my baby shot me down

and sebastian has a shitty life, when does he ever not????? (’wait for it’ would be so perfect) (WAIT this is how we could fit chris in–he’s a british officer stationed in america) (do we want him to be annabelle’s husband like in real life? annabelle and sebastian have an affair during the war while chris is off fighting in georgia. after the war, annabelle and chris divorce b/c she’s pregnant and it’s not chris’ kid, and she and sebastian get married, but then she dies when kathy’s still really little, and chris comes to the funeral, and things snowball from there? idk, what do you think?) 

on the one hand, sebastian will admire tony’s candor in the reynolds pamphlet in a ‘omg i can’t believe he actually said that’ kinda way. but then he’s just disgusted. tanya’s a nice lady, how could he do this to her?? like he’s no stranger to selfishness but this is too much

and tom’s home in america during all this, and tony lowkey expects him to be on his side, but instead tom just rips into him and goes to comfort his sister

i think that’d work best if the chris/annabelle divorce wasn’t as angsty as it has potential to be? like, annabelle tells chris about the affair and he’s hurt over it, but ultimately they both know that they were never really in love and they respect each other too much to turn this into a huge incident. chris’ll respect her decision for a divorce, make sure that she knows that she doesn’t have to leave if she doesn’t want to – they can take care of the baby together – and annabelle marries sebastian before kathy is even born. maybe she and chris even keep up a friendly correspondence after a few years. he and sebastian never meet face-to-face, which gives extra angst to the funeral. ya feel??

the reynolds affair is probably some sort of coping mechanism or stress relief or something, which doesn’t make it any more right but at least it’s not coming from a malicious place? either way tony loses both tanya and tom in one go, and it’s awful

here is the thing though: tony really loves his children, and he truly cares for tanya. he knows that he is an incredibly lucky man to have this family, and to come home to tanya teaching their son to play piano, and he must know that she’s wonderful and clever and kind. so the withdrawal into work is only about 80% his compulsion to never stop writing, and the rest is overwhelming guilt at how unsatisfied he is. because tanya is the best of wives and the best of women, but she isn’t tom. tony is yearning for something he can’t have, someone who lives thousands of miles across the ocean, even though his life at home is near perfect. 

(how much do you want to bet that for the first few months after tom left, tony laid awake thinking about their goodbye and the look in tom’s eyes when he said “my anthony” and the pause that came afterward, like he wanted to say so much more but had to settle on a sad “don’t forget to write.”)

even if annabelle and chris’ divorce is totally amicable, the funeral encounter will be awkward as hell. sebastian’s got kathy crying on his shoulder, various horrible moran relations milling around, the key leaders of the american republic throwing shade at him even here–and here’s annabelle’s first husband. sebastian will be going a bit crazy himself. he’ll be too numb to be snarky or rude or sarcastic. he’ll just accept that chris is here like oh. okay. that’s cool. now let me get kathy out of here before jefferson tries to tousle her hair one more time.

tony won’t ever see tanya cry about the reynolds incident. she’ll bring the children home from her parents’ place in upstate new york, so the public can see that the family is standing united. she’ll walk around town and make formal calls to the wives of her husband’s colleagues and take her children for walks in the park and publicly be a complete lady. but at home, she’ll barely even look at tony. she’ll lock her bedroom door at night and start openly taking and reading books from his library and lowkey flirting with the politicians who come for dinner. she’s spent years raising his children and being his wife and being ignored in favour of her brother; she’s not having this anymore. she’s reclaiming her mind and her life and tony can do whatever he likes. but then the breakdown of communication means that tony keeps quiet about their son going off to fight in a duel–until it’s too late, and they’re crying over their dying child, and tanya’s begging tony if he knew

chris has zero motive to start shit or anything, and he’s here entirely because he cared about annabelle, so their first meeting is probably going to be polite and unremarkable. maybe he finds kathy later and introduces himself and tells her a few nice stories about her mum, ones that sebastian probably doesn’t know, and she tells sebastian about it afterward? i imagine she’ll want to spend time with people who knew her mother well, so talking to chris a little more might be a good thing for her

