Thea went hours out of her way to get back to her brother after the fight with Romanoff and the Echo agents. She had to be sure that no one was following her and after several cars and many more miles, she finally made it to the safehouse. The little cottage looked abandoned; weeds and dead vines climbed from the snow and choked the stone, covering the door. Thea knew better though and went around to the back and knocked the secret knock. It was silly she knew, but it used to be a thing between them and their father. Memories flooded her mind of the game they used to play; her and Luka used to hide for hours and listen for the knock. She could remember the excitement that flooded her body when she would hear footsteps, and would stay as quiet as she could, not budging at all until the knock was recognized. They were then allowed to open the door and would win the game. That was all training she knew now, her life had been dedicated to hiding from the bad men, from Echo.
She was pulled from her thoughts when the door opened, and she flew into her brother's arms. He looked tired but seeing his sister safe brought some life back into his eyes. "Come in, come in, get out of this cold."
She stepped into the warmth and immediately went to Juliette, picking up her sleeping baby and holding her close. Luka joined her, and they curled up on the comfortable couch next to the fire. She breathed in Juliette's scent and couldn't help but remember Alec, who had died protecting his girlfriend and child.
"You're thinking about Alec again, aren't you?" Luka asked knowingly.
Thea sighed and laid her head against Luka's shoulder. "He should be here right now," she stated. Thea had met Alec while working with HYDRA. Luka had warned her to not get too close, they couldn't trust anyone but each other and he could be the perfect opportunity for Echo to send someone to get close to them. Alec wasn't Echo though, and he and Thea had fallen in love. Against Luka' wishes, Thea trusted him enough and told him about their life and about her, how she was special. She didn't believe that she could love him any more than she already did but when all he did was pull her close and promise that he would protect her from anything that wanted to hurt her or Luka, her heart grew. Months later she found out that she was pregnant. She was so afraid that Echo would find out she was going to have a child and it be like her, so she ran. Alec convinced her to come back and together they worked on a plan to keep their child a secret. When Thea was beginning to show, they faked a sickness that required Thea to take a leave of absence and then went off the grid. Her and Luka moved in with Alec then so that Thea's house would look vacant during her time away in case someone came looking for her.
While they were supposedly gone, Luka came across information that confirmed that the absence stirred up Echo. There were multiple resources deployed to try and find her to keep tabs on the situation. Luka was able to forge medical records that would trace back to out of the country and it seemed like Echo backed off then. After Juliette was born, Thea went back to work while Luka cared for Juliette when she or Alec couldn't be there.
The love that Alec had for Thea and Juliette finally convinced Luka to trust him, but it was soon too late. Someone tried looking into Thea's absence once more; they knew that something was going on though they never figured out how. Juliette was about a month old when someone followed Thea home to Alec's house. Alec found a man watching Thea from the living room window through a slit in the curtain when he went out for more firewood. Alec attacked him to keep his families secret, but the man managed to get the upper hand and stabbed him. Thea reached him just in time during the fight and managed to kill the man. She made Luka watch Juliette while she got Alec into the truck and took him to the hospital within HYDRA. He died later that night when his oxygen line exploded in a 'freak accident.' The Echo agents who were a part of HYDRA knew that Alec and Thea were close, and they sent their condolences, but not before Thea hacked into their system and saw the video. Echo agents had entered the room and questioned Alec about what had happened that night and what he knew about her. Alec wouldn't say a word, so they murdered him.
It was so hard to continue working and pretending that she never saw the video before its mysterious deletion. At least she knew then a few of the agents who were in Project Echo, and one was a very close friend of hers. Luka was her rock during that time, and he still was. He was already retired by the time she had met Alec and by going off the grid after being diagnosed with cancer, HYDRA presumed him to be dead. Thea played along with their presumption and confirmed it when they investigated. They didn't like when agents were cut loose. Later he was able to care for his niece so that Thea could continue to work and monitor the Echo situation from within HYDRA. Project Echo still had no idea that the Grekov siblings knew about them.
"Do you remember being Katya at all?" Luka asked as he adjusted his position.
