Quartermaine Mansion, Port Charles, 2020
DING DONG!
The sun was slanting in warm yellow lines through the thick grove of maples to the west of the elegant building, and the dim light through them burst into gold as Anna stood patiently and waited. She had a purpose, she assured herself. She wanted to go over the WSB's file on Drew's disappearance with Valentin one more time. Of course, she could just visit him to visit, but that seemed strange. She's not sure why but the idea of seeing him without a business reason felt so...so… significant somehow.
There was no sound coming from inside. The atmosphere was very peaceful—almost too much so for a mansion that housed as many as it did, she thought with a shrug of her shoulders as she stood in the worn steps and gazed about her.
Still, no one came to the door. Anna knocked this time, wondering if it might be possible that no one was home. Then she heard footsteps approach. She expected to be greeted by a broad-shouldered Belarusian. Still, a moment later, it was opened by the surprised face of a woman—a woman of rigid lines whose no-nonsense look softened into a smile of familiarity. She had a face that was somewhat careworn but possessing a certain comeliness of feature which neither age nor hardship had marred, and her deep-set, light gray eyes were, though surprised, were not devoid of kindliness.
"Hello Monica," Anna said cheerily.
"Anna! Come in! What brings you here today? I'd love to stay and catch up with you, but I'm on my way out to a General Hospital board meeting, and I'm already going to be late." Monica Quartermaine smiled broadly at her friend and opened her arms for a hug which Anna gladly accepted.
"We do need to catch up some time, but I actually came by to see Valentin. I'm here to touch base on a case we've been working on. Is he in?"
"Yes, he's in the music room. Everyone else is out and about as well, so there is no one to show you the way. Do you know your way there on your own?" Monica asked while she quickly donned her jacket and scarf as Anna crossed the threshold and stood in the impressive foyer.
"I'm sure I can find it. Thank you, Monica."
"He's a royal pain in the ass, but his music is always welcome. Just don't tell him I said that- the music part, I mean," she said with a sarcastic smile and patted Anna on the shoulder before walking out and closing the heavy front door behind her.
Anna stopped for a moment and listened carefully before walking down the nearest corridor. Finding him wasn't difficult. She just followed the music. And she was not disappointed. She didn't alert him to her presence as he played Chopin and Bach and other melodies that she did not recognize, and he did so with such gorgeous fluidity that she could hardly believe that he and the instrument were two separate entities. The face before her was a very handsome one, suggestive with his dark eyes and vivid coloring, but its expression rather than its beauty fascinated Anna. He was dressed casually in his usual buttondown shirt, but it was open at the collar, and his sleeves were rolled up almost to his elbow but never had she seen a countenance filled with more intense and stubborn willpower or as much tender concentration., She was content to stand in the doorway, just out of his line of sight, and gradually closed her eyes and listened.
At first, Anna listened as a woman spellbound, mute and motionlessly, lost in wonderment. She didn't know the work, but it seemed more of a lament than any sonata she had ever heard. There was a haunting, melancholic longing to the piece that almost made her uncomfortable, as though Anna was intruding on someone else's despair. She heard and felt what must have been decades of unwanted solitude and self-loathing, and as she nearly wept in response, she could scarcely believe that such sadness could come from little more than an assembly of hammers and strings.
Then the music changed. Wonderful music was coming straight from the soul; soft, lovely, and rich. And then his lips parted, and he began to sing softly.
You've seen the me that I've hated,
And I have seen the you that you're not,
You just keep staring at the picture,
And I'm avoiding the clock,
Oh but our rope is one that is braided
It has stood the test of weight
And though the fire may have faded
That moon still shines like it did on that day
She nearly gasped to hear Valentin's singing voice again. She had forgotten how it could curl softly around her in one moment, then clench her insides like a vise in the next. Its texture was so velvety that it was easy to overlook how much power and control he wielded masterfully throughout his voice.
It was your beauty that caught my attention,
It was your kindness that made me stay,
But for all my growing affections,
It was your soul I fell in love with that day,
It was your soul I fell in love with that day,
She was unfamiliar with the song, yet the words touched her heart because they felt meant for her. By the time he had sung every verse and played the final chord, Anna had practically melted. She felt warm and safe and at home, while at the same time utterly unsettled by the return of his bewitching influence over her. His music was more beautiful than she could have imagined. Yet, it was also exactly what she had expected: he had mapped his own essence, and hers, onto the keys.
It was then she decided to make her presence known and stepped into the room making a soft noise to alert him that he wasn't alone.
"Anna!" he said in surprise and retracted his hands from the piano then pivoted on the bench to face her. "I didn't know anyone was here. I would have welcomed you otherwise." There was not a hint of shyness or embarrassment in his voice knowing she had heard his song, it was as if he had wanted her to hear it.
