Get Out Alive
@anicka | Outfit

She knew that she needed to calm down. A part of her absolutely knew that. But she couldn’t. She had to go into the Atrium, to grab a coffee because she had needed a little bit of extra energy now that she was coming into the Ministry a bit earlier. Constance had gone down there, and it had been fine, she had been fine. She had gotten her coffee, and had been heading back to the office when someone had grabbed her shoulder and jerked her backwards. A part of her knew… she saw someone dart in front of her, and she knew that whoever was behind her had seen the collision before she had, and had been pulling her back to try to avoid her getting run down. But she didn’t know what it had snapped in her, she didn’t know what was wrong, but suddenly it had been like she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t draw in enough breaths, she couldn’t see straight. She had dropped her coffee—she barely even remembered that, but she had definitely dropped it, because she didn’t have it anymore. And then she had tried to make it back to the office. She knew that she needed to calm down by the time that she got there.

Athena had been at some meeting or another when she had went to get coffee, so she knew that she wasn’t there. Their intern wasn’t there, but her strýc was there, in his office. If she was lucky, he wouldn’t come out, and she wouldn’t have bad timing, and she didn’t think that she would. If the door to his office was closed, then he wouldn’t hear anything, and it would be fine. She just needed to calm down, because she was fine. She just needed to breathe, because nothing had happened, and nothing was honestly ever even going to happen. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t breathe, or calm down, and a part of her didn’t even know how she had made it to their offices. She didn’t know if anyone had gotten a good look at her, and if it was obvious how much she was panicking, or if she was hiding it better than she thought that she was, but she couldn’t even bring herself to care. She just had to get back here, and she had to calm down. But even when she had gotten to the familiar offices, she couldn’t breathe. The door to her strýc’s office was closed, but she couldn’t even feel relieved. She couldn’t calm down… not even here, in this quiet room, where she knew that everything was absolutely fine… she knew it was.

But that thought felt very far away from her. She couldn’t register that, couldn’t bring herself to honestly think that any of this was going to be okay. Constance dropped her purse on the ground by her desk, and tried to make her way to the bathroom was quickly as possible. She pulled open the door and stepped inside, but the moment she closed the door behind her, she couldn’t see. After blinking a few times, her brows furrowed, and she… was she back there? The bathroom looked different now. Smaller, darker, dirtier. It was the place she had been, the only room that she had seen when she had been kidnapped. It was the only other place that she had ever been, when her handcuffs had been taken off, and she had been taken in there to use the bathroom. Was she back there? Had she been all along, and she just was so far gone that she’d been hallucinating being back home this entire time? Merlin, she couldn’t breathe again, and she blinked a few more times to try to clear her vision, but it didn’t change. It was the small room, it was the warehouse, it felt like she was right back there. She shook her head, and stepped further into the bathroom. She wasn’t back there. This wasn’t real. She knew that she had been home, that they had found her, but she couldn’t get her vision to clear.

Get Out Alive
Outfit

There was nothing at all that Anicka liked about having to go up to the Ministry. She knew that going in to meet her daughter so that they could go to lunch, or to drop something by for her brother, was the extent of time that she was supposed to be here at all, but she didn’t care for it. There were a lot of things about it that she just didn’t want to remember, and the Minister’s office itself… Anicka hadn’t been up there since October. She hadn’t actually stepped foot in this place since she had been the one to burn the previous occupant of her brother’s office at the stake. She didn’t want to come back here, and she didn’t want to think about what had happened the last time she had been here. The past was the past… That’s where it had needed to stay. She didn’t want to relive any of it, she didn’t need to. The past was the past, and in the last month she thought that she was really, truly working on getting that to be true. Getting more and more confused by her life was something that she hadn’t thought that she would be dealing with, but coming into the Ministry, the last thing that she wanted to do was spend any more time here than necessary. It was funny really, that this of all places was the worst part for her. She thought that she could walk into Knockturn Alley, and head into the abandoned camp, and not be as affected as she was here… Here it was real. Here it was her that had been the monster. It was here that she had painted a target on her children’s back… That was what bothered her the most. She was the monster. She was the one that had gotten them hurt… and she knew that she had to answer for that. That eventually, she was going to have to answer for everything.

