It had been – how long? He had been counting it in days, then in weeks. Now he supposed he should count it in months. It was like the measurement of a baby's life in the world. I have been blind for two days. Five days. Fourteen days. Three weeks. Now it was ten weeks, he thought. Two and a half months. He knew he should be more sure, but he wasn't really counting any more. It had been long enough. He knew that much. It had been long enough.

'Hey, Illya.'

He grunted and turned over in bed, pulling the covers a little further up over his head.

'Illya, have you been out of bed at all today?'

The Christmas season had faded away. Napoleon had amazed and delighted Illya by celebrating New Year's Day too, cooking traditional Ukrainian food as best he could, and giving Illya more gifts. Men had brought a huge wooden box into the apartment and split it open, and Illya had been almost bursting with frustration to know what it was. He had heard odd resonant sounds that had made him suspect as they took the thing from the box. And then Napoleon had taken him by the hand and touched his fingers to the keys of an upright piano. He had sat down and played for an hour.

Now he was running out of pieces he could play from memory and was working hard on listening to records and trying to play new pieces from what he had heard. His instructors had talked to him about learning musical braille, but he wanted to focus on reading fluency before he moved on to that. The whole concept of scores that could describe scales and octaves and phrase markings in six celled symbols one after the other felt hopelessly complex. His instructors had told him there could be as little as one bar per page, and a piece would have to be learnt off by heart before he could play it. It was so far from the ease of sight reading.

The glitter and delight and oddness of that strange Christmas had worn off now, and January had been a long, bleak month. He had some amount of focus and purpose in his life with the classes at the rehabilitation school, but he didn't go there every day now, and recently he had found the days when he didn't go were just so hard to get through. At first it had been so amazing, so exciting, discovering all of these new things, these new ways of coping in a world without sight. But he felt – he hardly knew how he felt. It was almost an absence of feeling. He seemed to go through cycles and waves, and right now he was heading down a tunnel into the darkness.

'Illya.'

Napoleon shook his shoulder, and Illya mumbled, 'Leave m'lone, Napoleon.'

He was in his own bed. He spent more and more time now in Napoleon's bed, but when he felt like this he ended up retreating to his own little room, to his own narrow bed. Wasn't the saying misery loves company? But his misery was a solitary thing. He huddled it to himself and turned in like an armadillo hiding from predators.

'Illya, did you wash the dishes?' Napoleon asked. 'Did you clean the counters?'

He grunted. He had forgotten about all of that. He was supposed to do some of the housework while he was at home with nothing else to do. He had learnt about how to methodically clean surfaces and be sure he'd not missed any spots. He had learnt about how to wash the dishes. It made sense for him to practice his living skills, especially when Napoleon was out at work. But he hadn't even thought about it, about any of it. He hadn't been in the kitchen except to grab a slice of bread as a kind of breakfast, and because he couldn't see the dirty dishes or the counters that needed wiping, it was so easy to forget.

'Illya, I want you to get up,' Napoleon said.

He didn't even flinch in response. He was a jellyfish beached on sand. He didn't have it in him to twitch as much as a finger. His mouth was dry but he didn't have the energy to fetch water. He wasn't hungry. He could lie here until he died.

The bedsprings creaked and the mattress shifted as Napoleon sat down. Finally Illya moved, just enough to turn a little towards Napoleon's gravity. He turned his face towards where Napoleon was sitting and tried to remember exactly how he looked. He could remember little details. The mole on his cheek. The little cleft in his chin. The colour of his eyes. But the rest of his face swam fuzzily in his memory. His face didn't matter any more. It was the feeling of Napoleon's hands that he knew, the scent of his body, the timbre of his voice.

But shouldn't his face matter? Shouldn't he feel grief at losing Napoleon's face? He wasn't sure if what he was feeling was grief. Was grief characterised by emptiness? Sometimes when he realised the sight of something didn't matter any more it felt like falling, like stepping into empty air, and he grasped out for something to hold on to with the desperation of a man falling from a cliff. If he let himself fall into blindness he would lose himself. He would lose everything that he used to be.

