Svetlana in Olive Drab

But she already knew.

After a moment, she saw the shadow on that flooring and she heard the tone of the voice, so she looked up into the face of the pretty female ER surgeon.

"I'm sorry," the doctor began, but Natalia's gaze slipped down then as she nodded.

She didn't really hear the rest of it. She didn't need to.

She just began to cry quietly.

Her sister Nicoleta, the only person she had left -- the only one who'd given her life a purpose was gone, a victim of physics -- the same science which had driven her to seek out this place in which to live, far from her home, only in her case, it had been the interaction of far larger objects than molecules.

They were the products of a broken and severely fucked-up home -- which she'd run away from as often as she'd been able to. One night, when her drunken parents had yelled and screeched at each other long enough, the pair of them had just passed out. Natalia had gotten out of bed and after a long and tearful hug with her little sister, who bravely promised that she'd never tell of their long talks and hopeful plans together, she'd snuck out then, with her little bag packed and a bit of a smile on her face while wondering how their parents had managed to argue themselves into unconsciousness at almost the same time.

She slipped out of the door silently to the background chorus of snoring and almost skipped off to the train station. The only bad part -- the really shitty part had been leaving her ten year-old sibling behind, but there had been no other way. Natalia stole back like a thief a few times to see Nikky, and she often worried for her.

That night, she bought a ticket to a city which had little in the way of industry or the mines which blighted the landscape with their tailings, and second-best of all, there was no constant cloud of shit in the air. She chose a city which was a bit of an economic and administrative center and the best part was that it lay over a hundred kilometers from the hole that she'd just crawled out of. She didn't know how, but if she could get some sort of life held together for herself with adhesive tape, she'd try to make it a home for them both and then she'd go and pull Nikky out of the same shithole.

She found work almost right away and it was murder to keep up her schooling, but she did it and at eighteen, no one could tell her no, and she never saw her parents again.

The 'work' was something that she hadn't wanted to be doing, but the money, ...

For a very short time -- two months, until she'd decided that she wouldn't fall into the trap of the cash like so many of the others -- Natalia had been a stripper in one of the best clubs in the city. The first night was awful, but it grew easier fairly quickly. A lot of the other dancers had come with the same idea, but they'd stayed.

Natalia had never planned to stay long and the night that a drunken customer had lost a large measure of his self-control while she was performing a lap dance had finished it for her.

He seized her and wouldn't let her go. He held onto her so tightly that she had bruises on her left breast and right thigh for a little while after and she had the devil's own time keeping her thighs together tightly enough to thwart his attempts to get his fingers into her. One look at those fat, nicotine-stained digits and their black-edged fingernails and she'd almost thrown up.

It still made her shiver with revulsion. But she'd looked to catch the eye of one of the solid 'problem-solvers' which the place employed. All it had taken was eye contact between them. The man had seen her wide eyes and then he'd looked past her and nodded, pointing at Natalia.

The next thing that she knew, the grabby Czech truck driver's head was being bent back at a painful angle and she was free. She got to her feet and ran for the dressing room.

She looked back long enough to see that there were four men hustling the man out as forcefully and as quickly as possible. She'd only looked back because of the sound of the man yelling out that he'd only be waiting for her to leave later.

The bouncers in that club were a little famous all over the city for dealing quietly and efficiently with disturbances whenever an idiot decided to put up a fight. And one of their priorities -- very high on the list there -- was to assure the safety of the dancers and her drunken admirer had just said the wrong magic words.

As she entered the dressing room corridor, she saw that he was quiet then.

They were dragging him to the door unconscious and bleeding from his nose and his mouth. These were professionals and before anyone even knew what was happening, it was over and they were pulling him out. They could do that and most of the patrons wouldn't even notice if it happened beside them. She saw that right through the smoke of the place.

She knew that the man wouldn't be waiting for her when she left. She knew that because of the other thing which those bouncers were a little famous for in a very quiet way.