Anicka couldn’t let herself think about that though, because for now they were okay. For now nothing was going wrong, and there was no need for anyone to come calling. There were no need for an owl and an envelope, and there was no need for a trip. She had screwed up plenty, there were plenty of things that she was sure that she was in trouble for, and so she was doing her best to keep her head down, and keep all of the opinions off of herself. She had told her brother what she thought, she had given him an honest opinion, and then she had kept to herself. Her house, her kids, her boyfriend… She had kept to herself, because whatever it was that was going on over there, whatever it was that they were dealing with, she needed to try and stay out of it. She had talked to Ares, and she had talked to Aurora, and that was the end of it. She had said what it was that she wanted to say, and then there hadn’t been any more interaction. They lived less than 100 yards from one another, and she was avoiding them. Avoiding her brother, and going up to his office seemed contradictory, but she wasn’t going up there to see Ares, she was going up there to see Constance, and maybe if she was lucky completely avoid Attie… The detest for one another, that she was pretty sure ran both ways, was enough to make them actively avoid being in the same room if they could help it.

It was the lift ride up there that had her thinking things that she didn’t want to think. The last time that she had been up here she had gone up wand in hand with every intention of killing the man on the other end. She had gone up there using magic to fight, and Ares had used his hands… They had killed more than a few people that day, but still… Even if they had won, Anicka didn’t think that she wanted to relive it. This was a war, there was a war that her brother had started, and he had yet to get around to finishing it. That was what she was the most bothered by. That was the real reason that she was avoiding them… She was avoiding her sister-in-law. She didn’t want to look at her right now, because looking at her meant telling her the truth. Since everything that had happened, since everything had changed again, Anicka was telling the truth. She wasn’t biting her tongue about the things that she had stopped herself from saying in the past, because she was sick and tired of watching the men in her life die because of her. She was sick and tired of everything being someone else’s fault. It wasn’t. That wasn’t how it worked… They were the women, and it was their responsibility to take care of everyone. Men fought the battles, men fought their wars… Women won them, or they lost them, all on their own, and Aurora had lost hers. Anicka refused to give up her own fight, but Aurora had already lost, and losing like that, that was killing everyone else now… She didn’t have time for that, she didn’t have the patience for that. And so she was avoiding. Stepping off the lift with Medici at her heel Anicka headed for her daughter’s desk, only to find it empty… Constance wasn’t late… She was never late… Pondering for a moment Anicka headed in the direction of the bathroom, it was the most logical explanation of where she would be after all…

She wasn’t really there. She wasn’t. But for some reason, no matter how many times she tried to repeat that to herself, no matter how many times she tried to convince herself that she was okay, her vision didn’t clear. Constance thought that she’d blink a few times, and she’d go back to standing in the Ministry, because that was where she really was. She was sure of it. She hadn’t just imagined all of this. She hadn’t just convinced herself that she was home when she wasn’t. She hadn’t imagined all of this… it was real. They had found her. Her matka and Dimitri had found her, and they had killed the man that had taken her, and it was over. She couldn’t have made all of that up. There was just no way. But she knew, deep down she knew, that she could have. Constance knew that she could be that far gone—gone enough to start have delusions, to go to sleep and have a dream that she was home that was so real she could almost believe it. He could have drugged her, even. He could have given her something that made her see these things, to make her think that she was home. She didn’t know why he would do that—maybe to keep her mind occupied, maybe to see the look on her face when she realized that none of it had been real.

Constance didn’t know. She didn’t know how it had happened, but she did know that it was possible. It was possible that this had all been a dream, a delusion, that she had never really been found at all. That she was going to walk out that door, and he would be waiting there to tie her back against that post—or even just burst right in here. Maybe everything was about to be shattered, maybe she was about to realize that this really had all been fake. She had to think that he must have drugged her. That was the only explanation, the only reason why all of this could have seemed so real. Some potion out there surely existed, one that could put her into a delusion like this one, one that had made her feel like she was back home again. his couldn’t have just been a dream. Some potion must have been involved that had made her really believe it. But then, how long had she been in this state? How long had she really been gone now, if she was back there, if she’d had no concept of real time while she had been thinking she was home? Had it been weeks? Was anyone even looking for her? Or had they just thought that she had run off? Merlin, she didn’t know. She didn’t know what to think, now that it felt like the rug had been pulled out from under her, now that she was looking around and only seeing that bathroom.

