"Any of it." I stopped walking, turned to face her. She had to tip her head back to meet my eyes, my jacket making her look even smaller. "Dating. Being with someone. Actually being with them, not just—" I gestured vaguely, encompassing all thetransactional encounters that had passed for intimacy in my life. "I don't know how to do this. How to be what you need. I don't know how to... care for someone. Not like this."
The wind whipped her hair across her face. She pushed it back with one hand, studying me with those hazel eyes that saw too much.
"You fed me when I forgot to eat," she said simply. "You gave me rules when I was drowning in chaos. You held me while I cried about a patient I couldn't save. You took me to buy cat supplies because you wanted me to have something normal." She stepped closer, close enough that I could shelter her from the worst of the wind. "You're already what I need, Kostya. All of it."
The certainty in her voice undid something in my chest.
"I'll probably fuck up," I warned.
"Probably," she agreed. "I'll fuck up too. I'll forget to eat, neglect sleep, get lost in my head when the anxiety spirals. I'll need more structure than any sane person should want. I'll wake up screaming sometimes." She reached up, touched the scar through my eyebrow with one cold finger. "But we'll figure it out. That's what people do. They try and fail and try again until something works."
A wave crashed particularly hard, sending spray up onto the boardwalk. Neither of us moved. We stood there, her in my jacket, me holding shopping bags full of cat supplies, both of us pretending the salt spray was the only reason our eyes were burning.
"Come on," I said finally, voice rough. "It's fucking freezing. The cats are probably wondering where we are."
We walked back toward the car, her hand still in mine, the wind at our backs pushing us forward. I thought about my mother, about the lullabies I might or might not remember.
Maybe memory didn't matter as much as what you built going forward.
Backinmyroomat the compound, we spread our bounty across the floor like kids dumping out Halloween candy. The kittens watched from their cardboard box fortress, Zmeya's green eyes tracking every movement while Malysh peered out from behind his sister like she was his personal bodyguard.
"Shark bed first," Maya declared, pulling it from its packaging with the reverence usually reserved for religious artifacts. The thing was absolutely fucking ridiculous—bright blue fabric shaped like a cartoon shark, complete with white felt teeth around the opening and a dorsal fin on top. It looked like something that belonged in a nursery, not in the bedroom of a man who'd killed seventeen people with his bare hands.
She set it down near the radiator where the kittens liked to sleep, then sat back on her heels, watching. Waiting.
Zmeya emerged first, of course. Stalked toward the bed like it had personally insulted her mother. Circled it twice, batted at the dorsal fin, then launched herself at it in a full-body attack that sent the bed skidding three feet across the floor.
"Told you," Maya said, grinning as Zmeya wrestled the shark into submission. "Warrior princess."
The kitten gripped the fin with her teeth, kicked at the body with her back legs, then suddenly went still. Sniffed. Considered. And crawled inside, turning around three times before settling with just her green eyes visible through the mouth opening, making it look like the shark had come alive.
"Now she's a shark," I said. "Great. I've created a monster."
"You already created a monster when you named her Snake," Maya countered, pulling out the gray cave bed. "This is just giving her appropriate housing."
She placed the softer bed a few feet away, closer to my dresser where it would be more sheltered. Malysh crept forward on his belly, every step cautious, like the bed might suddenly attack. He sniffed the entrance, touched it with one tiny paw, then dove inside so fast he nearly knocked it over.
For a moment, nothing. Then his little gray head poked out, eyes wide with what I could only describe as wonder.
"He's never had his own space," Maya said quietly. "Never had something that was just his, that he could hide in when the world got too big."
She wasn't talking about the kitten anymore. Not entirely.
I watched her watch them, saw the way her face softened as Malysh kneaded the fleece with his tiny paws, purring loud enough to hear from across the room. She looked younger like this. Unguarded. Like maybe she'd found her own cave to hide in when the world got too big.
"The toys next?" she asked, already reaching for the bags.
We set everything up together. The scratching post by the window where morning sun would hit it. Food and water bowls in the bathroom where they couldn't be knocked over during kitten NASCAR at 3 AM. The litter box in the corner, though both cats seemed to prefer the bathroom arrangement we already had.
Maya dangled the feather wand, and Zmeya emerged from her shark to hunt it with single-minded intensity. Malysh watched from his cave, just his eyes and nose visible, until his sister's enthusiasm became too much to resist. He crept out, pounced on the feathers, then immediately ran back to safety.
"He's learning to be brave," Maya said. "Look, he's coming out again."
She was right. Malysh was creeping back toward the feathers, drawn by play despite his fear. Maya moved the toy slowly, gently, letting him approach at his own pace. When he finally batted at it, she made this soft sound of encouragement that made my chest tight.
She was on her knees on my floor, still wearing my jacket over her clothes, playing with two rescue kittens like it was the most important thing in the world. Her hair fell forward, hiding her face, but I could see her smile in the way her shoulders relaxed, the way her whole body leaned into the simple joy of the moment.
This was what I wanted.
