The sun was setting, making a glimmering, golden path to the horizon. The sea was curling in so softly it felt like a lullaby. It was hard to believe in the rest of the world, with these endless miles of ocean spreading as far as the eye could see. It was such a contrast to the dirty, crowded streets of Manhattan that that other place felt like a dream. It was such a contrast to the hours sitting in the metal tube of an airliner, droning endlessly across the sky just to get here.

'And you seriously want to spend your time grubbing about in the dirt, instead of soaking up this sun on a perfect beach?' Napoleon asked, twisting his neck to eye Illya at the kitchen counter.

'You can soak up as much sun as you like,' Illya shrugged. 'I came here for a purpose.'

'So did I, you austere little Russian,' Napoleon said with a grin. 'So did I.'

'Lying on a beach sipping cocktails is not a purpose,' Illya replied.

Nevertheless, he picked up the two glasses he had just finished filling, and brought them over to Napoleon, who was lolling on the low sofa in the big windowed room.

'Here,' he said. 'You don't even need a beach for this.'

Napoleon took the glass and raised it to Illya in a toast.

'To five days,' he said.

Illya returned his smile. 'To five days,' he echoed.

Five days off was almost mind boggling. Admittedly, they'd had a hard few months, but they had never expected Waverly to approve of a whole five days. Illya had been so excited about the chance to join in on excavations of the Easter Island statues that it had been a joy to see. Although Napoleon had no intention of getting his own hands filthy and nails broken, he had been extremely interested to at least see those renowned pieces of ancient craft, and the island that harboured them.

Napoleon drank his drink sitting on the sofa. Illya drank his standing at the window, gazing out over the land to the sea. Napoleon could see it in every line of his body; the excitement, the urge to get moving, to start doing the thing he had come here to do. Napoleon could match Illya's energy ounce for ounce with the right incentive, but it had been a long flight down here, and a long time spending his energy on his job in recent months. After leaving New York to the tail end of a winter blizzard, he just wanted to let the southern sun sink into his bones.

Spy Wednesday

The morning brought a sunrise of incredible clarity, the air shimmering above the sea, every blade of grass seeming to catch the blaze of light on its edge, until the space became a pasture of green and gold. Birds wheeled high above the land, calling out piercing cries, before gliding back down towards the sea to fish.

Illya was already up and dressed, standing at the kitchen counter pushing toast into his mouth, as Napoleon wandered into the kitchen in his pyjamas, rubbing his eyes.

'Coffee's brewed,' Illya told him, nodding towards the pot. Then he took hold of Napoleon's arm and steered him over towards the table. 'Sit. I'll bring you a cup.'

'I can get my own, you know,' Napoleon objected, and Illya laughed.

'The way you were blinking, I wasn't sure if you were able to see,' he said.

'Just because you can jump out of bed in the morning like a Jack in the box,' Napoleon grumbled, but he took the cup of coffee that Illya passed to him. 'Are you about to leave?'

'Five minutes,' Illya said. 'The truck's coming round.'

'Ah,' Napoleon nodded. 'And will I know where to find you, later?'

'It's in the documentation on the table. Map at the back,' Illya told him economically. 'That's where I'll be, unless we decide to go diving. There's an intact example not far off the coast.'

'And how will I know if you're off diving?' Napoleon asked him.

'I won't be at the dig site,' Illya said dryly. 'And I'll be distinctly wet.'

'Ha ha,' Napoleon returned. 'Where will you be diving?'

'It's not far from the dig site. You'll see the support boat offshore.'

'Well, okay,' Napoleon nodded. He leant in and kissed Illya's cheek. 'I suppose I'd better take this and have a shower and go get dressed.'

'I might be gone by the time you've finished,' Illya warned him.

'That's all right. I'll see you later.'

Napoleon let his eyes linger on Illya's trim body, which had always had the power to arouse him, before picking up his coffee from the table and wandering back into the other room. He could hear Illya pottering about as he stripped off for his shower, but as soon as the water was running, everything else slipped away.

((O))

Later, the sun was blazing down, already hot even though it was some hours before noon. As Napoleon stepped out into the heat he wondered if it had been worth bothering to shower. He was bound to be sweaty within minutes, and if Illya dragged him into the excavation he'd probably be covered in grit, too.

He glanced down at the map in his hand, and then up across the dusty streets of Hanga Roa. He and Illya spent so much time travelling that nowhere felt much like a novelty, but the sheer amount of space and air here was a boon. All the buildings were low, instead of towering like cliffs over the streets, and the sea wind caught in the dry leaves of palm trees, making an ever rustling sound that vied with the soft waves. Napoleon spared one longing gaze for the nearby beach, then straddled one of the rather decrepit looking mopeds they had hired, and turned the key in the ignition.

