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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1900 Hours
The entire day that Sveta had spent at Regimental, she'd wanted nothing more than to get back to Battalion. A raging storm of anger and hurt and fear had fueled the words she'd thrown at Zhanna just the day before. Despite her fury at the Americans and her irritation with the way Zhanna had betrayed her in Mourmelon-le-Grand, she regretted her words. But Zhanna had left.
Nixon had taken her to jump with 82nd. As Sveta took another long drink from her canteen, the last of her schnapps from Regimental, she felt herself tensing. Nixon. He'd done it just to spite her. Her furied anger at Zhanna hadn't gone unnoticed.
Of course it hadn't. They loved Zhanna. She was small, and cute, and blonde with blue eyes. She was quiet and smiled.
Sveta wasn't. Sveta was a force. Her words carried weight, and she could use them to her advantage. She didn't stay quiet. And Zhanna had made sure that they all knew of her family's dark connections.
They may have cleared her of charges in Mourmelon, but trust shattered couldn't be repaired so easily. The jeep stopped as the sun set. Dinnertime had passed and she'd had little to eat, but she wanted to see Zhanna. She needed to see her, to apologize. Sveta didn't like to apologize, but it hadn't been her the previous night.
Well, it had been her. But puppets danced the way their masters wanted them to. She stopped breathing, staring at the walls of HQ. She couldn't forget the spy. She couldn't forget that somewhere, someone still lurked in her shadow trying to destroy her. Trying to lure her to Beria. The note had been gone when she'd returned to her room to pocket it after her panic. Someone had removed it, removed the evidence and left the roses.
"Time to come home, Svetochka."
She felt a cold chill creep from her hands to her chest. Beria was here. He was here, and Sveta had let him pull her strings. Zhanna had paid the price of her fear. Voices to her right pulled her attention away. She heard Liebgott chatting with Grant in front of a camera as the sun went down, flirting with the blonde woman if she had to guess. Such normalcy. If only they knew. If only they cared.
When she walked inside, she found it busy with enlisted. None of the officers were in the side room where Winters kept their maps and papers. So she went up. Zhanna would be wherever Winters was. She could hear him from the study.
Sveta didn't knock. The door hung slightly open. The first thing she noticed was the sheer number of Vat 69 bottles sitting on the dark wood table. A common sight recently. Nixon sat behind it, one in his hand. Welsh had a seat to his left, nursing his own glass by the look of things. And Winters, standing at a chair, turned to her at the sound of her boots on the wood. No Zhanna. Just a lot of anger.
"I'm looking for Casmirovna," she said.
The three men exchanged a lingering glance. Winters's shoulders fell. Sveta felt her hair stand on end. A chill went down their spine. Why were they so quiet? Why was Nixon so quite? He was never quiet.