"I like listening to you," answered Anna, laughing a little; but there was in her voice a tender note of which she was unconscious. Valentin, however, was aware of it. The pair of them stared at each other, motionless, in the moments following. She felt strangely out of breath; every nerve ending buzzed with exhilaration. She could not read Valentin's expression. Suddenly, he shot to his feet and offered her a hand. She raised an eyebrow at him as if he had lost his mind. Then with an impulsive tilt of her head, she put her hand in his and he pulled her over to the bench with him.
"Come on," he said. His eyes were positively gleaming. "Rather and just listening, would you like to join me? " His voice unfurled like silk, cool and slick, and it made her snap to attention.
He sat at the piano, his body practically vibrating with music awaiting release, and she slid in smoothly to join him. Those expansive hands came up to hover over the keys, and he studied her with a subtle tilt of his head. It seemed to her that he gained confidence with every second he spent near the instrument. Her heartbeat picked up speed. This was not the version of Valentin that she felt she had any sway over. He held court here.
"Now, what do you remember how to play?"
Without waiting for an answer, he placed his broad hands on the instrument and coaxed sound from it. All it took was one line, one single line of music, and it struck her right in the heart. Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1. It was a subtle tune of melancholic longing that had been among the earliest of his repertoire. In an instant, she was transported to the WSB Academy, sitting by Valentin- or Ivan as she knew him then- as they wasted time at the piano, next to a cozy fireplace, during a particularly unforgiving winter. No matter how moody she was, he could always coax a smile from her with a half dozen or so songs and two fingers of good whiskey in a glass.
"You used to play this for me. When you were brooding in the common room on dark, gloomy English nights. Of which there were many," she said pointedly.
"See I remember it differently. I played it because you were brooding and I taught you part of it so we could brood together. Let's find out what your fingers remember."
"Are you sure your ears are up to it? No guarantees that my fingers can produce sound worth hearing."
"Well, that's perfect then. That matches the performance instructions that Satie gave, which is to play the piece douloureux or 'painfully'."
She threw an exasperated look his way but couldn't hide her smile with any conviction. She hesitated for a moment and then sat on the bench next to him, careful to keep some little distance between them. She played with her right hand to start and began to pick out the notes carefully hitting only the top note of each chord to scrape together a bare-bones version of the melody. It sounded nothing like it ought to, she knew, and yet it was just enough to give her the flavor of it. She was intrigued that she could remember anything at all after so many years, coaxing a sparse and timid version of the song from the keys. She managed to muddle her way through most of it but struggled for a moment as she tried to unearth the notes from her memory.
"Here, let me help," he said softly.
He placed his right hand on the keys and then took hold of hers and placed it on top of his hand so her fingers lay atop of his. As he played, her hand fitted into his, and she closed her eyes as the rise and fall of his fingers revived her muscle memory. There was beauty in the simplicity of the work but it didn't lack depth. The melody, a single, flowing line of quarter notes, raising and lowering like ocean waves, gave her a sense of calm as if she was being swept out to sea but had nothing to fear as his hands kept her tethered to shore. The rhythm was long and sustained, creating a feeling of floating through time.
Once Valentin seemed satisfied with her fingers ghosting the theme, he carefully slid his hand from under hers and began to accompany her. She felt a twinge of disappointment at the loss of his touch but soon his hands were moving across the ivory and black keys tying their harmonies together to complete the moody atmosphere. Her melody floated over his chords, slowly raising, lowering, and expanding the sound.
He nodded approvingly as she played. "'Gymnopédie Number One does seem to be our song, remember?"
All of these lush, beautiful harmonies worked together with the slow tempo to create a vast, open space for her to think and reflect. Anna had figured out his aim, of course. The piece was their shared story, told through music. It was not a difficult conclusion to reach. His accompaniment was tailored to add a rich depth of sound to the melody that she was plunking out. Occasionally his hand would softly abut hers, and once, it even crossed over hers to add harmony in the upper register. She felt a sensuous thrill from the way his lithe fingers danced around her and folded her notes into his to make the song complete.
It did not feel the same as the Academy days. Nothing, she suspected, could ever rival that. But they were still making music, raw and pure and nearly effortless, and it was both satisfying and cleansing. She felt even more that strange pull that she always had: a hook wrapped firmly around her insides, reeling her toward him with every note.
He was studying her; she realized—gauging her reaction to every subtle maneuver of her fingers on the keys. That knowledge only fanned the flames that threatened to consume her, for he was nothing if not a master of study.
Having reached the natural conclusion to the piece, she looked up at him when they finished. His eyes shone. "Thank you," he whispered.
She could not say what possessed her to do what she did next—the heady rush of gratitude, perhaps, that he had walked beside her through her Valley of Shadows, or maybe the emergence of his raw and vulnerable humanity—but she found herself sliding even closer to him. She heard his swift intake of breath as she wrapped her arm around his torso; her other hand laced her fingers through his. Then she lay her head against his shoulder and held him. Her muscles relaxed against him, even as she could almost hear his heart thudding away in his chest. It felt too easy, too natural, this embrace, and she realized just how lonely, how starved for human contact she had been of late.
