Teaser:Rejected by Jenny, Shane out of commission, and Sydney obsessed with her new sister, Marina finds herself alone, facing a stranger she's feared for more than ten years: her mother.
Series: Nothing to Write Home About, Story XVIII
Crossover: Alias/The L Word
Characters: Marina Ferrer, Katya Derevko, Irina Derevko, Francesca Wolff

--

Marina slept with her face buried in the sheets, one hand beneath her pillow, on a gun that Francesca hated, breathing in deeply, silently.

Marina did not snore.

She slept pressed up against her, free arm stretched across her chest, remarkably heavy considering the slender appearance.

Francesca, in a rare bout of insomnia, lay awake, fingers curled over the satin of Marina's limb, gently smoothing fingertips over her skin, staring up at the ceiling.

It had taken a week to get used to sleeping with someone else. Not sex. Sleep. Sleep. With toothpaste and toothbrushes, and moisturizers and hairbrushes. Tampons and bathroom breaks, and bed-hogs, and guns.

Marina had her guns and knives, and Francesca hated them.

She wasn't foolish enough to think herself untouchable. She knew full well what she had inadvertently done in her weakness. Francesca was aware that this may have been a mistake. But Francesca did not look upon her life with regrets, and she refused to regret this.

Marina was wild - with an explosive temper and a penchant for sullen anger. She exercised nearly religiously, twists, and rolls on Francesca's bedroom floor, until her body was dripping with sweat, and the anger had burned out of her.

Francesca always watched, a coffee cup in her hand, as the woman who she had named her partner, a complete stranger, twisted like a graceful snake. Sometimes it frightened her, deep down in a place where she would admit that she was capable of that emotion. Other times, it fascinated her, made her more than ever want to take the woman and press against her, devour her soul and body with her mouth and fingertips.

Once, it was aggravating.

Francesca was a selfish woman, she knew that. She knew her reasons for giving Marina an out from her world were not entirely to allow Marina to live an existence free of that kind of trap. Francesca didn't want Marina to be free at all. Francesca wanted to keep her.

That was really the entire point of all this.

Still, Marina required control, effort, an up in the stakes of a game that Francesca was great at, but one that Marina had played her entire life.

Marina fought her, from the moment she tried to leave to even this evening, when she refused Francesca's offer of a credit card.

"It's just for the month," she snapped. "I'll be away for three weeks, and you'll need it."

"I'll make do. I don't want your money."

She was foolish and stubborn, and for some reason, the thought of leaving Marina for a month without some measure of assurance that she would still be here when she returned was ... disconcerting.

Francesca shifted slightly, smoothing her palm over Marina's forearm, to study Marina's face, half buried in white satin.

She was beautiful. Absolutely breathtaking.

The observation caused a catch in her throat Francesca wasn't used to, and made her frown, carefully pushing Marina's arm off of her and staring up at the ceiling.

She would have to fuck someone on her trip. She would have to tell Marina about it when she got back.

But not before she understood Marina. Not before she knew for sure Marina would actually still BE here.

A delicate movement interrupted her train of thought, a foreign whisper of a sound that made her turn her head, register in the next moment a stranger's face inches from her own.

She couldn't even scream before a blade was pressed painfully against her throat, dark eyes luminous in their cold anger.

"Say one word, utter one scream and I shall bleed you like a pig," the stranger whispered. Francesca could not respond. Her heart beat horribly fast, her reflex was to gag, but the woman only pressed deeper in and Francesca could not even breathe.

"I believe it's time we met," the woman continued, somehow disturbingly pleasant, considering the circumstances. "Meet me downstairs in five minutes. If you wake my daughter, it will be the last time she ever sees you."

Francesca's eyes shut tight, until suddenly the blade was gone, and her eyes opened to find no one there at all.

--

Katya Derevko dressed quickly, silently, while the sleeping figure of Jack Bristow turned away from her, asleep or simply unconcerned where she was going.

Katya did not take offense to this. She was never a fan of sentimentality, considered it weak, and had respected her sister implicitly until she realized just how much emotion Irina had bottled away.

Pulling on her boots with short jerks, reaching for her gun, she wondered passively what her sister would say if she could see what had transpired between her husband and her sister. Irina was hardly a slave to emotion, but Jack Bristow had gotten underneath her skin, and Katya understood it would hurt her, make her angry, to know Katya would bed him so quickly.

