A/N: Welcome to the last chapter before Part Five! It's so exciting! We will have more information about a potential/likely update schedule adjustment next Saturday, but until then, enjoy this end of Part Four. We're in the endgame now.
...I am freedom bound...
Svetlana | Silmarilz1701
Sveta had just about punched a wall when Sink ordered another patrol. The success of the one they'd already done was moderate at best. They'd not gotten any real intel from the prisoners they'd snatched, and lost a man in the process. All around Haguenau, Sveta could feel the anger coming to a boil.
Some would lash out. She knew that if Guarnere still helped command Second Platoon that he'd not have stood for it. There would be choice words in that CP. But he wasn't in Second Platoon. Malarkey was, and his anger looked more like ice than a bomb. She questioned his ability to hold it together, if she were honest with herself. But Zhanna and Dick trusted him, as did Ron.
The officers had left her standing at the river. Nixon, Dick, Ron, and Sink had wandered off, three of them to brief the men on this suicide mission and their fearless leader to hide in his command post. Sveta hadn't been able to tear her eyes away from the steadily setting sun. Instead of red and gold, the sky had a coating of dirtied grey and pale yellow that put her on edge. An odd sunset.
She didn't know how long she'd been standing there, collar flipped to hide her Captain's bars and helmet firmly on her head. The silence offered an odd comfort. Anxiety had put Sveta on edge since she'd woken up. There was something she had to do. But she didn't know how.
Sveta knew how to explode. She knew how lurk. She knew how to fire a sniper rifle and lead men into combat. But she didn't know how to let the name Beria cross her lips. Not while still in control. The honesty in Mackall had been an accident, a mistake driven by overwhelming fear and capitalized on by curious Americans. She didn't doubt their good intentions now, but tomorrow, she couldn't say. Sveta believed they would continue to be allies. She had to.
"Still out here?" Ron's voice interrupted her thoughts. He made his way over to her, getting harder to make out as the world darkened.
Sveta tried to smile. Speak of the devil. The man she wanted to see had come to find her instead. Poetic, perhaps. "Just thinking."
He came to stand next to her. Lighting a cigarette, he passed it over. Sveta accepted. The nicotine calmed her down a bit as they stood in silence. Holding a lit cigarette in view of the enemies probably wasn't a good idea, but the fight seemed to have left the Germans when they pulled out of Bastogne.
"I've been thinking about what you said," she finally stammered out. As Ron turned to her, she mirrored him. "About going back to Russia."
The anger she'd seen in the hospital returned in full force. His grip tightened on his cigarette and motions became more agitated. "You realize how stupid it is to go back to that?"
Sveta didn't respond. She just watched a small flock of birds fly across the barely lit sky, black on grey. "I've realized I may have a chance to get out." When he didn't respond, she hesitated. She needed his help. She needed to trust him. Closing her eyes, she willed away the fear. Fight it. She had to fight it. "There's more going on than just Stalin, Ron."
"I figured," he agreed. Ron turned away from the river, moving to lean against the sandbags near the house. She joined him out of sight of the river as he just nodded. "Both you and Casmirovna?"
Sveta didn't hesitate. "I can't talk about her plans. She can tell who she wants, when she wants," she added. Sveta tried to keep the bitterness from her voice, but she couldn't. Not entirely. Learning about Zhanna's family after the others hurt more than she wanted to admit. And that wasn't her focus. Not now. She turned back to Ron. "Soviet politics are complicated."
"Dangerous," he surmised.
Sveta nodded. "Dangerous." No prying eyes or ears could be seen around them in the dark. No spies, no one watching. So she took a deep breath and looked at Ron, his hazel eyes comforting in their familiarity. "My father is a friend of Stalin. He worked closely with the NKVD in a leadership position. Even I'm not completely sure what it was."
"Their secret police," he asked.
She nodded again. "Yes. Stalin's version of the Gestapo. I didn't know any of this as a kid. My mother and I stayed out of their way." Her chest hurt as she spoke about Rostov-on-Don, about the way she'd been left to rot in an attic for days as bait for her father and Stalin. The pain of the ropes around her wrists came back. The glassy eyes of the children. "After that, my mother and I tried our best to help where we could. Sometimes we'd give food to the workers to take and distribute. That sort of thing. But in 1938, everything changed."
She must've fallen silent for a while, lost in thoughts of roses and silent tears, because Ron had to prompt her. "What happened?"
Her hands shook and she tried to cover her mouth. As if by covering her lips she could stuff down the tears, the anger, the regret. But she couldn't. "In 1938, Lavrentiy Beria, a man who had become close to Stalin, was appointed head of the NKVD. Nikolai Yezhov, Beria's superior, was sent to prison and eventually executed for the standard crimes."
After biting her cheek so hard blood began to fill her mouth, Sveta explained Beria's obsession with women. How he would coerce them into his estate, rape them, and let them loose only if they agreed to deny the crime. With flowers in their hands, they had marched past the guards. Others never left his estate. Dead? probably. Sveta didn't know, and so couldn't tell Ron one way or the other.
"My father, Alexander, and Stalin both know," she told him. "They both keep their daughters away from Beria as much as possible. That was one reason my father permitted me to join the snipers." She frowned. "Zhanna joined us later in 1938."
Ron didn't say anything. He just watched her. He saw her.
