blonderussianspy | (no subject)

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Natalya usually went on August 26th, the anniversary of the day the Soyuz had crashed onto the island, but she hadn't this year. She'd thought about it, toward the end of the day, but she'd had plans to see Sam and she couldn't bring herself to postpone or cancel them. It was a funny thing, to find herself with plans. And then she'd stayed away because she was afraid of facing it, she realized. After the inarguable failure that the Rapture operation had proven to be, she just... Hadn't wanted to walk up to the cemetery and look at the names, and remember the wreckage and all the people she'd let down.

But that was cowardice, so she dressed in khaki shorts and ankle boots that were good for the terrain and a black tank top, and she headed for the cemetery, Ahimsa following curiously behind.

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"Mmn," she replied, a quiet affirmative noise, and nodded absently, "the cemetery. You are know where this is?"

That was one way to ease into it, she figured. Ahimsa went off ahead of them and disappeared into a thick patch of ferns, and Natalya threaded her fingers with Sam's.

Life required that Sam get over any kind of fear of cemeteries a long, long time ago, but that doesn't make the response sound any better coming out of Natalya's mouth.

He frowns and looks at her sideways. "Uh.. yeah. Is-- Are you paying your respects?" That's what normal people did at a cemetery, right?

"I am," Natalya replied, absently chewing on her the corner of her lip.

"Two people here I am bury. Some time ago, now."

The frown only deepens as Sam tries to figure out the situation, Natalya's attachment to these people, hopefully without making her have to tell the whole story. Knowing what he does of Natalya's life back home, he suspects that story would be painful for her.

"From home?" he guesses. "Men you knew?"

"Nyet," Natalya said, "only knew of. I did not ever meet them, but their names were very important. After plague, I am sent on first mission to America for to retrieve last surviving man of Russia. All men on Earth were, perhaps, gone, but one was not on Earth." Her gaze flicked upward to where she could see the sky through the trees.

"Three people on space station when plague was hit. Two were men. One was Vladimir, cosmonaut. Him I was to bring home."

So much for avoiding the story. Sam won't complain but, given the way things have been with everyone he cares about recently, he does watch her expression with slightly more than usual alertness.

"Did the plague get them?" he asks. "Something happen when they landed?"

"The Soyuz, is capsule for three persons, no more, for make landing to Earth. It is explode moments after landing. One astronaut, American, she is saved. Vladimir and American astronaut, Joseph I am think, they are push her out." She sighed, almost silently through her nose.

Women and children first, indeed. Her expression remained, if anything, neutral, maybe vaguely distant, but over all smooth and undistressed. Her eyes stayed focused on the path ahead.

"Both men are die in flames. I am not able to be saving them. Some months after I am arrive on island, Soyuz capsule is arrive also."

He draws in breath in preparation of a curse. It never comes; he holds his tongue. But it just figures that the island would pull that kind of shit, leave Natalya to deal with the bodies. He doesn't like it, but he won't break Natalya's calm, put on or true, by getting upset.

"Is this the day it showed up before?" he asks, using that breath for something else.

"Mmn, no, was twenty six of August," she replied, gaze dropping. Her mouth worked for a moment as she chewed on the corner of her lower lip, but she released it and pressed them into a line instead, for a moment. Regained control.

"But this day I did not go, and so I am going today."

Sam nods, though his lips press together in a way that anyone who knows him would interpret as less than pleased. He doesn’t begrudge Natalya her way of grieving, saying goodbye, remembering, but it seems like that’s all they’re doing. And even though Rapture’s all but buried and dead, it still casts a shadow that’s hard to see through.

He squeezes her hand gently, tugs her a little closer so that their arms brush together. “Thanks for letting me walk with you.”

Natalya leaned into the contact and considered his words. There was the implication of trust, in them, that he recognized she was allowing him to accompany her into very personal territory. They were both good at keeping private things very, very private, and if it weren't so unnerving, she would have been proud of herself for allowing this to be shared.

"Thank you for walking with me," she replied.

"Is... strange," she added, carefully, glancing up at him, "being with someone and letting them... see these pieces, things usually you would not. Da?"

The corners of Sam's mouth tighten briefly as he considers the question. As much as he loved Jess -- loves Jess -- it wasn't refreshing to find out she knew all those dark parts of him. It was unnerving when he really stopped to think about it. If you tell the same lie enough times, it starts to feel real, like something physical that can actually protect you from harm. When that gets taken away, suddenly you're in the thick of it without protection. Friendly fire does as much damage as the enemy; well-intentioned words can hurt as much as those meant to sting. And then there's the judgment, which Sam knows all too well given how much he heaped upon himself.

Yeah, it's fucking terrifying.

"Yeah," he says, nodding. "People say.. the truth will set you free. Stuff like that. It's probably true, but it's hard to get there. Takes a lot of courage." He gives Natalya a small smile.

It was a pointed word to use, not that he could know, and absently she slipped a hand into her pocket where her fingers wrapped around the gold star of the Hero of the Russian Federation. She carried it with her to the graves each time, and the rest of the time had taken to leaving it in a compartment behind the drawer of her bedside table. She took in the smile, gaze coolly tracing the lines of his face, before she momentarily turned her head to brush his shoulder with her temple, the easiest little gesture of affection she could manage side by side with the height differential.

"Mmn."

He's said something... not wrong, but definitely something to make her quiet. Sam chooses to believe it's a good kind of quiet, a decision helped by how her head touches his shoulder, so he chooses also not to break that silence with questions.

