October 10th. 2003

"Maybe I should get a tattoo or something." Masha pondered as she walked down the street, groceries in hand. Yeah, that would be nice. She would get an awesome Tribal tattoo that zigzagged down her arm. Ah, but no, that would be expensive. Unfortunately she didn't have that sort of money with her job. Maria had given her the day off, apparently today was some sort of Greek holiday or something.

As she was busy sorting out her own thoughts, she tripped on a piece of raised concrete. With a startled shriek, she tumbled forward… right into someone's arms. Startled, she shot her head up and found herself gazing into two sparkly, bright blue eyes… until her hair decided to flop over in front of her left eye, and then everything went blurry.

"Askasjdfs!" She sputtered, pushing off from Konstantine. Her hands flew to her face to brush away her bangs, dropping her groceries in the process. And then she found herself falling backwards, due for a pleasant meeting with the concrete.

-.-.-.-

My, my, what a clumsy girl. Konstantine watched with amusement as she stumbled around momentarily, putting his mirth on hold to catch the bag of groceries she dropped, before it hit the ground and its contents scattered themselves across the pavement and under the feet of strangers. A second later he heard a thump and glanced up to find her sprawled across the sidewalk on her back.

That was when he could hold it in no longer.

"Hahahaha! You are clumsy girl, yes?"

"Just shut up and help me out." She grumbled in response.

"Alright, alright. Here." He held his hand out to her, which she gladly took.

"So, long time, no see. Eh, Masha?" Konstantine winked at her with his stupid sparkly bright blue eyes. Such pretty eyes… that were stupid. Masha puffed up her cheeks.

"We've only met once, so I wouldn't really say that."

"Ah, I suppose you're right, da?"

There was a long pause.

"Do you need help?" he waggled the bag he was holding in front of her eyes.

"Um, yeah… I guess." She said abashedly, tucking a stray hair behind her ear.

.-.-.-.-.-.-

October 19th 2003

"Oh? So she agreed?"

"Da."

"I see! Well that's good." Aleksander leaned back in his chair. "So how is she doing out there?"

"Well… ahh…" Konstantine scratched at the back of his head. "Masha seems fine with her space, da."

"I seeee." His boss drawled, before a coy grin spread across his face. "So is she pretty?"

Konstantine choked on his own spit. "What? Sasha, be serious."

"I am serious. So is she?"

"Em… well…"

.-.-.-.-.-

October 11th 2003

Masha blinked slowly at Luck. Well, this was unexpected. And by unexpected, she didn't think he would drop by the restaurant she worked at EVER. Of course he said he would, but she didn't really think that he'd-

"Are you stupid or something?" Maria waved a hand in front of her face. "We have customers! Go attend to them!" And with a shove, she stumbled up to Luck… and his friend; his very familiar friend.

"Sorry." He apologized, giving her a small smile.

"There's no need. It was just rather unexpected, that's all." She gestured dismissively. "Here, let me find you two a table."

"Oh, that's right. Masha, this is Firo. He used to live in our apartment complex." Said friend named Firo gave her a nod, which she returned. He was dressed rather casually; a graphic tee thrown over a pair of loose fitting cargo pants. She squinted at him, trying to place where she had seen him before.

"Nice to meet you. Well then, right this way." Masha guided them towards a small, unused table near the front window, giving them a view of the ever despised, yet very successful restaurant across the street.

Shortly after slapping down a pair of menus onto the table(with such enthusiasm, it startled both men), she fumbled around for a minute in her apron before withdrawing a pad and pen, which she promptly held in front of her.

"Now then, can I get you anything to drink?"

"Water should do."

"Same here."

With a nod , she jotted it down before turning around to trot back over to the waitressing station… before she suddenly remembered where she had seen this Firo character.

"Aha!" The both jumped as Masha suddenly whirled around, pointing the butt of her pen at Firo. "Now I remember you!" Both Luck and he exchanged a confused look. "You're that fellow who I sat in the same row with on the plane over here, you and your wife!"

