watched as you signed your name "alexandra"

what a sad, beautiful, tragic love affair

okay this is where things get ✨juicy✨

august 16th

After nothing happened on Monday, Yelena and Kate did end up spending the night together. Kate played on her Switch while Yelena played with Fanny, and then they fell asleep together.

Yelena wanted that cycle to repeat last night, but she couldn't convince Kate into it. She wonders if that has something to do with her impending arrest. A cynical part of Yelena wishes that they'd just do it already - get it over with so that she doesn't have to worry anymore - but she also doesn't want to leave this life that she's in.

It also doesn't help that she's had a building frustration towards Kate all day, she's been able to respond to the TikToks that Yelena's sent her but she's refused to hang out with her all day, and now she hasn't responded in like two hours.

Yelena feels like a little kid not being able to get the toy that she wants. In some way, it's funny, in another way, it's pathetic.

She does, around four in the afternoon, find a distraction in the friend receiving her stuff, Ana.

"How long until you get out?"

"Long time," Yelena walks around her apartment with Fanny watching her warily from the couch, "I'm guessing life once this all processes."

"You do realize you're a Black Widow, right?" Ana asks, "We learn how to escape from prison when we're like, thirteen."

Yelena rolls her eyes, "I don't think I'm going to escape, Ana."

There's a long pause.

"Why?"

"I've done too much awful in this life," Yelena taps her fingers on the countertops of the kitchen, "I don't... there's also nothing to go back to. My arrest won't exactly be private."

"It has to be worth a shot," Ana says softly, "I mean, I know... everything's awful. But we could... I don't know. Whatever it is, we can't do it with you in prison."

"Chances are," Yelena sucks in a breath, "the second I escape and have nowhere to go, a widow will find me. And I'll be cycled through again. And I don't want that. At least in prison, I'm safe. I don't have to deal with Dreykov there."

Ana lets out a long sigh. She knows Yelena's right.

"Or, hear me out," Ana says, "You do what your sister did-"

"Ana..."

"No, seriously," Ana responds, "She got out. She's living the life she wants to live. I know you two have issues, but you could get out. Be famous."

A sour taste sits itself in Yelena's mouth. She doesn't want to explain for the nth time about how she doesn't like how Natasha did everything. She doesn't like who Natasha became in the midst of all of that and she doesn't like how SHIELD is still such a force in her sister's life.

"I think it's too late for that," Yelena says, looking in Fanny's direction. The puppy's now rolled over on the couch with her belly up, expectantly looking back at Yelena.

Yelena crosses the room to sit down next to Fanny and give her the scratches that she deserves whilst Ana responds, "Well... not to be apathetic to your actual problems... what's going on with Beth Duquesne?"

Being reminded of Kate again makes Yelena want to text her, to see her again, to kiss her again, to maybe just seize the moment and whisper those three fucking words that have been haunting her. Maybe she'd even be able to hear them back - how lovely that would be.