'I keep telling you, it will be all right,' Napoleon said in a low voice to Illya.

'Yes, you keep telling me,' Illya nodded, his voice very dark, holding on as Napoleon's arm guided him along this cold, level sidewalk.

He had been in a bad mood for days, so fearful of this appointment. After two years of blindness, of learning to accept that his blindness could not be changed, it was so odd to be walking to an appointment where he might be told there was hope of seeing. He had first been tentatively offered that hope by his chance meeting with an ophthalmologist in Egypt and this appointment with Dr Bruner's colleague would tell him how firm that hope could be. He didn't know how to deal with that. He didn't know what would happen if he went in to this appointment and his hopes were shattered again. Even if he were told that Bruner's optimism was well founded, it still wasn't a certainty. It wouldn't be a certainty until he opened his eyes to sight.

He tapped the end of his cane across the hard sidewalk and kept following the steady movement of Napoleon's arm. It was colder here in Chicago than it was in New York, but there was little else to distinguish the place from the city where he had made his home. The sounds were very much the same and the streets were just as thickly blanketed by ice and snow as they made their way to Dr Wilkinson's clinic. The air smelt of salt and Napoleon had told him there were great frozen piles of snow four feet high in some places at the sides of the streets. He had been hearing snow ploughs in the streets all morning. Despite the prevailing opinion that all Russians were good with snow, Illya wasn't keen on it at all after the first magic had worn off, especially now he couldn't even see it. It made life so difficult, and it had been snowy for far too long.

'Oh, watch it there,' Napoleon said as Illya slipped a little.

'Well, if you would guide me properly,' Illya said irritably, regaining his footing. 'Can't you warn me of icy patches?'

'Not if I can't see them any more than you can, no,' Napoleon retorted. 'Illya, I know you're nervous, but I'm doing my best.'

His anger flared. He should have controlled it but he just didn't have the resources. He was using everything he had just to keep himself together, and he just wanted to be able to walk without something going wrong.

'Well, if your best includes letting me break an ankle before I've even got to this blasted clinic, then – '

Napoleon stopped so suddenly that Illya's hand jarred against him. He batted Illya's fingers from his arm, and stamped away.

'Go on, then,' he said, his voice cracking with anger. 'It's number 244. It's probably somewhere on the next block. I'm your partner, not your seeing eye dog, so take yourself to the damn clinic, and godspeed.'

Fury welled in Illya's chest. Why should he have to rely on Napoleon anyway? He was sick of relying on other people. He was sick of it all.

He slapped the end of his cane out in front of him and started walking, but he quickly felt uncertain. He had built a mental map of many of the New York streets based on sounds, scents, echoes, on the cane's feedback and what he knew was there. He had nothing like that for Chicago. The sidewalk felt rough through the cane, but his gloved hands muffled some of the sensation. There were sure to be more icy patches ahead. There was traffic moving very slowly in the street, but not much of it, and every sound was muffled and sucked up by the snow.

He carried on walking, using the snow banks at first to keep himself straight, but they were too irregular, so he sidestepped to the other edge of the sidewalk and tapped the cane onto the building façade instead. The cane hit what felt like a potted plant and he moved around it. Then there was what seemed to be a double door, one of them not quite closed, then another potted plant to get around. He had the urge to kick the stupid thing. Then there was the hard wall again, and then he heard Napoleon coming after him yelling, 'For god's sake, Illya! You don't need to prove yourself.'

'I'm not proving myself. I'm getting myself to this wretched appointment, since you don't want to help me,' Illya growled. 'You must get sick of having me clinging to your arm.'

He squared his shoulders and carried on, and then Napoleon grabbed him from behind and said, 'Illya, stop!' just as his cane tapped into empty air and his foot stepped on half-nothing, and he reeled to a halt, shocked, almost slipping on the icy sidewalk.

'You're not getting yourself to this wretched appointment. You're walking off in a huff like an idiot, not looking where you're going,' Napoleon said very quietly, his hand on Illya's collar still, pulling a little at his throat.

Illya was too shocked for anger. Napoleon was right. He had been dragging his cane along the shoreline of the wall, and not using it to tell what was right in front of him.

'What in hell is that?' he asked, batting his cane at the sheer edge and a hole that seemed to have no bottom, but Napoleon was shouting at someone else now.