Say something -- anything at all which might be taken as your intent to wait for a dancer outside and you'd wake up with an intensely painful reason to seek medical attention instead. Broken arms and legs went a long way toward changing stupid and drunken plans. In about three minutes or less, that man would wake up from a sudden and new pain in a pitch black alleyway and never see the men who had inflicted it.

Natalia said that she was alright when she'd been asked, but she never went back. She had more than enough money for a good start and for her schooling anyway. If she'd had another month, it would have been enough to go to the authorities on her sister's behalf and step forward as the sibling who had a stable life to offer -- even if it wasn't completely so just yet.

It had been the dream of a pair of sisters to help each other find a better life. The two idiots who'd created them during what Natalia could only surmise as periods of fucking while almost blind drunk probably never knew that it had been Natalia at first and then Nikky who'd always waited until they were both passed out before they got out of their beds and covered their parents with blankets and then returned to bed. Natalia wondered if they even knew that she was not there anymore yet.

For a time after that, Natalia was a model, which also paid stupidly good money, since she was a fresh new face. Natalia did go home then with her heart full to bursting with determination that she was going to be leaving with Nikky so that at least she might be able to have the latter part of her childhood to live.

But that was when Natalia had the incredibly surreal moment when she'd gone to the apartment block where both of the girls had been born, only to find that her family had moved. No one knew where they'd gone.

She met a Serbian girl through a modeling assignment and then she had her first friend in Zorka and her Romanian boyfriend, Matai.

But then she'd met Jerczy and the two of them just clicked. They were young and in love and there was nothing wrong with the world at all for a time.

It was a year or so after their simple wedding that Natalia began to watch in a little horror as her fine man began to turn into a roaring drunk like her father.

It ruined everything and Natalia looked forward to the relatively few times that Jerczy had to work late, because those were her nights to cry. She'd put her journalism studies on hold for a time, but then she was back at it with a feeling in her heart that one day, she'd have to make a living out of a craft that she'd always loved.

Then she'd gotten pregnant.

Jerczy was incredibly happy when she told him, but he didn't spend much of any time with her. He just celebrated without her pretty much, as though the impregnating of her was some herculean task which only a real man could accomplish. He stayed drunk for three days -- even going to work smashed. For her part, Natalia saw it for what it was; just another excuse to blow more money on bottles and their contents.

Natalia lost her baby late in the first trimester. She was hurt and upset and alone almost all of the time, but she preferred it to her husband's company by then.

Jerczy kept a look on his face as though he was having the thought that it had been her fault somehow and by then -- if the stupid prick had worked up the nerve to only say it to her, Natalia would likely have killed him for it. She finally finished her studies and found a job writing for a hip and trendy half-underground sort of publication, but it had a huge circulation and it paid well enough.

And somewhere, as she stumbled though the dark clouds which her life had become, Natalia saw the shock of slightly orange-looking blonde hair and almost fell back against a newspaper box in shock the day that she'd seen someone whom she'd worried about ever since she'd left home.

There on the opposite corner just stepping off the curb, walking quickly to get away from a herd of boys with their intentions clearly written on their faces -- there doing her best to walk as though she knew where she was going, though she really had no clue where to begin to look -now that she'd gotten this far in her search -- was Nicoleta. She was thirteen now, looking like she was trying to give the impression that she was nineteen.

Natalia thought that the only ones who were dumb enough to buy that shit were the boys, but they wouldn't buy it forever. It was coming apart even at that moment.

Nikky was just about halfway across the busy street when one boy grabbed her arm and she almost cried out in panic and fear. If they'd gotten this brave, Natalia thought, then Nikky's charade was just about crumbled. Nikky turned and almost screamed at them to leave her alone and it sounded like a thirteen year-old girl's plea then.

Natalia gritted her teeth as she pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head and began to walk.

