Title: The Girl Who Wouldn't Get in Line
Author: caramelsilver
Fandom: Anastasia
Characters: Comrade Phlegmenkoff, Anya
Rating: PG
Word count: 2200
Warnings: None.
Prompt: 8) Could I write all, the world would turn to stone.-Caterina Sforza (early 1463-1509), Italian warrior-ruler of Imola and Forli, in a letter to her professor, written from a prison cell in Rome.

Summary: Comrade Phlegmenkoff had never had a child in her care quite like little Anya.

AN: Written for the femgenficathon on LJ. Thank you to han_corrupted for the beta.

The Girl That Wouldn't Get in Line

Only a week prior, the city had been in chaos and the end of the Russian Empire had been a reality. The royal family had been killed and communism had been instated.

The day had been unusually cold when she had opened the door of her orphanage and looked down at the young red-haired girl standing between two policemen.

Comrade Phlegmenkoff was the matron of the orphanage out of need, not because she cared much for children. The orphanage had once belonged to her mother. When her mother died, Phlegmenkoff had taken over because that was just the way things worked. She had seen many children come and go in her time. A lucky few got adopted; some died during the awfully cold winters; but most grew up and left when they turned eighteen.

None of the children had been anything special. Sure, some had had a good singing voice, and another was a good dancer, but that didn't change the fact that all of them would end up with a miserable job in the nearest village as soon as they were old enough to work. But little Anya had been different from the start.

"What's your name girl?" Phlegmenkoff barked.

The girl was exceptionally pretty, with auburn hair and the clearest blue eyes comrade Phlegmenkoff had ever seen. But right now those pretty blue eyes looked at her with confusion.

"I- I don't know, madame," said the small girl, unfailingly polite despite her lack of an answer to a perfectly normal question.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Phlegmenkoff continued to bark. "And it's not madame! I'm comrade Phlegmenkoff and you are to address me as such!"

"I'm sorry, m- comrade Phlegmenkoff, I can't remember my name," the girl said, calm and collected.

"You can't remember your name?" Phlegmenkoff said slowly, not quite believing what she heard. She turned to the policemen. "Is this true, comrades policemen?" she asked brusquely, wondering if this was some trick.

The two policemen nodded. "We found her wandering the streets by herself. It was decided that we should bring her here."

Nodding, Phlegmenkoff looked back at the child with a searching look. "What do you remember?"

"Nothing. I just remember walking the streets alone, and there was a lot of fighting." The girl's voice was small, and soft. Playing with the cuff of her clearly expensive coat, the girl refused to completely meet her eye.

Knowing that she didn't really have any other choice, a decision from the government had to be followed, Comrade Phlegmenkoff nodded and shooed the girl inside. She had of course expected the girl to get her memory back within a few days, and hopefully they'd find her family. Not being made of money, Comrade Phlegmenkoff knew that one more mouth to feed was never a good thing.

After a day, Phlegmenkoff sat down with the girl and told her that they couldn't continue to just call her "the new girl" and was she sure that she couldn't remember her name? Screwing up her face, as if thinking was very hard, the girl finally said, "I think my name starts with an A. That's the letter that sounds the most right in my head."

"A," comrade Phlegmenkoff said, drawing out the letter. "We'll call you Anya, then. We haven't had an Anya in years."

And that was that. The girl had become little Anya. But she still held out hope that the child would regain her memory.

When days turned into weeks, Phlegmenkoff resigned herself to the fact that she'd gotten another child to take care of. The first thing she did was to sell the clothes the girl had arrived in. The coat alone would keep the house warm the entire winter. Anya had resisted surprisingly hard in letting her coat go. Though it had not been up to the girl- in the orphanage everything belonged to everyone, and it would simply not be fair that the new girl got to walk around in expensive clothes.

"It's one of the only connections I have to my past!" Anya wailed, gripping the coat tightly to her chest.

Comrade Phlegmenkoff snorted and ripped it out of her small hands. "This will feed everyone in this house for a month. You don't want to deprive your new friends food, do you?"

Anya turned her gaze away and mumbled a small, "No."

"No, what!" Phlegmenkoff barked with one eyebrow raised. They had previously talked about how Phlegmenkoff was to be talked to.

"No, comrade Phlegmenkoff, I don't want to deprive my new friends food," Anya chanted dutifully.

Phlegmenkoff nodded, pleased that Anya caught on quickly. "Good."

As little Anya settled in, it was easy to see that she was not used to a life like this. Which puzzled Phlegmenkoff since the life here was better than other places. What kind of life had this girl been born into?

When the same food was placed in front of her three days in a row, Anya had screwed up her nose, and haughtily asked if it wasn't possible to get something else, please? Even when she was being rude the girl managed to be polite.

Phlegmenkoff had given her a smack on the head and a stern talking to, and told her that in no circumstances did she have the right to look down on the things she was given. She should be down on her knees praising God that she was here, and not wandering the streets on her own. The next time she was ungrateful, Anya should expect a beating.

Despite her brattish comments, the other children warmed to her quickly. They all swarmed around her and liked to hear her talk. The girl had an amazing gift for story-telling, and the children sat as lit candles around her when she started to tell.