Napoleon's hand touched his shoulder, and Illya made himself move enough to touch those strong fingers.

'Come on, tovarisch,' Napoleon said softly. 'Talk to me, huh?'

'Oh, I don't know, Napoleon,' he said after a long, dull silence. 'I don't know. I'm tired...'

'You can't be tired. You've been in bed all day,' Napoleon said rationally. 'Do you know what time it is?'

He had a tactile watch now, and a tactile alarm clock. Which was more bother? Opening the glass front on the watch or feeling for the alarm clock? Just that decision seemed too much, but Napoleon solved it by putting the alarm clock in his hands. He oriented it so the feet were at the bottom, touched his fingers lightly to the solid hands, felt for the bumps that indicated the placement of the numbers. It was almost seven o'clock. He supposed it must be dark outside. Napoleon had turned on the light when he came into the room.

'How do I get into your head, Illya?' Napoleon asked after Illya had been quiet for too long. 'How do I understand what it's like?'

That created a sudden spark. He dropped the alarm clock onto the bedclothes and said with undisguised bitterness, 'Throw acid into your eyes. That should do it.'

'Illya.'

He breathed out, hard, and tried to pull himself together.

'I'm sorry, Napoleon,' he said. 'I'm – just having a bad day. That's all. I get them.'

'Yes, I know you do,' Napoleon said softly, taking both of Illya's hands in his and rubbing his palms gently. 'So talk to me. Tell me about it.'

Illya sighed then, and shook his head.

'What is there to say? You know it all. I can't see. I'll never see. I'm – trapped in this world...'

'You've been doing so well,' Napoleon said.

He had been doing well. He knew that. He had learnt so much about walking with the cane, about sensing what was around him by using his ears and his touch and his sense of smell, and what his instructor called facial vision. That felt like nothing so much as magic, but he was beginning to understand how it was that he could tell when there was a large object in his path or off to the side, before he touched it with cane or body. It was all to do with echoes, even though he was barely aware that he could sense them.

He didn't know what was wrong with him. He could read, painstakingly, sentences in braille. He and Napoleon had applied braille labels to tins in the kitchen, put markers on the knobs on the stove, put labels on bottles in the shower, although they kept coming off. They were going through the process of applying titles to everything in their combined record collection. He had his tactile watch and his tactile alarm clock. He was learning to type conventional type and braille. He had a tape recorder for recording notes. He had his blanks to help him fill in cheques, and his writing guide so that if he needed to write a letter he could do so without straying from the lines. He should be happy. He should be proud of what he had accomplished.

He felt tired. He felt dead. He felt trapped and muffled and lost. He had been to three different doctors in search of the hope of corneal transplant that Dr Atkins had planted in his mind, and each one had told him his eyes were too damaged, it wouldn't be possible. So he started to let go of sight and let go of hope. The world was receding around him and only sprang into being when he was touched, or when there was a sound. He was forgetting people's faces. He was forgetting just how Napoleon's car looked and what the view from the balcony would be like at this time of year. Everything was slipping away.

'I don't know,' was all he could think of to say. 'I don't know, Napoleon. It's – it's just so hard.'

He heard Napoleon's sigh. That located his head for a moment. He could feel Napoleon's hands. He knew where his buttocks and thighs pressed down onto the mattress. It was all bits and pieces, unconnected. He felt as unconnected as Napoleon seemed. It was as if he didn't know who he was any more. For years he had defined himself as Illya Kuryakin, agent for the U.N.C.L.E.. He was a dynamic man, an important man in some ways, even if his work was hidden away from the eyes of the public most of the time. All of those things had fallen away. He couldn't carry a gun. He couldn't fight. He couldn't travel, investigate, spy. He couldn't do any of those things that made him who he was. He couldn't even fall back on his old passion of quantum mechanics, because the journals were inaccessible to him and beyond Napoleon's comprehension for reading aloud. He felt as if the carapace that made him who he was was splitting and fragmenting and dropping away into the unseen abyss.

