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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Sveta knew there existed some truths that could not be avoided. The only one on her mind as she watched Zhanna stumble from the jeep off into the decimated woods was the inevitability of death. She had seen Guarnere and Toye at the aid station, already hopped up on morphine and sound asleep. They'd looked dead, with their limbs mangled and pink stains on the white bandages growing darker with each passing moment. But they were not dead.
Zhanna looked dead, but she wasn't either.
Comfort had never been something Sveta knew much about. She knew how to manipulate. She knew how to kill. She knew how to survive. She even knew how to protect. But Sveta didn't know how to make Zhanna smile or laugh or not shiver as she stumbled between tree trunks.
Back home in Stalingrad with her mother, comfort had meant a quick hug, a kiss on the cheek, and a reminder to watch her words and smiles. That didn't work in the Bois Jacques. All she'd had were cigarettes and promises to look for more bullets, both offerings as empty as the shell casings around the forest.
So she let Zhanna leave, let her go mourn in peace away from someone who probably reminded her a bit too much of home. Zhanna did that for Sveta sometimes, reminding her of home. But Sveta couldn't stay in silence, couldn't exist in quiet, sad peace. She needed to move.
Sveta left the relative safety of the CP without another word. She knew who she wanted to talk to. But he was off on patrol, if she remembered the orders right. And unlike Peacock, mercifully gone from the line now, Ron could command his troops just fine on his own.
Her boots crunched fragments of trees into the dirt. With each footfall she tried to push away the knowledge that blood sank into the ground alongside melting snow. Slush could hide the red, but it couldn't hide the truth. Death was all around them now.
If she couldn't talk to Ron, Sveta would've settled for sharing a smoke or drink with Harry. But he'd been evacuated as soon as the siege had broken, his damaged body patched up but still needing rest. She hoped that his stay in the hospital would be comforting and quiet.
Somehow she doubted it.
He wouldn't have someone like Guarnere to back talk and make snide comments. But then, as Sveta thought about it, trying to ignore the decimated trees to either side, she supposed she could've done worse than Guarnere in the hospital. She could've done a lot worse.
She didn't think of him as a friend. Certainly not. But as much as she'd been loathe to admit it at first, Guarnere had been a world class leader. He looked fear in the eyes and spat at its feet. His brown eyes had held nothing but raw determination and grit. With him and Toye gone from the battlefield, the war against the frozen dark would only grow worse. No more sputtered curses as they walked the line. No more laughs and outward, unbridled comments against their idiotic CO.
Malarkey, who would undoubtedly get a nod to Platoon Sergeant, did an admirable job of keeping spirits up. But he couldn't command the fear to just leave like Guarnere could. Sveta sighed.
