Who: Anatoly and Svetlana Sergievsky When: Now! (Sept 30 after midnight) Where: Svetlana's apartment What: Damage control Warnings: Angst after all that has happened in the past two weeks Status: Complete
It had been a long two weeks, and truthfully, Svetlana felt that it had been longer than that. Time didn’t seem to make sense at the moment. Oh she had been thankful to be back in Lawrence strangely enough. Because at least Molokov wasn’t making his presence known. Oh, she knew he was there, she had seen him. But he had yet to approach her. Had yet to threaten her. No. If she could try to pretend he didn’t exist if only for a bit and put her mind at ease. Of course, returning to Lawrence after everything Molokov had decided she was to do for him even in a week was damaging. The blond had always prided herself on standing tall in the face of adversary. Of taking what life threw at her, but this? This was something else entirely. She had lost the ability to control what happened to her body to ensure the safety of her daughters. She let Molokov use her for his own pleasure and part of her chipped away each time. But it wasn’t as if she could just risk him bluffing. He had made sure to punish her for what the version of her from that timeline had done. Going to Anatoly and pleading with him to lose instead of beating him flat out. He didn’t listen to Svetlana when she told him she could tell in how the bastard who had refused to help had played. He saw nothing but a game. Nothing mattered to him anymore....
So returning to Lawrence had been a relief. Or, it had been until she realized that it wasn’t her husband who was here. The one she was willing to try to work things out with. No. It was the man who looked and sounded like her husband who had turned his wife away despite her opening up to him. The one who hadn’t cared what she was enduring and only cared about power. The one who had lost to her and seemed to despise her because of it. She had gone from one hell to another. Oh, Svetlana wasn’t the type to open up, but she had needed Anatoly. Even if they said nothing at all, just sat and watched something on television... just his presence and not being turned away for what had happened would have been fine. Instead, she had to deal with the man who put her husband to shame in regards to being an asshole who cared nothing for his family. At least Anatoly had come home. At least he was trying... the one she’d been dealing with? He used everything he had to break her spirit when she needed someone the most. He threw everything in her face, tore her down when she’d already fallen so far already...
As it was after midnight and the girls were safe in their room, alive and well, Svetlana was once again in the shower, trying to scrub away the memory of Molokov, though she doubted it would ever go away now. She had been wary of him before, ill at ease, but now? Now she didn’t even know how to handle this. She didn’t know what to do. That loss of control for her future, even minor in comparison to what the other her had endured, had taken it’s toll. She detached herself from what was going on so she didn’t have to deal with it. Even when she was alone, she refused to let herself process. She just kept scrubbing violently as if that would do any good. Perhaps it would. Perhaps once she finally slept, she wouldn’t dream of it. But as she hadn’t slept since going to that place, Svetlana wasn’t certain that would happen and she honestly didn’t want to find out at the moment. She already had to deal with the body’s physical memories. To see the taped conversation Molokov had of Svetlana going to Anatoly and being so coldly turned away and seen as nothing. It did something to a person’s mental state. No matter how mentally strong, no matter how solid they held on... there would always be that person who could break them with a simple word and for Svetlana that was Anatoly. Even knowing that this wasn’t the same Anatoly she had married, the one she was trying to work things out with.... it was his face, his voice... his everything. All the poisonous words he had thrown at her had come from the man who could have been her husband had things been just slightly different and she didn’t know what to trust anymore, or if she’d ever see her version of Anatoly again. Not that she knew what she’d do if she did, it was all so very uncertain and nothing would change that uncertainty. Just like no amount of showering would wash away the memories. Even now, safe in the complex, she kept her senses on high alert just in case Molokov decided tonight was the night he’d make his presence known. In case something were to happen to her girls. She would protect them. She had to, no matter the cost to her own well being.
At first, Anatoly wasn’t even sure he was back in Kansas in 2011. He’d gone as far as searching his apartment high and low for any planted bugs by the KGB, then he went to find a newspaper. Finally convinced that he was back in Lawrence, he relaxed, but only slightly. To say he was mortified to find out what this other version of him had done in that other world was an understatement. He was physically sick and hated how blind the other him had been to Svetlana. Even the most stupid person would have been able to see that Svetlana was in trouble and asking for help.
So what had he done once he found everything out? Anatoly tracked Molokov and left a road made of KGB blood from Bangkok to Moscow. Anatoly was a staunch pacifist, not ever seeking to physically harm anyone, but that was always thrown out the window when Svetlana was threatened. He’d defended her from assailants twice all ready, and he’d sure as Hell fight Molokov for her. He’d finally found Molokov and given him the business for what he’d done. Shortly after that is when he’d returned to Lawrence. Once he was certain of where he was, he immediately thought of Svetlana and the girls. Were they in trouble? Had something happened to them when he hadn’t been here?
Fear gripping him, he rushed to Svetlana’s apartment. Being that it was late, he didn’t knock on the door, knowing the girls would be asleep by now and he didn’t want to wake them just yet. He used his key to open the door and he stepped inside, glancing around the apartment. No signs of struggle met his gaze.
“Svetlana?” He asked, closing the door behind him. There was a touch of worry in his voice because, well, he was genuinely worried something had happened.
Hearing the door open despite the shower running, Svetlana’s eyes narrowed and she turned off the water. Ever since she had gotten back, she kept a knife close by at all times. After what she had endured in that place and knowing Molokov was waiting around the corner made it imperative that she do so. She was still reeling from the shooting that Sunday before, the inability to get to her daughters to protect them because some stranger had knocked her out of the way of gunshots. She was still sore. But nothing compared to that devastation of not being able to protect them after she had given up everything to do so. No. She wouldn’t let that bastard near her or her daughters.
Wrapping a towel around herself, the blond made her way to the main room warily, eyes landing on Anatoly. Perhaps if she weren’t so upset she would have realized that he held himself differently. She would have put two and two together that the bastard who had been there the previous week never would have known where the key was to her apartment. For all she knew, he had found it and this was something else he decided she deserved. Still, she knew he wouldn’t physically attack her. At least, she didn’t think he would. Verbally? Most definitely. But not physically.
Shoulders dropping slightly, Svetlana lowered the knife and sighed.
“Really, Anatoly? You’re now breaking into my apartment to tear me down? I know you feel as though you owe me nothing but I would take it as a kindness if you didn’t throw around insinuations that I’m a whore or whatever else you feel the need to call me. But, as I know you don’t care to anything I have to say, let me change and you can have at it.”
Her words were hollow, gaze unwavering. She was tired of this. Tired of dealing with Anatoly’s feelings towards her and his insults. But if she didn’t let him do this here, he’d do it on the boards and it was getting harder for her to figure out what to say in English as he tore her down. With that, Svetlana moved to her room and quickly changed into a tank top and pajama pants before returning to the living room. And he was still there. Typical.
“So what slight have I done to you today that you feel the need to break into my apartment after midnight? Or are you here to take the girls from me because I failed them and it’s simply luck that they’re okay now?”