Valya slipped out of Sasha's unit at noon the next day. The full briefing wasn't for a few hours and her regular shift began at four, but she was itching to do something, anything. She placed a light kiss on Sasha's forehead and left.

His unit was small: just a studio on the ground level of a building three shipping containers high. Family units often had kitchens and play rooms, but those who lived alone in the barracks ate in the dining hall. Unity was Corinth's number one concern.

She treaded lightly in the street outside Sasha's unit, not wanting to draw attention to herself. It was the middle of the day, which meant that everyone was either at day-shifts, sleeping, or at school. The school in Corinth was small, but they had around thirty students spanning the ages of two to eighteen. Children entering Corinth were rare, but couples had them all the time. The trainee classes for combat were much larger, as any adult who wished to work for Corinth in the combat sector had to go through them. All in all, the population of Corinth neared five hundred.

She found two members of the team in the gym, training together using the punching bags on the far end by the wall. Gin's hair was tied up in a ponytail, but her dark curls still cascaded down her back. Valya guessed that she hadn't had a haircut in years, but it didn't seem to stop her as she directed Pollock, who was going through a boxing sequence with the bag.

"Open your elbow more!" Gin shouted as she held the bag still. Pollock was strong, and she grunted as he landed a right hook. "Don't focus on strength, focus on technique."

Valya put her things down on the bench next to where Gin and Pollock were practicing. There was a small group of trainees doing drills on the other side of the gym, but otherwise it was empty.

"The briefing's not for hours, brat," Pollock said to her. His eyes were still focused in on the punching bag, but he'd obviously noticed her come in. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to get some training in before I go to work, same as you," Valya said. She pulled a pair of hand wraps out of her bag and began taping her fingers up. "And stop calling me brat. You're the second-in-command, Pollock. Maybe act like it sometime."

Pollock cracked a smile. "The day I stop calling you brat is the day you stop being the offspring of Stasla Belikova. You are your mother's daughter, after all."

"Pollock," Gin called from behind the punching bag. "Hush."

"You seem to really have it out for my mom," Valya said. She pushed her bag underneath the bench. "Makes me wonder why you're even on the team at all."

"I've been wondering the same thing about you," Pollock said offhandedly, as if he was talking to her in line at the supermarket. "And I like your mom just fine. She's my favorite superior officer to work with."

"You could have fooled me." Valya went to another punching bag and hung it from the ceiling. She stabilized it before beginning a short warmup.

"I heard you're pretty easy to fool." Pollock continued training, sweat dripping from his face. "That delinquent boyfriend of yours still has you on a leash despite the blood on his hands. Who knows, maybe his next victim will be you."

Valya stopped her warm-up to stare at the sheer audacity he had to say that aloud. "You know what? Fuck you."

Gin set the punching bag down with a large bang and let it slump to the floor. "Jesus Christ, Pollock. Let the girl live. If you're going to be this awful to the team, I'm going to report you to HR. Again."

Pollock leveled a glare at her. "You promised to train with me."

"Not if you're going to be a dick," Gin retorted. She turned her back to him and crossed her arms over her chest. "This is Omaha all over again."

Valya snorted.

"Don't be like that," Pollock said. He laid a hand on her shoulder, then glanced to Valya, who was watching the entire scene unfold with an amused expression. "Get out of here, kid. We're not dinner theatre."

"Hey," Valya said, her hands on the punching bag. "I'm just here to train."

Pollock glowered at her.

"Go back to your unit," Gin told him. "You're being an asshole and you need to walk it off before the briefing today. You don't want to upset Stasla by cussing out her own daughter, do you?"

It seemed to take a few moments for her words to compute in Pollock's mind, but he looked at Valya as if there was something she didn't know. Valya knew there had to be a reason why he didn't like her, and it wasn't just because she was the daughter of Corinth's leader; no, there was something else beneath the surface that she could tell he wanted to say. Valya wasn't one for making enemies- Corinth was a fishbowl after all.

"I'll see you later," Pollock said with some difficulty as he walked out of the gym.

"Yikes," Valya said when he was gone. "Is he always so...?"

"Grumpy?" Gin finished. "No. He's usually a great guy to work with, but after he got back from the Pennsylvania mission a month ago, he's been a little off."

"Why? I thought that was just a simple kill mission on a Strigoi nest." Valya knitted her eyebrows together.

"I guess not. The details have been classified." Gin shrugged and moved to hold the punching bag in place. "Want some help? I'm pretty good at spotting mistakes."

