Day 16 (continued)

Okay, maybe it's a cliche, but so what, Katia thought in the moment between the end of the last kiss and start of the next. Then she stopped thinking about clichés, or anything else for that matter, except Roman's lips and hands and warmth...she hooked one leg around him on the floor...pushing something rather large and hard against her groin. She started to smile at that...but it was oddly thin...was that two of them?!

Roman, blushing furiously, released Katia's hip with his left hand, fumbled in his pocket, and extracted a large screwdriver, which he held up. They both looked at it for a moment, frozen, then Katia started to laugh. It was hard to stop once she'd started, and Roman joined in as well, this shouldn't be that funny...Roman was laughing so hard that he rolled off of her and almost banged his head into the wall.

It was a couple minutes before either of them could talk. One would start to stop laughing, then be set off again by the other. It wasn't just the screwdriver, of course, it was this whole thing where, you know, the world had gone insane.

"Seriously," Katia began, and by an immense effort of will got herself under control. She glanced back at his pants, and saw that there was still a fair-sized bulge there. "Have you never done this before?"

"Done...uh..." He was blushing again, and she kinda liked it. "Done what?"

"Well, your kissing's too good for that to be your first," Katia said, her cynical side and analytical journalist coming to the fore again. "But have you ever had actual intercourse before?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, totally, loads of times." She just looked at him. "No."

"It's fine," she assured him, smiling. Salvage his pride. "I understand, the revolution doesn't leave a lot of time for that sort of thing. It could explain some of your anger issues, though. Ever heard of sexual frustration?"

"Oh, yeah, I, uh, did that to a girl once. She loved it."

Katia started laughing again, despite knowing she really shouldn't.

"What? What?" Then he gave up. "OK. What does that mean?"

Katia was about to respond when Bruno came crashing down the stairs, excited. "I did it!" he exclaimed. "I remembered what they taught me about electricity back in my school days. Say what you like about the Communists, but they educated kids properly -"

"The Russians were worse than the Grazni!" Roman shouted at him, leaping up from the floor. "The Communists were oppressive scum, they should all be shot!"

"Now listen here, young man, when I was a boy there was no one starving to death in the streets, like there is now. And there weren't gangs of armed thugs," Bruno went on, looking pointedly at Roman, "trying to overthrow the government and killing people every ten minutes!"

"I am not a thug! You take that back, or I'll, I'll beat your head in!" Roman sputtered loudly.

"Uh - Roman -" Katia began.

"Are you a Commie too?" Roman demanded, wheeling on her.

She weighed the possible responses, and not seeing much difference on the defusing-the-situation heuristic, decided to go with her immediate personal desire. She calmly grabbed him by the shirt, pulled him in, and kissed him rather messily. By the time she ran out of air and had to release him, his body was considerably more relaxed. Well, she smirked, most of him was more relaxed.

"You said the grow lamp is working now?" she asked Bruno calmly.

"Ah, yes, it is," he said, adding something about being some number of years younger which she didn't quite catch. "I remembered, from my excellent Communist education," he continued pointedly, "that most metals are electrically conductive. I found some aluminium cans, which will carry the current."

"Won't they oxidize?" Katia pointed out.

"Oh, yeah, well, that'll take a little while."

"Sounds good," Roman said, heading upstairs quickly.

Getting the NewGen seeds planted in accordance with the package directions took most of the next hour. Katia quickly realized another reason these weren't used in normal agriculture: they required purified water (due to extreme vulnerability to blights and other infections), and a lot of it. After Roman had done it wrong for the third time, the other two ordered him out. He returned a few minutes later with a steaming mug of coffee, not quite the way she liked it, but what the hell, he was making an effort and that was more than you could expect from most people.

They finished, covered in fertilizer and water, and still hungry, but optimistic. Enough food remained to last until the new vegetables were supposed to be ready, for given values of "enough", "food", and "last".

With evening coming on, and another trip out for more wood and parts (which always seemed to be insufficient no matter how much she brought) in the offing, Katia let her mind wander as she settled into a chair. Bruno rattled into the room, his face as unreadable as ever, but Katia could tell he actually thought they had a chance of getting through this alive. He began rummaging through the stack of books, looking at each one. A romance novel was seized and quickly dismissed as she watched, getting her thinking about Roman.