.-.-.-..—

October 11th 2003 (isn't this the tenth?)

Unfortunately, Konstantine demanded to accompany her to her apartment. A rather uncomfortable thing for her to do, seeing as she only met him twice so far. Shortly after, she and he were mauled by the twins… and their mother, who seemed to flirt with him at first chance.

"So, are you two dating?" Masha sighed and glared at the woman. She managed to ambush her after she snuck off to put her groceries in her apartment.

"I've only met him twice."

"Haven't you ever heard of love at first sight?"

"No." It came out bluntly.

"Not even with Mr. Luck~?"

"Heaven's no!" She sputtered at her, "We're just neighbors!"

"Sure, whatever you say, hun. Tamsen! Nicholas! Come on. We still have shopping to do."

Both the twins froze and immediately abandoned their activity of tugging at Konstantine's hair to follow their mother out the door, leaving the two in an awkward silence.

"Uh… sorry about that." Masha twirled a lock of hair around her index finger, as if hoping that small action would relieve her from her embarrassment. "I should have warned you about them."

"It's fine, ya." Konstantine gave her a rough pat on the head, making her flinch. "Kids will be kids, da."

"I hate to break it to you, but those aren't kids, they're devils in disguise."

He chuckled lightly. "Whatever you say."

.-.-.-.-.-.

October 19th 2003

"She is kind of… da." Konstantine shuffled his feet, glancing off to the side in hopes that his boss would not see how red his ears were.

"Kind of?" Aleksander looked like a Cheshire cat now, with a grin as wide as his face.

He did not answer, only nodding his head."

"It's official then!" His boss slammed his hand down on his desk, rising from his chair. The young man gave him a startled look. "You two should get married!"

"What!"

"Just kidding~"

Konstantine looked like he was about to faint. All the color drained from his faced and was instead replaced with a bright pink hue.

"C-can I go now, Sasha?" It came out as a whine as he gave his boss a pleading stare. Taking pity on the poor fellow, Aleksander dismissed him.

"Sure, sure, go on ahead."

.-.-.-.-.-

October 11th 2003

Firo's face fell into a blank look before snapping his fingers and pointing right back at her. "That's right! You sat next to Ennis."

She nodded rapidly and grinned. Luck suddenly felt left out as the two had a brief chat before Masha simply hand them their drinks and then stalked off to attend to other customers.

"Soooo, she's pretty cute, you know." Firo winked at his friend, who just gave him a baffled look in response. "I'd certainly be happy living next door to that."

"Mpfh, I suppose. The fights she gets into with the landlady aren't exactly great." Luck shrugged as he took a sip of water and skimmed the laminated piece of paper in front of his face.

"I can only imagine why, that woman is nuts. By the way, what do you mean by 'used to live'? I still live there." He frowned, jabbing Luck in the shoulder with his pointer finger. "I just moved down a couple floors, sheesh."

"It's not like it matters."

"Not like what matters?" Masha had returned,

"That Luck lied to you, I still live there."

"Oh… alright then. Are you to ready to…?"

"Not yet, no. Sorry for the delay."

"Its fine. I've got to go take care of the other customers anyway. Let me know when you've made up your mind alright?" And with that, she pranced off again.

"So she's cute, right?" Luck gave him a blank look, "Masha." He elbowed his friend in the side. "DO. YOU. THINK. SHE'S. CUTE?"

"…" Luck glanced over to where Masha was currently arguing with the cashier. What was her name again? Nancy? Mary? Ah, wait, Marcy. That was it. And then, with a small cough, he averted his gaze to the menu. "I would suppose she is, yes."

"Good, now ask her out."

.-.-.-.-.-.—

"Masha, I just want you to keep to the other tables."

She paused mid step, before swinging around to give Maria the eye. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me, keep to the other tables. We're really busy today. I'll take care of your friend."

Oh, she'll take care of her alright. Masha couldn't help but notice a couple of buttons on Maria's blouse just so happened to have undone themselves.

