It is very interesting to watch people's reactions when they are confronted by certain situations. 'I am a Soviet' usually garners some very entertaining responses ranging from anger to curiosity to nonchalantness …is that even a word? The reaction to 'I am a spy,' or worse, 'a former KGB agent' is enough to entertain me for hours. However, I wasn't quite prepared for the response when I admitted to being Napoleon Solo's new partner. The reaction ran the gamut from pity to concern to anger. Some people see my new partner as shallow and self-serving; others consider him a pariah, a quick ticket to early retirement. Still others see him as a playboy or womanizer, while I have seen a side of him that I think few people have been privileged to view.

Once Mr. Waverly decided to pair us, I was given parts of Napoleon's file for me to study. He'd worked with a number of agents who had met with untimely demises. That is the nature of our job and I saw no reason for concern. If these men died due to incompetence upon Mr. Solo's part, it wasn't made obvious in the file. It seemed rather a case of agents being careless or overly dependent upon someone else for their protection. That was not the case with me. I rely upon no one and trust even fewer. When I am in the field, the responsibility falls upon me to protect myself. The sheer fact that I am still alive attests to my skill.

The fact that Napoleon has an eye for the women is a given. The reality that he also has an eye for men is not as widely known. He prefers to keep that aspect of his life quiet and I can understand that need. In the Soviet Union, to deviate from an established path is frowned upon. A few of us are granted a blind eye, mostly due to our importance to the State and its wishes, but that is a risky path. The State can, and often does, withdraw its favor at a second's notice and you, unwary participant, pay the price. Again, diligence, self control, and self reliance are the keys for survival. So while it is true that I had liaisons, I was never promiscuous and never drew undue attention to my relationship.

For me, it was easy to hide in plain sight, appearing less a man, more a bit of furniture or scenery for you to observe, but never see. For my partner, it appeared easier to flaunt his sexuality with the opposite sex and fly under the radar with the other. With either, we achieve the desired effect and no one ever suspects the truth. That Napoleon sees women, it does not bother me, for while they may steal a few moments of his time, they will never have his heart. That he leaves with me for safe keeping.

Yet, even as I study his files, I am left with more questions than answers. These forms, they tell me of the man, but not who the man is. They tell me when he was born, but not of the age of his soul… yes, I do believe that man has a soul and this from a Godless Soviet. They tell me of his achievements, but not what drove him to those achievements. For that knowledge, something more was needed, something subversive and underhanded and, thankfully, something with which I am highly skilled.

It was an early Saturday morning on a rare weekend off that saw me camped outside of Napoleon's apartment building. At about nine, the woman he'd spent the night with left and I noted with a smirk that it wasn't the woman he'd started the evening with. Even I was impressed with his stamina. We'd spent a very long and exhausting afternoon together and yet he still had the ability to take out, and presumably bed, not one, but two women. About half an hour later, my partner appeared, predictably dressed in a suit and tie. Before we started sleeping together on a regular basis, I wondered if he actually slept in a suit as well. I'd never seen a man so addicted to clothes as my partner.

Following him was relatively easy, not because Napoleon is an incautious man, but rather because I know how he thinks and acts. I knew when to hang back and when to close the gap between us. I tailed him to a small facility on the very outskirts of the city, a place I'd never seen before in a part of the city that was still strange to me.

The building was purposefully set among trees and greenery and I wasn't surprised to note that it was a retirement facility. Then I noticed the small print, 'underwritten by the National Company of Legal Entitlements… ' hmm, UNCLE. Americans seem to have lost the need for subtlety these days.

Napoleon entered, I counted to five and followed him in. He walked down a corridor, obviously familiar with the layout of the building and to the staff. I wasn't as fortunate.

"May I help you, sir?" The receptionist was flanked by a burly orderly, probably attending to another task when he spotted me.

I pulled out my ID card and smiled innocently. "I'm Mr. Solo's partner. He had me park the car and I'm afraid I got turned around."

The receptionist beamed back at me and nodded. "So you're the new guy he's been talking to Hank about."

"Hank?"

"Watkins? His former partner?" The receptionist exchanged a look with the orderly and he took a step towards me. I held my ground.

"But according to Napoleon, his partners are dead." I flashed back to the information I'd read, sparse details at best.

"The lucky ones are. Hank wasn't one of the lucky ones."

"That's why Napoleon was reticent to speak of our destination today." I did my best to look nonthreatening. "I'll just wait for him over there." I pointed to an uncomfortable looking couch.

The receptionist appraised me and a made a snap decision. "Down the hall, Room Seven– J."

"Seven – J," I repeated and smiled again. "Thank you for your assistance."

