CITY OF THE DEAD ✓

X. CROSSING

Night fell and the engineers remained in the cabin, leaving Uvarov standing on the shore with us. Alexey's grasp on my hand hadn't faltered in an hour or so. I stared at him with a slim smile. Though we were beneath the stars and moon, he couldn't see it.

"We have to wait for the east bank signal." Ivan looked to the clouded sky as a few flecks of snow drifted to the sand. "Quiet night, good for the both of you."

"During which hour do they signal?"

"It depends on when the reinforcements on the east bank receive their orders. They always cross first. Now the clock ticks and we watch for the light on the other side of the Volga." Ivan turned to the door of the dugout, stepping inside with another man.

We scanned the blackness of the Stalingrad night and looked through our peripheral vision to the dugout as we waited for the firelight to spill into the sand and for Ivan to return. Yet when he didn't after a few minutes, we sat on the shore, listening to the ice crack and pop in the stillness of the night. I leaned against Alexey's uninjured shoulder.

"Thank you, for helping me escape a city which was daunting when I was alone."

"I wouldn't have survived my myself either." He pushed back a strand of hair the wind had untucked from behind my ear. "During the moment you were on the stairs, you weren't the girl from across the street who I said hello to each morning. You changed in my head, in an instant; for the better."

"You don't have to explain-"

"This isn't me confessing my love because it's too late. Everything happens for a reason, and we can call fate on the fact it was you on the stairs."

I took what remained of Alexey's collar and pulled him close to me. We kissed again and he sent a flood of warmth through my body to fend off the November chill.

"We're almost free from this city."

"I know," he whispered. "What are we to do afterward?"

"Deliver the letter you wrote to Yeremenko's family."

"How do you-"

"You said you were going to finish it before going on sentry, and my curiosity dragged me in." I slid it from his coat pocket and extended it towards him. "This is the proof they don't have. His siblings, if he had any, and his parents deserve to know."

He snatched it from me and flipped it over. "It's not simple like you describe. I am responsible for his death, and I left him in a building for dead, or if he is still alive, to be captured."

"Guilt is a horrible thing, but it shouldn't be weighing you down. We can think about how we would change the past, yet, there isn't a damn thing we can do about it. Be here, Alexey, not there."

I turned once again to meet no longer cold green eyes. Alexey stood and I followed, turning to face him with my arms around my gut as I brushed the ash off his cheek for what I hoped would be the final time. My hand dropped to his shoulder before I pulled myself into his embrace, into another moment where there was warmth, not an eternal chill.