Napoleon coughed, turning uneasily under the moth-eaten blanket, eyes flicking open to regard Illya with a wan smile.
''You still here, my friend?'' he enquired of his partner.
Illya rose unsteadily to his feet, THRUSH never having won any hospitality awards, and crossed the spartan room to crouch on the floor next to Napoleon and tug the blanket back into some semblance of civilised comfort.
''And where else would I be?'' he asked Napoleon indulgently.
''Beautiful night like this?'' Napoleon answered ''Dancing, carousing, exercising your vices...''
''I think you may have me confused with my partner'' Illya suggested affectionately.
''That bumbling fool?'' asked Napoleon with a wry smile ''I seem to remember he got us into this mess, a wise man might consider him unreliable.''
''I'm Russian'' replied Illya with a smile of his own ''I have too few extravagancies, indulge me.''
Napoleon's lips moved as if to respond, but instead he was ambushed by an attack of dry coughing, wracking his frame and bruising his ribs until he was gasping for breath.
''Why did you have to breathe that stuff in?'' Illya demanded with exasperated impatience, made petulant by his helplessness in the face of Napoleon's spasming.
The coughing and fighting for air eased off, leaving Napoleon exhausted with tears glistening in his lashes ''I'm sorry Illya, truly I am.''
''Not good enough Napoleon, I need more than your abject apologies.''
''What can I do, Illya?'' Napoleon entreated, dry mouthed and breathless ''What more do you need?''
Ignoring the protests of his own mistreated body, Illya rose to try the bars on their window for the hundredth, the thousandth, time. Looking beyond them to the grey swirl of river winding past their prison, his eyes following it wistfully to freedom. ''I need you to live, Napoleon'' he replied, almost to himself.
''I mean it Illya'' came the quiet voice of his partner, strained with too much coughing ''Don't rely on me. Not this time.''
''Not good enough, Napoleon'' Illya repeated into the festering gloom, the light fading, the day waning, the mists rising from the water. The damp air already creeping up the banks of the river, its clammy tendrils ready to fill Napoleon's lungs and leave him drowning like a fish on land ''Not good enough.''
''It won't be your fault, Illya'' assured Napoleon softly ''I got myself into this. I dallied with the wrong girl once too often, I should have taken a leaf from your book and not dallied at all.''
Illya turned then ''I dally, Napoleon. Sometimes. Not always with the right girl. We are, all of us, only human.''
''I thought you skipped getting yourself gassed?'' asked Napoleon ''You sound more delirious than me'' and then, pausing thoughtfully, he added ''or should that be 'I'?''
''It shouldn't be either'' corrected Illya irritably ''neither of us should be delirious, we should be in a nice decadent hotel, with all the bourgeois trappings with which you insist on pampering yourself, a veritable bacchanal of room service and soft beds. Sometimes I despair of your libido, Napoleon.''
''I thought we were, all of us, only human?''
''Unfortunately, some of us are inclined to be more human than others.''
''As some of us are more equal?'' enquired Napoleon mildly.
''Don't make fun of my politics, Napoleon'' Illya warned.
''I'm not sure I understand them'' Napoleon replied with gentle sincerity ''but I don't insult them, Illya.''
''It's easy to be mystified in a country where freedom is a right for which everyone may strive, but where it is a privilege reserved only for those whose rank renders it obsolete, things are not so simple.''
''Freedom is never obsolete'' observed Napoleon.
''And there, my friend, we have the simple philosophy of your politics.''
''The most important things in life are generally the simplest'' answered Napoleon, reaching out towards Illya and, upon being given his hand, folding it into his own ''Love, loyalty, friendship.''
''Perhaps all the politics either of us need'' conceded Illya softly.
Napoleon began coughing again and Illya rolled him onto his side, since it had seemed to ease his suffering before, soothing his back with a strong, circular, massaging movements of his hand until Napoleon found his breath again.
Napoleon rolled back to gaze up at Illya ''They're getting worse, being on my side isn't helping as much as it was.''
''I know'' replied Illya, adjusting the blanket once more ''I don't think it's just the toxicity of the fumes any longer, I think there's fluid starting to build up in your lungs, it might be easier if we could prop you up somehow.''
''I'm not getting out of here Illya, not like this, it's time to be realistic.''
''Realism can be an overrated virtue.''