Sebastian will have zero problem with Kathy hanging out with Chris. Annabelle told him how decent and good Chris was about everything, and Kathy seems to really like him, so it’ll be fine. He’ll offer for Chris to come over to the house and spend some time there. And Kathy will come to really love Chris, so I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time before he’s over fairly regularly. Sebastian will make a point of being out of the house at first when Chris is over, but they’ll eventually have to run in again.

the Tom/Tony talk is going to be painful as hell. to complicate this all, Tom is still married himself, and he’s been away from his wife for like a year now, and he’s got to go back to London. That’s actually probably for the best–he and Tony can talk, get all their crap out, and then Tom will leave for London. only Tony’s dead like six months later and Tom comes tearing back across the Atlantic again to help protect Tony’s memory

Chris will start to feel increasingly weird about spending time in sebastian’s house without sebastian there, so he’ll coordinate with kathy so that he arrives when ‘bastian is at home, and he stops by the bakery and brings a pie. and it’s kind of strange?? like, polite and proper, but he’s not really sure how to play this so he just. does something foolish and clumsy like break their coathanger by accident or ruin the carpet with tea. he’s v cute and embarrassed about it

and since Chris is arriving early, Sebastian and Kathy are still playing around in the kitchen, chattering away in French and laughing and joking while he’s teaching her how to make ice cream. So they’re still laughing when they come upstairs to see Chris, and that helps alleviate the potential awkwardness of the scene. Sebastian grins at how embarrassed Chris is and is like ‘u dork’ and tells him not to worry about it, he never liked the carpet anyways. the servants are all out at a travelling show in town, so if Chris wants to come down to the kitchen, they can totes have pie down there. and the ice cream will be ready in like another 10 minutes of cranking the machine.

I think Tom and Tanya would sit on their issues for about a year after Tony’s death. They’re too sad and hurt. but then Tanya starts tracking down and interviewing all the other men they served with in the army, and hearing all the stories about just how inseparable her husband and brother were during the war, and after like the 50th veteran tells her a story about them, Tanya will snap and confront Tom about it. and they’ll both cry and it’ll be awful, but Tanya loves Tom too much–and honestly, in a way, she always knew it. Tom won’t tell her about the comma sexting and all that, but he’ll make it clear that he loved Tony since they were glorified teenagers on Washington’s staff. And Tony loved him too. But Tom also knows that Tony loved Tanya too. Just differently. And Tanya will cry even more, but then she’ll pull herself together and be like, ‘okay’. If this was the secret making Tony so unhappy and inattentive throughout their marriage, then she’s glad it’s finally out in the open. And there’s nothing for her to forgive Tom for. They’ll continue doing their work in the knowledge that they both deserve it, as the people who loved Tony best. And like 20 years later, when Tom’s dying of consumption, she’ll promise him on his deathbed that he’ll be buried with Tony. and it’ll be such a painful and bittersweet scene, my children.

and sebastian has a shitty life, when does he ever not????? (’wait for it’ would be so perfect) (WAIT this is how we could fit chris in–he’s a british officer stationed in america) (do we want him to be annabelle’s husband like in real life? annabelle and sebastian have an affair during the war while chris is off fighting in georgia. after the war, annabelle and chris divorce b/c she’s pregnant and it’s not chris’ kid, and she and sebastian get married, but then she dies when kathy’s still really little, and chris comes to the funeral, and things snowball from there? idk, what do you think?) 