Valya didn't want to ruminate on what that meant; missions were classified all of the time. Most missions never even saw the light of day anyway, but Pennsylvania was a sore topic for some people inside Corinth. For those scorned by Court, it was somewhere no one wanted to returned to. Gin was being nice to her, and with the current lineup of the team including both Pollock and her mother, who didn't seem inclined to do Valya any favors at the moment, she wanted to take advantage of a budding friendship

Valya put her arms up. "Let's go."

Valya exited the briefing with another thick packet of information she needed to study that evening, but wasn't planning on doing until they were on the plane towards Moscow. Tonight was her normally scheduled date night with Sasha: a quiet affair that was dinner and a movie at best, sitting on the roof of Corinth and taking potshots at the trees with pebbles at worst.

She couldn't imagine getting ready at her own house, the unit she shared with her mother that felt impossibly small every time she thought about returning to share the space with her. Rose had barely made eye-contact with Valya the entire briefing, but Valya wasn't going to seek her out for reconciliation; that wasn't her style. Rose had to apologize first because she was the one who had done something wrong

"Ready for the mission?" Gin asked as they left Level Four. Pollock was on her right, his jaw clenched.

Valya shook her head. "I need to go pack. I've never even left this continent before, let alone gone to Russia."

"The homeland," Gin said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. With her dark skin and eyes, she was most likely of Indian descent, but most Moroi and dhampirs considered Russia to be a gathering place for their kind, despite Court being based in America.

"Well, at least all of those Russian lessons in school will begin to pay off," Valya said. "I might even get to use kuritsa in a conversation."

"Chicken?" Gin raised an eyebrow.

"Kuritsa!" Hershey exclaimed from further down the hallway.

Valya grinned at her, then turned back to Gin. "It was an old joke from Russian class. We were studying animals and chicken became like a rallying cry. To be honest, it's the Russian word I remember with the most clarity."

Gin scoffed and shook her head. "Everyone from your year group sounds like they were a handful."

"They were," said Rose as she came up behind them. "A bear to teach, each and every one of them."

"Stasla," Gin inclined her head in respect.

Valya chose a spot to look at on the wall rather than lock eyes with her mother.

"Hey Gin, can I talk to my daughter for a second?" Rose gave Gin a warm smile.

Valya licked her lips, uncomfortable in the knowledge that she'd be getting a starn talking-to from her own mother at the age of twenty-three. She knew she'd said some awful things to her after the meeting yesterday, but in her mind they were justified. Her mother never understood that she didn't want handouts just because of who she was related to. It'd happened too often when she was a child, but she'd never realized it: extra sweets when the transportation team arrived back with food, days off from lessons when Rose was back from a mission for more than a split-second, afternoons out in the fields beyond Corinth's walls where the grass grew higher than her head. She'd lived the charmed life as a child, but when she entered high school she realized that her classmates resented her.

Valya loved her mother with all of her head, but she was still a pain in her ass.

"Yes?" she said with a huff as Gin walked away.

"Let's walk and talk," Rose said. She linked her arm through her daughter's. "How did I do in the briefing? Commanding enough?"

Valya fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Sure."

"I bet you're excited to go on the mission, right?" Rose elbowed her lightly in the ribs. She tilted her head to make eye contact with Valya. "Russia is where your father grew up."

"Well he's not there now," she replied. Valya felt a pang in her stomach at the thought of her father. For all of the stories and grand tales of his adventures, she still didn't know how to feel about him.

"Valya, talk to me," Rose said. She stopped in the hallway and turned to look at Valya. "What is going on with you? I know you're angry about the mission, but-"

"No, you don't know. That's the problem!" Valya glared at Rose. "You signed me up for this mission like it's some kind of birthday gift to go hunt Strigoi without even asking me if I was comfortable with it. With working with you. Your help is the last thing I need right now!"

"Valya..." Rose said in a warning tone.

"People already think I'm a spoiled brat," Valya shot back. "Pollock brings it up every chance he gets. He's an asshole, but he's right. I might as well have a fucking crown on my head for being related to you: Stasla Belikova, the perfect princess of Corinth. Do you know how awful it is to be living under your own mother's shadow your entire life?"

Rose pressed her lips into a thin line. "Valentina. You're not a spoiled brat; never have been, never will be. You're worthy of being picked, you have to believe me on this one. The mission is one you've been assigned to, which means you need to do your job or you'll be working in agriculture with Sasha before you know it."

Valya cast a glance down at her shoes. She mumbled, "That doesn't sound so bad."

"You hate dirt," Rose pointed out. "You wouldn't last three minutes."

"Well, at least I'd be able to work with people who actually want me there," Valya replied.