I wandered down the hall, pausing occasionally to check my bearings, but I didn't need to. As I approached, I could hear Napoleon speaking.

"Oh, Hank, you should have seen it. You would have laughed your socks off. The guy just stood there, staring at Illya like he was this little green guy from Mars and Illya 'pop' – one hit and the guy was out. He's small, but he's great in a fight, Hank. I wish you could meet him. You'd really like him."

I stood outside the room and listened as Napoleon rambled on, talking about our latest mission, about men whose names were unfamiliar to me, but obviously ones that Napoleon had shared an acquaintance with through his former partner. I felt both voyeur and intruder upon his thoughts.

"You can go in, you know. He wouldn't mind." The voice startled me to the point where I started for my Walther. "Sorry." The nurse smiled an apology as well. "I forget how high strung you agents are."

"No, it was my fault for permitting my guard to slip." I let my hand return back to my side, feeling a little foolish. "How long were they partners?"

"A couple of years. They were escaping from some THRUSH and had to jump off a cliff into the water. At the last minute, Mr. Solo hesitated."

"He doesn't swim well." I interrupted, still keeping an ear tuned to my partner's voice.

"Hank didn't stop and the water he thought was ten feet deep proved to be less than three. It shattered his spine and drove it up into his brain. His body lives, but it's just a shell now. His family was quite attentive for the first few months, and then, predictably, their visits got less and less. Mr. Solo though, he's never forgotten his partner. He's here at least once a month. He just sits and talks to him. Every once in a while, there's even a small spike in brain activity and I think Mr. Solo still hopes that one day Hank will wake up."

"He won't?"

"No, but we don't tell Mr. Solo that. He has hope and I'll never deny him that. He's proven to be a good and steadfast friend to Hank." She laughed suddenly. "I'm sorry; I never even asked your name."

"Kuryakin, I'm Mr. Solo's new partner."

"Then you're a lucky man. He's really one in a million."

"This I am learning."

I made good my escape from the nursing home, my desire to follow Napoleon now waning. It felt wrong to steal these small secrets from him, uncovering those little bits of his own being that he kept from the pages of reports and file folders. But I did know the next person who called my partner shallow and self serving was going to end up with my fist down his throat and his tonsils wrapped around his ears.

When he arrived at my apartment, there was no indication in his eyes of the journey he'd taken that morning, just the same warm and infectious smile. I've never been exceptional at showing my emotions, especially outside the family. Granted I'd known Napoleon for all of fifteen minutes before we were having sex, but there were extenuating circumstances. Up to this day, I had never approached Napoleon, not in a sexual sense. Not because I didn't want to or felt myself restrained or controlled by Napoleon, but because I was still testing the water, but because I had been gauging just how far I would trust this man, but no more. Now I knew.

I let him take a few steps inside and then embraced him, catching him completely by surprise, his mouth agape at my impertinence. It was just the excuse I needed to kiss him, telling him in the most intimate way I knew what he meant to me, the depth of my feelings for him. Any shock or surprise he might have felt he pushed aside and welcomed me in. He's so generous that way and now I was determined to let him know how much I appreciated and respected that generosity.

Without breaking our kiss, I pushed the jacket from his shoulders and started unbuttoning his shirt.

"Illya, what are you…?" He pulled back and I could see the excitement in his eyes.

"Shh." I pulled away just enough to get the shirt and his holster off. "Please, let me…" I returned to his mouth, unwilling to speak the words and hating myself for it.

"What, Illya?" But Napoleon wasn't having it; he pushed, like he always does. "Let you what?"

"Let me love you." I'd been with Sergei for three years, almost an eternity in my life, and I'd never uttered those words to him and yet I had loved him deeply and as passionately as I thought was possible… B.S… Before Solo.

And Napoleon let me. He stretched out on my bed and relinquished control to me and responded to my mouth, my touch, my love without restraint or demand and with complete honesty. He took what I gave him and reveled in it. I felt drunk with passion, unable to convey it properly to him, yet at the end, as we lay spent in each other's arms, I felt for the first time in my life that I was truly home. And it didn't matter where I lived or what I did, just as long as Napoleon was there to share it with me.

When I was growing up, my mother would tell me that good things came in small packages. As I got older, I started to see the wisdom of her words. In fact, when that adage is applied to my new partner, it's golden, literally.

There isn't much to Illya, not when you first look at him. He looks short, skinny and unable to withstand a good wind, much less an enemy agent. That's his biggest advantage. What there is of him is all muscle and determination. I've never known anyone quite as determined as he is, especially in a fight. We've only been out on a few missions together, but I've see him take down adversaries that would make a regular size Joe hesitate, but he just wades in and gets the job done.

