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Anya finds Gleb where she found Dmitry not a week ago - standing on a train platform. Dima had sat hopelessly on his suitcase, staring at the paved ground with bittersweet anguish. Gleb is not Dmitry. He clenches his suitcase in his hand tightly and stares straight ahead. His dark eyes flick around the train station now and then and when Anya approaches him, the only sign he notices her is the way his breath hitches.
“Gleb…”
“I thought we concluded our business together already, comrade,” he says quietly, tightly. His fingers twitch on the handle of the suitcase. “It would, perhaps, be safer if you returned home.”
Anya blinks, as though slapped. Then, her eyes narrow. A cough from the nearby pillar is the only thing that keeps her from knocking Gleb’s suitcase out of his hands and smacking his cheek. Her eyes dart to Dmitry at the pillar and he gestures as if to say “keep going.” She doesn’t know how it is he’s the voice of reason for her today when this was her idea. She is the one who woke up in the middle of the night, sobbing. At first, Dmitry touched her shoulder blades gently and whispered, “They’re just memories, Anya. They can’t hurt you.”
“It’s not a memory! ” she choked out. “They’re going to kill him!”
“Kill who?”
And so she tried to explain those final moments in her grandmother’s ballroom - not staring down the barrel of Gleb’s gun, but staring down at Gleb, crumpled at her feet and clutching her hand as much as she clutched his.
“- And now… He’ll go back to Leningrad and- and-”
She didn’t have to elaborate. They could both guess what happened to soldiers who disobeyed orders in the new Russia. The punishments for treason hadn’t gotten lighter under the new regime. Dmitry held her and babbled about how Gleb must’ve known the risks, that he knew what he was doing, and anyway, wasn’t it some kind of justice? The last was said so lamely, without conviction, that Anya only cried harder. Dmitry may not have truly believed it was justice - or in any kind of justice, even the poetic sort - but Gleb had probably told himself exactly that a thousand times in the last day. Dmitry’s hold on her slackened.
“Do you love him? Anya?”
“It’s not like that,” she said. A funny feeling in her stomach tried to protest, but it might have been nausea from crying. It certainly wasn’t because she loved him the same way she loved her cunning, clever, charismatic Dima. Gleb was none of those things. He was different. “But I don’t want him to die for me.”
“He loves you,” Dmitry said. “I’m sure he’s glad to do it.”
Anya punched his arm.
“Fine,” Dmitry said, rubbing his bicep. “We won’t let him.”
So now they stand on this train platform and Anya knows it doesn’t matter if she punches Gleb or throws his suitcase onto the tracks, Dmitry was right: Gleb is maybe not glad to die for her, but he is ready to die at any rate. His voice is heavy and hollow all at once.
“It would be safer if you didn’t return home,” she counters. “You can’t go.”
“If I don’t go, they’ll only send more.”
More soldiers, more men with guns, more people who want Anya dead. They will not send more Glebs. There is only one man in the world who shares her pain the way he does, who understands all that she lost and all she has been forced to become as a result. Anya doesn’t want more soldiers. She only wants this one to stay and be safe.
“And what makes you think that they won’t send more, even if you go back?”
“I plan to persuade them of your death at my hands,” Gleb says flatly. “I can be persuasive.”
“And if you fail, they’ll kill you. And then they’ll come for me.”
“Well-” His shoulders sag and his free hand gestures vaguely “- failing isn’t an option, then.”
“Why are you so stubborn?” Anya snaps. “I don’t want you to die.”
Only three days ago she lost her temper in this very train station, asking a man to stay. Why, Anya wonders, are all the men in her life such pig-headed fools? She still doesn’t know where Dmitry planned to go - she’s scared to ask - but she knows what fate awaits Gleb if he boards this train.
“And I want you to live,” he snaps back. “This is the best chance I can offer you.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Stay with me, Gleb,” Anya says. “Stay with us .”
He gazes past her at Dmitry. Anya watches him inhale and she can hear the gears in his head turning - or maybe it’s the wheels of the train as it pulls into the station. Her heart pounds. A frown tugs at Gleb’s lips. He looks as if he’d rather be shot by a firing squad than spend his life as a third component to a couple’s happiness. Anya expects him to say just that, but instead, he squares his shoulders and shrugs.
