Seeing Red

//All In Russian//
//Anna Trovato’s POV//

“Move your bag, Anna.” The first plane left, the one heading for Novosibirsk, but we still had a few minutes of waiting around. The pilot had cleared us for takeoff, but there were still the few minutes of being taxied correctly onto the runway. Grabbing my bag, Ruslan slid it under our seats and plopped down, quickly breaking up the sleep I was trying to get. “I talked with Brad, and he said that Tretiak wants to meet with you after our game. We head to Moscow afterwards, meaning it’s going to be on the plane. It saves you going to Moscow now and facing a possible flight delay and missing the game.”

“It works out better this way.”

“You’ve worked hard the past few months, and I’m proud of you. Keep up the good work.” Shrugging at him, I felt my face heat up from the confidence he had in me. Ruslan chuckled before resting his hand on my shoulder. “I’m glad you chose to come here with me, and that you listened to the hell I put you through. How’s your leg?”

“Haven’t had once problem since playoffs.”

“Good.” I couldn’t help but smile at the man as he stood up, a grin on his own face. “I told you we’d strengthen it. Get some rest while you can. I’m sure Vitaly will drag you everywhere once we land. You and I both know that that boy can never sit still long.”

Giggling at the mention of my roommate, I couldn’t help but burst into complete laughter. That man would be passed out the second we made it into the hotel room, despite having so much energy sometimes. Ruslan left the seat empty, and I missed the company. Looking around, most everyone seemed to be busy. Usually Vitaly would sit next to me, or even Daniil, but they seemed wrapped up in the PSPs they held in their hands. The plane jerked slightly, but they seemed unfazed as a body sat down next to me and immediately buckled their seatbelt. “Hope you don’t mind, Banana, but they’ve gone nuts back there.”

Squishing Galimov’s cheeks with my hand, I couldn’t help but giggle and coo at him. “It’s okay baby Gawimov. I wuv you just as much as I wuv dem!”

Gently smushing his lips together so he looked like a fish, his hands did the same to my face, making me groan and let go. “Awww, the wittle baby Anna Banana does not wike her face pwayed wif!”

Reaching for his hands instead, I tried to no avail to pull him off. He snickered before grabbing both of my hands in one and held them at his side, pulling me close. Using his free hand, Sasha squished my face together again and continued his baby talk. “Let go uf meh!”

“Not until wittle Anna admits that she wost against big bad Sasha and that she wuvs me more than the west of dem!” Unable to keep from crying in laughter, he let me go and I slid back into my seat, wiping the water from my eyes. These guys were probably some of the best teammates I ever had; always playful yet serious when the time called for it. He grabbed the leaf of my seatbelt and tightened it securely, forcing me to wiggle into a comfortable spot again.

Sasha prodded my side, my body involuntarily twisting away to get out of range. Eyeing him, there was a trivial smirk on his face. “I’m waiting.”

“I love you more than I love them, but it’s really close.” Leaning my head against Galimov’s shoulder, I wrapped my arm around his and closed my eyes again. His body vibrated with amusement as he kissed the top of my head. He felt like the brother I never had and I couldn’t have hoped for anyone better than the man who was currently let me use him as a pillow. Our plane was lined up with the runway and began speeding up slowly as the hydraulics filled our ears. Only hoping that sleep would come and my nerves would be settled by the time we reached Minsk, the wheels ascended off of the ground and we could feel the drone of them being retracted into the body of the flying bird.

Holding my phone out, I turned it on and made sure it was on Airplane Mode. Opening the camera, I scooted up to Sasha and smiled as he did the same. Snapping the picture, I turned it to face us and he snickered again. “I better not see that as your twitter picture, missy.”

One of the stewardesses ran from the front of the plane to the back as we elevated. I was surprised she wasn’t strapped in until they were allowed to move around because we were still wobbling pretty bad, but we straightened and the snaps of her seat could be heard. Turning the phone off after it synced the picture, I stuffed it back into my front pocket and resumed my pillow-napping.

Water.

//Alexander Semin’s POV//

The second I had been able to take a look, a nurse had swooped in and ushered me out. I stood in the hallway, wide-eyed and unable to understand the seriousness of what had happened. It’s that feeling of where you know everything has gone wrong, but it hasn’t sunk in yet. Slowly walking down the hall to Anna’s mother, she made no motion to stand when I entered the waiting room. The weather was on and showed a heavy thunderstorm about to hit the area. Taking a seat next to the Italian woman, I reached for my phone. Dialing Ovi’s number, I held it to my ear and waited for him to answer.

