A/N: If you recognize any of the OC's, they're characters from a series of books by Martin Cruz Smith. I wasn't able to write the story as a cross over because there isn't a category for Martin Cruz Smith.

As he gently laid her head back on the folded coat, he noticed that her eyes were slightly open. But hadn't he just closed them? In the depth of his shock and grief, perhaps he'd only imagined that he had. He reached to repeat the action and felt her blink. "Irena?" he gasped in amazement. Her eyes opened all the way and he saw that she was looking up at him.

"Arkasha?" Her voice was so weak that it was barely more than a breath. "What happened?"

Shaking with emotion, he struggled to maintain his reserve while his mind spun in mad circles. "It's all right, darling," he whispered as he gathered her into his arms.

Illya was alone in the apartment when he heard his telephone ringing. Marion, Monika, and Nakita were all on vacation together in the Virgin Islands. After her long illness, she deserved a vacation, Illya had reasoned. He'd stayed behind because he didn't have anyone he trusted to manage Vanya's. His son Elijah was now working as a biochemist and lived in an apartment in the same building Ilya himself occupied.

"Kuryakin," he said into the receiver, expecting the call to be purely business.

"Illya?" The voice on the other end was familiar.

"Arkady!" Illya exclaimed fondly. Despite the twenty-year difference in their ages, He'd always been close to Arkady Renko. Arkady was the son of Illya's cousin Sonya. After the loss of both his parents in the Great Patriotic War, Illya had gone to live with Sonya and her brother Boris and their parents. He'd been in his final year of the public school system in the Soviet Union when Sonya had married Kyrill Renko, who had been one of Stalin's top ranking generals. The man had been a highly efficient but merciless killing machine. Illya had recognized at once that he was not the right man for Sonya, but she had been young and in love and not easily dissuaded. Not that she would have listened to the opinion of an eighteen-year-old boy anyway, of course.

Less than ten years later, unable to live with the magnitude of the atrocities of which her husband was guilty, Sonya had committed suicide by drowning. Illya had been extremely sorrowful but not surprised at all when he'd heard the news.

Kyrill himself had died some years later, a lonely and embittered man. His estranged son Arkady was now an investigator living in Moscow, and he kept in touch with Illya frequently.

"Irena and I must leave Moscow right away." Illya could sense the urgency in his cousin's voice. "There's been an attempt on Irena's life. She had an infection, and I took her to a clinic for treatment. While she was there, she was given an injection of ampicillin and went into severe anaphylactic shock right away. All attempts at resuscitation seemed to have been unsuccessful, and they told me she was gone. It turned out that she still had a faint heartbeat, too weak to be detectible, and she revived when I went back to see her. As I was leaving the clinic, I got a glimpse of the nurse who'd given her the injection of ampicillin. She was Galina Albova, the sister of Max Albov. Max is a member of the Russian mafia. I thwarted his attempt to smuggle stolen art out of Russia a few years ago, and now he's seeking revenge. After what almost happened to her, I fear greatly for Irena's safety."

"Of course you are both welcome to stay with me for as long as you need to," Illya told Arkady. "My wife and daughters are out of the country for the summer, so I have plenty of room."

"I appreciate that very much," Arkady replied.

Several days later, Illya met the couple at the airport. "You look very well, cousin of mine," Arkady told him. It was true. Now in his sixties, Illya still had the slender, fit body of his youth. His face was gracefully lined, and his hair, still longish by sixties standards, was now a distinguished sliver dark blond.

"And you as well," he told Arkady. The younger man's various scars from his previous misadventures were, fortunately, covered by his clothing, and Irena was as beautiful as ever. Her light brown hair framed her narrow face gracefully, and her pale blue eyes seemed to gaze right into Illya's soul as he gave her a brief hug. "It is such a pleasure to see you again, lovely lady."

Arkady's arms slipped protectively around his wife's slight body as the three of them walked the short distance to the bus stop. From his own many brushes with death, Illya realized that the woman must still be quite shaken and hoped that she would soon be comfortable in her new surroundings.

"I wonder how much everything has changed," Irena remarked.

"That is right," Illya replied. "You defected to New York some time ago, did you not?"

"It was in 1983," Irena told him. "I worked on Broadway for awhile, then moved to Germany and became a newscaster for Radio Liberty. That's where Arkasha and I finally reconnected, and I returned to Moscow with him during the coup to oust Gorbachev."

"The man meant well," Illya commented. "Perhaps he just came along at the wrong time." As they arrived at their destination and carried their luggage up to Illya's apartment, the former UNCLE agent had mixed feelings about the new situation. As much as he wanted to help his cousin and his wife escape their pursuers, he valued his privacy and cherished the opportunity to come and go as he pleased. Now he would have to get accustomed to having other people around again, and a part of him wasn't terribly thrilled about that.

"Max Albov?" Napoleon exclaimed. "Why, he's the son of Valery Albov, one of the most deadly THRUSH agents we ever came up against!"

"I realize that," Illya replied. "As soon as I heard his name, I knew exactly who he was. I said nothing as I did not want to make my cousin any more anxious and afraid than he already is."

"That was a wise decision," said Napoleon. "How much does your cousin know about THRUSH?"

"Not much," Illya told him. "During the Soviet era, he was primarily involved in fighting corruption in our own country, and since then, he's primarily been occupied with various facets of the Russian mafia."

"If it isn't one thing, it's another, isn't it." Napoleon sighed. "I hope that Albov and his colleagues can be stopped before they can cause any more damage."

"So do I."