'Can't you even put out cones, for Christ's sake? A barrier? He almost walked straight into it! Can't you carry a fence?'

There was rough shouting in response and Illya realised that, despite the cold that deadened everything, he could smell coal dust.

'It doesn't matter, Napoleon,' he said, but Napoleon was fired up.

'Like hell it doesn't matter! You could have broken your neck! Doesn't anybody think about the blind?'

'No,' Illya said. He felt shaken from his near miss. His heart was pounding. 'No, Napoleon, they do not. The sighted never think about the blind. They put out plants and tables and chairs and signs and wooden Indians and barber's poles, and they leave boxes and packages on the sidewalk, just for a moment, while they go in to find someone, and they don't clean up after their dogs or watch their children, and they open up holes in the ground, and they do not think of the blind for an instant. This is my reality. This is what happens when I go out without you. You think a Thrush minefield is hard to navigate? You should try Fifth Avenue in the summer. Thrush have got nothing on that.'

'Come on,' Napoleon said very quietly, closing a hand around his arm. 'Come round this booby trap, at least.'

So Illya let him tug him by the arm, using the cane to feel the edge of the coal hole until they were past, breathing in the biting air and trying to master the need to punch something.

'I'm sorry,' he said at last, rearranging things so he was holding Napoleon's arm. 'I'm nervous. I didn't mean to be a brat.'

'Well, you're my brat, at least,' Napoleon said fondly, pressing a gloved hand over Illya's gloved hand. 'And, Illya, I never get tired of helping you. You never cling to my arm.'

Illya tilted his head a little closer to his partner and gave a wan smile. He wished he could feel Napoleon's hand properly. He hated wearing gloves. He hated not being able to feel.

He could hear someone ringing a bell up ahead, and as they reached the sound Napoleon murmured to him, 'Salvation Army girl. I'm going to give her a little change.'

'Oh, pretty, is she?' Illya asked.

'Well, now that you say… Hair like a flame, very pale skin.' Napoleon paused in his step then and Illya heard the tinkle of coins hitting coins, and a soft, 'Thank you, sir.'

'It was entirely my pleasure,' Napoleon said in his smoothest voice, but he leaned in to Illya and said quietly, 'She doesn't hold a candle to you,' as they walked on, and Illya smiled.

The bell clanged out behind him again and there was a snippet of singing that came through a door that opened and closed, and he remembered hearing similar sounds not long after he had been blinded. It had been this time of year when Illya came back from Stockholm, and how strange that had been. The arrhythmic sounds of Salvation Army bells as their people collected money on the street. The singing out of choirs, Christmas carols filling the air. The shrieks of people on temporary ice rinks. It had been so weird.

Napoleon had urged Illya to come out with him to complete some Christmas shopping, and Illya's heart had sunk, because he hadn't even remembered about Christmas, and how could he buy Napoleon something when he couldn't see? He had walked around Macy's in the clamour and bustle and tried not to let Napoleon see how hard he was finding it. He hated it. He hated the jostling and the heat in the shop, the clinging on to Napoleon's arm, the vulnerability, the thought that people must be staring at him as he blundered along with one hand held out in front of him. In the hot, crowded elevator he had got close to claustrophobia, something he had never experienced before, and then they had stepped out onto another floor and Napoleon had exclaimed and tried to describe the decorations, and that seemed worse than not knowing they were there.

He had just wanted to go home. In the apartment there was a great Christmas tree he could smell and touch but couldn't see, although he had helped to decorate it, at Napoleon's insistence. He could just make out the colour of some of the tree lights if he brought them right up to his face, but that was no way to experience them. Napoleon had put the box of ornaments on his lap and Illya had touched them and tried to remember them from other years, and Napoleon had been so insistent about Illya hanging up some of them himself, about sharing the experience. The scent of the tree had been all around him, and he loved that scent, but he gained little more from the experience.

But Napoleon had been so desperate that Illya would enjoy this first terrible Christmas without sight. He kept rolling up his sleeves and cooking Illya Christmas treats and special Ukrainian delicacies. He put Christmas records on the record player and filled their apartment with beautiful music. He had got hold of a recording of the carols from Kings College, Cambridge and that was about the only thing that Illya could take comfort in at that moment. He had sat and closed his eyes and remembered being there in Cambridge, listening to those carols himself, remembered the candles and the light sparkling from gilt and polished wood and pooling soft on carved stone. The upper heights of the fluted columns and the delicate lacework of the arching ceiling almost disappeared in the enveloping darkness of night, but the voices of the choirboys shimmered through everything with the clarity of water. It had been so beautiful.