On impulse, she lifted her head to look at him, and the respective angles of their heads put her lips right in line with his. She froze, drawing in a quivering breath. Her mind instantly replayed every single fantasy, good or bad, that she had experienced since July 4th regarding those lips. His mouth was beginning to consume her every waking thought. Were they as soft and yielding as she remembered?
Their mouths hovered against each other, waiting, as their warm exhalations of breath mingled and interchanged. It would take only the slightest movement for them to touch. She could sense from Valentin's labored breaths and from the coiled tension in his body how much he wanted it. Yet, he resisted. Did he, like her, suspect that this would lead to heartache? Or was he simply waiting for her permission?
She didn't mean to tease him like this; she just couldn't escape the force of his personality. The idea of giving in to her impulses terrified her. Practically, she knew she should still be angry with him for the hurt he had caused her, yet that only seemed to fuel the reckless part of her that ached to give in; to her craving for his touch after so many months of circling each other.
Stop thinking, her body urged. Stop thinking and give in. She unconsciously bit the side of her lip to try and keep control. She no longer had anything to prove, she realized. He had seen her at her best and at her worst, with emotions laid bare and vulnerable, and after all of that, he had still professed his feelings for her. There was nothing left of her to hold back from him. She wondered whether this was what his regard for her felt like: a craving so languid and sweet that she hardly noticed her plight, like a fly drowning in honey.
"Anna?" Her name was little more than a shaky breath escaping his lips. His long arms came up to envelop her back and shoulders, pulling her to him even harder, and warm tendrils of desire began to curl around her midsection. It sent a thrill coursing through her, that he should still desire her even after she had told him that she couldn't be what he needed. If she left, he would accept it; if she stayed, then he would worship her. In the absence of other means of comfort, the choice was overwhelmingly and selfishly and recklessly obvious.
She swallowed. The simple action forced her lips closed, causing an inadvertent brush of her top lip against his bottom one. The contact sent a shock rippling through her, all the way down to her toes, and he emitted a small gasp. She pulled back and looked at the hunger in his eyes. There would be no coming back from this, she thought, as her hand moved to trace his jaw and pull him closer.
"YURI! Take my bags upstairs!" came a very loud and clear voice that sent them flying apart.
Suddenly, the double doors flew open and sent them both clambering apart as Brook Lynn breezed in, pushing a stroller into the room. Valentin turned to look at Anna only to see that she had smoothly slid off the piano bench and deftly lifted a sheaf of sheet music into her hand and was standing some feet away studying it intently. He tried to catch her eye, but she averted her gaze. She could feel the heat of his eyes still on her. She did not want to let on what had almost transpired between them and he realized it was best to remain seated where he was- for exactly the same reason.
"Oh good, you're still here. I just finished shopping but Bailey is so fussy and she won't nap so I thought maybe you could play something for her. You know I was reading that classical music makes babies smarter and stuff and we could get a two for one. You can put her to sleep and get her a leg up on all the other babies- Oh, Hi Anna, I didn't know you were here…"
"Don't mind me. I was just here to go over some things about a case with Valentin but we're finished for now. I'll be on my way. I can see myself out." Her words tumbled out of her mouth quickly and with that grabbed her clutch and dashed away before Valentin could stop her.
Brook Lynn watched her leave and then turned and looked at him sheepishly. "Did I interrupt something?" she asked apologetically.
Valentin swallowed down his frustration like a bitter pill, closed his eyes, and counted to five before giving her a tense smile.
"No, not at all."
"I did, didn't I…"
"It doesn't matter," he said sighed. "Bring Bailey closer and I will play something for her." He say back down and the soft languid strains of Satie filled the room once more. He could still feel the warmth of Anna's hand against his and a soft smile played on his lips as he let himself think of her, allowing his feelings for her to escape and reveal themselves in his music.
Another was lost in her feelings as well. She relished his commanding presence when placed in front of his instrument, the way he seemed to fill the entire space, yet she still felt so very exposed while seated next to him. She longed to press herself against him again, to wrap herself in his arms until nothing else existed but their protection. Instead, she distracted herself by looking out at the road, trying to determine where she could go to escape her thoughts. She could not, however. She was lost, in all ways. The sweetness and heat of that involuntary kiss clung to Anna's lips as she went home, half-intoxicating her. She knew that it had reopened the gates of possibility between them. Never again, she felt, would her eyes meet his with nothing but resolute unclouded frankness. When next she looked into them she knew that she should see in his eyes the consciousness of her desire. And perhaps one day they could embrace each other and their song would be made manifest.
Yes. Perhaps one day, she would be brave.