It had all felt so real. She had been so sure that she’d been home and then back to work. She’d walked into the Ministry today… how could that have not been real? Taking another shaky breath, her hands moved to grip the edges of the sink as she looked up into the mirror. No. This had to have been real. It had to have. She wasn’t back there. She wasn’t. She tried to focus on taking more deep breaths, closing her eyes in hopes that when she opened them again, she really would be back in the Ministry. She had to be. But when her eyes fluttered open once more, she still saw the flickering light of the warehouse bathroom, the bare walls, and the dirty floor she was still there. Shaking her head, she pulled away from the sink, just barely making it over to the wall before collapsing against it. She couldn’t be back there. It wasn’t possible. Sliding down onto the floor, she brought her hands up to her rub at her eyes, trying to convince herself that she was seeing things. She had to be seeing things. All of this had been far too real to be a delusion. There was just no way. She couldn’t be back there. She couldn’t handle it. She couldn’t take any more of this.

The Ministry was pretty much her least favorite place. Anicka didn’t like it here, but she thought that there was insignificant. It didn’t matter, because her kids came first. Her family came first, and that meant that if Constance needed her to meet her here so that they could go to lunch, then she was going to come. She would come here, and she would see her daughter, and she would even put up with having to look at Ares’ office, and with having to see the other sister if if was what her dcera wanted. She would do anything for them. She would do anything for all of the children, she would do anything for anyone in her family. That was her MO really. Anicka would always put everyone else before herself. It was times like these when she wondered if she might have been a Gryffindor like her nephew… That would have pissed her otec off… If she would have gone to Hogwarts like her younger bratr had… If Matka would have taken her too… If she would have fought harder for her, Anicka had always wondered where she would have ended up. Times like now she thought that she would have been a Gryffindor… Then there were times, when she looked at her dceras… Or when she looked at Malcolm, and she thought that maybe she could have been an eagle like they were… She thought that she was smart enough for that… But then she thought about it, she really thought about it, and she knew that none of that was the truth. She was a snake… She knew that she was a snake, because only a snake could have done what she had done… Only a snake could have stayed silent, because self-preservation kicked in… Because there was only one option, and that was to stay silent… Silence saved everyone.

Except when it didn’t. That was the thing. Silence didn’t save everyone. Silence saved no one, and she knew that she had learned that the hard way recently. Anicka knew that her bratr was more than a little put off with her, and she knew that Aurora felt attacked… She knew all of those things, and she hadn’t kept her silence. She had kept her mouth shut. Anicka had kept her mouth shut for over thirty years and she would go back to that now. She had gone back to that now. Because that was the only thing that she was good at. She was avoiding her bratr, and she was avoiding Aurora, and Anicka was doing everything that she could to keep to herself. It wasn’t hard. Staying out of their way. Because she had the kids, and she had Malcolm, and Pippa, and she was doing everything that she could to just be a blip on their radar and not step on any more toes. She had said her peace, and she had told the other woman what she thought. She had told her the truth, and for the first time in a long time she had sounded more like a princess and less like someone’s wife than she had in years. She was relearning her own role. She was refiguring herself and she had to try and make all of this work. She had had to try and come to terms with what it was that was going on. There were a lot of things that Anicka had had to work through in her life that she hadn’t really understood, but this, this she understood. She knew what she had said to Aurora, and she knew that she had meant it when she had said that she wasn’t her sister. She had told Ares that Aurora was not her sister. Because her sister was dead and they bother knew it.