“As what?” he asks. “You’ve clearly found the love you deserve. I’m happy for you, Anya, but I can’t interfere-”
“As chief of my security!”
This was the offer she’s meant to make him this whole time. She spoke with Nana about it and though she sucked in her cheeks and shook her head, at the end of the day, Maria Feodoroevna cannot deny her only remaining granddaughter any request, however absurd. Gleb’s expression mimics Anya’s grandmother’s - shock, confusion, bitterness, resignation and, finally, acceptance.
“If more soldiers will come - and they’ll come whether you go back or not - I’ll need someone to protect me. We all will. I trust you with my life, Gleb.”
“You have every reason not to.”
“I have every reason to. You men are all so stubborn!”
The train grinds to a halt.
“Please, Gleb,” she says. He is not Dmitry. She can’t just snatch his suitcase and climb atop it to kiss him and make him stay. The fact that she thinks of it for a moment (and with Dmitry watching!) floods Anya’s stomach with shame. “Stay. We… I need you.”
And so Gleb turns his back on the train and follows her and Dmitry from the train station.
Dmitry slips away from the Russian nobility, hellbent on making him dance, and stands beside Gleb. The Neva Club buzzes with life, as it does every night, and the heady smell of perfume and sweat and alcohol fills the air. Jazz music entices many to sway across the floor, but Dmitry only wants to dance with Anya and even then, he only wants a dance or two. He envies Gleb. No one asks him to dance. They all know he is some kind of Other, but more than that, he has a duty to fulfill, keeping watch over Anya. So far, he’s done just that. His eyes have tracked Anya all across the dance floor. Not only, Anya, Dmitry realizes, but Dmitry, too. A waiter passes by with a tray of vodka and Dmitry snags two and offers one to Gleb.
“It’d be rude to make me drink alone,” he says.
He knows Gleb is working, but he’s been trying to put cracks into the other man’s professional facade since he came into his and Anya’s life. There it is - Gleb’s lips lift in a half-smile. He toasts Dmitry.
“One drink,” he agrees.
His voice is stoic, but Dmitry has gotten used to Gleb’s quirks enough to know that if he pushes the right buttons, he might be able to convince him to stretch one drink into two. He doesn’t hate the ex- soldier’s company as much as he thought he would. After all, they’re the only outsiders in the royal court. Dmitry remembers the day he learned Gleb spoke French - and felt utterly betrayed by the revelation.
The sat in a cafe with Anya, the three of them ordering lunch and he and Dmitry began to argue (like they so often did) about French politics. Anya, clearing her throat, announced that she would be in the powder room. The two men scarcely noticed her absence, staring each other down across the table with heated gazes and even more heated words. A waiter came and asked something in French and without missing a beat, Gleb turned and, in stuttering, but lucid French, replied. The waiter began to refill their cups and Gleb returned to Russian to speak -
“- which is why I think that, even when a cause goes awry, believing in something is better than the convictionless life you insist you lead. And even then, I don’t think you do -”
“Where did you learn French?” Dmitry asked.
“... What?”
“French. You… Just… How…?”
“My mother taught me,” Gleb said. “When my father fired the German tutor.”
“You had tutors ?” Dmitry sputtered. “When did you have tutors?”
“When we had money for them - which wasn’t often,” Gleb said. “My father was a medic in the army until he… well. Until the Revolution. He was discharged from the military when I was a teenager for his beliefs. And my mother was a music tutor until she had to take a factory job. They believed in education for all.”
Dmitry swore softly under his breath, trying not to feel betrayed by Gleb’s middle-class upbringing. Though he’d always known better, a part of him forgot that Gleb had not also grown up on the streets of Petersburg. He peered curiously at Gleb.
“You’re something else,” Dmitry said, shaking his head. He looked around for Anya. Then, leaning forward, whispered, “ Teach me .”
And so their friendship began in earnest, with private, secret French lessons. Dmitry was not a star student, but he tried. Gleb was not a model teacher, but he had patience in spades. Slowly, they picked through verb conjugation and placement of adjectives. And between discussion of subjects and predicates, curiosity slips in and they’ve learned more about each other. Dmitry doesn’t like to admit it but he and Gleb are not so different. And he enjoys Gleb’s company, even if he usually acts like he’s putting up with something he’d rather not. It’s really on the matter of Anya that interferes. Together, they watch her dancing with dispossessed counts and dukes.