on the one hand, sebastian will admire tony’s candor in the reynolds pamphlet in a ‘omg i can’t believe he actually said that’ kinda way. but then he’s just disgusted. tanya’s a nice lady, how could he do this to her?? like he’s no stranger to selfishness but this is too much

and tom’s home in america during all this, and tony lowkey expects him to be on his side, but instead tom just rips into him and goes to comfort his sister

i think that’d work best if the chris/annabelle divorce wasn’t as angsty as it has potential to be? like, annabelle tells chris about the affair and he’s hurt over it, but ultimately they both know that they were never really in love and they respect each other too much to turn this into a huge incident. chris’ll respect her decision for a divorce, make sure that she knows that she doesn’t have to leave if she doesn’t want to – they can take care of the baby together – and annabelle marries sebastian before kathy is even born. maybe she and chris even keep up a friendly correspondence after a few years. he and sebastian never meet face-to-face, which gives extra angst to the funeral. ya feel??

the reynolds affair is probably some sort of coping mechanism or stress relief or something, which doesn’t make it any more right but at least it’s not coming from a malicious place? either way tony loses both tanya and tom in one go, and it’s awful

here is the thing though: tony really loves his children, and he truly cares for tanya. he knows that he is an incredibly lucky man to have this family, and to come home to tanya teaching their son to play piano, and he must know that she’s wonderful and clever and kind. so the withdrawal into work is only about 80% his compulsion to never stop writing, and the rest is overwhelming guilt at how unsatisfied he is. because tanya is the best of wives and the best of women, but she isn’t tom. tony is yearning for something he can’t have, someone who lives thousands of miles across the ocean, even though his life at home is near perfect. 

(how much do you want to bet that for the first few months after tom left, tony laid awake thinking about their goodbye and the look in tom’s eyes when he said “my anthony” and the pause that came afterward, like he wanted to say so much more but had to settle on a sad “don’t forget to write.”)

even if annabelle and chris’ divorce is totally amicable, the funeral encounter will be awkward as hell. sebastian’s got kathy crying on his shoulder, various horrible moran relations milling around, the key leaders of the american republic throwing shade at him even here–and here’s annabelle’s first husband. sebastian will be going a bit crazy himself. he’ll be too numb to be snarky or rude or sarcastic. he’ll just accept that chris is here like oh. okay. that’s cool. now let me get kathy out of here before jefferson tries to tousle her hair one more time.

tony won’t ever see tanya cry about the reynolds incident. she’ll bring the children home from her parents’ place in upstate new york, so the public can see that the family is standing united. she’ll walk around town and make formal calls to the wives of her husband’s colleagues and take her children for walks in the park and publicly be a complete lady. but at home, she’ll barely even look at tony. she’ll lock her bedroom door at night and start openly taking and reading books from his library and lowkey flirting with the politicians who come for dinner. she’s spent years raising his children and being his wife and being ignored in favour of her brother; she’s not having this anymore. she’s reclaiming her mind and her life and tony can do whatever he likes. but then the breakdown of communication means that tony keeps quiet about their son going off to fight in a duel–until it’s too late, and they’re crying over their dying child, and tanya’s begging tony if he knew

chris has zero motive to start shit or anything, and he’s here entirely because he cared about annabelle, so their first meeting is probably going to be polite and unremarkable. maybe he finds kathy later and introduces himself and tells her a few nice stories about her mum, ones that sebastian probably doesn’t know, and she tells sebastian about it afterward? i imagine she’ll want to spend time with people who knew her mother well, so talking to chris a little more might be a good thing for her

Sebastian will have zero problem with Kathy hanging out with Chris. Annabelle told him how decent and good Chris was about everything, and Kathy seems to really like him, so it’ll be fine. He’ll offer for Chris to come over to the house and spend some time there. And Kathy will come to really love Chris, so I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time before he’s over fairly regularly. Sebastian will make a point of being out of the house at first when Chris is over, but they’ll eventually have to run in again.

the Tom/Tony talk is going to be painful as hell. to complicate this all, Tom is still married himself, and he’s been away from his wife for like a year now, and he’s got to go back to London. That’s actually probably for the best–he and Tony can talk, get all their crap out, and then Tom will leave for London. only Tony’s dead like six months later and Tom comes tearing back across the Atlantic again to help protect Tony’s memory

