Title: Redamancy
Summary: Endings to old stories are just the beginnings of new ones, as the saying goes. After the elopement, there's a new journey on the horizon that Anya and Dimitri intend to travel together. What questions will be answered along the way and what does the future hold?
Author's Note 1: This fic is basically a series of things I imagined happening post-movie. Hope everyone enjoys it. Some things (names, years, and the like) will be explained in the author's note at the end of the chapter. Since I am a college student with a full course-load, sometimes typos get past me. If you notice one, please point it out to me in a constructive way so I can correct it. Thanks for reading.
Disclaimer: I don't own the movie Anastasia or its characters. It belongs to Don Bluth & Gary Goldman and 20th Century Fox.
Chapter One: An Entire Lifetime
Anya made her way down the halls of the ship that sailed the Seine. Pooka was keeping in time with her pace at her heels and the other passengers had already retired for bed in their own cabins. Bed was one of the things on her mind as well, but first and foremost in her thoughts was her mission of getting the bundled blanket in her arms to the cabin she and Dimitri shared.
She and Dimitri had danced on the top deck of the ship for a long while, with the lights of Paris acting like spotlights for the two as they reflected on the water around the ship. However, though the night wasn't a particularly cold one, dancing while sailing on a river after battling an undead sorcerer on an icy bridge may not have been the most practical idea. Which is not to say she or Dimitri regretted it— just the opposite. Still, the sudden switch in temperatures was getting to them a bit; Dimitri more so due to his injuries from the battle.
Unable to accomplish much in the way of treatment for said injuries through medicine, Anya had set out to at least grab them an extra blanket to prevent them from developing a cold. Finally back below deck again, it only took a few more paces until she was at the door to her and Dimitri's cabin. She opened the door, Pooka rushing inside past her.
"Welcome back," Dimitri greeted. He'd shed his coat and vest, placing them on top of their few piled suitcases of luggage. From his reclined position on the bed, he sent her a grin. "Any luck?" he asked.
"I'll let my plunder speak for itself," she declared victoriously as she shut and locked the cabin door behind her.
Pooka dashed over to the bed, raising up on his hind legs to put his paws on the wooden frame. Spotting Dimitri, he gave a small bark.
"Welcome back to you too, Mutt," Dimitri replied, reaching over to give Pooka a small pat on the head. Despite the words themselves, the tone was affectionate.
Pooka accepted this and went over to play with a small ball one of the ship's stewards had given him earlier that night as Anya and Dimitri had boarded the ship, having been won over by the pup just as quickly as Vladimir had been.
Anya made her way over to the bed and unfolded the blanket, airing it before letting it fall over Dimitri, who spluttered as he tried to get out from under it. She was still giggling as she took off her shoes, placing them by the ones Dimitri had kicked off.
Prying out from under the blanket, which was no small task considering Anya was sitting on top of part of it, Dimitri raised an eyebrow at her. "And you say that dress is a Russian Circus tent. This blanket's huge!"
"That was before I altered it," Anya replied, pulling a bit at the collar of the dress, which lacked the frills it had had on it when Dimitri had picked it off of a sales rack to give to her. She'd switched back into it once they'd started settling into their cabin, putting the ripped ballgown away into her suitcase so they wouldn't call as much attention to themselves whenever and wherever they disembarked. "As for the blanket, I think it may be for the winter voyages. The steward mentioned that last year the Seine froze and the ship was stuck out here in the middle of it for three days. Guess they're just being prepared."
Dimitri scoffed. "Winter. Yeah, sure. Live in Russia for a few years and then come complain to me about winter."
Anya shook her head at the comment. While part of her knew winter could effect everyone differently, another part of her remembered the damp floors of the People's Orphanage and was inclined to agree. Still, his ego didn't need that extra boost, so she simply took off her belt and placed it on the bedside table in silence.
With her dress now loose and more comfortable to lie down in, she crawled under both layers of blankets next to Dimitri. Dimitri immediately closed the small distance between them, pulling her closer. For a moment they both soaked in each other's presence, the only sound in the room being Pooka's faint scampering across the cabin floor after the ball.
"How're the bruises? Are they any better?" Anya queried.
"They're fine," Dimitri reassured. Knowing words alone wouldn't convince her, he took her hand in his and guided it to the back of his neck, where the one piece of rubble responsible for knocking him unconscious on the bridge had left a inflamed bump on his skin. "The knot's gone down so much you can barely notice it. The warm rag and ice did the trick."
Anya seemed to accept this, feeling the positive results for herself with her fingers. "And your stomach?" she asked, not forgetting the injury that had pained him when she'd tried to hug him in joy at his reawakening.
Dimitri's response was to raise up the blankets with one arm while he tugged his shirt up a bit to show his abdomen with his other hand. The bruise from the larger chunk of rubble had progressed from being black and blue to a pale purple color, which meant blood was getting to the area and fixing the problem.
Anya reached out and lightly placed her hand on the bruise, watching from the corner of her eye to see if Dimitri grimaced as she did so. After all, she never knew if he'd try to stubbornly hide it. "Does it hurt?"
"Not much anymore," he answered. "It throbs a bit if I move too quickly, but I've had worse." He took her hand in his own again and lowered the blankets back down over them. "Really Anya, I'm fine."
Anya nodded, grateful that the injuries weren't bothering him as much anymore and that they hadn't been anything too serious. She closed her eyes for a bit, lost in her thoughts.