She didn't, that was the one life she couldn't remember at all. She remembered bits and pieces when she was Oksana but it was never Katya. "I've told you I can't. I like to think I do from fathers' stories, how we all used to be so happy, mom too." She knew Anatoli and Valentina weren't her real parents, and Luka wasn't her real brother, but they were the closest thing she had. After she had drowned and came back to life as a newborn, Valentina treated her life as Oksana differently than she had Katya's. Luka remembered how mean his mother was towards his now little sister. Anatoli had told them eventually that she couldn't handle the secrets anymore, the constant fear that HYDRA would find out about them and separate them all. She turned to alcohol and tried to kill Oksana at one point until Anatoli stopped her. That same night, she went to her favorite bar and got so drunk that she talked. Several men were there from HYDRA whom recognized her as Anatoli's wife. They were on the research team that Anatoli was a major part of. Anatoli guessed that the night HYDRA caught on was the night Project Echo was started. It was also the night he found his wife dead and started his life on the run with his two children when a small HYDRA team came after them.
"I can't believe how hard dad fought to protect us. He could have just gotten rid of me and your lives would have gone back to normal." Luka shot a glare at her to which Thea rolled her eyes. "I know, I know, he loved me like his own, but I still feel like I killed him."
Luka grabbed her free hand as he sighed. "Like you said Thea, he could have taken me and ran, but he didn't. He knew that the prolonged exposure to you was draining him, but he was terrified that if he left your side, you would come across some one else with powers and you would lose his abilities. Echo was after us and would have for sure killed you at some point, and you wouldn't ever come back. He couldn't stand that thought Thea, he loved you. And it terrifies me every day you go out there; if you died this time, there is no coming back. Dad is gone, and so are his Lazarus abilities you fed off of.
Thea's powers were extremely unique; she had the ability to absorb the powers from other gifted individuals. It would go unnoticed indefinitely until she was within a short range of a new gifted individual. Anatoli had the ability to bring the dead back to life and if he was to die, he would just come back as he was. It is unknown exactly why Thea becomes an infant again, but Anatoli eventually worked out that it was because her mother had to have been experimented on, either willingly or against her will was unknown. He concluded that whatever injections she was given at conception wanted to self-preserve itself and lengthen its lifespan. By absorbing Anatoli's powers, it reacted differently with whatever Thea carried in her body, and self-preserved by starting its host's lifecycle over again.
Anatoli was terrified by the thought. He knew that the Black Widow was Thea's mother, but he had no idea if she agreed to the twisted experimentation on her child or not. For this reason, he always told his children that she was a bad person and would come after them one day. He never told them though that she was Thea's mother, and that the god clothed in green was most likely the father.
Over time, Anatoli's powers became less effective, and he lost the ability to bring things back to life. The first time he used them to save the baby from the grave started his demise. His work started to suffer and eventually Project Lazarus died out because of it.
Project Lazarus was created in 1945 when Anatoli willingly joined HYDRA at age 28. He wanted to learn more about his abilities and at the time was a HYDRA sympathizer. He helped found the project and used his abilities for experimentation. The team tried to use his blood to develop a serum to help agents in the field were killed. Anatoli was injected with so many things and countless experiments were run during his service. He had become HYDRA's best kept secret and one of their most important assets. Over the years, he grew to hate HYDRA's methods and how they viewed the world. The night he found Thea was a turning point for him and he made a vow to try and foil many of HYDRA's plans and do his part in ridding the world of its evils. The project was halted shortly after 1959, which was a year after Thea died as Katya when she drowned. Being around her during those five years of raising her had drained his abilities, and after more experimentation, it was concluded that it was the result of a bad experiment. He tried to sell that theory and it worked, but only partially.
There was an outside contributor to Project Lazarus who became suspicious when he discovered that Anatoli's daughter had died, and they immediately 'adopted' another. At first, he believed that Anatoli did in fact still have the ability to raise the dead, but was suspicious when his new child was a newborn. He sent a secret team of agents, some who he had working in Project Lazarus as well, to investigate. To his surprise, the newborn looked extremely similar to Katya, and the way the family interacted with her was like they had known her for years. Her eye color struck his curiosity as well, he had heard about something like that before. Like his father, he couldn't stop there since something was bugging him about the way the child looked. He went back through old records that he had inherited from his father and found what he was looking for. There couldn't have been a coincidence as great as this, so he formed a secret organization and called it Echo. Like an echo from the past, his goal was to try and replicate the experiment, but he had to be positive first.