And then in Macy's he wondered if he could get Napoleon a record for Christmas. Maybe he could do that, and get them to wrap it up for him, because how could he even wrap a present like this? That had been his first spark of joy in that horrible shopping trip. He had got Napoleon to get an attendant to help him, and had gone off into that noisy, crushing soup of customers, feeling ridiculously vulnerable being separated from Napoleon in this busy place, but glad that he had thought of something he could get for him. He had spent an hour in the record department listening to discs that the incredibly helpful lady brought him, until he had picked out five that were perfect and had them wrapped up and slipped into a bag.

When Napoleon had unwrapped the gifts on Christmas day it had been wonderful. Napoleon had bought him records too. A couple of full length recordings of favourite books of his, and some wonderful new jazz. It had seemed perfect that they could both enjoy each other's presents, and although that had been the strangest Christmas he had ever had, he remembered it with warmth. By the next Christmas he had been more used to this strange blind world. This would be his third Christmas without sight.

'All right, this is it,' Napoleon said, turning towards the left. 'Door's hinged on the left. It opens inwards,' he added, so Illya knew he didn't need to worry about it since he was on Napoleon's right, as always. The cane tapped from the concrete sidewalk onto something softer, and it immediately grew warmer, but Illya felt a different kind of cold that was heavy in his stomach.

'It'll be all right,' Napoleon said.

'So you keep saying,' Illya replied rather blackly.

He followed Napoleon's arm across the lobby and Napoleon told him, 'This is the reception desk, Illya. The receptionist is right here.'

So Illya pasted a smile onto his face and said, 'Mr Kuryakin, to see Dr Wilkinson. I have an appointment at half past twelve.'

'Ah, Mr Kuryakin.' A woman, a midwest accent, with a smoker's voice, he thought. At any rate, there was a scent of cigarettes in the air that was stronger than the scent of perfume. 'Please, take a seat. I'll let you know when the doctor is ready.'

So Illya followed Napoleon to a soft but utilitarian chair, and rather envied Napoleon as he heard him pick up a magazine.

'National Geographic, Illya,' Napoleon said brightly. 'It's the latest issue. Want me to read it to you?'

'You'll spoil it for me when I get home,' Illya murmured.

He had been going to cancel his subscription when he lost his sight, but Napoleon had put him off, promising to read every issue cover to cover out loud if Illya wanted him to, and to describe all of the pictures. So far he had read every one without complaint. Illya felt rather self conscious, though, at the idea of Napoleon reading aloud to him here.

'Well...' And Napoleon tapped his fingers. He was almost incapable of just sitting quietly. Illya didn't want to talk and he didn't want to listen. He just wanted to be left alone to think – or brood, as Napoleon would probably put it. This appointment was too momentous for distraction. He just wanted it to happen. He wanted it to be over, one way or another.

((O))

Illya sat through the appointment with Dr Wilkinson and as he went through test after test his dread lightened. It was going to be all right. Almost everything that this new doctor said was positive, and although Illya hated the sitting in a chair and pushing his face against the instruments and having bright lights shone into his damaged eyes, he became happier with each test. It was actually starting to seem possible.

'But I must warn you, Mr Kuryakin, that nothing about this process will be swift,' Dr Wilkinson told him. 'Each eye will be done in a separate operation with a full thickness transplant, and I'll recommend doing the right first since that has the highest chance of success. Your vision will fluctuate over the first year after transplant and you will almost certainly need to wear corrective lenses once your eye has settled down. Also, I must be clear on this: any kind of contact sport is contraindicated at any time after a penetrating keratoplasty. Now, you've indicated your previous occupation was some form of law enforcement. Mr Kuryakin, after transplant the eye will never be as strong as before and a blow could cause blindness. I cannot recommend your return to that career even if your vision is good enough.'

