Summary: in which Aleksander wakes up, has a bad case of Déjà vu and finds that the world has changed while he's been out of it.
When Aleksander awakes it's to the familiar grey canvas of a Ravkan command tent and someone whistling out of tune somewhere behind him.
He has a headache, or rather everything aches, but his head has barged its way to the top of queue of body parts vying for his attention. To make matters worse, his back is itching like crazy, but when he tries to move to alleviate the sensation of a thousand ants tap dancing across his skin he finds that he can't. He's pinned in place on the uncomfortably thin mattress by thick leather straps around his arms, legs and torso.
"What?" He groans as he tries - without success - to move. Behind him the gods awful whistling stops and then there's the sound of heavy footfalls before another unwelcome familiar sight hoves into view.
The tracker has not improved in the week they've been separated, and absence has clearly not made him fonder of Aleksander, if the griping is anything to go by.
"Fuck, I knew you'd wake up when it was my turn," the tracker grumbles to himself. "Just sit here and watch him, Mal," he parrots in a high voice as he checks over the temporarily restrained Darkling. "He's not woken for three days, Mal. The chances of him waking in the couple of hours you'll be there is really low. Low! My hairy arse!"
"Should have just said no, but then she had to go and smile and like a numpty I just jumped right in. Idiot!"
Ahh, it had been Alina then who convinced the otkazat'sya to play minder. "She does have that affect," Aleks can't help but croak out hoarsely in a rare show of sympathy. The two men share a commiserating look. It's been the story of Aleksander's life since he met little Alina of being talked out of things he wants to do and into things he very much doesn't. It's reassuring to know that it isn't just him who's susceptible to Alina's powers of persuasion.
"Why am I restrained?" Aleks asks after Mal finally runs out of imprecations to his stupidity.
The tracker shrugs, "don't ask me. One of the healers insisted. Something about you not staying where you're put and how you're a terrible patient." That would be Olena, then. Clearly she hasn't forgiven him yet for his escape the last time he'd been in her clutches.
Thinking about the restraints and the reasons for them brings back the events leading up to waking in this bloody tent again; and with that memory comes the panic.
"Alina," he demands hoarsely, his heart hammering so fast against his ribs he fears he's going into cardiac arrest. His last fuzzy recollection is of paralysing grief as he fears Alina dead and then the sensation of her light encasing him as he lost the battle with consciousness. Surely he didn't - couldn't - have imagined it. Alina has to be alive. Has to be. No other option is acceptable. It's a struggle to draw air into his battered lungs, each breath feeling like shards of glass and coming faster than the one before.
"She's okay," Mal says distractedly, thankfully oblivious to the General's panicked state as he works on the tight buckles to the leather restraints holding the Grisha captive; "came out with barely a scratch on her. She's just off preparing."
The relief feels like a blow to his solar plexus, knocking both the wind and words out of him as he slumps into the pillows, strangely exhausted, yet buoyed and breathless with joy. Slowly his heart rate returns to normal and with it the tight band of tension around his heart eases it's deathlike grip as the anxiety of before vanishes beneath the rush of relief.
Then he remembers the rest of the tracker's response.
"What preparations?" Aleks demands, tone dark and silkily smooth, with just a hint of menace to get the boy to talk.
Mal blushes, and Aleksander is amused to see even the tips of his ears turn bright red.
"Erm, well, you see," the boy stutters, clearly unnerved by his misstep. The he evidently hits on an idea - "you know what I'll just go get the snarky one, he can answer your questions." And with that he quickly sidles out the tent.
It's not his loyal Heartrender who makes an appearance next, however, but Olena. Her expression is pinched with evident displeasure at the sight of her General once again attempting to get out of a bed she fully intended him to stay in. She knew it was a mistake to leave that boy with him without the supervision of a member of her team to enforce the treatment plan. The idiot otkazat'sya must have released the restraints that were meant to keep their General from doing something monumentally stupid, like trying to move while still injured.
"What do you think you're doing?" The Healer bellows as she marches over to wrestle her captive back into the bed… and the restraints that will hopefully keep him there. She has her orders after all. Orders from the Sun Summoner herself; and after seeing the damage an upset Alina had caused to her kidnappers the Healer has no intention of failing in her duties and drawing that particular ire to herself.
