Quick Russian vocabulary lesson (native speakers, please feel free to correct if inaccurate): spasiba = thank you; zhopa = asshole; Nana = Daddy; osel = ass. Just so you know. Also, thanks to beta JustAGirl24 for giving this a go. I just thought I might also add that I am a shameless review whore, so, yeah, you know what to do. Enjoy!

"Anya, I can take Pooka out now, if you'd like."

Anya nodded and smiled sweetly at Vladimir as he scooped up the dog, reaching out to place her hand on his arm with a quiet "spasiba". He winked and chucked her under the chin before he stepped out.

"What was that all about?" Dimitri asked, astounded by the easy sweetness of their exchange. Vladimir had looked at her like his own child. He'd never seen that particular sparkle in his comrade's eyes before, and it was unsettling.

The calm drained out of Anya's face and then she was glaring at him again.

"What was what?"

Dimitri made a vague gesture in the space between them and the door. "That. With Vlad. You two act like you're old friends."

"He's nice," she said simply.

"Nice." Dimitri harrumphed. "Well, for future reference, I do business. I don't do nice."

She snorted. "Obviously." Glancing from his face back to her necklace, she explained, "The man cleaned me up like a little girl and gave me a clean shirt to wear while he had one of the women in the back clean my dress." Her lips turned up in a little smile. "I think I even got some on his shoes and he didn't say anything." She slipped the pendant into her mouth and nibbled on it, thinking. "He's nice the same way you're a zhopa: it's just who you are."

Dimitri winced at a sharp pain in both of his hands. He looked down at his white knuckles in alarm, then realized he was digging his fingernails into the flesh of his palms. He sighed. Clay, he reminded himself.

"What was the last thing you ate?"

She rolled her eyes. "I think you saw it come and go."

"Before this morning." He held her gaze. "Obviously," he added, because he couldn't help sneering.

Anya bit her lip and squinted up at the swirls in the plastered ceiling. "I don't know. A piece of bread I sto - ah, bought, I think. And some water out of somebody's well."

"How long ago?"

"Three days." Her body tensed and she shifted away from him. "Before today, I don't think I can even remember eating real food," she murmured.

Dimitri swallowed hard. With his body accustomed to surviving on scraps, he'd vomited the first time Vladimir had fed him a real meal, too. He didn't know why he didn't try to save Anya from the same fate. Perhaps he was too busy resenting the fact that she was his only hope, and yet she was making him work so hard.

"Soup," he told her.

She turned back with a frown. "What?"

"Your body isn't used to such rich food, so it rejected it. You get soup for the next few meals, until you can handle more."

A smile seemed to sneak up on her, but she looked down at her shoes instead of offering it to him. It was gone as if it never was when her eyes returned to his. All that blue was arresting against her ghost-like complexion, like two huge sapphires side by side in the snow. "Well, thank you, Nana."

He surprised himself by almost laughing at her tart remark, but noticed that the moment seemed to have softened around the edges. He moved to sit across from her on the opposite seat. Leaning over to balance his elbows on his knees, he said, "Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot."

"Well, I think we did, too."

"Okay."

Anya blew gently on the window, then wrote something with her finger in the fog her breath created on the cold glass. "But I appreciate your apology," she said, without looking at him.

Dimitri sat back and raised an eyebrow. Apologizing he was not. "Wait - who said anything about an apology? I was just saying that we - "

"Look, just don't talk anymore, okay? It's only gonna upset me."

Dimitri's other eyebrow joined the one already at his hairline. With that lordly look on her face, he could almost picture her on some fetid throne, as queen of all slums. "Fine, I'll be quiet. I'll be quiet if you will."

"Alright, I'll be quiet." She made a show of pressing her lips together.

Dimitri crossed his arms over his chest. "Fine."

"Fine," she said again, unfurling her legs and plunking her feet down on the seat next to his thigh. Little flakes of mud landed on the corner of his coat.

With an exaggerated motion, he brushed them off. "Fine."

"Fine." She was a picture of nonchalance.