Why was she even thinking about sex right now, she asked herself. Wasn't stress supposed to reduce the sex drive? Not to mention that none of them had had a proper shower or bath in weeks, if not months, and Roman was just a street -

She had started to think "thug", but found her mind recoiling violently from that word. For good reason - he'd been told a lot of things that weren't true, lived a rough life, spent too much time around bad influences, but if she believed in souls, she'd say he had a good one. So that was one thing, and she had been getting frustrated with the kind of men in her social circles before the war; they lived cynically, whereas for her it was just an external shell, one she'd had to create to be a good reporter and ask the questions that needed asking, because if you let yourself think that way all the time, what was the point? Of anything? Roman wasn't that, at least: he saw people in black and white, as opposed to the dark grey everyone else seemed to perceive.

Maybe she just wanted someone she could tell what to believe...

"You're thinking again," Bruno said, choosing a book and looking at it with mild interest.

"What? Oh, yes, well, someone has to do that around here."

"Got any pearls of wisdom, then?" he asked, sarcasm annoyed but not truly angry.

"Oh, well...I was just trying to work out why I'm attracted to Roman - to anyone - in this...situation. You'd think that with all the stress..."

"Are you sure you weren't under more stress before this stupidity started?" Bruno asked, setting the book down. "Sure, we're running or fighting for our lives a lot -"

"Roman fighting, and the rest of us running," Katia snarked.

"Either way, sure, that's stressful, putting it mildly. But when we aren't doing that, we aren't really under too much pressure. I mean, as a chef -"

"Damn it!" Katia yelled suddenly. Bruno cocked an eyebrow.

"You're right," she said more quietly, but with her voice shaking. "Don't you get it? I failed. I saw this coming, and I was trying to stop it, I was a reporter, I always thought that if I spent a little longer cleaning up my wording or found one more source or got to the bottom of one more problem, people would read it and get it, they would realize they were driving us toward the abyss, and I was driving myself mad and not sleeping...you know why I needed coffee so badly at first? Because by the end I was sleeping a couple hours a night and drinking five cups a day to stay awake, trying to get the truth out, instead of the rebel and government lies." Her voice was bitter. "And I really thought it would work, that it would matter. I really thought, like you did, that people were too smart for this. That someone would back down and decide it wasn't worth this just to decide which set of somewhat corrupt officials would run this part of the country, or whose descendants got to live where. But no one did."

"It wasn't your fault," said Roman quietly but firmly from the doorway. She jumped. He entered the room.

"What did you hear?" she asked anxiously. A more quote-unquote civilized person would have said something about not being able to help overhearing, but Katia knew he wasn't that person, so she just took it as given.

"Everything since you said you failed," he answered. "And...Well, I don't think it would've ever mattered. The only use I ever had for newspapers was cat litter. There were lots of people like me, no one knew shit till it was too late."

"Well, that really helps, knowing my life's work was worthless," Katia snapped reflexively. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said a moment later. "Oh, hell...look, I need to get my pack ready if I'm going to get that stuff you wanted." She hurried out of the room and towards the pack by the front door. Roman followed, leaving Bruno in the sitting room reading his book.

"Well, I was kind of hoping..." Roman gestured vaguely at himself and Katia, as he caught up with her. He was blushing, damn he was cute sometimes, funny how he could be so brutal and cynical sometimes yet so innocent...

"Cool it, Don Juan," she told him, smiling in spite of herself. "Plenty of time for that later." She slung her pack on and headed out, estimating a roughly 85 percent chance Roman was staring at her ass. Which she was OK with.

Day 17

Katia dragged herself up the path to, for lack of a better word, home, a couple of planks of wood and a sheet of plastic trailing on the ground behind her. The sun was starting to rise, but she should be safe now; there hadn't been a line of sight out of this street from here since the building at the other end collapsed.

Of course, one of the planks picked exactly that moment to slide out of the string she'd tied around it, thudding to the ground. She spun, startled by the noise, sending various other items flying out of the pack and scattering on the ground. Swearing loudly, she started gathering everything up. Roman would have to wait - she needed sleep, the kind that wasn't a euphemism.

She had to spend nights hauling stuff, because she could haul more than anyone else. And then whenever the trader came she had to get up and deal with him. Even with the coffee, which was running low again of course, lack of sleep was taking its toll. She staggered into the foyer, dropped everything on the floor, and headed down the stairs for bed. Roman and Bruno met her coming up, and Roman had opened his mouth when Bruno put a hand on his shoulder and muttered something to him. Roman then nodded awkwardly and continued up the stairs. Thank God for that.

