It's a strange thing, how someone who started such a brutal war within him could make him feel so at peace. She exhales a quiet permission, though, not needing to hear the rest of what he wanted to say, and presses up on her toes to kiss him, and everything suddenly feels right, like pieces slotting back into place. Perhaps it's dangerous, too, but most of the ways in which that's the case are left behind them, fragments of another life that don't need to matter here. At least that's what he's been telling himself, a justification for acting on the feelings he was never supposed to be able to. The most he ever did before was hold her hand, a lingering good-bye before he left her to be with her family, to go to his death. They're both alive now — the painful hammering of his heart in his chest speaks to that, and the ghost of her breath against his lips — and the past doesn't have to matter to anyone but them. They could be anyone. She could have any life she wanted. Somehow, seemingly miraculously, she's here with him.
He always knew better than to take that for granted, stunned by the mere possibility of being with her in the first place, but that's even truer now for having lost her, no matter how briefly. At her consent, he nods, one arm still around her waist and his other hand finding the curve of her jaw as he leans in to kiss her. It's nothing like before. Though he's been haunted by the memory of the last kiss they shared, rough and desperate and something with which it would have been too easy to get carried away, both of them acting like they had something to prove — and though he might well have enjoyed such a kiss under any other circumstances — this time, when his mouth finds hers, it's soft and gentle, as if he's doing so for the first time, learning the way she feels, savoring the opportunity to do so at all. She's so lovely that it hurts just to look at her, but he doesn't have to look now, his hand sliding further back and into her hair as he slowly, carefully, deepens the kiss, not wanting to pull away until he absolutely has to.
Once, he never gave much thought to romance or relationships, carrying with him the vague assumption that he might well marry and have a family one day, but too focused on his work to give it any real consideration. It was just a simple fact then, nothing that he really felt. He never expected that loving someone would feel like this, sickly sweet and agonizing and far more intoxicating than any drink he's ever had, all-consuming. He's far too sensible to give in to the notion of his life revolving around someone else. At the same time, he's known since Paris that a part of him belongs to her, surrendered unwillingly on the cold streets of Leningrad, violently ripped away without any sort of warning and leaving him a lost, broken mess. He would still have been hers even if they'd never spoken again here, if she spent the rest of her life living happily with someone else. He wouldn't have it any other way.
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He always knew better than to take that for granted, stunned by the mere possibility of being with her in the first place, but that's even truer now for having lost her, no matter how briefly. At her consent, he nods, one arm still around her waist and his other hand finding the curve of her jaw as he leans in to kiss her. It's nothing like before. Though he's been haunted by the memory of the last kiss they shared, rough and desperate and something with which it would have been too easy to get carried away, both of them acting like they had something to prove — and though he might well have enjoyed such a kiss under any other circumstances — this time, when his mouth finds hers, it's soft and gentle, as if he's doing so for the first time, learning the way she feels, savoring the opportunity to do so at all. She's so lovely that it hurts just to look at her, but he doesn't have to look now, his hand sliding further back and into her hair as he slowly, carefully, deepens the kiss, not wanting to pull away until he absolutely has to.
Once, he never gave much thought to romance or relationships, carrying with him the vague assumption that he might well marry and have a family one day, but too focused on his work to give it any real consideration. It was just a simple fact then, nothing that he really felt. He never expected that loving someone would feel like this, sickly sweet and agonizing and far more intoxicating than any drink he's ever had, all-consuming. He's far too sensible to give in to the notion of his life revolving around someone else. At the same time, he's known since Paris that a part of him belongs to her, surrendered unwillingly on the cold streets of Leningrad, violently ripped away without any sort of warning and leaving him a lost, broken mess. He would still have been hers even if they'd never spoken again here, if she spent the rest of her life living happily with someone else. He wouldn't have it any other way.