“You dance beautifully with her,” Gleb says in French as if he thinks Dmitry will not understand.
“Merci,” Dmitry murmurs, stunned by the unprompted compliment. Then, in Russian, he says, “You should dance with her yourself. Didn’t your parents employ a tutor for that?”
Gleb laughs and takes a swig of his vodka.
“We didn’t have money for frivolous lessons,” he says, blushing and looking at his feet. “The kind of dancing I know how to do isn’t… The ‘court’ wouldn’t approve.”
“Since when do you care?” Dmitry asks. He knocks his shoulder against Gleb’s. “Go on. Dance with her. I’ll do security duty for a dance or two.”
He doesn’t know why he says this. In those first months, seeing Gleb even look at Anya made his stomach clench with jealousy, protectiveness. But now? Now warmth floods his entire body. Maybe it’s the vodka, but Dmitry wants to see Gleb and Anya dancing together. He watches Gleb deliberate. Then, Gleb squeezes Dmitry’s shoulder.
“One dance,” he says. “Thank you.”
They smile at each other and something flutters in Dmitry that only moves more erratically as he watches Gleb take Anya into his arms and whirl her around the floor. Her laughter rings through the room and his laughter follows and Dmitry can’t help but smile and wonder at the feeling that consumes him. It isn’t jealousy. He decides to call it “fondness” because the alcohol is telling him it’s something more and he isn’t ready to examine it deeply enough to agree. When flushed, Gleb and Anya rush him minutes later, he kisses her and, clapping Gleb on the back, pulls him closer so he can whisper in his ear -
“Your dancing is as bad as my French. If you ever want lessons....”
He feels Gleb suck in a sharp breath. Dmitry’s throat is dry.
“... if you ever want lessons, I’ll put in a good word for you with Vlad.”
Gleb watches Anya and Dmitry bicker with a small smile. He leans against the balcony, jutting his hips outward. Every so often, he casts his gaze downward at the urban sprawl below, ensuring that no one is pointing a gun at the newlyweds - as if anyone in America will recognize them! The Anastasia mystery has made its way across the Atlantic, but no one suspects Dmitry and Anya Sudayev of being royalty. Of course, they don’t. Although Dmitry picked the locale (largely, Gleb thinks with warm amusement, for the sprawling en suite bathroom with a record-sized marble tub, among other amenities of luxury), Gleb is the one who has made the majority of the arrangements. It wasn’t for laziness or lack of care on either Dmitry’s or Anya’s part, but rather because they often cared too much and their conversations devolved into bickering, as they did this morning.
“Let me handle it,” Gleb had said, scooping up the maps and brochures spread across the table. “I want each of you to give me your list of requirements - ranked in order of importance - and I’ll plan your honeymoon.”
“Would you really?” Dmitry cocked a brow. “Why?”
“I want to give you something for the wedding,” Gleb said. “And anyone can get you china and linens.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” asked Anya. “Nana says she wants us to be safe…”
“I’ll rent a room on the same floor,” Gleb promised. Heat flooded his ears. “It’s your honeymoon. I want to give you some privacy.”
Dmitry and Anya exchanged skeptical looks Gleb couldn’t decipher. It was as if they’d discussed this possibility before. A sly smile tugged at Anya’s lips. Dmitry leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. Anya reached for Gleb’s forearm and squeezed.
“Thank you, Gleb.”