Katia slept for the rest of the day, exhausted enough to be immune to the alternating sounds of hammering and arguing filtering down from above, as Bruno and Roman tried to put a new workbench, and some tools for it, together, so they could make cigarettes and medicine.

Some of the work was simple and repetitive enough that Bruno had time to think. He was still worried about his old friend, who could be anywhere by now, who he had committed to protect, and he might have failed. No, he didn't want to think about that, and tried to focus on what he was doing, despite this being unnecessary. When Roman almost hit his thumb with the hammer, Bruno embraced the distraction.

What were those two going to do when this was all over? Sure, this seemed to be more than just lust, but based on what they'd told him, Katia had family to find abroad, and Roman couldn't follow her there, unless they tried to get married solely for that purpose and he didn't imagine Katia would be on board with that kind of fraud. Thinking about this wasn't really any better; Bruno again returned his undivided attention to the sanding.

The work was finished within a few hours, Bruno and Roman speaking only when necessary. They had to work together to survive, but had never really liked each other in the first place, and the argument about Communism the other day had made each suspicious of the other.

"Do we need more materials?" Bruno asked coolly, inspecting their work. It was crude and ugly, but they should be able to make cigarettes with it from the tobacco they had, and that was the important thing. If they could find the right herbs, there was potential there too...

"How should I know?"

Bruno muttered something incomprehensible but uncomplimentary and went to look at the heap of what under normal conditions would be junk: ruptured tires, scrap lumber, old cardboard, some bolts and screws, and God knew what else.

Day 18

Katia awoke in the small hours of the morning, feeling much better. Sure, she stank, her clothes were filthy, and she had no good way to even wash her face. But she'd gotten used to all of that, and a proper sleep for the first time in a long time made her feel energized, ready to go, like how she'd felt on her first real assignment at the newspaper, the one about the bribes to the city council.

She climbed the stairs slowly, not sure what was going on. She reached the ground floor, where soft snoring was audible. They didn't have any beds on this floor. Still a little confused (just because you feel really alert right after waking up doesn't mean you are), she followed the noise into the foyer, and with mixed relief and annoyance saw Roman in their army vest and helmet, shotgun by his side, fast asleep in a chair.

She crept up behind him quietly, then grabbed his shoulders. It occurred to her just a moment too late why this was not a good idea.

He immediately jumped up, whirling around and driving a fist into her midsection. Stars flashed before Katia's eyes as the air was mashed out of her lungs in a massive humph. She staggered and fell over backward, allowing him to grab the shotgun and aim it at her, then recognition.

"Katia!" he yelled, anger and relief clashing. He demanded colorfully to know what the hell she was doing. She lay on the floor, struggling to get enough air into her lungs to respond. "Don't do that! I can't...oh, shit, I'm sorry..." He dropped the shotgun (sending Katia's heart back into her throat - that was the problem, gasp, with these militias, they didn't train people on, gasp, things like basic firearm safety), hurried over, and pulled her to her feet, holding her upright and against him as she caught her breath.

"Damn!" she managed to get out. "I was...I mean, that is...I wanted to..." As her breathing got back to normal, she became aware of the warmth and lithe, shifting muscles of his chest...OK, then, she decided, direct approach it is. She reached down and grabbed his ass, squeezing gently, delighted with the firm tone it had somehow retained despite his recent lack of protein. Their heads rose, their eyes met, and they kissed long and soft and slow, and time seemed to warp because somehow they were both in the chair, Katia across Roman's lap.

Roman, scared out of his mind but wanting this more than anything, fumbled awkwardly with her shirt. If this was how her tits looked after months of near-starvation...he grasped and squeezed and she gasped and there was a loud bang on the front door.

"Hey! Roman! I've got all there was left. Let me in!"

Roman, trained for instant action, stood straight up, setting Katia down on her feet, fixed his belt, and was striding across the room to the door looking like normal before she'd even figured out what was happening. Embarrassed more by how much Roman was making of it than anything else, she hurried out of the room before Bruno could come in.

Roman, pissed off, unlocked the door and yanked it open with a crash.

"I've got everything I could find," Bruno said, setting it down. "You need me to help moving it?"

"No."

"Right then, I'm going to bed."

"You do that."

Bruno looked at him quizzically for a moment. Maybe everyone involved in this war was just nuts, he thought as he headed downstairs.