It was Jack's revenge for Irina's affair so many years ago, and Katya was only happy to play her part.

She was not beyond petty jealousy. She wanted Jack, she took Jack. Her sister did not care enough to fulfill his needs.

There were other reasons, she was sure of that. Lingering in her heart was resentment - at being pulled into this sick game of Rambaldi, of being transformed into something she never wanted to become. She had not dreamed of this, like Irina. Katya had dreamed of a bakery, of marriage to a good man and possibly becoming a dancer, before her world shifted, and the name Rambaldi tainted them all.

It was because of Irina that this had become her world. Because of Irina's daughters, always more important than Katya, more important than Katya's daughter.

Jack Bristow had surprised her. He did not judge her for her sins, but he knew of them. He told her, before they had fucked (because that is what they had done. It would have been stupid to think of it as anything else), that if she treated his daughter the way she had treated her own, he would kill her. She did not doubt him.

Thoughts festered in her now, as she left his house, noticed the CIA agents waiting surreptitiously outside, anything but obvious. There had been no plans to visit her daughter - she told herself that part of her was buried in Los Angeles, in her daughter's self-imposed exile.

But Jack's knowledge of Marina's past posed a curious problem, and with the resurfacing of Nadia and Marina's obviously close relationship with Sydney, there were things to consider.

It was late at night, when she slipped through the glass door of Marina's expensive Venice house. An extra half hour taken to lose the agents, another spent watching her daughter as she moved in her house, drinking wine, speaking on the phone, alone and seemingly tired.

There was no emotion, and that was surprising, because it had been nearly five years since Katya had seen her last, in a situation similar to this, watching her child from afar, waiting, determining her daughter's need.

Now, inside, she moved quietly, hands at her sides, listening, waiting, until Marina passed right by her, phone to her ear, speaking low and quiet, respectful of the silence of her house.

"No one knows where she is?" Marina asked, tone lost and worried, as Katya stepped into the living room, eyes on her daughter's back. "Alice, I don't think that that is smart. If Shane went away, it was because she felt she needed it." Another pause, another tired sigh. "Personally, I don't think any of us are in any sort of shape to help her. Alice, that isn't what I meant. I just think you have your hands full with Tina and Bette - I have my own problems. No, it isn't about Sydney-"

Her child was frustrated. Katya bit back a smile, taking another step into the room, until she was ten feet away. It didn't take much longer after that, before her daughter stopped talking, turned and laid eyes upon her mother.

Marina remained passive, even as her eyes widened, then narrowed, body still, taking in the sight of Katya.

"'Allo, Marina," she said pleasantly.

Marina continued to stare, and in the silence, Katya heard the worried tinny voice of Marina's friend, calling her name from the receiver.

"Alice," Marina said finally, never taking her eyes off her mother. "I'm going to have to call you back."

--

A prisoner in her own house, Francesca Wolff sat rigidly on her sofa, staring into the dark, angry eyes of Marina's mother.

The older woman fingered a knife lazily, making sure Francesca recognized it, one of Marina's own. She played with it, letting the blade slide between her fingertips, catching the light of the scented candles Francesca kept on the coffee table for show, candles that were now lit, hot wax tripping down on her wood.

Marina's mother said nothing, simply continued to play with Marina's knife, twirling it, eyeing Francesca, and then running it idly through the flame of the candles, watching as the flame wrapped around the steel.

It was designed to intimidate, and for the first time since Francesca had invited Marina into her life, she understood the mistake she had made.

But Francesca did not regret them, and while she would die for no one, she did not allow herself to be intimidated: not by directors, not by terrorists.

"I've heard of over-protective parents," she began lightly, "But don't you think you're taking this a little too far?"

The woman's eyes snapped to hers like a recoiling snake, and her words died in her throat before she could continue, smirk falling into a stiff line.

"Do not presume you are on an equal level with me," the woman snapped. "If you are brave enough to mouth off, you are brave enough to withstand a good deal more than what I had originally planned." She took a candle, eyed the hot wax that was brimming near the flame, and smiled in its flickering light. "You are foolish, impulsive, and much too cocky for your own good."

