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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Buck returned to them in December, his skin paler than the winter sky. He was a phantom of the loud and confident man that she had allied herself with. But then again, Zhanna wasn't the same girl he had found in England and offered his popularity to. They had both changed in this war, ghosts of who they were when their feet hit British soil. Buck had been a ray of bright sun, golden and fierce. Now he shone dimly, his light dulled by the cold and the things he had seen.
Buck wasn't the strong man he had been, his fingers shook, and though his wounds were healed, he seemed to waver. Zhanna had never been strong, never been the one to take the lead off the battlefield but someone had to be strong. Someone couldn't waver so Zhanna had to be strong. She couldn't grieve, not with Buck frail and withdrawn, so she pushed down raw feelings and became what he needed. Zhanna couldn't grieve and be strong, so she didn't unpack the thoughts that had still haunted her. The ghostly hands and the whispered voices, those had to be ignored, pushed to the side so that Zhanna could lead Buck through the motions of each day.
They didn't speak often. Their voices were rough when they did, thick with emotion and unused. She told him about her parents, he told her about the hospital. He had listened to the screams of patients, hurting and dying. She listened to the whispers of her dead mother and father. Buck didn't want to talk often and Zhanna found that ignoring things was easier when you didn't talk about them. So silence stretched between them, for days on end, only broken by the menial discussions of Military life or what Skip and Malarkey were up to these days. Simple things. Safe things. Because thinking too hard was dangerous. Thinking was Zhanna's enemy and it was Buck's worst nightmare.
She didn't allow herself to think of Paris, either. It was another world. One where barriers had been knocked down in one fell swoop. One where Zhanna had forgotten her rank and so had WInters. She didn't avoid him but maybe he avoided her? Their paths didn't cross much and for that she was thankful. She couldn't think about the cold way he had made her feel, the chill that had sent shivers down her spine but there had been no numbness. Zhanna didn't freeze in his gaze, almost warmed under it. But she couldn't thaw or still, not when Buck needed her and the cold of December had gripped Mourmelon.
Zhanna had taken to spending as much time in the warm hall that played films on a projector for hours, settled in the uncomfortable chairs. Buck would sit with her and they would spend a whole afternoon watching movie after movie on that crackling screen. It was one of the only warm places in camp, a particularly frigid winter had gripped Europe that year, and Zhanna meant to take advantage of it.
The film, Seven Sinners, seemed to be a particular favorite among the volunteers who ran the cinema and Zhanna found herself sitting through it for the fifth time on a very cold night, Buck motionless by her side. Luz, a frequent visitor to the hall, seemed to know every word and had no qualms with spouting the lines along with the actors, much to Toye and Lipton's annoyance. Zhanna didn't mind it as much. She had seen the movie too much and Luz's commentary made it more enjoyable. Malarkey's poor attempt at a whisper did more to jar her from her thoughts. The men had been traversing to and from Paris with more frequency. Malarkey had been given a day pass and, while Zhanna had returned with only a headache and a stabbing pain in her heart, he had a handful of cash. Zhanna twisted around, wondering how much he owed her in cigarettes by now.