Katia walked quickly downstairs ahead of Bruno before he could arrive, slipping back into one of the "bedrooms" (i.e. rooms in the basement with beds) and shutting the door. She heard him clomping down into the other bedroom, and the door thumping closed. Moving quietly, she opened the door to this bedroom, pulled her shirt off, and sat down on the bed. Hopefully Roman would come down and get the idea.

He did both of those things.

I'll leave the rest of the end of that night (and beginning of that morning) to your imagination.

Day 18, continued

Katia awoke slowly, with bits of sunlight filtering down from the upper floors. Her muscles, and other areas, were sore in the usual semi-comfortable post-[insert euphemism of choice here] ways. A gentle snore came from Roman, whose arm was wrapped around her.

She was hungry, of course, having had little to eat yesterday and nothing today, but she'd kind of gotten used to that. She snuggled back against him, truly relaxed for the first time in years. It was funny how your life had to be in constant danger for you to appreciate it.

Pregnancy shouldn't be a problem, she concluded after a sudden burst of fear. She hadn't had enough food in months, and her periods had been sporadic or nonexistent for most of that. Why the hunger hadn't killed her sex drive was a good question, but it didn't matter. For once, she didn't have to solve the mystery. She lay there quietly, thinking slow, soft, vague, warm.

Some vague amount of time passed, and she was mostly back asleep.

"KATIA! TRADER!" Bruno's voice boomed, as he crashed down the stairs. She jerked upright; the sound and motion woke Roman, who rolled out of bed onto his feet, fists raised. It took Katia a few seconds to make sense of what was going on, then, swearing loudly, she jumped out of bed and began running around the room finding her clothes and putting them on.

Franko sighed, leaning against the doorframe to be sure he was out of view. Every time he made his rounds, there was at least one house without its act together. Completely drunk and/or naked people had answered doors on various occasions, although the "best" one would be when an old guy with a few screws loose called him Satan and threw a bucket of urine at him. He fiddled with a strap on his (incredibly useful) "ergonomic frame pack" (whatever that meant - it worked though) and sighed again.

The door was pulled open slowly. He turned. Oh, it was this house, he liked this house. More specifically, the person who traded with him at this house.

"How's business, Franko?" she asked, standing a little closer than necessary. As usual, he looked her over, thoroughly, noticing the rumpled clothes and unusually wide stance.

"Quite good, actually. How's your...business?"

"My...business is none of your business...but I wouldn't mind getting down to...business now."

"Good, I'd like to do some...business...with you."

"Just business today, I'm afraid," she answered with that little smirk. "What do you have?"

The usual pattern ensued: they argued, insulted each other, flirted a little, argued some more, and finally settled on an acceptable exchange. Katia shut the door thoroughly satisfied: they now had enough food for a few more days, she calculated.

Franko...well, he was a decent guy, but, well, the...spark wasn't there. She wondered gloomily whether using sex appeal to get better deals this way was better or worse than prostitution. At least the prostitutes delivered on their promises, although hers was only implicit, although that kind of thinking led to all kinds of trouble, although, although...

"Bruno! I got us some food! Come cook!" she called up the stairs. There was no response. She called again, got no answer, and went up the stairs, immediately spotting him by the radio.

"Bruno, what -?"

"Listen!"

"...the peacekeeping force will be comprised of American, British, and French troops, among others. The cause of the sudden willingness to negotiate is unknown, although it is speculated that further sanctions against the Grazni regime..."

"There's going to be a cease-fire," Bruno said. "For real, this time." His voice broke. "They're mobilizing now. I don't...I don't know whether it'll be peace, but at least we can get out of this city."

Katia stood frozen. She'd been straining to see a light at the end of the tunnel for what seemed like a very long time, and suddenly here it was. It was like when it takes you so much time and mental effort to find some item you're looking for, you've almost forgotten why you need it by the time you find it. Now she was remembering.

She had to find her parents, then they should probably get out, at least until they knew whether the cease-fire would hold. Their finances would need to be sorted out, she'd have to let some friends in the States know she was alive, her journal's material cleaned up for publication (as an article, series, book...?)...

"I'll let Roman know," she said indistinctly. She was halfway down the steps when the problem occurred to her.

She still had her passport and press credentials. She could find her parents. But Roman couldn't come, it was very unlikely he had a passport, and he might be on a list somewhere, given his involvement first with a gang and then the Vyseni. So...so what? It was just a fling, a hookup, something to literally and figuratively keep her bed warm -

That's not true, and you know it.

Yeah, she knew it.

"Katia?" he asked. She jumped, blushing. He looked at her, confused and scared.

