#lostghcst

What time is it in Moscow? What was the weather like? Was a chill still chomping away at spring’s attempts at life? It’s blooming here. Life is flourishing, and his attention has been caught by one of the saplings bursting forth from the dirt now. Just meters from a tree destined to rival it in size for years to come. He almost bends down to run his fingers along a tiny leaf sprouting from it, to touch life forming, but he doesn’t feel his hands that have brought so much death should. He moves to the tree behind it instead. Eyes quickly traveling up the trunk till the sun shining through breaks in the leaves started to dot his vision. 

He starts to bring his hand up to the trunk of this tree, too, but retracts it when he hears the snap of a twig behind him. He whips around, on alert. The Aguilar’s weren’t expecting any guests at the house today, let alone the grounds. When he turns to hunt down the perpetrator, however, he is stopped by the sight of the Aguilar’s daughter, Catalina. A vision of a girl. One he has the gift of even seeing at the moment. She must have used her powers to slip out and dropped them when she found him here. His shoulders droop, the tightness that spark in his chest like wildfire at the noise begins to unwind. 

“I don’t want to rob you of the joy of climbing a tree.” 

A laugh escapes. Quick. Too short. He still wasn’t used to laughing, or to having a reason to laugh. But, she always gave him one. “Never robbing. You bring it.” Waving her closer, he turns back around to face the tree. Staring at it as if it might wither beneath his gaze if he kept looking too hard at it. He was still refusing to touch it either. When Catalina joins him, though, an unknown bubbling stirs in his insides and he doesn’t let himself diminish his smile or stop himself from resting his hand on top of hers, squeezing it lightly as he brings it up to rest on the tree. His hand feeling only the heat from her skin as she felt bark, felt life. “Trees never bloom like this in Russia.” This tree was full of life; bountiful and too, too green. And he got to feel it through her. She gave him the gift of life without even knowing it, in more ways than one. “It’s beautiful,” he breathes, gazing at their hands then at Catalina. She was the most beautiful thing he ever felt. 

It was 3:13am in the morning, and all Freyja could hear was the incessant buzzing of her phone on the nightstand, something that was beginning to irritate her. Throwing her pillow on the other side of the room in annoyance, her digits began to move of their own accord over the porcelain before they finally wrapped around the device. Her eyelids blinking blearily once before accepting the call, she began to state with exasperation, “This better be good or I swear I’ll shoot someone.” Yet as she was ready to hang up or to start verbally abusing whoever thought that they could just ring her number at this time in the morning, her mood instantly changed the moment she heard who’s voice it was. Checking the caller ID to make sure that this wasn’t an induced hallucination from the alcohol she had been drinking that night, she quickly sobered up as she realised that Catalina was definitely inebriated.

“Wait, slow down Cat and begin again.” She interrupted, her voice moving to a soothing tone as she began to massage her temples from the headache she could feel oncoming. But the longer she heard Cat’s rambles, the more worried she became about what Cat had been drinking that night, and where exactly Nik was. “Cat, where are you?” She asked, concerned as she continued to listen to how Cat just wanted them to all be together and happy, and that she worried for their future if Freyja was to disappear again; not thinking she would be able to survive without the four of them all together. “Where’s Nik?” She asked, ignoring the words and wondering where exactly the Russian was, if he had abandoned Cat alone with her drunk ramblings, and troubled that with Cat’s history that she would recklessly decide to do something.

“Hold on love, I’m coming to get you, okay?” She began to interrupt again, as she kicked her blanket off of her bed to get her wallet and keys as she exited her room and began to use the GPS location of Cat’s phone to try and find her. Relieved that she wasn’t too far away, Freyja kept Cat on the phone, listening to her continue to talk, and adding in a gentle murmur of comfort and that she would be there soon before finally arriving at the top of the building where Cat seemed to be, with a rather large bottle of one of Freyja’s concoctions of eggnog. “Cat, it’s okay, alright; I’m here now.” She said, her arms moving to embrace the other, as she noticed the tear stained cheeks upon Catalina’s features, knowing that the alcohol must have taken her to a rather depressing state. “For as long as I can, I promise I won’t leave again.” She murmured in her ear, her arms tightening around the other, her heart breaking as she realised how much exactly she didn’t want to lose this family of hers as she shut her eyes to blink back tears; grateful that Cat was safe. “Let’s go home, you can stay with me tonight.”

His parents never did it, and they hushed his sister and him whenever they brought it up. Lada and him decided not to bring it up amongst themselves, either. They were hesitant to do anything remotely related to Christmas after awhile. It was just another day in their household. A day Nik had come to dread when he began to notice the crestfallen look across his little sister’s face when they passed neighboring homes with steam wafting off a freshly roasted pig and a lavishly decorated spruce tree expertly placed near the window. Nik had to hold on to Lada’s hand sometimes when they were younger to prevent her from worming her way into the homes they passed or pressing her gaunt, rosy cheeks against the windows. It only got worse as they grew up. Instead of the two of them walking the streets and Nik snatching honey cakes from bakeries closed up for the night, it became them spending it miles apart. Nik was always tasked by the Bratva to end somebody else’s joy that cheerful night while his sister kept mostly out of sight. And when Lada had been murdered, he stopped thinking of Christmas altogether.

