Author's note: From "But Let It Go, And You Learn" arc. Check my communities to find the full listing of stories.

Is this my first story from Vanya's POV? I think so! XD I was listening to Glee's "I Feel Pretty/Unpretty" which is one of my favorite songs they've done, and I love the two original songs too. I could picture Nika and Lara (who you met extensively in "Ma Famille"), since they're both unconventional beauties like their grandfather. And then I thought of this.

Also sorry for not posting in a couple of days. School man, you have to like go places and I'm always like "why am I in class at 22h00?" and the clock says it's just 16h00. But it did snow yesterday, so that was a pretty Shabbos.

I Feel Pretty

"What's wrong?" Ivan asks as he comes to stand beside the older of his girls outside the door. Nika is probably the one he is closest too, since she is the most interested in Russian studies. In her face and in her eyes Ivan can always see so much of himself reflected back: the light blond hair, the near-purple eyes, the distinctive hooked nose, the fragile but strong complexion. Even in her sadness Nika is one of the most beautiful women Ivan Braginski has ever seen. The sixteen-year-old smiles bittersweetly at her grandfather.

"Lara locked herself in and won't come out," she pleads in a calm but panicked voice. She learned that voice from her mother, Ivan knows, and his little Anya in turn had learned it from him. "Please, Déduška, I don't know what to-" A kiss to the forehead silences the French granddaughter.

"Go, Nika," he whispers in her ear. "Tell your mother, I will deal with Lara." Against his skin she nods before heading back down the hall to find Anya.

Now alone in the hallway, facing the door, there is no more Ivan Braginski, the Russian Federation. There is only Vanya, the adoring grandfather who is left to solve all problems, whether it be his eldest grandson's gun jamming, the youngest grandson's crayon breaking, the older granddaughter's Russian essay needing a second set of eyes, or the younger granddaughter locking herself in the bathroom.

He could do this. He'd survived famine and full-scale war and Stalin. Vanya could do this.

"Lara-" he starts hopefully, only to be cut off immediately.

"Go away!"

"Lara," Vanya tries again.

"No, Déduška!"

"What's wrong?"

"Everything!"

The Russian sighs. "Let's start with one thing first."

There's the sound of shifting in the bathroom; it's something. "I don't want to go."

That's surprising. Vanya's son-in-law had managed to get tickets to the book-release party of Lara's favorite author, and considering the girl normally preferred science textbooks to fiction, everyone had thought it would be the perfect fifteenth birthday present for a father and daughter to share in.

Before the girl had, of course, locked herself in the bathroom.

"Lara," Vanya sighs, "we both know that isn't true. You do want to go. Something is holding you back."

Nothing.

"I understand that, you know I do. That disconnect between what you want to do and what the world tries to make you do, what the world tells you you must do, as if they have a clue-"

"Déduška?" a timid voice interrupts. Her voice is just on the other side of the door.

"Yes Lara?" he smiles hopefully.

"Do you think I'm pretty Déduška?"

Nika looks like Vanya, but Lara looks like his Erzsi: her hair is not nearly as dark as her Hungarian grandmother's, but it is darker than his; her nose is straight, cute, like the female nations; and her eyes shine green like both her mother's and her mother's mother's do. They're the most beautiful eyes in the world, in one of the most beautiful French girls he has ever seen.

"Am I pretty Déduška?" Lara's voice asks again through the door.

"Yes," he says without hesitation. "Larisa Elizabeta, you are so beautiful, inside and out, and your beauty gives my life so much delight. You march to a different beat and your soul shines through your eyes and you are so pretty, my sweet little sunflower, so very, very pretty."

Silence follows before there's the gentle click of the lock being undone, the doorknob being turned. Just a sliver of her face pokes through. "At school today they called me ugly," Lara moans, tears starting immediately.

Vanya knows that Anya had had a hard time adjusting to school, that she had been mocked for being from the Soviet Union, for having a traditional Russian name, for speaking Hungarian and German. It broke Vanya's heart to hear Francis and his daughter retell the stories of nights where she only wanted her father's arms to encircle her, holding her close and promising to take all the pain away because surely, surely Vanya could make it stop. Surely no one would mess with him, with Russia, with his family.

And so all Vanya does is to step forward and embrace the crying girl, holding her shaking body to his chest and kissing her forehead as he had her sister. He waits for the hiccuping to stop, for the grabbing at his shirt to lessen and the tears to slow down, before speaking.

"You know what I think of the ones who called you ugly? That they're the ugly ones. Ugly people cannot see beauty Lara," he whispers, holding his granddaughter's face in his hands. "Only those pretty on the inside can see what is really pretty on the outside."

"Lara!" a voice calls out from the distance, the door closing behind her just-returned-home father. "You almost ready?"

The girl swallows, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "Oui, Papa! I just need another moment."

The Russian smiles down at the teenager, one thumb stroking a cheek. "Tell me all about it when you return?" She smiles a little.

"Of course Déduška. Thank you." Her thin arms wrap around his expansive chest, holding him tight.

"No problem, my little sunflower. Now give me a kiss and get going." Obediently the girl does as she's told before moving down the hall, scooting pass whoever is on the other end.

"Good job," Erzsi whispers as she approaches. Vanya shrugs.

"Women," he murmurs. "Always needing to be talked down from the ledge." She slaps his chest playfully before standing beside him.

"You know," the Hungarian whispers, "you've always been beautiful too, in your own way."

"Are you implying something Erzsi?" he jokes, wary of how close to home his lover's comments hit and just how well she knows the Russian, much better than he's ever let another.

"Just that I wonder when they'll realize you understand their problem, with seeing beauty in themselves, because you have that problem too."

The Russian shrugs. "They have me, and I have you."

"That you do, my beautiful Russian sunflower," Erzsi laughs, the front door opening and closing once more as father and daughter set off. "That you do."