Rose's face softened. "We want you here. Pollock might be a dick, but he needs you just as much as I do. I will always need my baby girl. You understand?"

Valya shrugged, but kept her eyes on the toes of her boots.

"And I'm sorry," Rose finally conceded.

Vayla's head shot up. "What?"

"I should have asked you before appointing you to the team," Rose ran her thumb over Valya's cheek. "You always were a stubborn one; just like your father."

"Alright, I accept your apology." Valya rolled her eyes. "Now stop getting sappy on me."

"That's not nearly as sappy as I can get, Valentina Dimitrovna." She said Dimitri's patronymic with a loving sigh. Rose pulled Valya in for a hug. "He'd be so proud of you."

Valya stiffened for a moment, then returned the gesture, her chin tucked into the crook of Rose's neck. "Thanks, Mom."

They separated. Rose patted Valya's shoulder. "Don't mention it. Now, go take a shower. You stink."

Valya scoffed in indignation. Rose smiled, the corners of her eyes creased with worry. They walked back to their unit arm-in-arm.

Rose heard a knock on the door of her unit half an hour before dinner was scheduled to take place for those on daylight shifts. She opened it to reveal Sasha, who was dressed nicely in a borrowed navy blue suit jacket and a flannel button-down. He held a white rosebud in one hand.

"Evening Stasla," Sasha said. He nodded his head respectfully.

Rose was confused for a moment before remembering what day of the week it was- date night. She stood on the tip of her toes to embrace him. "Hey Sasha. Come on in."

Sasha entered their unit with a deliberate and imposing grace, his head brushing the top of the unit's metal ceiling. It wasn't a large front room, but it definitely felt lived in. The door to Valya's room was covered in various pieces of coloured paper that formed her name in a mosaic. Rose's room simply said Mama in messy Cyrillic.

"She'll be out in just a second," Rose said. She folded a clean shirt that had been drying on the rack next to their modest kitchenette. She couldn't remember if it was her shirt or Valya's, but that didn't seem to matter much anymore since Valya had grown up. They were both the same size, even if Valya was a few inches taller.

"I came early on purpose this time," Sasha said with a bashful grin. He leaned up against the edge of the kitchen table, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "If there's one thing I know, Valya likes to take her time."

Valya was notorious in how long it took her to get ready to go anywhere appearances were important, but Rose thought it was nice that she insisted on having date nights with Sasha. After living in Corinth for so long, it was easy to fall into a routine that you couldn't pull yourself out of. She'd never experienced the spontaneity of the normal world, but Rose still thought that was for the better. Spontaneity got people killed.

"Did you have a nice shift today?" Rose asked. "The vegetables at lunch yesterday tasted very fresh. I'm guessing the harvest went well.

"Yeah." Sasha nodded enthusiastically. "The carrots are almost ready. The older earth users have found a way to speed up the growing process without any side-effects, so we can grow them in only a week now. The soil is having some trouble replenishing itself, but I'm sure we can fix that."

"Cool," Rose replied. "I hope it will mean less trips to the city. We already spend so much money as it is."

Rose had been Sasha's number one fan when Valya had become his friend back when she was barely high enough to reach Josiah's knee. He was a vibrant and studious young man, with good discipline when he sparred during training; he'd even pulled one over on Rose once. Ever since his mission six months ago and the subsequent demotion she'd stuck by him, but their relationship was tainted by his mistake.

"I just wanted to say-" Sasha began, but was cut off by the door to Valya's room opening.

"I'm ready!" Valya proclaimed. She was wearing one of Rose's old dresses that she'd gotten on a mission in Nevada and a sparkly cardigan that had most likely been purchased at a thrift shop while Valya had free time on missions. It was a strange mishmash of colours and textures, but civilian clothing was scarce at Corinth: it was usually only children that had anything normal and even that was recycled for younger generations once one outgrew it.

Sasha pulled Valya close and whispered in her ear. "You look beautiful, Valechka."

A smile tugged at the edge of Rose's lips.

"Oh shush." Valya slapped the lapel of his jacket lightly and laughed. She grabbed his hand. "Let's go!"

"Thank you, Stasla," Sasha said in earnest. "I'll have her back by-"

"Back by eleven, don't go outside Corinth, don't go into restricted sections, don't get into any trouble," Valya finished hurriedly. She leaned over and kissed Rose on the cheek, her hand grasping Sasha's tightly. "We've got it, Mom. Chill."

"I will never chill as long as you live in my house, Valya!" Rose called after them. Valya made a face as she closed the door.