It’s strange, especially now, to look at his career working as the chief of Anya’s security. She has hired no one else to oversee her safety. Often, Gleb is privy to private moments, moments that he thinks only a couple should be present for - such as this morning’s breakfast argument. But he is happy. The NKVD has not come after Anya (or after Gleb, for that matter). And after the way he, Countess Lily, and Vlad Popov managed the would-be media circus surrounding Anya and Dmitry’s very private ceremony, Gleb didn’t think the NKVD would come after them. He still looks over the balcony, just in case. He still rents the hotel room next door. He is still a strange, third component to the honeymoon. He tries not to think about the implications, though he would be a liar to say he hadn’t thought about them. Last night, after checking into the hotel and parting ways, Gleb laid awake in bed, knowing Anya and Dmitry were alone and kissing and making love - as well they should! - and a strange sensation welled up in him, love and longing combined. He was happy for them. They deserved every happiness, but Gleb has known since the day Anya convinced him not to follow through with his suicide mission that he would always be in love with her. He didn’t realize until Dmitry caved and taught him to waltz when Gleb’s pride prevented him from asking Vlad Popov to teach him that he loved Dmitry too. He loves them now, even as they bicker and so his eyes drift from the street to the pair of them. He watches the sunlight carve Dmitry’s marble cheekbones and brighten Anya’s cornflower eyes. They’re mouths, moving fast, catch his gaze and he envies them both for having each other to hold in sickness and in health, for better and for worse in the coming years. He will outlive his usefulness and that knowledge kills him just a little.
He doesn’t mean to clear his throat, but when Gleb does, Anya and Dmitry both look at him.
“Do you want to weigh in?” Dmitry challenges.
“What? No!” He hasn’t been listening to the argument, anyway.
“I told you,” Dmitry says. “He’s oblivious, Anya.”
Anya sighs and sets her napkin down on the table. She rises and crosses to Gleb.
“I’ll go if you two want your privacy,” Gleb says. “If you need me, I’ll be next door.”
“Glebka,” she says, reaching up to brush a hand through his hair. Gleb’s body buzzes with life. “Have you been listening to a word we’ve been saying?”
“No,” he admits. “I wanted to give you your privacy.”
“I told you,” Dmitry said. “I’m the smart one.”
Gleb tries to shoot him a withering look, but only manages confusion. What had they been arguing about as he stopped listening? Surely not him…?
“Does that make me the handsome one?” Gleb asks, deciding to tease Dmitry instead of outright asking what is happening.
Dmitry chuckles and shrugs. Rising, he walks to where Gleb and Anya stand. He puts his hand on Gleb’s shoulder.
“You gonna tell him, or should I?” Dmitry asked.
“Gleb, this is our honeymoon,” Anya says. Before Gleb can say that he knows that, she clarifies, “All three of us. We wouldn’t have had you come along if it wasn’t for all of us.”
Gleb has never heard of such a thing. Honeymoons back home are furtive things, hardly noted, except to give the newly married couple one night to consummate their marriage before rejoining their communities. The grandeur of this honeymoon, even though he planned it, intimidates Gleb. More intimidating? Anya’s words. All three of us. Is he hearing right? It’s more than he has dared voice, but all he has hoped for. He looks to Dmitry for confirmation.
“Why do you think we asked for the biggest bed available?” Dmitry asked. “And the biggest tub?”
“I thought the tub was for you,” Gleb says. Dmitry mumbles something and Anya laughs. “Is this your idea of a joke?”
“Come here,” Anya says. She grasps Gleb’s tie and tugs him downward. As he bends, she kisses his lips softly. “This isn’t a joke, Gleb. Dima and I’ve talked about this.”
“A lot,” Dmitry confirms. “Since we went to get you from the train station.”
Dazed, Gleb blinks and straightens up. He looks at Anya and thinks that that day on the train platform, she was the only thing he ever wanted. Then, looking at Dmitry, he knows he wanted him, too, early on, but felt like such needy, selfish want would never be rewarded. He didn’t deserve the love of either one of them, let alone both. Sins of the father, and all that. But he cannot discount the last few months. His eyes trace Dmitry’s lips. They kiss tentatively, even more gingerly than Gleb and Anya kissed, but it feels as right.
“I never thought I’d love you,” Dmitry tells him when they pull apart. “But I do.”
“I’ve always known I would love you both,” Anya confesses. She takes each of their hands in hers. “I always have loved you both.”
Gleb nods. “I love both of you - I have for the longest time - I just never thought- “
“Stop thinking,” Dmitry says. “For all our sakes: stop thinking.”
And so Gleb puts his thoughts on a shelf to look at later and kisses them both - first Anya, then Dmitry - nice and slow, deep and savoring the sensation - silently committing to a life with them going forward.