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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Warmth had been a foreign thing for so long that the feeling of a candle's orange glow on her skin was almost too much. Her skin smarted and burned, raw from the ice, snow, and wind. Her body had been aching for this feeling and now rejected it, the safety and security of this little church in Rachamps couldn't have been real.
It was some fantasy, pressed beside Malarkey on a hard, wooden bench listening to the voices of a choir rise into the rafters to join the smoke from the thousands of candles lit around them. It was a dream, this state of safety. Perhaps Zhanna was still in the forest outside of Foy, watching her only allies run toward certain death? Perhaps Zhanna was still frozen, deaf and drowning, in that foxhole, the sound of Buck's scream ringing in her mind?
Had she made it out of Russia at all? Or was she still in the attic bedroom, curled beneath the covers, face scratched by the frost creeping across her pillow case?
Liebgott's movements beside her felt real. So had the grief, the raging, raw grief that had racked her mind and body. She hadn't been able to cry but the burning flames of emotion had been quickly overtaken by the familiar, and almost comforting numbness. To feel something so strong after so many weeks of nothing was too much. Zhanna had wanted to scream but she couldn't. Her feet had only led her to the waiting depths of a foxhole, to the waiting arms and coat of Captain Winters. She had broken the few walls she had left but Zhanna didn't feel sorry.
After Paris, they had avoided each other, or rather, Zhanna had avoided Winters out of fear. She had overstepped her rank and she didn't think she could afford to let it happen again but now Zhanna didn't care. After Bastogne and in the days after the battle of Foy, Zhanna didn't avoid him. He was one of the few officers she could stand to be around.
There was an unspoken understanding, a taboo on the topic of their time in his foxhole. Though only words and a coat had been shared, boundaries had been broken and Zhanna knew that Winters couldn't lose another officer.
That understanding had gotten her through the battle of Foy and the subsequent skirmishes, pushing back the German line. Zhanna had seen enough snow covered trees to last her a lifetime and was, at least grateful, when they were pulled to a convent in Rachamps, offered hard benches and a moment of rest.
Zhanna had seen the grand churches of the Orthodox faith in Stalingrad, burned in the horizon. She had lived in their shadows, another thing that set her apart and made her life dangerous but Zhanna had never been inside of a chapel. Certainly not with platoons of dirty, exhausted soldiers slumped onto wooden benches while being sweetly serenaded by young girls no older than Zhanna. After so many nights of the cold and the fear, this night of warmth and reflection snagged on her nerves, pulling the loose threads.
She couldn't contain the laughter that she, a Pole and a Jew and now a sniper in the Russian army would be sitting among American paratroopers in a Belgian church. She looked beside her, to the space she had unknowingly left for Skip and Penkala and had to bite down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.
