Something felt wrong, but Illya couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. He had no real reason to feel such a sense of disquiet, yet he couldn't seem to shake it.
Napoleon flirted as he always had, seemed as devil-may-care as he always had, ploughed the same hedonistic furrow he always had, yet something was off, something was not quite right, something was wrong.
Illya hesitated, for all his acerbic carping, a friendship such as Napoleon's was a rare treasure, not to be cast aside lightly. Yet a true friend did not leave sleeping dogs lie, a true friend risked all and spoke out. Illya raised his hand and rapped smartly on the door of the anonymous apartment.
There was no sound from within, but Illya knew Napoleon was not out, so once again he rapped on the door. Once again there was no answering sound of movement, no click of latch or turn of key.
Illya paused, unwilling to take the next logical step, uncertain of the price, yet feeling the inexorable burden of duty impelling him to action.
The train jerked abruptly, tumbling Illya from his slumbers and ejecting him from his seat. Finding himself unceremoniously dumped among the footwear of his fellow Soviet citizens, Illya rapidly blinked himself to alertness, shaking his head to clear it of the disquieting aftermath of dreaming.
The train was in darkness, rattling along on tracks which seemingly stretched to the ends of the earth. Illya awkwardly regained his seat, eyes straining in the gloom. The carriage was packed, but the other passengers were either deeply asleep or staring blankly into darkness from hollow eyes. Illya recognised that look and averted his gaze, some troubles were not halved by sharing, they were a plague that multiplied until they had consumed all who had heard them.
Illya settled himself back in his uncomfortable seat, squashed between travelling humanity, and folded his arms in a determined effort to regain the realms of the blithely unconscious. He shut his eyes, but his mind refused to co-operate, insisting that he pay due attention to its concerns. Illya shifted irritably, impatient with a subconscious which presented its anxieties in such an esoteric fashion.
His dreams had not allowed him a glimpse of the latter day Corsican who occupied them. Always he awoke before he was revealed, and yet he knew the man was tall and dark haired. That his grin was crooked and his eyes were velvet. That he lived a life ornamented by a luxury which felt unpatriotically familiar. Illya did not relish the thought of being suborned by his own dreams. Who was this svengali who wormed his way into his least conscious thoughts and beguiled them so completely. Whoever he was, he was not Russian, what Russian would call his child Napoleon? It comforted Illya nothing to be certain that the man came from the West, that his Russia was bordered by an iron curtain, and dangerously more than a geographical concept.
Illya thoughts circled round themselves, spiralling downwards, grasping at the elusive edges of memory. The train rocked and rattled, the huddled, swaddled bodies around him shared their warmth without ideological imperative.
Illya rapped smartly at the door, there was no answering sound, Illya hesitated, then dropped to his knees and silently picked the lock.
At his urging, the door swung easily open and he stepped inside, afraid of Napoleon's opprobrium, more afraid that Napoleon was beyond such cares.
Napoleon was seated at a table, silhouetted against the window, a glass of bourbon in his hands, and a bottle at his elbow. Illya paused, holding his breath, on the brink of revelation, his skin crawling with electric anticipation, waiting for his dreams to show him the man who had haunted them.
As Illya's eyes adjusted to the melancholy gloom, Napoleon gradually came into focus. His hair was dishevelled, his jaw shadowed with stubble, and Illya's dreaming instincts cried out in protest at the vision. Something was terribly wrong.
Napoleon did not crawl into the shadows to drink, he drowned his sorrows in public. Napoleon did everything in public, was always on display, as if he didn't exist when he was alone.
Illya crept forward, Napoleon appeared impervious, sipping his bourbon and staring into space. Finally, when Illya was within a foot of the table, Napoleon spoke, obliviously raising a solitary toast.
''I'm sorry, Illya. May you never remember, as I can never forget.''
Illya's stomach lurched.
The train lurched. Illya's eyes flew open, he gasped like a floundering fish, gulping in lungfuls of stale air, his heart hammering against his ribcage. Certain, beyond all contradiction, that Napoleon was real, that somewhere Napoleon existed, and that Napoleon needed him.
...
In the gloom of a rented apartment, thousands of miles away, Napoleon sipped his bourbon and ignored the telephone for as long as he dared.
Angelique would not be kept waiting.
END