunger of his people makes him turn from the lights and sparkling dances of the palace to the shrieking wind outside.
–
He does not remember very much of the year of 1917. The war against Germany, against Ludwig, was raging strong, different from every war any of them had ever fought before and it was changing things, changing the world, and what was emerging was raw and painful, and in his last few months of sanity he remembers lying in the streets of Moscow, drunk out of his mind on cheap vodka and hysterical with agony and fear as the hearts of Russians beat inside his own, their screams echoing in his mind as they raged and fought and died.
His memories from then on are hazy. Whether he was inside the palace or outside when it fell, he can no longer recall, flashes of bright light, of running and shots being fired and screaming making it hard to tell which side he was on. In the end, he supposes it doesn't really matter, because he was one with all of them the way they were all one with him, every scullery maid and court noble and peasant and revolutionary.
When 1918 comes round and the Romanovs, his majestic family that he had watched and lived with and loved for four and a half centuries are rounded up and shot, he wonders if this is how Francis felt, and as the last strings of his sanity snap, gone forever, he wonders how in the world Francis survived.
–
Everything after that is different, and although their memories do not work the same way that human memories do, there still seems to be pieces he has forgotten. The war ends at the end of 1918, just months after he fell off the knife edge, and as he returns to the broken remains of his land he wonders how the other Allies didn't see it in him. Maybe they did, he realises, but the war had made them all a little crazy, and the suffering of one's own is always a priority over another's.
His people pull things together though, and everything is different and the royals are still around but not in power and it is confusing, for a while. He is one with his people again and they are one with him, and for years he throws himself into re-learning what that means after the atrocities of war.
It is not until he is wandering in the outskirts of St Petersberg one day that he realises something is strange. Not... wrong exactly, just odd. Although there are millions of people that belong to him, there is a special and strange relationship between a country and his boss, and it is that strangeness that he recognises as he approaches a building shrouded in snow. There are children playing in the yard behind tall iron gates and he watches them, feels their exhilaration and enjoyment of their games and smiles.
Then he notices her. Her hair is red like her mother Alexandra's, and she has the softness of Maria about her. She looks up at him over the bars and they stare at each other for a moment, the girl still with the baby fat on her cheeks and yet starting to blossom into a woman as lovely as all the women of her lineage, and him.
She frowns at him, and makes a face before turning back to her game, and his heart almost bursts with love for her.
He remembers the rise of the Romanovs, that first glorious couple who reigned over his land in their name, radiant Anastasia and the immensely powerful Ivan. He wonders if this Anastasia will grow up to be as wonderful as her predecessor.
He leaves her soon after that, and tries to stay away, tries to stop the feelings that grow inside him whenever he thinks about her, tells himself she is not his boss, she is a human and that she should mean nothing to him, or at least no more than every other individual that is one with him and he is one with.
He even, once, ventures over to England, tries to find a way of working Victoria into the conversations with Arthur, but it is a failure. Arthur shies away from the topic, and Ivan knows only too well how raw a wound like that can be so he leaves it alone and returns to Russia, promising himself that this time, this time will be the last time he visits the orphanage on the outskirts of St Petersberg and watches the girl with the red hair playing in the snow.
It never is.
–
The snow is particularly thick the year of 1927, and Ivan pulls his scarf tighter around him as he trudges along the road to the orphanage, long past beating himself up over the behaviour. He is somewhat surprised, therefore, to see a break from the usual pattern when he sees the courtyard of the house. She is there, she appears to be being thrown out, and as he listens to the conversation and watches her he understands.
She is a woman now. Eighteen and as stunning as her mother was, she is being sent out into the big wide world in order to seek her fortune. His heart seems to skip one of its slow beats as he thinks of it, beautiful Anastasia working in a factory like all the other young women in Russia. He stops himself. She is just another young woman, and he cannot interfere with her life. That is not their job, their purpose. She must be allowed to live her life as it comes, and he repeats this over and over as he follows her down the path, far enough behind that she does not notice him.
Not that she would. She is as uncoordinated as a puppy, and as free-spirited as one, and as he watches her back as she skips along he knows he would never ask her to change.