'I don't know who I am any more,' he said, aware of the plaintive tone in his voice, aware that those words were so inadequate to describe how he felt.

'Come on,' Napoleon said. 'Come on, get up. Get out of bed at least. Have a shower. Shave. You've been trapped in a cycle, Illya. You're either going to school or sitting in the apartment or studying. No wonder you feel like you've lost touch. You know, a couple of the guys at HQ asked me if I wanted to come to a bar tonight and I said no, but I was wrong. We're going out, both of us. It's been too long since you did anything that wasn't wrapped up in your blindness.'

Illya sighed. He didn't want to go out. He didn't want to parade his handicap. He wanted to curl like an ammonite and be buried in mud until he became a fossil.

'Come on,' Napoleon urged him. 'Get up, get cleaned up.'

And Napoleon's hand was on his cheek, rasping on the stubble there. Illya leant his face against Napoleon's palm, and Napoleon's lips touched his. He accepted the kiss, but when those lips moved away Illya said, 'I don't want to go out with the guys from work, Napoleon. Really, I never did like – '

'They ask about you,' Napoleon said. 'Someone asks after you every day. Some of the girls ask every time they see me. You're very missed, Illya.'

He gave half a smile. He wasn't sure how to feel about that.

'Yes, I know,' he said. 'They can't miss me half as much as I miss it. All right, I'll come out with you.'

'Wonderful,' Napoleon said. 'That's wonderful. Why don't you go get cleaned up and I'll call and let the guys know?'

He didn't want to go. He felt so disconnected, so apart from the rest of the world. But he smiled and said, 'All right then, Napoleon. I'll go and shower. Why don't you find me something to wear?'

((O))

He wore a black poloneck and black corduroy trousers, and with his black glasses Napoleon expressed the opinion that he looked like a beat poet. Illya would have rather looked invisible. As he navigated the crowded bar, his fingers in the crook of Napoleon's elbow and holding the cane awkwardly across his body, he felt intensely self conscious. Then he heard a voice he thought he recognised calling, 'Hey, Solo, over here,' and Napoleon changed direction.

There was a flurry of greetings and hands touched Illya's arms, but then someone asked, 'Where do you want to put Illya?' and he bit down hard on a swell of annoyance and indignation.

'Uh – Illya, there's a chair right here,' Napoleon said, extending his arm, and Illya moved his hand down to find the back. He tried to work out the problem of how to take off his coat and keep hold of the cane, but not lose the chair. Then Napoleon said close to his ear, 'Let me hold the cane a moment. I'll put your coat on the back of the chair when you've sat down,' and he kept a light contact with Illya as he stripped off his coat and guided his hand back to the chair when he was ready to sit. He was stupid, he supposed, to be afraid of losing an unmoving chair while standing still behind it, but he felt so intensely self conscious, so on the spot, that his thoughts were all over the place.

He sat down, taking the cane back and propping it between his legs and against his shoulder and wondering briefly if he shouldn't try one of the folding variety. It seemed so much in the way.

The chatter that had been going on had died when he and Napoleon arrived, and he wished it would carry on, because every noise helped to define the space around him. He could feel the edge of the table in front of him, a slightly tacky hard surface. On the underneath he felt old, hardened gum stuck to the wood. But the rest of the table and the rest of the room were made up of assumption and imagination. Every noise of a chair scraping on the floor or a raised voice or the clink of a glass made a little blip on a radar screen in his mind, then faded again. He was used to sitting in a room and scanning it visually for threats, avenues of escape, cover in the event of a fire fight. He hated the uncertainty of his surroundings. Then Napoleon was sitting down saying, 'It's a long, rectangular table, Illya. We're on the long side. Wall's behind you and you're facing the bar.'