Dimitri noticed her expression changing more ponderous as the minutes passed, and rolled his eyes in the safety of knowing she wouldn't see it. She had questions. Of course she had questions, and he doubted that they were about her lifetime as Anastasia the Grand Duchess this time. The Dowager Empress must have seen to it to give her the extra knowledge of her family he and Vlad hadn't been able to give her during their reunion. That meant that if she was still curious about anything, it was probably about him.
Inwardly preparing himself, he decided he might as well have the conversation now before he lost his nerve to answer. The way he saw it, even if there were things he couldn't quite bring himself to answer now, having a majority of it already done with might make it easier for when he eventually did have to give an answer to the harder questions.
"If you've got questions for me, Anya, you can just ask them," he said, going for the direct approach.
"What?" Anya replied, opening her eyes again in surprise. "I was just— What makes you think I—?"
"You looked curious," Dimitri explained. "I didn't become the greatest conman in history by not paying attention to people's expressions, you know." He chuckled. "You can ask me anything you want, Anya. Like I promised you when you were writing that letter to your grandmother, you'll hear no more lies from me. I'll answer truthfully."
Anya sighed. "I just didn't want to sound like I didn't trust you," she admitted.
It was Dimitri's turn to shake his head. "Even though I'm still kind of baffled that you do trust me, considering all the mistakes I made, it's fine. We've got all the time in the world to talk about it, right?"
Anya gave a happy nod, remembering their rushed but wonderful wedding. Well... if it could be called a wedding. After they'd finished packing, they'd headed to a church nearby Sophie's home to make it official. Some may have considered it impatient, but knowing they'd have Marie and Vladimir's blessings made it seem like putting it off to have a big ceremony later on was unnecessary.
The priest in the church had been a kind elderly man who assured them it was no trouble. This was Paris, after all, and love was all around. He'd given them a marriage certificate to sign as he combed through his holy book for the marriage rites he had to recite to them. His visiting young niece modestly volunteered to sign it as the witness to their union, enchanted by the sight of Anya's ripped but still glittering ballgown.
Signing her own name had been slightly nerve-wracking, since writing her birth name could blow the secret of her identity. The priest, however, had assured her that such things were confidential and that she and Dimitri would be the only ones with the marriage certificate. With that in mind, she'd relented and signed her name truthfully so it wouldn't be voided. Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova.
It was when it was Dimitri's own turn to sign it that she'd realized something: he'd never actually revealed his full name to her since they'd met. She'd heard Vladimir and Sophie reveal each other's, but with Dimitri it was always just Dimitri, even when the old woman in St. Petersburg had advised her to go find him to get travel papers. So it was with curiosity that she watched him sign his own name, which turned out to be Dimitri Feliksovich Kuznetsov.
It wasn't a bad name at all in Anya's opinion, so she wondered why Dimitri never brought it up or mentioned it at all. From there she realized that though he and Vlad had taught her the first eight years of her life over the course of their journey, she didn't know much about Dimitri's. She hadn't, however, known how to broach the topic, and figured she'd have to plan out her questions and wait for the right time to ask them.
However, seeing as how Dimitri's keen observation skills had shot that plan in the proverbial foot, she decided to try her best with what she'd mused over. "All right... hm... Well, since you helped me remember a good portion of my life, anything and everything about yours would be great. It's not fair you know pretty much everything about mine and I know basically nil about yours." She paused, selecting the few others her musings provided back to her to ask next. "If this was all a con when it started, then... how were you so sure I was me, I mean, Anastasia— who is me?"
Dimitri looked amused over her stumbling on the last question, but stayed quiet to let her finish.
"How did you and Vlad meet? And... why haven't I ever heard your full name until we signed the marriage certificate?"
Dimitri thought over the questions. They weren't as bad as he'd anticipated, and though some of them broached the less pleasant aspects of his life, he could answer them well enough. "Well," he told Anya, "some of those questions have the same answer, so... maybe I should just start at the beginning. I warn you though, it's a long story."
"Like you said, we've got time," Anya echoed with a grin.
Dimitri chuckled at that one and took a deep breath. "Let's see," he began. "My story actually begins with my mother. Her name was Irina Feliksovna Kuznetsov." He gave a small smirk as he saw Anya make the connection. "Noticed it right away, right? In Russia, our full name comes from what our father's name and family name were. Even though there are some exceptions out there to this, if my patronymic and family name has the same root as that of my mother, then..."
"Then... you were born out of wedlock," Anya finished.
"Which is a nice way of referring to it. Most reactions I got when I was introduced to people as a kid involved the person calling me a 'bastard whelp.' 'Burdensome bastard brat' if they were feeling poetic," he said nonchalantly.
There was a spark of fire in Anya's eyes at that, which humbled Dimitri, for he knew it meant her ire had been raised in his defense. He correctly presumed that she'd seen similar derogatives given to the children at the orphanage by adults dropping them off or when they were being evaluated by a prospective guardian. Imagining Dimitri in a position similar to that of her fellow orphans, looking like they wanted to be swallowed up by the floor, made a swell of anger wash through her.
"They shouldn't have called you that," she said fiercely.
From the floor, Pooka, who had paused in his playing, also growled in agreement.
Dimitri shrugged, not suggesting otherwise for two reasons: one, because she wasn't wrong, and two, because he didn't want to chance her ire being directed at him. "My mother was raised alone by my grandfather, Feliks Kuznetsov. He was good with tools, iron, really any machinery you can think of. He went around fixing boilers across St. Petersburg to provide for my mother when she was a kid."
"What about your grandmother?"
"Don't know. Mom didn't talk about her much. I know she died when when my mom was really young, but I don't think she ever told me how. I'm guessing it may have just been an illness, though, since she was always double-checking me every time I sneezed during winter and my grandfather was always the first to give praise to good doctors."
