Fall in Prague is all bitter winds and cascading rains, trees almost stripped bare by late October. Kate buries her hands deeper in the fur lining of her coat and tries not to think about summers in California, driving down PCH in her father's beat up old convertible with the top down and her hair flying in the breeze.

Strangely, she misses Germany more, the old farm in the countryside, the anxious bustle of Berlin like something out of an old black and white spy drama, a wall away from the governments and the world she knows. Prague is different, she supposes, perhaps because the people here were not gifted as the spoils of war, but rather stepped into the sphere of Communist idealism more than willingly. There are theories about this – theories of guilt.

But she isn't here to deal in theories. Fact and secrecy have become her language now.

She rounds the corner, a gothic cathedral on her left, the circular stone altar of a derelict fountain before her. Movement in the shadows – from the anxious gate of his pacing, she knows it's him.

The iron gate closes with a soft whine behind her, nothing but gravestones and curious black birds to listen to them as they stroll.

"The wall has fallen," she says.

"Yes, yes, I know." He pushes his glasses further up his nose, squinting at her. He always has a nervous energy about him. At first she thought it would make him a security risk, but perhaps the soviets expect a certain amount of jumpiness from the people who they deem too inexpert to deal with their plutonium.

"It's only a matter of time."

"No," he counters. "The time is now. Already there are whispers, yes? Gorbachev is pulling back from empire. And the students . . . they are inspired. Need only a small push and you will see protest."

She inclines her head. "And you will deliver that push?"

"I did not go from hi-tech theoretical research facility to undergraduates for no good reason." He smiles at her, eyes laughing behind the frost of his glasses. His teeth are crooked in the smile, but there's a certain charm about him, a raw devotedness that Kate can admire – in a world of smoke and mirrors, he's the only one brave enough to hide in plain sight.

"So a few words and you expect to topple an empire?"

"Like dominoes."

"When?"

"Demonstration is already planned for a week from now. The character of demonstration, however . . ."

"So, if all goes according to plan, this will be the last we see of each other?" She tries not to let her disappointment show. It's not that getting back to sun and beach and real academic studies won't be nice, but she'll miss this – their calm afternoon walks through ghettos and cemeteries and soccer fields, his expressive hands, the whispering song of the language and the excitement he brings to it.

"Yes, I suppose. Yes."

They amble along for a moment of silent contemplation, birds cooing as they follow along, dancing from tree to tree.

"So what will you do?" she asks.

He frowns. "When all this is over? I suppose I will wait. Undergraduates are not for me, but as interesting as military work might be, in our area of the world . . . who knows?"

She nods. It's for the best. She can't stand the idea that they might somehow end up back on opposite sides.

"And you?" he asks. "Surely you will not continue on your so-called exchange program. Even independent we are nothing but a satellite. Berlin must be more exciting."

"Actually, I was thinking of going back, finish a real degree. In a free world, my services won't be needed anymore."

"And they'll let you go? That simple?"

She smiles a sad smile. To think that he is so used to a world without even that simple freedom. "Yes, they'll let me go."

He looks away, at the foreboding fork of the chapel gates or the storm clouds on the horizon. Maybe he's examining the atmosphere for particles she barely knows exist, let alone has the credentials to ponder. But she doesn't need a degree to read his nervousness.

"What would you do?" she asks, suddenly self-conscious. "If you were allowed whatever you wanted?"

His smile is bemused, sad. "The same as you. I would study."

She smiles at that, at a passion she'd thought she'd lost. But then again, if growing up under an oppressive militarized regime can't make him jaded, then how can she be?

"Maybe you can," she offers.

"Do not offer what you cannot process, Heidi." He doesn't know her real name. She knows his, of course, but she does not use it.

She can't stand the melancholy in his smile. His eyes, grey against the moody sky, speak the propaganda that will never once leave his lips - even as they stand on the brink of a world reborn, there is no hope for truth and passion and curiosity.

Kate doesn't know why she does it, but she leans forward, lips just brushing the stubble at the corner of his mouth. "Nothing is too wonderful to be true," she whispers.

"Michael Faraday," he acknowledges. "But what would he say to this?" he gestures to the empty graveyard, the thick clouded sky, pregnant with anticipation, a country and a people painted in sepia by the empire for which they set the stage.

"Come back with me," she offers.

Hope flickers in his eyes like the flame of a candle, struggling against the wind.