He smiled and murmured, 'Thanks.'

Another voice cut into the air. 'Hey, Napoleon. What are you drinking? What about Illya?'

This time Illya let the fire just slip through.

'Illya would like a beer,' he said. 'Napoleon, could you let John know that Illya would like a beer?'

'Oh, gee, Illya, I'm sorry,' the man said then. Illya had recognised him as John Thorne, one of the other agents. 'I think – Well, I think none of us know what to say, how to – '

Illya smiled thinly, rolling the smooth cylinder of the cane between his palms.

'I'm not a different person,' he said. 'I just can't see. I'd like a beer, please, and to be treated like a normal person.'

'Uh, okay. Okay,' John Thorne said awkwardly. 'Napoleon?'

'I'll have a beer too,' Napoleon said from beside Illya. His presence was such a warm comfort.

'Okay. I'll just go and – '

His footsteps moved away but there was still a pall of awkwardness about the table. Then Napoleon said, 'Illya, there's George Dennell on your left, Jerry Goldstein opposite you. Desmond Balewa across from me, Mark Slate on our right at the end, and John Thorne has just gone up to the bar. He was at the left end of the table. There's a bowl of chips in the centre of the table and the rest of the guys already have their drinks.'

Illya smiled his thanks but he wished he already had some alcohol inside him. This felt so strange, so wrong. Thorne came back with the drinks and Illya closed his hand around the cool, hard glass and raised it to his lips, but as soon as the babble of conversation began again he felt so awkward. He had never been entirely at ease in this kind of gathering, but now he just didn't know what to do. When did he break in to the conversation when he couldn't see the faces of the people who were speaking? He couldn't always instantly tell the voices apart. When he was spoken to directly it was with such awkwardness that Illya became twice as awkward in replying. It was stupidly hard to follow what was being said when the whole bar was alive with other chatter and with music that fed constantly through everything else, with the noises of footsteps and of glasses clinking and of chairs scraping on the floor. All of those noises seemed to be right upon him, all jumbled together in a great felt of sound. He couldn't split things apart.

'Illya. Hey, Illya.'

It was George Dennell to the left of him, he remembered, and he was touching Illya's arm. He put his glass down but kept his hand on it, and turned his head.

'Hello, George,' he said. He had got used to speaking to Napoleon without seeing him, and he had started to get used to speaking to strangers that way, but he had hardly interacted with other people that he knew.

'Illya. Look, Illya – Oh, gee, not look. I'm – '

George was as awkward as he was.

'George, you can say look to me,' Illya told him quietly. 'It's a figure of speech. I understand.'

'Oh, well – ' George floundered again, and Illya waited. 'Look, Illya, I just wanted to say how sorry I am. Do you remember that time with the File 40 débâcle? Project Windfall. Gee, when I had to wear those contact lenses so the detraining wouldn't stick. You know, that was terrible, not being able to see for that half hour, so I know how you – I mean, I have some idea how...'

'George,' Illya said, but he wasn't sure how to continue. He didn't know how George comparing a half hour of voluntary blindness with a prospective lifetime of the same would help in any way. 'George, I appreciate what you're trying to say – '

How strange it was to be talking to George like this, hearing only his voice. He used to see him every other day about headquarters, always in those thick-framed glasses, tall and gangly, in his slightly over-large suits. And now he was just a voice. He tried to bring George's face into his mind but it came in pieces like a Picasso painting and swam away.

'Well, Illya, I'm most awfully sorry for you, anyway,' George continued. 'I can't imagine – It must be so hard for you.'

Illya lifted his drink and took a mouthful, giving himself time to think of a reply. He hated to think of people pitying him.

'Yes,' he said eventually. 'Yes, it's been hard, but – ' He tried to think of a platitude, and failed. He wished he had ignored Napoleon's entreaties and stayed in bed. He took another mouthful of the beer. He would have liked to reach out to the bowl of crisps Napoleon had mentioned but he wasn't going to start feeling for it.