That didn’t make it any easier for him to hear what she perceived as the truth, and he had apologized to her for getting angry, but that didn’t change the fact that she was right. She was right, because he was dying, and she refused to stand by and watch any more of her bratr’s die at that woman’s side. She had lost Dominick, twice, and she didn’t want to lose Ares too… Part of her wondered what it was that Otec had asked of Dominick that had made him run, because it had to have been something. There had to have been some reason that he had faked his own death and ran… Because that wouldn’t have been his own choice if there had been another way out… It made her wonder, if her brother was that much better of a man that Josef was, than Andrew had been… because she could imagine what it was that had been asked of him… The same thing that Otec had asked of the other two… And she thought that that might have just broken her into pieces that couldn’t have been fixed… So she had lost her brother, but she wouldn’t take the blame for that, she blamed herself for plenty, and losing Dominick, well that was on the halfblood… The halfblood that had then gone after her other brother. Almost like she was designed to take them out one by one… Anicka knew that she shouldn’t think like that, but sometimes she just couldn’t help it… When she couldn’t find Constance though all of the thoughts of her bratr and Aurora were pushed out of her head… Because not being able to find Constance was something that caused the tiny witch to panic… Her purse had been next to her desk, she was here somewhere… When she reached the door of the bathroom Anicka tried the handle and was surprised to find that it wasn’t locked. She pushed it open only a little bit, enough for the light from the offices to fall in the crack. “Connie?”

Gone was the time that Constance was able to convince herself that this wasn’t really happening. That she had just been in the Ministry—that she’d been home, and she was fine. She couldn’t convince herself of that for a moment longer, because she was sure that this was real. She had closed the door of the bathroom, and all she saw was that place. She saw the small bathroom, the cracked mirror, everything that reminded her of when she’d been able to go into the bathroom of that warehouse… when he untied her, when he carted her over there, and stood watch outside the door for the short amount of time that she was even allowed to be in there. She was there. She had thought that she had been free, that she’d been safe, but she was wrong. It had been some kind of trick… some good dream that she had just woken up from, and it was all hitting her at once that this had never ended. She had never been home, her family had never found her. She had imagined all of it, and she thought that was the worst part of all of this. She had thought that she was home. She had been so sure of it—sure that she was back with her family, but somehow her mind had conjured all of that up.

She couldn’t breathe. As much as she tried to, she couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t draw in even a single breath of air that helped. She had rubbed at her eyes, hoping that would reveal the walls of the Ministry, the walls of the bathroom in their offices, to prove to her that she hadn’t been wrong. That she was safe, and just imagining that she was back there. But trying to clear her vision did nothing, because once the blurriness faded, she was still there. The dirty bathroom, the flickering lights. She was right back there, and she knew that she had to convince herself to breathe. She needed to breathe, and get through this, because she was never allowed in the bathroom for long. He would come back in and get her eventually, he’d drag her back to tie her up, and she couldn’t panic. Constance couldn’t let him see her panic, but it didn’t matter how much she told herself to breathe, she couldn’t. She was back there, and she thought that she’d been safe. She had thought that they’d found her, but they hadn’t. They hadn’t, and now who knew if they ever would. Maybe it had been too long. Maybe they really had gone further away than she’d even imagined. Maybe there were protections blocking this place from even being found.

She might never see her matka again… her sestry, Philip… her uncle… maybe she was never going to see any of them ever again. Deaths were supposed to come in threes, and she had been safe from that. She had thought she’d been home, and safe, but maybe she really was that third—because if he came in here, and she couldn’t calm down, maybe he’d just decide that it was easier to kill her. Maybe he’d just end it now, and she’d be that third death. Her family would see her again, because he’d probably send back her body to prove a point, but she wouldn’t see them again. She didn’t want that to happen, she didn’t want to die, and so she had to calm down. Constance knew she had to calm down, but it was hard to get that thought to do a damn thing for her. Her breathing was shallow, her vision blurry since she was barely getting in any breaths at all, and her arms were wrapped around her legs since at some point she’d drawn her knees up to her chest. And then she’d heard the door open. She heard it open, and she knew that he was going to be mad. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry, please…” She gasped the words out, pressing back against the wall further to try to get as far away from the door as possible.

