He can't help a low chuckle, one with so very little humor and so very great joy, because there's nothing funny about any of it, even to him... but he's just so happy to have her back.
"I told you, sweetheart. I would have found you. We're-"
And the words are rushing out of him, utterly without his brain engaged in a way that's so very Not Him, but he's been going mad for weeks. And he's thought it over so many times in that time: when he got back to her? He'd never want to let her go.
He swallows hard.
"You're not just my inmate, Ulla. You're not-" he swallows again, and there'd been a moment of fear, a terrible moment where he wasn't sure if he should let it out but he'd promised her, promised and he'd never go back on it.
"Come with me," and now he lifts her up a little so they can look at one another eye to eye, his chest heaving with emotion even if he could hold her all day, "when you graduate, when you're done- I don't-
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"I told you, sweetheart. I would have found you. We're-"
And the words are rushing out of him, utterly without his brain engaged in a way that's so very Not Him, but he's been going mad for weeks. And he's thought it over so many times in that time: when he got back to her? He'd never want to let her go.
He swallows hard.
"You're not just my inmate, Ulla. You're not-" he swallows again, and there'd been a moment of fear, a terrible moment where he wasn't sure if he should let it out but he'd promised her, promised and he'd never go back on it.
"Come with me," and now he lifts her up a little so they can look at one another eye to eye, his chest heaving with emotion even if he could hold her all day, "when you graduate, when you're done- I don't-
"I never want to lose you again."