Francesca watched as the woman carefully picked up her hand, surprisingly soft skin caressing her own before she suddenly placed her finger atop the flame, bringing in a searing heat that caused a hiss, a wince. By instinct alone, Francesca tried to jerk it away, but the woman's eyes swore death, and her grip was firm. Another second, a sting in Francesca's eyes, and she moved the candle away.

"I'm being courteous," the woman said. "This is nothing compared to what Marina has endured."

Her finger was blistered, ugly from the abuse, and the woman held it still in her deadly hands.

Yes, Francesca really had made a very bad mistake.

"What do you want?" she snapped, the words nearly a shout in her sudden panic, as she jerked at her hand, found it immobile, ignoring the angry tears as they slid down her cheeks. "Do you want to take Marina? Take her, then."

The woman smiled. "Marina's own foolish decisions are her own to make. But like any protective mother I simply have my concerns. Your intentions, please."

"My what?"

"Intentions," she continued. "Naturally, I'm concerned."

It was an appropriate time for a smart, dry response. Something about Marina being old enough to take care of herself. Something about she herself having witnessed Katya's so-called concern in the form of the scar just under Marina's left breast, the phantom wince of pain that Marina said she felt in her gums when Francesca had been awoken to Marina's nightmares.

She found herself biting down her words, focused instead on the splintering pain of her burnt finger, the flickering flame of the candle, the dark abyss of Marina's mother's eyes.

"Do you love my daughter?" she continued.

Francesca knew better than to lie. She took a breath, tried desperately to keep her composure despite the erratic beating of her rebelling heart, and answered as calmly as she could, "No." Marina's mother raised an amused eyebrow as Francesca continued. "She fascinates me. She seemed ideal at the time."

"Ideal for what?" the woman asked.

"Ideal for a partner," Francesca continued, staring at the flame as it danced, throwing shadows in the hollows of the woman's cheeks.

"Why?"

"I don't know," Francesca answered unsteadily. "I should have left her when I had the chance."

"Yes, you should have," she responded. The knife's edge slid along Francesca's forearm, like a perverse imitation of foreplay. "Why didn't you?"

"I don't know," Francesca said, voice low, now focused completely on the blade, almost as if it not her own skin that suddenly split when the mother flicked her wrist, and Francesca whimpered in pain, red blood beaded on her arm in a trail after the knife, a shallow scratch that stung. "I couldn't let her go."

The mother removed the knife, wiped roughly at Francesca's scratch, placed the tip of the knife on her lips as she considered the answer. "With a Derevko there needs to be more than that. There must be an ultimate sacrifice." The knife rose from her lips, tip now digging sharply in the soft skin underneath Francesca's jaw, Marina's mother moved too quickly, because now her free arm wrapped around her throat, and Francesca was choking, fighting for breath as the knife nicked into her skin, thumb bruising into her larynx. "Would you die for her?" the woman asked. "Would you die for her now?"

NO.

The answer came quick, so very quick - a loud shout in her mind as she struggled against this woman, against this whole fucking thing. She wouldn't fucking die for Marina. FUCK no-

But it was an answer she would never have to make.

Her tearing eyes opened when a gun cocked loudly, and then salty droplets spilled over her cheeks when she saw Marina, standing behind her own mother, a gun pressed delicately against her temple.

"'Allo, Mami."

--

She should have expected this.

Marina had become well aware of the fact that it never rained, but it poured. It was a simple saying, but perversely true.

It seemed only natural, that now, in her isolation, she would turn and find her mother standing in the room, a smirk on her face, looking older and tired, and still beautiful despite all that.

It was her resignation that allowed her control, kept her posture straight, despite the weariness that was seeping from her bones. Her mother saw weakness, used it and manipulated it, much like Francesca.

Maybe it was her ability to break free of Francesca that afforded her no fear.

"I suppose a phone call telling me you were in town would have been too much trouble for you," she said easily in the silence that followed, her Russian coming back quite naturally, dark eyes boring into her mother's, arms crossed defensively against her torso.

"I assumed your cousin would tell you," Katya responded, "But she has been rather obsessed with her newfound sister, it would make sense she would forget you."

Katya's biting words caused a wince, a flinch Marina was unable to hide. Perhaps her mother regretted them, because when Marina looked up again, she caught the trace of regret in her face, as if her tongue had gotten away from her. Katya stood silently, saying no more.

Still, Marina was in no mood for this. Not now.