Illya sat there, feeling mildly stunned. All those words revolved in his head. He would see. He was going to see. But – His mind turned dizzily. Corrective lenses. No return to active enforcement. No chance of returning to the field with Napoleon. But sight... The promise of sight. Oh god. Vibrant colours, reading books, walking swiftly and with confidence, perhaps driving, perhaps – An entire world was opening up in his future.

'Er – Thank you, doctor,' he said eventually, becoming aware that he was just sitting there without saying a word. 'Thank you.'

'Well, that's it, Mr Kuryakin. You can go. I'll pass on my findings to Dr Bruner, and I'm confident he'll be just as pleased with the results as I am.'

Illya stood up from the chair and shook the man's hand, feeling slightly giddy. Napoleon's hand closed on his arm, and his partner said quietly, 'All right, Illya. Let's get out of here.'

He sounded as stunned as Illya felt. After they left the examination room Napoleon took Illya into the toilet and pulled his partner into his arms and kissed him so hard that Illya's knees weakened.

'Napoleon, if someone comes in,' Illya began, breaking breathlessly from the kiss at last.

'They won't. It's a single toilet and I'm standing against the door.' And Napoleon pushed his fingers through the hair at the back of Illya's head and kissed him again. 'God, Illya,' he breathed. 'My love, my love. This is going to happen, Illya. It's really going to happen.'

Illya hardly knew what to think. As a scientist he liked to deal in percentages and this doctor hadn't mentioned percentages. He had just muttered things like, very promising, and a good deal of healing has occurred, and the sclera seem sound. So perhaps… Perhaps Napoleon was right, and it was really going to happen, and now he just needed to wait for – And his thoughts sobered. He needed to wait for the right person to die.

'Let's get out of here,' he said, and Napoleon's hands stopped still in his hair.

'Hey, are you all right?' he asked.

'I'm fine,' Illya promised. 'It's a lot to take in. Give me a chance to process it.'

So Napoleon kissed him softly on the forehead and smoothed down his hair and said, 'As long as you need, honey'

'Napoleon, I think I could do with being alone for a while,' Illya said suddenly. 'Do you mind?'

There was the smallest hesitation, but then Napoleon said, 'No. No, Illya. I don't mind. I tell you what – I'll take you back to the hotel, then I'll go out for a while, leave you to it. Is that okay?'

'If you don't mind,' Illya said. He felt awful rejecting Napoleon and essentially throwing him out of his own hotel room, but he really felt that he needed time on his own to settle his spinning thoughts.

((O))

He lay on his front on their bed, his face pressed into the bedclothes, the silence of the room hissing in his ears. There were faint noises from outside, a few cars, but not much penetrated the windows. Napoleon had left him alone, true to his word, with the promise to come back in time to take Illya out for dinner, because he wanted to take him out and treat him, and Illya acquiesced to that, because he understood Napoleon's excitement and joy.

His own emotions were far more complicated. He knew there was no hope that Napoleon could understand. He could hardly understand himself. What sane person would prefer blindness to sight? And he didn't prefer blindness. He knew that. But he preferred stability to chaos. He preferred a low level of contentment to shattered hopes.

How crazy this was…

He lay there, turned his face sideways, opened his eyes wide to the pearly blur of light that was his vision. There was nothing there. A slight sense of light and shadow, sometimes a very vague sense of colour. But really, that was all there was. It was like frosted glass, or worse, because it was more opaque.

He remembered the last thing he had seen clearly, when he had run into that lab with Napoleon. It wasn't a very big building; small enough for two men to tackle alone. In the end it had turned out that there were twenty men there. Only a handful were guards, but all were Thrush personnel, and the scientists were just as aggressive as the armed staff. They had already cleared out six men on the ground floor. Illya had felled three of them, using sleep darts, not bullets. Napoleon took the other three, and the men were slumped where they had fallen. They would come around, but not for a few hours.

And then they had crept upstairs, and Illya had pushed open the door to the lab. There had been a man in a white lab coat standing at a bench near the door, beaker in hand, and another man on the other side of the room by another open door. There were a number of benches in the room, a few stools, a couple of posters and some crude pin-ups on the walls. There had been test-tubes and a lit Bunsen burner hissing and letting a scent of gas into the air. There had been flasks of colourful liquid, the last really colourful things Illya remembered seeing.

