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The platform was filled with people by the time Yor stepped onto it. She tightened her grip around the envelope in her hand as she stood and looked around. Men in uniforms were everywhere, leaning against the station wall smoking cigarettes, huddled in groups talking quickly amongst themselves, holding their wives and children close. Yor didn’t allow her gaze to linger too long on the tearful goodbyes, her throat was already feeling tight and she needed to hold herself together.
For just a little while longer.
A small hand reached up and slid into her hand that was hanging down by her side. Yor looked down to see Anya as she pressed herself into Yor’s leg as she stared out at the rest of the people waiting for the train to arrive. Gently, Yor squeezed her daughter’s hand. A part of her wanted to free her hand and hold Anya against her side, but Anya’s small shake of her head and way she tightened her grip around Yor’s hand prevented it.
Yor forced herself to swallow against the tightness in her throat. She sidestepped out of the way of the door they had just come through to allow for a pair of children to pass by. The pair held hands as tightly as Anya was holding hers, stoic expressions on their faces.
It was an expression she was all too familiar with. It had been one she’d become intimately familiar with after her own parents died in the middle of the last war and she’d been left in charge of raising Yuri. It was something she had never wanted to see on a child’s face ever again.
And now it surrounded her. It was the one on her own daughter’s face.
The wood of the platform floor creaked behind her from the weight of a familiar tread. Yor knew who it would be without turning around. She strove to keep herself breathing normally as she felt him reach out to her. When his warm hand lightly touched her shoulder, she suppressed the tremor that wanted to run through her whole body.
She could do nothing about the churning, leaden feeling in her stomach.
Yor turned her head to take in her husband’s appearance. He was dressed in the same uniform as most of the other men on the platform. For a moment, she couldn’t help but take in his appearance. He filled the uniform nicely, and she reprimanded herself for staring. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him in the uniform, she had watched him dress that very morning.
But seeing him here, surrounded by other men who wore the same, drove home just exactly what was happening. As Yor lifted her face to meet his concerned eyes, the tightness in her throat shifted until it surrounded her chest. He didn’t look right in the uniform.
“Are you alright, Yor?” His hand moved from her shoulder. Off-handedly, she tracked it as he leaned in to touch her face. His touch was fleeting. Yor wished she had the courage to ask him to linger.
But she wouldn’t. And he couldn’t.
Yor forced herself to swallow again. It seemed harder this time, even though the tightness had migrated down to her chest. If it were anyone else asking her, if Yuri was standing in front of her in that uniform asking, she would have attempted to smile before answering. But she didn’t have the strength to put up the façade. Not with him.
“Not really. But,” she said, before pausing and looking around at the platform around them. More children surrounded them with identical stares. “I wouldn’t say anyone really is.”
Her husband’s gaze flicked away briefly to the rest of the platform and a muscle in his cheek twitched. Over the months and years she had been married to this man, she had come to know all the little tells that her husband strove to hide from the rest of the world. She knew his brilliant mind. She knew what he was attempting to hide. From her. From himself.
The urge to reach up and caress his cheek, perfectly smooth, as befitting as an officer should be, swelled inside her. She almost reached out for him, but stopped herself before she could begin. To do what she wanted would mean that she would either have to let go of Anya’s hand, or the envelope in her hand. Neither of which she could, or was willing, to do.
Yor watched her husband take a deep breath before crouching next to Anya. He reached out with a shaking hand and rested it on the back of their daughter’s head. Anya pried her face away from Yor’s leg to turn around and look at her father. Yor couldn’t see her daughter’s face clearly, but she didn’t need to in order to know that her little girl was fighting back tears.
“Hey, Peanut,” he began. His voice had taken on that soft tone he denied ever using, but was steady. “I’m going to need you to look after your mother for me. Make sure that she doesn’t spend too much time worrying. Can you do that, Peanut?”
There was a sniffle before Anya answered, “Yes, Papa.”
He smoothed Anya’s hair back. When he lifted his hand, the slight shaking had stopped, and he froze for a moment, holding his daughter’s gaze.
Suddenly, he was clutching her to his chest. Yor wasn’t sure if he had been the one to move first, or if Anya had thrown herself against her father, but it didn’t matter. Anya had thrown her arms over her father’s shoulders and her small fingers were digging as tightly into the fabric of his shirt as she could. Her husband had one hand on the back of their daughter’s head and the other spread across her back as he clung to his little girl.
Anya was openly sobbing now. Nonsense words were babbled through her gasps, and she buried her face into the space between her father’s shoulder and neck.