“Sasha, what’s going on? Your mother told me you made it to Moscow, but that’s it. They said three people survived and are at the hospital, but Dmitry’s still confirming everything. Where are you?”

He threw question after question at me, but the shock of the situation had finally sunk in. He was quiet for a while, but never hung up as he waiting for me to shed light on the situation. “She’s here in the hospital with Galimov and one of the crew members.”

“Have you seen her yet?”

“Only for a second,” Choking on my words, I struggled to swallow. Glancing at her mother, she looked as if she was dozing. It wasn’t like she could understand me anyways, so I continued. “It’s horrible.”

“Alexander Valerevich?” Perking up at the sound of the nurses’ voice, I told Ovi I’d call him back and immediately hung up before standing. “You can come back if you want. We were in the middle of running more tests and changing out the platelets.”

Following her out, we stopped at the door and she looked at me questioningly. Inhaling, I opened the door once more and she followed me in. The overhead light was on, but it wasn’t overly bright in the room. Both curtains were drawn, separating the two from both each other and anyone who happened to walk by. Thanking her, she pointing to the right curtain that rested against the far side of the room and left with the promise of one of the doctors coming by soon to speak with me.

Eyeing the lone chair in the room, I ignored it before stepping close to the far curtain. Seeing her medical charts on the tray, my hand picked it up and brought it close. Hundreds of dosages of medicines had been given to her and there were scribbles everywhere that I couldn’t understand. The one bit I was sure of was her name scribbled hastily, her birthdate, and gender. Placing it back down in its original spot, I breathed in to clear my head before stepping around the curtain.

The beautiful blonde hair Anna had favoured since leaving America was stained red and black with blood and soot, but I refrained from running my fingers through it. One of her cheeks was an ugly purple underneath the oxygen mask. Her skin was pale, unnaturally so, as her eyes remained closed. There were several incisions on the opposite cheek, many with butterfly stitches on them with various antibiotics generously applied. Most of her face was covered in smeared soot, no doubt where they had tried to clean her up, only to give up after a few minutes.

Glancing down at her body, there was a sheet covering her with red stains on them. Pulling it back, I almost made a dash for the door and the nearest trashcan. They had left her in shorts and a sports bra that I had seen Erika throw at Carly once. No doubt to keep easier access than with the itchy hospital gowns, her clothing was the least of my concern. Anna was within my grasp, she was breathing, but she was dark: either by soot or burn.

Her stomach was wrapped, but the bruising could be seen at the edges. The blackened skin swelled to the point of where I couldn’t tell if it was a burn or bruise. Her left leg was wrapped in the same spot that I remembered she had previously injured twice, but looked relatively normal outside of the bulging white bandages. Her right leg was darkened of which I was sure was burned. If Anna played this season, I would be surprised.

Her right arm was tapped to a splint, obviously to keep it straight, but the burning was as clear as day. Her left arm was probably the healthiest body part she had, and was also where they had needles attached left and right. One was attached in the crook of her arm, pumping blood into her body from two fresh new bags hanging up. Another with a yellow liquid was in her wrist, following back up into a bag labeled ‘Platelets’. A third one with a clear blue liquid was on the back of her hand, but that bag was unlabeled and up to my imagination to guess its contents. It was a smaller pouch attached to the stand, but filled her body nonetheless. Three little circles attached to her chest, one close to each shoulder and one in the middle that kept track of her heart rate.

It was at 36.

There was a soft knock at the door, followed by a taller, aging man and Adelina. The woman sat in the chair, not willing herself to come and look at her daughter just yet. The newcomer in the group looked at her, before turning to face me again. “We are transporting them both to Vishnevsky Hospital in Moscow in a few hours. There isn’t much more we can do for the damages due to the burns, but they are much more able than we are.”

“What?” A feminine voice squeaked.

Sighing, I translated the sad words to Mrs. Trovato, and I now knew why she didn’t want to be here. In a foreign place, the only person who you knew was incapacitated at the moment, you didn’t understand what was being said, you couldn’t get anywhere; it was a nightmare. The man’s quiet voice continued as he picked up her charts and made a few notes after he read her monitors. “He was placed in a medically-induced coma, but she’s been in one ever since they arrived. As you can see, most of her right side is badly burnt, but most of the damage to her, astoundingly, is physical. One of the doctors expecting them as already planned to go in and take care of her leg.”