''But a necessary one. You have to leave me, Illya. U.N.C.L.E. has too much invested for you to die needlessly, here with me.''
''And what about what I have invested, Napoleon? Does that count for anything?''
''It has always counted, my friend'' replied Napoleon with utter honesty ''For everything. But I don't want to see you die, and I don't want to die knowing you'll follow me. Please Illya, get out of here, take what's left of us and go. We were good while it lasted, don't let it all end here.''
Illya was silent, regarding his partner for a long moment and then, reluctantly, he stood.
''You can get out, can't you Illya?'' Napoleon accused softly ''You've known how to get out for a while, haven't you? You were just waiting.''
Illya's head came up and swivelled towards the bars at the window.
''How long have they been loose?'' asked Napoleon.
''Since yesterday'' replied Illya tonelessly.
''I always thought I knew when to leave a party'' observed Napoleon ''I seem to have outstayed my welcome this time. Pity to end things on such a boorish note.''
Illya suddenly dropped to all fours, palms thumping down either side of Napoleon's head. Blue eyes ablaze ''If you are not the most boorish guest at this party, I will kill you myself when I get back. You will drink all the good wine, you will step on your hostess' toes and you will outstay your welcome until everyone is sick of the sight of you. Do you understand, Napoleon?''
Napoleon gave a wry smile ''Is that how they do things in Russia?''
The intensity in those blue eyes eased a little as Illya regained his feet ''The last Tzar was famous for it, why d'you think we shot him?''
Illya made his way to the bars and soundlessly twisted two from their housing in the riveted metal of the window frame, pulling himself up and through the gap with the aid of the others, grunting with the discomfort of using bruised muscles and turning to twist the missing bars back into place once he was on the other side. He gave Napoleon one last, lingering look, offering a silent farewell, and was gone.
''Be swift and fleet of foot, my friend'' Napoleon murmured to himself, closing his eyes ''for I ate and I drank, was merry and now I must die.''
He awoke to the sound of thunder, distant and rolling. A cacophony of nature mingled with the Klaxons of man.
He tried to sit up, but his strength had deserted him. So he lay listening to the sounds of organised panic and the rumbling threat of the heavens overhead.
He was drifting in unreality, as if the whole world had become a film projected for his pleasure and he lacked only the popcorn to enjoy it.
Booted feet thudded past the door of his cell, orders barked in a language which escaped him, or may have been his, he could no longer tell.
They hadn't come for him, they were leaving him to die, without water or food. It no longer mattered. He wasn't thirsty and he wasn't hungry and he didn't expect to feel those things ever again. He was drifting and soon the drifting would end and Illya would be disappointed in him.
It wasn't the end of things that he feared, just this letting Illya down. Failing him. Betraying him.
So when Illya broke breathlessly through the door to grab at him, he told Illya that, how sorry he was to have let him down.
He kept telling Illya that as he was dragged out of his prison and deposited into an electric buggy. Repeating it as Illya drove recklessly through the corridors, lobbing gas grenades and yelling at any unfortunate who was imbecile enough to get in his way, U.N.C.L.E. or THRUSH.
He was still repeating it as Illya loaded him into the waiting helicopter and held onto him, demanding medical services at their landing point and gloating at his explosive destruction of the prison which had held them.
''You were the thunder?'' Napoleon asked him.
''And the lightening and the wrath of gods'' Illya crowed defiantly, something in his voice barely leashed as he added ''and the merest fraction of what I'd do, if it got you back in one piece.''
''I didn't let you down? I'm still here?''
''Yes, Napoleon'' Illya replied tersely, voice still unaccountably strained as he ordered ''now get some sleep, you don't have the lung capacity to spare for idle gossip.''
''I was a terrible guest'' Napoleon murmured conversationally as, despite himself, his eyes closed and he sank heavily into Illya's arms, his body more willing to obey his partner's instruction than his own ''I doubt they'll want me back.''
''Their loss'' replied Illya succinctly ''my burden.''
Asleep now, his breathing shallow but steady, Napoleon couldn't have been aware of the gentle smile which bloomed, as if in response, on his silent lips; nor of the peace which seemed to settle round him.
Illya allowed his own tensions to dissolve into that peace and leaned into his seat, arms still locked about his partner, holding onto him.
Safe at last.
END