Yor blinked away the burning sensation in her own eyes before adverting her gaze slightly to give her husband and daughter a modicum of privacy as they embraced for the last time before they parted. Her gaze fell to the people around them, people who were not so generous as they stared at her family’s farewell. She wanted them to turn away, to not invade on such a personal moment, but said nothing.
She saw as men watched with disinterest. She saw women with looks of tenderness, and jealousy, take in the way her husband held Anya. She saw the children, unaccompanied and burdened with younger siblings, glaring at Anya. Yor didn’t need her daughter’s ability to understand what thoughts were going through their heads.
Silently, she stepped in between the looks of the platform and her family. She crouched slowly to get down at their level. With gentle hands, she reached out to rest her hand on the small portion of Anya’s upper back where her husband’s hand didn’t cover. Her other hand, still holding their envelope, reached up to rest against her husband’s shoulder.
From this position, she could finally see the expression on her husband’s face. His eyes were squeezed shut and the wrinkle between his eyes was deeper than she had ever seen it. His lips were pressed into a white line. Yor only caught a glimpse of his face before he turned his head to bury into Anya’s hair.
Anya pulled back first. Her sobs had diminished to hiccups. One hand let go of her father’s shirt and reached up to touch her father’s cheek.
“I love you too, Papa,” she managed to say before another hiccup racked her small body.
Her husband’s face softened in the way it only did for their little girl. The hand that had been holding her head against him came around and he wiped away the tear tracks away from her cheeks.
“You’re such a brave girl,” he said. His voice cracked midway through. “My brave girl.”
Anya sniffled and nodded. As one, both her husband and her daughter turned to face Yor. Yor’s eyes bounced from her daughter to her husband where her gaze stuck. Something shone in her husband’s eyes, something she had only caught glimpses of before he shuttered it. The sight of it, held so openly, had her heart beating faster in her chest. Warmth bloomed across her cheeks, and spread throughout her body.
“Yor, I—”
Whatever he’d been about to say was drowned out when an announcement over the P.A. system turned on and told everyone on the platform that the train was due to arrive within ten minutes.
Yor’s grip on her envelope tightened unconsciously. A chill spread through her body, chasing away and settling into every place where she had been warm before. She didn’t think that the moment would come. That their time would run out. She hadn’t had enough time with him.
She returned her gaze to her husband, but the expression that had been in his eyes before the world returned its weight to his shoulders was gone. In its place was the mask he wore when they first met for the second time. The one she knew he wore when he hid himself away from everything but his mission.
Her husband stood, lifting Anya with him. He reached down and offered a hand to Yor and gently pulled her to stand. He held her hand for a couple seconds after she finished standing before he let go. She thought he let go of her hand far too quickly, or to her liking, but she was almost certain that his thumb had caressed the back of her hand lightly before it dropped down to his side.
“Wha… When does your…?” Yor asked, unable to finish her question.
Her husband frowned, looking over the heads of the children that were beginning to gather at the edge of the platform down the track. He was avoiding making eye contact with her.
“Not for a few more hours,” he said. He shifted his grip on Anya, holding their daughter close. Her grip around his neck tightened slightly. “I needed to see the pair of you off first.”
Finally, he tore his gaze away from the tracks and rested his bright blue gaze on her face. Yor couldn’t keep herself from sharply inhaling at the sight of her husband. She could see why he hadn’t wanted to look at her. For a man who spend decades hiding who he was, and what he thought, he couldn’t hide anymore. Not from her. Not when this might be the last time they were all together.
He took another deep breath. Yor could see he was attempting to gather the strength to tell her something. She waited, anxious, with bated breath. The urge to flex her fingers, to reach out to just touch him, grew with each beat of her too-loud heart.
When he finally opened his mouth to speak, Yor could practically feel herself quivering in anticipation. Her mind raced with every different possibility he might say to her. Each answer her brain could come up with seemed more terrible and devastating than the last.
“Mama,” Anya said. She had lifted her head from her father’s shoulders and was staring over the heads down the track. A hiccup escaped and she began to tremble in his arms. “Mama, the train’s here.”
Yor did not spin around to see the engine pulling into the track. She did not pay any attention when the attendants stepped from their positions to direct the influx of passengers. She did not watch as children on the platform slowly shuffled toward the open doors on the train cars. She did not see parents letting their children evacuate trying to hold in their tears and maintain a brave face when their children inevitably turned back one final time before stepping up into the train car.
She could only stare at her husband. Once again, fate, or whatever might be out there, had conspired against her and prevented him from sharing whatever he needed. She had hoped, even with the interruption, he would find the words to say whatever it was he needed to tell her. But his expression shuttered. He was looking at the train, but that was not what he was seeing. Yor didn’t know everything about what happened to her husband in the last war, but she knew enough to make an educated guess.