It was an invigorating ride with the wind blowing through his sweaty hair, even though he did have to stop every so often to check the map. The excavation site was clear enough when he got there, though, with the pick up trucks parked around, and a tent pitched to the side, and the people milling about. A great stone head reared up above the ground, with an equally impressive hole dug around it. He picked his way across the trodden grass until he came to the edge, and looked down.

Illya was there, crouched, head bent, his blond hair so close to the dark hair of another man that they were almost touching. Napoleon was about to call out, but he could see that both men were completely focussed on teasing some tiny object out of the dirt. Instead of disturbing them, he knelt down on the side of the hole, and just watched.

It was only after a minute or so that he realised they were both speaking Russian. He had been expecting either English, or the rather colloquial Spanish that was used in this place. No wonder Illya was doubly engrossed. How often did he get to speak his own language?

Illya was using a brush to gently move dirt away from whatever it was that they had found. Every now and then the other man used a trowel to loosen soil from the edges, then Illya would brush it away. Their hands were so close that they touched again and again.

Something odd stirred in Napoleon's abdomen. He almost never saw Illya so close to another man, let alone a man that he must have met only hours ago. In a brief moment when Illya looked up he saw a kind of shining in his eyes that before now Napoleon had only seen directed towards himself.

There was a clenching inside him, all his muscles tightening then letting go. How could he compete with this? His interests had never been as hands on as this. Give him a book to read or a vista to admire, and he could lose himself, but he was no good at burying himself in minutiae, poring over chemical reactions or soldering circuits or digging up stuff centuries old from the soil.

He had been going to call out Illya's name, but he kept quiet. What was the point in distracting him from what he was doing? Napoleon wasn't going to jump down into the hole and start helping, and Illya, he knew from experience, wasn't going to drop something he was so fascinated with. If he did persuade Illya out of the hole his attention would be drifting the entire time, until he was allowed back to what he was doing.

Napoleon sighed, straightened up, and wandered away. He took the bike back into Hanga Roa and rode around for a little while until he saw a bar that he liked the look of, close to the sea, and ordered a cocktail. That was what places like this were made for.

((O))

'I didn't see you today,' Illya said when he arrived back at the house.

He looked dusty and tired. His face was lined with dust and there was dust caught on the hairs of his forearms. His fingernails were dirty underneath.

'I came over and you looked so busy I didn't like to disturb you,' Napoleon said.

He checked no one was within sight of the windows, then kissed Illya on the lips.

'Silly,' Illya replied after the kiss. 'I always like to be disturbed by you.'

'I could disturb you now,' Napoleon offered.

Illya stepped back a little.

'I'm covered in grit and soil,' he said. 'I could do with a shower.'

Napoleon wasn't sure if he should feel rebuffed. He had had a few too many cocktails at that bar, sitting out on the veranda in the sun, and he didn't quite trust his own judgement.

'All right,' he said rather diffidently. 'Shall I fix you a drink for when you come out?'

Illya looked up at him and smiled, and all at once the uncertainty rushed away. His eyes were bright, even bluer than usual in a face that had caught the sun, and they sparkled when he smiled.

'No. Come in with me,' he said.

((O))

The shower head surged into life, and Illya stood fiddling with the temperature for a moment before stepping in.

'Oof,' he hissed as the spray touched the back of his neck.

'Let me see,' Napoleon said, stepping into the shower tray behind him. 'Ouch,' he said as he saw the bright red semi circle of sunburn against the white that had been protected by his t-shirt. 'Didn't you put on sun cream?'

'On my face and arms,' Illya said ruefully, 'but I didn't think about the back of my neck, and I forgot to reapply it anyway. I left the bottle behind here.'

Napoleon reached around to turn the heat down a little more.

'Better?' he asked.

Illya sighed as the cooler water ran over his burnt back.

'Better,' he said. 'Thank you. I suppose I spent most of the day with my head down. Must be why my spine is killing me, too. I hadn't realised archaeology was so physical.'

'I'll rub something into it later,' Napoleon promised, then he slipped his arms about Illya's body. 'But for now – '

Illya winced, and Napoleon loosened his arms.

'I'm sorry,' Illya said. 'It's just too sore. If you can manage not to touch my back?'

Napoleon grinned, turning Illya around so that he was facing him, and stroking a hand down his wet chest.

'I'm sure that could be arranged.'

Maundy Thursday

The morning brought a note on the nightstand next to the bed.

Napoleon. Gone diving.

Succinct. He hadn't expected anything more. Illya never wrote anything down that could be incriminating. He did feel a little dip of disappointment, though. This was the second day of their vacation, if it could be called that, and he'd hoped to at least see Illya at breakfast. But, he supposed, this wasn't really a vacation for Illya. He had never taken to lounging around. He had come here with a purpose, to take part in the Easter Island excavations, to get an introduction to the fascinating world of archaeology. He wasn't going to hang around to share breakfast if there were diving to be done.