Chris will start to feel increasingly weird about spending time in sebastian’s house without sebastian there, so he’ll coordinate with kathy so that he arrives when ‘bastian is at home, and he stops by the bakery and brings a pie. and it’s kind of strange?? like, polite and proper, but he’s not really sure how to play this so he just. does something foolish and clumsy like break their coathanger by accident or ruin the carpet with tea. he’s v cute and embarrassed about it

and sebastian has a shitty life, when does he ever not????? (’wait for it’ would be so perfect) (WAIT this is how we could fit chris in–he’s a british officer stationed in america) (do we want him to be annabelle’s husband like in real life? annabelle and sebastian have an affair during the war while chris is off fighting in georgia. after the war, annabelle and chris divorce b/c she’s pregnant and it’s not chris’ kid, and she and sebastian get married, but then she dies when kathy’s still really little, and chris comes to the funeral, and things snowball from there? idk, what do you think?) 

on the one hand, sebastian will admire tony’s candor in the reynolds pamphlet in a ‘omg i can’t believe he actually said that’ kinda way. but then he’s just disgusted. tanya’s a nice lady, how could he do this to her?? like he’s no stranger to selfishness but this is too much

and tom’s home in america during all this, and tony lowkey expects him to be on his side, but instead tom just rips into him and goes to comfort his sister

i think that’d work best if the chris/annabelle divorce wasn’t as angsty as it has potential to be? like, annabelle tells chris about the affair and he’s hurt over it, but ultimately they both know that they were never really in love and they respect each other too much to turn this into a huge incident. chris’ll respect her decision for a divorce, make sure that she knows that she doesn’t have to leave if she doesn’t want to – they can take care of the baby together – and annabelle marries sebastian before kathy is even born. maybe she and chris even keep up a friendly correspondence after a few years. he and sebastian never meet face-to-face, which gives extra angst to the funeral. ya feel??

the reynolds affair is probably some sort of coping mechanism or stress relief or something, which doesn’t make it any more right but at least it’s not coming from a malicious place? either way tony loses both tanya and tom in one go, and it’s awful

here is the thing though: tony really loves his children, and he truly cares for tanya. he knows that he is an incredibly lucky man to have this family, and to come home to tanya teaching their son to play piano, and he must know that she’s wonderful and clever and kind. so the withdrawal into work is only about 80% his compulsion to never stop writing, and the rest is overwhelming guilt at how unsatisfied he is. because tanya is the best of wives and the best of women, but she isn’t tom. tony is yearning for something he can’t have, someone who lives thousands of miles across the ocean, even though his life at home is near perfect. 

(how much do you want to bet that for the first few months after tom left, tony laid awake thinking about their goodbye and the look in tom’s eyes when he said “my anthony” and the pause that came afterward, like he wanted to say so much more but had to settle on a sad “don’t forget to write.”)

even if annabelle and chris’ divorce is totally amicable, the funeral encounter will be awkward as hell. sebastian’s got kathy crying on his shoulder, various horrible moran relations milling around, the key leaders of the american republic throwing shade at him even here–and here’s annabelle’s first husband. sebastian will be going a bit crazy himself. he’ll be too numb to be snarky or rude or sarcastic. he’ll just accept that chris is here like oh. okay. that’s cool. now let me get kathy out of here before jefferson tries to tousle her hair one more time.