I opened my mouth to ask about the bandages, but he only laughed lowly.

“We think she ended up on something hard, as her abdomen is heavily bruised, but there was no further damage besides cracked ribs in that area. She kept rolling onto her stomach, so we put it there to cushion her. Somehow, this girl’s leg is a magnet for disaster and we had a preliminary surgery to dislodge the metal. There has been nerve damage, but looking myself, part of it has been there. When they get to Moscow, she’ll go immediately in for surgery to repair all of the damage. Then she’ll join Sasha here in waiting out the burns.”

Closing Anna’s curtain, it would be a few minutes before I could handle seeing at her again. We’d have to wait even longer to find out if they’d be alright? “How is Sasha doing?”

Stepping over to the curtain, he didn’t let me see. It was understandable, though, and I didn’t blame him. “His burns are much more severe, all over his body rather than one side, and he seemed in inhale more. We figure at least 80% of his body is suffering from burns, and he inhaled a lot of smok-..”

“Is Anna on life support?”

The English stung the air as Anna’s mother looked at the doctor, tears brimming her eyes. The doctor looked to me, before taking a glance back at Galimov. In what I was sure was hardly-used English, he glanced back at the woman. “For time being, they are. If you want to stay with, you might try to get in Moscow now, to be there when they come.”

It was a few hours until it was time for Anna and Sasha to be taken to Moscow, but it would be an hour of her mother and I waiting in the Capital for their arrival. Anna’s mother had driven home, after assuring me that she would be alright, to pack a few changes of clothes and to take care of what she needed to.

The nurses had brought in Anna’s clothes in a bag, no doubt giving us the choice on whether to keep them or not. I’d let her mom make that decision, but the instant the nurse handed me the familiar black device, I quickly took it and the cell phone occupied my time. After finally getting it to come on, I swore to myself that I’d invest in a Blackberry for the rest of my life; it seemed waterproof and powered right on after I gave it a good charge. The only thing keeping me from getting into Anna’s phone, was the 4 digit passcode.

Frowning, she clearly wasn’t very good at this stuff when ‘1957’ went in the first try. Opening the single alert that read a picture being uploaded successfully to Twitter, I saw that the phone’s signal was shot from the water. The memory was intact, but the internal hardware wouldn’t register on the towers anymore. Clicking on it, my breath caught in my throat as a picture of Anna and the man across the room came up. Heads up, Dinamo! We are coming your way!

Her blonde hair was up in a hair tie, but several wisps fell in her face as their smiles shown back towards me. Hitting the power button, I turned the device off and tossed it at the end of the bed. Taking Anna’s hand in mine, I ignored the needles that remained in her body before entwining her fingers with my own. Peeking up at her face, her hair was still disheveled in a tangled mess. Several times, the nurses asked me if I wanted them to cut it and they got mad when I said no. I just wanted them gone so I could be with her.

Rubbing my thumb along the side of her hand, the door opened again and I knew it was her mother. We had to leave soon, if we wanted to be there waiting for her. She didn’t say anything as I stood, slowly withdrawing my hand from her daughter’s as she watched me kiss Anna’s forehead.

Before I could blink, we were finally entering the outer regions of Moscow and I noted Adelina looking around more and more at the foreign city. It had been a hard drive completed in two hours and not much had been said, but she had stayed awake the entire time. Sighing, I stopped myself from saying for the umpteenth time to the older woman and allowed my thoughts to drift to the one who was due to arrive in central Moscow within the hour.

It was hard to explain why Anna was dear to me. Hell, I couldn’t even remember when I started caring for her as more than the loudmouthed girl who stood up to me every chance she was given. She didn’t remind me of Erika in the slightest when you dug deep underneath everything, but there were overall similarities between both my captain and Anna. They were both headstrong, almost too much for their own good, but Erika was verbal about it. Harper bounded forward at every turn, expecting every challenge and diving in. Anna allowed herself to be a tool. What ultimately sat in my mind, however, is why would she randomly come back to Russia to play? What would drive her to play with Loko and not even Avangard? Even SKA seemed more likely.

“Something’s on your mind.”