Nikky hadn't seen her older sister yet, and Natalia strode quickly and purposefully toward the little drama. The light had almost changed and there were already some motorists leaning on their horns, not caring, just needing to get somewhere impatiently.

The one holding the young girl's arm looked ahead then in a bit of shock into the face that he saw and Natalia grabbed his arm in a death grip just as he released Nikky's arm. She pulled hard on that arm, using it to increase her momentum, ... so that she could plant her knee right between his legs.

It was perfect.

He grunted and then froze, staring as he began to double over.

By the time that he'd laid his head down against the cobblestones, Natalia was hot and everything came out of her as she planted her army surplus combat boot in between the arms which reflexively held his bruised privates.

Bang. She'd nailed his solar plexus and stepped over him to grab her sister's arm. Nicoleta hadn't even had time to absorb what had just happened, let alone who it had been who had come out of the throng of faceless people crossing the intersection in the opposite direction.

A second boy in the group backed away with bruised ribs from Natalia's second kick, and she'd skinned her knuckle against the third one's jaw, hitting him hard enough to cause him to reel right around and plant his face against the grille of a delivery truck. That one and the other two ran off then as Natalia's loud and angry curses turned most of the strangers' eyes.

A single driver had the lack of sufficient IQ points necessary to keep his thumb off the horn at that point and Natalia smashed one of his headlights with her boot as she howled at him to fuck off and mind his business. He began to get out of his vehicle, but Natalia wasn't done yet. As she watched his beefy fingers curl over the top of the door so that he could lever his fat ass out, she'd thrown her body -- with her sister trailing along by the hand against the door with her own shoulder.

The door closed on the man's fingers as he was knocked back inside at the same time.

"Run!" she hissed at her sister and the two of them tore off the way that Natalia had come hand in hand, their short orangey hair making them stand out as they ran. They didn't stop for blocks until they stood together both bent over a little with their ribs heaving from the exertion and their laughter. The moment of their happy reunion had to wait for three minutes at least.

"What are you doing here?" Natalia asked her sibling and Nicoleta burst into happy and relieved tears.

"I ran away. Papa is in jail for killing a man in a brawl. Mama drank herself to death a week later -- well, she drank herself unconscious again, but this time she'd taken the tranquilizers that the doctor had prescribed because she was upset that Papa was in jail. I found her in a puddle of her own vomit. She'd suffocated.

I called the police and then I left in the confusion," Nikky said, trying to stop sobbing and yet still laughing at how they'd met at the same time. They stood holding on to each other at the entrance to an alley for a long time after that, finally together again.

Natalia brought her sister to her home to stay with her and the first thing that she did was to introduce her little sister to her husband.

The second thing that she did was to grab him by his balls right through his jeans to tell him that if he so much as looked at her sister the wrong way, she'd gut him like a fish.

It went a way toward finishing what little relationship had been left after what Jerczy's drinking had done to erode it.

Three months later, Natalia was almost set to leave Jerczy. She'd managed to squirrel away enough to get them a little apartment and she'd set a date to do it, choosing a night when the city's soccer team would be playing a championship match.

But it never happened because it hadn't needed to happen.

Jerczy was like a lot of his friends from work. They were still in the bag from the semi-final match night before. But he went to work that day because he couldn't have one more absence on his record for the next year.

With the innate ability of a young working alcoholic, Jerczy somehow managed to get himself run over and crushed by the same bus that he'd been riding in only moments before.

Well the bus driver had been still drunk himself.

Natalia put everything into raising her sister, who returned top marks every time and together they planned for her higher academic learning. She didn't even miss Jerczy at all.

"What for?" she said to Nikky when she'd asked about it, "There was no love there. He turned into a man who lived here and thought that I had things to do for him. It was beginning again -- just like home. I used to look at things like our money and I always had to keep mine hidden. The bastard drank the rent money more than once. He could get paid on Friday and I'd find him looking through my purse for money on Monday and he knew full well that the rent was due on Tuesday.