"I'm getting up," Aleksander tries to explain while fending off the suddenly octopus like hands of the Healer in charge of his care. "I need to find Alina."
"No, you don't," Olena snaps, using her iron grip and the lingering weakness of her patient to compel him back beneath the sheets. "You need to stay here and recover. What part of you nearly died is difficult for you to understand?"
That gives him a moment's pause. His memories of the skiff are hazy at best but he thinks he would remember acquiring a near fatal wound.
"Don't be absurd," he gasps out as one of her hands presses against a tender spot that almost makes him black out from the pain of it. "Zlatan's motley group of misfits weren't that good. I've had worse in the training yards from Botkin." That might be a slight exaggeration, but if there is one thing Aleksander's learnt over the years its never tell a Healer the full extent of your injuries if you hope to get away from them quickly.
The glower she directs at him for that piece of nonsense is impressively firesome and Aleks feels a twinge of something he might call alarm if not for the fact that the Darkling does not feel such base emotions.
His adversary draws in a deep breath. "86 separate lacerations, severe dehydration and exhaustion, deep bruising across 70% of the back and thighs, signs of attempted manual strangulation," Olena recites as she prods at bits of him he'd really rather she didn't. The Healer is being careful, but he can't help the pained hiss that escapes him when her fingers press against the side of his chest. Olena's eyes darken and he feels her healing power wash over him.
Her expression is grim when she looks back up at him. "But that's not the worst of it," she continues, "You've got four cracked and two broken ribs, one of which splintered and punctured your lung perilously close to your heart. It was touch and go for a couple of hours after we got to you. I've sped up your healing, but your body has taken a literal beating. Two days and if you've been good and not stressed those ribs then you can get out of bed and start moving around. It'll be the best part of a week before you're back to full strength." She finishes with a quelling glare.
At his reluctant nod, Olena smiles, happy with her victory. "Good. Then we have an agreement. The moment you try and get out of that bed without permission, though, not only will those restraints be back on but I'll get a Heartrender to put you into Heartsleep."
What can he do but signal his surrender to the termagant in charge of his freedom; especially seeing as his traitorous body feels strangely tired and battered from their exchange. Now he's tried moving he can feel how injured his body still is. His ribs are aching fiercely, his head pounding and the less said about the stabbing pain that rockets through him whenever he tries to lift his arms the better. He's been assured that they're safe, that everything is well in hand and that Alina has come through this latest misadventure unscathed.
That he misses her and is bored out of his wits is surely a small price to pay for the gift of them both surviving.
Ivan's appearance just over an hour and a short nap later is a balm to Aleksander's frayed nerves. He's never coped well with being injured or confined to bed. He hates boredom, which in turn makes him an awful patient. He also doesn't like mysteries - never has – nor unanswered questions. At least in this last vexation Ivan may be of some help.
"Moi Soverenyi," his Second says, saluting crisply – and, is that a tear in his eye?
Up until now it had been purely hypothetical that his irascible Second is even capable of producing tears, let alone actually having the emotional range that would enable him to cry. He's oddly touched while also increasingly unnerved. Ivan showing emotion is like the Tsar demonstrating restraint; concerningly out of character.
Deciding to do the tactful, manly thing, and not mention Ivan's brief behavioural aberration while he recovers himself, he instead says; "Report, Ivan. What have I missed."
Ivan shudders briefly as he wrestles his inconveniently timed emotions back under control, then straightens, expression reverting to its habitual surliness. "You have missed three days and fifteen hours: during which there have been six Council meetings, two appointments with the senior officers of the First Army, one almost riot and twenty-six enquires into your health," here he pauses, uncertainty flashing across his face, then delivers the last piece of news.
"Your mother is also outside and is desirous of an audience now that you have in her words 'finally bothered to wake up.'"
There are many things Aleksander had expected upon realising that he would be going into the Fold sooner rather than later: death, destruction, pain and the grief of failure, to name but four of them. In all honesty, waking up alive and in one piece (even if his ribs protest that description), hadn't been the outcome he'd foreseen. It hadn't even rated in the top twenty of most likely ways this particular adventure would end.
Having survived the unsurvivable though, Aleks is now confronted with the awkward realisation that at no point during this madcap misadventure has he thought about, or even considered, what would come after. All his focus and energy had been devoted to the dual purpose of finding his missing love and then ensuring her continued survival.
