Illya Kuryakin held a battered old scrapbook in his hands. It was full of old photographs and letters, and carefully written entries, some from many years ago. It was a joint project he and Napoleon had begun years ago, and had added to over the long years of their friendship. His eyes misted over as he read over some of the entries. Some of them contained the names of people he had worked with who had passed on many years before…most of those had not died of old age. How he missed them! The one that still hurt the most was their fair-haired Brit, Mark Slate, who had died saving their lives, a very long time ago…
He and Napoleon had managed to live to be old men. How they had done so in their line of work, he had no idea. They had both defied the odds many times, and finally retired from the spy business years ago. They had made good lives for themselves. Napoleon had gone on to take over Mr. Waverly's position as New York Section Head, and had done very well at it for a number of years. He had retired a few years ago, finally content to hand over the reins to a younger generation.
Mr. Waverly had passed on suddenly shortly before Napoleon's retirement would have become effective, and Illya was content at that point to move entirely to become the Head of Research and Development for New York. In this way, they were still together, and although it was not quite the same; it was much better than forced retirement. Also, much as Mr. Waverly had done; on occasion, Napoleon would exercise "Executive Privilege" and extricate Illya from the research lab and they would head up a mission, so that their enforcement skills would not get completely rusty. Usually they would team up with April Dancer and Mark Slate on these occasions. It was on one such mission that things had gone horribly, unpredictably wrong, and Mark had sacrificed his life for all three of them.
Napoleon and Illya never went into the field again, although April implored them not to give up field work entirely. She knew Mark would not want them feeling guilty, as they would have done exactly as he had done for any one of them. They both smiled sadly at her, but knew they were finished as field agents. They had their areas of responsibility, and they would learn to be content with what time they had left. And they were extremely grateful they still had each other.
Time did, indeed, march on, and eventually, they retired completely. They had lived in adjoining flats for so many years; they saw no reason to change things at this point. Napoleon had never married after his beloved Clara had forced him to choose between his career and her, and Illya had long ago decided never to force that choice on a woman; so the two bachelors simply continue the routine they had established as partners when they first met so many years before. Only now, they didn't have to nurse one another back to health quite so often. Of course, Illya was still prone to pneumonia, which tended to be more serious now that he was older, and Napoleon complained about a bit of arthritis when he wanted a lady friend's sympathy, but all in all, they both felt it was much more than they had ever hoped for, and much more than they deserved. Life…was good.
Illya smiled at his musings, and closed the journal as the familiar coded knock sounded on his door. He chuckled. You could take the spy out of the business…
~The End~
A/N: This chapter is intended to introduce the series of short stories, drabbles and musings contained within The Scrapbook. They will be in no particular order and will cover various aspects of Napoleon and Illya's lives, partnership, and friendship.
This chapter is dedicated to Noel Harrison, our Mark Slate; 29 Jan 1934—19 Oct 2013 RIP