If she thought that she could have avoided coming in this building she would have, but if there were any people in the world that she would do anything for, it was her children. And she knew that Constance was here, and that they had decided to meet here because it was easier for her to get away and come here, than it was for Constance to come to her so that they could go to lunch. It was coming up her though that she was trying to avoid. She had been up here one time since October, and that had been last month to try and apologize to Dimitri, only to end up making things worse. She didn’t know why she had done what she had done, and she didn’t know why she was trying to force something that wasn’t going to work. She never would have lowered herself like that for any real permanent reason. She wouldn’t have married him, she wouldn’t have bore him children. She wasn’t that way. Anicka was a lot of things, and she was, as she had been since the day that she was born, a princess. She wasn’t going to give that up for a halfblood that reminded her far too much of her not so dearly, departed husband. She knew that if it weren’t for Andrew she wouldn’t have had the girls, or Philip, but she hadn’t needed him for the last twenty years. Philip was going to be nineteen this summer, Anicka could have done without Andrew around for the last two decades. But he had been around, and now he was gone, and she had done the proper thing. She had grieved, and for awhile there, she had truly grieved. She had been devastated for the loss of him, because he had been her world. He had been the one thing that had kept her relatively safe, even if he had been a part of her pain.

Now there was nothing, and she knew that she lived in constant fear that something was going to happen, and that her otec was going to show up here. That was what she feared more than anything. She was scared to death that she was going to do something, or that one of the girls was going to do something and that he was going to come. And if he came, if he showed up here, and she didn’t have Andrew to protect her anymore, she didn’t want to think about how bad it was actually going to be. Because there was no husband to have to return her to anymore. There was no one that could hold him accountable, and so she was scared. She was terrified, that Otec was going to show up, and that she was going to break. Because Anicka knew that she could handle a lot, but she also knew that for the last thirty-two years her otec had been holding back. He couldn’t actually break her, because she didn’t belong to him, and before that he hadn’t been able to touch her, because he wouldn’t have anyone touch her before Andrew had. She had been given to her husband in what her otec had called ‘perfect condition’ and she knew that they hadn’t actually cared about her. She was pretty sure that most of the time her otec didn’t even remember her name. But it didn’t matter, that was the way that her life had gone, and that was fine. She didn’t need to worry about that now. But walking through the Ministry that was all that she could focus on. The fact that she was a Princess here. That in these halls she was the Minister’s cousin, she was the witch that had burned the previous Minister alive, and she was a Princess. Princess Royal of the Czech Republic, Duchess of Prague.

It was here, the one place in England, that her titles carried weight. No one was going to touch her here. No one was going to stop her. She had every right to be here, but she didn’t want to be. Anicka would have given anything to meet Constance anywhere else, just so that she didn’t have to com in this building and think about all of the things that it meant to be her in here. But she had made a promise to her middle child, and she intended to keep it. Something about the entire situation, finding the desk empty, and the feeling in the pit of her stomach that was building. Something wasn’t right here. And for Anicka, she knew that that was a very bad thing. Nothing had been right, everything had been dark, and stormy, since October, but right now things were worse. This wasn’t the eye of the hurricane, this was the full blown storm. Something was wrong, and she didn’t know what had her using the nickname that only she used, but as she opened the bathroom door that was the name that had fallen from her lips. Her daughter’s voice was what had her stopping in her tracks though. She wasn’t here. She wasn’t here with her right now. She was there. Anicka knew without thinking where it was that Constance thought thats he was, and she stopped dead in her tracks in the doorway. She wasn’t going to get any closer to her just yet, but she wanted to try and talk her out of this. She had to convince her that she was her, and that she was real, because if she didn’t, then she didn’t know what she was going to do… “Connie…” instinct told her to switch languages, “To jsem já. Je to mâma.” She knew that it wasn't going to work, but she knew that she had to start somewhere.

How had she thought that this was really over? That she was free, that she was safe? What had been going through her mind that she had been able to fool herself so completely? Constance had been convinced that it was over. She had been sure that she was home. She could remember it so vividly—not every single detail, but enough. Constance remembered hearing voices, remembered hearing her matka, and Dimitri, and then seeing their faces. They had gotten her free, and her matka had brought her home. The healer had come, she had helped her, and Constance had slept for what felt like days. But it had been real. How hadn’t that been real? How she had she managed to trick herself into that? Months had gone by. Had it all just been a hallucination? Constance didn’t want that to be true, but the evidence was right in front of her. She was right back trapped in this bathroom, like she had never left. She had thought that she was in the Ministry, in their department’s bathroom, but she wasn’t. The evidence of that was all around her. The cracked mirror, and everything… she tried to tell herself that this wasn’t real. She tried to tell herself that she had been in the Ministry. That had been real. She couldn’t just make that up. Constance thought that maybe if she tried to retrace the steps of her day, she could convince herself that this wasn’t real.