Illya had stepped into the room, raising his gun, and Napoleon had shot past him at the man over by the other door. But Napoleon had missed, and the man closest to Illya had raised that beaker and thrown it directly into Illya's face, and he had cried out, choking on the pain and the smell simultaneously. He had no idea what was happening then. He heard shouting, he thought, but all he could focus on was the terrible, terrible pain in his eyes and his face, and he dropped to his knees, shaking, shuffling himself under the bench that he knew was behind him because there were bullets snapping through the air. Then Napoleon was shouting over his cries, 'I need to leave you. The other guy ran. I'll be back, Illya, I promise. Hold tight.'

And then he had gone. He had gone, and Illya had been alone. There had been the hiss of the Bunsen burner, still alight on one of the benches. There were thudding footsteps from elsewhere. Illya knew that his life depended on being small and quiet, on not being found, so he tried to choke his screams back into his throat. He pressed his jacket sleeves against his face, trying to wipe that stuff off his skin, his eyes closed so tightly that everything was black. And it hurt. It hurt so much. His breath came in wheezes with his effort not to scream.

He had been huddled back, hard against the wall, the bench low above his head. And he had been shaking. He shook so hard, pressed against the leg of the bench, that the glass instruments on top rattled. He moved his hands to his face and stopped short of touching because he didn't want to burn his hands too, but it hurt too much to press his rough sleeves against it again. He clenched his hands on his knees and shook. It hurt so much that his stomach revolted, and he turned his head aside just in time to avoid getting the sick down his front. Oh god, it hurt.

He sat there and listened to the distant sound of shots, the smell of vomit and the smell of that chemical thick around him. What would happen if Napoleon didn't come back? Had he seen a telephone in this lab? He tried to remember, and couldn't. He couldn't think. His mind was screaming with pain and he wanted to scream aloud but he didn't dare, because he was almost hidden here. He didn't know how long he had been here now. What if Napoleon didn't come back? What if – ?

Then thumping footsteps, and he held his breath, and then, god, Napoleon's voice.

'Illya? Illya, it's all right. I've cleared them out. All dead or incapacitated. I can get you out of here.'

So Illya started to unclench himself and crawled from under the bench, trying to avoid the vomit. The smells of that and the chemicals were so strong. He felt like an animal, all fear and revulsion and visceral feelings. He could make noise now, and he let out his pain in deep, long, wavering cries. And Napoleon's hands grabbed hold of him and yanked him out further, and he was saying, 'There's not too much on your face, but your eyes, Illya – ' Then Napoleon was putting a thumb on his eye, trying to pull up the lid, and Illya quavered, 'No, no, don't touch.'

'Illya, I have to,' Napoleon said, his voice deadly serious, and he forced the lid open and said in a horrified tone, 'Jesus Christ,' and Illya couldn't see anything at all through his opened eye. Napoleon pulled him across the room and a tap turned on and Napoleon shoved his head under it and forced his eyes open again, but it made no difference at all.

'I can't see, Napoleon,' he said, water trickling down his face, and his voice had been so thin and shaking. His entire body was shaking and he felt so cold.

'Both eyes?' Napoleon's thumb had forced his eyes open again, and he blinked against the pain and the dripping water and saw nothing more than a dim haze.

'B-both eyes. Can't see...'

'Okay, I'm getting you to hospital,' Napoleon had said, and it hurt so much Illya barely even knew he was walking. He couldn't stop the shaking that wracked through his whole body, but Napoleon's arm was so firm and hard around his back and he felt all of his friend's worry and love in that grip. Napoleon had walked him all the way out of the building, stumbling down the steps, into the car. And Illya had sat there with his hands over his face, shaking and making little sounds of pain that he tried to stifle, and Napoleon had kept saying, 'I'm going as fast as I can. Almost there, Illya. Almost there. How painful is it?'

And Illya felt like the entire world was white in a blaze of pain, his whole face on fire, his eyes being eaten away, and he hadn't been able to think of a coherent response so he let loose a string of swearwords instead, and Napoleon asked, 'Did that help?' and Illya said, 'No.'

And then they were there. Napoleon had braked to a halt so suddenly that Illya lurched forward and hit his head on the dashboard, and Napoleon had hauled him out of the car apologising, holding him so tightly again, saying, 'I'll have to leave you in the ER, Illya. I have to get back and organise the clean-up team. I'm so sorry, Illya. I'm sorry.'