Anya nodded, and motioned for him to continue.
"When my mom was around our age, my grandfather got called in due to a recommendation to help work on the Trans-Siberian railroad. He started to be gone for a few months at a time, but the pay he was able to send back kept food on the table for my mother."
At this mention of the railroad, Anya found her anger abated a bit as she recalled with clarity that her dear brother Alexei had been fascinated by the railroad. She did wonder when Dimitri was going to make an appearance in his own story though.
"It was during one of those months he was gone that Mom met... my father." Dimitri said the word with disdain. "I can't tell you much about him because I was never told too much, nor do I want to know. All I know is that he promised my mother the world and then ditched her when she told him she was expecting yours truly. He skipped St. Petersburg and left somewhere when he was supposed to meet my mom at the midwife's." He gave a small growl and shook his head. "Hopefully he got eaten by a bear or something."
Anya, though tempted to speak up on behalf of the poor bear's diet, instead decided to just give Dimitri's hand a squeeze, knowing that this wasn't the right place for one of their usual banter quips.
Dimitri sighed, squeezing her hand back before pressing on. "My grandfather came back, and didn't begrudge her at all. No, Grandpa Feliks tried to take her mind off of him by acting like an overly-excited old coot over me being on the way. Low and behold, I was born on November 21st in 1906."
"Good." It was the only response Anya felt said it all.
Dimitri smiled at that. "I remember a good bunch of happy things from when I was small. Grandpa Feliks showed me everything he worked on, even if I didn't quite have the knack for it he did. Mom, well... she never blamed me for her or my father's mistakes. Despite how some of the neighbors scoffed at it, she was always more affectionate with me. I asked her once why, and she said it was men with cold hearts that turned out like my father, and she didn't want me to be the same way."
"She was right," Anya agreed. "And you turned out to be pretty amazing."
"If you say so, Your Highness," Dimitri replied with a small laugh. "I was the so-called 'man of the house' when Grandpa Feliks was called in to the railroad, and I helped mom with her odd-jobs here or there. Grandpa Feliks would bring back souvenirs or stories of the railroad, and Mom would use the saved up money we had to get the ingredients for fresh stew as often as she could."
Anya smiled as she pictured it in her mind, but noticed how Dimitri's smile ebbed away.
"It couldn't last, though. One day, when I was seven years old, we received word that Grandpa Feliks had died in an accident near the railroad. I'm not sure exactly what happened, since I think Mom tried to downplay it for me. Something about one of the bundles of wood unexpectedly coming loose since the frost weakened the rope."
"I'm sorry, Dimitri."
"What for? It's not your fault."
"Still," Anya insisted.
Dimitri sighed, and squeezed her hand again in thanks. "From there, well... me and Mom couldn't support ourselves completely on our own. At the very least, we couldn't stay at the only home I'd ever known. Luckily for us though, one of my mom's old friends had just gotten a job at the Winter Palace, and they needed a few more helpers."
"That explains why you knew all that stuff you and Vlad taught me. You worked at the palace!" Anya paused, hesitant to say where she'd heard it before. "You... you mentioned that to Grandmama, at the Opera House."
He nodded, taking it in stride. "Mom and I had shelter and guaranteed meals again, and the work was bearable. The only real downside was that we were separated during the day. Mom was hired to be part of the laundry staff, and I was hired on to help in the kitchens. We only ever really got to see each other in the servants' sleeping quarters at night, once all the work was done. We'd tell each other how our days went before we went to sleep."
"Did you ever get days off?"
"Here and there, yeah. We usually spent it visiting Grandpa's grave and and enjoying the chance to relax," he answered. "Looking back, I wish we could have had more, but... ah, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself."
Anya looked curious but didn't question it.
"Since she always working with the laundry, I remember my mom always smelled of cotton, soap, and rosemary. I think the rosemary came from some herbal incense they used to scent some of the throw-pillows. Some of the servants were like our old neighbors. They're weren't too keen on the fact that she kept referring to me as Mitya no matter how old I got, but true to form, she didn't care."
The more Anya heard of her mother-in-law, the more she liked her. She knew Mitya was a very affectionate diminutive of Dimitri's name, so for Irina to keep calling him that as he got older proved she was the reason Dimitri had such a soft heart underneath all of that conman exterior.
"I... didn't quite have such an easy time of it. Since I worked in the kitchens, I had to follow the rules and orders the cook set. The cook... didn't like me. At all. For already mentioned reasons." Seeing Anya's raised eyebrow, he quickly clarified it. "Let's just say he was the most poetic of all when it came to the reactions my name got."
Now Anya gave a subdued version of a glower— not directed at Dimitri, of course, but at the cook.
"Apparently he knew both my parents because they grew up around the same place in town, so he never missed the opportunity to tell me about what a layabout my father was. Which wouldn't have been bad in and of itself, if he hadn't insisted on comparing me to him all the time." He sighed. "Still, small mercies. He kept saying how much I looked like my father, probably to make me hate my own reflection, but what he didn't know was that my Grandfather had bragged constantly about how much I looked like Mom, so I wasn't inclined to believe him."
Not wanting to leave it at a simple 'good' again, Anya decided to poke for a tad bit more information on her mother-in-law. "What did you get from your mother? According to Grandmama, I take after my mother, except I have Papa's sense of humor."
That brought a small smile to Dimitri's face. "I have her hair and apparently my Grandmother's eyes. Grandpa Feliks said that I had his build from his younger days, but considering he was an eccentric old coot when I was born, I'd be lying if I said I could see it."
Anya smiled. "Your mom sounds really nice, Dimitri."