"Wine?" she asked bluntly, moving around her mother for the direction of the kitchen, a desperate attempt to get away having to look at her.

"No, I'm fine," Katya said sharply, stopping Marina in her tracks. "Marina."

She froze, a trembling taking over her that seemed unavoidable, a cascade of emotion bottled up inside her heart, suddenly willing itself to burst in the presence of a woman who had seen her broken, dismantled her and built her up again.

She kept her back toward her mother, focus on her kitchen going hazy when her eyes suddenly stung.

"What are you doing here, Mami?" she asked in English.

Behind her, she heard an intake of breath, as if her mother was preparing herself, and it was odd, to hear that. It was evidence of anxiety, and she knew better than to think her mother could allow this to affect her.

"Would you believe me, if I told you I was concerned?"

A smirk floated on her face before she could help it, and she turned around, slow on her heel.

"Concerned about what?"

Katya arched an eyebrow. "You no longer have Francesca. You have stopped writing your letters, thereby cutting yourself off from me. I did some checking, and it seems you are close to losing your café. And your cousin, now that she has a sister of her own, has had little to do with her cousin. You have nothing and no one, can you blame me for wanting to check in?"

It was her life in a neat, uncomplicated nutshell.

Still, she managed a stiff, defiant smile. "I can take care of myself."

"Yes," Katya responded. "That is why you let your dress-maker carry you for ten years."

"My arrangement with Francesca had nothing to do with you, Katya," Marina answered, coming around her, once again facing her. "And it was your arrangement that kept her at my side."

"You sound angry with me." Marina glanced away, teeth burying into her bottom lip. Her mother was quiet for a moment, before her voice softened, and she mentioned, "Until recently, your letters always carried... a certain amount of tenderness in them." Marina raised her head, studying her mother as she removed her black gloves, took a walk around her living room, focused on every single detail. "I suppose I fooled myself into believing things had changed."

"I was only fooling myself," Marina answered.

"You love me," her mother responded tightly. It was not a question.

Marina stared at her, a cold woman who walked with military precision, a woman who had once buried her broken daughter in her arms and cried over her, pressing kisses against her face, her eyes, her cheeks. "I never denied that."

Her mother took that in, mulling over Marina's words, before she turned, suddenly stiff and impersonal. "Things have escalated," she said quickly. "In our world. Those who would seek to harm the daughters of the Derevkos have become quite desperate. I believe it is prudent that you and I leave this place tonight."

--

If Katya had been able to turn around, look closely, she would have noticed the trembling of her daughter's hand. It was the reason Marina chose not to place the gun directly against her mother's forehead, instead keeping it a few centimeters away. The moment her mother perceived her emotional state, she would lose any power she would have over the situation.

"Marina," Katya said, her Russian angry and controlled, knife still on Francesca's throat. "Drop the gun."

"Drop the knife," Marina countered, not daring to look at her girlfriend's shivering form, eyes strictly on the back of her mother's head. "This does not concern her."

"She took my daughter. It's very much my concern."

"It was my decision to leave. She was simply a means to an end."

"Excuse me?" Francesca managed, and Marina glared at the interruption, eyes narrowing at Francesca, warning her to keep quiet.

"Marina," Katya continued. "We both know you will not pull the trigger. You do not have a killer's instinct. You could not kill your mother."

Her mother was calling her bluff, because Katya knew her. She knew how she thought. And perhaps that was why Marina thought it was foolish of her mother, because Marina was stubborn, tired, angry-

Not someone to play with.

"I am your daughter," she whispered. "Please believe me capable of anything."

She wasn't sure how long they would have stood there, if it had not been for a soft hand on her shoulder, a voice that came out of nowhere.

"Enough of this foolishness," Irina Derevko said in a firm, tired tone. "Marina, give me the gun. Katya, drop the knife."

Her aunt was always smarter than her mother. She held no weapons. The only steel was in her eyes, in the small, cold smile on her face that softened once Marina looked at her.

"Tia..."

Marina's first language had been Spanish, and unlike Katya, Irina had always indulged her, smile broadening into a warm, sympathetic grin. "Hola, mi amor."

"Irina," Katya warned.

"This is not how we are going to do this," Irina snapped.

"Since when have I given you any say in how I deal with my daughter?" Katya said slowly, words rumbled in anger.

