Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II

So Kiki has just broken down in front of Nadine. If Nadines maternal instincts kick in and she simply hugs Kiki, that will go a long, long way to changing that dynamic.

I'm not so sure about that happening. Women's tears don't work on women like they do on men. For most men, it's kryptonite, for women it's nectar.
 
I'm not so sure about that happening. Women's tears don't work on women like they do on men. For most men, it's kryptonite, for women it's nectar.

I think in this case it's going to be more "girls' tears in front of a mother" situation. I hope at least, Kiki deserves something nice happening to her :)
 
[..] Kiki deserves something nice happening to her :)
Kiki's problem (as Kat's problem before her) is that she's determined to be miserable about everything that happens to her.
Nice things did happen - she's just so wrapped up in her own pity party that she's unable to see them as nice.
 
Kiki's problem (as Kat's problem before her) is that she's determined to be miserable about everything that happens to her.
Nice things did happen - she's just so wrapped up in her own pity party that she's unable to see them as nice.
I still think that most of Kiki's problems stem from various sources, she is still feeling guilty about what happened between her and her mother and then being sent to Japan in exile, and later not being allowed by her mother to make peace and forgiveness with each other before her mother died.
There is the fact that Kiki as a young girl had a somewhat morbid fascination with the French and Russian Revolutions and their aftermath, having Gia around as living proof just reinforced that.
Kiki was also very aware what would have happened if the Soviets had won the war and what the fate of her family would have been if they were captured by the Soviets.
I have no doubts that she has nightmares about it and they plague her more then what she experienced in combat.
And finally having Kat as her chief role model while great in some ways, was very detrimental in accepting the praise and honors that she has deservedly received.
 
Part 98, Chapter 1548
Chapter One Thousand Five Hundred Forty-Eight


15th March 1963

Tempelhof, Berlin

Ben was left wondering exactly what had happened a week earlier. As he walked across the alley to Marie’s birthday party. Attending a child’s party wasn’t normally the sort of thing that he would do, but he had been asked to come and help out.

A week earlier he had fallen back asleep briefly and when he had woken up, he had come downstairs to find his mother having to comfort Kiki who had started crying when questioned hard about just who she was. It had not been until after Kiki had pulled herself together and left that he had told his mother some of the truth. That in Kiki’s involvement with the FSR she had been caught up in the middle of the worst meatgrinder that the Korean War offered. That had a profound effect on her behavior.

The night before she might have had a blasé attitude, but she was still trying to process what had happened with that ambush that she had gone through a lot closer to home. Once she had fallen asleep, Ben had seen how she had started thrashing around in her sleep and he had ended up having to practically hold her down. That even though she was asleep, her terror was evident. Even though she had calmed down when he had hugged her it had scared him, though he was not about to tell his mother about that. Her seeing Kiki burst in tears was bad enough.

Still though his mother had not been about to let what she had seen go. Yes, Kiki was one of Kat’s adopted nieces. Unlike most of the others though, she still had a family. Her mother’s family had been a branch of the Romanovs and her father was from an extremely old Junker family. Following the untimely death of her mother, Kiki had been sent by her father to live with Kat. She was hardly the impoverished child of exiles that his mother had thought that she was.

“Then why all the secrecy then?” Nadine had asked.

“She is desperate to be seen as separate from her family” Ben replied, “That is why she kept volunteering for the toughest assignments, so that people don’t automatically assume that she had everything just handed to her. She has had some bad luck lately, the FSR team she was leading got attacked and Kiki blames herself for it.”

Ben had worried that he had said too much when he had said that. All his mother would have needed to have done was open a newspaper and it would be obvious who Kiki really was.

“Why are you involved with her though?” Nadine asked, “She has hurt you in the past and with what she has put herself through, I can only see things getting more complicated.”

Ben had then tried to explain how special he thought Kiki was to his mother only to have her stop him. “I am concerned that you are in love idea of her and might not fully understand who she is” Was what his mother had said concluding the conversation. When he had heard later that Kiki had returned to Rangsdorf, he had been relieved even if he missed her.

Now entering Kat’s house through the kitchen, he saw Kiki was chatting with Nancy Jensen, the odd American expat whose husband had commanded the Marine Infantry in Korea. She saw Ben and smiled as if everything was right in her world. He knew that it was false and was something she put on. When he had asked about that, she had said that it was something that most people did. Just in the role that she had been born into it needed to be in place constantly. It was also why Kiki said that she liked to be around people who didn’t realize who she was because she could just drop all pretense.