"I'm sure you will, but unfortunately I'm already done with most of the tables." She gestured to the tray of dirty dishes in her hands. "You might want to stay close to the register. People are going to need to pay soon."

They narrowed their eyes at each other. Masha needed Maria to stay in her own territory. It's not that she thought Luck would take the bait, and Firo was a married man… boy, but she just wasn't comfortable with the thought of her near him.

"What's going on here? Would you two ninnies stop glaring at each other and get to work!" Maria's grandmother had emerged from the kitchen and was now waving a ladle at the two of them.

"Maria's trying seduce the customers," Masha shot back accusingly, to which Maria gasped with outrage. Her grandmother looked thoughtful before yelling at her in Greek. Her coworker glared at her before retreating back behind the cash register.

That's right. Masha returned the gesture before waddling into the kitchen.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.

September 29th 2003

"Volke, I don't recall employing you to start a war." Aleksander gritted out to the person on the other end on the line. He had the phone jammed up to his ear as his employee squabbled countless things at him.

"Excuses, just the thing I didn't want to hear. I'm getting sick and tired of the messes you make, Volke."

The man pleaded for another chance, once again spouting excuses.

"I already told you that I don't want to hear it. Just make sure it doesn't happen again."

The other end exploded with songs of gratitude, which were cut short as Aleksander slammed the phone back on its receiver. With a heavy sigh, he leaned onto his hands, the thumbs rubbing at his temples. And then someone knocked on his door. "What is it?"

"Is something wrong, da?" Konstantine peered at him through the door.

"Volke is wrong. That's what. I'm so close to shooting that fool it's not even funny."

Konstantine rubbed his teeth together in thought. Volke had never a good thing for the family, with his violent tendencies and whatnot. He was practically the only real reason they didn't get along with most of the other families on Manhattan. The actual reason Aleksander even hired him was to keep an eye on him, and that failed miserably. He had supporters within the family, and if his boss were to off him, most would either leave or attempt to kill him.

"I've found where Miss Masha lives." Konstantine blurted out in hopes to lighten his bosses mood. I worked almost instantaneously.

"Oh, is that so?"

He nodded.

"Well, that's great! I was really beginning to miss her."

"Little Miss Katja too, da?"

"Well, she most certainly does, no one quite looks like her mother except her aunt." He said with a grin. Katja was disappointed at leaving Masha behind when he came for her after the accident. But there was nothing he could do. There was no way a comatose patient would be able to travel such a long distance.

"Well then. Maybe… just maybe… we can ask her to come visit soon."

-…-..-.-.-.-.

Oh my, it has been a while, hasn't it? Months in fact. I'm really sorry. First it was finals for the semester and then came Christmas, where I've been practically drowned in new games, from Skyrim to Skyward Sword to Kingdom Hearts BBS to Sengoku Basara 3 and Dragon Age Origins, not to mention the fact that I was having problems with my financial support so I was unable to get textbooks for this semester. Why? Because I was apparently breaking the bank. But now I have what I need so it's safe to start writing again. Yay!

Actually this is only one half of this chapter. I got writers block smack dab in the middle of the original version of this chapter (which is the October 10th scenario) so after a month of mulling it over, I decided that everything I had written in my notebook was going into the stewpot. Therefore, you get this, the great chapter of non-great chapter of time travel, yes? All special for you~

A couple notes, I changed Konstantine's ja to da, because da is the Russian word for yes. It's very close though, da? XD

Yes, that's right, the incredible young couple she was sitting next just so happened to be Firo and Ennis. How fun, so how many of you guessed that?

The twins officially have names now, but the landlady still doesn't XD Such a shame.

Another note, the time line is a little off, seeing as Maiza didn't get back from his trip to Europe until 2004 I would guess, but then again, this story is more than just a little AU.

All right, I'm done rambling here.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Baccano! Including Luck and Firo, however, most of the people in this chapter do belong to me (get over it)namely Masha, Konstantine, and Aleksander.