Many thanks goes to ladygris for beta'ing so very nicely. We've officially finished off editing all previous chapters, so it's forwards from here!

Loving the support, guys.

-XXX-

Later the words come. Slips of truth, spoken in the dead of night in the stale air of the musty barn, voices muffled by hay and emotion. No specifics – nothing more than vague statements. But with those statements come knowing looks, shared with gleaming eyes.

America. She feels out of place, even though he was the foreigner. She'd rarely had assignments away from the Mother Country. He strikes her as cultured, knowledgeable in a way beyond his years. In his allusions, Natasha gathers him to be rather worldly, well-traversed in travel and cultures. He'd been more of his own person than she, a victim of the Red Room, could ever be.

They speak of the concept of ledgers, like tallying their crimes. For the first time, she relates her ill feelings, the dread that came with the snapping of bones and blossoms of blood. Someoneunderstands. Maxim sits and nods as she shares snippets of memory, voice dull, narrative halting. She's taken the lives of many. Yet, the discomfort of that knowledge remains with her; it does not sit well.

Maxim has a quieter discomfort, but one present nonetheless. He is not enslaved to his employers – his missions are rarely against his liking. According to the hints of stories he shares, the lives he takes are not motivated by greed, revenge, or mere anger, but by a want to protect the world, save people…"one for one hundred," he says, half-smiling in the soft evening light. Natasha gives a slip of a smile back. The thought is a nicer one. And it leaves her unsettled. The lives she has taken, corrupt or not, the situation has seemed more "one hundred for one," when it came to motivation.

She wonders what it must feel like to relatively trust those who you work for. To know that someone is benefiting from your slowly fading morals. Natasha cannot imagine such an arrangement. Handlers…they are not concerned with you. Merely the job. And your worth as an agent.

Maxim speaks on great length of his handler – a fellow who is sharp, but caring. The type who could do paperwork in his sleep. Witty. Personable. He isn't a pile of stones, impassive and coarse.

Natasha's experience with handlers merely has no comparison. It leads to a great deal of reflection. She knew the job was horrid, was more than glad to get out alive, and she'd never had plans to enter into the field as an agent ever again. She is done with that life.

And yet…she has no other skill set. The bakery is working out, yes. But, she acknowledges that the village will not hold her forever. Once she has found strength and peace, she will likely move on.

But to what? And where?

-XXX-

What follows the revelation is a peace. A new season blossoms forth, tentative as any Russian spring. Natalia greets the tender green buds and flowers with a gentleness neither Inga nor Clint anticipated. Only Clint takes into account her years separate from the simple pleasures of the world – one whose lifestyle is centered around the Red Room doesn't have much time for admiring flowers. So, as they walk to and fro between the bakery and Demyan's farm, he doesn't comment on the frequent pauses to observe a flower or passing butterfly, the sweep of a hand to caress fresh green leaves.

Sometimes, she lifts her head, tossing back her plait, rolling her shoulders back, face to the sun like the petals of one of the blooms she so loves. Natalia absorbs sunlight. Her pale flesh gleams, lips slightly part as she closes her eyes. It is quite a sight.

He laughs at her, teases her by calling her a sloth. Natalia bats at him lazily before releasing her mane from its plait to toss it roughly before she closes her eyes. Without a doubt, spring is the best feeling. The air is no longer cool enough to hurt her lungs. Her feet do not freeze. She can feel soft grass beneath her boot, watch a flutter of sunlight as it breaks through the leaves of the forest, smell mist seep into her room each morn. Natasha loves spring.

"It's a new beginning," she tells Maxim one day, seriously. "Rebirth. Dawn."

"Yes," he agrees. "What shall you do with it?"

She doesn't know. Instead, she bites her lip, half-smiling. Beside her, pulling up tuffs of grass to toss into the breeze, Maxim grins back.

Oh yes, she most definitely loves springtime.

-XXX-

Reviews would be lovely...just a few words below, please. Questions, comments, concerns, etc.

Also, if you're on Twitter or Tumblr and you're interested, check me out!