"Yeah, she was," he replied, nodding.
"Was?" Anya asked worriedly.
He took a deep breath. "I used to sneak bits of food from the kitchen to her when I could, but one day she just started telling me to eat it because I needed it more. 'Growing boy' and all that. A week or so later, she came to the sleeping quarter's with her hair cut. It had come out of her hair bun and fallen into some of the dye, so she cut the dyed section off before cutting the rest so it would be even. She started having insomnia, and started forgetting little things like separating socks by fabric and not by color. On some of the next days off we got, we didn't go visit my grandfather's grave. She just wanted to catch up on sleep, so I explored the palace a bit more to keep busy." He closed his eyes at this point, feeling that keeping up eye contact at this point while he explained the rest was nigh-impossible.
"Dimitri... what happened?" Anya asked, reaching her other hand out to hold onto his arm.
"I woke up one morning, and her cot next to mine was empty. Nothing unusual there, since the laundry staff usually got started early. So I went to the kitchen and did my usual chores. Then, while I was fetching water, one of the laundry maids caught me between buildings and asked where my mother was. You can imagine how confused I was. It eventually escalated as the day went on and a search party went out to find her..." He swallowed back the heaviness in his throat. One would think after explaining this to Vladimir years before would have made it easier, but it didn't. "They did... at the bottom of the Neva River."
"Oh Dimitri," Anya whispered in one quick breath. She let go of his hand and arm to wrap her arms around his shoulders.
Unable to shake the memory's persistent aftershocks, Dimitri reached out to wrap his arms around Anya's back, returning the embrace. The few tears that stung at the corner of his eyes eventually disappeared into her red hair, and if she felt it, she didn't say anything. When the shudders travelling across his frame came to a shaky stop, Anya pulled back as much as the embrace would allow in order to meet his eyes.
"I'm sorry, Dima," Anya said softly, using the informal diminutive of his given name for the first time since they'd been married. She'd thought that if she'd ever use it, it would be after the honeymoon when they'd gotten adjusted to being married. Yet... she felt he needed it right now.
He gave a weary sigh. "Still not your fault, Nastya," he responded, returning the gesture with equal measure.
"And again, still," she refuted. She reached up one of her hands to thread her fingers through Dimitri's hair. "If you're not comfortable answering all the questions now, it's fine if we wait, Dima."
"No Nastya, that's— that's not the problem." Dimitri met her eyes with his own, which he knew probably still looked wetter than they should. "The rest of the story isn't really hard to tell. This is just... the hardest thing, but it's better for both of us to get as much of this out now rather than later. Besides, if I stop now, I'll lose my nerve."
Anya studied him for a moment. "If you're sure," she agreed.
Dimitri nodded, and didn't remove her hand from his hair as he continued. "I was... predictably devastated. I still did my chores, but that was all. I didn't see the point in exploring the palace anymore. Some of the other maids tried to look out for me here or there, but I kind of just... drifted."
He had shrugged as he said it, but Anya's heart ached at the thought of a listless Dimitri going through the motions mechanically out of grief. It was so opposite of the the energetic and eager conman she'd come to know over the last several days that it just felt wrong to her. She hoped things would start to look up in his recollection soon.
"The cook was... worse than before. What had gotten me a scolding before now had me recieve tirades. I think my lack of reaction made it worse. One day, a few months after Mom died, I was ordered to wash the dishes in the large sink by the window. Suddenly, I heard a commotion. The cook was yelling, but for once, it wasn't at me. I looked up from the dishes to gaze through the window and guess what I see?" He smirked at Anya and said his next sentence with a grin. "A red-haired imp throwing the cook in the brook, giggling all the while."
Remembering one of the first things Vlad and Dimitri had taught her as they travelled through Poland, she blinked in surprise. "Me?! Really?!"
"You'll hear no lies from me," Dimitri reminded her.
"Perfect," Anya replied, a smirk on her own lips.
Now it was Dimitri's turn to look confused. "Why?"
"I haven't been too fond of that cook since you first started mentioning how he treated you. I was beginning to think I was too late to do anything about it, but now you're telling me I avenged you back when there was still time. So, I repeat: Perfect," Anya explained with a hint of pride.
Dimitri rolled his eyes. "Your nickname from back then suited you; you really were a little imp. I ducked my head down so my laughs would be hidden by the huge pile of soap bubbles, but the two assistant cooks just about fell over laughing as hard as they could. The cook came in, wet from head to toe and yelled at them to go make themselves useful and get more meat from the butcher's in town. That night in the servants' quarters, I asked them who you were."
Anya blinked. "You didn't know?"
"How often does royalty come down to the kitchens?" Dimitri countered. "I knew we were serving the royal family, but I rarely saw any of you. When I asked the assistant cooks, they giggled at my ignorance, too. 'That's little Anastasia!' they said. 'The youngest Grand Duchess and the most mischievous prankster you'll ever see.' Gotta say, they weren't wrong about that. I started exploring the palace again when I had free time, and I occasionally got to see the results of your pranks." He chuckled. "The one with the curtain dye was especially inspired. The cook had a sickly green hat for three weeks."
Anya giggled, wishing she could remember that exact prank but drawing up a blank. Hopefully more of her memories would come back over time now that her connections to her past had been kickstarted by her journey, this one included.
"Did we know each other back then?" she asked, thinking maybe that was how he recognized her to be the genuine article.
Dimitri shook his head instantly. "Even though the Tsar and the Tsarina allowed you and the others to interact with servants, the older servants themselves were pretty strict about keeping the servant kids like me separate from the royal kids like you. The cook was already hard enough on me because I existed, so there was no way I was going to break that rule."