The irony was that Ben’s mother disliked how much Kiki hid from her while having no idea it was the actual person who Kristina von Preussen really was who she was dealing with as opposed to the cartoonish figure that the tabloids and the entertainment shows made her out to be. It all played into why Kiki said that their relationship was ultimately going to be impossible. Sooner or later some journalist was going to figure it out and the last thing Kiki wanted was for Ben’s life to be upended because of her.

Heading up the stairs, through the hallway and finding the Gräfin and Marie in the parlor. Ben saw that there seemed to be a substantial number of children running around the house and an equal number of adults, presumably their parents, looking around curiously. Small wonder that Kiki had asked Ben for help managing this mob. Marie was wearing the blue dress and white apron that she seemed to be wearing every time that Ben saw her. His mother had said that Katherine was lucky in that her daughter’s obsessions were practical and inexpensive.

Marie lit up when Ben entered the parlor. He recalled when Katherine and Douglas had brought her home shortly after he had moved in. Seven years earlier.

“So, how old are you today?” Ben asked Marie though he already knew the answer.

“Everybody asks me that” Marie said earnestly, “Ask them.”

That was quite an answer from a seven-year-old.

“Well, many kind regards then” Ben said to Marie who smirked at him.
 
Why do I have the feeling that the Ninja's going to show up at the party and Tilo know exactly who and what he is without being introduced. I can see them meeting and no one else even noticing them together talking in front of everyone, then people suddenly notice Tilo standing there next to him and Kat goes to make a introduction that gets really mixed up.
 
Wait, Ben said the FSR team Kiki lead was recently attacked!?! And that didn't set off alarm bells in Nadine's head?
Someone please buy her a newspaper subscription or plop her down in front of the TV for the evening news.
 
Wait, Ben said the FSR team Kiki lead was recently attacked!?! And that didn't set off alarm bells in Nadine's head?
Someone please buy her a newspaper subscription or plop her down in front of the TV for the evening news.
To be fair Ben was also clueless about who Kiki really was, remember the 50 pfennig coin.
 
Ben to mamma:

This girl has been through more poop than I have in Korea, saved well over a hundred, if not more than a thousand lives and has a well earned PLM. She is such a nice girl who just needs your respect and understanding. Oh by the way, her last name, in case you are interested is von Preussen. Just be nice to her. Could you please manage that? Thanks mom.
 
I have been thinking (I know it's a bad habit) that maybe Nadine is a anti-monarchy republican who just doesn't care enough about the Imperial Family to follow them, and when there are stories about them in the newspapers she just doesn't read them also when there are television reports about them see just either changes the channel or just tunes them out.
When there are visitors to her house and they find out that Kat is her backyard neighbor, they ask questions about Kat and I can see Nadine give a less then flattering opinion about her neighbor especially about her taking in questionable young girls from disreputable families.
I can see Nadine expressing support for Crown Prince Friedrich to marry anyone he wants to but opposing the cost to stage the wedding and restating her anti-monarchy sentiments to anyone unfortunate enough to ask her opinion.
 

ferdi254

Banned
Being clueless in that matter is not something to be ashamed of. I mean, how often does the girl from next door really turn out to a a real princess...?
 
Being clueless in that matter is not something to be ashamed of. I mean, how often does the girl from next door really turn out to a a real princess...?

Considering the neighbour's title, her well publicized role in protecting Gia (a known Russian princess), her even more public role as the confidant & protector of the Imperial family, her connections with the British Royal family and the fact that some of her friends (& their children) have titles of their own, I'd say the odds of at least one of the girls-next-door being a princess are pretty damn good.
 
Why do I have the feeling that the Ninja's going to show up at the party and Tilo know exactly who and what he is without being introduced
The most amusing would be..


What would be the odds that said Ninja during his work for Kat, ends taking under his wing Tatiana to the hour of Martial arts and other stuff.....?
 
Part 98, Chapter 1549
Chapter One Thousand Five Hundred Forty-Nine


15th March 1963

Mitte, Berlin

It was hardly a surprise really. Alexis Waltz had managed to get himself captured and was singing like a canary in an effort to save himself from getting buried under the prison. It was something that Mithras had known would happen sooner or later and even if the House of Hohenzollern had been able to keep Kristina’s real name out of the papers, he knew the mission had come close to success this time. It was why he had been careful not to let Alexis have too much information or get much more than basic idea of what Mithras looked like. So far, the Financier had not caught wind of this latest setback or else Mithras feared that he would cut his losses and just have him killed.

