Within over half a century of living, Melina had seen... Very little.
Her childhood was very sheltered. She was trained to become an assassin in one of the largest child trafficking rings in the world - definitely the largest in Russia.
She saw a lot of dead bodies, a lot of ways those bodies came to be, too.
She had a very close, deep, and intimate relationship with death. Death was part of her everyday life, and she'd come to accept the fact that it was just a part of life. It was just death.
But of course, what did she know? Clearly not enough. Because as she sat here in her living room, her daughter's wife (because she had a wife now) shaking like a leaf as she broke the news, Melina couldn't help but silently curse at how wrong she was.
When given the choice between saving the life of one important person or saving many, which do you choose?
Well, that's easy, the one important person. The lives of the many outweigh that of that one person.
Unless that person is your best friend, your sister, your wife, your daughter.
In theory, it's a simple question.
In practice, however, the total opposite could be true.
Melina never thought she'd get to have children. The same could be said of her current freedom. And yet here she stood in her little home in St. Petersburg, with her family.
What was left of it anyway.
As a child, Natasha had thought Melina had hung the stars. The woman never understood her daughter's idolization of her, but now she clung to it.
Alexei always joked that they were the same person. The same slope to their nose, the same eyes and chin. The same frown, sarcasm, and smile.
Natasha has adopted many of her adoptive mother's traits and Melina thanked every deity that she didn't believe in that that happened, because to her? Natasha was hers.
Natasha had a mother, she did, and Melina was never trying to replace her, that had been reiterated since Natasha was young. Melina was just trying to be another mother to her. As much of a mother as her biological one.
And with time the girl learned to accept it. With time she learned to move last her biological mother's death.
Melina could vividly remember the night, a year into the snap, no Alexei, no Yelena, the mother-daughter duo sitting at the kitchen table.
"Remember when I was seven and I had told you that you would never be my real mama? That I had one already and you couldn't change that?"
"Yes, big emotions for a girl going on eight."
"Sure she might have cared about me, loved me until her dying breath, but you know who raised me? You know who cares about me? Who makes me hot chocolate late at night and always remembers which fuzzy blanket is my favourite? You do... Biologically, you may not be my real mama, but in the same way that you are all I can remember and all my heart knows like Lena, you are my real mama."
Natasha's childhood was spent idolizing the sweet woman who loved science. The woman who, when they walked down the street, was always criticized because the second they found out the woman's age and her daughter's age, they immediately thought Melina was a teen mother.
"They're just jealous," Melina would tell her.
Natasha agreed, of course. Her mother could never be wrong.
Melina loved both of her daughters equally. The bond between the two was just different. The blip made up for the five-year gap between the girls. The gap that, if the girls were her's biologically, Melina would've spent doting on a young Natasha. The gap that Melina had instead, spent doting on a middle-aged Natasha.
And my, wasn't that a thought. Natasha was a whole 39 years old. Her daughter had grown so fast.
The first time she saw the girls in 21 years she didn't know what to do. She looked them both over, at their faces that remained unchanged, baby fat just gone away. The sadness that sat deep in their souls, forever pressing into your own, the weight nearly sinking and drowning you.
She felt that sadness now. She felt like she was drowning. Like her head was below the water with no chance of returning to the surface. The worst part was, she didn't want to fight it.
She wanted to succumb to the pain she felt.
The moment Natasha's wife had told her what had happened. That her daughter sacrificed herself, stating in a letter that it was all for her family, nothing else, Melina felt like her heart was ripped from her chest.
The pain was unbearable.
Yelena broke down into tears, crying for a sister who'd never answer her cries again. The sister who used to hold her in her arms after every nightmare and sing soft lullabies and reassure her that everything would be alright.
Alexei reached for her, scooping her up and pulling her close to his chest while she sobbed, tears rolling down his cheeks as well.
His daughter was dead. The one who he cheered for at gymnastics competitions and ballet recitals. The one who he taught how to ride a bike and read in English (although really, that was Melina doing the teaching).
Melina was hit with so many emotions at once, she stared at the back wall and just blinked while the words hit her like waves.
Natasha
I'm her wife
Dead
Sacrificed herself
I'm sorry for your loss
She wordlessly walked to the bookshelf and pulled out the photo album.
They added more pictures. Pictures from coffee dates and lazy Sundays and Thursday night baking. Just the two of them.
She then continued down the hall to Natasha's room, not realizing Alexei and Yelena trailing behind.
Melina kneeled in front of the bed. The sheets never made, pyjama pants lying on the floor from she hurried herself to get ready just days before because she had a meeting the next morning in New York. Natasha hung posters of her friends on the walls like a child.
And right there, in the middle of the bed, was the music box Melina had given her for her 37th birthday two years ago. It played You Are My Sunshine, the song she ended up singing to the girls as children because it was the only thing that would calm a screaming Yelena.
She grabbed it and turned the little winder until it stopped, letting go and allowing the tinny music to play, filling the air with memories she didn't know whether to treasure or to hate.
The tears began building up as she hummed the tune, looking at a picture of her baby.
"Please don't take my sunshine away," She whispered, the tears she wasn't able to find finally spilling over.
Yelena and Alexei were there to catch her, as Melina let out the most gut-wrenching sobs you had ever heard.
Yelena was unsure of what hurt her more. The knowledge that her sister was dead, or her mother's reaction.
Melina didn't cry. She was never a crier. Even when she got shot in that plane what felt like a thousand years ago, she stayed unwaveringly calm.
This was a heartbreaking thing to see, really. Melina shaking as she sobbed and yelled and cried for her daughter to just come back.
It was not just death anymore, not just life.
It was pain and suffering and the unimaginable.
It's always thought that the child will outlive the parent. That's why the term orphan was created. Your parents die and suddenly you are an orphan.
One spouse will die before the other, that's just a fact. Widower exists for that reason. Your spouse died and suddenly you are a widow.
But there is no commonly known term for a parent who has lost a child. Why? Melina didn't know. Maybe it was because it was such an unthinkable pain, that nobody wanted to even try.
Death was yes, just a part of life. The inevitable ending of it all; unavoidable and unshaking, but it was more than that.
Death was loss. It was grief. It was pain and suffering. It was sacrifice. It was the unimaginable thing that no human on earth could bear to think about, despite it being the end.
Death was the loss of her darling Natasha, her unwavering, unshakable daughter who sacrificed one to save all.