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It isn't at all what Gleb would have expected from a New Year's celebration, even down to the date, but then, the past week and a half has made the fact of that itself easily predictable. Nearly everything about Darrow seems to be as far from the Russia he left behind as it's possible to get, and this is no exception. At least it's not quite as unpleasant or as unusual as it could be, as other things have been. Practically the entire city has turned out for this, it seems, bundled up more so than dressed up, waiting in line for food from street vendors. He's heard talk of other New Year's Eves spent up the mountain at the ski lodge, and between the two options, this one is infinitely preferable.

For all the people here, though, there's really only one whose presence he cares about. Despite seeing her, at her insistence, on the Christmas they celebrate here, he barely has the first idea what to do around Anya, no more than he did when he first caught sight of her here outside her building, having thought that he would never see her again. What he does know is that she's as beautiful as he's ever seen her, so much that it nearly hurts to look at her. She's not dressed for the ballet or a press conference this time, and mercifully so, but she's still a world away from the street sweeper he first noticed, what feels like so much longer ago now than it must actually have been. He never could have guessed then where they would wind up, either in this place or before it.

Of course, it makes sense that she would seem to fit in here, far better than he does or could imagine to himself. Wearing the suit that he'd worn in Paris, the nicest thing he owns and likely to stay that way, for how far from comfortable he is in it, he straightens his jacket before he makes his way over to her, mostly for something to do with his hands. "Anya," he says. "You look — well."

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Stepping out of the line Anya tosses a small wave and a happy new year to those working the booth. Falling into step with Gleb, she adjusts the coat on her shoulders re-securing it as she walks. The wool smells like he must smell, an earthy combination of scents that surprises her with the strange intimacy of it. Wearing someone else's clothes, freely given, is an affection gesture. This isn't like wearing the washed and mended hand-me-downs from her sisters. This is something else, something more adult in its fondness.

They do have a shared past, overlapping at very different points in their lives. Ten years between the closing of the gates and that day on Nevsky Prospekt. A decade before he saw her in Paris, a time that she doesn't remember, doesn't know how to process that he couldn't follow orders. That he resigned himself to die to let her live. One day she'll ask him why, find out more about that meeting. An odd sort of wonder runs through her as they walk closer to the effigy, meandering through the crowd. They are one hundred years from when they were teenagers in Ekaterinburg. What a strange life they have lived.

His stilted joke makes her smile. Once he told her that he had a sense of humor and while she didn't feel it then, she believes it now. "Yes you should. We can toast the new year later," she says before impulsively reaching out from the folds of his coat to grab his hand, gently tugging him along a little closer towards where the crowd thins. "Come on, let's find a good spot to view it. My former coworkers were telling me that it is quite spectacular at midnight."

"Isn't everything here?" Gleb counters, though his voice doesn't carry the disdain that it might have under any other circumstances. As it is, being here with Anya, her hand suddenly around his as she leads him out of the way of the crowd, it's hard to mind any of this as much as he thought he would. Just days ago, before he blinked and found that the world had changed around him, he thought it would be enough for him to know she was alive and safe somewhere, or at least close to it. He would have held onto that on his way back to Russia, up until the very end that he knows would have been coming, which would have been worth it for that knowledge. This is already so much more than that, and than he was ever supposed to have gotten. She owes him nothing, her friendship included, but she seems to be offering it in spite of all the reasons she'd have had not to do so. He knows better than to take that for granted.

At least it's a little less packed over here, too, though there's no missing the crowd around them cheering in anticipation of midnight, each second drawing them closer to a year that he was never supposed to have lived to see. If he was going to begin it with anyone, though, here or otherwise, he'd have wanted it to be her. It's a strange thing, having the awareness of how much he was prepared to give up for her without ever really needing to do so. While he may never shake the moment when he realized that he couldn't follow his orders and the mess of complicated emotions that comes with that, he'll never question whether or not he made the right decision. Every time he looks at her, he knows he did. What that says about him, he can't entirely figure out, but that, too, is worth bearing.

"Well," he starts once they've found a place for themselves, but he doesn't finish whatever he might have said. He tips his head back instead, taking a long swallow of his drink — for courage, he thinks, though what he'd need courage for, he can't quite determine. Maybe just to be here at all. For warmth, too, though the sight of her in his coat leaves him warm enough. "They're counting down, I think."

The lack of weighty disdain in his voice does not pass her by. Anya suspects that perhaps Gleb has caught some of the holiday spirit. New Year's Eve is significantly less commercialized than Christmas is here and while it's more of a celebration it is less of an affront to Bolshevik sensibilities. Being a good member of the party had never been anything that she had been accused of. Keeping her head down, working to gather money and looking for a means of getting out of Russia had been her singular goal.

She'd succeeded in that. Now Russia is an entire world away. An entire lifetime, gone with a fury of anger.

"Yes it is," she agrees with a faint nod of her head as she comes to a stop. The lights and the cheering warms her in a way that is different from the coat. Perhaps the champagne really has gone entirely to her head, but the giddiness of the crowd is contagious. Another nod as she realizes that the countdown has started.

"Ten....nine...eight..."

She counts down along with them, pulling her gaze away from the effigy to look up at Gleb. Her hand is still clasped in his. As confusing as it may be, all the news that he has so recently shared with her, a history she still needs to unpack, she is glad that she isn't alone. That she is looking at the future with someone who remembers the past.

"Seven..."

The soft smile she offers him in genuine, her head tilted up to meet his eyes.