Now with the benefit of hindsight he realized that the Princess was better protected than he had thought. Even if she didn’t have a full security detail, she was extremely formidable on her own. It would have been nice to have known that before they had sunk so much into getting her. Just before this latest mess, Alexis had accused him of being obsessed with the girl. Even though Alexis was barely smart enough to be useful, he might have had a point, Mithras had probably gone overboard with his thoughts about Nemesis. It was time for the Movement to try a different set of tactics to muddy the waters.

Perhaps having the police thinking that he was after the Princess could be used to his advantage. At this point it would be perfectly believable misdirection and Mithras knew that if he was eventually successful, he would get to Kristina eventually. He also needed to solve the minor problem that Alexis represented…


Tempelhof, Berlin

Looking across the alley, Nadine could tell that there was a substantial party going on over there. It was for the birthday of a seven-year-old, but as she had discovered over the years that she had been a neighbor of the Gräfin that she would use any excuse to get together with her close circle of friends. It was those same friends that made her worry about her son and what he was getting into by getting involved with Kristina again. She had seen Ben walk over there a couple hours earlier.

When Nadine had moved into this house with her husband Albert and son, they had been told that the neighborhood was expected to become somewhat exclusive in the coming years. The Chancellor of the University of Berlin had bought a house a couple blocks away and Gräfin von Mischner had a house built on the same block. They had no idea what that had actually meant at the time. Douglas, the Gräfin’s consort was a pleasant man, even if Katherine herself was often a prickly character. The real issue was the women and girls who frequented that house. They seemed nice enough until you noticed that they tended to look at the world through eyes that had seen things no one should have to. One of them, named Kris, jokingly referred to them as the forgotten daughters of inequity, the Sisterhood of the spaces between the cracks. The others present had found that funny.

Kristina seemed like a nice girl, but like all the girls who Katherine invited into her house they always had things they kept hidden and difficult pasts. Kristina was no different than the others in that regard, the fact that she joined the Medical Service as soon as she was eligible confirmed that. What the Gräfin offered them was a chance to control their lives but it was never without considerable cost. What Nadine had seen when Kristina had started crying was a young woman who was barely holding her life together after what she had gone through. Ben wasn’t stupid, but he had a serious blind spot when it came to Kristina.

When Kristina had moved in years earlier, Albert had encouraged Ben to do a lot more than just have a crush on the pretty girl across the alley. It had been just innocent dating back then, nothing to worry about really. Then one day Kristina had vanished, only turning up months later living on the University’s Humboldt Campus as a student there. Ben had foolishly tracked her down and tried to act like nothing had changed only to find that she wasn’t interested in him seeing her. Nadine had been put out by Ben’s reaction to being rejected and had made a few choice comments to Katherine about it. In retrospect, Kristina had probably been overwhelmed by everything she had going on and had been unable to maintain a relationship on top of it. Still, Nadine’s memory of that time was Katherine standing in the garage off the alley looking at her with that same slight smile. Like if she was holding all the cards and Nadine was a clueless nobody who could only manage to bother her for a moment or two at worst. Now Ben and Kristina were both adults and Nadine was under no illusions about the possibilities of what might happen if their relationship progressed. Nadine just wished that Ben thought these things through as opposed to being infatuated with Kristina.

In a few years was Kristina going to be like that one woman who visited Katherine every few days who was also said to be adviser of the Empress. Nadine had her name was Asia. She was prematurely grey and with haunted eyes? Would Ben be dragged into that with her if that was what she was destined to become?
 
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Still, Nadine’s memory of that time was Katherine standing in the garage off the alley looking at her with that same slight smile. Like if she was holding all the cards and Nadine was a clueless nobody who could only manage to bother her for a moment or two at worst.
And that is what bothers Nadine the most, that Kat with just one look has her pegged to a T, that there is nothing that Kat doesn't know about Nadine even things that Nadine herself doesn't know.
But on the good side the value of the house is skyrocketing and will continue for rise for years to come.
I have been rereading the Asia part of the timeline when she was caught in Boston and was wondering how she was doing, apparently not very well and that may be the same for the rest of The Sisterhood, if something tragic happens to one of them that is going cause Kat to go in a deep depression sprial.
 
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