From The Ashes Chapter 14: 14: I Won't Tell Them Your Name, a sakura wars fanfic

Rating: PG-13

"FROM THE ASHES" – I Won't Tell Them Your Name

It was difficult to tell what the building had once been with all its oak wood pillars and a balcony that looked like a choir loft of sorts – but it was an Irish pub now, not far from Times Square.

Vincenzo had stayed out of sight the instant he'd seen Joseph Ignazio enter with the Russian girl. They were the only two in the balcony which could not be seen from the street through the windows below. Vincenzo had seen the Russian girl on many occasions – she lived, after all, above his mother's restaurant down in Nolita. Vincenzo's English was passable, but probably no better than hers – and he'd never managed to speak to her. In fact, upon some of his mother's better advice, Vincenzo had managed to seem poorer at English than he truly was whenever Mama Luna's more… 'connected' patrons were in the restaurant. But he was an excellent silent observer.

Several things seemed curious to Vincenzo at the moment. First, neither Joseph nor the girl ever came up to this pub. If they did, surely Vincenzo or one of his Irish buddies who frequent this place would have seen them. Second, what was the boss' nephew doing meeting with the boss' assassin… alone? And third, why did the Russian girl look like she'd just lost everything?

It's lonely where you are. Come back down.

And I won't tell them your name.

Joseph only stayed for a half an hour. He lead the girl back down to the bar, paid for their food and drinks, then laid a hand on her shoulder as if to bolster her courage. The girl was stiff beneath his hand, her expression unchanged, it was still pale and haunted. Joseph left and the girl stayed where she was at the bar, gripping it with both hands as if it were all that kept her from drowning in the cyclonic whirlpool of events rushing around her.

Vincenzo stood from his stool near the windows and started to go to her, but she drew a breath as if she hadn't done so in some time, and turned to go to a dark table in the back corner of the pub, not having noticed someone approaching. Vincenzo exhaled and stayed at the bar where she'd been a moment ago. Now he was torn, now that he had been afforded the opportunity to reconsider by missing his opportunity to speak to her, he wasn't certain he should.

Even though the moment passed me by, I still can't turn away.

And all the dreams you never thought you'd lose got tossed along the way.

She started in surprise when he set a coffee mug in front of her, standing beside her table holding a second mug for himself. She blinked and her brow furrowed as she regarded him. She recognized him, that much he could tell, and she was trying to place his face.

"Vincenzo Luna," he offered, gesturing relatively downtown with his mug, "from the restaurant."

His identity dawned on her and she nodded.

"Would you let me join you?"

His accent was as thickly Italian as hers was Russian, and there were brief pauses after his utterances for her to interpret what he'd said.

"Ah… please," she opened a hand toward the chair across from her and Vincenzo took it.

"And what are you named?" he asked, amicably.

Here, the pause was longer than needed to decipher what he'd said. She was considering the wisdom of sharing this information. Something seemed to convince her that there was no harm in it.

"Maria. Maria Tachibana."

"Tachibana?" Vincenzo had been about to sip his coffee, but instead he set it down. "Japanese?"

Maria chuckled, turning her cup around in her hands and gazing into it. "Is only way how I take after mother. Father's name Dimitrovitch." She gestured to herself, as if to display her semblance, strikingly Russian and barely Japanese.

"Ah," Vincenzo nodded, chuckling. That would have been his only guess. He didn't realize she was half-blooded. Then he said something bold. "You keep… mmm… dangerous company."

Maria's smile fell away and she glanced at the windows as if afraid Joseph might still be there. "And you… know more than I thought." Then she turned back to him, holding his regard with icy green eyes.

"I watch," Vincenzo continued, openly and artlessly. "And for you, ragazza, I worry."

"Everyone who say that to me… is lying."

Vincenzo flinched. "Maria. I have only just now meet you, and I do not have enough words of English to lie yet." His expression was sincere. And Maria's was uncomfortable. For some reason, it seemed to Vincenzo that she was uncomfortable with someone who might NOT be an adversary. Which meant she'd been in one too many fights lately. "I do not need from you anything, and I do not work for Ignazio. Quel'injustizia. I only… you look… like you were alone. Too alone."

You could hide beside me, maybe, for a while.

To break the ice, Vincenzo started. "As for me… I was born in Pavia in 1900. Papa owned a bakery. But as for me, I wanted to be a dancer. Either that or a boxer."

Maria smiled, charmed. "Is two very different…" she gave up finding the word for 'career,' and he knew what she meant anyway.

"Si! But… both need to be very graceful, and I am not. Papa went to God when I was five, his heart stopped beating while he were sleeping."

"I am sorry…" she whispered, sympathetically.

Vincenzo shook his head and waved off the apology. "So, Mama and my two brothers and three sisters come here."

Quickly doing the math in her mind, Maria's jaw fell open. "SIX children!"

"Si, Mama had full hands."

"Bozhe moy…"

Vincenzo looked down before asking his next question. "You… you came alone… did you?"

"To America?" Maria's low, soft voice was scarcely more than a whisper. She nodded.

