Just finished this literally about two minutes ago. So like...one AMish? Yeah, I just. Couldn't. Stop. Writing! I was in the perfect mood and I thought this was so clever with the way I worded things and pfft. Apologies for typos (there HAVE to be some!) but I'm not proofreading on a brain that's half asleep already so changes may come later.

Where did the Soviet soldiers go at the end? NO ONE KNOWS.

Gray

There was nothing to it really. He was a selfish, heartless bastard and that was that. Yes he did get her to Paris and yes he did find her family (though he must have been as shocked as she was) but he still was nothing more than a criminal con artist, and he was going back to where he belonged.

Russia.

The festering wound of society, the sewers where the rats like him dwelt. He said he wouldn't miss it, but he also said that he didn't belong in Paris. He belonged elsewhere, in the place that he would never miss. Everything about him deserved to go back to where the pus and blood gathered.

And she thought this way because he had hurt her so much. He had torn her core out and smashed it against the walls of the opera house. He had built her a sturdy foundation for her self esteem and image, brought her from orphan to princess in a matter of a few simple months, then crumbled everything as he shattered her knees with a hammer, forcing her to crumple at both his and the empress's feet. She didn't even care that she eventually found out that she was the real Anastasia. By his act of bringing her up to the highest person in the world only to be crushed under his uncaring, selfish heel removed her heart and any compassion she had ever had for him from her body, burying it in the ground beneath her feet.

So the blood drained from her body and her eyesight. Color gradually faded from her vision, and as differences between the hues of her world melted into neutrality so did her emotions. At first her kindness disappeared, replaced by resentment, anger, sadness, but it quickly turned to cold apathy as the days wore on. The more days that passed without him there, the more Anastasia forgot about him, living in the present with her new-found grandmother, new-found family. New-found grays. New-found detachment.

She didn't even care that she couldn't see in color anymore. She figured that if she could, she would only see a raging red every time she thought of him and his foxish, demonic nature. Incidentally, whether she noticed it or not, she was always, always thinking about him in the corners of her mind. There was only one other person in the world that realized what was on her mind constantly, and after a week of watching her mope alone to herself when she thought no one was around, the dowager empress confronted her grand-daughter.

"You shouldn't forget him, you know." She said one day as Anastasia was gazing morosely out of the window, sitting on the sill on a sunny evening.

"I don't know who you're talking about," she mumbled. The dowager smiled one of her knowing little smiles, one that secretly irritated Anastasia to no end.

"You know very well who I'm talking about. And you're trying to forget him, and that's not making you happy."

"He's the one that made me unhappy, grandmama," Anastasia grumbled, turning her gaze to her lap as she fiddled uselessly with her fingers.

"And why did he make you unhappy?" She softly asked. Anastasia's knuckles turned white as she closed them into tight fists.

"By bringing me all the way here only to—,"

"I did not ask how, I asked why," the dowager wisely interrupted. As Anastasia sat there, mouth agape as she struggled over her hateful words, her grandmother softened her voice, "Why were you hurt over him?"

"B...Because...," she started, wringing her dress into awful wrinkles and folds.

"If it wasn't for him I wouldn't be speaking to you now. He was the one who forced me to talk to you. He knew who you were, had actually figured it out at some point."

"And he took the money and left," Anastasia blurted angrily, past the tears welling in her eyes, "He took the money and left, because that's all he was ever after anyways,"

"Use your head, Anastasia," the dowager cajoled. Anastasia looked up at her, both anger and confusion in her eyes, "Think about what you know. You told me yourself; Russia is the last place on earth anyone would want to live. So why earn a fortune and return there?"

"It was his home?" she guessed after stuttering over her syllables looking for an answer. The dowager twisted her mouth.

"The orphanage was your home. Would you go back?"

Anastasia opened her mouth. Then closed it. Opened it again. Stared at her grandmother, stupefied. Then closed it again.

As she stared at the washed-out face of her grandmother, a fleck of color returned to her vision for just a second.

Suddenly she knew.

–

The roads were so familiar and yet so ugly and alien to her. The scenery was urban, poor, pushed aside for greater things to plow their way through if it would ever get that far. Construction cranes everywhere were creaking as they tirelessly worked towards that specific goal—a goal that everyone knew that would never be reached no matter how much they tried.

Saint Petersburg. She found it hard to believe that at a recent point in her life it was a lifetime success just to reach the city boundaries.

She was dressed practically and inconspicuously. Wearing a simple, dull colored frock (or so she was told, she only knew the exact shade of gray) underneath her old, faithful coat and battered hat she fit in perfectly with the varied laymen of Russia. Returning here alone was in retrospect a stupid idea, but Anastasia knew that she had been through much worse. There were no troubles in her trip getting here, just the constant loneliness that etched itself into her brain. Leaving Pooka with Sophie and Vlad was the best decision, but she soon found that she was yearning for anyone's company, human or canine. Apart from that, her only trouble now was that she was no longer under her royalty's protection, walking the streets of the Soviet Union. And, of course, she had absolutely no idea where to look.

She ruled out the palace first. Somehow she knew that it was the most painful and stupidest place to retreat to, and that bothering with it would only waste her time.

And so she was reduced to walking the streets, studying every man that passed her as discreetly as possible. Vlad had helped her narrow her search down to a district that he suspected he could easily be found in, and that increased the chances of finding him greatly. Probably. Traveling back here was a stupid thing to do, even though her grandmother encouraged it for her happiness. At first she honestly didn't know how this would make her happy, but the long hours on the train made her think, made her shape her thoughts until she was simply just unsure of how it would play out; she was just sure that she now yearned to see him once more. Just once.

