Viktoria had heard from her mother and sisters that you forget the pain and duration of labor once you had your baby. It was lies. Viktoria remembered the pain and the hours it had taken for her little one to enter the world, but her presence made it worth it. She'd endure days of it if it meant having her little girl at her side. Liliya was a good baby. She slept and cried, but she liked to look around at the world around her. So far she had only been able to see inside the Inn. One day she would be exposed to the ugliness that laid outside the walls, but that day was not today.
As she woke up, she didn't immediately let the two in her room aware. Instead she watched through long nearly closed lashes as her brother doted on his new biggest fan. Liliya was as mesmerized by her uncle as he was of her. This was the way it should have been; Dimitri being able to spend quality time with his family instead of always off attending to his duties.
Oh, she believed in his work and was proud of the things he had accomplished; the lives he saved, but it had come at the price of missing out on the lives of his sisters, niece and nephew. "I always liked that story. Your ending is better than original," she spoke in Russian to him. She'd been speaking in her native language around her daughter as much as possible; intent on her little girl being bilingual like her parents.
"She has our hair, da?" Viktoria smiled at them both. There was a lot of Belikov in her daughter, but she definitely had her father's eyes.