There was silence for a handful of heartbeats when Anya brushed her hair out of her eyes and said, "Do you think you're gonna miss it?"

"Miss what, your talking?" Dimitri shot back.

"No," Anya chided. She gestured vaguely at the window. "Russia."

That question he had not expected.

He looked down at his hands and began lazily pushing back his cuticles with his thumbnail. "Nope." There was nothing to go back to.

"But it was your home," she was saying. She'd put her feet back on the floor and now leaned forward, staring at him with renewed interest, like he'd suddenly sprouted from the upholstery.

He was not about to discuss himself with her. The less she knew, the better. Especially for him. "It was a place I once lived. End of story."

Anya was unphased. Dimitri noticed the flush returning to her cheeks, making her look less like a living corpse. "Then you must plan on making Paris your true home." She sat completely still on the edge of the seat, waiting for some affirmation, as if what she had just reasoned made perfect sense.

Dimitri threw his hands up, annoyed and confused by the turn in their conversation. "What is it with you and 'homes'?" he said, taking a turn at propping his legs in the seat across from him.

She looked indignant when she rose and tried to walk out, and he gave her a satisfied smile when she kept running into his legs. "It's something every normal person wants, Dimitri. But I'm guessing you don't do normal like you don't do nice - move your goddamn legs!" she flared.

Dimitri, deciding to annoy her further by refusing to cower, merely yawned. "Well, seeing as we've established I'm neither normal nor nice, it looks like you'll be going around, don't you think?"

Anya roared in frustration as she got up on the seat and walked on the cushions to the other side of Dimitri's legs before turning to point a finger at his face. "Honestly, I would really like to put your head" - she moved her finger slowly so his eyes would follow - "through that window."

Refusing to back down, Dimitri stood up as well and pointed at her backside. "Then your osel won't be going to Paris, will it?"

Anya crossed her arms over her chest, looking much like a bull on the edge of raging. "Is that right? Well, I - you...me and my osel should have gone to the fishing village anyway!"

"Well, me and mine wish you would have!"

"What in God's name is going on in here?" Vladimir asked as came in, the dog whining and licking at his ear. "I can hear the both of you on the other side of the train - "

"Oh, thank goodness it's you," Anya cried, still wielding that blasted finger of hers. "Just - please, remove him from my sight!"

"Dimitri," Vladimir laughed, "what have you done to her?"

"Me?" Feeling like a defendant on trial did nothing but fan Dimitri's flames. "Why are you taking her side? You weren't even here! It's her!"

"Ha!" Anya gave him the finger just before she stormed out, banging the door shut so hard it rattled inside its rail.

Dimitri whipped around, his heart racing, that same insistent rage rapping at his temples. Just get her to Paris and get the money, then you can kill her, he thought.

When he turned back around, Vladimir was doubled over, his laughter bouncing off the wood panels that enclosed them.

Dimitri was not amused. "What the hell are you laughing at? How are we supposed to deal with" - he pointed in the direction Anya left with disgust - "that?"

"Oh, Dimitri," Vladimir sighed as he straightened, tucking Anya's stupid dog more securely under his arm. "Such unspoken attraction..."

"Attraction?" Dimitri repeated, aghast. "To that skinny little brat? Have you lost your mind?"

"Perhaps I was mistaken," Vladimir said to the mutt, then winked at Dimitri.

Instead of hitting his friend over the head with a suitcase like he wanted to, Dimitri reached past the dog and into the chest pocket inside Vladimir's coat, fishing out the prized gold flask Vladimir always kept on his person. Dimitri held it up for him to see. "Just for that, you're not getting this back," he proclaimed before brushing past Vladimir's belly and out the door himself, making for the back of the train again. Vladimir's laughter when their failsafe plan was already coming apart at the seams was more than he could bear at the moment. Attraction? That was absolutely ridiculous. The most ridiculous thing he'd heard in his entire life, in fact.

An image of Anya's eyes flashed through his mind just then, darkened to navy blue flame when she was angry.

It really was ridiculous.

Jesus, he needed a drink.