October 5th: The ghosts of the past
(Romanogers, rated T, some of the dialogue is Russian, but I am not aware of the language, so we'll go with English)
She was running and running but the hallway seemed to be endless. Left and right small pale hands were reaching for her through bars in the darkness. Screams and voices flooded the space and rang in her ears. She looked back to check on what was chasing her when she stumbled and fell. As quick as possible she tried to stand up again but she fell back again in shock when she looked down at her own hands – small, barely a child's, pale and covered in blood.
Now her chaser had caught up with her and picked her up brusquely. The voice was a woman's, deep and husky from smoking, Russian: „Natalia! Don't you dare run away again!" Natasha struggled and tried to break free: „No! Leave me alone!"
The woman snarled: „I'll make you suffer for that!" She dragged Natasha along in the direction they came from. The hands weren't there anymore, everything was just dark. After a short period of time they reached a door and a room illuminated by artificial light sources started to appear before her eyes. The room was huge and the walls were covered in mirrors. A bunch of little girls was standing next to a similar woman as the one, who still had a firm grip on Nat's wrist. She dragged her past those other girls and stopped. Natasha looked up and stumbled back as she saw herself in the mirror. A little girl, probably 8 years old. Her long red locks were badly tied up into a bun. She was extremely pale what made her emerald eyes stand out. That was her, all those years ago in the Red Room. Well, it wasn't really her. She was Natasha now, that weedy girl had been Natalia, she was Natalia again. That was the ballet room where they had to practice dancing every day.
Immediately after backing away the woman slapped Natalia: „Behave!"
Natalia gritted her teeth and stopped fidgeting. The woman now loosened her grip on the child's wrist and turned to face the other girls: „Now you will see what happens when you try to run…" She turned back to Natalia and looked at her feet: „Remove your shoes!"
She hesitated but then quickly bent down to open the shoelaces tied around her feet and legs since she was wearing ballet-shoes. She stripped them from her little feet and put them next to her, standing up again.
The woman looked at Natalia's bare feet and nodded. She started walking past the group of girls again and stopped next to the door. A fire was dying in the chimney. The flames were all gone, but the coal was still glowing red and orange. The supervisor took the small shovel that was sitting next to the fireplace and loaded it with a bunch of fierce coal carrying it a few steps before dropping it on the old and dusty carpet.
Natalia's eyes widened in horror as she could guess the plan they had in mind for her punishment. The woman repeated the action before looking at Natalia. The little girl swallowed hard and kept standing next to her shoes.
The woman coughed slightly and drew a gun: „Come over here, Natalia."
Natalia eyed the ground for a second before looking at the gun. She started walking toward the pile of hot coal slowly while the woman leveled the gun at her.
Natalia stopped in front of it and looked down trying not to tremble in fear. The woman started speaking once again: „You will dance for one musical act. You will not scream or make any noise or I will shoot you. We don't need girls who can't face pain. We need girls who keep cold and silent. Start!"
The other woman put the needle of the gramophone on the record and orchestral music started playing. As the first bangs of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake Act 4, No. 29 echoed through the hall little Natalia's bare feet touched the burning remains of the fire. The excruciating pain shot through her body and she gritted her teeth as she tried to perform the dance they had taught her for that act of swan lake – the finale. It was cruel how they chose to play Odette's demise while her own was about to happen. It was deadly silent in the room, only the music was playing, as she danced and her feet were wounded and open and the pain was getting worse with every step she took. Her blood was mixing with the black coals and the fire and the dirty old carpet. Six and a half minutes. She didn't know how much of that timespan she had managed to dance already. Tears started running down her cheeks, her eyes swelling and reddening but she didn't dare even whimper.
Suddenly everything was getting blurry and dark again and when she opened her eyes she found herself in bed being shaken awake. She was Natasha again. Immediately she brushed the tears away with her hands and stared at the person next to her, shaking her and talking to her. Her eyes were still wide and fear hadn't left them yet.
Steve was pulling her closer to him and closed his arms around her now that she was awake: „It's okay, Nat… It was only a dream. You are safe here."
Still shaking she grabbed the blanket and covered herself and Steve with it: „R…right… thank you for waking me up."
Steve was running a hand through her hair slowly: „I will always be there to wake you up… just like you are there for me every time."
They sat there in silence for a few minutes and Natasha slowly calmed down again. After a while she looked away from the digital clock on the nightstand reading the gleaming numbers 02:23 and up to meet his eyes in the faint moonlight: „Did I hurt you?"
Steve shook his head slightly: „No… you were just mumbling and kicking and trembling."
Natasha exhaled audibly: „Thank God… I'm sorry anyway, for waking you."
Steve placed a kiss on her forehead: „Don't apologize. It's alright. Do you want to talk about it?"
Natasha leaned against him: „No… it's okay. Let's just go back to sleep."