Maybe he would drop round to the diving site later. The sight of Illya in a skin tight black rubber wetsuit was something he always enjoyed, with his sun-bleached hair dripping with sea water, his skin beaded by it. Napoleon had never really been a water baby like Illya, but he was very happy to watch Illya swim all day long.

He made himself some breakfast, but didn't hang around long before taking to the moped again. He spent some time just riding about the open, dusty roads. He wasn't entirely sure where Illya would be. But eventually he headed over towards the dig site, and spotted a small boat bobbing out on the ocean a few hundred yards from shore.

He parked up and wandered over to where the great pit had been dug around what appeared, from a distance, to be just a great stone head. He hadn't looked properly at the rest of the statue yesterday, being more distracted by looking down at Illya. Now he took it in with a sense of awe. He had known, of course, that there was more to these statues than just their heads, but to see the great shaft of the body going down into the ground was amazing. It must have taken so much time and effort to create these things.

He stood there for a little while just looking, then turned to a man walking across the grass with a trowel in his hand, and called out in Spanish, 'Hey, is that the diving boat for the archaeologists?'

'It is,' the man replied, looking him up and down curiously.

'I'm a friend of Illya Kuryakin,' Napoleon explained. 'Is he out there?'

'Yes, he's diving,' he nodded. 'Swim out, if you like. The current isn't bad.'

Napoleon stood for a moment looking down at the blue water and the little rills of waves that crested and dipped over and over.

'You have trunks?' the man asked. 'You can leave your clothes here. No one will touch them.'

He was wearing his trunks under his clothes, anticipating the possibility of swimming if Illya were out in the water. So he nodded and thanked the man, and headed down towards the shore.

The water was warm near the surface, cold underneath, and it silked along his sides as he swam out towards the boat. He could see the shadows of divers moving under the water. When he reached the boat he caught hold of the ladder and hauled himself up onto the deck.

'I'm with Mr Kuryakin,' he explained to one of the men on board.

The man handed him a towel, then pointed overboard to show him where Illya was. Napoleon could see the divers more clearly from the deck, clustered about what was clearly one of the huge statues, tumbled into the sea.

'They're trying to work out how it got down there?' Napoleon asked.

'How it came there, why it came there, when it came there,' the man replied. 'So many mysteries.'

One of the divers moved away from the rest, propelling himself upwards with strong strokes. After a moment it became clear that it was Illya. He surfaced, pushing his mask up off his face, grinning up at Napoleon.

'Come to join us?' he asked.

Napoleon laughed. 'I'll leave the diving up to you. I just came out to see how you were doing.'

Illya's face was glowing with excitement as he grabbed onto the ladder and clambered up. Napoleon reached out a hand to help him on board, and passed him the towel that he'd been given before.

'You don't know what you're missing,' Illya told him, alight with enthusiasm. 'It's incredible, Napoleon. We've been trying to work out if they might have transported these things by sea, or if it tumbled in during an earthquake, or – well, I'm only an amateur. There's only so much I can do down there because they can't instruct me properly underwater. I'm just helping to clear away the seaweed. But it could tell us so much!'

Napoleon laughed.

'I'm glad to see you're having fun,' he said. 'And at least you're protected from the sun this time. How are those shoulders under all that rubber?'

Illya grimaced. 'I think I'll feel it when I peel this off. We were going to go back to shore for lunch, then I'm getting back to dry land excavation. I can be of more help there.'

He drew the zip down on the front of his suit, peeling the sides away from his chest.

'Help me off with this?'

Napoleon helped him, taking great care to show no more reaction to the slow exposure of Illya's body than any platonic friend would. He felt far too exposed in nothing more than well fitting swimming trunks, especially once Illya was stripped down to the same.

'Race you back to shore?' Illya asked. 'I'll leave the flippers on the boat.'

'You're on,' Napoleon said, following him to the rail.

Illya executed a perfect dive into the water, and Napoleon was caught for a moment, just watching the flex and ripple of his muscles. When Illya surfaced he looked around, then realised that Napoleon was still on the boat.

'You coming?' he called, treading water.

Napoleon cleared his throat. The sooner he got in the water the better, he thought, so he made his own dive, plunging down into the sudden chill of deeper water, then surfacing like a cork a few feet away from Illya.

'You know, you make me think things I shouldn't be thinking when I'm dressed like this,' he said privately as he neared his partner. 'It's a good thing it's chilly down there.'

Illya grinned. 'Come on,' he said. 'Try and beat me.'

Napoleon laughed, but he swam as hard as he could after the small Russian. His arms and legs were a very little longer, but Illya had the advantage of simply loving to swim, and Napoleon certainly didn't mind too much being a little behind him, able to watch those strong arms scooping through the water.

'Come on,' Illya said as soon as they were on shore. 'Andriy tells me they have a feast waiting in the tent.'

'Andriy?' Napoleon asked, his step faltering a little. 'That's – Was that the guy you were thick as thieves with when I turned up yesterday?'

