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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Battalion's command post was usually bustling with activity but it was a ghost town, Zhanna's footfalls echoing in the halls. She let them fall, loud as they may have been, with the confidence that she had once possessed as a Samsonov ward. Zhanna used to march across the creaking floorboards without fear just for the thrill that she could.
She hadn't appreciated the power that she had been given by association, not fully anyway. Zhanna knew that she had little power of her own and whatever bargaining chip she had was pitiful in comparison to the full weight of the Samsonov power. But that was in Russia and as she had learned, the Samsonov name was only smoke and mirrors to the American military.
There was only one door open in the hallway where the 2nd Battalion kept their officers housed. It was a conference room that had only recently been stripped of its Nazi regalia. The shapes of the flags and the banners were marked out by the sun, paler than the rest. Sveta sat in the dimly lit room, the curtains drawn to the sun outside.
Is that how she had been spending her days and by the look of her darkened eyes, her nights?
"Captain Samsonova," Zhanna said, then softer. "Svetlana?"
"If you are looking for Captain Speirs, he isn't here,"
"I'm not here for Speirs," Zhanna said, slipping into the room and shutting the door behind her. This was the second room she had let herself into and had been met with varied reactions. Winters had accepted her presence, Svetlana stared at her in uncertainty, as if she expected Zhanna to at any moment press herself against the door and scream for help.
She wasn't afraid of Svetlana's eyes anymore. She wasn't even envious of her power. It hadn't helped her much, in the end.
"What do you want?"
"I'm here for you," Zhanna said. "I went into your room-"
"Zhanna-" Svetlana tried to cut her off but Zhanna raised a hand, silencing her.
"I went into your room that day to apologize for being so indiscreet." The words hung in the air.
It was clear they both had been avoiding that moment. Words were like bullets, once the trigger had been pulled by anger or indiscretion, it was difficult to summon them out of the air again. They both knew that. And Zhanna knew that if they had dared to speak before the bitterness and the drink had taken grip they might not have been standing as would-be enemies. But they were.
"So that's it then?" Sveta asked. "That's all you have to say?"
She hadn't been the person to reach for things, snatch them out of the air, or speak the first word. Zhanna had let Svetlana take the first and final word in their bond. That's what that thing was, stretching taut and heavy between them. It wasn't a friendship it was a shared bond. They had both heard that gunshot, one had run toward and one had run away. They had both felt the eyes but with different implications. They had both stared at each other, one behind her mother, one behind her savior, and saw different things in each other's eyes. Svetlana had seen friendship and Zhanna had seen a price.