"Beria likes to play games," Sveta told him. Her voice broke as she thought about the roses. She wanted to tell him, desperately wanted him to know what she'd gone through. She wanted someone to know that he had spent years in her shadow. But she couldn't. Not right now. Not even with Ron. "I was just out of his reach. I think he liked that," she admitted. "Another game. I think he knows of my disloyalty with my mother." She paused. "I know that he knows of my disloyalty. If he can prove that to Stalin, my father would be disgraced and probably executed. If he's executed, I have no protection."
"And Beria gets you," Ron said.
She nodded. Her skin crawled, even entertaining the prospect. Leaning against a crate, Ron just covered his mouth as she had done, thinking and stressing just like her. His movements were laced with anger. She knew what that felt like. Like fire under her skin, like a blaze in her chest.
"You have to leave," he told her.
Sveta nodded. In a small voice, she told him she knew that. "I want to. I just need to find a way to convince Sink to move to grant political asylum."
"Tell him what you just told me," Ron urged her. "I mean, Christ, there's no way he can send you back there."
She liked to think so. She liked to think that even men who didn't trust her could understand the danger. But Sveta didn't want to speak about it. Didn't know how. Telling Ron was one thing, a person she trusted maybe more than even herself. Her breath caught thinking about this. This man, this American who had nearly broken her rib, twice. He understood her, the anger and the drive. And she trusted him.
"I need to." Her heart hurt, though, thinking about it. About saying it out loud again. Sveta closed her eyes, sinking back against the bricks of the house. Night had fallen. The cigarette had died a while ago. "I will."
She couldn't see him nod, but she figured he did. It took another few moments of silence for him to speak up. "The patrol's canceled."
"What?" Sveta's eyes flew open. "Cancelled?"
"Winters and Nixon are going to forge a report, say it went off without an issue but produced no prisoners." He stood up, looking at her in the shadows. He didn't move forward, closer as she had come to expect of him. Instead he just searched with his gaze as if looking for something. "You should sleep."
He was right. Exhaustion filled every inch of her body. Her knee ached, her eyes wouldn't stay open. "Right."
They walked next to each other, neither speaking as they left the river and with it, the moment of honesty that Sveta found she didn't regret. The warmth of him next to her provided more comfort than any drink ever could. He trusted her.
And in the morning, when she woke up to find sunlight streaming through the child's bedroom she'd taken over, she still regretted nothing. She'd said the name Beria out loud and he'd not appeared. Some part of her had worried that speaking his name would summon him like some kind of ghost. But it hadn't. The room was still empty except for herself and the stuffed animals.
When her boots hit the first floor, Sveta nearly paused. Walking through the front door was Harry Welsh, looking better than she would've expected. She grinned. "Harry!"
"If it isn't Svetlana Samsonova, resident hero of the 506th," he teased. He joined her in the hall at the base of the stairs. "I heard you destroyed an entire platoon of Germans from a tree."
Sveta laughed. She couldn't help but grin as he passed her a chocolate bar. "An exaggeration."
"You were never one to stop the rumors," he reminded her. "You or Speirs."
"No, I suppose not," she agreed. Sveta stuck the chocolate in her pocket and took a deep breath. "I'm glad your back."
Harry smirked. "Jesus, I'm gone for a few weeks and now you're going soft?"
With a roll of her eyes, she just moved down the hall. Nixon had called them. She wondered if he sensed the whiskey undoubtedly in Harry's canteen or just heard their voices. She found him standing with Ron, Dick, Lipton, Zhanna, and Lieutenant Jones. As they moved in they passed Luz on their right, dealing with inventorying more supplies.
"Nice of you two to show up," Nixon said. "We were about to start without you."
Promotions. Sveta smiled. She and Harry moved into the side room. Zhanna looked cold, both in body and mind, but she tried to offer her a smile. She got a small nod in return. After Second Lieutenant Jones became First Lieutenant Jones and got orders to Regiment, they turned to Lipton.
"Your honorable discharge as an enlisted man," Dick said, "and Battlefield Commission as Second Lieutenant."
Sveta smiled as Lipton received his well deserved thanks. He shook hands, exchanging small jokes with each of them. When he turned to her, Sveta held out her hand. He shook it and they exchanged small smiles and nods. Sveta figured she better get used to the Americans and their handshakes.
Then Dick turned to her. He pulled out a medal. "And Captain Samsonova, for your bravery in Bastogne—"
"And insanity in Foy," Nixon added.
Sveta just smirked, but couldn't help rolling her eyes. He hadn't let her live it down yet. Based on the chuckles in the gathered crowd, neither had the other officers.
"—the United States Army has decided to award you the Silver Star."
She accepted it from him, letting the metal sitting in her hands. Gold and silver with a ribbon of red, white, and blue. The colors of America. She glanced up at them. "Thank you."
Dick didn't respond beyond a small nod. But it said enough. She looked around at the other men, Harry and Nixon and Ron and Lipton, men who she had gone from hating to now, trusting with her life. She looked at Zhanna, standing there and giving her a forced smile despite the cold and the space between them. And then she looked at Ron.
She trusted him more than anyone. The little red, white, and blue medal in her hands showed physical proof of what waited for her outside Russia. And as she looked at Ron and he nodded back with a smile of his own, she knew she would win. They would win the war, and she would never be a puppet again.