"Why did they make a rule like that?" Anya demanded, irritation in her voice.
"Why else? Class," Dimitri succinctly answered. "Even though we were all people, there had to be a 'professional distance' between the servants and the ones they served. Not to mention etiquette; always be polite and show reverence, never speak out of turn, know your place, etcetera."
Anya huffed. "Ridiculous." She remembered the butler at her grandmother's home instructing Dimitri to show her the proper respect of her rank as they talked on the stairs, and the awkwardness of seeing Dimitri defer to her so professionally still rubbed her the wrong way.
Dimitri mollified her with a grin. "There was another reason though. Simply put, I didn't want to become a target of your pranks. After all, if you pulled pranks on your older sisters, what was to stop you from pulling one over on me, too?"
Anya wanted to refute that statement, but... from what she remembered of her childhood impish days and even taking into account her current quick-witted nature, there was no real guarantee that wouldn't have been the case. "The pranks wouldn't have been that bad," she relented. "I'd have saved the worst for the cook."
Dimitri laughed. Her protective streak was persistent and her antagonism towards the cook amused him every time she reminded him of it. Shaking his head, he carried on. "As it turns out, though, I ended up breaking that rule by mistake. It was after lunch one day when I was told to clean up a mess down the hall from the kitchens. Apparently, one your pranks had gotten a bit out of hand and one of the fruit bowls had fallen on the ground only to get crushed by the servants running past it as they chased after the family dogs."
"Dogs?" Anya flatly asked.
"Apparently you got creative in this prank and enlisted their help. I don't know what the dogs were chasing, but the damage was done. I was supposed to dispose of the ruined fruit, clean their residue out of the rugs, and replace the bowl with fresh produce. So there I was, scrubbing the towel away at the rug, when someone asks me 'Excuse me, but are you the one who knows about the railroad?'"
Anya was stunned. "Alexei?"
Dimitri nodded. "As I found out later, he'd heard from one of the ladies-in-waiting that I was the grandson of someone who worked on the Trans-Siberian Railroad and that I probably understood more about it than she did. So he'd come by the kitchens to try to ask me." He chuckled. "You can imagine my surprise. The Tsarevich, who I was not to speak to, was asking me a direct question. I couldn't just not answer, so I replied that I knew a little from what my grandfather had told me."
"Alexei... He was the most humble out of us," Anya quipped quietly. "He felt odd when people referred to him by his title and even kicked someone under the table once for bragging about him." She chuckled in remembrance at her only brother.
"Yep," Dimitri replied. "He told me I didn't have to call him Tsarevich and asked me a few questions about the railroad and the engine, which I answered nervously while trying to finish scrubbing out the rug. Of course, who should happen across that scene but the cook."
Anya, and even Pooka, who had traveled to climb onto the pile of luggage, let out simultaneous growls.
"You've got nothing to worry about this time," Dimitri assured. "He tried to scold me for speaking out of turn to your brother and apologized for my lack of respect, only for Alexei to steadfastly scold him for getting onto me when I was doing as asked, not just my job but also answering questions he'd specifically sought me out for."
Anya grinned. "Go Alexei!" she cheered.
Pooka barked in approval.
"One of your official tutors came around the corner, looking for Alexei. He saw what was going on and said that as soon as I was done with the rug and replaced the fruit, I should come down to the study-rooms so I could answer Alexei's questions after the Tsarevich's lessons were over. Unable to argue, I agreed. The cook stomped off back into the kitchen after they left, and I finished my job as soon as I could." He smiled. "Alexei must have asked me a hundred questions that night about the railway. I couldn't answer all of them, but he didn't seem to mind. He seemed reluctant to ask more, but I told him I was probably going to get ordered by the cook not to speak to him again regardless so he might as well ask me everything then. He didn't like that, but came up with a clever idea to get around it."
"Really? What was it?"
"He told me that some of the maids came into his room to clean it via the servants' quarters in the walls. That was how the servants could move in and do their job quickly and efficiently without ever being seen. Many of the bedrooms and studies had servants' passageways in the walls, too, and he told me he would write down his questions on a slip of paper and slip it underneath the door in the wall of his room for me to pick up on my off days. I'd write the answers and slip it back under the door or place it on his desk and leave the room again before anyone noticed me." He laughed again. "He even admitted he'd been tempted to tell you about the passageways, but was afraid you'd get into more trouble for all the pranking opportunities it held for you."
Anya laughed. That sounded like Alexei. He'd never really forgotten the soft but effective scolding they'd been given one day when she'd convinced him to crawl underneath the dining table with her and pinch the legs of the guests.
"It worked like a charm, and it had the added bonus of allowing me to get sneak peeks at your pranks in action, rather than just the aftermath of them. Needless to say I appreciated every single one aimed at the cook during the next year."
'Still perfect revenge,' Anya thought to herself, though her smug smile gave Dimitri a sense of deja vu, having seen that same expression on her face during some of the said pranks.
His voice getting quiet again, Dimitri continued. "Sometimes, when there were grand balls being held, I'd try to sneak out of the kitchens when the cook wasn't looking to get a peek at the dances. You probably remember what the Winter Palace's dance hall looked like in its heyday, now. I'd try to see it whenever I could... including that day. The celebration of the 300th year rule of the Romanovs."
Anya repressed a shudder down her own frame. The night had started out so wonderful, dancing with her parents as her siblings chatted with relatives and knowing Grandmama was on her way there. The joy of receiving the treasured music box and the necklace that doubled as the key to unlock it. Then the darkness that fell as Rasputin entered the ballroom, the curse, and the crashing chandelier.
