“I want to go home.” Her delicate features collapsed upon themselves as she stared stubbornly at her lap. “I have someone who is waiting for me.”
Catherine observed her in silence for a moment, and then quietly brought up a hand to tuck a stray blond hair behind her ear. “I know this must be frightening but you’re safe here. Once the doctors are sure that you’re fine I’ll help you get back home.” Little did she know just what that meant, but the look of hope and surprise that colored Nastenka’s features then caused her to smile.
“You will help me go home? To St. Petersburg?”
Shocked, Catherine stared at her incredulously, her own mouth falling open. “You’re an exchange student? A tourist?”
Her questions were answered with a mirrored look of sincere confusion, and Nastenka shook her head quickly.
The blonde placed the tip of her finger against her cheek then, considering the enormousness of the task at hand and wondering how on Earth she was going to reunite this girl, Anastasia, with her family. It was, after all, because she believed that there was someone in the country to whom the girl belonged to that was the force behind her decision. As it was the girl seemed like she was alone, wearing an outdated (vintage?) dress and was found with nothing on her person except for an antique book, written in Russian, and a letter.
"I'll talk to the nurse and see if maybe you can come home with me when you're feeling well enough. Then we can set about finding you a way back home." Whether she meant going back to her family or Russia, Catherine wasn't particularly sure.
Nastenka herself still felt as she were at a lost -- her nerves still felt raw with the unshakable feeling of being overwhelmed and she sank back into the soft cushion of the hospital bed, her head swimming. Before she had been so shocked by her surroundings that it had been impossible for her to make sense of them, but comforted by the relative safety of her bed she was able to ponder what happened. "How did I get here?" She thought to herself, that thought at the forefront of her mind as she remembered the strange crowds of people murmuring in English all around her as they talked into small, tiny boxes held to their ears and ignorant of the great metal carriages whirling past them.
Running her long, thin fingers into her hair, Nastenka breathed in deeply in an attempt to calm herself, cursing herself at the feeling of despair that seemed to creep up around her. "I have to find a way home..."
She perked up slightly when Catherine reentered the room, a smile forming on her crimson red lips. "Looks like the hospital has agreed to release you into my care."
After nearly a week of being in Catherine's care and reassurance to her newfound friend that her fainting spell was not something to worry over, Nastenka was finally growing accustomed to this new, strange world she was apart of. Nothing could erase the terrible feeling of loss and not being able to tell Vladimir that she was okay, and that she did not mean to leave him in such a way, or the fact that she would never know what her beloved's answer would be, but at least she was beginning to understand the things around her. For example, she learned that the small, black boxes people spoke into actually transmitted voices from one place to another -- she was unnerved with this invention in the same way televisions still shocked her -- but the girl no longer shrieked in horror when cars (that's what they were called!) drove past.
Catherine had bought her a few pairs of 'modern' clothes as well so that she might not look out of place --- the blond still hadn't been able to place where she recognized Nastenka's unfashionable dress from, but had replaced it with a long skirt and jacket that was more common with teenagers her age. The only things that Anastasia had been unwilling to part with were her knitted scarf (from Granny) and her tall, leather boots that were quite Victorian in style.