It's an oversight; a potentially cataclysmic one at that because his mother is here and is waiting to speak with him. Even tired, in pain, and probably out of his mind on painkillers, he recognises the order implied in that statement. This is not an optional event.
For a long moment he just lies there, stupefied. His mother is here. In Kribirsk. His mother. Baghra – the woman who has refused consistently refused to go further than Os Alta for nearly a century – has travelled half way across Ravka. It's mindboggling. Unfathomable. Disorientating. Terrifying.
The good news is that if it is his mother here boredom while he recuperates will be the least of his concerns.
Then another question announces itself to his conscious mind like a rock to the face: how does Ivan know that she's his mother…
He's successfully concealed their often fraught relationship for centuries now: centuries. As far as he knows, there are only three people who know this particular secret: Alina, Mei-Xing and Botkin.
So how does Ivan know?
Mei-Xing and Alina know because Baghra had let it slip herself years ago while she'd been busy interrogating him in their living room.
Botkin worked it out, true; but then he's Botkin. Frankly, by this point, Aleks has long ago given up on being surprised by that man and just accepts that the man is a marvel.
But how did Ivan know? In the many years since he built the Little Palace no one else has ever discovered their relationship.
Perhaps, his Second is confused and there is some random woman outside who is merely claiming to be his nearest – and supposedly – dearest relation. Given how unlikely it is that his cantankerous old witch of a mother has traversed hundreds of miles to come to his rescue that is as good an explanation as any other.
This is an issue that clearly needs further exploration though. "My mother?" he croaks inquiringly, hoping desperately for any answer than the one he fears: that is indeed his actual mother outside.
Ivan's posture if it's possible pulls even tauter, his expression becoming glacial. "Madam Kirigan accompanied us from the Little Palace," he says, sounding decidedly put upon. "Along with Master Yul-Erdene and… the Apparat." This last name is added with a distinctly Ivan-esq sneer that leaves no doubt in Aleksander's mind as to what his Second thinks of the man.
The dual addition of the She-Demon of the Little Palace and the High-Chief of the Crazies had not made for an easy, or enjoyable, dash across the Ravkan snow-covered landscape; as Ivan makes painfully clear to his beloved leader.
'Well, fuck,' Aleksander thinks. So much for the forlorn hope that it was some random nutter waiting to ambush him. With the imminent threat of his mother hanging over him, he's almost inclined to think fondly of his time as Zlatan's punching bag.
There's no time like the present though, and he knows from long exposure to his mother that waiting usually only makes the subsequent scolding that much worse as it gives her longer to stockpile her insults and barbs. As she'd already had at least three days of preparation, she'd had enough of a head start already, and it would be foolish of him to give her even longer to nurse her wrath.
"Very well, show her in, Ivan," he sighs, hoping in a rare display of optimism that the same philosophy of ripping off a plaster would apply here with his mother.
His Second nods crisply and vanishes through the flaps of the tent, returning some five minutes later with Baghra in-tow.
"Madam Kirigan," Ivan salutes, before turning tail and almost running out of the tent to give mother and son some privacy.
Feigning calmness that he certainly isn't feeling, Aleks pours two cups of water – the only beverage his ogre of a healer will allow – passing one to his mother, who takes it with a sour grimace at the realisation that it isn't gin.
His attempt at distraction doesn't fool his mother for a moment,
"Do calm down, boy. I didn't come half way across Ravka in the middle of winter to berate you," she says as she casts a critical eye over the bandages wrapped around his chest.
"You didn't?" Aleksander can't help but exclaim in surprise.
Baghra shakes her head irritably, "of course not; I know you're recovering, but try to not be such a dim-witted idiot."
"Then why did you come?"
"To do my bit in ensuring you both survived this latest catastrophe," she replies, casting a gimlet stare over him. "And to keep my promise to your father," she adds after a moment, in a quiet voice lacking her usual venom. "I told him I would always look after you. You might be approaching seven-hundred, but you will always be my son."
Uncomfortable at this rare display of emotion from his normally taciturn mother, Aleksander decides to address the easier elephant in the room. "I think you might have let the cat out the bag by storming to the rescue, Mother," he comments dryly, trying desperately to tamp down the irritation he feels at one of his greatest secrets now being common knowledge.
"Nonsense boy," his mother replies tartly, all sign of vulnerability gone as if it had never been there. "They already knew."
