A. N.: I know I've been starting a lot of new stuff and should focus more on finishing things, but I couldn't resist writing this out. The concept just wouldn't leave me alone. Credit where credit is due, I first got the beginnings of this idea from ivyrobinson's "I Loathed You First" on AO3. I don't think my story is actually similar to that one at all, but their worldbuilding is what triggered this idea in my brain, so I had to offer some gratitude here. Also, just a heads up, be prepared for some surprises with characters and their relationships. You'll start seeing what I mean pretty soon, but there are a few more twists to come.
Crossing a Bridge
When Anya reached the bridge in the capital of New Russia – really just Russia, now that the lost region called itself the Soviet Union – she collapsed. For the first time in months, she just let herself cry – not in fear as she woke from a nightmare or frustration as she collected insufficient wages but in relief.
It was her first clear memory of feeling safe. She hoped the earlier ones would become clear soon.
It was late, so she rented a room with the last of the money from the diamond she'd sold to fund her trek across the continent.
Medicines, Nastya, a woman's voice whispered in her mind. She was pretty sure that was her mother. She was pretty sure about a lot of things these days.
She cleaned herself up and got a good night's sleep – only one nightmare.
Can I tell you a secret? A little boy's voice haunted her slumber. I'm going to die soon. We all are.
It came with a name this time – Alexei.
In the morning, she marched up to the palace and demanded an audience with the tsarina, Maria Feodorovna. The old woman was tough as nails. She'd left her haven in Paris to head the new state, breaking off from the revolutionary segment of the Motherland, after hearing of her family's slaughter. It was a refuge, she'd claimed in the papers, for those who needed the sanctuary her family hadn't gotten.
Anya wasn't so sure how genuine that promise was when the guards snorted and refused to budge. But, she reminded herself, she certainly wasn't the first young woman to march up to the royal gates claiming to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia. She could understand a bit of trepidation from what was, empress or not, an old woman with a broken heart. But, she wouldn't back down. She calmly informed the guards that she wouldn't leave until she got her audience. And she didn't.
It took two days, but the stubborn old tsarina finally met her in a sitting room.
"I think history demands we play this game to the end," she said bitterly. The way she held herself made even her frail frame seem imposing.
"I didn't think you'd be so cruel," Anya said.
"I'm old and impatient. Kindness has become a luxury."
"My Nanna was the most loving woman imaginable."
"That was before they murdered everyone she loved."
"Maybe not everyone," Anya said firmly, projecting more confidence than she felt. Then, at a loss under the weight of the empress's gaze, she tried to remember some detail that might connect the shadowy Nanna of her memories to the sharp woman before her.
"Her bosom smelled like oranges when she hugged me."
"A common enough scent," the Tsarina scoffed.
Anya's blood boiled. Broken-hearted old woman or not, tired of imposters or not, she had no reason to be so dismissive. She wasn't the only one who'd lost a family. And Anya wasn't stupid enough to offer an unimportant detail.
"Not hers. It came from Sicily, made especially for her in a box of polished olive wood."
"Who was my favorite lady in waiting?" Maria's voice gave nothing away, but Anya supposed that the continued catechism was a good sign.
"You didn't have one. You kept dismissing them."
"It was a trick question," the tsarina admitted. "You're clever, I grant you that." She leaned forward, almost squinting down the bridge of her narrow nose.
"I'm trying to see the resemblance," she explained. "I don't trust my eyes."
"You should wear spectacles," Anya offered reflexively. Her hand flew to her mouth as the empress practically flinched at the audacity of her suggestion. "I'm sorry."
The old woman's shock was not long-lived.
"Name the three-"
"Why don't you want me to be her?"
Anya had tried to be polite, but she couldn't help blurting it out – not when it was so obvious.
"I have found solace in my bitterness. It doesn't disappoint me. You 'Anastasias' always do."
It was the closest Anya had felt to the old woman, the first time she'd felt something resembling the kinship that she shared with the half-forgotten Nanna of her past. After all, disappointment was something she understood. Family or not, they were linked in this.
"If you give me a chance," she said gently, "maybe I won't."
Her words hung hopefully in the silence for a moment before the tsarina retreated back behind her walls of ice.
"I don't believe Anastasia exists."
"You don't want to believe it," Anya said.
"What was your mother's full title as empress of all Russia?"
"Aren't we beyond this?"
All of the questions in the world wouldn't convince this woman of something she refused to believe.
"Her Imperial Majesty, the empress of all Russia-"
"She was Mama to me!"
"Alexandra-"
"She was Mama to all of us!"
Maria considered her for a moment while she breathed heavily, fighting back the red flush creeping across her cheeks and down her neck.
"You almost seem to believe that."
"I believe it with all my heart. But, I can't be her unless you recognize me."