'Well, you know, Illya, if you ever need anything,' George said. 'Anything at all – '

Illya smiled drily, thinking, I need my sight. Someone from across the table must have heard George's words, because he chimed in, saying, 'Yeah, Illya, if you ever need a ride or someone to take you to the store, or – '

'Thank you,' Illya said, before the man could go further. Who was it? Was it Jerry? It was hard to tell with the music so loud. The idea of being taken to the store like that was awful. 'Thank you,' he said again, 'but I shouldn't need help. The cabs are very convenient, and I can get myself to the local store on foot.'

Napoleon's knee knocked against his, and Illya returned a little pressure with his own. He sat drinking his drink and stopped trying to talk with the group. They were talking, in that coded way that U.N.C.L.E. employees grew used to using, about missions, about the latest technological developments in the organisation, about future plans. He had nothing to add to that. He wasn't part of it any more.

And then Napoleon said, 'Well, gee, would you look at the time? I'm sorry guys, but Illya and I have a reservation at a restaurant in a quarter hour. Yeah, I know, but I said we might not be able to stay long...'

Illya could have put his arms around him. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take, but with Napoleon's words he echoed his own apologies and got to his feet and shrugged into his coat and waited for Napoleon to offer his arm. He exchanged goodbyes with the others and smiled and expressed regret, but he was so glad to be leaving.

He followed Napoleon through the crowd, and this time he touched the cane to the floor, to try to get a better idea of the room. He felt the floorboards through the cane tip as they walked out of the place, each little click of the tip over each tiny unevenness between boards. He felt the boards give way to smooth stone, maybe a foot-worn sill in the doorway, which dropped down to the concrete pavement. He breathed in the crisp air and exhaled his relief.

'Thank you, Napoleon. You didn't really make reservations?'

Napoleon laughed. 'No, I didn't really make reservations; but it was obvious you'd had enough.'

'Yes,' Illya murmured and shook himself. 'Yes, I'd had quite enough.'

'Give them time,' Napoleon told him softly. 'They don't know what to do or what to say.'

'I haven't sprouted an extra arm,' Illya said, wondering how much time they needed, if there would ever be enough time for people to start treating him normally again. 'I'm not dying.'

'No,' Napoleon said. 'Come on. It's cold. Let's walk. No, I know you haven't sprouted an extra arm, but they just don't know what to say.'

Illya grunted. He knew it was true. He knew if the tables were turned he wouldn't know what to say either. He longed for his previous life, his previous self. He was so very aware of the responses of the cane as he tapped it across the ground. He was so aware of the noises and echoes that made up the space around him. He was so changed.

'Hey, it's snowing,' Napoleon said, just as Illya felt the first flakes on his face.

'Oh,' Illya said.

It had snowed and thawed a few times in the last months and whenever the place was covered in snow it was like going into an alien world. He was just starting to build up a detailed understanding of how the street outside the apartment felt through the cane – the slight differences in the bases of the lampposts, the places where there was a crack or dip in the concrete, or the kerb was lower, where the stoops came out across the pavement and how those steps felt, if any of them had broken edges, if they had iron railings or none at all. He was starting to be able to tell exactly where he was, as long as he concentrated, just gaining enough confidence to walk around the block alone. Snow would ruin all of that.

'Well, I hope it doesn't settle,' he said.

'Well, it will be what it will be,' Napoleon said philosophically. 'Listen, Illya, what do you say we go somewhere else? No big groups. Just you and me. I don't feel like going home.'

Illya was tired. It was so ridiculously tiring fighting through his blindness to try to even approach living a normal life. But Napoleon was the kind of man who loved to go out, and Illya knew that all that had ceased the moment that man had thrown acid in his eyes. So he nodded and said, 'All right, Napoleon. Let's go somewhere else,' and Napoleon stopped on the pavement to hail a cab.