His breath whooshed out of his lungs, out of his whole body, with the strength and ache which few adversaries could give him in a fight. Except this wasn't a fight, not by a long stretch. It was something he wanted to be doing, his body reacting before his mind caught up, arms wrapping around her and pressing her close, right arm steady, left arm making sure he wasn't hurting her. His face started leaning into the top of her wet hair, lips almost brushing the familiar strands even as the fingers of one hand lightly tangled into them.

And then his mind raced.

His head jerked up, even though he neither tensed nor pushed her away. He didn't want to push her away; he didn't want to let her go. Not to dinners with other 'graduates' of the division X and related programs, not to the cold outside, not to the future he knew they were both going to be step into anyway, a future where human lives were infinitely cheaper than causes, and theirs was the one true one.

"Natalia," he rasped...

... and then stopped himself. Because trying to turn away from that future, even worse, trying to turn her away, would likely lead to the termination of them both. Or... worse, though a sudden headache pressed his temples in as he tried to think about that.

No. He couldn't hold her in. And that knowledge clenched his chest and twisted, and twisted more.

"There is no-one as beautiful and amazing as you." It wasn't quite what he'd meant to say - he wanted to praise her for her accomplishments in his absence, for her progress, for the advancement she'd had today. But it came out true enough.

Her hair was as soft and silken, even still wet, as he ever could have imagined.