When she sits down at the crossroads, he stops, watches, listens. His heart thrills as he realises what she is debating. This is her chance! She must choose to go to St Petersberg, of course! But how can he show her that... how can he convince her when he is not allowed, absolutely not permitted to influence her life like that?
A muffled bark at his feet makes him look down, annoyed at the distraction. A dog jumps around his legs, a mongrel, some runaway from the fisherman's village no doubt, and he dismisses it without a second thought before suddenly, momentously, realises what this means.
Bending down, he puts a hand on the quivering creature's head and speaks to it. Go to her. He says. Show her the way to St Petersberg. Guide her the way I cannot. There, he thinks in satisfaction as the dog does as she is told, and the young woman is successfully led down the path that leads to the city. Minimal influence whatsoever. Perfectly reasonable.
–
He follows her, of course. All the way into the city, and then into the Old Palace, a place so full of memories that he feels quite dizzy as he walks through the hallways filled with dust, keeping his footsteps light so she does not hear him. He knows what she has come for, and although Dmitri and Vladimir would not be his first choices as guardians for her, they will do. He doesn't have a lot of options.
When she stops in the ballroom however, he decides they can wait. He can feel her, the layers of memories she is struggling to make sense of, her confusion, her recognition but lack of understanding. He listens to her sing with something a little like adoration and tells himself it is not love, and when she imagines the room full of dancing courtiers he cannot help but go down and pretend to be one of them.
She is lost in her fantasy and so does not notice when he seamlessly enters himself into the line of men dancing with her. The waltz comes back to him like it was only yesterday that he danced with Alexandra and Maria at the balls of ten years previous, and for a few seconds she is in his arms and it is enough for him to let her go into the arms of another illusion and steal back into the shadows, not a moment too soon as the two con-men enter the room.
He has nothing to fear now, he knows. They will take care of her and she is the one they have been looking for, there is no way they will fail to take her to see Maria. She will be safe with them, for the moment.
–
He travels to Paris, greeting Francis with a handshake that has become stronger, firmer since his revolution, and the eyes they stare at each other with hold a common knowledge. A revolution is an experience one does not forget, though they do not speak of it out loud, the shared experience including the knowledge that these wounds are best left undisturbed to heal on their own.
The house where Maria and Sophie are staying is beautiful, but he does not enter. It is very strange, seeing them come and go, the people who were once so important but are now just others to him. He waits for her to come to him, and it takes longer than he expects it to, but she does come eventually and he feels his heart ache with her disappointment and sorrow when Sophie tells her she cannot see Maria. The hope a few moments later almost wipes it out however, and he resolves to follow her once more, her silent and invisible guardian here in this foreign land.
There has been a growing unease in him, a sense that something powerful and malicious draws near, and the fact that he can feel it at all means that it is of Russian origin. He can do nothing though, helpless to interfere as he is, and invites Francis to join him at the ballet.
–
The conversation is painful, and by the end Francis has his white-gloved hand on Ivan's arm, the only thing preventing him from entering the room and making them talk. He has come so far... for it to fail now is terrible, heartbreaking, and he watches Anastasia and Dmitri's fight with agony searing through his body, the emotional pain of one so close to his heart for a moment almost overwhelming the ache that has penetrated his bones for years, the sorrow of those he is one with.
He continues to follow though, forcing himself to see it out to the last, see if they are successful. It is difficult, and he has trouble accepting Dmitri's methods, but when Maria and Anastasia are finally in the same room and embrace, as he knew they would, the feeling is indescribable. He looks over with tears in his eyes at Francis, sitting in the cab with him, and the blond Frenchman smiles at him.
The next few days are glorious, but he realises as time passes that there are two problems he has not forseen. Firstly, the man Rasputin who had supposedly cursed the Romanovs and hastened their downfall seems to be in the city, close enough that Ivan can feel not only his distorted, demonic self but even his dark magic, permeating the air and making every Parisian pull their coats a little tighter around themselves at night when the wind blows. It is magic Ivan knows too well and he feels sick with the thought of Rasputin hurting Anastasia. He wonders what he would do, what he could do if she was in danger of him.