Once Phlegmenkoff had stayed to hear one of Anya's stories and had been truly impressed. The girl told stories of princesses like she knew what she was talking about. Her descriptions of palaces and gardens were so life-like that one little girl, Natasha, had asked Anya shyly if she had ever been in a real palace before?

Anya stopped in the middle of a sentence and looked at Natasha with a wondrous look on her face. As if a memory had just surfaced. Phlegmenkoff stopped her knitting for a second, listening, hoping this might be when Anya got her memories back. But the moment passed and Anya laughed and swatted the little girl. "No, of course not, silly! At least not from what I remember!"

Everyone in the orphanage knew that Anya didn't remember her past. It wasn't something she hid, so it didn't take long before they all knew. But still, it was hard to remember, when it came to the little things. Asking someone how they liked their tea should be answered immediately, not with an "I don't know."

In the nights, Anya could be heard waking up screaming. "Grandmama! Grandmama! Don't leave me," she'd yell out into the darkness. The other children would take care of her, because they all knew that there would be trouble if comrade Phlegmenkoff had to be woken. But sometimes Anya's screams were sometimes too loud that she heard them anyway. She didn't go in to console the child, because she had never done so before, and Anya was nothing special. Still, Phlegmenkoff couldn't help but wonder if Anya's grandmother was out there somewhere waiting for her.

Watching the child, Phlegmenkoff decided that the girl must have been born into high society. She had impeccable table manners, and her back was ramrod straight no matter what she sat on. The girl practically oozed privilege. And in this day and age that was not a good thing, so Phlegmenkoff was determined to beat it out of her.

The years went past, and Anya grew out of her more annoying traits. She learned to like and eat every meal that was put in front of her, she learned that she would not always get to go first, or be given the largest part of anything. She still didn't drink tea, but that was simply because she didn't like it, and no one was forcing her to drink it, seeing how expensive it was nowadays.

Still, she was strange that girl. She didn't listen and at eighteen it still seemed like she felt like she was better than everyone else. Hah! When would little Anya understand that she was nobody? Maybe she had been somebody, who knew, but no one had ever come to claim her. She was an orphan with no money, what did it matter that she could play the piano? Where she was going in life- the fish factory- those skills would do her no good!

Comrade Phlegmenkoff had watched that girl grow up, she had watched every boy in the house fall in love with her, and she had watched Anya pay none of them any mind.

Take Peter, for instance: Peter was one year older than Anya and had been in love with her ever since she had arrived. When he left at eighteen he had heavily hinted at marriage as soon as Anya left too. Phlegmenkoff didn't think Anya got any of Peter's hints, even when he came to see her every other weekend. If there was one thing comrade Phlegmenkoff knew it was that little Anya would never be Peter's fishing wife. Anya had talked about leaving this place from the moment she realised that she couldn't get a second blanket when it was cold.

Anya was going to Paris! Hah! She had talked non-stop about Paris and whoever had given her the locket. The locket had been the only thing the little girl had been allowed to keep, everything else she had arrived in had been sold.

Since they didn't know when Anya was born, Phlegmenkoff had decided that when ten years had gone past, that would be the time to send her off. When Anya's eighteenth year came to a close, comrade Phlegmenkoff dutifully went to the fishing village to find Anya a job. Even though she knew somewhere in the back of her mind that Anya would never take the job, Phlegmenkoff still made sure that the girl had one when she left the orphanage. When the fishing factory agreed to give Anya a job, it felt like a million ton had been lifted from Phlegmenkoff's shoulders. She had done her duty, she had made sure that the child didn't die, and now she had secured her immediate future as well. In a few days she would be free of the insufferable brat who had thought herself too good for everything Phlegmenkoff had given her.

When the day finally arrived, Phlegmenkoff was restless to get the girl out of the house.

"Don't go, Anya! Please don't go!"

The children stood around Anya, now grown into a tall beautiful young woman, some of them was crying and clutching her coat. Anya was hugging and petting their heads, telling them that everything would be fine. Phlegmenkoff noticed that she didn't promise to come and visit them, like everyone else always did before leaving. They rarely kept their promise, and Phlegmenkoff wondered if that was why Anya didn't say it. Merely because she knew she couldn't keep it? Because she remembered being one of those children watching a loved friend leave and never come back? Anya would never promise anything she couldn't keep.

As she dragged the girl out of the house by the scarf she had knitted for her, Phlegmenkoff was both happy and a little sad to see Anya go. Yes, she had been a thorn in her side for the moment she arrived. Yes, the girl had never really adapted to this way of life, and always seemed to expect the best or something more. When would the girl understand that there wasn't anything more? It was time that Anya learned that to get by in this world she had to work for it! That was just the way the world worked. Anya was eighteen now, it was time to get in line. But the girl had never been boring. It had never seemed like Anya had bothered her on purpose, and she had always been unfailingly polite, even when she was being yelled at.

The gate made a loud clanking sound as she shut it behind Anya. Phlegmenkoff did not give herself a moment to look after the child. She was a matron of an orphanage out of need, not love.

When, a few days later, she got word from the fish factory telling her that "her orphan had never showed. We're giving away her job. Next time, make sure they show up!" Phlegmenkoff wasn't too surprised.

finis.