"You... you were there?"
Dimitri nodded. "I'd snagged an apple from the fruit bowl I was told to deliver to the buffet area behind the landing where the thrones sat and decided to get a look before I headed back. That was when your Grandmother showed up. You ran over and gave her what I think was a drawing, and I saw her give you the music box. Though... you thought it was a jewelry box at first, so I did too up until recently, since that's when the waiter noticed me and carried me off back to the kitchen."
Anya's eyebrows furrowed as she vaguely recalled someone from the corner of her eye by her and her Grandmother when Rasputin had declared he was going to curse them. "You came back, right before he destroyed the chandelier."
"Yes," he confirmed. "The two weeks after that were tense. Everyone was nervous. The cook was so paranoid that he didn't even bother to scold me. We servants weren't allowed days off anymore, for our own safety. We stayed in the palace, not going outside for fear of being caught in a mob." He shuddered, because the next part was one that haunted both of their memories. "One night, I was woken up by the other servants, who said we had to leave. Rioters trying to get through the palace gates, get the royal family out, everyone for themselves, the Bolsheviks were coming."
It was Anya's turn for her memories of that night to make an appearance. "One of my tutors woke me up... I think it was my spelling and grammar teacher... the one I pranked for never being charmed enough to let me out of grammar assignments. He woke me up and told me to get with my siblings, who were with Grandmama. We were given heavy coats and slipped on whatever shoes we could grab. Mama and Papa joined us with a few loyal guards and we were running down the halls to get out. Alexei was carried by our tutors. Then... I remembered that I'd left my music box. So I darted back to get it, Grandmama running after me."
"I didn't have anything of value to grab, so I was running with the other servants to who knows where. The Winter Palace was where Mom and I had come; she'd obviously hoped that it would be a secure enough shelter and job for as long as I'd need it— there was no way she could have predicted this was going to happen. I tried to find her friend, but I knew she would have been on the other side of the palace and taken that exit route. I kept getting jostled and thrown around everytime I took a step in the main halls by the other servants, so my first thought was the servants' passageways in the wall."
Suddenly the obvious realization hit Anya and she couldn't believe she hadn't quite pieced it together before now. "The boy... who opened the wall... That was you, Dimitri!?" she exclaimed.
"I was the boy," he confirmed, just as he had done for Vlad. "I was the one who opened the wall. On the way to the other side of the palace, I saw your family as they tried to leave, and saw Alexei with them. You weren't with them, though. I decided to check your room on my way to find Mom's friend. It turned out to be a good choice. I peeked in to see you and your Grandmother there just as the Bolsheviks used dynamite to crash open the palace doors."
"We didn't know which way to go, and then you grabbed us and guided us into the passageway in the wall. I... I dropped my music box and darted back for it again, but you pushed me back inside and slammed the wall shut." Anya paused in her recollection. She remembered stumbling in the dark of the passageway at her Grandmother's insistence, but remembered hearing a crash as they left the hidden door's vicinity. "There... there was a crash in the room..." Her eyes shot up and met Dimitri's. "Dimitri, what happened?"
"The Bolshevik soldiers burst through the door right after I got the wall closed again. They asked me where you and your Grandmother were, and I replied by throwing whatever I could grab on the nearby table at them." He chuckled ruefully. "You can thank them for this crooked nose of mine. One hit with the butt of a rifle and I was out."
"They— They hit you with a rifle?!" Anya hissed, knowing that if she yelled, she'd wake the other passengers. Her left hand left Dimitri's hair, where it had been resting this whole time, and moved to his cheek, her thumb grazing over his nose.
"I woke up hours later. The palace was eerily quiet. The halls were a bit trashed, so I kind of stood in your room for a while trying to figure out what to do next. I found your music box on the ground. I'd been so focused on getting you into the passageway that I didn't catch that you'd called it a music box. I still thought it was a jewelry box, but I knew it was important to you. So I grabbed it and darted into the passageway myself. I eventually made it into town, but Bolshevik soldiers were everywhere. I was scared they'd take the music box from me if I was caught with it, so I ran along the outskirts to the graveyard and hid it behind the flowers on my family's graves. I ran back into town and well... I learned that the entire royal family was gone, except for the Dowager Empress, who may have made it out, and Anastasia, who was missing."
Anya squeezed the hand her right one was still entwined with. "Grandmama and I tried to leave the back way, across the frozen pools of water in the garden." She swallowed hard. "As we passed under the walk-bridge, something grabbed my ankle and I fell down." She bit her lip. "Apparently Rasputin decided to take care of me himself since it didn't seem like the Bolsheviks were going to."
Now it was Dimitri who whirled into protective-mode. "What?" he hissed.
"When the ice broke underneath him, he tried to drag me down into the water, too. When he loosened his grip, I was able to kick his hand away. The instant I was free, Grandmama and I were running again, not taking a single look back. That's... probably why he made the bridge ice-covered earlier..." She sighed. "We made it to the train station, but... the train was moving as Grandmama was pulled aboard and I couldn't keep up. Our grip slipped and... I hit the platform hard enough to get amnesia. You know my story from there. I was found wandering around in the woods outside St. Petersburg and was given to the People's Orphanage, where I lived for ten years." She shook her head, willing the memories to go back into storage for now. "What about you?"
Dimitri's sigh was a tempered one. He was obviously putting aside his anger towards Rasputin since the undead sorcerer wasn't a direct threat anymore, but wishing in hindsight he'd made his punch at the corpse infinitely harder. For now, though, the conman reached up to take Anya's hand so now both of their hands were holding each other's.