'I didn't say, did I?' Illya asked brightly. 'He's from Chelyabinsk originally but he's been with Christ's for years. I didn't expect to meet a countryman on this dig.'

'I'll bet you didn't,' Napoleon said.

He had known that this was a Cambridge dig – that was how Illya had managed to wrangle the invitation – but he, too, hadn't expected Illya to meet any fellow Soviets on this tiny island.

Illya turned around then, eyeing Napoleon shrewdly.

'Really, Napoleon?' he asked.

'Really what?' he protested, holding his arms apart in wide innocence.

'I can read you well enough,' Illya told him. 'Are you jealous because I've been talking with another man?'

'Don't be silly,' Napoleon said, rather too quickly.

Illya huffed out breath.

'Napoleon, how often do I get to spend time speaking my own language, talking with an educated man in my own language? Do you really think there's anything more to it than that?'

'Of course I don't!' Napoleon protested, but there was a little voice in the back of his head, a voice that he hated, trying to tell him that there was.

Illya huffed again, and started on up the beach.

'Let's have lunch,' he said without looking around. 'Then I'll have to get back to the dig – if you don't mind me working with Andriy,' he added in a barbed tone.

Napoleon pressed his lips together to stop himself from saying anything, because he knew that he was being foolish, letting little insecurities rear up, when he knew that he had no need to feel that way. He exhaled slowly, then followed Illya up the beach.

Good Friday

Napoleon was facing the outside of the bed, his eyes on the view through the slatted blind of the bedroom window. Illya, he knew, was facing his own edge of the bed, equally awake, but equally silent. He felt as if he had been awake half the night, just snatching scraps of sleep that were punctured by nightmares.

'Are we going to talk about this?' Napoleon asked after a long while.

It felt as though there were a plank down the middle of the bed between them, hard and immoveable. It had been there all night, imaginary but apparently very real.

The demons were moving in Napoleon's head again, and had been since lunch yesterday. They hadn't eaten in silence, but almost all of the conversation had been with the other archaeologists, not with each other, and he couldn't help noticing quite how much Illya had spoken with Andriy in his own language, talking too fast and too low for Napoleon to be able to understand more than a few words. It almost felt deliberate, as if Illya were rubbing it in.

He knew Illya wasn't like that. At least, he thought he wasn't. He could be vindictive sometimes, he knew, but he had never been like that with Napoleon, not in seriousness. So was he imagining it? Was it real? He had sat there at lunch glancing over at the pair, watching Andriy, trying to work him out. Did he look like he might be queer? Was there even a way of telling? Very few people would ever be able to tell what was going on between Napoleon and Illya just by looking, so how would he be able to tell by looking at Andriy?

But they had seemed thick as thieves, talking like that, and Napoleon was sure that Illya was playing up to Andriy just for Napoleon's benefit.

He had left as soon as they had finished eating, and Illya hadn't been back until late. When he had come in he'd given Napoleon a cursory apology, and told him he had stayed out with the archaeologists for dinner. By 'the archaeologists' had he meant all of them, Napoleon wondered, or just with Andriy? It had all ended in a blazing row, which had damaged more than it had helped.

'Illya,' he said a little more loudly. 'Are we going to talk about this?'

Illya moved, turning over, and the mattress shifted beneath him.

'I'm not sure what there is to talk about,' he said in a measured voice. 'You seem to have an insane idea that I am involved in something with Andriy beyond friendship for a fellow countryman. Well, I'm not. What else can I say?'

Napoleon turned over too, so that he was lying on his back, mirroring Illya. The plank was still there, separating them. He wanted to reach out his hand to touch Illya's under the bedclothes, but he didn't. He curled his fingers into his palm instead, clenching so tightly that his fingernails dug into his skin.

'All right,' he said.

'All right?' Illya echoed. 'Is that it? I'm forgiven for something I haven't done?'

Illya jerked up suddenly and stalked out of the room. Napoleon stayed where he was. This felt so crazy. This was supposed to be a wonderful time, a relaxing vacation for a few days, and he was ruining it all. He knew he was doing it himself. What had Illya done? Nothing at all, but talk to another man.

He listened to the sounds of Illya in the other room, moving about, getting himself something to eat. After a little while Napoleon got up too and went into the shower, and while the water was hissing about his ears Illya must have come in to get dressed, because when he came out, Illya was gone.

((O))

Later, he headed out on the moped, in the opposite direction from the dig site. The vistas of the island were incredible, but Napoleon wished he could enjoy them without the brooding, churning feelings and thoughts in the back of his mind. He tried. He pushed forward on the throttle and the needle on the speedometer crept up. The bike didn't go very fast but it was better than staying still. The sun was strong but the air was cool as it fingered through his hair, and he was glad he wasn't wearing a helmet.

