Author's note: This is the other story that expired accidentally so any AN on it is lost. Just know that this is from the Let It Go arc, after the Cold War. If you want to wait for Anya's story to finish before reading this, then skip this one for now. If you don't care about the order these stories come out in, because Lord knows I write them out of order, then enjoy!
Thank You
They watch on the television until the Russian nation can no longer take it, flipping the set off angrily. "Papa?" a quiet voice asks from behind and turning Ivan finds all eyes on him: his beautiful daughter wrapped up in the arms of her equally-beautiful mother, Anya's fiancé and Francis beyond them. He hears more than sees Camille in the kitchen in the distance. "Papa?" Anya repeats.
Sad eyes take in the pretty young thing, her light hair gently covered by a draped scarf he had managed to bring with him from Moscow. Momentary calm had allowed Ivan to leave, not wanting to be in Soviet Russia and feel so strongly the battles being waged for control over such a vast territory. Emeralds blink, tears readying to fall.
"Do not cry Anastasiya," he whispers in hushed Russian, reaching out to stroke her cheek. She grasps his hand to her skin and Ivan aches to pull her to him, to hold her as he once held her when she was a child, to feel those years of hugs and gentle kisses on his face that they were denied. "I am not worth it."
"Yes you are Papa," she moans, meeting his gaze. Her eyes are red now, her cheeks puffy. "Yes, you are."
"I am… truly sorry, everyone," Ivan says to the room, switching to French. "Today was suppose to be happy. We were going to talk about the wedding."
"Those things can wait," the fiancé, Raphael, says with a strength Ivan is coming to like in him. "We have waited years for Anya to have you and her mother here, with her; what are a few more months to make sure she is happy and everything is settled as well?"
"I fear it may take more time than that," Erzsi whispers, looking from Raphael to Anya to Ivan. "There will be little peace for years to come." The Russian nation nods his silent agreement.
"How about this," Francis cuts in in a forced cheery voice, "if Anya is agreeable?" The girl nods for her protector to continue. "Camille and I have almost finished lunch; we'll eat, go do what we had intended to do, and after we shall all go out for dinner. I will make the reservation for six people if we are all up for it?"
The room is quiet until Anya nods, whispering to her mother, "They made one of my favorites for lunch." Hungarian hands smooth down the hair around her daughter's face, adjusting the loose scarf of crimson and gold and royal purple to better cover the silver hair.
"I shall have to see if it meets my approval." The women laugh quietly.
Whether Anya is aware of slowly edging closer and closer to her father as they eat he isn't sure, but Ivan decided he doesn't much care as he pulls the scarf down with a gentle tug to rest it on his daughter's shoulders. He wraps an arm around her, kisses her head, and sighs.
"Are you happy?" he whispers. Purple eyes take in the two French nations eating and speaking with Raphael and his Erzsi, the Hungarian smiling like he hasn't seen her smile in years. Freedom has given her her happiness back and that kills a part of Ivan, to know it was never possible with him.
A timid hand grabs his knee. "You are here, right beside me, Papa." His daughter looks up and Ivan relaxes a little at that, his Russian daughter smiling for him. "That makes me so happy."
"You do not hate me? I never did let them teach you the whole truth." The nation doesn't elaborate on who they are, but Anya immediately grasp that he means her tutors back in the Soviet Union.
"I would not have understood, being that young, having you for my father. I could not have seen the difference between Ivan Braginski and Russia, or even Héderváry Erzsébet and Hungary, without that…." Anya looks for her word, eyes going to the ceiling, shaking her head softly. "Distance maybe? Being removed from the situation? Wanting so badly to return but accepting too that you and Mama are not nor have you ever been saints, because you are people. Because you are like me." She smiles shyly, taking her father's hands. "You have a heart that loves too, and a family to look after. Right Papa?"
"Da, Anya, I suppose you are right."
"Not like you to keep those thoughts bouncing about in your head to yourself," Erzsi whispers into his ear; Ivan had thought he was alone out on the balcony, everyone else readying themselves for their outing. Women simply took forever in the bathroom and he's not quite sure he'll ever understand why. "Especially when it's Anya asking you something." Hungarian fingers twist at his hair, a playful smile on her lips. "What's up?" she asks in a slightly serious, slightly friendly tone: her voice of honesty.
"I am," Ivan sighs, "a wreck. I'm communist one day, not so communist the next, I'm up, I'm down, I'm lost, I'm more lost." The Russian looks out over the people below, envying their simple lives with simple problems and a simple death that would one day free them from complex misery. "I'm losing myself," he admits in a quiet voice and Erzsi shifts to sit more fully on his lap, their eyes locked on one another. "It's like the revolution, all over again, but I was two people in this one body then. Now– now I'm still me but I feel that other part of me clawing, trying to get out. I don't want to become that man again."
"That's not a man Vanya," Erzsi sighs, pressing their foreheads together. "You are the man and he is the monster, and Anya and I won't let you go. Never again Vanya, because we're a family now. We did this and we're going to see it through, come hell and high waters."
Inside Camille and Francis start yelling at each other, Raphael running through the hall. On the street below someone calls out for a taxi. And on the balcony Ivan pulls Erzsi to him, kisses her as deeply and as lovingly as he can, and tries to communicate with that action what he cannot bring himself to say:
Thank you.
"Alright, so," Francis says, turning to face both Ivan and Erzsi beside the Russian. "I'm going to be perfectly honest and not pretend to know anything anymore about the relationship you two have. Thusly, the two bedrooms at the end of the hall are set for guests: you can each take one if you want, you can share, whatever. If you need anything, you know where my room is." With a smile and a kiss to Erzsi's cheek, the Frenchman heads back down the hall the other way.