He's also one of the smartest men I've ever known and that's going some for me. Of course you can get all of that from his official UNCLE file. I was more interested in what it didn't say. For instance, it didn't state that the man, while brilliant, is a rotten chess player. He tries, but strategy is not his forte. And it never really made Illya's sexual preferences clear until I sorted that one out for myself in a very delightful way. Until him, I'd been bouncing from one sex partner to the next, a willing participant but never actively engaged, if that makes any sense. I've had a number of bed partners, but none that I ever connected with as I did Illya. You see, with him, it wasn't having sex, with him, it was making love. Imagine my surprise at discovering the difference.

Yet as close as we were, Illya still held me at arm's length. He's fiercely private, something I blame on his Soviet upbringing. Over there, taking an interest in the wrong thing can end up with you on the business end of a firing squad. We'd meet, have an enthusiastic encounter after which we both professed great satisfaction, maybe we'd sleep awhile, and then he'd leave, disappearing like a shadow in the dark. One minute he'd be looking at me with sleepy, sex-sated eyes and the next thing I knew I was staring at an empty pillow. How he did it, I wasn't sure. Why he did it was an even bigger mystery and one I decided to unravel.

It took me three tries before I was able to successfully tail him. Not only is he naturally adept at blending into the woodwork, he's a trained spy and it is second nature for him to suspect a tail. It was good practice though, so I didn't begrudge him the first two attempts.

This morning I waited behind my newspaper for him to appear and head for the downtown bus, knowing now that he'd seem to board, but merely use it as a cover to cross the street and head down to the subway. The one thing I had going for me today was Illya was slowed down due to an injury. He'd twisted an ankle while leaping from a train and while he was doing his best to hide his limp from the world, I knew it was there and it was a beacon in the dark that I easily followed.

He emerged on 70th street and moved west a few blocks until he arrived at the Hospital for Special Surgery. Okay, now this had me scratching my head in serious thought. Granted we'd only been partnered for a short time, but I already knew of Illya's dislike of doctors and hospitals. The first time he'd checked himself out against doctor's orders, Waverly hit the roof – not a good thing. So why would Illya even be getting close to a hospital on his day off?

No way of knowing until you ask, so I followed him in, at a discreet distance of course, surprised when his path took him towards the children's ward. They, on the other hand, seemed to be expecting him. Several of the children were gathered in a common room, some in wheelchairs still attached to various IV bags, others propped up in chairs with pillows and blankets. The children greeted him by name, in a variety of languages and Illya waded through them to an empty chair, pausing to pick up a book sitting there. Pulling out his glasses, he sat and started to read.

I'd never paid much attention to Illya's voice prior to this, but as he read about the adventures of the wild and unpredictable Mr. Toad and his good friend Mr. Frog, I was as captivated as the children. He'd assign each character a voice and personality unique to it, and like the children, I was disappointed when the end of the book was reached and Illya closed the cover.

I withdrew, instinctively knowing that he'd be making his escape soon. I saw a nurse wiping her eyes and dipped into my pocket for my handkerchief.

"Thank you. I don't know why I cry with that story, but I always do. The friendship of Frog and Toad, it's so beautiful." She dried her eyes and handed the handkerchief back to me. "I haven't seen you here before. Are you a relative of one of the children?"

"No, I was on my way to the vending machines and got caught up in the story," I lied easily, keeping one eye open for my elusive partner. "Does he do that often?"

"Yes, but not as often as the children would like. They'd have him here every day if they could. And it's good. For a little while, they forget about reality and enter into the world he spins for them. He did Baba Yaga a few months back and I thought they'd never stop drawing pictures of houses on chicken feet."

I saw Illya stand, then kneel to accept a few hugs. He straightened and patted a head or two as he left, amid a wail of protest. He nodded to a nurse and headed back the way he'd come.

Next I followed him deep into Brooklyn to Brighton Beach. No surprise there – it's home to the largest Russian and Ukrainian immigrant population in New York. Suddenly Illya took on a different dimension as he moved among his own people, sitting and playing checkers with an old man as they argued politics in loud, vulgar Russian, joking and laughing with people his own age as they sat and openly drank vodka on brownstone stoops. Yet I watched him grow more and more despondent as each moment passed, as if driving a nail into his heart, reminding him of what he no longer had and yet unable to turn away lest he lose even this. He was a man being split right down the middle.

Just when I could bear it no longer, he turned and walked away, boarding a bus headed for the Village. It was getting late now and the city was starting to shift from the cold grays of day to the gaudy lights of the night. New York comes alive at night. We work during the day, but at night we play and at times, quite literally.

