#morganverse

Russia, 1987

Nikolai watched the prop plane touch down on the empty field past the barn from his spot up in the hayloft, holding a Kalashnikov machine rifle that he’d never had to shoot at an actual person before. He was pretty sure that today wouldn’t be the day that he had to, but his uncle had asked him to provide overwatch, so he was laying half on top of the rifle, peering down the iron sights at the plane as it bumped across the field and came to a stop not far off. The sun bounced off the glass windshield, obscuring the pilot.

It wasn’t like his uncle to do business at home, but he’d been called back out to the country because Auntie Natalia was having a baby. It was Natalia who knew this particular contact, and trusted her enough to have her come out here. Uncle Sasha was less sure. He didn’t trust easily— It was a liability to, in this line of business— so here was Nikolai, laying in itchy old straw and wishing that he had asked to stay in Leningrad with his friends. But he was rarely allowed to involve himself in Sasha’s business, beyond as an occasional errand boy, and he wanted to prove himself useful.

Sasha walked out to meet the pilot, his face set in the usual hard-line expression he reserved for business, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, his gun holsters visible when the wind blew his coat open. He relaxed when he realized that the pilot was alone, and really just a woman, the hard expression shifting into a smile.

Nikolai watched the woman take off her sunglasses and hook them onto the collar of her white shirt, her smile a smudge of red and white from so far above. She looked distinctly American, wearing light-washed blue jeans tucked into combat boots, and an oversized leather jacket that obscured her form somewhat, or would have if it wasn’t left open. She glanced up and waved for him to come down, laughing at something Sasha said, spotting Nikolai despite the darkness in the barn behind him, and his dark hair and brown jacket that he had thought half-decent camouflage.

Hoping to get down before she was done laughing, Nikolai scrambled to obey, slinging the rifle across his back and out of the way while he slid down the ladder to the floor of the barn.

No luck. Sasha was leaned in toward her when Nikolai approached, lighting a cigarette for the woman. She was beautiful up close, not that much older than Nikolai, really, maybe in her mid-twenties, but entirely grown out of the leggy awkwardness of girlhood, all compact curves accentuated by the high-waisted jeans and the tight t-shirt. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a sleek low bun, with the few escaped wisps tucked firmly behind her ears.

“You must be Nikolai,” she said, holding a hand out, shooting that stunning white smile at him. It was far more devastating than a bullet could ever be, ripping through flesh and bone and lodging somewhere in his heart. “I’m Helena. Natalia’s told me a lot about you. She said you want to be a pilot too?”

Nikolai nodded dumbly, praying that his palm wouldn’t be too sweaty when he gripped her hand for what he hoped was the correct amount of time. “Um. Yes,” he said, finding his voice, pitching it a little lower, straightening his back. He wasn’t a boy, he was a young man. He needed her to see that. “It’s Kolya to friends. Let me take your bag,” he added, eager to make himself useful.

“Are we friends already?” Helena asked teasingly, handing her duffel bag over without protest. Her Russian was perfect, like she was born speaking it just as he was. “Thought I’d have to work harder than that.”

Nikolai tried to stamp down that stab of disappointment. She definitely saw him as a just a boy. Probably for the best anyway. There was a wedding band on her finger, after all. “Well, if you’re friends with my aunt, you are like family. What more to say?”

“If only it were always so simple,” Sasha said, shaking his head, waving for them to follow him back to the house. “It was easier when we were his age, no?”

Helena laughed. “No. I was already a soldier at his age.”

It was hard to imagine this woman as a soldier. Easier to imagine her as a movie star, or a model. “Did you fly a fighter plane?” Nikolai asked.

She nodded. “Never saw much real combat, but I was stationed in Guatemala for a spell, and I fought in the Falklands. Not that it was much of a fight.” She rolled her eyes, taking a long drag from the cigarette. “Thatcher just couldn’t let that go. Bitch.”

Sasha laughed. “It is for Glorious Empire, no? We are just dogs for war.”

“Too true. And some dogs don’t know how to stop.” One more drag from the cigarette, and she dropped it in the tin can on the porch railing. “Is Natalia home from the hospital yet?”

Sasha shook his head. “Not yet. She comes home this afternoon. I will be driving into the city soon— Would you like to join me? Kolya will stay.”

“I’ll stay. I can make myself useful, have dinner made by the time you return.”

“No, no, you are a guest—”

“Please! I am happy to do it. It’s one less thing to worry about, with a baby coming home.” She waved off his protests with both hands. “Kolya can help me navigate the kitchen.” She flicked her arm forward, the movement pulling her sleeve back from her watch. “You might as well go now, Natalia should not be alone too long. We will have time for business later, Aleksander.”

“Please! Just Sasha. Like Kolya said. You are like family.”