"I'd be glad if, that is, I hope that, you, uh, enjoyed..."

"Oh, you were great," she said, with the kind of casualness that shows you really mean it, which she did; he'd more than made up for with enthusiasm what he lacked in experience. "Listen. Roman. It's on the radio...it's going to end."

"What?"

"NATO or some other international organization is, has organized, peacekeepers, and the two sides have agreed to a cease-fire," she said, the get-your-facts-straight she'd had to ingrain in her soul coming to the fore.

"So the Grazni win?"

"That's still to be determined," she said hastily. "There'll be negotiations. Probably a two-state solution in the end, that's the way these things usually go after everyone finishes posturing and squabbling."

"So w - uh, the Vysenans win?"

"Maybe."

They stared at each other, not sure what to say. Katia broke the silence.

"Come on, let's find out what's going on." She turned and headed back up the stairs, not waiting for him to follow, but somehow relieved when he promptly did, even though she didn't know why.

They all huddled around the radio silently. The crackling, tinny voice kept talking, but didn't seem to know too much. After the third repetition of the same message, Bruno stood up.

"I'm hungry. Katia, did you get us any food?"

"Yes."

"Right, well, let's have a look." He lumbered out of the room and down the stairs. Katia flicked the radio off and looked at Roman.

"Tell me about something," she said a little desperately. He looked at her oddly, but nodded.

They talked about their homes, their lives, the war, what they were, who they wanted to be. Katia's natural honesty combined with the feeling that it didn't matter, and Roman had spent his life bottling everything like this up so he wouldn't look weak. So they let things spill out. Katia told him about that chance encounter with a reporter, as she was graduating from high school and the USSR was coming apart, when she decided what to do with her life. He talked about running black market goods as a kid, the close calls with the police and the constant worry about informants. And on, and on, it went, hours flying by. But there was one subject they carefully avoided: what would happen when the war ended.

Day 23

"Katia, I don't think this is necessary," Roman said, hurrying after her. "We can survive without food until tomorrow night."

"I'm hungry, and we don't know if they'll have enough supplies for everyone," she answered, a little bemused. She put a finger on his chest and ran it slowly downward. "What are you so worried about? Never acted like this before!"

"I just...look, I don't want you to get killed now. This is almost over for you, you can get out!"

She pulled back the finger; this was serious. "I can get out?" But she knew the answer.

"I have to stay here," he said seriously. "I need...I need to tie things up. I need to know that I did the right thing. You...you've shown me how that matters."

"You did the right thing, leaving."

"I deserted. I ran away. Whatever else it is -"

She wrapped her arms around him and slowly folded him into her. They stood there, silent, wrapped around each other, and Katia started to cry.

"What's wrong?"

"I...I don't...I don't know, it's this, it's all this, why, why do I live when I let this happen...and so many don't? Why does...oh..." She lost control, as some of the pent-up horror and rage of the last months poured out, weeping and striking weakly at nothing.

Roman tried to figure out what the hell to do. He'd never seen her do this. Whenever something like this happened with his old friends, they'd all punch the guy on the shoulder and tell him to tough it up. Probably not the way to go here. While his conscious worked on it, more basic parts of the male brain took over: they realized at about the same time that his hands were around her ass.

"Oh, what the hell," she declared, and kissed him. Roman grabbed and squeezed and wanted this, and then she pulled away, seizing her backpack, running away down the path in front of the house. He stood there for a moment, then gave the wall a good kick (hurting his foot), and stomped back inside, slamming the door, not quite sure what he was angriest about.

"Katia gone scavenging?" Bruno called from upstairs, by the radio.

"Yes."

"OK."

Roman walked up the stairs, breathing heavily. Bruno had the radio on.

"Again, remain inside and in cover while the peacekeeping forces move in. There may be continued violence throughout the night."

Roman looked around. It was a nice building. Not where he'd thought he'd be having his first time, but there it was. He might even miss it.

Without much else to do, he headed for bed.

Day 25

No one had slept. Well, that had been the idea, anyway. By 6 AM Katia was dozing in the armchair with Roman (holding on to every minute they had left), and Bruno had given up and gone to bed around three. The firing had continued through the night; both sides seemed determined to send as many of the enemy to the land of sunset as possible while they still could.

Katia suddenly jerked awake, with no idea why. She scanned the room rapidly, listening and looking for someone breaking in. She could feel Roman stirring too, and slowly rose, ready to shout and wake him. And then she realized what it was.