"What?" He splutters, coughing up the water he has just gulped down. Impossible!
Baghra sighs impatiently. "Don't be an idiot, Sasha, you're not mentally deficient. Of course they knew, we're the only two shadow summoners in the world, of course there's a good chance we're related, and when you put together the physical resemblance it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together to get four."
"I do not look like you," her son protests loudly. His horrified expression makes Baghra chortle. "We have the same nose boy and the same eyes, not to mention the same powers. Only the blind or the moronic would fail to spot the similarities after spending time with the both of us."
"You mean the whole palace knows?" Aleks croaks, cheeks pink with embarrassment.
His mother cocks her head slightly and stares at him knowingly. "Well, maybe not the whole of the Little Palace," she concedes, "but certainly all your senior officers and the Oprinichki do."
"Oh," such a small, insubstantial word, and yet it's all he can think to say. Well, he supposes, that's that then. One of his greatest secrets, something he has apparently worried needlessly about for years and everyone already knows. Wonderful!
Apart from making him feel slightly sick, his mother's blasé attitude does, however, raise another question. How on earth had his mother known that they were in trouble?
Baghra had made it a point of principle never to stir from her cottage – no matter who asked, and he has trouble believing his poor Second had willingly braved the lion's den to ask his irascible mother for her assistance in retrieving their missing Sun Summoner. Which is what he asks her.
His mother's grin is sharp and distinctly shark like as she considers his question. "You're not the only one to have spies among the staff at the Imperial Palace," she tells him, "as soon as the Imperial Hippo and his Ostrich wife knew so did the servants. It didn't take long for one to slip away to tell me… or for me to guess what stupid course of action my only child would embark upon." Here her gaze becomes glacial as she eyes him in blatant disapproval.
He's long suspected that his mother has her own spy network throughout both the Imperial and Little Palace – she's simply too well informed and difficult to surprise - but he's never been able to confirm it, until now that is.
"After that it was simply a case of convincing your surly man out there that I would be joining the rescue party." Now that is a sight he would have given much to be a fly on the wall for, Aleks thinks longingly. Ivan versus his Mother. No wonder his poor Second is so out of sorts. Exposure to Baghra was medically advisable only in small, pre-prepared doses – the opposite of what Ivan had just been subjected to.
All joking aside, though, this is an unusual and frankly completely unexpected gesture on his Mother's part; especially her willingness to come here, to the place of what in her eyes is his greatest sin and most abhorrent mistake.
Baghra had sworn the day she saw his creation for the first time that she would never again set foot in this cursed place. It's a promise that's she's held true to for centuries.
Her willingness to leave the safety of her home and come here shows him how far they have come, how much closer they are now than before when they'd been growing ever most distant from each other. Alina's presence in their lives has been the saving light for them both, reforging a bond he had long ago thought broken beyond all hope of repair.
"Thank you, Mother," Aleks says sincerely, for once forgoing the acidic banter and veiled barbs that are their usual method of conversing.
"As if I'd leave you and my future daughter in law to weather this storm alone," she harrumphs, aiming for her usual acerbic tone but missing the mark; the pink of her cheeks giving away her pleasure at her son's gratitude and the rare moment of understanding that settles between them.
For several long minutes there is quiet in the tent as he continues to digest this astonishing development, but then another thought smacks into him like a hammer to the head.
Fuck. What about Alina's mother. In the panic driven frenzy of that night he'd completely forgotten that Mei-Xing should be informed that her daughter had been abducted. It had completely escaped his attention, and he hadn't even thought to ask Ivan or Fedyor to see to it that a message was dispatched. As far as he knew, Alina still maintained her habit of writing to her mother twice a week. It's well over that now since the night of the Imperial Ball. How worried the poor woman must be.
"What about Mei-Xing," Aleksander can't help but blurt out, guilt curdling in his stomach at his oversight. "Does she know?"
His mother raises a distinctly unimpressed eyebrow at his stupidity, clearly questioning her son's mental capacity. "Yes." She answers, managing to look simultaneously both smug and displeased. "I sent a letter with one of your fan club."
For a moment Aleksander is stunned by the relief that rushes through him but then confusion sinks in as he tries to puzzle who his mother could mean. He has few friends in the Imperial Palace and most of the Grisha he trusts are here in Kribirsk, then it hits him.