"I wandered around on the streets, never able to find Mom's old friend. The soldiers... snagged me and a few other servants to ask us what we knew about anywhere the remaining royals could have hidden, but we didn't know anything. It wasn't too long after that I ran into Vlad." He gave a small smirk at that. "I knew right away he was a member of the Imperial Court. I'd seen him enough times with Sophie during the celebrations to recognize him. He kind of... took me under his wing, and as time went on, we couldn't find honest work, so we went into less... favorable business practices. Starting from small cons to get food into forging papers and then smuggling goods. Ten years pass and we, like many others, get the idea to pull the greatest con in history— get a girl to pretend to be Anastasia, teach her everything she needs to know, and use the jewelry box I'd saved and retrieved to seal the deal."
Anya tilted her head to the side at him, like trying to solve a riddle.
"What?" he asked her, curious.
"Just... why would you pull a con like that if you'd known you actually saved the real Anastasia? I'm just... not sure I get it."
He gave her a defeated look. "I was bitter. Bitter at the world and the lot it had given me. I just wanted to get out of St. Petersburg. Get out of Russia. Get to somewhere worth living. It seemed like getting money was the only way I'd be able to do that, and here I was in a position that would give me the perfect opportunity to gain a fortune. And... for all I'd 'saved' you, as far as I knew you-as-Anastasia were killed somewhere and I just had to find a lookalike. I was selfish." He paused. "I don't have an excuse," he admitted.
Anya shook her head and kissed his forehead. "It's fine, Dima. I forgave all that. I don't blame you for getting bitter. If it hadn't been for the kids who looked up to me at the People's Orphanage, dealing with Comrade Phlegmenkoff would have made me almost just as bitter before too long."
The small pause in the conversation as they absorbed the other's point of view of the siege gave Pooka time to dart over and climb onto the bed as well, tuckered out from playing with the ball, which was now wedged between two suitcases. The pup curled up at the foot of the bed, giving Anya's foot a little nudge through the blanket.
"If I'm right..." Dimitri slowly began, "Then the only question of your's I haven't quite answered yet is how I knew you were Anastasia if this all started as a con. You threw me and Vlad for a loop when you remembered correct things about the royal family we didn't teach you, but we didn't have time to really think about it because we still had so much material left to cover. I didn't realize you were Anastasia until the interview with Sophie. For a moment, I thought the whole con had fallen through because of that last question. Yet... you answered it correctly."
"How I escaped the siege at the palace?" Anya asked.
"Anya, I never told anyone what I did that night, not even Vlad. That meant there were only four people in the world who would have known that. You, me, and your grandmother: the only three who were there when it happened, and Sophie, who was told by your grandmother. So if you knew when I had never told you... then that could only mean you were the real Anastasia. That's when I figured it out."
Recalling the interview, Anya remembered how Dimitri had slipped away into the back yard as she watched Vladimir and Sophie plan to have the meeting happen at the Paris Opera House on the night of the ballet. It must have floored him to realize who she really was.
"Did Vlad know then, too?"
Dimitri shook his head. "I told him on the steps of the Opera House."
"Then I guess it goes without saying that he wasn't telling you that you had to tell me how beautiful I looked, right?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yet you say it anyway, Nastya," Dimitri replied with a roll of his eyes. "He told me to tell you all this but... The way I saw it, that new information didn't change the plan itself. The plan was to get you to meet the Dowager Empress that night so she would accept you as Anastasia and, in doing so, help Vlad get his aristocratic status back. The only part that really changed for me was the goal. What did I care about the reward? I was already out of Russia. The new goal was to get you and your stubborn grandmother reunited. I figured that since you really were Anastasia, we had nothing to worry about. Of course, not very many plans go through without a hitch, as that night proved." He paused. "What did it matter if I was the boy who opened the wall? It didn't change what I thought had to happen."
"Of course it mattered!" Anya insisted, unwilling to let that one slide by. "What were you planning to do, just walk away out of the picture forever?"
She'd asked the question rhetorically, but seeing how Dimitri averted his eyes, she stared at him in disbelief. "You really...?" she trailed off, unable to finish the question.
"The whole separation stuff in the palace back then has always stuck with me, more than I thought. It seemed clear enough to me. I... had feelings for you, which was fine when we'd both been supposed-peasants trying to pull a con. Once I knew you were Anastasia, well... Princesses don't marry kitchen boys. I didn't want to make you choose between the family you'd finally found and someone like me. I didn't... don't belong in that world. I knew my place and it was not in your way."
"Dimitri," Anya said firmly. "First off, 'princess' isn't giving me a lot of credit, you know. Grand Duchesses are a few ranks above princesses in the royal hierarchy because they have more responsibilities."
Dimitri rolled his eyes at that one. "Apologies, Your Imperial Highness," he said teasingly.
"Secondly, who cares if I'm royalty? What good is that title anyway? If I revealed myself to high society again, for all I know the Bolsheviks could come after me again! Why do I think I hesitated signing the marriage certificate, because I assure you it wasn't because I was having second thoughts!"
Dimitri met her eyes again at that one. "Not going to happen. I won't let it."
Anya smiled at him despite herself. "I know you won't, but the point still stands. Thirdly, I think we've established by now that grand duchesses don't so much marry kitchen boys in a big celebration as they elope with them after battling an evil sorcerer instead."
That got a hearty laugh out of Dimitri that he quickly muffled so he wouldn't interrupt her.
