WELCOME

He was leaving.

"Father,” the little boy was tugging on his leg. “Father, don't go.”

Lazar looked down at the boy and realized that this was his son. His fingers dipped to touch the fair hair, tousling it with love. “Stasi. I'll come back,” he smiled. It was a genuine smile, and it was for his son. “You be strong for for your mother, alright? While I'm gone, you have to be the man of the house.”

The little boy shook his head and then buried his face into the fabric of Lazar's trousers. “No,” he said, his voice muffled. “Don't go.”

Lazar sighed, and then dropped to one knee. His hands found his son's narrow shoulders. “Look at me,” he ordered. “Stasi, when you're older, you will know why I had to do this.”

His son was crying now. Fat tears dripped from blue eyes and ran down rosy cheeks.

“I love you. Don't ever forget that.” Then Lazar pulled in his son, crushing the five year old in an embrace that didn't last long enough. His fingers clutched the back of the boy's head, and his eyes were shut tight.

Then he pushed himself to his feet.

Outside, as the snow fell, other men like him said their farewells. They were all given guns, muskets, for the battles to come. They were liberators now, heroes sent down from the mountains to help liberate the colonies. America was straining under the yoke of British Imperialism. The land, its pride, its people, were beginning to snap under the weight of taxation.

Which was why men were called away to fight.

He looked down at his son one final time. He still had to say goodbye to the boy's mother. His wife, she was waiting for him in the other room. She would be upset, but in his mind, he knew they'd discussed this. She knew it would be inevitable. With a sigh, he slung on his backpack and adjusted the straps.

Then he marched into the next room.

She'd meant to take them to a time and place far from reality, just so he wouldn't get confused. As much as it pained her to admit it, this was the only way that she knew how to get his secrets from him. She knew nothing about Lazar, but this way she could rip him apart, study the pieces, and then wake up. It was unfair, it left them on uneven grounds, but it would be okay. He didn't have to know. He could wake and be none the wiser, she'd pretend to be asleep in his arms still. He wouldn't suspect a damn thing and things could be better, because she'd know about him, and how to manipulate him. To keep him happy and around, of course.

The problem was she hadn't expected him to start a war. She supposed it shouldn't be entirely surprising, considering the subject matter, but it hardly made her feel at ease. Wars meant projections with guns, and projections with guns meant she had to watch her step carefully.

The sound of footsteps snapped her attention to the door, and she was already staring when he came strolling through. A soldier. She supposed that she shouldn't have been surprised by that either. Nika smoothed her hands over her thighs covered by the simple dress around her, sitting at the edge of a rocking chair, simply staring for the moment, waiting to understand her respective role in this place. She was content in letting him choose whichever fantasy he believed, too concerned with keeping his subconscious relaxed to try and manipulate him too much through this.

The door creaked on its hinge. Under his boots, so did the floorboards. He entered the room, now lit by a single oil lamp on the far table.

She was in the rocking chair, her face covered in light and shadow. He saw her there, and he felt some of the tension burn off his shoulders. She understood what he had to do. She supported him. This life they'd built was built on the promise that one day, their children would grow up free. Their children would be responsible for their own destiny. This was a great land. It would be greater still without the yoke of British rule.

In Boston, where the revolution had taken off, things were bad. Troops were being called and war was being waged. They needed more men. they needed young men, fighters.

They needed patriots.

“I have to go,” he told her, his voice heavy with the emotion. He had to go and she had to let him go.

He spread his arms and flashed her a smile. Had to go, but not just yet-- not without holding her one last time.

She was a wife; she twisted the wedding band around her finger. Modest, of course. This was the fantasy, living in a happy, modest home. Lazar had to ruin it of course, making his war, but she was trying to figure ways to get him out of it. It left her staring at him, quiet for a little too long.

Sloppy. She chastised herself in her head, shaking it and blinking away the dull pain from her headache. She couldn't afford to be sloppy. In an attempt at recovery she picked herself up off the chair, though did not quite cross the room to get to him. There was still sorting out to be done, and she could not justify this fantasy he'd cooked up by giving him a farewell embrace just yet.