But when Catalina had lugged his huge ass outside despite his burgeoning protests while she distantly sang some silly song about building a snowman, he couldn’t say no. He did, however, stand there with his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets giving her curious glances. He had never assembled a snowman before and he hadn’t the slightest clue of where to begin. “Come on, Nik.” She hollered over at him from where she was packing snow together. His brows furrowed. “I don’t know how to.” His voice lowered, thinned out. The look she gave him in response had his stomach twisting. There was a dawn of understanding before she smiled at him and beckoned him closer with the wave of a hand. He reluctantly joined her.

Catalina takes to immediately tugging his hands free from his coat and opening them before dropping some sort of thick lump of snow in them. “Pack it down then start rolling,” she orders while illustrating the proper actions he needed to perform. He mimicked her. Following along as she began rolling the small ball of snow across the snow filled lawn, the ball getting larger with each roll. Getting the hang of it, he keeps rolling until she says stop and he is then having to carry hers over to his and place it on top of it. She had put him in charge of rolling up a third smaller one while she disappeared. He had done just that and stacked it on top of the other two when she came running back over to him, her arms full. She held the items out for him to see. One of Freyja’s red fuzzy scarfs, his knitted black beanie, a handful of golden coat buttons, designer shades, two sticks, and a long pointed carrot. That crinkle forms again between his brows as he looks at it all in confusion. “It’s to decorate the snowman, silly.” She informs him. She drops the items to the ground between them before thrusting one stick into the second rolled ball of snow. “See.” He exhales, but it turns into a chuckle instead. Nikolay ungracefully stabs the second stick in before he is backing up to let her do the rest.

For a fraction of a second he was able to forget his past experiences with Christmas and watch her, memorized. He was downright in love with how beautiful she looked in this silly moment and how easily she could take a time of the year he dreaded and gift him with little moments he treasured. Moments the little boy who walked the streets and stole from others never would have dreamed up for himself.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sensation of arms wrapping around his waist, beneath his coat, and her head resting against his chest while she admired their finished work. It was a little lopsided. One hand was higher than the other and the buttoned mouth only had a half smile. But it was perfect. His arms came up to wrap around her smaller frame as he whispered a small thank you into her hair. Surprises like this made a child out of him. It gave him a chance to live in a way he was robbed of before and it allowed the horrors of the world to fall away as he falls into a contented silence holding a person he fell more and more in love with everyday. 

The day had gotten away from him. He spent so much of it locked up in his room and rummaging through his closet until he found it. A tiny wooden box shoved into the back corner of the closet left to collect dust. It had a named carved into it. A name never spoken aloud by him. His sister’s name — Lada. Today marked five years without her. He can’t believe it has already been that long. He can’t believe she would have been turning twenty-six today. Likely to have been celebrating with a husband Nikolay would have scared shitless into never hurting her and tucking her second child into bed, both who would have been spoiled rotten by Nik, too. She always wanted a big family and a simple life. She wanted to escape the bloodshed and violence. But, in the end, his life took away hers. She stuck by him, and it got her killed. He got her killed.

Now all that is left of her is this box filled with distant memories. Sliding himself onto his bedroom floor, he opens the box and lets himself pour through a lifetime of memories. Memories of laughter, of two kids playing games in a large backyard, of arguments over what they should do, and of nights so filled with terror that the only comfort could be found in the other. Nikolay gets so caught up in all these memories he doesn’t hear another person walk in.

“You’re more miserable than usual.”

He snaps the lid of the box shut, wiping at his eyes with the sleeve of his white collared shirt. He clears his throat. “Uh, yeah, I..” His voice comes out gruff. He so badly wants to get up and shrug this off, play pretend for Catalina, but he can’t. The pain of this loss still destroys him root and branch. Especially on the anniversary of it.

Patting the floor next to him, he opens the lid back up and waits for her to join him there. When she does, he starts pulling out things. An old photo of his sister and him on a swing set, laughing up at the sky. Another of him scowling while wobbling about in a monkey suit and Lada sat perfectly in front of the Christmas tree in a deep blue dress with a pretty white bow. Then he pulled out a stuffed elephant that she would throw a screaming fit over and not rest until she had it. Years of memories keep being pulled out until he feels her hand wiping away at tears he didn’t realize were falling. “I failed her,” he chokes out, staring a hole into the hardwood floor. “I'm suppose to protect her. I didn’t.” Through all his pain, an underlying anger boils almost to the point of spilling out. He reaches his trembling hand out to hold hers. “They won’t take someone from me again.” Not Midas, and certainly not Catalina. That was a promise.