"This morning… Mama told me," he continued, not meeting her eyes again, "about Karpov, and about your flat." When Maria winced and looked down as well, Vincenzo tried to add something comforting. "She… had the door fixed…"

"Thank you," she said, almost inaudibly.

And now we're grown-up orphans that never knew their names.

We don't belong to no one, and that's a shame.

"Maria… I hope you do not think that… I am being too…" now it was Vincenzo's turn to search for a word, "…prying… but you seem to… be in a little… trouble." Vincenzo braced himself, expecting to be lashed out at by Maria, or to be icily glared at… and he was surprised when neither was forthcoming. In fact, he told her so. "I am sorry. I was afraid you would be angry."

"I do nyet have strength… anymore… for anger." She was still focused on the black coffee in her mug, and finally she lifted it to take a sip.

"What did they done to you, Maria?"

"Vincenzo," she said, using his name for the first time, "I did it all to myself." She glanced at grandfather clock standing in the corner next to the bar. Vincenzo noticed that she'd done so several times.

"Either I am boring…" he gave a shy smile, "or you have somewhere to go."

Maria's smile in return was apologetic. "You are nyet boring."

"Then where is it you have to be?"

A long sigh covered part of her deliberation again. He could tell she wasn't certain if it was wise to speak to him again, but he also knew she was intelligent. And she could appreciate secretive behaviour. And by blending into the background as much as possible, Vincenzo had avoided the spotlight. He was too inexperienced, too open to be deeply involved with the Mafia. And he wanted no more part of it than whatever he could do to help keep this girl alive. She reminded him of someone. He could not place whom, though. Perhaps he just pitied her. Maria had evidently decided that revealing at least some information to the young Mr. Luna would not harm her.

"Restaurant downtown. Below Battery Park. Is by river."

"At what time?"

"Nine."

Vincenzo glanced at the clock over his shoulder. It was 2:00pm. She had plenty of time. "You have other things to do before you get there?"

Maria shook her head.

"Then you look at the clock so much because you dread it."

Maria's eyes snapped to lock with his, surprised. Vincenzo blushed. "I apologize," he said. "I ask too much."

We grew up way too fast, and now there's nothing to believe.

Maria exhaled and looked down. "You… are wise observer." Then she made a face. That made no sense even to her. She'd meant he was astute, clever. She could tell him so in Russian. She could probably even recall enough of her mother to compliment him in Japanese. Hell, because it was so fashionable in the 1800s to speak French in the Russian courts, Maria was even fluent in French. Why did she keep bumping into people who spoke all the languages she did not?

Vincenzo opened his mouth to cover the long and uncomfortable pause, but Maria spoke first. "Your mother… is good woman."

"Thank you."

"And raise good son, and wise. And careful. Do wish had fore…thought… foresight… when first come here… to keep quiet, too."

"I had a few more… choices… than you did. To stay with Mama. You had no one."

"Had Valentinov."

And scars are souvenirs you never lose.

The past is never far.

Did you lose yourself somewhere out there?

Vincenzo made a face. "He is not much better than no one." Maria chuckled at that. Then, as Vincenzo continued, her face sobered rather quickly. "I do not know what I would do, if the only person I had was a traitor."

Maria blanched. "What makes you think this?"

Vincenzo was uncomfortable again. It was difficult to avoid pushing someone's buttons when you don't know where they are. "I told you… I watch them… and they do not think I speak English."

"You heard Valentinov say this? Himself?"

Vincenzo nodded. "To Giuseppe. One night in the back of the restaurant." Vincenzo glanced at her hands. They were ungloved and wrapped tightly around the coffee mug, her sleeves pulled down far over her hands, but not quite far enough to hide her right hand. Before he could stop himself, he reached for her hand, and she jerked away.

"Please excuse me, Mister Luna," she stood abruptly, pulling on her gloves and tying the belt of her long black woolen coat, anything she could do to keep her hair curtaining her eyes. Vincenzo had not angered her with his action, that he could tell – she was reacting to the information, not to his reaching for her. He stood as well. "Is something I must… take care of."

"Please be careful, Miss Tachibana," Vincenzo whispered. She would not let him help her. Moreover, he wasn't at all sure there was anything he could do that would be of help to her. But he was fairly certain that this would be her last day of life if he didn't do anything at all. The first thing he could do, at least, was give her a direction in which to focus her vengeful anger. "Mama said she heard Giuseppe tell Valentinov to take care of something at Douglas-Stewart this afternoon…"

Maria stared at him, hard. He was helping her. Genuinely helping her. And it was foreign to her. But when she realized it, she nodded once in thanks and turned to go.

She might never see him again, and he might never see her. And she might never know everything his observances had saved her from over the course of her months living in New York. But he didn't need her to know. He didn't need to see her. He just needed to help.

I think about you all the time, but I don't need the same.

It's lonely where you are. Come back down. And I won't tell them your name.

He watched as she strode out the door into the March wind, her glare sharper than the cold. He waited only a moment until he ran off, too, in the direction of his mother's restaurant.

Foreign Language Dictionaries:

Ragazza – Italian for "girl"

Quel'injustizia – Italian for "How unjust."

Si! – Italian for "Yes!"

Bozhe moy… - Russian for "My god…"