Challenge #13: Hope Springs Eternal
Challenge #13: Hope Springs Eternal
Description: Write one or more fics based on one or more of the following prompts. Fanfic, original fic and meta are all welcome. You can be as flexible as you like in interpreting the prompts.
Words: beginnings, daring, decisions, garden, growth, rebirth
Tropes: Hope Bringer, Hope is Scary
Images: A Little ( Read more... )
Description: Write one or more fics based on one or more of the following prompts. Fanfic, original fic and meta are all welcome. You can be as flexible as you like in interpreting the prompts.
Words: beginnings, daring, decisions, garden, growth, rebirth
Tropes: Hope Bringer, Hope is Scary
Images: A Little ( Read more... )
Fandom: Madam Secretary
Character: Dmitri Petrov
Pairings: N/A
Warnings: N/A
Word Count: 563
[It was not what Dmitri had expected]
It wasn't what Dmitri had expected, living in the United States. Being an American.
Well, sort of American. Professor McCord--Henry--had promised him that he and Talia would have American citizenship soon. That they'd have a new home, a new place to belong.
For now...well, for now they were guests, albeit guests with no home to return to.
He still wasn't sure how he felt about Professor--Henry. Talia steadfastly clung to her hate, blaming him for all that had befallen them and refusing to cross his threshold or even speak to him unless absolutely necessary. Dmitri's feelings were more...complex. He was torn between love and hate. Some days he veered so quickly between the two that he feared he was going to end up with whiplash. Henry was simultaneously teacher, mentor, substitute father and the man who'd destroyed Dmitiri's entire life.
He'd spent weeks closeted with American intelligence officials--once the doctors had cleared him--laying out everything he knew about the Russian military and political scene, answering and re-answering questions until he felt like a sponge that had been used too many times and then left to fade in the sun. Talia, at least, had been free to wander the city, to play at being a regular American girl. Dmitiri had been regaled each night with stories of her adventures and the products of her shopping trips as the two of them sat together in their small safe house.
Eventually, the intelligence community decided it had gotten everything it could from him, and he and Talia were released to their new lives. That was the last time he'd seen Henry. It was also where his difficulties started, because he had no idea what he wanted that life to look like.
They didn't need money; not really. Not yet. He tried just living. Going to parks and bars and football games. Chatting up American girls. Making sure his sister kept the medical appointments that monitored for a return of her cancer.
He didn't make any friends. Couldn't imagine how he'd begin. How would he explain who he was, what he'd done? No matter that he'd spied on behalf of the US or that he'd only done it to save his sister's life; he was still a traitor. What would the average American say if he told them that? If he'd even been allowed to tell them, which he wasn't, really. Russia didn't want his survival publicly known.
The problem, he decided eventually, was that he had no purpose. His plans for his future had always been centered around his military career, which was now decidedly over. Back when he'd begged Henry to get him out of Russia, his only thought had been of survival, of holding onto his life. What he'd do with that life wasn't something he'd had time to think about.
He could appreciate the irony of being 25 and feeling like his life was over. He even knew, intellectually, that it wasn't true. He just couldn't figure out how to move forward.
"You can call me," Henry had told him the day they finally released him. "Any time. For anything. We owe you, I owe you more than I can say."
Maybe a professor, a man who spent his days with young people, would know how to rebuild a life. How to start again and find a new path.
Maybe he would call.
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