"Yes, I can see it now…"

.

Natalya sat at her usual table, daydreaming about the pretty-faced English major who worked part-time at her favorite café.

In her dream, they sit together by the local lake. It is a beautiful sunny day, and everything is perfect. Alfred grins down at his girlfriend. To him, she is beautiful, though she will never believe it.

"Ya know," he says, wrapping his arm around the Belarusian, "You really are the greatest thing that's ever happened to me." Natalya looks up at her boyfriend, her cheeks a pale pink.

"Is that so?" she asks, thinking it's a joke. After all, he could not possibly like her the way she liked him.

"Yup! It's cuz I love ya, Nat," Natalya has to hold back a chuckle this time. Really, Alfred is being ridiculous. He's getting far ahead of himself. After all, it's only their fifth date. How can he love her when he barely knows her? He hasn't even met her brother and sister, and he doesn't have a clue about her knives.

"Hiya, Miss Arlovskaya!" the blond waiter was standing directly in front of her now, a glass full of soda and a hamburger in his hands. "Mind if I sit here to take my break?" Natalya nodded. Alfred slid gratefully into the bench opposite her and started munching on his burger. He ate sloppily, but somehow that didn't bother Natalya at all. As she watched the boy she'd had a crush on since she'd moved to the city eat, she daydreamed again.

Natalya walks up to the door to Alfred's house and knocks on the door. Alfred's twin brother Matthew answers the door, a smile on his face. He lets Natalya in, chatting with her in his soft voice. She is friendly and relaxed; she'd long ago become comfortable around Alfred's tiny family, which consists of his brother, his brother's strange German girlfriend, and himself.

"Nat! Hey!" Alfred runs toward her and pulls her into a warm, somewhat crushing hug. "I missed you while you were in Belarus!"

Natalya smiles and admits, "I missed you, too, Alfred."

"So, Miss Arlovskaya, what is your opinion on the idea of 'soul mates'?" Alfred asked suddenly, yanking Natalya out of her reverie.

"Hm?"

"What do you think of 'soul mates'?" Alfred asked again.

"I haven't really thought about 'soul mates'," Natalya answered. "I can't get past trying to figure out why people even bother with 'love' if it never lasts?". Alfred shrugged.

"I dunno," he said. "Perhaps it's because of humans' insatiable need for contact with others." Natalya hummed in agreement.

"I suppose so," she said as her mind drifted away from the present.

"My parents fought all the time when I was little," Natalya tells her new fiancé. "They divorced when I was seven, and I haven't seen either of them since. My sister and brother raised me." It felt so good to tell Alfred all of this. Why hadn't she told him sooner?

"Really?" Alfred asks, his eyes bright. "That sounds fun! My parents were awfully boring, so…" he trails off with his signature shrug. And that's when he notices Natalya's scathing glare. "W-what?"

"It was not fun! Imagine your parents telling you you're never going to see them again!" tears well in Natalya's eyes.

"Oh..." Alfred says. "I never thought of it that way." He puts an arm around his wife's shoulders. "Well, don't worry, Nat. I'll never tell you what they did. We'll never make your parents mistakes."

Alfred watched the girl before him for a moment. She was staring at a point just above his left shoulder, her eyes glazed over. It was obvious that she was daydreaming. The Belarusian really was beautiful, he decided, with her fluttery silver hair, pale skin, and violet eyes. Violet eyes, Alfred realized, that were swimming with crystalline tears. 'I wonder what she's thinking about that's so sad..." he thought. On a whim, he reached out and wiped the tears from her ivory cheek. The girl barely flinched.

"You're so self-centered!" Natalya hisses. Alfred protests, but Natalya's not done. She starts yelling, just expressing herself loudly, and Alfred retaliates. They both scream out their worries for the future and the problems they're terrified of facing.

"Everything's slipping out of our hands," Alfred murmurs. Natalya recognizes those words, they were the ones her father always said to her and her siblings. She knows now that this argument must finish. She turns to flee.

The argument ends when Natalya runs outside. She can recall her mother doing the same thing on the night her parents decided to divorce.

Natalya knows it's over before it even began and she can't fight the tears that well up in her eyes. She loves Alfred so much it hurts, but she knows he won't want her anymore.

She hears her fiancé behind her and she braces herself. The goodbye is coming. Alfred is going to say that he doesn't want to see her again.

"Nat," Alfred says, using his special nickname for her. He puts his arms around his fiancée gently. "Nat, are you mad at me?" Natalya shakes her head hard, not wanting to upset Alfred further. "Good, cuz I'm not mad at you either." Natalya gasps sharply and turned to look at the blond man.

"Really?" she asks, certain this time that Alfred is joking.

"Really, Nat." Alfred takes his future wife's hand in his. "I promise that I will never leave you alone." He links their pinky fingers together for emphasis.

"Miss Arlovskaya?" Alfred's voice reminded Natalya of where she was.

"Yes, Alfred F. Jones?" The Belarusian responded, using her crush's full name.

"Well," the small-town boy began, "I was wondering if you'd let me sit with you while I'm on break tomorrow?" Natalya paused for a moment, pretending to think about her answer.

"Of course, you may sit with me tomorrow, Alfred." She finally responded. "And you may call me Natalya."

"Remember that time we were sittin' by the lake, Nat? That's when I realized that every time I look at you, it's like the first time." Alfred tells Natalya on the night of their wedding. Natalya is dressed up in white and she's practically glowing. She still can't believe how lucky she is to have found such a wonderful man to spend the rest of her life with.

"I remember," Natalya murmurs. "And do you remember that time when you found my knife collection?" Alfred shudders.

"Of course I remember," he squeaks.

"That's when I knew that you were – and are – the best thing that's ever been mine."

As Natalya left the café, she decided that if she and Alfred did become friends, she would warn him of her babies beforehand. 'In fact', she thought as she noticed the oddball waiter waving to her exuberantly through the window, 'maybe I'll tell him about Nikolai tomorrow.' She reached down absentmindedly to where her first knife, a throwing knife she referred to as Nikolai, was strapped securely to her leg. 'Yes,' she decided, 'that would probably be for the best."

By the Water

.

Based on Taylor Swift's song "Mine".

You can choose to believe that Natalya was at the café to eat or was just stalking Alfred. I think she was stalking him, but my mom disagrees. Whatever.

I apologize for the OoC-ness of the characters, but I suppose they have to be to fit with the song. I'm also sorry for the choppiness, but I couldn't think of any other way to write it without it getting longwinded.

Edit: I addad a bit to make it flow better. Huzzah!