Luka and Thea didn't know much about Project Echo, only small bits and pieces they had all put together when Anatoli discovered them. He was the one who found out why they were after Thea, and it wasn't just because she was Anatoli's 'daughter.' Anatoli promised that he would tell them why Echo was after them, but he never got the chance. He did tell them that everything was in his journal that he had hidden but warned them not to read it unless it was absolutely necessary. He said that Echo didn't have the full picture yet, at least they weren't certain, and that if they were ever captured and tortured for information, it would lead to even more horrible events.
"I want to find the journal," she stated simply until Luka sighed and pulled himself off the couch. He leaned against the fireplace before speaking to her like he had the past hundred times she had asked.
"You know that's a bad idea Thea, dad warned us that it could lead to more trouble."
She pulled Juliette closer before talking back to him. "Don't you think we are in enough trouble as it is? The Black Widow found me, Echo found me, and now I don't think anywhere is safe. Whatever he's been hiding might be able to help us. Maybe there is a key to where I came from that could help us."
Luka saw sense in it, he really did, but he knew she couldn't go alone. His health had severely declined in the past year and he would only slow them down. Not to mention their number one priority, keeping Juliette a secret. "Thea no, we can just run again and start over somewhere..."
"No, you listen Luka," she said angrily as she gently rose from the couch and put Juliette back in her makeshift crib. "No matter where we go, they are going to find us. Maybe dad left us a Plan B, in case we ever got into trouble. Have you ever thought of that? I've got to think of Juliette too, if anything were to ever happen to her and there was a way to have prevented it, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. I need you to think about this Luka, I'm tired of running. Dad died to save us and ill be damned if I don't take that chance and try."
"Did you know that when Anatoli told me about you for the first time that I never thought of you any differently than my own flesh and blood?"
Thea sighed as she calmed down. "Yes, you told me. And from what I can remember, you also cried like a little baby."
"I cried, yes, but not because of you. I cried because I was terrified for you. All I wanted to do was protect my sister even more from the bad men. As dad talked to us in that little warehouse corner, I remember you holding onto your doll in a death grip, like you were afraid someone would rip it away from you."
Thea smiled at Luka when he got that far away look in his eye and they both became lost in their memories
Anatoli had just arrived back at the warehouse and looked disheveled, like something bad had happened. They were staying there temporarily while they were on the run and he pushed them into a corner and threw a tarp over their bodies. He didn't even have to say anything for the young children to be quiet, they learned to sense the danger on their 3 years of being on the run since their mother was murdered.
Little 6 year old Oksana clutched her doll while 9 year old Luka had his hand on the knife his father had given him the week before. They could hear the tiniest of creaks, a slight rub of fabric, and feel the slight breeze of someone passing them before leaving the room again. To anyone else they wouldn't have even noticed, but after being on the run for so long, they knew that someone was looking for them and had almost found them.
The three of them stayed under the tarp for another hour in total silence, not even moving an inch until Anatoli slid from beneath their cover and disappeared. He came back 20 minutes later and let them know that everything was alright. The children came out and Oksana ran to Anatoli and let the tears she had been holding back free.
"Luka, come here, I think you are ready to know the truth." He pulled up two empty crates and sat Oksana on his lap while Luka sat beside his father.
Luka had been waiting for this moment. Anatoli had told him some, just not in front of Oksana.
"I need you to listen too 'Sana, this is very important okay?" The little red head looked up at him with her brilliant purple eyes and nodded with her thumb in her mouth.
"The night I found you Oksana, you weren't of this earth anymore. I took it upon myself to bring you back to life and raise you as my own. In that life, you were called Katya and we loved you very much. I am not your real father, and the mother you knew was not your birth mother."
"What do you mean 'in that life'?" Luka asked as he grew confused.