"You don't have to go yet," Nika pointed out easily, sounding so sure in hopes that he would believe it too. And maybe if she convinced him that he could stay ten more minutes, then maybe he could for an hour, and then two, and then the evening, and then that there was no war at all. A difficult goal to reach, to be sure, but she was confident enough at least to try. The worst that could happen is that they would wake up. "You can stay, a while longer... It'll be okay."

She didn't embrace him.

He stood for a few seconds more, his arms spread, waiting, expecting. She didn't come closer. He looked at her, and then he looked down, away from her. For a few seconds, his features darkened. Confusion flashed across his face like bolts of lightning.“I can't stay,” he told her. There was a war out there. They were waiting for him outside. They were waiting for him to come outside and join the war.

They told him it would give him purpose. It would make him whole. He would have to fight, rage against the powers that were. He would have to do it or they would win.

And he would lose everything.

He lowered his hands. “You're upset with me,” he said. Outside, a wind began to pick up. It howled, raged. It caused the branches of a tree to tap against the window. Tap tap tap. Then faster, with more urgency.

Tap tap tap.

His feelings were hurt, and her heart sank. She wasn't too broke up about it, able to recognize that none of it was real. But his feelings were, right now, even if he wasn't going to remember this. Or probably wouldn't.

Nika stepped into him at last, finding herself far too comfortable laced against him. The thought that she was perfectly fitted for this crept in on the edges of conscious thought, threatening to become a tangible idea. She ran away from it quickly, exchanging the comfort of silence for another attempt to alter his reality one nudge at a time.

"I'm not upset," she assured him, but she didn't smile. "But... you can stay. Nothing bad will happen." The mind was easy to suggest in a dream. It was difficult to get it to stick after, but she didn't see a whole lot of need to try to actually bring logic to her argument. If she just repeated it enough, earnestly enough, she was convinced she could get him to believe it at as all. Just so long as she could get through that stubborn head of his.

"... Please, stay?"

She sank into his arms and there was something right about it. He felt it churn inside him, warm him. The contact itself drew away the storm, and the weather outside calmed. It shifted, became clear. It was still snowing, and it was still cold, but it was calm...

He placed his chin on the top of her hand and let the moment be.

Then she asked him to stay, for just a little while.

He turned towards the door, just slightly, but enough to make the movement noticeable. The war was calling to him. His purpose, the thing that would give him purpose, was calling to him. His destination was out there, not here, with her. Instinct told him that. It was as powerful as the embrace. If the embrace was right, then the war had to be wrong. If this was right, then the world didn't matter. She was asking him to pick...

Her words, despite the urgency to leave, soothed him. He looked down at her, his lips quirking into a smile. His teeth flashed, and the light of it reached his eyes. It felt good. That felt good. “Okay,” he said.

Nothing bad would happen. He could stay for a few minutes, an hour.

Outside, there was a knock at the door. It wasn't urgent, just a slight reminder that perhaps he should hurry up and come outside. Lazar ignored it.

Then he leaned in and kissed her.

His partial turning away caused her to lift her head, staring after him in a pleading way. She was afraid he would be as stubborn as he was in life, refusing to heed her desperate pleas and fight. It wouldn't be the first time it happened, and she was growing to suspect it for this situation now. Suspect that he would leave her and there was nothing she could do to convince him to stay.

But then he smiled, and it was more devastating than she could ever imagine. Nika had to close her eyes against it, seeing him so genuinely happy. "Christ..." She didn't know what to do, just knew that she felt weak again, and tainted now more than ever before. This was a disservice to him. This was not fair in the least, and she might have considered confessing what she'd done with the dream compounds if it weren't for the fact he'd leaned down to kiss her.

Kiss her. Her. She tensed at fist, coiled like a spring and ready to dash away, but it lasted only as long as her startled state. After she couldn't let him go--damn his war, damn his being-Lazar and all she hated about that. She'd twisted her hands into the musty fabric of his shirt and was not going to let go.

