𝒊𝒓𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒐𝒄𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 | ʜᴇʟᴍᴜᴛ ᴢᴇᴍᴏ

𝟔 ᴄᴏɴᴠᴇʀɢᴇɴᴄᴇ

The tension in the air was heavy, despite the ethereal sage and lavender scent that passed through the crack of the door. It was as if the hallway lights had darkened and the world before Kalina slowly began to collapse inside of her like a black hole. Her gaze was met with the rich brown eyes of a past life, as he stood uncomfortably in front of her with his hands behind his back. His expression was gentle but firm, with a glimmer of sorrow hidden behind the bold front he projected.

Looking down in disbelief, she shut the door quietly, and exhaled a breath she didn't know she had been holding in. Kalina unlatched the chain lock and opened the door fully, revealing her small body in the frame of the egress. She had expected the hall to be empty upon opening it a second time, as if this were all too surreal to be anything but a dream. Yet, the man in the long overcoat stood in front of her again, smiling softly through his evident hesitation.

"Helmut." She was unsure if the expression of his name was a question or a statement, convinced that she was hallucinating. It had been six years since she had seen him, and his face had aged in the correctional facility. He clearly had been spared by the Snap, and the years of solitary confinement illuminated in his features.

"Kalina." Unable to formulate how to speak to her, he simply replayed her tone with his voice. After all this time, he was close enough to reach out to her, and yet she wasn't his to caress. It was as if he had never met her before, but he still knew her so well. She was an angel in the dimly lit hall and her skin glowed bright and beautiful just like the first time he had ever seen her.

Kalina looked him up and down, slowly taking in the reality of the moment. She felt a choking in the back of her throat but managed to swallow her anxiety. With a light hearted chuckle, she awkwardly spit out, "You look... good."

Easing a little at her laughter, Helmut responded with a gentle smirk, stretching his hands out at his sides, displaying his coat with pride and putting on a slight show. He felt much more at home in his fine leather and designer textiles, as opposed to the cheaply made fabric and shoes of the prison-wear he found himself in daily. Kalina now laughed louder, entirely uncertain how to act in this moment, but feeling like a child meeting another on the playground.

Putting his hands down and warmly looking into her eyes, Helmut sighed. "It's good to see you."

He didn't want to over step her boundaries, knowing that this playful chatter was not enough to wash away the decades of emotion they had between them. Refusing to make Kalina uncomfortable or to put her in a situation she did not want, he respectfully kept his distance and tread on his next steps very lightly. She nodded at him, and the smile from her face slipped away into realization. Looking down the empty hallway, she quickly returned her gaze to him.

"What are you doing here?" Completely forgetting the fact that he had somehow bypassed the security downstairs, she hushed her tone regardless, wondering how he had managed to be standing in front of her door and not locked away in the Berlin Correctional Facility. Helmut himself looked down the hall toward the fire escape and pursed his lips.