The two remaining nations turn to look at one another, Erzsi's head tilted back to look into Ivan's eyes. The last night before she left they'd made love, they'd held each other, they'd said goodbye. And once she'd gone Ivan had immediately felt the black and the red moving in in the corner of his eyes, pressing down on him. He's fought it best he can but for over a year now Erzsi has never attempted to return to him. They see each other when they visit Anya, Erzsi now living in Ludwig's Parisian apartment a few blocks away, but what they have is once more undefined. In the air. A great mystery to Ivan Braginski.
The Hungarian smiles a beautiful smile, stepping to Ivan and wrapping her arms around his middle. "I am not yet ready," she whispers, her accent thick on the Russian words, "to resume a relationship with you like we had, especially not physically until we figure everything else out." Ivan nods, his hands resting on her shoulders. "Do you remember, after the phone call you allowed Gil and I to Ludwig?"
"I made–" Ivan swallows heavily in guilt. "I made you share my bed."
"But you did not touch me," Erzsi whispers. "You never tried anything. I think, for tonight, I can return once more to that, if you are agreeable."
"You don't have to," and a large hand strokes a dainty cheek. "You are free now, though my love for you will never waiver."
Erzsi pulls the hand to her chest before pulling Ivan into one of the rooms. "I have made my choice freely."
Instinct has him pulling the Hungarian to his chest but Erzsi doesn't protest the spooning, settling in after months of no physical contact between them. Ivan feels her chest rising and falling beneath his arm, a rhythm that's comforting and familiar; it eases the tension he feels.
"Our Anya is getting married," Erzsi finally whispers into the quiet room.
"I know. It's crazy."
"She was so relieved you approved."
Ivan snorts.
"She was convinced you'd never be pleased with any man she picks."
"Oh, I will never be. She is my sunflower and tsarevna, after all."
"Of course."
Erzsi turns in his arms, their legs meshing together, to face him. Her hands trace the lines of his bare chest, a few more scars there than when she had left.
"Whatever happens," the woman he has for so long loved whispers, her gaze strong as she holds his, "I love you and regret nothing we ever did."
His large hand grabs the back of her head, pulling her close for a crushing kiss that only ends when they both run out of air, the Hungarian pushing Ivan away teasingly.
"We have become crap at this not-touching thing," the brunette half-moans, half-laughs.
"It is hard, when I know the body in my arms is beautiful."
"Says the Russian who wouldn't let me see him without his jacket." Ivan's cheeks immediately burn in shame at that memory, Erzsi laughing and shaking her head and kissing his cheek. "Tomorrow will you be fine visiting the church?"
"Roman Catholic, da?"
"Afraid so my Russian Orthodox." Ivan shrugs.
"Such is my life."
Small, his Anya had said she wanted her wedding to be small. Subtle. Nothing overdone. Something quiet, just those close to her and Raphael.
"This was your brother's doing, wasn't it?" Ivan asks Camille as they wait in the back of one of Paris's most famous churches.
"He's even bringing up a priest from the south for your daughter," the Monegasque says in an unamused voice that betrays how amused she actually is. "I think he feels like the second father of the bride, as if your Anastasiya has three parents."
"Probably wants to be the maid of honor," and that makes the woman roar with laughter as their four companions walk through the cathedral's spaces to figure out who and what would go where. Ivan's eyes follow Erzsi everywhere she goes, allowing her to be the one to share these moments and decisions with their daughter.
"How do you feel about all this?" Camille asks. Looking down the Russian finds her watching him. "We're all Catholic but you're not."
"When Erzsi was in labor," he whispers for only his companion to hear, "she made me promise that I'd find her a Roman Catholic priest, to baptize our child. We hadn't talked much about religion up to that point but I'd always expected her to want our child, our daughter, to be baptized something."
"And you don't have any regrets about that?" He can see in her eyes that Camille truly means the question, that to this woman and to her brother religion has remained something important to their identity and their life.
"I spent so long in chaos and confusion…." Ivan sighs, his eyes going to the stained glass high above them. "I don't know what to believe anymore. No; Erzsi was the one who felt strongly about this and so I have no regrets."
Camille smiles just a little before going back to her blank-and-bored look.
"And then," Anya says happily, "can you come with me and Mama tomorrow, to look at dresses?"
"That," Erzsi beside Ivan cuts in, "can only be a disaster."
Looking to his precious daughter's face the Russian feels he must agree with the Hungarian nation, and yet Anya is so delighted at the idea of picking her wedding dress out with both her parents–
"I thought it'd be something we three could share," the still young-to-them woman whispers. "We never get to do anything alone, and it's been so long–"
"I vote yes," the father cuts in.
"You do?" Excited Anya throws her arms around his neck; holding her and inhaling her perfume, Ivan could almost laugh to see his daughter falling back on the carefree attitude she had before the war. Erzsi looks much less impressed.
"Do you now?" Her lips press together to form a thin line.
Taking her hand while still holding their daughter, Ivan gives it a squeeze. "Anya is right: even… even during the Warsaw Pact, we were never really alone." Erzsi raises an eyebrow. "Well, we were alone but not us and Anya. To do, I don't know–" the Russian woman shifts so that their faces are right next to each other, eyes locked "–normal things, I guess. Human things."
"Peaceful things," the Hungarian mother suggests.
"We're starting over," Anya whispers, "and we're going to do it together. As a family."
Ivan kisses his daughter's head, catching Erzsi's small smile. "Together."
"Together."
"Together."
"Thank you, my girls."
"For what?" Anya asks.
"For everything," her mother answers.
Ivan, for the first time in weeks, feels truly happy.