The walk to the cemetery isn't short, but it is beautiful. The weather's perfect as usual, the faint smell of the sea mixed with flowery perfumes on the gentle breeze. Sunlight streams through the trees and open spaces, brightening their path edged with lush greenery and bright flowers. The birds sing and it's perfectly idyllic, making their silence natural and easy.

When they reach the cemetery, Sam gives Natalya's hand a squeeze again and lets her take the lead. He's only been here once or twice and not to take note of anything. He doesn't know where to go.

Natalya looked up at him and offered a brief, reassuring smile before she let go of his hand and started to weave through the few markers there were, until she arrived at two standing plain and upright, each bearing a name and a date. One one was inscribed with the words "We must become astronauts and go out into the universe and discover the God in ourselves." and the other, in Cyrillic, The Earth is a cradle of the mind, but we cannot live forever in a cradle. Choosing the inscriptions had been the most use she'd made of her attempts at being a student of literature in what felt like years.

She stopped in front of them and crossed her arms low against her ribs.

"I only have same thing to say for them, each time. If they can hear, must be very bored, by now."

Sam follows, close enough to be felt without crowding. It's a respectful distance because he does not know these men, knows them even less than Natalya does. What they suffered in their world is nothing like what Sam's gone through. He can't begin to imagine.

"I bet they think it's nice," Sam counters gently. "To know someone's thinking of them. If the words fit, there's no reason to change them."

"If they are think anything at all. But then you are given no choice, in believing in afterlife or not, da?" she said, glancing up at him. Natalya hadn't ever given it much thought. What happened after. Now, the notion that ghosts could exist, that people could hang on or still exist after death, in the aftermath of of so much of the planet's population dying in one fell blow... It was staggering, and not at all comforting. She slipped her hand back into her pocket and knelt brief, to brush away some creeping ferns from the front of one of the stones.

"Prostite menya," she told the dead men. Ahimsa rested the tip of her muzzle briefly on Natalya's shoulder. The former Spetsnaz stood and absently pet the wolf on the head.

"This is all there is."

No choice at all, when you've died already, when angels and demons are your daily interactions, when Lucifer and God themselves play with your life. Sam doesn't point out that he doesn't remember anything of the few days that he died at the hands of Jake, that maybe these men are in Heaven and blissfully unaware of what's going on below in this tiny island outside of reality. There's a chance that they are watching, which means they need this, but they definitely need it less than Natalya does, any which way.

Sam nods before the words filter through, ready to turn away and leave the moment as it is. But he stops himself with a slight frown. "Did you just apologize?" he asks.

Natalya smiled thinly and looked at him with a shrewd sideways glance.

"You are learning. Da, is like apology. We say this, is casual, is what is said when we are do something is require apology. Really is..." She pushed her hair back with one hand, then hooked it firmly behind her ear.

"Is ask forgiveness."

"Natalya," he starts, voice soft. He hasn't felt like he's intruded yet, this whole ritual playing out with him on the sidelines, a respectful observer. He feels honored that Natalya's let him in this far, to see this, to share this with her in a little way. But he can't hold his tongue against how wrong this particular piece, this sentiment, feels. He's careful not to push too hard at first, but he says it anyway.

"You said they died in the crash. Not being able to save them... that's not the same as needing forgiveness. You tried. I'm sure you tried your best, which is better than most people's best. How can they forgive you when you've done nothing wrong?"

"Is not so simple," she said quietly, remembering the sting of a bullet in her arm and the shock and horror on both her and 355's face as the Soyuz came down.

"There were other factors, things I could have changed, done better. But ultimately... In the end," she said, after a moment of casting about for the right phrase, "was my mission. Was all I was sent to do, and in this mission, I failed."

"But you can't keep asking for something they can't give," he argues, trying to be gentle about it. He's aware that he's being something of a hypocrite in saying this, but that gives him perspective too, he thinks. Years of wanting forgiveness, from Jess, from Dad, from all the people whose lives they made a little (or a lot) darker. It doesn't help anything in the long run.

"Then I will keep asking until I am decide for myself I have earned it," Natalya replied. She took the medal out of her pocket and unfurled her fingers, looking at the gold star in her palm, the blue white and red of the ribbon it nestled against a little worn, a little faded.

"This is all you can do."

"And when will that be?" Sam queries, again with a gentle kind of pointedness, a knowing arch to his brows.

His eyes drift down to the object in her hands. "Is that yours or theirs?"

"Who can say?" she returned quietly, a sudden steely edge underlying the words.

"This is mine. It is remind me I am capable of earning much. Is remind me of what this can cost, da?" She turned the star over in her fingertips, watching the light glint off of it, before folding her hand around it again and squeezing it so the points dug into her skin.

It's not really her tone that unsettles him but the sentiment behind her words. Sam shies away from the direct conflict, sensing it to be an impossible battle. Much like it would be with him, were positions reversed.

He sees the strain in her fingers, how tightly she holds onto the medal, and moves to stand in front of her. His hand slides over hers, holding her grasping hand in his. "Reminders are good," Sam says without reservation, no 'but' hidden in his tone. "Just don't hurt yourself too much with them. It doesn't do any good and... I don't think they'd like it much either."

It derailed her, the sudden touch, the closeness, the words. It had been a long time since shed been intimate enough with anyone for them to feel capable of offering comfort that way, or at least comfortable enough. She blinked up at him, breath hitching sightly, the cold poise melting a little.

Her closed fist loosened under his hands.

"...maybe you are right."

Sam's smile is faint but genuine, sneaking into his eyes as he feels her hand relax under his. "It happens," he says modestly, his attention on her.

"Ready to go?" he asks, also asking, with his eyes as best he can, if she's done with the topic or wants to talk to him more about it.

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