The other problem he comes to understand is that Anastasia has fallen in love with Dmitri.
When he first realises he is furious. She is his, and his alone! But as he calms, he remembers who he is, who she is, and how much he loves her regardless. If they cannot be together and he knows with more certainity than he has ever known anything that they cannot, then he wishes for her to be with the one who makes her happiest.
He just isn't sure if that person is Dmitri.
–
The parting is awful, painful for both the young man and her, and the party which Maria throws for her shows all the signs of being wonderful, yet he cannot bring himself to go. He cannot say goodbye to her like this, when both of them are filled with such sorrow buried under morals and responsibilities and all the rest of it. He walks the streets of Paris, knowing Francis is at the party and probably talking to his Anastasia at this very moment, romancing her with all the French charm he does not seem able to turn off.
The pang of danger is entirely unexpected, and it takes a moment before he realises what it is. She is in trouble. Rasputin, most likely from the direction of the pulse of magic that he can feel, and his mind whites out with panic for a moment as he realises he has to make that choice, he must choose which of his people to favour in a fight against each other, and even through all the love and longing he feels for her his identity as a nation is stronger, the knowledge that he cannot, must not interfere.
Unless...
–
Rasputin's corpse burns away in the green flame and the wind blows him to nothing, the last remnants of the unpleasant magic gone. They are left, shocked but alive, and Ivan thanks whatever beings exist and are listening that he had found Dmitri in time, that the boy had run fast enough, together they had been strong enough.
She and Dmitri look at each other, and their emotions are clear in their eyes, as is the knowledge that their responsibility has not gone away, that nothing fundamental about their situation has changed other than the fact that they are in a little less danger than before.
Dmitri spots him and calls him out of the hedge where he had been waiting, and he approaches. The boy explains how Ivan told him to come and find her, and Anastasia smiles at him and thanks him sincerely. He accepts it graciously, unable to take his eyes from her face, her smile, even as it fades as the couple stare down at the crown in her hands.
What should I do, Ivan? She asks him, and he cannot answer. This, more than anything else, is interfering. There is no way to correctly answer that question, and he doesn't.
Ivan? Please. What should we do?
He closes his eyes, and apologises to every law of nature, of the rules that govern their existence.
Do what will make you the happiest, da. And he feels her arms around him, her body pressed close to his and her lips brush his cheek as she pulls away and he looks at her, eyes wide and hand trembling where he touches his skin where she kissed him.
Thankyou, Ivan.
–
Maria is waiting for him when he gets back. He hands her the crown and the note and she smiles at him, eyes old with a decade of sorrow but the light just beginning to reawaken. She tells him she is leaving, returning to the land of her birth now that she has found her granddaughter and has no more need to wait in Paris for a promise and a hope.
He acknowledges her decision and bids her farewell, kissing her hand as he turns to leave. He has promised her that he will make it seem as if Anastasia died with all her siblings, that the Romanov line was well and truly ended, and he will keep his promise. They both know that they will never see each other again. The Romanovs are no longer his bosses, and though she will always be one with him, Denmark is not a place he visits often.
When Bertram contacts him a year later to give him the news of her death he does not need to be told. Her death had already been written into him, though she was not born one with him but had instead become one through a lifetime of devotion.
He checks up on Anastasia and Dmitri every now and then, when the trials of his new government become too much or foreign relations become too complicated. It is nice to just watch them from afar, watch her swirl and laugh as they dance on the deck of a ship, or in a music hall, or in the street on the way back from an evening out.
He thinks it is highly entertaining how the Romanov dynasty seems to have begun and ended with a single couple, Anastasia and Ivan who began it, and Anastasia and Ivan who ended it, because although Dmitri is the one who kisses her, holds her, makes her smile, in his mind it is only because he himself allows it. He would rather she find comfort in the arms of one who is one with him than no-one at all.
They are still human, both of them, and they still desire and have arguments and are unpleasant and ugly. But mostly, when he watches them he wonders if he might understand what Francis is always going on about. They are beautiful, and in love, and one day perhaps they will be enough to heal him.