In the end, after making a circuit of as much of the island as he could, he ditched the moped back at the house and started walking. He walked and walked until he was up on the edge of Rano Kau, the great extinct volcano that punctured the end of the island, barricaded there by the town and the airstrip below. The wind that blew through his hair was stronger and fresher, and he felt like he could breathe at last. He turned his back on the town and just stood looking over the wide, shallow crater and the patchwork of water and islands that filled it, while the ocean air battered relentlessly at his whole body.

They had been by the ocean last week, up in Norway, so far away from this Pacific paradise. The weather had been horrendous, the wind blasting in from the sea and whipping icy salt water onto the shore with every gust. The mountains that reared up into the sky were crusted in snow, the streets were slushy and dirty with snow, and the people had a strange, pale, blank look, as if they had spent so long battening themselves against the winter that now, finally outside, they felt like shell-less creatures unused to sunlight.

Which mission had that been? Sometimes they had so many assignments back to back that the people blurred into one another. Only the places were distinct. He closed his eyes and let the wind blast around him, and remembered the dock in that little town, the scientist they were trying to track down, the –

His eyes snapped open, and suddenly the reality of Easter Island was all around him.

How could he have pushed that time in Norway away? The scientist's daughter, painfully intelligent and painfully beautiful, their only link to finding her father. They had tossed a coin, hadn't they? One of them was going to have to ingratiate themselves with her and Illya, instead of his usual acquiescence to Napoleon's sex drive, had insisted that this time they flip a coin. So Napoleon had flipped a krone into the air, and they had watched it, glittering and spinning, until it fell on the table and Illya slapped his hand over it to stop it rolling away. Illya had called heads, and heads it had been.

Napoleon hadn't been able to account for his own reaction then, either. It had been an odd mixture. Jealousy over Illya getting the girl. Jealousy over the girl getting Illya. Uncertainty as to whether Illya would be able to manage it. He was always so awkward with girls. Awkwardness aside, he had been the logical choice. Illya was far more grounded in science than Napoleon, far more able to carry on a meaningful conversation with the girl that wouldn't immediately be exposed as a ploy. Illya's interest in science ran core deep, and that would shine through.

Illya had managed it, anyway. He had managed it wonderfully, almost too wonderfully. The two of them had seemed thick as thieves. When Illya spoke about Lena, his eyes sparkled.

He felt a little nausea at the base of his stomach. He clenched his hands at his sides and walked, around the wide rim of the volcano, until he was coming down on ancient, low stone buildings with grass growing over their ruined tops. What a weird place this was, eerie almost, with these low abandoned houses perched along the thin rim of land, with the waves crashing in on one side, and that strange patchwork of water and islands down in the crater on the other.

He sat down with his back against the shelter of one of the stone walls. Out of the wind, the sun was very warm.

Suddenly he felt very tired, as if all of the weeks of back to back missions were hitting him together. They had just spent too long on the go, too long never getting a break, too long having to suppress themselves and play forms of themselves to slip through the agents' world and survive. He had spent too many missions having to play the ladies' man with an endless series of women. Maybe somehow he had floated away from his true self in all of that time.

((O))

He woke suddenly. He hadn't even been aware that he had fallen asleep. There was still the crashing of the waves, still the sound of wind, but everything around him was darkness.

He sat there, blinking. His back ached and his neck ached. He had slumped into a strange position. He could feel the stone wall behind him, but the darkness was so complete it was like being blind.

He brought his watch up to his face, partly to read the time and partly to reassure himself that he hadn't really been struck blind. He could see the luminous dots there on the dial. It was almost nine o'clock at night. He felt bewildered and unanchored after a series of strange, tumultuous dreams, all involving Illya slipping away, Illya lost, Illya with another man, or woman, or – They were all turning into a confused mass in his mind. He could hardly grasp the threads of the dreams now. He just knew that he felt lost and adrift, and that he was alone in the dark, on a precipitous shaft of land between the plummet to the sea on one side, and the crater on the other.

He couldn't stay here, though. Illya would be worried about where he was. He hoped he would be worried, at least. He couldn't blame him if he wasn't.

Had this really all come from some kind of nebulous jealousy? He wasn't even sure what he had been jealous of, really. Jealous of Illya and that girl in Norway. Jealous of Illya and the Russian archaeologist. But what reason did he have for that jealousy? They both got involved with other people as part of their job. It was necessary. Sometimes it was enjoyable, but it was never deep, it never turned into anything else. It never threatened their relationship; or, at least, he had thought it hadn't.

It had just been too long, he thought, letting Illya drift away. Too long with both of them focussed almost exclusively on other things. Then, when they had managed this time away, it was all centred around Illya's chance to take part in this dig, Illya's never-ending fascination for the world of science, the world of information. Perhaps that was what he was jealous of; the fact that Illya could lose himself so deeply to that world, and Napoleon didn't have a way in.