"You can't be anyone unless you first recognize yourself."
"I know," Anya said, her voice thick with frustration. Didn't this woman understand that was what she was trying to do? She'd approached the empress first because she was the most likely fit with her broken memories. She needed to know if she really was Anastasia, or if there was a different family she was supposed to be looking for, or if she was just too late and needed to accept that she was alone. She couldn't acknowledge herself without Maria's help. And, that help was not forthcoming.
"Do you know what it means to lose everything, young woman? My son, his children, everything I loved and held dear with all my heart, all lost and gone in one terrible moment, and for what? The 'good of Russia.' I'll ask you one last time, young woman. Be very careful what you answer. Who are you?"
"I don't know," Anya admitted. "Who are you?" she demanded, trying to give the old woman a taste of her frustration at the impossible question.
"An old woman who remembers everything the way it should have been and nothing the way it was," Maria says, softening unexpectedly. "I am unreliable. I am a historian of the heart. I want this fearful journey to be over!"
The question seemed easy for her, and Anya wanted to be angry, to exclaim that it wasn't fair she didn't know who she was when everyone else did. But, she couldn't feel anything but sympathy. She had one last puzzle piece to offer. If it fit, perhaps it would finally be enough to touch the gradually thawing empress. If not, it might at least give them both some closure.
Impulsively, Anya grasped the old woman's hand.
After all, mine or not, she's still a grandmother. She deserves some peace.
"Do you remember the last time you saw Anastasia?"
"Oh, I didn't know it was the last time! We never do. We never know which goodbye is our last."
"You were leaving for Paris. You never came back. You gave her a music box. I believe this was it."
Anya reached into her coat and pulled out the elaborate little box, the only valuable thing that had made the entire trek to New Russia with her.
The grandmother gasped in recognition.
"You kept it all this time?"
"No," Anya said, determined not to mislead her. "I found it in a market in Petersburg- Leningrad. It seemed familiar, so I bought it. The vendor said it was Romanov…That's what first made me think I might find myself here."
She twisted the mechanism, opening the box and swaying with the misty-eyed empress to the familiar tune. She couldn't resist embracing the one memory that was clear as crystal. So, she sang.
Far away, long ago, glowing dim as an ember…
She lost her voice when the empress joined in. Suspecting their relationship was one thing. Hearing it confirmed…
Things my heart used to know…
Anya blinked back the tears in her eyes as they finished together, just like they used to.
Once upon a December…
The music box fell silent as the women closed it, suddenly realizing they'd both clasped their hands around it – around each other.
"I said I'd come visit you," Anya said, and her Nanna laughed.
"What took you so long?"
"It doesn't matter. I'm here with you."
"Anastasia," Maria said, and Anya recognized the warmth of her Nanna's loving voice.
"Orange blossoms!" she noted as they embraced.
For the first time since she could remember, she was home.
A few weeks after the rumors of a new Anastasia swept through the New Russian capital, a young man found himself pacing impatiently as he waited for his stepfather to return from court. Finally, the older man walked in the door, and his stepson greeted him hurriedly.
"Vlad! How did it go?"
"Dimitri, my boy! Since when do you care about politics?"
Count Popov tried to project his usual good humor, but it was a little dimmed after the events of the morning.
"I don't," Dimitri said a little too quickly.
There really was no cause for excitement. It was hardly the first time a young woman had approached the empress, claiming to be the lost princess Anastasia. But, it was the first time Maria Feodorovna had presented one to court as the real thing. Parliament had spent the morning testing the girl to verify the empress's claims.
"It's just the novelty, is all. Do they really think it's her?"
"She passed all the tests," Vlad hedged. "It's...unlikely that the girl is somehow deceiving the tsarina."
His tone held a hint of skepticism, and he held himself stiffly. Dimitri stared at his carefully guarded expression, trying to put the pieces together.
"What, you mean you think she's in on it?"
Vlad shrugged noncommittally, glancing around as if to ensure they were alone. Stepping closer to his stepson, he lowered his voice and confided his suspicions.
"I mean, the empress's age is no secret. She must be thinking of the succession by now, and why not choose an heir she finds...tractable? The girl claims to have amnesia...A blank slate, so to speak, not to mention a convenient excuse for any prior knowledge that happens to be absent."
Dimitri nodded absentmindedly. Politically speaking, he could see the advantage, but still...Passing off some girl as your dead granddaughter just so you could use her in a sick, parliamentary game seemed sordid, to say the least. It was the sort of thing he'd expect to see in the back alleys of Petersburg.
"Damn," he finally said. "I thought royalty was supposed to be above that sort of thing."
Vlad put a warm hand on his shoulder.
"Perhaps they are, after all. We'll have to wait and see."