When Yor called to him, he tore his gaze from the train and looked down at his wife, semi-cognizant of her presence. His jaw twitched as the past fought with present.
“I best not keep you from your train,” he said. There was a hoarseness in his throat that Yor had not heard before.
He turned face Anya. Fresh tears were beginning to fall down her face. With his free hand, he reached up and wiped away some tears with the back of his index finger. Then he ran his hand over Anya’s hair to cup the back of her head. Her husband brought Anya’s face close and pressed a kiss to their daughter’s forehead. His eyes closed as he pressed his forehead against Anya’s.
When he opened them again, his blue eyes were still dry. Without a word, he turned to Yor and handed their daughter off into her arms. Anya went to her mother without any protest save the tears that were continuing to fall. She burrowed her head into the space between Yor’s neck and shoulder, but Yor could tell that Anya’s attention was entirely on her father.
It was only a passing observation, Yor’s attention was rivetted upon her husband as well.
They stood there for an eternity. Yor sensed the platform emptying around them, that their time was growing ever thinner. Yet, neither one of them moved. Neither one spoke. As Yor looked into her husband’s eyes, attempting to read what he was hiding inside from her, she understood that he would never be able to cross the divide on his own. He was too tangled within the past and his own mind.
Without ever making the decision, Yor stepped forward, closing the distance between them. The hand that wasn’t holding Anya close to her reached out and wrapped tightly around his tie. She didn’t give him a chance to respond beyond his mask to break to allow for his eyes to widen, before she was pulling him down to her.
They had kissed before. But they were always quick, chaste presses of their lips together to convince others of their cover. Those were nothing like this.
Yor wasn’t gentle as she kissed her husband. There was a desperation in her that needed to be exorcised the only way she knew how. Her kiss was teeth and tongue, and entirely inappropriate for their location, but her world had narrowed to the feel of her husband. Of how after his initial surprise, he kissed her back with just as much intensity.
His hands came up to hold either side of her face to keep her in place and he stepped forward, pressing to her as closely as he could.
He had kissed her like this only once before. When she had come home bleeding and he’d had to administer first aid. They hadn’t said anything to each other while he cleaned and sutured her wound, and before Yor could thank him for his assistance, he had kissed her.
Desperately. Without thought.
Like the way he was kissing her now.
Yor thought she might stay that way forever, when the sound of someone clearing their throat broke through the haze that their own little world created. Yor’s first reaction was to silence the interloper. She might be travelling with her daughter as a civilian, but she wasn’t unarmed.
Before she could act, her husband broke away with a small chuckle. His breath was warm on her face.
“I best not keep you any longer,” he said. There was a roughness in his voice that was similar to the roughness it held earlier but had shivers of something running through Yor. He leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “Promise me you’ll write to me once you’ve found yourself settled?”
Yor’s eyes fluttered open and she stared into her husband’s brilliant blue eyes. They were darker as they searched her face.
Yor let go of his tie and reached up to caress his face. He leaned into her touch unconsciously.
“Of course, Darling.” Her own voice seemed weak to her own ears, but the sound of her voice had her husband’s shoulders lose some of the tension that held them. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself and come back to us.”
A whistle blew in the background. They needed to board their train.
Her husband kissed her again and wrapped his arms around Yor and Anya. He held them tightly, and Yor took in the smell of her husband before they parted. She lamented the fact she hadn’t allowed herself to seek the solace of his embrace earlier.
She felt safe. Their world was falling apart around them, and she felt safe in his arms.
Now she knew why Anya sought to be held by him so often.
The whistle blew again, and her husband stepped back. His eyes were suspiciously wet, but he blinked it away before Yor could make a comment. Not that she would have. Perhaps if the situation was different.
He took a deep breath and took another step back. “I will, my Love. Now go.”
Yor took a single step backwards away from her husband. Even to move one foot away from him opened a chasm in her gut. She couldn’t leave him. She couldn’t.
“Mama.”
Yor turned to Anya. Tears had stopped falling from her eyes and she was smiling. She reached up with her little hand and touched Yor’s cheek.
“Papa knows. He won’t leave us.”
Yor stole a glance to her husband. His shirt was wet with snot and tears from Anya, and his tie was hanging loose from when she used it to pull him to her. Her lipstick was smudged against his mouth, and a blush spread across his cheeks to his ears.
He looked perfect.
She gave him one last message with her eyes before she turned and jogged to the train. She handed over the envelope with their tickets and stepped up onto the train. Yor quickly hurried inside the car to find a window. She unlatched it, over the protests of the porters, and leaned out to get one final glimpse of her husband.
Yor caught that glimpse as the train was pulling away from the station and he chased them down the platform, shouting words they never needed to say to know.