'It's your job,' Illya had growled, because what he really wanted to say was, please, god, don't leave me, Napoleon. I'm so scared. But of course Napoleon had to. He hustled Illya through the door and spoke rapidly to someone, and while Illya was being pressed into a wheelchair he had patted Illya's shoulder and said, 'Good luck, tovarisch,' and then he had been gone.

It had been so awful. It had been terrible. And later Napoleon came back, later, after they had spent so long trying to irrigate his eyes, and they had finally given up. They had covered the acid burns in cream and wrapped him in bandages, and he was sitting with the Ukrainian doctor they had found who could speak to him in his own language, who was so wonderful, so motherly, who made him feel as if even though everything was terrible there was some small anchor for him to cling to. He hardly listened to her telling Napoleon what had been said about his injuries. He had felt as if his entire body were buzzing. He was so tired and in so much pain, and he was still shaking. Shock, the doctors had told him. He was in shock. It wasn't surprising, really. They gave him hot, sweet tea and the cup clashed against his teeth and he spilled some on the blankets, and they made him drink the whole cup, even the dregs with the grainy, part dissolved syrup of sugar at the bottom.

'Well, I've lost my eyebrows and my eyelashes,' he had said to Napoleon when they were alone, in a pathetic attempt at something approaching humour, but he didn't think he knew what humour was any more, and Napoleon didn't seem to either, because he just said gravely, 'They'll grow back. But, Illya, your eyes...'

And Illya had said, 'Yes.'

And then he had sobbed. Suddenly and without warning he had sobbed, his entire body jerking, the sobs coming out of him like something entirely separate from his control. He hadn't been able to do a thing about it. He just lay there and filled the room with that terrible noise, and first Napoleon's hands had gripped his, and then Napoleon had just taken him in his arms and held him so tightly, whispering, 'It'll be all right, Illya. It'll be all right.'

Illya had cried so hard that his ribs hurt and his throat became sore. He had felt desperate, utterly desperate. And Napoleon had said, 'It'll be all right.'

That had been Napoleon's mantra. He kept saying it. 'It'll be all right, Illya. You'll be all right. I'll look after you, I promise. It'll be all right.'

Sometimes he had wanted to throw those words back at Napoleon so hard, but no matter how angry Illya got in the terrible weeks that followed Napoleon never gave up on the idea that somehow it would be all right. He had put up with Illya smashing his crockery in violent rage. He had put up with Illya waking up in the night, at god knew what time, in the little room that Napoleon had turned into his bedroom, and crying naked tears. Napoleon always came through when he heard him crying, no matter what time it was, and sat with him and held him and talked softly to him and stayed until he fell back asleep. He had massaged cream into Illya's burns to prevent scarring and he had changed the dressings and one day he had brushed a finger in an arc over the top of Illya's eye and said, 'Your eyebrows are coming back. It's like peach fuzz. Eyelashes too.' At first he had shaved Illya and helped him dress and cut up his food. He had held Illya's arm and guided him around the apartment and taken him for walks; like a dog, Illya had thought at first, but later he had appreciated it. Napoleon had read to him and when they watched television he described what was on screen. Napoleon had done so much. And all the time he kept saying, 'It will be all right.'

Illya groaned and rubbed his hands over his face, and rolled away from the light from the window. He scrabbled at the covers and pulled the edge up over himself, so he was rolled in the blanket, and punched the pillow into a better shape. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift over those early days, the pain and then the itching of the healing scabs on his face, the anaesthetic drops that he had to put in his eyes to soothe their pain, the feeling so, so blind, blind in an elemental, incapable way, feeling as if he were a shadow of what he used to be, feeling like the most useless and helpless thing on earth. Napoleon taking him by the hand and helping him, Napoleon bringing him his food, Napoleon trying to cajole him out of his black, desperate funks. Always Napoleon…

((O))

Napoleon made his way back towards the hotel room around five, hoping that Illya had had enough time alone now to process his thoughts. He understood Illya's doubts; at least, he thought he did. It was hard to empathise entirely because Illya's experience was so hard, and so alien. He had tried over the past two years so often to put himself in Illya's place. He had tried once, although he had never admitted this to Illya, tying a scarf around his eyes and managing around the apartment like that, just to understand better how Illya felt. He hadn't lasted half an hour before he ripped that scarf off and threw it back in the closet, and then he had sat down on the sofa and cried for what Illya had lost, and what he had lost too.