She sat down on a rotten, wobbly bench on the edge of the street, resting her chin in her hand. It was hopeless, of course. Finding him in this knot of people was impossible. She wasn't living in a children's love story. Things did not have a fairytale ending in the real world—much, much less in the Soviet Union.

Feeling uncomfortable after a while, as if there were menacing eyes staring her down through a scope, she got up and started to walk again, heading in the general direction of the hotel room she was renting. The hotel was run down, but owned by an old couple who knew what they were doing. It was near the docks in the industrial area of the city, old and musty but strangely inviting once you got to know the people running the business. To be perfectly honest it wasn't the nicest district for a girl to get caught up in, but if she kept her head down her feminine face was hidden, courtesy of her hat.

The skies about her turned into a lush lavender as the sun dipped into the horizon. Quietly her stomach poked at her, asking for dinner soon. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and looked forward, knowing that the old couple would have some sort of soup prepared for her and the other few patrons they had.

Ahead of her a man, walking slowly with a heavily disheartened slouch, approached her, head down and face concealed by his hat. She thought nothing of him; many people walked just like him in the streets. It wasn't until she saw the pair of soldier only about a hundred paces behind him peeking around a street corner, most definitely intent on following this particular man. Perhaps it was because she was disheartened herself, but something urgent in her head screamed, and as she came in level with the steps of the man walking in the opposite direction, she made a rash decision and shoved him into an alleyway. Knowing the soldiers didn't see this yet, she pushed him up against the craggy, soppy brick wall, pressing him flat. She had seen the aftermaths of the soldiers—or rather, didn't see, as people disappeared off of the streets all of the time without warning, rhyme, or reason. And she didn't want to see it happen in front of her eyes. For one, she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she ended up doing nothing, and for two, she'd get carted away with the man because she would most likely do something against it.

"I know there are soldiers following me." The man stated grimly, hopelessly, almost. He was not hopeless about the pursuit of the Soviets, though, that much seemed to be clear within the sadness of his voice. But that's not what caught her off-guard, no. In the shadow of the alley she looked up at the man's face, eyes wide. He was in the process of shaking her off when she reached out, pawed for the handle of a side door to the industrial building, opened it, and shoved him inside before quickly closing the door behind them.

"I don't care if they get me or not, whoever you are. I don't know where you're from, but it's absolutely hopeless here, there's no saving anyone." the man said, frustrated and annoyed. Anastasia gripped a heavy sack full of heavy sawdust and threw it in front of the door with a grunt before she replied to him.

"Shut up, Dmitri."

There was silence. For a while she was afraid to turn around, but she knew that there was enough light in the room full of sawdust, packaging and shelves for him to see her red hair poking out from beneath her hat.

"You...," he finally managed to squeak out, "You, what are you doing here? Get out! Go back to Paris! Oh my god, why are you here?"

She took a deep breath and pivoted on her heel, bringing her old, familiar sharpness to her voice—the type of sharpness she was used to having around him.

"No. Why are you here? I came here to get answers, and now that I've found you, tell me. Tell me everything."

Dmitri opened his mouth, feeble sounds replacing his voice as he struggled to gain it back, shock and fear lacing his eyes as he stared at her. It was an understatement to say that he was surprised to see her here, and now that she was standing before him raw fear snaked through his veins; fear for her well-being, fear for her survival in this despicable place.

"I...I can't, Any—," he gulped over her name before avoiding it all together, "Why did you come here? To find me? For god's sake, why?"

"Because I want to know!" She suddenly exploded. Anger was definitely present in her voice and in her actions, but deep down she couldn't be angry, especially not at a time like this, no. As she spoke though, her voice pushed him to the far wall as she advanced on him, "I want to know why you would just run off like that! It isn't as obvious as you think! Why would you take your reward and return to this stupid little hell hol—,"

She stopped.

Staring at his eyes, the wheels in her head finally turned into the conclusion as he stared back.

"You didn't take the money."

Pain and multiple pleas ranging from forgiveness to mercy ran across his eyes, and she knew that it was the truth.

"You didn't take the money."

Repeating the words didn't make it any less surreal to her. Dmitri stood there, staring at her, neither denying nor confirming anything. It was true. It was true. It was the only possibility.

"You idiot!" Anastasia screamed, throwing a fist at his chest, "You idiot! Why didn't you take the money? That's what you wanted! That's what you recruited me for! You wanted to get away from this place, to leave this all behind! So why! Why? Why let yourself fall back down here, why let those soldiers carry you away to god knows where, why didn't you tell me?"

Dmitri flinched, but took each punch she threw at him, knowing that he deserved it. Anastasia buried her face into his chest so harshly that it burned.

"I...couldn't," he confessed softly, "I...I just couldn't tell you. And I couldn't take the money, either, I just...,"

He gulped, and cursed his voice for cracking in turn for masking his tears.

"I don't know."

"Nevermind," Anastasia spoke into his chest, "Forget I said anything." Dmitri looked down at her, but before he could ask a question she had lifted her head and pressed her lips to his, the close contact causing her hat to topple off of her head, cartwheeling down her back until it rested on the dusty floor.

Though the kiss wasn't that long or passionate, Dmitri was panting when he broke away. Locking his brown eyes onto her blue ones, so many wordless questions floated in his mind, most of them focusing on how she could do that after all of the grief and betrayal that he had caused her only weeks before.

"Any—Anastasia...," he whispered in disbelief.

"It's Anya," she corrected lowly, a long-lost smile on her face, "Ahn-yah."

A catharsis of happiness threatened to break the levy behind both their eyes. They didn't know why, or how, but they were both here together, and in such a way that could only be reached by the subconscious until this point.

Dmitri undid the loose ponytail as he buried his fingers in her fiery hair, feeling its silk caress his hand in forgiveness as he leaned down for another, deeper kiss.

The world exploded into color.