Minutes later, Rose's comm, a cross between a pager and a walkie-talkie, buzzed with an incoming message. She bent down to pick it off the counter and pressed the button on the side.

"Go for Stasla," she said.

"Hello most-esteemed Stasla," came Josiah's voice through the speakers. "The fox and the hen have flown the coop. I repeat: the fox and the hen have flown the coop."

Rose cracked a smile. "Stop stalking them, Jo. It's weird."

"Negative, Stasla," Josiah replied, mirth in his voice. "Report to the roof of your sector for a good time. I have beer and Adam."

"Oh? He hasn't divorced you yet?" Rose replied. "Pity."

"Get your ass up here, Rose. We're partying."

Rose rolled her eyes. "I'm coming. Keep your pants on."

Ten minutes later, Rose had found a way to finagle herself onto the roof of the stacked shipping containers. One container wasn't too hard for her, but most makeshift buildings within Corinth were stacked three high and the stairs stopped at the topmost unit. She rolled over onto the roof, where Josiah and his husband Adam were sitting in lawn chairs, a cooler between them.

"I am not young enough to do that anymore," Rose said as she clamored to her feet.

"You're not young enough for a lot of things anymore," Adam quipped. He handed her a beer from the cooler.

Adam was the sort of person whose personality made it feel as if he was taller than he was; in actuality, Rose towered a good four inches over him. He had dark, coiled hair cut close to his scalp and skin the colour of dark earth, marred only by a glittering Alchemist tattoo on his left cheek.

When Rose had first met Adam, she taught him how to break the seal on the tattoo using tips she'd picked up from Sydney. Although the Alchemists had believed Adam to be missing for several years after he disappeared while stationed in rural Minnesota, he'd still wanted to be free of the tattoo.

"Val's boy toy has some moves," Josiah said from his perch. He was wearing sunglasses indoors, despite the fact that the lights were dimmed to reflect the sun going down outside.

"And I'm sure she'd really appreciate you calling him her 'boy toy.'" Rose made air quotes and sat down in the space behind the cooler, but between Josiah and Adam's chairs. "Has watching their date night become a spectator sport now?"

Josiah shrugged. "We don't get cable. Popcorn?"

"You've gotta be shitting me," Rose said in disbelief. Josiah produced a pag of pre-popped popcorn, like the kind you'd buy at a gas station.

"I would never shit you, Stasla," Josiah said.

"I can corroborate that statement," Adam added. "He doesn't shit his closest friends."

"Duly noted," Rose said, facing the popcorn with child-like glee. She dug in, her hands quickly coated in a light dusting of white cheddar powder. "So what have the lovebirds been up to since they left my house?"

"Well, they walked to his house," Josiah said with a sardonic edge to his voice. "Then he led her to the roof of his sector- which she didn't have any trouble navigating in heels, I might add- where he'd set up a picnic complete with candles and rose petals."

Rose looked into the distance, where she could make out Valya and Sasha sitting on a patterned blanket, two plates of food between them. Rose knew Sasha would have made more if he'd been able to, but rations were pretty tight at Corinth when it came to internal food, and Sasha wasn't allowed out on missions anymore. Most Cadets got luxuries when they'd finished their assignments, but Sasha was an exception. He simply wasn't allowed.

Rose shivered thinking about the contents of his file. For all of his niceties, he was a dangerous individual.

Not unlike you, she reminded herself. People deserve second chances.

Still, she balked at the idea of Sasha, a boy who was like a son to her, going down such a dark path. She'd been the one to go over the case when he was dragged back to Corinth covered in the blood of a civilian. The feeling afterwards was like the sensation of someone in a family doing something incredibly awful, but they still love them regardless. The only difference being that to Sasha, Rose was both the judge and the juror.

"I don't trust him," Adam said as he looked through the binoculars. "He's a shady kid."

"He's hardly a kid, Adam," Rose pointed out. "He's twenty-five. And Valya loves him, so keep those suspicions to yourself."

Adam sighed. "You can't tell me he doesn't put you on edge too."

Rose shrugged. "I've known him his entire life. He's not some monster."

"Doesn't mean I can't be suspicious." Adam leaned over and took a handful of Rose's popcorn.

"It means you have to be civil around him." She jerked the bag of popcorn away. "And keep your damn hands off my popcorn!"

"Let the girl have her fun," Josiah said. "From what I've heard of the Pennsylvania mission, she won't be having it for much longer."

"Yeah," Rose sighed, her stare drifting off into the distance where the pair were busy eating their dinner. After returning from Pennsylvania a week ago, her idyllic life with her daughter didn't seem so whole anymore.

