The Lost Princess

Chapter 6

A year later, the two assassins are occupying an abandoned apartment in Romania. Bucky had recovered a lot of memories, writing them down in small notebooks. He's already filled three. Anastasia had only regained a few more memories and has barely filled half of a notebook of the same size.

She sits under the window now, a crown in her hand. She runs her fingers over the diamonds, willing a memory, any memory, to come forward as she stares intently at the crown. She holds it up in the light, watching the way the jewels send fractured pieces of sunlight scattering across the floor. The door opens and Anastasia drops the crown, picking up a pistol and aiming it at the door, the whole exchange taking less than two seconds.

Bucky steps inside the small apartment and glances around, finding Anastasia sitting with her back to the wall, knees drawn up to her chest, and a gun aimed at his face. He chuckles slightly as she slowly lowers the gun, looking a bit sheepish as she sets it beside her and picks the crown back up. Bucky approaches and sits next to her.

"Kuda ty ushel?" She asks, tearing her eyes from the crown and shifting them to him. "Ya prosnulsya a tebya ne bylo." (Where did you go? I woke up and you were gone.) Bucky smirks slightly as he looks at her.

"Vy bespokoilis' obo mne, Stasi?" He questions, making Anastasia scoff and roll her eyes. (Were you worried about me, Stasi?)

"Pozhaluysta. Ya ne bespokoyus'. Ni o chem." She tells him. (Please. I do not worry. About anything.) Bucky laughs slightly before taking the crown from her hands.

"What is this?" He asks, aiming the jewels decorating the crown.

"It's called a crown." She tells him with a smirk of her own. "Royals place them on the tops of their heads." Bucky rolls her eyes and shoves her playfully.

"I know what a crown is." He tells her. "I meant, who's is it?"

"It was mine." She says.

"You wore this?" He asks. She nods. "All the time?" Anastasia laughs and shakes her head.

"No. I wore different crowns for different occasions. This was my favorite one to wear to dances." She tells him. "I never did enjoy wearing crowns but I always liked this one."

"So you didn't wear crowns everyday?" Anastasia shakes her head again.

"My sisters wore their's all the time. But I always preferred to not wear one." She laughs slightly. "My mother always scolded me for it. She believed a princess must wear her crown everyday. I would tell her that the crown would simply fall off or get damaged when I played. Which is another thing she hated. I would rather run around and play with my tutor and the dogs than sit and learn to sew and paint like my sisters."

"So you were always stubborn." He says.

"Yes." She confirms with a smile. "My mother asked me once, "Anastasia, must you be so head-strong about everything? Must you fight me on everything I say?""

"What did you say?" Anastasia smiles and looks at him, a small spark of mischief sparkling in her eye for a brief moment. Bucky has only seen that spark in the photographs and drawings of her as a child.

"I said, "Of course not. Life is just more fun that way."" She laughs lightly and shakes her head slowly, the smile slowly fading from her face. "If I had known what would happen to her, perhaps I wouldn't have argued so much."

"You didn't know, Stasi." He tells her, taking her hand in his. "No one knew what would happen." Anastasia sighs and sets the crown beside her, leaning over and resting her head on Bucky's shoulder. He squeezes her hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand gently. "You know, when I was in school, we heard about what happened to your family." Anastasia lifts her head, looking at him with a furrowed brow.