A/N: Basically, this refers to the Austrian-Hungarian split in 1918 (and also to the time when Hungary became a communist country later on). I'm not good with history at all (although I learned all of this in school and should know it because I am from Austria =__=) english's not my first language, so yeah… bear with me o_O; format is sh*itty as usual. guess i'm too stupid for that.


A single tune

One of the images burned into her head is the one of his back turned to her.

Always his back. Moving, like in a haze, lost to the world, lost in the rhythm to the lovely music, born from a finely manufactured violin and his virtues hands.

He wasn't always good with words. At some point in their shared history they got rarer. And his smiles sadder. So he expressed it this way. His disappointment, his hatred, his anger.

And his… ?

The room he had played in. Flooded with sunlight. Warmth. Every time she wanted to press against him, then, hold him. And every time she didn't.

It had long since been decided when she finally realized what was to be lost.

She found him sitting in the piano room deep into the night. Staring at the claviature. A figure of calmness. Like those statues of Mozart and Haydn in his study. Their stony coldness.

He couldn't see their future anymore, he once told her. And that he would give anything to still be able to.

Times change. The flow of history. Nothing stays the way one wishes it to stay.

She, too, has changed. The one beside her has. More like the one behind her…

But this one doesn't say it with notes. He says it with fists. She often thinks that there's not a lot of variety to his feelings. He thinks no one knows. But the one showing the strongest is his bottomless desperation, as black as the darkest winter night.

Elizaveta catches herself humming one of the songs he taught her. Played to her a thousand times on his violin, his piano, fingers flying like it's no effort at all, over black and white, over strings…

It hurts. So she stops.

She can forget all of that if she concentrates hard enough.

There's a lot to (cope with) work on in the present, after all…

But she just can't push away that picture. No matter how desperately she tries.

Roderich's back. The violin ceases her song. He turns around and she blushes. Smiles sheepishly from were she stands, beside the door.

And just like the afternoon sun falls into the room, his answering smile seeps deep into her soul.