tony won’t ever see tanya cry about the reynolds incident. she’ll bring the children home from her parents’ place in upstate new york, so the public can see that the family is standing united. she’ll walk around town and make formal calls to the wives of her husband’s colleagues and take her children for walks in the park and publicly be a complete lady. but at home, she’ll barely even look at tony. she’ll lock her bedroom door at night and start openly taking and reading books from his library and lowkey flirting with the politicians who come for dinner. she’s spent years raising his children and being his wife and being ignored in favour of her brother; she’s not having this anymore. she’s reclaiming her mind and her life and tony can do whatever he likes. but then the breakdown of communication means that tony keeps quiet about their son going off to fight in a duel–until it’s too late, and they’re crying over their dying child, and tanya’s begging tony if he knew

chris has zero motive to start shit or anything, and he’s here entirely because he cared about annabelle, so their first meeting is probably going to be polite and unremarkable. maybe he finds kathy later and introduces himself and tells her a few nice stories about her mum, ones that sebastian probably doesn’t know, and she tells sebastian about it afterward? i imagine she’ll want to spend time with people who knew her mother well, so talking to chris a little more might be a good thing for her

and sebastian has a shitty life, when does he ever not????? (’wait for it’ would be so perfect) (WAIT this is how we could fit chris in–he’s a british officer stationed in america) (do we want him to be annabelle’s husband like in real life? annabelle and sebastian have an affair during the war while chris is off fighting in georgia. after the war, annabelle and chris divorce b/c she’s pregnant and it’s not chris’ kid, and she and sebastian get married, but then she dies when kathy’s still really little, and chris comes to the funeral, and things snowball from there? idk, what do you think?) 

on the one hand, sebastian will admire tony’s candor in the reynolds pamphlet in a ‘omg i can’t believe he actually said that’ kinda way. but then he’s just disgusted. tanya’s a nice lady, how could he do this to her?? like he’s no stranger to selfishness but this is too much

and tom’s home in america during all this, and tony lowkey expects him to be on his side, but instead tom just rips into him and goes to comfort his sister

i think that’d work best if the chris/annabelle divorce wasn’t as angsty as it has potential to be? like, annabelle tells chris about the affair and he’s hurt over it, but ultimately they both know that they were never really in love and they respect each other too much to turn this into a huge incident. chris’ll respect her decision for a divorce, make sure that she knows that she doesn’t have to leave if she doesn’t want to -- they can take care of the baby together -- and annabelle marries sebastian before kathy is even born. maybe she and chris even keep up a friendly correspondence after a few years. he and sebastian never meet face-to-face, which gives extra angst to the funeral. ya feel??

the reynolds affair is probably some sort of coping mechanism or stress relief or something, which doesn’t make it any more right but at least it’s not coming from a malicious place? either way tony loses both tanya and tom in one go, and it’s awful

here is the thing though: tony really loves his children, and he truly cares for tanya. he knows that he is an incredibly lucky man to have this family, and to come home to tanya teaching their son to play piano, and he must know that she’s wonderful and clever and kind. so the withdrawal into work is only about 80% his compulsion to never stop writing, and the rest is overwhelming guilt at how unsatisfied he is. because tanya is the best of wives and the best of women, but she isn’t tom. tony is yearning for something he can’t have, someone who lives thousands of miles across the ocean, even though his life at home is near perfect. 

(how much do you want to bet that for the first few months after tom left, tony laid awake thinking about their goodbye and the look in tom’s eyes when he said “my anthony” and the pause that came afterward, like he wanted to say so much more but had to settle on a sad “don’t forget to write.”)

Your life is a lie. You kill, that’s who you are, that’s what you know, that’s what you do. You grind people into dust. You have no heart, no soul, no conscience. Your hands are covered in blood. Do you care about anything? Do you love anyone?

—

Moscow, 1961. Pyotr Fyodorovich Yussupov and Ekaterina Sebastianovna Moranova are paired up for a long-standing undercover mission. Pyotr and Ekaterina have never met before–but in a matter of hours, they’ll be flying to America as newlyweds. On Moscow’s command, they’ll have children together, raise a family, play the roles of good, clean-cut middle-class Americans–but it’s on Moscow’s command too that they’ll spy, fight, lie, fuck, and kill for their country. The KGB officers next door. Personal feelings notwithstanding, they have a role to play for their nation. Love for the motherland is the only kind that matters. Anything else need not come into it.