Alexei Volkov had bad dreams. They weren't the same as the nightmares that his girlfriend Grace Blakely suffered from, but they were bad dreams.
Grace tended to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, gasping for breath, looking around wildly trying to find where the fire was. It was hard enough for her to suffer through her episodes during the day, but to be haunted even in her dreams was exhausting.
Alexei knew about these dreams because Grace had developed a bit of a habit of sneaking into the Russian embassy, through his window at night.
It all started one night during the summer, Alexei had left his bedroom window open because it was hot. He'd fallen asleep to a nice breeze only to be woken several hours later by a small thud coming from his window.
In his sleepy state, he had recognized Grace, standing in front of his window, her arms crossed in front of her, her eyes darting around the room, hair disheveled.
"Grace?" Alexei asked, his accent thicker than usual, his voice groggy with sleep.
"Sorry, I woke you up," Grace said sheepishly, fidgeting from one foot to the other.
"Is everything okay? Are you okay?" Alexei, worry and concern setting in as he grew more awake and focused.
"It's just … the dreams, they always wake me up, about-I-never mind, it was dumb, I shouldn't have disturbed you," she mumbled heading back towards the window, where Alexei didn't doubt she would scale the side of the building and hop back over to her own room in the US embassy.
"Come here," he said to her, rubbing his eyes. Grace turned back towards him and stared at the space right next to Alexei. She looked up at him and then back to the space next to his bed.
"Gracie, please save me the trouble of having to climb through your window and have my ass kicked by Jamie," Alexei continued. Grace waited a moment and then walked over to his bed, although Alexei could tell by the determined look on her face how much effort she was putting into not walking too fast.
She threw back his covers and slid in beside him quickly and lay down. Alexei watched with his eyebrows raised in a hint of amusement as she tried very hard not to touch him or turn to him. He made no effort to touch her and simply waited. He waited for so long he was almost asleep by the time his Gracie finally moved closer.
At first it started with a little slide, and then it was a small jostling as she jumped closer, then Grace was pressed up against his side, then she was burying her face in the crook of his neck, and throwing her arms around his torso. Immediately, his arms wrapped around her and held her tight. Finally the tension left her shoulders and Grace relaxed.
"Someday I want to be able to sleep without waking up with the voice of my mom yelling my name," Grace mumbled, as she tightened her hold on him.
"Someday you will, this takes time, but you'll get better, maybe the first step should be forgiving yourself for shooting her," Alexei replied quietly. There was no response from Grace, as usual, because he knew that she would never forgive herself for what she did. She would spend the rest of her life punishing her thirteen-year-old self for being scared, and confused, and trying to protect her mom.
"Grace-"
"I can't Alexei, I honestly don't know if I can," Grace whispered quietly into his chest. "I shot her, I'm the reason that she's dead, no one else. Me."
"You were thirteen-"
"I should've kept my head on right, should've paid more attention," Grace continued as if Alexei hadn't said anything, something that she did all too often.
"You were terrified out of your mind, the fact that you even survived something that tragic says a lot about how strong you are," Alexei insisted. And then Grace would be so quiet for so long that he would drift off to sleep. When Alexei awoke in the morning, Grace was gone, back through the window that she had climbed through, to appear during the night again for the same routine.
But Alexei's nightmares were not of the same nature as Grace's, his were about losing someone dear to him yes, but they weren't stemming from a place nearly as traumatizing as Grace's and so he never said anything. He felt it silly to mention it when she was still struggling to cope with so much that had happened,, even after Grace's life had gained stability that his nightmares just felt small in comparison.
Alexei hadn't been lying when he told Grace that girlfriend was not a strong enough word for what she meant to him.
Some nights, not every night, but some nights he would wake up gasping for breath after a dream about Grace leaving him. They weren't always the same method of leaving, but she was still leaving, exiting from his world and he wasn't entirely sure how to deal with it in the dream, or how he would deal with it if it ever happened in real life.
Sometimes in his dream, she left him because she realized that she cared for Thomas a lot more than she cared for him. That she realized that Thomas was a lot safer, much more stable, understood her more, and with a scathing remark and a disinterested look in Alexei's direction she would stalk off towards the palace and away from Alexei and Embassy Row.
He'd have a few moments to process the information and attempt to deal with the grief and heartache that hit him in the chest. It hurt so much that it brought him to his knees, and then he woke up, panicking, believing that the dream was real before realizing that it had all been in his head.
In other dreams, Grace was burned alive along with the other remains of the royal family that had been found in the castle and he was forced to attend her funeral and listen to speeches about her and watch as she was lowered into the ground. Alexei would have to stand around in the dream dealing with the realization that Grace was gone and never coming back. She would never be around to bother him or hold him or get into other life-threatening situations with him. And then as soon as the pain got too much he would lurch awake and remember with relief that Grace was still alive and only a fence away.
A fence that he couldn't climb because the Russian ambassador's son getting caught sneaking onto US soil was bad for publicity.
The reasons just kept going, it could be Grace going to school abroad and falling for someone else that wasn't even Thomas, or her realizing that she was simply too good for Alexei and dumping him. The ones that really got his heart pounding involved her getting kidnapped or shot or any number of terrible things that someone would want to inflict on the American ambassador's granddaughter. There was even one ridiculous dream where Grace ended up with amnesia completely forgetting Alexei and then never falling for him a second time.
Alexei was a smart boy, he knew his dreams were just dreams and not reflective of his reality, but did that stop the dreams from coming and him from waking up in a cold sweat? No, it didn't. Did he ever bother talking about it or bringing it up to his girlfriend? He was Russian, of course not. It felt like such a ridiculous thing to wake up in a cold sweat, because lots of people broke up with their spouses, it wasn't an unusual phenomenon. He was beginning to think he had to reevaluate how much Grace meant to him.
