OTMA: I'll Meet You On The Bridge

Chapter 6: Olga POV

Olga was not a travel pillow.

This is what she decided she was going to be having serious words with Tatiana about when she finally woke up. Tatiana was drooling, and it was centimeters away from dripping onto her. You'd think that the most elegant of the Romanov sisters wouldn't end up falling asleep on her older sister, but there they were. Maria was asleep on Tatiana, meaning that Olga had no one to talk to. Instead, she just got to sit there thinking about her life. It was something that she always seemed to have time to do. There was a time when she loved being able to daydream. She would sometimes even desert her sisters to hide in her room and daydream about, well, really whatever. When she was very little, the daydreams would be about what she would do if the eldest child got to become Tsarina. She had so many magical plans for Russia, ways she would make it her own. After a little while of that, daydreams were more commonly about Tatiana getting to rule. She realized that she didn't enjoy leading enough to want to be in charge of an entire country. But Tatiana had great leadership skills. Those daydreams slowly morphed into ones about ways Alexei could overcome hemophilia, ways their mother could get better. And then they were about her innocent crushes on guards, and about getting outside of the palace.

She was outside of the palace now. It wasn't exactly how she'd expected it to go.

She heard a yawning noise and quickly looked over at Maria, who was sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

"Where . . . oh right. Hey, Olga." Maria said.

"Hey, M." Olga responded. "How are you doing?"

"Good. I was really tired, I guess." Maria said. Olga glanced out the window.

"Well, I can't blame you. It's nearly morning." She said.

"Oh. Did you get any sleep?" Maria asked.

"I did, until this giant fell asleep on me." Olga tilted her head towards Tatiana. "Why is she so tall?"

"I know. A hated it." Maria giggled, and Olga joined her, but their joy was short lived.

"I'm going to miss her." Olga said. Maria looked like she wanted to say something. She opened her mouth, and then closed it.

"Yeah. I'm going to miss her too."

"Hey girls." Tatiana's voice suddenly said. "Don't think I haven't been listening to your little conversation about me."

"Oh please." Olga said. "It's not like it isn't true."

"Love you too." Tatiana rolled her eyes. "It's not my fault that I'm a tree."

"I like that description." Olga said. "A tree. T the tree."

"We shouldn't use our real names. We're in public now." Tatiana said. "What was my name again?"

"Alice. After our grandmother. I'm Victoria, after our great grandmother, and Maria is Louise."

"Why do you get to be named after Queen Victoria?" Tatiana complained.

"Because I got to meet her." Olga said.

"Do you remember meeting her?"

"I was one, T."

"Alice."

"I was one, Alice."

"Better."

Olga glanced over. Maria was leaning on one edge of the train, looking at the wall. Not joining their conversation.

"Hey M, do you like your name?" Olga asked. "M. Hey, M. Mashka!" She used the nickname their father gave to Maria. That finally got her attention.

"Oh, yeah. Louise. Who am I named after?" She asked.

"That doesn't matter. Something's very wrong." Olga said. Maria might not have been talkative, but she would always respond. She would at least listen to the conversations going on around her. And she had never not answered to her name, even if it was just the first letter.

"I'm fine." Maria said.

"Okay, trying to claim I'm fine when I'm not is my thing." Olga said. "Tell me what's wro-

"No it's not!" Maria suddenly said, halfway through Olga's sentence. "You might not have talked about it, but you always wore your emotions on your sleeve. You never even tried to be optimistic. And Tatiana, you never stayed and did the hard things! You always ran away or stayed away, and yet, you got to talk about all of your problems. Do you think all of this hasn't gotten to me to? And at least the big pair gets to stay together! I have no Anastasia, no one I can truly confide in, and no will to live!" Maria turned around and cried against the wall. "So yeah. I'm fine."

The outburst startled Olga. Maria had never showed this much emotion. Olga looked away, realizing how selfish she really had been.

"Oh, Maria . . ." Tatiana began.

"Call me Louise. I didn't really get to have much part in naming myself either, so I guess that's my name."

Yeah. Something was definitely wrong. Maria never was passive aggressive.

"M, we didn't realize." Tatiana wrapped her sister in a hug. For a moment, Maria sat tense next to Tatiana. Then, she slowly turned into her sisters embrace and began crying again.

"I never could share my emotions. I always had to be strong." Maria said. "The only time I really gotta talk was when someone brought me into it. And it was always Anastasia or Mama or Papa that did that. Without all of them, I'm nothing in this family. Nothing."

Olga thought for a moment, and finally found the right words. "That's not true, Maria. You are everything to us. Everything." Maria glanced up at Olga from over Tatiana's shoulder.

"You really mean that?" She asked.

"You've been so helpful on this journey." Tatiana said. "You figured out that we could find the north star."

"But then we didn't end up using that." Maria said.

"You still came up with it. And you got us into the train." Olga told her. "I was frozen. You saw. If it weren't for your quick thinking, we might have been discovered."

"I was frozen too, before you say that I would have done something." Tatiana said. "You were incredible, M."

"You've been so strong, and we've never credited you for it." Olga said. "But we love you. We love you so much."

"Thanks." Maria said. Olga reached out and wiped the tears from her eyes. She smiled.

"You said you didn't like your name." Olga said.

"I never said that." Maria responded.

"You implied it. So what would you like your name to be?" Olga asked.

"Well, I was thinking Elizabeth. After our aunt." Maria said.

"That's perfect." Olga said.

"I guess we truly have our story then." Olga said. "Alice, Elizabeth, let's have a wonderful journey back to London."

The three girls laughed.

Olga fell asleep two minutes later.