He spent a little time stretching his limbs, moving his spine, trying to bring life back to his body. He stood up and felt the wind hit his face again, blasting in from the sea. There was the wind to guide him, and the sound of the waves, and his memory of walking down here in the light. He just needed to be careful.

He started back up the slope, picking his way very carefully. His eyes were getting more used to the darkness. He could see the black humps of the buildings, the lighter colour of the sky. There were some stars, but the moon must be lost behind the thick cloud cover that was blotting half the sky. He just needed to get back around the rim of the volcano, back onto the path that led down to the town. The town would be obvious enough, as soon as it appeared from behind the land.

((O))

He managed to get a good long way up towards the west side of the crater before anything happened. He was congratulating himself at doing so well walking in the dark, picking out the faint line of the worn path in the starlight, feeling the hardness of it under his feet in comparison to the softer grass on either side. Then the lights of the town appeared, cresting first over the edge of the land, then becoming more full, until he could see the spidering pattern of the streets and houses. He thought perhaps he could hear music from somewhere, just the heavy thump of the bassline. He could hear cars and motorbikes moving in the streets. It was hardly late. Looking at his watch, he could see it was only just half past nine.

It was the lights that distracted him. As long as he was focussing on the path it was easy, but now every time he looked up the lights flickered in his eyes, and when he looked back to the path it was harder to see. After a little while he realised he wasn't on the path at all any more. Something must have misled him, a rocky patch, perhaps, something that was hard like the path, but wasn't the path. Then, suddenly, he was slipping, rolling, flailing out his arms to catch hold of something and failing. Shredding his nails on stony ground, tumbling over and over, thumping himself down and down.

So many thoughts exploded in his mind, an impossible amount, it seemed, considering how swift was his fall. This couldn't be the sea side of the crater. He was sure it wasn't. He wasn't going to hit the edge of a cliff, and smash onto the basalt rocks below. The crater, then. He was falling into the crater, into the mercifully extinct basin.

His final thoughts were of how stupid he had been, and how worried Illya would be.

Black Saturday

Light. There was nebulous light all around him. Screeching, something loud and piercing screeching in the air. Pain. Why was he in such a strange position? Why was there the feeling as if he had been sleeping on rocks? Why –

He blinked, and the light became a real thing, a dawn glow of pure gold. He could see sky, and birds wheeling above him.

His legs were wet. Why were his legs wet, all the way up to his hips? For a moment he wondered if he had wet himself, then he realised how stupid that was. No man's bladder could be that full.

He blinked again, trying to focus properly. He was lying half in a pool, half on dry land. Thank God it was his legs that had ended up in the water, not his head. He didn't know how long he had been unconscious, but if he had tumbled in head first he wouldn't be alive now to see the dawn light and the wheeling birds.

Then he heard Illya's voice.

'Napoleon, you blithering idiot!'

How could that be? Was he hallucinating? His head ached so much, and he was beginning to realise there was a great focus of pain in his left arm. Was he hallucinating Illya's voice?

Small stones tumbled, and one struck him on the shoulder, another on the top of the head. That wasn't a hallucination. He turned his head awkwardly backwards to look up the slope behind him. There Illya was, slipping and sliding on his feet down the steep edge of the caldera, putting out a hand every now and then to steady himself.

Illya. Of course it was Illya. Of course it was. It could be no one else.

'Illya?' he asked aloud, but he didn't think his voice was loud enough to be heard over the sound of Illya making his way down the slope.

'Illya, I'm sorry,' he said as soon as he was close enough. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'

He felt ridiculously close to tears. His head hurt so much. He wanted to let go like a toddler, and just cry in sheer indignation at the amount of pain he was in, and at all the stupid things he had done to get into this position.

'Don't be silly,' Illya said.

He was very close now, reaching Napoleon's side, kneeling down near him.

'What have you got to be sorry for?' Illya asked, reaching out and gently brushing a strand of hair from Napoleon's forehead.

It stung where Illya had touched him, and Napoleon lifted his own good arm to touch the same spot, feeling the stickiness of congealing blood.

'I'm such an idiot,' he murmured. 'Illya, will you forgive me for being such an idiot? All I wanted was to spend some time with you, and – '

He didn't know what. He hardly knew what it was that had driven all those awful, insecure feelings. He just knew that now it all seemed as insubstantial as cotton candy, as ridiculous as cotton candy, and all that really mattered was Illya at his side.

'You have a concussion, Napoleon,' Illya said succinctly.

He cupped his hand against Napoleon's cheek, looking into his eyes. Napoleon was struck by how incredibly blue Illya's eyes were. They were like the sky, like the sea, like –

He couldn't see them properly. What was happening? Then he realised he was crying, his vision blurred out with tears.

'It's all right,' Illya said more softly. 'Napoleon. You have a concussion, and I think your arm is broken, but you're all right. We're going to get you up out of here, and you're going to be all right.'