"Since I'm the one that found her," Irina responded. "Your KGB wouldn't be able to find a clown in a circus."

"We're not going to talk about this here," Katya said, turning to glare at Irina.

Irina ignored her sister, instead smoothing Marina's hair from her shoulders, letting cool air fall onto her sweaty neck. "It's all right, darling, just let me have the gun. We won't hurt the dressmaker."

"Okay? For the record?" Francesca, pressed tightly against the cushion, still managed an irritated look. "I'm not a dressmaker. I'm a designer."

"Francesca," Marina said tightly, "No one gives a shit."

But the dressmaker's words broke the tension, and suddenly it all seemed foolish. Marina sighed, moving the gun away from her mother's head, quickly resetting the safety and plopping it into Irina's open palm, leaving her mother to follow suit, rising from her position, letting Francesca slump against the pillows in relief.

"Good," Irina said, slipping the gun into her waistband, arms crossed. "And now we work this out."

"Work what out?" Marina asked, "I didn't ask for you to look for me."

"You did not even leave a note," Katya said. "Usually a child stops running away when they are teenagers. You are too old for this, Marina."

"I'm old enough to know what I want," Marina answered. "It's not this anymore."

"Is this what you want?" Katya snapped. "To be with this self-involved, petty dressmaker?"

"Excuse me?" Francesca interrupted, voice tainted with irritation, rubbing ruefully at her neck. "The petty, self-involved dressmaker is still in this room."

"She does not love you," Katya continued, as if she had not spoken at all.

"That does not matter," Marina answered. "I don't want love. I have had enough of love."

They were fighting words, meant to sting, and when Katya's rant faltered, Marina knew her mother at least caught a glimpse of understanding.

Katya's face grew red, before she glanced at Irina, looked back Marina. "This is not something you can just walk away from."

"At least I tried."

--

Disbelief swelled in Marina's heart, eyes suddenly going wide at her mother's declaration.

Heedless at her daughter's horror, Katya continued, "Pack a few things, nothing obvious. I have arranged for transport and safe passage with the CIA to Europe."

"I see," Marina managed, stiffly, coldly. "You would have me leave my life here. In an instant. A heartbeat."

Katya considered, head cocking delicately to one side. "What life, Marina? Your café is good as gone. Your dress-maker has left you. You have no life-"

"No, mami," Marina snapped. "When I was with you, I had no life. Perhaps things are not easy for me now, but it is my own doing. They are my choices. My freedom. My life. It does not include Rambaldi, or you."

"Foolish girl," her mother said after a beat, "the moment you decided to make friends with Irina's daughter you sucked yourself back into this game." Turning away, Katya's hands knotted behind her back, a testament to her anxiety and anger. "I hate Irina for bringing you into her life. For allowing Sydney to find you."

"She always knew what I needed," Marina said slowly. "She knew-"

"She knew nothing! She threw you together for her own purposes, playing her and playing you the same way she always has," Katya interrupted. "You never stopped believing your aunt was some sort of saint, Marina."

"I never believed her to be a saint."

Katya snorted, swiveling on her heel to face her daughter again. "Get your things, and let us go."

"I'm not going."

"It is not safe for you here," Katya said icily. "Do you not understand? By introducing you to Sydney, Irina has only endangered whatever freedom you once claimed she gave you. Don't think I don't know what she did, Marina. I've always had my suspicions on how you left me in the first place. Irina herself found you easily enough, and when we caught up with you, she herself suggested the arrangement that would enslave you to the dressmaker for years, keeping you tied to this place, keeping you from being truly safe. And now, just when Rambaldi's prophecies are coming to a head, she just happens to allow you and Sydney to meet?" Katya shook her head, offering a hard swallow. "Your aunt never could shake the power of Rambaldi's curse. Her loyalty has always remained with him."

They were damning suspicions, well-thought out assumptions that sunk Marina's heart further into her chest, pulsing loud in angry beats.

"If you are so suspicious of my aunt's true nature, then perhaps you should have spoken to her before all this," Marina said thickly.

"Your aunt has disappeared," Katya answered frankly. "I do not know where she is."

--

"You are going to lose her," Irina said quietly, as soon as they were alone. "If you do not let her go."

