Keeping Score
written for Yuletide 2006
Angel



Dmitri zero.  Anya ten.

Vlad gave Pooka a little smile as he tallied the times their red-headed spitfire had
gotten the conversational upper hand on his smooth-talking partner.  And they hadn’t
even left Moscow yet.  He was already fond of the girl, her sharp wit and fast tongue
amusing him.  Her almond eyes flashed as she sniped back at Dmitri.

Dmitri zero.  Anya eleven.

“But are you sure the papers will be  good?” Anya asked for the third time.

“Of course, my dear,” Vlad reassured her.

“Of course,” put in Dmitri, hastily putting away the forging equipment and blocking her
view of the still-damp travel papers.

“It’s just that I keep hearing travel is so difficult.  And all this waiting around!”  She flopped
on a bench in the deserted palace, sending up a cloud of dust that made her sneeze.  She’d
roamed the place, spending the hours that the men were working reacquainting herself with the layout.

“Anya, please.”  Dmitri’s patronizing smile made her grind her teeth loudly enough for Vlad to hear. 
“I have connections.  I have contacts.  I called in a lot of favors for these papers.  They’ll be fine.”

“Just–“

“Look, if you don’t believe me, you can hike all six miles back to the fish factory.  Who is the
traveler here, you or me?”

“You.”  Anya’s voice was very small as she conceded his point.

“A-ha!”  Dmitri looked smug as she fumed.

Dmitri one.  Anya fourteen.

“This is ridiculous.”  Anya held up the three dresses, all identical in cut to the one she wore.  One was
tanner, one was greyer and one was more khaki.  She looked at the price tags.  “Besides, the working
clothes of a Russian peasant are hardly appropriate.”

“Comrade, if you do not like the dresses, others are waiting,” the shopkeeper grumbled.

Dmitri steered her out of the shop.  “You’re right.  We’ll shop in Paris.”  Vlad decided then that the
expense would be worth it just for the dumbfounded look on Anya’s face at Dmitri’s generosity.

Dmitri two.  Anya twenty.

Anya bounced on the rail carriage seat like an excited child.  “I can’t believe it.  We’re really on
the way to Paris.”

Vlad nodded.  “We are indeed.  It will be a long trip.”

“I know.  But Paris.  I’m really going to Paris!”  She executed a pirouette in the middle of the carriage,
as Vlad smiled.

Dmitri smirked from the door.  “What’s the matter, Princess?  Didn’t you think I could do it?”

She scowled at him for a long time, the pleasure of her adventure vanishing.  The train chuffed through a
suburb and left Moscow behind before Anya sat down in a huff and pretended to read.

Dmitri three.  Anya twenty-four.

After the debacle with the train, they walked.  And sniped.  And walked and sniped some more.  Somewhere
 in Austria, Vlad lost his book.  It didn’t matter.  Dmitri was in double digits and Anya in triple.  Vlad just sat
back to enjoy the show.

Anya took to her lessons with a grace that made Vlad wonder.  She rode like a Tartar, walked like she was
dancing and danced like a tongue of flame.  The odd bits of royal trivia, including the yellow cat, sparked
his curiosity.  

He talked much of Sophie, playing up his own connections to the royal court, but suspected she could see
through it, that she already knew he was nothing but a minor hanger-on.  It didn’t matter.  She was perfect,
 the image of Alexandra.  They could not have chosen better.

By Germany, Vlad understood everything.  By some happenstance or some weird miracle of St. Basil, patron
of the royal family, they had the real princess.  He watched, and waited.  He didn’t know how he’d explain
this to Dmitri.  They would still have to help her along.  The amnesia meant she would have to be coached like
any imposter until reality came back.

He did not intrude--although every instinct said he should--as Dmitri and Anya leaned on the steam ship’s rail
and watched the sunset.  He watched at meals, seeing how Dmitri made sure Anya had good food, the things
she liked best.  Although their girl was omnivorous, the consequence of the orphanage, Dmitri still acted as if
she had a refined courtly palate.  He saw the way Dmitri made sure she had the most comfortable berth in
their cabin, sleeping on the floor himself.

He watched them dance, her surefootedness making up for Dmitri’s hesitance.  They waltzed around the deck
of the ship, and he knew the real score was not the one he’d been keeping in his lost book.

The real score was Love one, Dmitri and Anya zero.

The storm blew and tossed and the steam ship rocked perilously.  Vlad never quite knew what happened that
night, amid the thunder and lightening and Pooka’s yapping.  But later he came to understand more.

Anya, beckoned by nightmares had sleepwalked to the rail.  Dmitri had saved her before she leaped, only by
barest seconds.    Vlad had only woken to Pooka chewing industriously on his fingers.  He made his way topside,
lurching with every pitch of the ship, to find the wet and wind-lashed couple clinging together in the relative
shelter of the stairwell.

Anya wasn’t crying as another woman might.  Soaked to the skin, her hair plastered to her head, she simply
clung to Dmitri and whispered of her nightmare.  He held her, not rubbing her back but just listening, dripping
from his own clothing.

They didn’t see or hear Vlad.  Dmitri looked down at Anya.  She looked back up at him, her eyes soft and
her lips parted.  Dmitri kissed her, gently, almost chastely, his hands pulling her against his body.  Her own
 arms went around his neck and she melted against him.

That was when Vlad really understood the true score.

True love one.  Rasputin zero.