I watched as Illya climbed off the bus and headed over to a small night club. Once inside, he transformed yet again from a reader of children's tales and from a Soviet ex-pat into a jazz musician. I don't know why seeing Illya on stage surprised me. I knew from his file that he was competent on a number of instruments, but I'd never heard him play. The music was mournful, haunting, full of remorse, and I wondered if that was what had precipitated the visit to Brighton Beach or was it vice versa. Did he need that bitterness and longing to play or was he playing to free himself of those feelings?

At that point, I'd had enough and headed outside, hailing a taxi and heading back to the familiar streets of Manhattan.

I was halfway through my second martini when I heard a knock at my door and smiled. I recognized Illya's sharp staccato knock. Still, I checked to make sure and then opened the door to let him enter.

He glanced around as if to verify I was alone as I locked up behind him.

"Did you have a good day?" he asked as I went to the refrigerator to retrieve his bottle of vodka and a glass. I knew better than to join him in it – vodka and I don't see eye-to-eye.

"It was all right. You?"

"Acceptable." He took the glass and drained half the contents as if it was water as he collapsed onto my couch.

"It's amazing that your liver even talks to you."

"It says nothing I wish to hear." Illya kicked off his shoes and stretched his legs out, wiggling his toes, and sighing happily as if that was the greatest pleasure a man could have. He finished off his drink and leaned his head back against the cushions for a moment before abruptly sitting forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "You followed me today. Why?" He stared straight ahead as if afraid to look at me.

I wasn't surprised. Even at my most cunning, I still had the suspicion he knew I was there. "I wanted to know what you did on your day off."

"Why didn't you ask me? I would have told you."

"I thought maybe it was private."

"So instead you attempted to spy on me?" He shook his head sadly. "I will not allow that, even from you. I have had a lifetime of being watched, Napoleon. I thought here perhaps it would be different. I put you off twice hoping that would convey my wishes to you."

"Then why did you let me follow you today?"

"So that you could obtain whatever answer you were looking for, but no more." He took a deep breath, weighing his words. "If you wish to know something, ask. If I can tell you, I will. If not, then it is mine alone, do you understand?" He was toeing back into his shoes as he spoke.

"And if I disagree?"

"Then I will go to Waverly and request a new partner, because I cannot work with someone I cannot trust. Those are my terms." And with that he stood and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" I hadn't moved from my own position on the couch, either from fear or embarrassment, I wasn't sure which.

"I would have thought you would like me to leave now."

"Because I made an error in judgment? I did and I'm sorry but I couldn't help it; I've always been curious about things."

"It makes you a good agent."

"But a lousy partner. I didn't mean to violate your trust, Illya. And you're right, I should have asked, but you're as guilty of deception as I am."

"Yes." He didn't even attempt to lie. I can appreciate that and I knew that we'd reached an impasse. I didn't want to lose him, but I needed to show him that I understood and trusted him.

"Why don't you come with me next Saturday? Hank would love to meet you. He's heard all about you."

"It's private." He continued to stand in the entry hall, not leaving, not staying. "Your relationship with him."

"It can be private and still include you. I want it to include you."

"Why?"

"You're the best thing that's happened to me in a long time, Illya, and I'm not prepared to lose you. If that means you have to sneak off and hide in the shadows now and again, I can live with that. What I can't live with is seeing you go out into the field with another agent knowing that it should be me by your side." I patted the cushion beside me. "Please?"

I could still see the ghost of a smile he shot me even as we lay in each other's arms, limbs entangled, bed sheets kicked to the floor from the fever of our love making. I felt his breath against my neck, cooling the sweat that glistened in the half light of the room, felt his chest still struggling to calm his heart and let his lungs catch up with the rest of him. He was an unselfish lover, giving me everything he had each time and he always seemed surprised when I offered him the same. I knew, at that point, I'd never follow him again or ask him what he did in his off-hours. If a little bit of secrecy was the price I needed to pay for him, I would. Of course, that didn't mean I needed to play stupid now.

"Illya?" I brushed the hair off his forehead and let my fingers linger in the sweat damp strands.

"Yes?" His voice was soft now, relaxed and sleepy.

"Tell me a story?" I felt the chuckle rumble through his chest rather than heard it and turned my head to stare into those blue eyes I was still learning to know, now crinkled with amusement.

"Very well, once upon a time, there was an insufferable American and his ever-patient and noble Russian partner…" And with Illya's voice gentle in my ear, I drifted to sleep, knowing I was safe, protected and loved. And home.