Chapter Text
The snow drifted softly to the ground, coating the already cold streets like a blanket. The moon shone through the clouds, lighting each snowflake with an ethereal glow.
It was beautiful.
It was the first thing the young girl saw.
She stirred gently in the snow, her entire body feeling as if it was on fire as the tiniest movements sent waves of pain through her. She moaned in agony to the empty street, the sound echoing through the falling snow.
She felt something wet coating her arms and chest and hoped it was just melting snow. She somehow knew it wasn't.
She blinked up at the sky, pushing back tears that tried to make their way down her cheeks. She felt cold, She felt like her body was on fire, but the worst thing of all was the feeling of overwhelming lose that tugged at her heart and made her want to scream in rage.
Instead, she remained silent, still blinking at the gentle falling snow.
Soon the world became black again, a brief respite for the young girl's mind.
She woke again in a hospital, surrounded by terrifying nurses overhead, each one asking her more difficult questions than the last.
"Who are you?"
"Do you know what happened to you?"
"How did you get these injuries?"
"Where is your family?"
She could only stare at them in confusion as those tears she had managed to push back before refused to listen now. They fell in twin streaks down her face as she managed to choke out, "I don't know."
The nurses shared a glance as they shuffled out of the room. One stayed behind, her kind eyes lingering over the young girl. She smiled softly, touching a bag of liquid that the girl only just realized through her tears was connected to her arm.
"We will have to give you a name." She began as she moved around the room, not quite looking at the young girl anymore. "A good Russian name." She continued as she fixed the blankets upon the girl's bed. Her eyes finally moved to meet the girl's, her smile falling briefly before returning with a more strained look.
"How does Anya sound?"
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He tried everything he could to save his father that day.
He knew exactly what his father was doing when he patted him on the head with a sad smile and told him, "Be good to your mother."
He wasn't as unaware as his parents would like. He heard their whispers through their paper-thin walls in their new apartment they had to move into. He heard his mother crying and his father reassuring her he would do everything he could to save them, to save the one thing that kept food on their table and a roof over their head, even if that roofed leaked in the spring and fall.
He knew their theatre was failing, was falling apart at the seams. He knew it wasn't because the operas his father put on was terrible, or he hired the wrong actress. It used to be a respectable place, filled with the rich and pretentious who clamored for the best seats. It was gorgeous with the type of architecture and prestigiousness any other Opera House would die for.
And now, because of one family, the theatre that had been in his family for generations would have to be sold. The theatre he grew up in, had been promised the operas he had been writing would one day be showcased in, was being sold. All because his father couldn't pay the exorbitant price all Opera Houses had to pay if they wanted the Great Nicholas Romanov to even look in their direction.
They had been paying it, with the promise that the Romanov would one day play at their Opera House, that he would grace their presence with his violin and his wife's superior Operatic voice. But they never came. And his father didn't make enough to continue the highway robbery.
So he stopped.
But it was too late.
His father had taken money from maintaining the building all based on an empty promise, knowing that if the two graced his Opera House, he would have plenty to spend on making sure the place didn't fall around their ears.
But it was too late.
No one wanted to see an opera in a building that looked like it was going to be condemned.
No one wanted to see anyone, but Alexandra and Nicholas Romanov.
They had taken everything from his family. He refused to let them take his father with them.
So, when his father walked out to his automobile, a grim look of determination marring his usually kind and soft face as he performed the tasks necessary to start, he knew what he had to do.
He waited till his father pulled away, the engine roar heard from several blocks away, and he left his home, leaving his mother to sleep and be blissfully unaware of what was about to happen to her family.
He walked for several blocks, following the noise of the automobile down the many twisted paths and turns the Russian Streets made. Then he heard it. The sound that would haunt his waking hours for years to come.
He heard the metal crunch, like a can being stomped on.
He heard the screams.
But it was the silence after he remembered most.
He ran, faster than he ever had and ever will, his heart thundering in his chest with the single though, please no, running through his head over and over and over again.
His feet pounded the pavement, crunching through what little snow had fallen within the past few minutes. Then he stopped.
His feet felt frozen to the ground as he took in the carnage his father had wrought.
"Papa," He whispered like a plea as his eyes roved over the once two now one pile of metal before him. It was the sound of something dripping that stirred him, his eyes refusing to look at the bright red marring the pristine white snow.
His feet finally moved, carrying him with haste to what he thought was once his father's automobile. He climbed over the broken glass and twisted metal, ignoring his own pain as he fought through to where his father should have been sitting.
What he found no longer resembled the once proud and kind man he knew.
He doesn't remember much after that. He remembers throwing up what little food he ate that day, the scene permanently seared into his eyes. He remembers still trying to get that mangled body he refused to name father out of the way too hot metal, just repeating the word no over and over again.
Then he felt the flames.
He woke so much later, the snow piling up on him from where he was flung, his face feeling as if someone decided to burn it off of him. He remembers writhing in pain, a silent scream sent to the uncaring heavens as he tried to move his body to get some measure of relief.
He remembers dazedly shuffling home, the morning light slowly peaking over the small houses of Yekaterinburg to light his way. He remembers stumbling to his front door, slumping against it with a heavy smack as he waited for his mother to finally get up to find him and him hoping that she could somehow take the pain away.
He remembers her opening the door at the sound, looking around before her eyes landed on the slumped form. He turned to look at her, trying to smile through the pain like his father taught him, trying to reassure her. He felt the skin pull across the right side of his face, twisted into something horrid.
He remembers her scream of horror, of fear, and of her slamming the door on him.
He remembers so little from that night. But he wishes he could forget it all.