"You see children, I'm special. I have the gift to bring things back to life. Working with HYDRA, we tried to develop a... medicine to help wounded agents; but as soon as Katya came into our lives, it stopped working right. It wasn't until you were 2 years old Luka, when we lost Katya that I discovered how special she was. There was an accident and she drowned. By the time I got to her it was too late. I tried to use my powers to bring her back, but they were drained. But you..." he said as she gently shook Oksana in his lap, "you came back to us."
Oksana giggled, and Luka pieced together a bad dream he used to have of a little girl with red hair floating down the river. He must have been there and remembered a small piece of it.
"The bad guys that are chasing us, are after you Oksana, because you are special. The bad man in charge will never stop until he either has you, or until you are dead. As long as I live I will never let that happen, do you hear me?" he asked as the little girl looked up at him teary eyed.
"Me too," little Luka said with determination. "I don't care where she came from, she's my little sister and always will be."
Anatoli smiled at his children and pulled them both close.
They then thought back to the last time they ever saw their father.
It was many years after Anatoli told them the story in the old warehouse. It was now 1991 and they had been in hiding all over the world, each time being discovered by Echo. Oksana was now in her adult years at 33 and Luka was 36. She had just stared the man behind it all in the face before being shot in the arm; Echo had caught up to them, again. She was alone with the man after being split up from her brother and father. The malice that flashed in the mans eyes reminded her of pure evil, but thanks to Anatoli's training, she managed to escape.
Gripping her bleeding arm, she tried finding her missing family. It took nearly 20 minutes of fighting her way through the plethora of agents before she found Luka on the second level. He grabbed her as she ran down the hall and pulled her into an empty room, covering her mouth to keep her from crying out in surprise. After a few seconds, he released her and inspected her arm.
"'Sana are you okay? Where's dad?" he asked before ripping off a piece of his shirt to wrap around her bleeding arm.
"I don't know, I was hoping he was with you."
They then became silent as a group of men made their way down the hall and passed their room.
"We need to find him," Oksana stated as she gripped the door knob.
"You know the rules, get out while you can and meet at the rendezvous point. He's probably already there."
It was then that they heard gunfire erupt on the floor above them. There was only one person in the building that they could be shooting at right now.
"Dad..." Oksana pleaded before running from the room to try and rescue her father. There was no way Luka could talk her our of it now, so he followed hard on her heels up the stairs and paused behind the door. They would only have a few seconds to get Anatoli out of there, if even possible, before the rest of the agents file onto that floor.
Luka took charge and held up his fingers, counting down from five. When the last digit was down, they rushed in with guns blazing. Luka took on most of the fire to distract the agents while Oksana ran to the crumpled figure laying on the floor. She knew it was her father, so she grabbed his arm and pulled him up, pushing him into the closest room. Luka finished off the remaining men and dived into the room his family had gone into.
He was met with the stench of blood and from the look on Oksana's face, their father was hurt, bad. Rushing over to him, he tried to grab his hand, but Anatoli was struggling to reach into his pocket instead. His fingers were fumbling too much so Luka reached in for him and found a folded piece of paper with what looked like coordinates on it.
"The journal I told you about, that's where it is..." he choked out as blood dribbled from his mouth.
"Dad stop, you're going to be okay," Oksana said as she tried reassuring him. It was a lost cause, they could see that he wasn't going to make it.
"Anatoli!" They heard from the other side of the door. "Give me the girl!"
Luka looked all around for another way out, but they were trapped. Could this be the end?
"I have the entire building rigged with explosives, either give me the girl now, or you all die.
Anatoli then used the rest of his energy to try and fight back. "She is already dead! Your men shot her. The last of my abilities are gone, she isn't coming back this time!" He then pulled a knife from his belt and looked at Oksana in sorrow. They had to make the lie look believable, so she squeezed her lavender eyes closed as Anatoli cut her across the middle. It would bleed a lot, but it wouldn't kill her.
She stayed quiet as the blade cut across her skin, and Luka in the mean time tried to come up with a plan.
"Her body is already gone," Anatoli continued, "you can't hurt her ever again."
"OPEN THIS DOOR NOW!" the man screamed. He was angry, this was his life's work, his father's work.
Oksana then choked back a sob when Anatoli started convulsing in her arms. It took only seconds until he then became still.