I'd even catch him and he wasn't shy about it at all. I'd get mad then because he was turning me into the shrieking wife that I never ever wanted to be. I had to be that way. I finally figured out that screaming at the idiot that you married is about the only way to get him to piss off and leave you alone. Otherwise you work yourself to death for him and you get only sorrow.

I promise you, Nikky, I am not going to fall into the trap. It's right there and I can even see it. I will not turn into our mother. She fell into the bottle along with Papa. It's what happens so much here. For a lot of people, there is only the job and the bottle."

Natalia was just a girl born to a pair of working poor. She had been eleven when Nikky came along, a very late surprise. Somehow, Natalia had always known what her role would be. They were sisters who looked alike because of their hair and their features, but back then, it had been Natalia who had been more of a mother to Nikky. She did everything that she could and then she left for school. When she came back, she just took up the role once more and did her studies and homework as she went. Their mother didn't care much, when she even noticed it. As long as their father was out and pissed raising hell and as long as there was a working television and a bottle for their mother, things were at least quiet.

It was more Natalia who taught little Nicoleta to speak as well as everything else and she looked after her little sister without complaint because she knew that there was no one else. But at one point, it had become clear that they had to leave, because though Natalia would do anything for her sister and it went both ways by then, it was either her leaving to at least try to set the stage for them or she'd be doing everything for the four of them.

Her logical brain would allow the devotion of a daughter to her alcoholic parents only so much.

But by the point where they were left together after her husband's death, their relationship had changed and progressed in a slightly different and very unforeseen way. It had always been Natalia whose bed little Nikky had crawled into as a small child when their parent's constant fighting woke her up and upset her. Natalia could throw herself into taking care of them both since there was no other answer, but she was still a child herself and they needed each other, falling back to sleep in each other's arms almost every night back then.

To everyone who saw them they were obviously sisters, the only thing was their ages which set them apart. If it hadn't been for that, they could have passed as twins. They lived there and it allowed them to save some money toward Nicoleta's schooling. It helped that Nikky was considered a hardship case with a father in prison for manslaughter, a dead mother, and that she was living alone with her widowed older sister.

After Jerczy's death, Natalia had thrown out the wreck that she'd been sleeping in and bought a new bed, since they wouldn't be needing to rent another apartment. Nikky stopped sleeping on the sofa and the two of them went back to sleeping in each other's arms once more.

It happened very slowly to be sure, and it had been Natalia who'd dragged her feet almost every step of the way, but by the time that Nikky was eighteen, they'd just admitted what the younger one had always said and realized that their love had gone beyond a purely sisterly one, though that was what it always had been.

Neither one would have admitted to being 'one of those', since it didn't feel that way to either of them. They only knew that there was one person who would never hurt them, never have an agenda which wasn't worked out between them, and most of all, there was no other person who ever made each of them feel this way.

Nikky graduated at the top of her class and then she found a position for herself. The years went past as Nikky rose in recognition and that led to better and better jobs and money. Fifteen years later, they were living reasonably well and Nikky ran a government scientific group. That led to a bit of travel occasionally and before Natalia even knew it, Nicoleta had gone to another job in her field, but in another country on the other side of the world.

It was so hard for Natalia, but she'd done the right thing and she was so proud of her little sister.

But that wasn't the end, no.

Nikky begged Natalia to emigrate to where she was and at the first opportunity; Nicoleta sponsored her sister's immigration. All that remained then was to seek citizenship, which Natalia threw herself into, studying all that she could of her new land.

Together, the sisters looked for a place where they might have a home and that turned out to be a small house on a large lot in a largely rural township. The worst part would be shoveling the snow off the long driveway, but it hadn't come to either one's attention yet and there was room for as much gardening as they had the want to work at. Nikky then began to pester her older sibling about finally brushing up and re-finishing her journalism studies and that had finally come to pass too.