Collaboration with @silmarilz1701
Svetlana knew how to play the game. She'd been caught in the political drama of Stalin's inner circle since birth. The only child of one of Stalin's closest friends, she grew up in the limelight, scrutinized by frie...
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Exhaustion had hit Sveta like a ton of bricks when she had stepped onto English soil for the first time in a month. From there, hours of debriefs and meetings became her life as majors and colonels and even briefly a general joined them at the Division and then Regimental Headquarters. With each passing moment, Sveta wished for nothing but a shower and pillow. And not some crude tent with a showerhead, but a real bath of warm water.
She couldn't visit Zhanna that day. She decided to go soon though, perhaps in a few days when meetings calmed down. So as the officers droned on about successful missions, enemy casualty reports, and estimated missing and killed in action numbers for the Allied invasion, she just struggled to stay awake.
Harry and Compton split from them after dinner. But Sveta and Winters had yet another meeting. She blocked it out. She'd already told them about her part in the invasion. She'd already been assured a replacement Mosin-Nagant rifle at their earliest possible hour. So she just nodded along and added a few small contributions while Winters retold the Brass, again, of their assault on Brécourt Manor.
Sveta nearly cried when they dismissed her. She'd had only a little food and with the sun already almost gone, the Mess facilities were surely closed. Anger flared up in her, a burning sensation that made her fists tighten and jaw clench. As she stood at the foot of the steps of the HQ building, Sveta tried to calm down. She tried to breathe.
The squeaking of door hinges and footsteps made Sveta pause. She turned around to find Speirs wrestling a cigarette from his jacket as the door snapped shut. "Jesus Christ, they sure do love their own voices."
She smiled. "I've found most Americans think that way."
"The truth comes out at last." As Speirs took the five red-brick steps down, he lit his smoke and then took it out to look at her. He smirked. "I never would've guessed you hated us, Samsonova."
"Hah." Seeing him start to smirk around his cigarette made it impossible for her to stop her own. "Care to share?"
He held out his pack. "Rumor has it that you're up for promotion."
"Is that what you heard?" She looked at him in surprise. As the flame of her zippo lighter caught her cigarette, she smiled. "Well. That's been my goal in life, Speirs. Make Captain in the United States Army."
He let out another small huff of a laugh. "Yeah, well. Something to write home about."
The mask slipped at his words. She didn't write home, not when she could help it. She sent telegram reports to the Soviets every so often, part of being a liaison for them in the West. But Sveta didn't speak to her father unless he instigated. "Yes. I am sure the Red Army will be pleased."
"They should be. We're kicking the Krauts' asses out here," he reminded her.
Silence fell between them. Standing at the base of the stairs, watching as the clouds that had obscured the stars began to dissipate, Sveta focused on breathing. Their cigarette smoke blended together in the space around them. Aldbourne was peaceful. Too peaceful. Sveta longed for the war again. The war in Europe meant the war in her mind stayed silent.