Katya was always defensive, always took things personally. Irina had always considered it one of her weaker traits. Her head snapped up, eyes darkened angrily. "Don't start. I'm simply attempting to hold onto the only daughter I have."

Irina regarded her coolly, small bittersweet smirk floating on her beautiful face. "It is because I have lost my own that I'm telling you this now, Katya."

Katya frowned, suddenly tired, fingers rubbing over her temples, eyes closing in frustrated anger. "It should not have happened like this."

"And how would you have liked it to happen?" Irina asked. "It could not have gone on this way forever. Marina has been lucky. If she wants no part of this lifestyle, now is the time for her to leave it."

"Without us, she has no one to keep her safe," Katya answered slowly, eyes still closed, tone acidic, as if she were talking to a small child.

"The longer she runs in our world, the more likely it is her true identity will be discovered by those who do not need to know it," Irina said frankly, forcing Katya's eyes open with a pat on her shoulder. "Would you rather what happened to Nadia happen to her?"

A flicker of pain crossed over Irina as she mentioned her lost daughter. Katya stared into her sister's face, a window to her pain.

"I have lost two daughters, Katya, to Rambaldi's curse. If you want to keep your daughter safe, if you want to keep her free - then let her settle here. Keep her away from our world. Only the two of us know she is here. The dressmaker has already given her another name-"

"I don't trust the dressmaker," Katya whispered tightly. "She knows too much."

"Either she will control Marina or Marina will control her," Irina answered smoothly. "The affairs of the heart are not our concern."

"My concern, my daughter," Katya interrupted.

"My blood, my prophecy," Irina reminded her.

Katya's eyes closed once again, breath expelling from her.

"The dressmaker is selfish and petty, but she is not a coward."

"She would not die for her."

"I wouldn't expect her to. And she won't have to. No one but us will know, and no one will think to look for a person who does not exist."

"You are asking me to leave my daughter."

A beat.

"You already left her once," Irina said calmly.

"For her own good."

"And this? Are you thinking of her safety or your own blinding love for her?"

Katya could feel her heart beating, slow, loud thumps against her chest, as her eyes suddenly stung, and to her surprise, a moist tear suddenly was wiped from her skin.

Irina knelt before her, gentle as she wiped at her tears. Her own orbs were moist, smile bittersweet.

Even if her eyes stung, she would not let another tear fall, as she managed, "I have a condition."

--

"I'm not leaving."

Katya's stare was dark, her tone threatening, and left no room for argument. "Yes, you are."

It had come to this.

Marina was aware of her sometimes morbid sense of humor, and when she laughed, she knew who she had inherited it from, as her mother fought her own smile. The Mexican stand-off could only have been completed with rolling bushes and dusty swirls.

"What are you going to do?" Marina asked, posture straight and tall. "Take me by force?"

"If I have to."

"Then, I'll do what I have to."

It was a threat, but a real one. Marina was no longer a child. She could see the recognition in her mother's eyes. Katya could no longer control her. What remained to be questioned was her mother's sanity. If she truly intended on taking her daughter prisoner, then Marina could not stop her.

"Do you realize what you would do to yourself, should you stay?" Katya asked. Marina felt her muscles relax slightly. However desperate her mother was, she was not beyond herself yet. "Your continued association with Sydney will bring in the world you have tried so hard to leave."

"And you prefer to lock me away, in your world, in your government? Wouldn't that achieve the same end?"

Katya swallowed. "I would not subject you to their tests."

Her mother loved her. It was prevalent, in her eyes, in her heart.

The realization was new, somehow different, because her mother was begging her now, her control lost.

Standing on a precipice of indecision, Marina considered her life.

And realized it was finally her own.

Her mother was human, with etches and wrinkles on her face, a faded brilliance in her once striking eyes. Her short black hair was tinged with small speckles of gray, and Marina took it in, fingers gentle as she swept the softness of her mother's bangs away from her forehead.

Carefully, reverently, Marina pressed her lips against her forehead, lingering in her kiss, eyes closing at the contact.

When she finally pulled away, she found tears in Katya's eyes, mimicking the wetness in her own.

"Let me do this for you," she whispered.

--

"I'm sorry," Marina said, careful as she wiped at the scratch on Francesca's forearm.

Francesca fingered the small welt at her throat, grimacing, in an obvious bad mood. "You have a seriously disturbed family, Marina."

