Okay, there aren't many times I will admit to being scared. You are, of course, scared all the time out in the field – you'd be dead or t least stupid if you weren't. It's just, at that point you, use it to your advantage, let it make the adrenaline pump through you, gives you the edge to need to get the job done. This is different. My hands are sweaty, my knees are knocking and I'm fighting the urge to toss my cookies into the nearest bush.

This is stupid, I yelled at myself. It's only Illya. It's just your partner! But you see there's the rub. I'm not so sure that he is my partner… not anymore.

I'll admit that things have been a little strained lately. When you're looking down the business end of a pistol and it's being wielded by the one person you trust more than life itself, yeah, there's just a little stress there. Worse, he didn't know me. THRUSH had been so good at its job; Illya looked me straight in the eye and pulled the trigger.

Of course, it wasn't his fault and I didn't blame him for anything. The brainwashing techniques being used on him were considerable and as strong as Illya is, THRUSH was just a bit stronger this time.

Then being used as bait to lure me into a trap, using him like some sort of innocent in a bloody game of cat and mouse. I found him, just barely, but carried a new scar away from the affair, not just the physical, but the mental – the image of Illya held captive in that small glass booth, about to die because of his friendship with me.

I'm sure that's what made his capture all the worse a few months later. Captured, tortured, drugged with the intent of turning him into a rambling vegetable… it was an ugly sight that stays with me even now. He was so far gone I wasn't sure he'd come back. He didn't know who I was; who he was; I had to lead him like a child.

Feeling his hand in mine, warm and strong, I was hopeful and miraculously he did come around, although I know he had nightmares for a week afterwards and spent some quality time with our shrinks, but he got through it, only to be handed the ugliest blow of all.

A look alike and the need to torture me to death; well, not actually to death since I'm standing here, shaking like a little girl… well, a manly little girl. It was a trick, gratis our whiz kids in the labs, but the damage was, never the less, severe. Deliberately and with his own hand Illya, at least temporarily, killed me. Needless to say, we had separate hotel rooms once we were done saving the world…the first time for a long time, we needed time away from each other.

And I'm guessing that's what led us to this spot. Waverly had seen and understood. He always saw and understood. He sent me on one assignment, Illya on another and everything went bad. I'd gotten used to Illya being there, always watching, even if it was through a rifle sight – small joke there. I was sloppy and got a knife between the ribs for my efforts.

It was hardly the first time I'd been hurt and woken up in Medical, but it was the first time since we'd been partnered that Illya wasn't there. Nowhere… in the following days, people looked at me as if I'd taken leave of my senses. All I wanted was one answer – where is Illya? Even Waverly, the closest thing I've had to a father figure for most of my life, looked at me with puzzlement as if to ask, "Illya who?"

I was like a man possessed until an angel in Travel took pity on me, sent me an interoffice envelope with just the briefest of notes inside.

It was all I needed and here I was. The directions had eventually led to a small safehouse UNCLE maintains on the Maine seacoast – windblown, sea swept, it was Illya, at least as of late - distant, cold and remote. I'd never thought I'd experience what others hinted about, always thought I would be spared Illya's cold side.

So I stood there on the stone strewn path and stared at the front door. My whole future was on the other side and for a moment, I didn't want to know. I just wanted things to be the way they had been, easy, casual and trusting.

I didn't bother to knock. Illya had known I was there from the moment I stepped onto this path. It was that damn connection we had.

I pushed the door open and just stared for a moment. The hallway was dark and smelled slightly musty, the sign of a building kept closed for long periods of time. It took me a only a few moments to locate him. There wasn't really any place to hide except the bedroom or the living room.

He was slumped in an armchair, staring out at the restless Atlantic. A storm was coming, in more than one way. His head never moved, but I knew he heard me. He was naked except for a pair of black pants, the wind tossing his uncombed hair. His face hadn't seen a razor in days and I found myself wondering just how long he'd been sitting there… waiting for… what? Me?

I took a step and kicked something. That was when I saw them, half a dozen empty bottles. I didn't need to pick one up to know what it is.

"What kept you?" The voice was rusty with disuse.

"Red tape." I tried to make it sound light, trying to recapture the banter that used to be so easy.

"I tried to tell them it wouldn't work."

"That what wouldn't work, Illya?"

"That you'd never leave me alone. That I'd never be free of you unless I made a clean break."

"Is that what you want, Illya? For me to leave you alone?" He was so quiet for so long that I began to suspect his answer.

"I want to sleep." His voice was so wistful. "And not see you, hurt, betrayed, hating me."

"I don't hate you, Illya. I could never do that."

"Then I'll kill you if you can't."

My breath caught with that. At first I thought he meant that he would physically hurt me, but then I picked up his meaning. THRUSH had discovered my weakness, my Achilles Heel. Illya had come to the conclusion that THRUSH would continue to use him as a weapon against me until the inevitable occurred. It really meant death for both of us – in the career, if not the physical sense. I would never stay with UNCLE if Illya died because of me and it sounded as if Illya had already made the decision to go. Like I was going to let that happen.