"Do you mean my highly trained, ruthlessly efficient Oprinichki?" He enquires, annoyance creeping into his voice in what he thinks is a perfectly reasonable way. His mother clearly disagrees as a moment later he's nursing his now stinging hand, glowering at the offensive weapon which Ivan should definitely have confiscated before allowing his she-demon of a mother in to see him.
"Don't you take that tone with me, Sasha," Baghra barks, fixing her recalcitrant child with a gimlet stare. "I've not come traipsing all this way to pull your sorry behind out of the fire for you to be rude."
Still nursing his bruised limb, Aleks cannot help the grumpy response he mutters under his breath. His reward is another thwack this time to his uninjured hand. "Ow," he cries, more out of surprise than actual pain.
His mother's glare ratchets up several notches. "Don't you dare blame Alina for your idiocy. She was overpowered and kidnapped - you, my allegedly clever and godlike son, just walked straight into an ambush."
Baghra settles herself primly back into her seat, somehow managing to make the rickety old chair seem like a throne and she a queen holding court. "Now, are you going to listen quietly?" She demands, eyes narrowed.
Sullenly he nods his head, cursing his mother's curious talent for making him feel like a dunder-headed youth.
Thin lips quirk in what in anyone else would be a smile but in his mother merely looks like victory. "Good. Then I'll begin."
It turns out that his mother, unlike himself, had been thinking clearly that night and had written to Alina's mother as soon as she'd been made aware of the unfolding catastrophe. With enviable prescience, his mother had recognised the innate danger in leaving a school full of vulnerable part trained Grisha alone for an unspecified amount of time while the vast majority of the senior ranks – and responsible adults - hot footed it across Ravka in search of their missing saint and wayward General, and so had decided to call upon the help of the only other adult she had any respect for: Alina's mother.
Her letter, according to Baghra, was concise and to the point. She'd told her old friend that Alina had been kidnapped, that her idiot son had gone chasing off after her like a demented knight in shining armour, and the remaining officers who would normally be in charge would soon be haring off in pursuit. Someone competent, level headed and impervious to the antics of unsupervised children needed to be there to stop both the accidental distraction of the Little Palace and the likely interference of the Tsar and his court of inbred morons.
Mei-Xing was well respected by Garin, which would smooth the way with the other staff, and, perhaps more importantly, had a way with children. Baghra had already seen to it that an update was even now on its way to the no-doubt frantic mother with the good news that both their children had not only survived this latest insanity but had done so with all limbs and sanity intact, and she made a mental note to send another missive tomorrow; now that her Sasha was awake things were bound to get interesting.
"Now. The Healer said you'd been demanding an update on our Alina," she says, patting his hand in a blatantly condescending way that makes him bristle even as he nods reluctantly.
"She's doing well, our girl," his mother continues, a proud smile stretching her thin lips. "Very well. Already commandeered the First Army battalions stationed here and is a good way into organising the coup of the millennia." She chortles. "Has that princeling eating out of her hand as well, our girl does. She says jump, and everyone is six feet in their air before they remember to ask how high."
"Now," she finishes with a dark glare at her only child. "I have a message for you from our little saint. She says, and I quote, 'don't even think of moving off that bed Aleksander Mikael Morozova until Olena has cleared you for active duty. You are to rest, recover and only stir yourself when you can be useful again.'"
Baghra pauses there, evidently waiting for him to agree with the orders he's received. Grudgingly he nods. The order rankles, but as it's his precious girl who's giving them he will trust in her decision and abide by the restrictions, even though she's clearly in cahoots with his jailer.
With a grunt he leans back into the mountain of pillows and makes a show of getting himself comfortable. His mother's grin is wicked and distinctly amused, but he lets her have her win, still shocked and surprisingly moved that she'd braved the world outside the Little Palace to come and rescue them. Besides he is still quite tired after the strain of the last week, and his control is poor as a result; which shows when his shadows decide without conscious direction to wrap around him like swirling black blanket.
"Good," she says standing up and walking over to another bed he hadn't noticed before, "and just to make sure that you do, I'll be staying in this tent to keep an eye on you."
He groans again, this time not from physical pain. Him and his mother in close quarters and with no escape is a recipe for distaste. There's a good reason he and his mother haven't cohabited for half a millennium.
Someone put him out of his misery and shoot him now.