Napoleon wiped his eyes with the gritty palm of his hand, then blinked at the stinging of the dirt he had just rubbed into them.

'We?' he asked.

'We've been looking for you half the night,' Illya said. 'When you didn't come home, I was worried. Someone said they'd seen you heading up here. I guessed you must have blundered into trouble somehow.'

He smiled, and it was like the sun coming out.

'It's all right?' Napoleon asked. He felt so dazed, so undone. 'You forgive me for being so stupid?'

'We'll talk about this when you're not concussed,' Illya said firmly. 'But I'm going to shout for the others to come and help carry you out of here, so I need to know you're not going to say anything indiscreet in front of them. You're not, are you?'

Napoleon tried to pull himself together. It was the concussion, of course. He knew that. It was so hard to keep control of his meandering thoughts, his guilt, his emotions. But he had to keep control of them for now. This was worse than any situation with Thrush. No one must know about him and Illya. To the world they must be no more than friends.

'All right,' he said. He took in a deep breath. Down here in the crater the morning air was very cool. As soon as he realised he was cold, he started to shiver. 'All right. I'm not going to say anything indiscreet. I'm all right.'

Illya looked up over Napoleon's head, looking all around the crater, then leant in and kissed his forehead.

'All right,' he said. 'Good. You just lie there, then, and I'll get the others.'

((O))

It took time for the search party to be gathered, and still more time for word to be sent back to the town that a stretcher was needed. Illya had dragged Napoleon up out of the pool he had half fallen into, and he lay in the slowly warming sunshine, his clothes starting to steam, just drifting. He felt ridiculously tired and sleepy considering he had been unconscious for almost ten hours. But Illya kept patting a hand on his cheek, telling him very clearly that he wasn't to go to sleep, telling him to look up and watch the birds, to look around the crater, just talking to him and talking to him.

Then the stretcher was being lowered down, and he managed to manoeuvre himself onto it with Illya's help, and lay still while straps were tightened around him. Then he was being hauled up the side, and his arm seared with the jolting. A great nausea rose, surrounded by blotches in front of his eyes and a singing in his ears. Everything disappeared, and then he was at the top, Illya patting his cheek, saying, 'Come on now, Napoleon. You can't sleep here. Are you with me?'

He could smell vomit, and taste it in his mouth. Illya's face looked strained.

'I'm all right,' he said. There were still odd blotches floating in front of the blue of the sky, but he was sure he was all right. 'Just my arm. Hurts a little, you know.'

Someone else knelt down on the other side of him, and he blinked. That was Andriy, wasn't it? He recognised him. He saw him exchange a look with Illya, and they spoke briefly in Russian. Napoleon wasn't feeling well enough to try to understand, but still, it was as if scales had fallen from his eyes. What was there there between Illya and Andriy? A surface friendship, nothing more. They were just two compatriots in a foreign land. There was nothing of what Illya reserved in his eyes for Napoleon. All of the shine in his eyes in the archaeological trench had been for what he was unearthing, not for the man he had being working with.

He felt greatly at ease. He felt stupid and sore, ill and embarrassed, but he also felt greatly at ease.

'Hospital next?' he asked, looking up between them.

Illya smiled grimly.

'Not exactly hospital here, but we can get you to a doctor,' he said.

'Oh,' Napoleon replied.

He closed his eyes, then, and resigned himself to being helpless at the centre of this hive of activity.

((O))

Illya was right about the medical care. Napoleon had imagined being taken to an ambulance, which would then whip him off to a clean, neat hospital; small, perhaps, but still a hospital. It had been reassuring to think that soon he would be safe. But the stretcher brought him to one of the archaeological team's pick up trucks, which had driven as far as it could up the mountain. The truck took him to a small doctor's office, where he lay on the floor for a little while on the stretcher, in a waiting room full of intrigued looking locals, before being taken in to the doctor's office. He couldn't fault the care he had been given, though, because now he was back in their little rented house, his arm in a full cast, his cuts and grazes disinfected and covered, and his concussion thoroughly checked.

'Now,' Illya said, sitting down on the edge of the bed, putting a hand on his arm. 'Are you feeling like talking about all of this?'

Napoleon turned his head a little on the pillow.

'I was stupid,' he said. 'I fell asleep in the sun up on the side of the volcano. I suppose I hadn't slept well the night before. Didn't realise how tired I was. When I woke it was dark. I should have stayed put but I thought you'd be worried about me, so I tried to make my way down.'

'Yes, I'm sure,' Illya replied. 'But I didn't mean about that. You know what I'm talking about.'

Napoleon breathed out slowly. He would have shrugged but all his muscles hurt a little too much.

'That,' he said. 'That was me being an idiot. Would you believe me, Illya, if I told you that I am not actually the suave, self possessed man about town that everyone thinks I am?'

Illya laughed. 'After you ran away in a jealous huff and threw yourself down a mountain side? Yes, I would believe that, Napoleon.'