They'd use him to kill me and I didn't care… perhaps I needed some of the inch or so of vodka left in the bottle he was cradling.

"Illya…"

"You need to go. I need… I want to be left alone."

"Not until we've talked this out."

"What part of leave me alone do you have a problem with?"

"Leaving you alone, none of it. Leaving you, there's the problem."

The head bobbed for a moment, then swiveled in my direction. Bloodshot blue eyes studied me for a long moment. I didn't know what to do besides stand there, in the slightly salty smelling, cool living room, listening to the waves outside crash, to my heart pound.

"Then let me make it easy for you."

He can move lightning fast when he has to or wants to, so fast he scares me at times. Illya's like a cat that way.

Seemingly within a second, he's on his feet and nose to nose with me, shoving me backwards, and I was reminded of what a dangerous commodity my partner is; wonderful in a fight, but not so great when facing off with him.

"I won't fight you, Illya." I struggled to keep my voice even, non-confrontational. Still I brought my hands up – I wouldn't fight him, but be damned if I wouldn't defend myself.

The alcohol had done its job, his movements awere slow, his blows easy to block. He was telegraphing like crazy and he kenow it.

"What are you trying to do, Illya? Get me to bust you for subordination? It wouldn't be the first time we'd come to blows over something. Even if you could see enough to actually hit me, then what? It solves nothing."

"Then what do I have to do to make you understand? This has to end, we have to end. THRUSH isn't going to stop until one of us is dead."

"So what else is new?" I watched him; it was if he just shut down, got smaller somehow. His shoulders sagged and his feet splayed wide, as if just staying upright was a major effort. Well, maybe after that much Stoli, it was… I touched his arm… no fight, no resistance, no nothing. I gave him a gentle push back towards his armchair and he didn't resist me. I don't know that he could at this point.

"When was the last time you slept or ate?"

"Who cares?"

"I care. Damn it, Illya, I care too much, that's the problem. Not just my problem, but ours. And the reason for that is that I'm not about to stop caring. There is nothing you can say or do to stop me from doing that."

"Then I've killed you." His voice was resigned. "Just as certainly as if I'd placed a gun to your head and pulled the trigger."

"But I'm not dead. I'm alive and I'm not letting go."

"Why?"

"Because I let you go and THRUSH wins. That isn't going to happen, not now, not ever, not as long as I'm drawing a breath."

"Then what do we do?"

"The same thing we always do, Illya, we survive. We spit in their eyes and live, just to spite them."

"I won't let them use me."

"Then don't! I'm not asking you to do anything different, just don't let them stop you from being what you are, what you do best."

His laugh was hard-edged, bitter. "And what am I so fucking good at, Napoleon? Nearly killing you? Because from where I'm standing it seems like that's all I've been doing lately. Even Waverly sees it! That's why he split us up. Why can't you see the obvious?"

"What's the obvious? I came closer to dying from this knife wound than I did from anything that's happened recently." I waved a hand towards my side. "And I know the only reason I got hurt at all was because I didn't have you at my back watching out for me."

"Like I've been so successful at watching out for you as of late."

"You've developed quite the self-pitying streak, my friend. It's not pretty."

He muttered something ugly and physically impossible under his breath and returned to staring out at the ocean.

"So your grand scheme is what then? Sitting here and drinking yourself into a coma?"

"What if it is?" He finished the last swallow of vodka and dropped the bottle onto the floor. The clunk hurt my ears as much as if it had been a C-4 explosion.

"I've always thought of you so many different ways, a skilled agent, a loyal friend, a strong ally. Never took you for a gutless wonder."

" Пошел на хуй " He'd reverted to Russian and that was fine. I was a little rusty, but I knew a curse when I heard it.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you? For me to just leave you, let you kill yourself. It isn't going to happen, Illya. I told you before. This is not the end; I won't permit it."

"Just who the hell do you think you are? What if it's what I want?"

"Your friend, your partner, and, if it happened to escape your notice, I'm your boss."

Illya made a gesture and I smirked. English wasn't the only thing he'd learned in London. Still, he was listening and that was something. "You want to stay, fine, I'm staying too. And if I have to drag you kicking and screaming back with me at the end of this little pity trip, then make no mistake, I will."

"Why bother? I'll just leave again."

"And I'll find you again. It may take me awhile, but I will. As to why because you are my partner and you're my friend. I'm not ready to give that up."

"Don't I have a say?"

"No."

"I'll be the death of you or you, me."

"I've entrusted my life to you, who better to entrust with my death?"

At his lack of response, I thought he'd just gotten too annoyed to speak, but then I saw his head loll and realized the vodka had finally had its say. He'd passed out, either from drink or lack of sleep or food, it didn't really matter.

I closed the window, got him upright and half dragged half carried him to bed. It didn't matter what he said or thought, I wasn't leaving here alone. One way or the other,I was going to get my partner back. Finding him was the first step. I stretched out onto the bed beside him. And everyone will tell you, taking that first step is the hardest one.