It was hard to confide in Illya over those things, because Illya had enough of his own burden to carry. He didn't want to sit down and tell him how much he missed the days of their being sent out on missions all over the world, how he missed Illya driving, how he missed watching Illya taking aim with his gun and letting off a perfect shot. He had never told Illya exactly how much he missed the blue of his eyes, that was covered now with a milky white. Sometimes he slipped out a box of polaroids and snapshots that had Illya in them just so he could see him as he used to be, and it hurt so much to see him as he had been then, and then to look up as Illya came into the room now, one hand held out a little before him and his eyes clouded in white and that look of concentration that had him holding his head slightly on one side as he listened to his surroundings.

Whenever he saw Illya outside of the apartment, sweeping his long cane before him, finding his way along the street, he felt a mixture of pride and pain, because in the past it would have been ridiculous to be proud of Illya for being able to walk along a sidewalk. But after those early weeks when Illya had barely moved from his bed, and when Napoleon had got him out he had held onto his arm like a drowning man, Illya being able to navigate around town alone was an amazing thing. When he had first told Illya that he would be coming to live in his apartment he had imagined a life of him needing almost constant care. Now Illya could go out alone and buy the ingredients for a three course meal and cook it and serve it up and clean the dishes afterwards. He was better around the house than he had been before he lost his sight. He had remade his career in the Intelligence department in U.N.C.L.E., and he was an asset, not a burden. He was capable in so many ways.

And now there was this chance… He knew why Illya was nervous about the idea of the transplants. He had been there with Illya at almost all of his appointments with various specialists early on in his blindness. He had sat there and watched as they shone lights into his eyes and muttered and shook their heads. He had taken Illya back home again afterwards, looked at his pale face and his bitten lip, and spoken useless words of comfort. And then he had sat there at night after one of those consultations in his big queen bed, knowing Illya was just a wall away in the little room that had been his study, the room in which he had carefully recreated Illya's own bedroom, and he had heard the quiet, stifled sounds of crying. Napoleon had seen too much crying from Illya, from the man who brooded and sulked and snapped but never cried, since that awful moment in Stockholm.

He had clenched his fists and sighed and padded out of his room quietly, and just stood there for a moment in the cracked open door to Illya's room, looking at his friend. Illya had his bedside light on and was cradling it on his lap, between his thighs, and was staring down at the brilliant bulb, and just crying. So Napoleon had gone in and gently taken the light away and taken hold of Illya's hands and asked, 'What were you trying to do?'

Illya hadn't answered. Perhaps there was no answer. He had just let the tears come, stopped trying to stifle the sound since Napoleon was there, and Napoleon had enfolded him in his arms and rocked him and whispered promises to him about how everything would be all right, never believing for a moment that it would be. Every time Illya had these appointments he seemed to lose another part of himself, and at that point, before Illya was enrolled in the blind school, before he had learned any of those wonderful techniques or got the cane, it all seemed so hopeless.

And here they were again. Yes, the prognosis was different, but he understood why Illya was afraid. He understood how many hopes he had pinned on these things and how hard it had been for him to turn away at last and just accept that he was a blind person now and that would never change. No wonder he was so conflicted, so confused.

Napoleon picked up his pace for the final few yards of the corridor and turned his key in the door. As he opened it he saw Illya stir on the bed, sitting up as if he had just come around from sleep, his head turning blindly towards the sound.

'Only me,' Napoleon said, because Illya still had an agent's wariness for unannounced presences, and Illya smiled, his smile somehow fuller and more real without his eyes to qualify the expression. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and got up, coming over towards Napoleon with his hand out, slowly because he wasn't sure of the room.

'I think I fell asleep,' he said, fumbling at his watch to feel the time. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to throw you out in the cold all this time. I didn't mean to be such a mess.'

Napoleon met him halfway across the room and kissed him gently. 'It's allowed,' he said, curling his fingers around Illya's hands. 'It's a lot to take in. Can I take you out to dinner, Illya? Would that be acceptable?'

'That would be just fine,' Illya said. 'I will try to be like an American. Big smiles. No Russian moods.'