"Dad?" Luka asked, hoping that he would hear him and wake up. When he didn't move, he felt for a pulse, but there wasn't one.
His dad was dead, and he wasn't able to come back this time. His head shot up to the heavily bleeding Oksana who just looked back up at him in horror. He had to get her out of there before backup arrived and he lost her too.
"As soon as its safe, run," he ordered.
"Luka what...?" she whispered before watching her brother dart to the door and silently unlock it. He gave his sister one last nod before shooting out and tackling the man on the other side. They hit the old window and it shattered from their weight, causing them to drop quickly from the third story to the first, onto the thick patch of snow.
Luka recovered moments after the other man did, but his heart dropped to is knees when he saw the detonator in his hands, already pushed. Not even a second later did the building explode, carrying them both back to the ground from the blast. The other man was knocked out, but Luka was fortunate enough just to have a terrible headache.
He watched as the building came down. Three stories fell on top of his father and sister and it was likely all his fault for causing it. Once the brick stopped falling, he scoured what was left of the building, climbing on top of the rubble to search for any signs of life. There was just so much destruction and the chaos of the moment made him almost miss the sound. A tiny cry, almost inaudible, sounded fewer than ten feet to his left. He ran to the source and started throwing rubble to the side to reach what he knew was underneath, his sister. After what felt like ages, he finally saw her, a child again, surrounded in a pool of blood. His heart stopped for a moment but then he remembered the gash his father had given her to make his story more believable. He had to of known that something of this magnitude would happen, and leaving Oksana's blood trail would help confirm it.
Realizing that the man after them could wake at any moment, he ripped off his shirt and covered the baby with it. He held her close as he ran, not even knowing where he could hide anymore. His only hope was that the blood left behind along with his father would make the man and his team stop following them.
Hearing the wind begin to howl outside pulled them both from their thoughts and Luka pulled Thea close. "You know it tore my heart in two to leave dad there the night you both died, but I had to get you to safety before you know who woke up."
Thea smiled at her brother and then buried her face into his chest. "Anatoli was a good father, and I think you did a pretty good job of raising me. You raised me to be the person I am today, and I don't know how I could ever repay you."
"You know," Luka began, "I had no idea how to care for a baby. And the second I realized that you couldn't absorb dad's powers anymore, I became ten times more scared. If you ever died again, that's it, you can't ever come back. It terrifies me every day you go out there."
"I know, I know, but that's life."
They both sighed and turned to face the fire, both trying to think of where to go next.
"Pardon the interruption..." a dark voice said from behind them, "but you have something that I need."
The pair spun around and found the intruder holding a sleeping Juliette in his arms.
"No..." Thea pleaded as her gaze locked onto her baby in the intruder's arms. The fear came off her in waves and the tension in the room could be cut with a knife. "Take me and leave my daughter alone. I'm what Project Echo wants, and I will go willingly so long as you give her back to me."
"I'm not a part of this... Project Echo. I simply came for the flash drive," he said mischievously.
Thea's gaze then snapped up to the man. He was clothed in green and had raven black hair. Whoever he was, he didn't exactly look like one of Echo's goons but nevertheless, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the drive. The man was a good distance away, so she slowly approached him as she silently begged for her child's safety. When she was close enough, she discovered his brilliant green eyes and grew confused when he audibly gasped and stared her directly in her own eyes. Ignoring it, she held out the drive as tears sprung from her lilac eyes. "Please, give her back."
When the man didn't move, she took another tentative step forward, but the man took one step back and held Juliette closer.
"Who are you?" he asked her.
"Thea..."
"No," he said as he cut her off. "When were you born?"
Confused, she answered with "1991."
"No," he said not believing her. "No, it was 1953, wasn't it?"
Shocked that he knew this, Thea turned to look back at Luka who hadn't moved in fear that it would anger the man holding onto is niece. He looked just as shocked as she was, so she turned back to the man and nodded yes. She would tell him anything at all if it meant keeping her daughter safe.
The man then approached Thea without hesitation and she had to fight the instinct to hurt him. She didn't want to accidently hurt Juliette instead. She was confused once again when the man pushed Juliette into her arms and then embraced her in a hug.
"I buried you, I thought you were dead..."