Sasha used the small amount of fire magic he could muster to light the candles and Valya said something to him, fork poised in her hand. He shook his head just as she tried to force feed him what looked to be sauerkraut.

"They make a cute couple," Rose said. She smiled, thinking that Valya had found someone. It took a bit of pressure off of her.

"Yeah, you didn't have to deal with them in your trainee class," Josiah said. "When I took over from Masha because she was having her baby I had to deal with those two idiots falling over each other to get to the nearest supply closet."

Rose clapped her hands against her ears. "I really didn't need to hear that."

"It's true," Josiah replied, prying Rose's hands away. "And I caught them every time."

Rose shot him a glare.

Adam tapped Rose's shoulder. "Look, something's happening."

All three whipped their heads around to look at Sasha, who was reaching into the pocket of his coat for something. Rose gasped.

"Is he going to propose?" Josiah asked, on the edge of his seat.

"He can't do that! He needs to ask me first," Rose said.

"Excuse you, Stasla," Adam said. "I think he needs to ask us. We're her fathers, after all."

"Oh shut up," Rose slapped his knee lightly.

They watched Valya and Sasha with rapt attention as the object Sasha was retrieving turned out to be just another rosebud, identical to the one he'd given her when he'd arrived at Rose's unit half an hour earlier. He use his powers to make it bloom. They slumped back into their chairs, deflated.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Rose said, her hand in the bag of popcorn.

"Did you want him to propose?" Adam asked. He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

She shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth. "No."

"They've been together for four years; there's no reason why he wouldn't have asked her to marry him yet," Josiah said.

"She's still so young!" Rose exclaimed. "And it's not like no one knows they're together already."

"Valya is as old as you were when you got married, and you were with your one true love since you were seventeen," Josiah pointed out. "And he was significantly older than you, if I recall correctly."

Rose slid down on the roof of the shipping container to the point where she was practically lying on the floor, her eyes looking up at the ceiling of the warehouse Corinth was contained in. Her feelings for Dimitri never wavered, even after all of the years apart. She sighed, her hand still buried in the open bag of popcorn.

"You still love him, don't you?" Josiah asked softly.

"Every day," Rose said without thinking.

"Is he going to be involved in the aftereffects of Pennsylvania?" Adam asked.

Rose pressed her lips into a thin, hard line. "Not if I can help it."

"I'm impressed," Valya said as she looked down at the dinner Sasha had prepared. "I never knew there were so many ways to cook a cabbage."

Sasha wrinkled his nose. "It's better than last week when you endeavored to steal chocolate from the dining hall kitchen and were caught."

Valya leaned over him, their noses almost touching. She grinned. "Live on the wild side, Aleksandr."

Sasha hesitated before going in for a kiss, with half-lidded eyes and a lick of his lips. "Is Colonel Hollis still watching us?"

"Probably," Valya shrugged. She was tantalizingly close to him as they sat on the roof of the shipping container, her arms on either side of his waist. "He's too busy kicking back and drinking beer with Adam and Mom."

Sasha shook his head. "I don't like that they think they have to watch us like that. We're not birds."

"I'm not going to see you for another month," Valya said, impatience edging into her voice. "Can we please talk about anything other than my mother?"

"Like what?" Sasha's voice was suggestive. He played absentmindedly with the hem of her dress.

"Like not talking at all."

Valya leaned forwards and their lips connected in a kiss. It was mere moments before they'd sunken to the ground like teenagers again, desperate to remember everything about the other before an extended time apart. Valya's cardigan quickly went to the wayside, as did Sasha's borrowed sports coat.

In the distance, a disgusted Josiah Hollis covered his and his husband's eyes with an exclamation of, "Aw, fuck."

The next morning, dawn filtered in through the trees outside of Corinth's perimeter. A large black SUV waited to take the team to the airport, where a place was poised to fly them halfway across the world. The rest of the team was packing up the car with equipment they would need to carry out the mission. Valya clenched her hands around the strap of her backpack. She stood on the gravel walkway, frozen. Pollock brushed past her with a sanctimonious glare on his face. She didn't bother returning the gesture.

She looked over one shoulder at the dusty panes of glass that encased the greenhouse. If she squinted, she could pretend that Sasha was there, working amongst the plants for the upcoming harvest. A pang of longing hit her chest.

"You ready?" Rose put her hand on Valya's shoulder. Her eyes were kind and held excitement, but a bit of apprehension as well. Valya wondered why.

"Yeah," Valya said, nodding. She grasped her mother's hand. "Let's go."