Napoleon laughed. 'Please, dear Illya, don't ever try to be like an American. Just be you.'

((O))

He took him to the most expensive place he could think of, because Illya deserved it. Illya was dressed so beautifully in suit and bow tie, and because the light wasn't glaring in this place he didn't wear his glasses. The light gleamed on his blond hair and his lips were perfect, and Napoleon couldn't keep his eyes off him. He felt so happy. He thought of Illya with the blue of his eyes restored, with the sureness of movement he used to have, Illya being able to fix him with a glare or a penetrating look, being able to do so much. Perhaps he would never return to the field, but right now that seemed like such a tiny thing.

A string quartet was playing on the other side of the room and Napoleon could tell that Illya loved it by the way he kept turning his ear towards the music and moving his fingers in time on the tablecloth. When he had first been partnered with Illya he had never suspected the scientific, practical Russian of being a closet musician, but Illya's love of music was one of the precious little secrets he had discovered over time. He loved those seemingly infinite folds of Illya's interests and talents.

Illya chose the wine and Napoleon watched him as he delicately inhaled the scent and tasted the sample poured by the wine waiter, and he felt as if he were overflowing with love just at the beautiful sight of him. And then the waiter said to Illya, 'If you don't mind me mentioning, sir, we have a menu written in Braille. Would you like – ?'

Illya's whole face lit up at that wonderful thing, and he said, 'Yes. Yes, please. That would be very good.' When the waiter moved away he turned his dazzling smile on Napoleon and said, 'Just think, for once you won't have to read it for me!'

It was such a small thing, but it was obvious to Napoleon how much it meant.

'Napoleon, surely this must be a whole cow, not a single steak,' he said when the menu came and he drifted his fingers over the prices, but Napoleon said, 'Don't look at the prices. I'm treating you. Let me do this for you.'

So Illya kept his fingers away from the prices and chose what turned out to be an exquisitely cooked rack of lamb, while Napoleon went all out and ordered lobster.

'I couldn't even begin to tackle that in public,' Illya said rather wistfully, leaning forward a little to inhale the scent of it, and Napoleon promised that as soon as he got the chance he would arrange for Illya to have lobster at home and he could eat it any way he liked, naked, if he wanted.

The cream and passion fruit and meringue confection that Illya chose for dessert was incredible, and Napoleon almost forgot to eat his own dessert because he was watching Illya eat. And then over coffee he said, 'Dance with me?' and Illya flushed and said, 'Napoleon, don't be silly. We are two men.'

So then Napoleon clicked his fingers for the attention of a waiter and said, 'I wonder if we can do something rather unconventional? You see, my friend has always loved to dance and he hasn't had the chance since – ' And his voice trailed off with a concocted amount of awkward pathos, and a moment later Napoleon was ushering Illya onto the floor with a hand on his waist, and somehow the patrons from the nearer tables were applauding, and Illya hissed in Napoleon's ear, 'You have no shame.'

'None at all, tovarisch,' Napoleon said gleefully, and he drew Illya into a waltz, glad that he could lead, because that was his natural stance. And he was astonished at how naturally Illya waltzed, following his partner's movements with an easy grace. He knew he had taken a few lessons with that Tavia woman after the affair with the killer bees, but he had never expected Illya, brusque, unromantic Illya, to have much interest in dancing. And yet here he was, sailing about the floor with his hand in Napoleon's and another on his shoulder as if he had been made to dance. His lips were a little parted in concentration and his hand was tight around Napoleon's, but he looked as if he were in another world. It took all the self control Napoleon had not to kiss him. Had Illya been a woman, had this affair been decent in the eyes of the world, he would have been holding him so much closer and kissing him so softly and with such passion.

'Aren't you glad?' Napoleon asked, and Illya smiled and said, 'Well, if I must make a fool of myself I might as well make it with you.'

'You are so far away from making a fool of yourself,' Napoleon said. 'Now, if we were dancing a polka,' he began, as the music faded and then started up with a new tune.

'That's a tango,' Illya corrected him. 'And if you think I'm attempting that – '

So Napoleon led him from the floor and back to their seats, so happy at the sense memory of Illya's hand in his, happy at the pink flush on Illya's cheeks, happy that he had lifted him, for now, from his preoccupied, dour haze.