"Be thankful my mother didn't kill you."

Irritated, Francesca quirked an eyebrow at her lover. "That's supposed to make me thankful?"

Marina quirked it right back. "I told you my family was difficult."

"Difficult, yes," Francesca said. "Psycho? No."

Marina studied her, a passive stare, and Francesca let it happen, staring right back, suddenly curious as to what the relaxed woman was thinking.

And suddenly, Marina kissed her, a soft, gentle embrace that was different than anything Francesca had experienced with her. Her lips lingered against hers, tongue dipped softly between them for a small taste before it swirled on her upper lip, and Marina breathed against her mouth, "Perhaps now it is truly over."

Francesca was doubtful, but her palm, pressed against Marina's cheek seemed to be answer enough, as the other woman shifted her face, buried her mouth against it.

It was loving and gentle, and Francesca considered what she had learned tonight.

Marina needed control. Her mother had exerted that, and while Marina had eventually broken from that hold, had it not been for her aunt, chances were Marina would not have been in her arms this night.

Her only lingering trace... her mother's one condition for granting Marina's freedom...

--

"Letters." Katya was curt, arms crossed as she looked between them. "That is my condition. I demand to be a part of your life, Marina, even if it is a passive one."

Marina looked surprised, and Katya didn't blame her, as she stepped around her sister, settled on the coffee table, and regarded her daughter, "As long as you insist on staying with this dressmaker-"

"Designer," Francesca interrupted.

"Shut up," Katya barked, then turned back to her daughter. "You will write me letters - you will tell me everything there is to know about your life. Even if there is nothing to write home about, I expect to hear from you."

"And will I hear from you?"

Katya considered her world, the unpredictability of her life. "That depends on my situation. Does that satisfy you?"

It cut her, to see the glow in her daughter's face, the utter joy a world away from her could bring, and still, it made her smile, because she loved her daughter.

More than anything, she loved her child.

In a bout of unexpected tenderness, she leaned forward, careful as she traced her daughter's face with her fingertips, brushed a kiss against her daughter's forehead. "Alicia," she breathed, pulling away to smile, watching Marina's stunned face.

"Marina," Irina called, breaking the moment to summon her neice, who obediently stood, moved around Katya, and into her aunt's arms, holding her tight.

In that moment, Katya once again found herself alone with Marina's new lover.

"You do not love her," she said flatly, only loud enough for the girl to hear. "You would not die for her. You are not fit for her."

Francesca would never win her affection, but she had her respect, when the woman said, "Maybe. But I won't ever let her go."

Katya considered that. "Keep her, then," she said. "Keep her for me. Until she is ready to let you go."

"We'll see if that ever happens," Francesca replied easily. "You just gave her to me."

--

"Why are you smiling?" Marina asked, suspicious as she traced Francesca's lips, like it was a new, foreign expression.

"Well, I’m glad I'm not dead," Francesca answered. She was careful as she gathered Marina's palm into her hands, pressed her lips against it, and said lightly, "Tomorrow, I'll see about getting you that credit card." Marina stiffened, but only slightly, and Francesca's grin widened, as Katya and her sister, with their righteous anger, and bloodshed, achieved her own goal.

Marina would figure it out eventually, she suspected. What she had was not freedom. Her mother had simply placed her in a different cage.

"Why?" Marina asked frankly.

"To begin fulfilling your dreams," Francesca answered. "Darling, I want all your dreams to come true."

--

In her hand, Katya held two letters, written to her in a lost habit, never mailed because her daughter had sworn to never write them again.

"It's a lost cause," Marina had said, pressing them into her palm. "And I will begin mailing them again."

Her letters were her promise.

It was a dark, humid night, the salty summer breeze of the sea ocean felt sticky against her skin, and Katya Derevko stood at the edge of a canal, watching the moon as it's beams broke into the black sea water.

She could have taken Marina by force if she chose.

And then again, she could not.

For the first time in thirty years, her daughter seemed truly free.

It was more than Katya herself had ever achieved; the one thing she would not take away from her.

With freedom came consequences, and Marina would not argue against that.

With her letters, Katya would keep watch over her daughter.

She turned, staring into the glass house, as the light clicked off and cloaked the inside with darkness.

Her heart trembled with fear, nearly broke, as she walked away.

But she kept walking.

FIN