“And a moment ago I was a guest,” Helena said, giving Nikolai a conspiratorial look that made his heart hammer.

“Well, Natalia will want to know we made an effort to make you a guest,” Sasha said. “We are simply outclassed.” He opened the door and grabbed his car keys off the hook. “We’ll be back soon. Make yourself at home, Helena.” He tapped her on the arm as he went back out past them again, shoes crunching on the gravel of the drive as he went out to his car.

“Drive safe,” she said, crouching down to untie her boots, following Nikolai’s cue as he kicked off his own. She frowned, looking at the worn out work-boots. “In a bit, we should go back out to the plane. I brought a crate of things. Gifts for the family. I have boots that should fit you.”

Nikolai felt his ears turn red. “I don’t need anything, really.”

“Didn’t say you did,” she said, kicking her boots against the side of the house, out of the way of the door so no one would trip over them. “It’s just easy for me to get these things, and Natalia said there’s often shortages. If you don’t need them, give them to someone who does, hm?” She passed by him into the house and shrugged off her jacket, hanging it up on one of the hooks by the door unceremoniously. Now Nikolai had no problem imagining her as a soldier. Her t-shirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing defined muscles, and she wore a leather harness across her shoulders that supported a pistol holster under each arm. She had a big tattoo of the RAF logo on her bicep too, bisected by a jagged scar.

“RAF?” he asked. “I thought you were American.”

“I live in Canada,” she said. “But I’m from England. That’s where I met your aunt. We went to the same school in London. She taught me my Russian.”

Nikolai thought back to the stories that his aunt told, trying to pick out which one was the most likely to be Helena. “You’re Lena,” he said, connecting the dots quickly. “The one that got her into trouble.”

“Guilty. She needed it though. Talia was like a mouse before I got my hands on her.” She followed him up the stairs. “It was good for me too. Got me used to taking an undressing from—” She stopped, the word not sounding right on her tongue. “Um. A Dressing down. Scolding, yes? From important people. My captains never scared me.”

Nikolai scrubbed a hand over his face, as if that would do something to alleviate the blush he could feel from his ears down to his chest. He dropped her duffle bag on the narrow bed in the guest room and shuffled back out into the hallway. There was almost no space to manuever in the small room, and he didn’t want to have to touch her. He did get a whiff of her shampoo and the slightest hint of sweat, which nearly made his knees buckle beneath him. A touch certainly would have put him on the floor. “You don’t seem like a woman who is scared of anything,” he said.

She grinned at him as she unzipped the bag, pulling out a cassette deck and a canvas bag that rattled slightly with the movement. “Anyone who isn’t scared of anything is either over-confident, stupid or crazy,” she told him. “It’s not a bad thing to be scared.”

“Which one are you?” he asked.

“Crazy of course. Here. I brought you some music.” She shoved the bag at him and headed back downstairs, the tape deck in hand. It was a small one, portable and battery powered. “I don’t know what the popular music scene’s like around here, but I bring you rock and roll. Things I don't think you can find easily here. We can listen while I make dinner.”

Western music. That was thoughtful, which did nothing to quell his burgeoning crush. He had a few tapes, many of them poor quality recordings of recordings. These were new, some of them still wrapped in plastic film, bought especially for him. "You didn't have to do this," he said, setting the bag down on the kitchen table so he could parse through its contents. Rush, Heart, Motörhead, The Runaways, Sex Pistols. Some music he'd heard of, a lot more he hadn't.

"I wanted to. Seems like you've really been through it, kid. This is nothing, really. Just some tapes. If it makes you feel better, I can tell you that I just hate Russian music and wanted to make sure we didn't have to listen to it."

"That does make me feel better."

"Then that's the honest to god truth." She put a hand over the sunglasses and held the other up, like she was making a pledge.

"Liar," he said. It felt good to tease her back. Like they were old friends already.

"I've been called worse things by worse people. Now! Let's see what we have to work with." She started going through the cupboards, noting where all the pots and pans were and rifled through the pantry to see what ingredients they had on hand.

Nikolai picked a tape at random and set it into the player, turning up the volume, grinning as the sound of drums and electric guitar pealed out from the tinny speakers.

“Ooh, The Runaways,” Helena said approvingly. “Good choice. These girls know how to rock.” She pulled out a big pot and filled it with water, her head bobbing along to the beat. “Now come here and help me peel potatoes.”

“Yes ma’am,” Nikolai said, leaving the pile of tapes on the other side of the table. He found paring knives while she washed dirt off the potatoes, bouncing on the balls of her feet, singing along to the music under her breath.