//Adelina Trovato’s POV//

The young man driving shifted under my question, obviously anxious about the sudden conversation starter. He kept his eyes on the road, glancing over at me once but made no motion of communication any time soon. Leaning my head against the door, I turned to watch the boy who my daughter fancied. He could be 14 or 34 and I would still call him a boy and not feel bad about it. He had changed into a long-sleeved black shirt, only pulling up the sleeves to drive as we passed underneath the clouds that adorned the Russian skies.

His hair was lighter than I would have pictured, but still a dark blonde that suited him. Despite the darkness appearing under his eyes, the soft brown irises he had blinked occasionally. No doubt he knew that I was watching him, waiting for him to open up. Maybe it was a long shot, maybe not even worth it, but what was the worst that could happen?

Just when I thought things weren’t going to continue, he reached out and turned the air conditioner down so that we could speak easier. Looking side to side, he double checked his rear view mirror before relaxing his vice grip on the steering wheel. “Can you tell me about Anna?”

“Anything in specific?” I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief, but then my breath caught again. No, he wouldn’t know what was going on. “Is it alright if I call you Alex?”

Alex cracked a small smile before nodding. “When she was young?”

My chest felt heavy as he continued to watch the road. It was heart-breaking to want someone, and on one hand you knew so much about them, but then you knew nothing. Shedding light on Anna’s childhood would of course be something he’d ask for, and I didn’t blame him for being curious. Any understanding on the woman he tried so hard to unravel and put back together would be a godsend, especially if I knew my daughter and the somewhat-secretive character she could be. Straightening in the seat, I crossed my arms and leaned back. “Anna was the perfect child.”

She was a spitfire, but never talked back. She did what her father and I asked of her without question; she was hard on herself, I won’t lie. Her father is a very strict man, but he cares about her. We lived in Rome, nearly the Vatican City for several years, making sure she had the best education that could be offered to her. Tomato Trovato, the kids would sing at her when she became embarrassed; she would turn as red as the vegetable itself. That’s when her hockey became much more physical, if I remember correctly.” Chuckling softly, I could have never asked for a better daughter, and I couldn’t risk losing her. Whatever my husband saw fit to do behind my back was one thing, but I considered Anna mine. I would not lose her.

“What do you mean?” His eyebrows furrowed, obviously trying to understand what I was trying to say. The language barrier probably wasn’t helping, but I made note to slow down when speaking.

“Her father is in the Italian Parliament and works for the Prime Minister,” Alex nodded at this carefully as I shrugged. There wasn’t much to hide about our lives, if given the right information. This was clearly possible based on Anna’s latest discovery. “We lived comfortably, Alex, so we made sure Anna was given the best opportunity. She lived in the capital of our country, attended the best schools with fellow politically-parented children, and was given every opportunity to play hockey. She had a knack for it, and it made us both proud. She was kept under lock and key, figuratively speaking; we knew where she was at all times. There was no running around in the middle of the night, flirting with boys and sneaking into pubs.”

“How old she,” He coughed. “was she when she first play, uh, played? If she is from there, how does she play with Finland?”

“Our little Anna was only 4 when she started. Not as young as some of the Canadians, but very young for an Italian player.” Chuckling at his confused expression, I couldn’t help but laugh a bit harder as I thought about what I would say next. It was always difficult to explain Anna. Oh, Anna. I thought talking about her would make the situation worse, but it eased the feeling of dread. “My family is from Finland and we made sure that Anna had dual nationality. I met my husband when my parents were visiting the Prime Minister of Italy, and things just kind of happened.”

We pulled to a stop at a red light and took in the barely-lit skies that were slowly waking up. After a few minutes of sitting in silence, the car revved forward and continued on our journey into the first majour signs of civilization and bodies waking for the day. “What else?”

“She aims to please, Alex. Ever wonder why she kept playing when she was injured in Vancouver? Or perhaps why she keeps pushing players to their limits? Especially you?” He looked over at me, eyes shining in the dim streetlights. “To find out what she can do; to find out what she’s capable of. My Anna was a good child, and she’s kept every bit of that demeanor to this day.”

We pulled, finally, into the parking lot of the hospital. It was located in the northern region of Moscow, and luckily, saved us from going through the hectic city center. Alex turned the car off, but made no movement to get out just yet. He looked over to meet my questioning stare and that very second, I felt my heart break for him.