She hasn't let go of his hand. More than anything else, Gleb is aware of that when they stop, waiting for the moment she'll do so only for it never to come. They're all such simple things, really, his coat over her shoulders, her fingers around his, but they're striking even so, and not just because the very sight of her is still enough to make his chest constrict. That day in his office, when they'd first met properly, one of just a few brief times their paths crossed, she'd been reluctant to take his hand when he offered it to her, and he couldn't have blamed her for that even then. He knows how daunting the uniform and the office and all of that could seem; had she been anyone else, he likely would have made the most of that, delivering a far more brusque warning than he gave her, as he'd started to before he realized who she was. Now, he thinks she probably has less of a reason to want anything to do with him than she had then. Had she decided that she wanted nothing more to do with him after the evening he arrived here, when he told her what happened in Paris, he wouldn't have blamed her for that in the slightest.

Instead, here she is, clasping his hand and smiling up at him as the crowd counts down, making it hard not to wonder about things he told himself he wouldn't so much as consider. It isn't fair to, not after what he's done to her, what he almost did. It just also isn't entirely possible not to. Before, watching her at the ballet in Paris, already trying to convince himself to follow his orders — in retrospect, what probably ought to have been a sign that he wouldn't be able to — he'd tried thinking that there's no place for love in a revolution, certainly not enough to give up the cause over. There is no cause here now, though, that revolution a century behind them, and he knows with an odd sort of surety that he loves her. He's already chosen his side, anyway, by choosing her, putting her life before his own and everything he's fought for.

Maybe he ought to stop pretending that he'll ever be able to shake the way he feels for her.

"Happy new year, Anya," he says quietly, his own smile soft in turn, even as the cheers of the crowd around them grow louder and the countdown reaches zero. In the distance, he thinks he can smell smoke; the effigy must have gone up in flames, but despite what he's heard about the view, he can't bring himself to look away from her. She's impossibly beautiful, and standing this close, there's no shutting off the thoughts that filter through his head about how easy it would be to lower his head and kiss her. In a moment of rare boldness, he just about starts to do so, the slight movement more of a question than anything else and easily enough ignored but the look on his face, still conflicted but not about how he actually feels, likely speaking for itself.

Letting go of his hand had not occurred to her. It's an innocent enough gesture. Holding someone's hand is an excellent way to not lose them in a crowd. Even though they've stopped, there isn't time to think things through beyond that with the countdown having begun. She will let go after midnight once the moment has passed. For now it is nice to simply be reminded that someone is there, someone as equally if not more baffled by this entire city. Someone who knows and remembers both the Russias she left behind.

Watching him, Anya thinks she knows what he is about to do. A kiss at midnight is a tradition, a way to welcome love into the new year. He is likely going to kiss her cheek, another innocent yet awkward gesture. Or maybe he want to kiss her on the mouth, something she is less certain of. It wouldn't be how she imagined her first kiss at all. Despite the thoughts in her head, she finds herself leaning up towards him just a little.

None of this matters. The countdown ends and there is a bright flash of light as the effigy bursts into flames. This is immediately followed by another bright flash, this one of pain running through her. It feels like every bone in her body is breaking all at once. It is worse than any pain she has ever experience or every imagined.

Anya screams.

It doesn't help.

Somewhere in the pain she's released Gleb's hand, reaching to wrap her hands to her body, to make it stop. None of it does any good as her teeth elongate, fur sprouting, her body reforming into that of a wolf. Her dress, her shoes, her coat and his, are all ruined. Something wild grabs a-hold of her, a fierce primitive thing. The wolf that once was Anya lashes out, eager to escape, to howl at the full moon over head.

Any small reason that is left in her head doesn't question the feel of her paws lashing out, claws digging into and scratching into flesh, a fierce snap of teeth as she licks at human flesh. The warmth of something on her paws and fur. A howl escapes her and then just as quickly, she has jumped away, running off into the night and wild crowd.

It seems, for an instant, like maybe it's not just him, like any step he'd have taken, if he wound up taking it, might be returned. That instant passes too quickly, though, and Gleb never gets a chance to find out if he'd even have worked up the will to go through with it. The effigy lights, the crowd cheers with excitement — and Anya, so close in front of him, her hand still in his, starts to scream in apparent pain, though what's wrong, he doesn't know. He inhales sharply, sets his hands on her shoulders, eyes wide and frantic with fear, saying her name without thinking in some sort of bid to get through to her, though she doesn't seem to hear him. That isn't much of a surprise, between the crowd and the sickening sound of snapping bones. She's changing, somehow, but he doesn't know what's happening or why, only that he seems to be powerless to do anything about it and that whatever this is shouldn't be possible.

Any lack of logic, though, isn't enough for him to keep a distance, as if there's still some chance that this could be stopped somehow, that she might come back to herself. The only thing that sends him, finally, staggering back is when the wolf in front of him — because it's an animal now, and not Anya at all, all happening too quickly for him to even try to process — lunges up at him, claws digging through his shirt and into his chest. He's the one who cries out, then, hands lifting to press to the wounds left behind, already red and wet with his own blood.

Oh, he thinks, pain radiating through his chest, his breath shaky. On an instinct, he leans over, wincing as he does, to grab the tattered shreds of Anya's coat, watching the wolf disappear into the crowd as he does. The fabric barely visibly stains as he presses it to the gashes. Already, though, his mind is elsewhere. Anya had been hurt, screaming, and now she's gone. That seems far more important than anything that's happened to him, and means that he has to find her. Logic and injuries be damned, there isn't a chance he'll be alright until he knows that she is, too.

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