"You don't have to feel like you're... not worthy enough or whatever you're thinking about to be with me. Worth isn't something you can measure by rank, titles, and wealth." She paused to make sure he was listening, and to her relief, he was— intently. "I may have been a grand duchess for the first eight years of my life, but I spent ten as the skinny, penniless nobody with no past and no future. Now I have those things. I have my past back, along with Grandmama, Sophie, and even Vlad. I have a future now with you, which I happen to be looking forward to by the way." She smirked at the last statement.
Dimitri gave a sheepish shrug in return. "I don't really know what to say to all that except that I'll do my utmost to make that future great."
Anya unlaced their fingers to hold his face in her hands. "And Dima, you couldn't be in my way if you tried. Aside from a home and a family, I wanted love, and here you are. Besides, you know me well enough by now to know if someone was in my way, they wouldn't be there for long if I had anything to say about it. Yet, I reiterate: here you are. Get it?"
He ran a hand through his hair, which was still disheveled from when Anya had run her fingers through it earlier, and nodded. "Yeah, I get it. It's not that I don't believe you when you say it, it's just... taking me some time to adjust to the idea that I actually can be this lucky."
Anya smiled, pleased he got the message. She was going to have to readjust to this weird mesh of both the Dimitris she'd known. Whereas before he'd been, in his own words, the bitter and impatient conman, he was now showing a resurgence of the selfless kitchen boy who'd saved her. She knew for sure there would still be banter between the two of them, but it would be of a more pleasant nature where, for once, they were likely going to be on the same page.
Dimitri sent her a grin since as she had, in her reassurances, unknowingly touched upon the topic he'd been pondering over while she had gone in search of the extra blanket. "Don't worry about the home part of that list of wishes. As soon as we find the right area, I'll make sure we get a great one right away. Not that I won't appreciate the assistance your grandmother is likely to offer, but I'm going to find us the perfect place by honest means even if I have to build the house myself."
Anya grinned back. That was the energetic Dimitri she knew. Although... while the image her mind conjured of Dimitri attempting to make sense of construction was entertaining, it was getting late and they did need sleep.
"I don't doubt it," she told him. "It doesn't have to be grand— something comfortable would do just fine, but let's save it for after the honeymoon, all right?"
"Of course." No sooner than he had agreed, he was overtaken by a yawn.
"We should follow Pooka's example and get some sleep, Dima." She pulled him in and gave him a quick kiss.
He smiled at her as they parted. "Yeah, let's."
Anya reached over and turned off the light on the bedside table, turning back around and hugging Dimitri as he pulled the blankets closer around them.
Pooka took this as a cue to bounce from the foot of the bed to the head of the bed, his path running along the edge of the bed behind Anya's back. He settled down on the spot of the bed above their pillows and yipped happily.
Pooka's close proximity made Dimitri let out a sneeze. It was followed by grumbling about 'mutts' and soft laughter that ebbed away as the long day's events and revelations took their toll on the newlyweds.
"Love you, Dima," Anya whispered.
"Love you too, Nastya," Dimitri returned instantly.
Finally, all three occupants of the room were fast asleep, with the shadows of the past mostly laid behind them as they awaited the light of a new day.
Author's Note
For a brief summary over how Russian names work, each Russian has three names: a first/given name, a patronymic, and a last name/surname. Diminutives are basically more personal names that are usually derived from syllables of the first name. Some diminutives are more personal than others (Mitya vs Dima in Dimitri's case). Patronymics are derived from the father's name, with -ovich or -evich added onto it for boys, which stands in for "son of," and -ovna or -evna added onto it for girls, which stands in for "daughter of." As for last names, well... I'm running out of room to explain. For more explanation, check out some of the Russian language learning sites online. It's very interesting, though that may just be my fascination with genealogy talking.
EDIT: GrossAdmiral Thrawn politely pointed out the the proper diminutive of Anastasia's name is "Nastya," not "Natsya." All instances of this typo have now been corrected within the first chapter and will be spelled correctly in future chapters. Thank you for pointing it out to me.
For Dimitri's name in particular, I had to make one up. The was a Dimitri in the Romanov family, a duke or the like, I believe, and a servant boy named Dimitri (though he didn't stay behind when the siege happen and went off to be a soldier somewhere before mysteriously disappearing), but neither of their names really fit the conman we all know and snark at. In my story, Dimitri took his grandfather's name for his patronymic. The name Feliks means "lucky/fortunate" which I thought was a cool callback to Dimitri's career as a conman, since he must have had cons that involved gambling of some sort. Kuznetsov is a surname that means "blacksmith," which was connected to his grandfather's career and the refined dedication his mother had to raising him right. His mother's name, Irina, means "peaceful," which is reflective of her nature and the effect positive memories of her have on her son.
Dimitri's injuries basically came from the movie itself. While screenshotting reference poses for animation from the movie, I paused the fight against Rasputin frame by frame and saw that two pieces of rubble from the pegasus statue hit Dimitri; one on the back of his neck and the other on his stomach, hence why he has injuries there in this fic. (Because really, no wonder he got knocked out— that must have hurt!)
The birthday I gave Dimitri was the release date of the movie in 1997. It seemed to fit perfectly.
The real Anastasia was often called "shvibzik" as a nickname. The word means imp and it was a reference to her mischievous nature.
As for the birth year... the prologue of the movie happens in 1916. Anya says later she was found wandering around when she was eight years old. So that means that Anya from the movie was born in 1908. The movie's current setting takes place ten years after the prologue, aka 1926, so Anya is 18 in the movie. As for Dimitri... I always headcanoned him as 2 years older than Anya, so that would mean he's 20 in the movie, was born in 1906, and was ten years old in the prologue.
And now I shall shush. Thanks for reading.