He started peeling, doing his best to focus on the task rather than on the way Helena’s hips swayed back and forth, the slightest bit off beat. And then there was distinctively feminine moaning coming out of the speakers along with the music, and he nearly stabbed himself in the hand. Helena didn’t seem to notice, or at the very least didn’t react, leaving him to briefly wonder if he was imagining it, or if it was really a part of the song.

His ears were burning hot, so he kept his head down and peeled potatoes like his life depended on it, certain that if he looked at Helena he would simply burst into flames. He was glad that he’d not bothered to get his hair cut in a while, so it was long enough to hide behind.

“You alright, Kolya?” she asked, tapping his arm to warn him that she was reaching across him to grab the other knife.

“I’m fine,” he told her, his voice cracking on the words as his heart clunked into second gear. Another humiliation. “I’m not good at this,” he lied. He tried to help out in the kitchen whenever he could, although he was still not much of a cook. “Trying not to cut off my fingers.”

Even if she didn’t believe him, she left it, blessedly, at that.

Once they set the potatoes to cook, they went back outside, keeping an eye on the stove through the kitchen window. Music from the cassette player followed them, thankfully free of moaning of any kind now that he had nothing to occupy himself with. Sometimes god was good. Nikolai pulled out two cigarettes and set them to his lips, lighting both and offering one to Helena.

"Aren't you a bit young to smoke?" she asked, lips twisting into a wry little smile. Her fingers brushed his when she took one, sending a little electric jolt through him.

"Maybe. But being young has never stopped me from doing anything I wanted to do." He hoped that came out as bold, maybe even flirtatious, rather than childish. He wasn't sure it did. It was easier, with girls his own age. Acting as though he knew what he was doing got him a long way among his peers, since most of them had even less of an idea than he did.

"I guess I smoked when I was your age too," she said, laughing. "And drank, and smoked weed, and got into trouble. It's just funny, you know? You feel all kinds of grown when you're sixteen, but when you look back at yourself, you see a child."

"You're not even so old," Nikolai said. "Twenty four, twenty five? You must be younger than my aunt."

"Nah. Same age. I'll take it as a compliment though."

So twenty nine, if she really was the same age as Talia. It should have curbed his interest, but it didn't. She was still beautiful, and interesting, and she spoke to him like he was a person, not just a kid.

"What's your husband like?" He asked.

"Oh? He's…" she trailed off, thinking about it, blowing a thin stream of smoke out while she considered her answer. "He's a good man. But we probably wouldn't have married if not for our son. Aaron turned seven this year."

It was hard to imagine Helena as someone’s mother, let alone someone who was closer to his age than she was. He really didn’t want to think about that. "Sorry, I was just curious. I did not mean--"

"It's fine, Kolya. Really. I'm not unhappy, by any means. He's a good business partner, and we agree about important things." She shrugged, like it didn't matter one bit, still wearing an easy smile on her red-painted lips. "Romance is not so important anyway. I’ve got more important things to worry about."

Nikolai couldn't help but see that as sad, in a way. He'd known her for all of an hour, maybe two, and he already thought she deserved better than that. The way she talked to him, her offer to cook, the thoughtful gift of hard to find Western rock and roll tapes for a boy she had never met, combined with the stories that Aunt Talia told painted a picture of a woman who deserved to be with someone that loved her well, gave her everything she wanted and more. He wished he was older. Maybe, in another life, he could have been that man.

But it was foolish to dwell on things that couldn't be. Better to be her friend than nothing. He had a feeling she would be a good friend to have.

They spent the afternoon like that, listening to music and making gnocchi, rolling little lumps of dough across the backs of forks to make a small mountain of dumplings, laughing together at Helena’s tone-deaf attempts to sing along. It was somehow more endearing than if she had been a song bird, a flaw that made her more human.

Not that he could think of her as anything else. She was just more vibrant, more alive than anyone he’d ever met. Like she had been struck by lightning and still carried an electric charge beneath her skin. He felt it every time they touched, purposefully or by accident, her hip bumping his as she danced, or their fingers brushing when he offered her another cigarette. That electricity fell from her lips too, when she got talking about something that she cared about, and sometimes she absently changed languages mid-sentences, flowing from Russian to English and sometimes to French and Spanish. He did his best to keep up with her anyway, even though there were times when he was just nodding along, listening to the cadence of her voice, watching the enthusiasm in her eyes.

After Talia and Sasha returned from the hospital, Nikolai had to share her attention for hours, as they ate, and she held the baby, and she sat on the couch, cuddled up next to Natalia, the two of them reminiscing in soft voices while Nikolai washed the dishes, straining to hear. Sasha was the only one that seemed to notice Nikolai’s frequent glances over his shoulder, and came to lean against the counter next to him, a mug of tea in his hand.

“Don’t fall in love, Kolya,” he said in a low voice, his dark eyes laughing at Nikolai’s misfortune.