She had woken up that morning. In her bed. Her new bed, because they had moved from Mountbatten Hall to their new house. She had gotten dressed—black dress. Her belt had a snake on it. She’d put on a scarf, but not a coat… a light scarf, because it was warm out. She wasn’t trapped anywhere in December, it was April and she hadn’t even put on a coat. Even her dress was lighter. The one in December had been black too, but velvet. It was different. She wasn’t there. She remembered the dress she had put on, remembered the scarf, the shoes, down to the earrings she had put in. But when she brought her forehead to her knees, when she wrapped her arms around her knees, she felt velvet. Had she been wrong all along? Had none of this been real? It had felt like it was… it had been months, how was it even possible to be in some kind of delusion for that long? But it had to be true. There was no denying it, the longer she sat there, the more it was obvious to her that she had never gotten free. She was there still, all this time, and Merlin only knew how long it had been now. They hadn’t found her, they hadn’t rescued her, and she was still there. Maybe they had given up. Maybe they had just decided to stop looking.

She didn’t want to think that they would do that, but how could she deny it when she was still there? They were… her family, and she knew them. Constance knew that if they hadn’t found her, it was because they’d given up. They would have found her if they were still looking. They had to have given up on her, because they couldn’t keep looking forever. She had disappointed them. She had disappointed all of them, so they must have decided they were better off moving forward without her. After everything she had put them through, she deserved it. She deserved this, all of it. Constance just had to accept that she was never getting out of here. There was no way out. She was trapped. The door opened, and she knew that he would be mad that she was still in here, that he had to come in after her, but she couldn’t move. She could barely breathe. All she could keep doing was repeating apologies that she could barely hear, because her heart was pounding in her ears so loudly that it drowned everything else. She could only apologize, and hope that he wouldn’t be too angry at her, and that he would just bring her back and handcuff her again, and then leave her alone. She didn’t think that she could take anything else, but she still couldn’t bring herself to move. She was shaking so hard that she thought she’d fall to pieces if she even tried.

Anicka didn't like the Ministry, she never had. It reminded her of Parliament, and her otec, and things that she didn't like to think about if she could avoid. She didn't think that there was any reason to expose herself to that more than necessary, and she would have gladly never set foot in here if she had the choice, but sometimes it was necessary, and it was easier for her to meet Constance here, than it was for Constance to get away and come to her. She was certain that her dcera would have the time set aside to grab lunch, but she didn't think that she would have been late. That had been the first clue that something was wrong. All of Constance's things were there, but she wasn't, and Anicka didn't need anything more than a mother's intuition to know that something wasn't right. That there was something that she was going to have to do, she needed to protect her, to take care of her, and she didn't know how to do that without finding her. Finding her had to come first, and then she would deal with whatever came after that. Nothing else was important in that moment. Not Ares, not Athena, not herself. No one else mattered. Because she had been here before. She had lost her once. She was not going to lose her again. She wasn't strong enough to lose her again… They couldn't… She couldn't… She was here, she had to be here.

That was the string of thoughts playing through the witch's head as she spun through her options. There weren't all that many places that she would have gone, and Anicka thought that there had to be an explanation. But the longer that she stood there the more she knew that she was wrong. That there wasn't a simple explanation. Things were very wrong, and they were very wrong right now. The panic, her own panic, was edging in around her, there were so many things that could have happened, things that she was going to be scared of for Merlin only knew how long. Things that she didn't have any control over, but that had the ultimate control over her life. Part of her was petrified that her otec had shown up here. That somehow, he had gotten to Constance before anyone had made her aware of the fact that the King was here. Foreign royalty visiting wasn't something that didn't go unnoticed around here forever, unless he didn't want to be noticed at all. Anicka was sure that her otec could have in here and gotten to her dcera and no one would have been the wiser to what was going on until it was too late. Until she knew though she was going to just keep hoping that it wasn't him. It couldn't be him… He wouldn't have gone after Connie… He would have come after her.