'Well, all right,' Napoleon said half grudgingly.

He worked his good arm out from under the sheet, and held out his hand to Illya. Illya took it and held it gently, wincing in sympathy at the bruises and torn places on his fingers.

'All right,' Napoleon said again. It was so good just to hold Illya's hand. 'Well, yes, I was jealous, and yes, it was ridiculous. I was being utterly ridiculous. It's just been so long since we've had any time together, any real, sustained time together. Time when we weren't working, when we weren't playing a part. And now we're here, and the whole time you've been absorbed in this dig.'

'You knew that was going to be the case when we came here,' Illya reminded him gently. 'We agreed to that. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and you were happy for me to take part.'

'Yes, I know,' Napoleon said. 'And I was happy. I am happy. It's just – something very primitive and very foolish reared up in me. I would love to have a vacation with you, just you and no one else. Nothing else calling on our time. Just the two of us and nothing else.'

'A week sunbathing?' Illya asked dubiously.

'No,' Napoleon replied emphatically. 'A week touring museums, eating out, walking in the mountains, whatever – but a week where we have each other, and we're not sharing with anyone else.'

Illya smiled.

'You know, they're not going to let you fly tomorrow,' he said. 'Not until that concussion has settled down. No doctor on the island would sign you off as fit to travel.'

'You're fit to travel,' Napoleon reminded him. 'Waverly isn't going to let you stay here just to hold my hand.'

'Actually,' Illya said, 'I called in while you were getting your arm plastered and updated him with the situation. I'm staying until you're ready to fly. It should only be a few days.'

Napoleon raised his eyebrows, and the bruise on his forehead throbbed.

'How did you manage that?'

'I insisted,' Illya said dryly. 'So you'll have to put up with me until they clear you for travel.'

'I'm glad,' Napoleon said. 'But we can't exactly visit museums and walk in the mountains with me like this.'

'Well,' Illya said. 'We'll get another five days, as soon as you're fully healed. You never know, the old man might even stretch to a week.'

Easter Sunday

It was another eggshell dawn with a sky of the palest blue. The sun was coming up in a great golden blaze, making the shadows of the houses and trees stretch long across the ground. Napoleon's head still ached, but he had slept well. His arm was comfortable enough in its cast, and it was the myriad grazes and bruises that were really troubling him. He got up with Illya, though, and walked stiffly and awkwardly across the grass about the house, down to the rocky edge by the sea. Illya was carrying two cups of coffee in one hand, and letting Napoleon lean on his other arm.

'You're all right?' Illya asked solicitously.

'I'm fine,' Napoleon promised him, sinking down into one of the garden chairs that Illya had already brought down and set on the grass. It seemed crazy just how much all his muscles ached under the bruising.

Illya handed him his coffee, then bent down and produced a basket that he must have brought down with the chairs. Whatever was in it was covered with a clean white cloth.

'Happy Easter, Napoleon,' Illya said, handing him the basket.

Napoleon settled it on his knees, and drew away the cloth. Inside were two beautifully painted eggs, surrounded by little towers of some kind of iced, sweet bread. The scent rose up around him as he inhaled.

'This is kulich,' Illya explained. 'You'll like it.'

He picked up one of the eggs and held it on the palm of his hand.

'The eggs don't need much explanation. They're traditional in Russia and Ukraine. It's blown, so you can keep it. There's nothing in it but air.'

'But it's lovely,' Napoleon said, taking it and turning it in his hand. It had been intricately dyed with beautiful patterns and colours. It seemed amazing that someone would spend so much time on such a fragile, ephemeral thing. 'Illya, when did you get to do all of this?'

Illya laughed, and shook his head.

'Now, promise me you won't get jealous if I mention Andriy's name?' he asked.

'I promise,' Napoleon said solemnly. 'I'm over all that idiocy. It only took a crack on the head to fix me.'

'Well, these were all made by Andriy's wife,' Illya explained. 'She was making them for the family, and she decided to include us.'

'His wife?' Napoleon echoed, and Illya laughed again.

'He is very firmly married, Napoleon. Very much in love with his wife. You couldn't find a more red blooded male than him. His wife and their children came with him to stay through the season, because they didn't want to be apart for so long. They were going to ask us to spend Easter morning with them, but then you threw yourself from a cliff.'

'I didn't exactly throw myself,' Napoleon demurred.

'Well, however you ended up unconscious in a small lake,' Illya said. 'Why don't you try the kulich?'

He took one of the tall, fragrant buns himself and tore a large bite from the top. Then he offered it towards Napoleon's mouth. He leant forward and took his own bite, tasting something very much like panettone, rich with spices and orange peel, sweet with the icing on the top. Better than the flavour was this feeling of sharing with Illya, the feeling that everything had been healed, and they were facing a new year before them. The sun was bright behind them and the sea was open before them, and everything felt renewed.