And he was always grateful that she wasn't there to see him wake up panting as if he'd run a marathon, he would actually have to explain himself then. Alexei never planned on Grace hearing about any of his dreams, not that he was worried she would laugh at him, but because he knew that it wasn't important enough to talk about.
Unfortunately, as was the usual for Alexei, the universe was turned against him. On one of the many nights that Grace had crawled through his window and curled up against him, his mind decided to scare him awake.
The two of them had just managed to fall asleep after their talking had devolved into senseless mumbling, when Alexei found his eyes snapping open, and his chest rising and falling in a manner that cause enough of a disturbance to wake up Grace.
Her eyes fluttered open as Alexei tried to desperately regulate his breathing and calm himself down before Grace was awake enough to notice anything was wrong. He knew her well enough that it wouldn't work but he still held onto the tiny hope that for once she wouldn't such a small detail.
There was a silence long enough that left Alexei hoping he had gotten away with convincing Grace that he was fine and then,
"Alexei are you okay?" Grace asked, sitting up on one elbow to look him in the face, her burrows furrowed and her mouth pursed with concern. Alexei looked at the ceiling above him instead of at her and didn't answer.
"I am fine, what makes you ask that?" he asked in what he hoped was his normal voice. He couldn't stop the urge to suddenly clear his throat and internally cringed, knowing how guilty it made him look. He knew for certain now that Grace wasn't going to let this go.
"Your heart just started pounding in your chest and you started breathing like you'd just run away from something," Grace replied, staring intently at his face, inching just slightly closer to him.
"I think it must have been something in your dreams," Alexei replied, still playing at being calm.
"I'm a very light sleeper, and I'd only just started falling asleep, also you're a very bad liar this early in the morning," Grace replied, raising an eyebrow. Alexei gave a sigh and then turned his attention towards her.
"Do not worry about it," he said, attempting a smile at her, a smile which Grace did not return. Instead, she simply stared at him and waited. Alexei kept smiling and Grace kept glaring and it went on for a few minutes before Alexei gave in.
"I do not talk about my feelings, and especially my dreams," Alexei started before Grace rolled her eyes.
"Because you're Russian, I get it, I get it," she said.
"Yes, because of that, so I am not very good at expressing my emotions or my dreams when I do have to talk about them," Alexei went on with a nod. He put one arm behind his back and turned his gaze from Grace to the ceiling. "And the reason that I do not want to talk about this is because first of all, it is something that is not worth talking about, and also, it is something that makes me feel ridiculous."
"Alexei, you of all people know that I'm not going to laugh at you," Grace said, moving closer and laying her head on his chest. Immediately his free came around her shoulders and held her in place.
"Yes, well, the same as you have your nightmares about your mom, I have my own nightmares," Alexei said and then cringed at saying the rest of his speech, "but my nightmares are of you, and us being apart … our relationship ending."
More silence followed this as Grace digested what he was saying and Alexei grew more frustrated, with the fact that he was even talking about this, the fact that it sounded stupid and ridiculous, the fact that it made him sound so attached, clingy, and desperate, the list went on.
"Who even has dreams like this, who even wakes up in the middle of the night scared because of dreams like mine, it makes me feel so weak, like a clown," Alexei said, suddenly sitting up in bed, sending Grace tumbling off his chest.
Grace sat up and rubbed his shoulder comfortingly. "To be fair Alexei, I was almost burned alive by a crazy princess, it sounds like a decent enough fear," she said in a quiet voice.
"That one okay, maybe you have a point, but other times it is such dumb things, it is things like you leaving me for Thomas, or anyone, who wakes up in a cold sweat over something like that?" Alexei said, ruffling his hair, completely unaware of the tension that had entered into Grace's shoulders.
"Those are some of your nightmares?" she asked quietly.
"I know, they are so stupid," Alexei sighed, not at all offended that Grace agreed with him, because who wouldn't.
"These dreams of yours-"
"Nightmares," Alexei immediately corrected her.
"Nightmares, they may be a little bit out of the ordinary," Grace continued slowly, and then she smiled, and gently turned Alexei's face towards her and added, "but I think they're kind of sweet."
"You do?" he asks her quietly. Grace's smile widens and she pulls him closer.
"I do, you act all serious and tough Alexei, but we all know you're a softie on the inside" she said, her face inches away from his and Alexei can't help but smile back.
"A softie?" he asked quietly.
"Like a marshmallow," Grace said with a nod of her head, then very slowly, she moved her head forwards and closed the gap between her and Alexei and kissed him softly on the lips. A kiss that Alexei will never admit made his heart flutter and his body warm. The type of kiss that made him want to spend the day with Grace in bed just holding her.
Not that he would ever admit this because he is Russian and Russian men don't do that kind of stuff, a fact Alexei is constantly reminding everyone of. Although if it's true that he's soft like a marshmallow, then he's probably not doing a very good job of maintaining that image.
They broke apart after a moment and there's a smile spreading across Alexei's face that he can't control.
"But I'm afraid," Grace said with a sigh, "that you're going to be stuck with me for quite some time, as I do not see us breaking up any time soon in the foreseeable future."
"I am okay with that," Alexei replied, as he pulled Grace down beside him on the bed again.
"Alexei, whenever you have those nightmares please come crawling through my window and let me return the favour of comforting you," Grace tried to say, although most of it got lost in a yawn.
"Thank you for the offer sweetheart, but I do not have any wish to be shot on American soil by your grandfather or your brother," Alexei said with a smile.
The last thing Alexei heard before he eventually managed to drift off to sleep with Grace curled up by her side, was her muttering, "I like it when you call me sweetheart."