She was the one that was in trouble with her otec. No one else. Her mind had raced through scenarios, and then it had dawned on her to check. She had to check, and she was there. Physically she was there. Constance was fine. She wasn't, she knew that, but she could focus. That was the thing. Knowing that she was physically safe, she could focus on what was right in front of her, and she was sure that she could do this. That whatever she was seeing, she could make her come back. She could get her back. "Milaček…" Anicka sunk to her knees in the doorway, letting the door itself swing close behind her. She didn't know anything about the man that had taken her dcera last December. She hadn't asked Dimitri all that many questions, she hadn't wanted to know. But now she regetted it. She wanted to know what to say to pull her back to her. Touching her was out of the question. That would evoke some sort of physical reaction, and she wasn't going to have her hit her, only for Constance to come back and realize that she had hurt her. That wasn't going to be an option. She wouldn't do that to her. So, she settled softly in front of the door. Locking it behind her with a thought, no one else needed to come in here right now. Constance was shaking, and Anicka didn't know what to do, for a moment she had no idea… and then she did the only thing that she could think of. Transfiguring a towel into a heavy blanket she used magic to move it around her dcera's shoulders. It wasn't cold that was causing the shaking. It was panicking, and until she was sure that she could move to gather her in her arms she thought that the compression blanket would have to do. "Jsi v pohodě. Jsi v bezpečí." The words weren't going to mean anything, but she heard herself saying them anyway. They were true, she was okay. She was safe. Anicka would make sure of that.

How had she thought that she was really free? Constance didn’t know how that was even possible. She had been sure that she was back… she had been so sure that Dimitri and her matka had found her. She could remember it. Every detail. That wasn’t something that had faded away, like she had hoped it would. She had thought that the memories would start to fade, or at least become hazy, and they hadn’t. Constance remembered far too much of what had happened, but she had remembered that she had been saved. She remembered being in that room, and hearing Dimitri’s voice. Looking back, she didn’t really know why he hadn’t been trying to be quieter… in case someone else was there. Maybe that was just proof that it hadn’t been real at all. If he had really been there, he would have been more careful. He wouldn’t be announcing his presence by calling her name. Maybe that was why it hadn’t been real… she’d been imagining it, and that was the little clue that it hadn’t really been happening. Dimitri wouldn’t be that careless. She had made it all up in her mind. It had never happened. No one had ever found her.

Constance had no idea how long it had been now. She didn’t know if it was even still December, if Christmas had passed… was it still even winter? She felt cold still, but there were dozens of reasons for that. It could have been summer now for all she knew. Had they given up looking for her? Were they still trying? Constance didn’t even know if she was even still in the United Kingdom. She could be in a different country for all she knew. She could be anywhere. They were never going to find her. And she had lost any chance of escaping when he had broken her legs. She couldn’t move… she couldn’t escape. And if they weren’t going to find her, then there was no hope. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, apart from him killing her. Was he going to kill her? Constance didn’t honestly even know what to expect, or what he wanted from this. There was no way of knowing—it wasn’t as if he talked about it. There had been no rhyme or reason to anything that he had done. No ransom that she knew of anyway. Usually a ransom meant proof, and unless he had taken a picture of her while she was unconscious, there was no proof.

But maybe there was. Maybe there had been a ransom and they hadn’t paid it. She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything, because she had no idea how long she’d been hallucinating that she was safe. Constance didn’t know if he had drugged her, and she had been in some kind of state that had finally broken. It could have been happening in real time… maybe everything she thought she remembered, all the days that she had thought had been passing, she had been here. That would make it… April. It would mean she’d been here since December. Four months. Had it really been four months? Was it even possible to keep her in a hallucination for that long? Constance had no idea, but she was panicking. She didn’t know how to come to terms with the fact that she was back here, that this was her reality. She had been trapped here for months, and hadn’t even known it. He had somehow tricked her into thinking she was home, into thinking that she was safe. She had been doing better. She’d been moving past this, only for it all to be in her head.