The guns had stopped.

"Roman!" she said, carefully squeezing his leg so he wouldn't Hulk out on her again. He jerked awake, almost immediately looking confused.

"The shooting stopped," Katia told him. His face cleared, sort of.

Bruno came crashing into the room. They looked at each other and nodded.

"Well, then," he said very calmly. "That's that."

"Yeah."

"I'm going to go see what's going on," Roman said curtly, and headed for the door.

"Wait," Katia told him, "I'll come."

Bruno nodded, understanding. "Do you want me to get your things together?"

"That would be nice, yes."

Roman nodded curtly and strode out the door. Katia followed quickly.

Neither of them spoke as they walked to the end of the street.

"I love you," Roman blurted out suddenly as they reached the corner.

"I love you too, damn it," Katia answered. "I'll..." She was going to promise she'd come back for him after she'd sorted everything out, but realized she didn't know whether she could actually do that, and wasn't completely certain she wanted to. She trailed off awkwardly as they turned the corner, and saw the American soldiers on the street, stars and stripes on their sleeves, mixed with UN people in their blue and white.

Katia walked over to the nearest one, carefully keeping her hands in view. After they'd got through his reaction when she spoke in perfect English, he was able to direct her to a post where lists of the names of Pogoren refugees in various places were being made available.

For Katia, the rest of the day seemed surreal. There were occasional bursts of gunfire a long way off, but no artillery. The streets were openly full of uniformed men, many seemingly just standing around. Impossible amounts of food and water were being distributed haphazardly, with no clear system worked out yet. Few residents were moving about on the streets; those who did walked quickly, tensed as if expecting to be shot at at any moment. Old habits die hard, especially when you died if you didn't have them.

They were both too stunned to speak much, looking at all this and trying to process that it was really all over. Katia knew they were still both in denial, in shock, and would probably have emotional meltdowns at some point and take months or years to come to terms with everything. But for now, she had a purpose, and was in luck: her parents were on a list of people in a German refugee camp. Relief flooded over her: they were alive, and not too far away. She hugged Roman tightly.

Neither the bus terminal nor the airport would be operational again until at least tomorrow, so back they went.

"I...look, Roman, I wish it didn't have to be like this," she said. "That is, I'm glad this is over, of course, but..."

"Hey, I understand," he said. "I know how much they mean to you. If I'd had that maybe I wouldn't— well, that doesn't matter."

She kissed him, soft and slow, and they both knew it felt like goodbye. Sure, they went on back, but barely spoke, and both felt so strange holding the other's hand that they soon stopped. Bruno did all the talking when they got back, exclaiming happily over the food they had brought, insisting on showing them everything about his preparation thereof, and spending most of dinner talking, loudly and loquaciously and cheerfully so much it rang hollow, about the restoration and how he might be able to open his own restaurant and become popular if he acted quickly. Neither of the others really minded.

Bruno ran out of things to say at some point.

"I don't know if I ever thanked you two for saving my life," Roman said. "So, thanks."

"Oh, we wouldnta got through without you, Roman!" Bruno enthused. "You saved all our skins from those thugs more than once, one way or another. Both of you, if you ever need anything, just find me. I'd love to be able to cook something decent for both of you!"

Katia just nodded. There were no words, nor were they necessary, to fully express what they'd all shared. In the ensuing silence, Roman got up and walked out, and Bruno began gathering up the dishes, clattering them a little harder than needed.

In the fuzzy transition zone between too late at night and too early in the morning, Roman took off his helmet and vest, stowing them and the shotgun in a back room. Then he walked out the door, and would never come back.

Katia wasn't too surprised. They'd said goodbye, even if they hadn't. Whether it was goodbye, or just "so long", well...

I don't know how this story ends. It was passed on to me from an old friend of Bruno's, who didn't know the rest of it. Maybe Katia never returned to Pogoren, or found some other man logic would dictate was a better match, or spent all her time on her work for too long. Maybe Roman left the city, haunted by his past, or never quite made the decision to go find Katia. Or maybe they met again, the old fire unextinguished and inextinguishable, and were married in a beautiful ceremony (for which Bruno, when asked to be best man, agreed on the condition he could also do the catering), lived long and happy lives together, and had three children all with their mother's brains and looks and their father's strength and tenacity. Given how chaotic, irrational, counterintuitive, and utterly unpredictable love is, and how much this one was all of those things, there's no way of knowing. But I like to think it all worked.