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This chapter takes place during the film, after the near-kiss on the boat but before the "he can sleep through anything" scene. I wanted a scene where Dimitri and Vlad have an all-out, no-holds-barred, shouting-match argument about the difference between loyalty to the plan and losing out on your only chance. Dimitri thinks he has to ignore the very thought, but Vlad knows that finding another imposter would be easier than finding another girl like her. Like the rest of this story, this is NOT about Anya! She is just a topic; a secondary character. This is about Dimitri. You'll find out.

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"But Dimitri..."

"No."

"You have to tell her."

Vlad wasn't about to be fooled. He'd known what he'd seen on deck back there. It drove a wedge between the scheme and Dimitri's best interest, and Vlad had never failed to choose the latter.

"No, I don't," Dimitri said with a warning in his eyes and in his tone. He backtracked when he realized that wasn't what he meant to say. "There's nothing to tell," he corrected.

"You have to at least say something."

"I mean it, Vlad," Dimitri hissed, pulling a suitcase from the top bunk. "She'll hear you." Their protegé would be back any second from the washroom down the hall.

"That makes one of us!" Vlad was getting irritated now, his voice raising to an angry boom. "Just who do you think you're benefitting? I know what I saw, my boy, and that does not happen every day. Especially to you."

"Look---even if there was anything to say, what good would it do?" Dimitri roared, throwing the suitcase to the floor.

"You're twenty years old, Dimitri! For ten years I have watched you give up one good thing after another. This is too important for you to just throw away!" Vlad sounded angrier than he'd ever been.

Dimitri wasn't far from rage himself. "Stop telling me how old I am! Do you think I wasn't there? This is my business, and you," he shouted, "are not my father!"

Vlad was quiet, and his eyes narrowed to bitter slits. "No," he said in a near whisper, "but one of us has to know your best interest, and it certainly isn't you. I'll be the first to tell you that your stubbornness doesn't make you right, it makes you a coward. And I never gave you credit for being a coward." Vlad paused to let his cutting words sink in. "You disappoint me, Dimitri. You really have."

The cabin went silent, except for the dulcet sound of water meeting wood, as the two of them went back to preparing for sleep.

A tense, empty moment passed. "She's better off this way," Dimitri said, almost without being heard.

Without me, he meant, Vlad knew. "That, my boy," he said gently, "is where you'll always be wrong."

Another beat of silence. "Vlad..." He didn't have to apologize. The apology was on his face.

"It's all right, Dimitri. I know."

The door opened just then, and Anya stepped in in her pajamas. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"No. No." Dimitri was quick to answer. "You're interrupting nothing." He turned to Vlad, and quietly, casually insisted, "We're sticking with the plan."

"We're sticking with the plan," Vlad echoed, signaling respect for his decision even though he didn't agree with it. Still, there was a note of "for now" in his voice.

Anya directed her wide blue eyes toward them from the steamer trunk she'd been opening. "What plan?"

Dimitri turned to her with his best "trust me" grin. "The plan to get to Paris, your grace."

"Oh." And she went back to putting away her clothes.