She heard the voice, she knew that she was there. But he couldn’t expect her to walk. He was the one that had broken her legs to begin with. He was going to have to levitate her, or carry her, to get her back to her pole. There was no way that she was going to be able to move on her own. But she couldn’t stop herself from apologizing anyway. She knew that she had to try to move, but she just couldn’t stop shaking long enough to even attempt it. Constance startled for a moment when she felt something around her, figuring that it was finally him picking her up, but it… wasn’t. It was softer… heavier. Not someone’s touch. A… blanket? It was heavy, she knew that much. And it didn’t fit. It didn’t make sense. She hadn’t had a blanket since she had gotten here. She was just handcuffed to a pole in the middle of the room. No blankets, no pillows, nothing. And then she heard a voice, this time it was female… and familiar. “Matka…” Her voice was quite, because she was still quite sure that she was just imagining her matka’s voice when she knew for a fact that she was still trapped here.

Being in the Ministry was probably one of Anicka's least favorite places in the world. She just didn't like it. She didn't like the memories that came with being here, she didn't like the feel of the place. She knew that there had been occasions in the past where she had been brought in here, they had tried to try her for war crimes, which hadn't gone over all that well with the Czech Republic. Her bratr had been convicted. And Anicka had too, but her sentencing was minor compared to Ares and Andrew's. She had been given the magical equivalent of community service and let go. Which was amusing, when you thought about it. Because she was by far the deadliest one of the three. Ares didn't like to kill. He avoided it when he could. And she honestly wasn't sure, besides herself, who Andrew had ever even hurt. It wasn't that he wasn't awful, because he had been awful, it was just that she was by far the deadliest among them. Her body count was higher than both of theirs, and Ares had killed Minerva McGonagall in cold blood this time around. Which had been cold, and cruel, but the witch was dying anyway. Durant, on the other hand, she had burned alive with her magic.

She knew that she had a duty to her family. That she had an obligation to the, to do what was best for them, and she knew that she was going to do whatever it took to protect her children. She had been doing whatever it took to protect her children since the moment that they had realized that Ellanora had been born a girl. She knew that they had wanted a son. One and done. That was all that the Mountbatten family had had for years. She had been a Mountbatten for years before she had finally borne him a son. And then that son was treated like the prince that he was. Because they were royalty. They were more than minor royalty at that. They were the ones that were in charge of a country. Her otec was the Král. Her bratr was the heir. His son. And then her. She was third in line to the throne of a country. And they had taken one of her dcery from her. They had gotten her back, but she had wanted the man to die. She had wanted to be the one that inflicted that pain, and she had been refused. She had been refused by a man that she had thrown out of her life.

By a halfblood that had wanted something that she was not willing to give. She hadn't thought that she wanted to work for that. She hadn't thought that she wanted to try and go back to that. But he had been there, and he had said the right things, and then she had woken up. And there had been bruises on her skin. Marks that she hadn't asked for, that she didn't want. Marks that made her feel… Terrible. And it didn't make a whole lot of sense. Why bruises were enough to cause her to panic, when he hadn't really hurt her… But that when she had been pushed into the wall by someone else, she had wanted more. It was something completely different. It was like there was some chemical change that was going on, that was pushing her towards something that she couldn't stop. And she knew that. She knew that she didn't want to stop it either. There was something good there. Something that she wanted to go back to, again and again.

This was a situation that was quite different from the one that she thought that she was finding in Nottingham. She was used to crazy, and she was used to their lives being a little chaotic. But this, this was different. Constance was supposed to be here, and when she wasn't, Anicka was more than a little panicky about the entire thing. The last time that she had gone missing, someone had kidnapped her, and that wasn't something that you just moved on from. That wasn't something that, as a matka, you just stopped fearing was going to happen again. She thought that she was always going to fear it. That that was just something that was going to be even more prevalent in there now that it had happened once. "Ano…" She stayed low to the ground as she moved towards her just a little bit. "Connie, can you hear me?" She thought that the pressure of the blanket would help, it was heavy, and thick, and probably a little suffocating in a normal situation, but it was the first thing that she could think of to turn the towel into.