"Don't go." She hated to think that she was probably sobbing against his mouth, but that was what it sounded like to her. "I'm afraid... Still afraid."

Her fingers tightened around her shirt, even as his arms tightened around her. He felt her words against his lips, and realized that she was crying. He leaned back slightly to look at her, aware of just how frightened she sounded. “I don't want you to be afraid,” he told her, lifting one hand to wipe away the tears. He looked at her, studied her face, as if trying to commit it to memory. Out there, he didn't want to forget her. He wanted to come back, to find her here, with their son.

This right here was his life.

But he had to survive first. He had to live through war.

The knock came again, this time with a fraction more urgency. He was probably holding them up. It was a long way down from the mountains. It was a long way down from this safe place.

His assurances meant nothing. Maybe in the dream he could banish any of his projections aimed to bring him down. He could probably win this war single-handed simply because he willed himself to. But there was nothing he could do to banish the ache between her ears. No matter how dulled the sensation became in the dream, it was still there, haunting her, chilling her to her core. He could have his war and survive it, but there wasn't a damn thing she could do about this.

Part of her hated him for it. Most of her buried herself into his taller body, unwilling to let him answer the rapping at the door, or turn away in the slightest with her attempting to burrow her face into his neck, despite the tremble of effort that broke out over her. "I'm afraid to die, Lazar." She could confess that, here, at least.

That caught him off-guard.

“But you won't die,” he assured her. He smiled even, thinking it was some sort of insecurity on her part. Perhaps he didn't take it as seriously as he ought to. Wasn't she supposed to say something else? Wasn't she supposed to worry over his death?

He was going to war.

He placed a hand on the back of her head, oddly aware of just how damp his neck was. “I won't let you die.”

Nika hated that she was an emotional person, and how often it urged her to hysteria. Now more than ever she needed to be composed, but to say she was dying, that she was afraid of it, it was a stunning blow to herself.

Not real, of course. Not when she'd wake up later--it was just as dream. Just something she'd made up to get him to stay. She wasn't dying, she'd just had a fever, and now a headache from it, and then she'd remember that she hated Lazar and he still hadn't turned off her tap. But for now, in this bizarre fantasy realm, she was slowly crumbling to hysterics, attempting to shake her head even as he held onto it.

"No no no, I'm dying. You're going to leave me afraid. Please--just--don't leave me."

Her words coincided with another knock on the door. This sound was more like fists against the heavy wood. It was joined by voices. Muffled, urgent voices.

Come outside.

Come fight your war.

But inside, away from his war, she was holding onto him. This girl was holding on to him. This girl, who was his wife, who was the mother of his child. She was crying and she need him. She was afraid and the only thing that could chase it away was him. He was what she needed.

“But what about my war?” he asked. Who was going to fight his war?

The question left her more helpless than ever. Her knees threatened to fail her, making clinging to him more and more necessary to staying aloft.

There was no reason for him to stay here. There was absolutely nothing she had in her arsenal of rhetoric to convince him that staying here to protect her was more noble than going off to fight his inner demons or whatever bullshit metaphor this war meant to him. She was, literally, nobody to him. He didn't even know her name, he thought she was a hairdresser. He might even have mistaken her for something of a good person from time to time. She was not his wife and he had no obligations to her. She couldn't say anything to him, she could not justify actually telling him that his war was less important than her.

She kissed him instead, fueled by growing desperation. This was a mistake, calling him to her home, and definitely taking advantage of him like this. She prayed to God, for the tattered remains of her soul, she could be forgiven for this.

And he kissed her back.

There was a strange hunger in him as he kissed her, even as the banging on the door grew louder. His hands reached out to hold her face, his fingers running down the smooth skin of her cheeks, her jaw. He traced her jawline, holding her to him. His lips seemed to moved of their own accord.

He also managed to press himself harder against her, suddenly overwhelmed by the irrational need she sparked.

The shouting was growing louder, angrier. It wasn't one voice anymore. It was two, and then three, and then ten. It was a mob. It demanded he come out.

All while his need demanded he stay here, with her.