The air seemed to settle around Max in the brief silence after the door latched. However, the quiet didn't last long before Silke's voice drifted to his ears again, carrying through the house. The walls were thinner than the Hubermanns realized - not much happened on the first floor of the house that Max didn't hear. And now, he could hear her voice again, floating around his ears like music - after spending so long thinking he'd never hear her speak again, he'd gladly listen to her talk all day.

"Thank you," she was saying, most likely to either Hans or Rosa. "I wish I had known earlier, but… thank you. For keeping him safe." His heart did something funny in his throat, and he swallowed to try and make it stop. "I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am. And thank you too for letting me see him."

"Would you let it stop you if we hadn't?" That was Rosa, and though her tone was arched Max could hear the small twist of her lips that was as near to a smile as the tough woman ever gave. Silke laughed, and Max swallowed again. His heart really needed to stop that.

"No," she said, "I suppose it wouldn't." Max smiled at that. It reminded him of their younger days, and he couldn't help the small surge of pride. His girl was willing to break in to see him - not unlike what he'd done for her on more than one occasion. The memory stirred his senses, bringing back the feel of the cool night air on his face as he scaled the fire escape bolted to the back of her building. The clench in his chest when she opened the window, beaming at him as she reached out. The feeling of her lips and hands as she greeted him, then thanked him…

Max shook himself. It was neither the time nor the place for those particular memories. Silke's voice was drifting down to him again.

"I should really be headed home, though - the people in my building are probably wondering why I'm out so late."

Max frowned. He had been so caught up in the joy of simply being with her again that he had completely neglected to find out… well, anything, really, about her life here in Molching. Where did she live? Who were her friends? What did she do? It had been four years since he'd last seen her - for all he knew, she was an entirely different person outside these basement walls.

He shook his head. It had been four years. Of course she was different. She's older. Smarter. Change is what happens when time passes. Max felt like an idiot for not realizing this. But clearly, however much she may have changed, some things had not. She was still a kind soul, still fair, still angry. She still loved him.

More words were exchanged - goodbyes between the Hubermann's and Silke - and then the door opened and closed. And she was gone. Max thought - as humans are wont to do - that the house felt colder without her presence.

**AN OBSERVATION**

Though he will frequently deny it,

The young man is often more prone to sentimentality

Than any other iteration of human.

Finally, after the sound of Silke's departure had settled in the air, Max brought himself to move, rising to duck back behind the drop sheets. He settled in on the makeshift bed behind them, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around his calves. His forehead came to rest on his knees - the hair that Liesel had named as feathers falling around him like a dark curtain - and breathed deeply. It had been a long day.

Max exhaled and took in another deep breath. He noted the slight hint of spice and sweetness that had always reminded him of Silke coming from his sweater. It had been more than three years since he'd smelled it, and now it permeated the wool covering his torso. He took another slow breath before he unfolded his body and laid himself out flat on the mattress.

Liesel must have gone upstairs, for Rosa and Hans were talking now, in hushed voiced that still managed to carry down to the basement and into the cave of drop sheets. Through the sounds of the two moving around in the kitchen, their words drifted down to settle on Max's shoulders - his only companions in the dark.

"They're so sweet at that age," Hans was saying. Max could hear the lazy smile in his voice. Max's face flushed a bit, warm against the cool air of the basement. Sweet? "They remind me of us, when we were like that."

Rosa was busy at the stove - she was always managing to make herself busy at the stove. "What are you talking about, Saukerl?" she snapped. "By the time I was her age, I'd already turned down your proposals twice. In fact, if I look closely, I think I can still just see a bit of the black eye I gave you the second time hanging around." There was a brief moment of uncharacteristic silence. Max wondered how it felt in the room above - was it a tense silence? Awkward? Or was it one of those quiet, sweet silences that were so rare in the Hubermann house; the ones where one party smiled at the other, and they smiled back, and it hung gently in the air between them.

"That girl's stronger than you give her credit for, Rosa," Hans said finally - and Max remembered Walter's story about his confrontation with Silke. "She may love that boy, but she's not about to take any shit from him, either."

There was another gap in the voices and Max nearly drifted off in the dark, but Rosa's voice brought him back. "And what did you mean "sweet", anyway? They're just stupid when they're that young. Full of bright ideas." Her emphasis left Max with no doubt as to exactly how bright she thought them.

"That's what's so sweet!" Hans said with a laugh, but his voice sobered as he continued. "Besides, they're hardly children. They've both been through more than they should- and did you hear about Silke's brother? Missing in action. He's the only family she had."

Max felt his stomach drop a bit. He and Mathias had been close before the war. They'd had a bit of a falling out when Max had revealed his feelings for Silke - the protectiveness of an older brother briefly outweighing their friendship. Max had understood. He was the same way with his cousins, after all. But they had repaired things easily enough - and then Mathias had joined the army, under pressure from his father. They hadn't seen each other or communicated in years, but Max had still considered him a friend. And now, he could very well be dead.

Then, a thought meandered its slow way into his cold and sleep-soaked mind. Had he said that Mathias was the only family Silke had left?

Somehow, the idea that Silke's father had died sometime since the last time Max had been a free man did not make him overly sad. Perhaps it had something to do with the way the man had always muttered anti-Jewish slurs under his breath whenever he'd answered the door for Max - or perhaps the way he'd shouted them when Silke had announced she was leaving. (He'd assumed it was Max's idea - and that they had some grand scheme of eloping or something to that effect. Max never really got the details of their supposed plans from him.)

Upstairs, the kitchen remained silent for long minutes before Rosa finally announced that she was going to bed. The floor creaked and then all was quiet.

Sleep crept in around the edges of Max's mind as he shifted the worn blanket higher toward his neck. And just as his body began to relax, his mind letting go of his conscious thoughts, one last one wandered though the beginnings of sleep.

He hadn't nightmared last night.

A smile touched his dry lips for a moment before consciousness left. She had always done her best to help him.

I'm UNBELIEVABLY SORRY about the massive wait on this chapter but life and inspiration combined to suckerpunch my productivity. Note: If I ever say I'm writing another chapter from Max's point of view, I am relying on you lot to do EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER to stop me.

Now, I have a bit of bad news. I'm going to be putting this story on a semi-hiatus. I will still update periodically, but once a week is definitely out and I can't even guarantee once a month. I'm gonna be working more on school stuff - I'm going to college next fall and am in a somewhat informal gap year right now - and I'm also working on a fic for the Leviathan trilogy by Scott Westerfeld which is currently taking up most of the space in my brain that used to be devoted to this. I still really do want to finish this - it might just take a bit (or a lot) longer than originally planned.

But I would like to thank all my readers, followers and favourites for all the support. I wouldn't have been able to get this done without you guys. ^_^ As always, please review if you enjoyed, and I'll see you again...eventually.