Napoleon's hug stayed with him as he sat in the cab back to Shannon. He wished he could have taken Napoleon as well. He had promised Napoleon that he would try to shake off his Russian brood, but he wasn't having any success. He foresaw a life bound to the office again, and couldn't imagine that a consultation with Dr Bruner would give him anything but hopes that would be smashed again like a Christmas tree bauble. It would almost be better to put every thought of Dr Bruner out of his mind right now and continue living his life.

The car tyres swished on a road covered in water, rain dashed against the window, and it was chilly in the back seat. He sat with his arms folded around his body thinking about that long moment in the pub when shots had been snapping through the air and he had known that there was nothing he could do but keep his head down and hide. He had missed the buzz of that, but when it had happened it was a terrible feeling to know that when it came down to the wire he was so useless. He could perhaps help Napoleon in a physical fight, but not with a gun. Even with his training, shooting at audible targets, he would be of no help in a gun battle, because he couldn't shoot without the risk of hitting his partner. It was all insufferable, all interminable, and so horrifically unfair.

There was other traffic, occasionally a car horn. He was aware of the flickering of the light but he didn't know if it were flickering because of trees or buildings. He sat thinking of the last time he had driven with sight, on their way to that lab in Stockholm. He usually drove because he enjoyed it so much. And then there had been that other time, in Napoleon's car in the parking lot. Just sitting in the driver's seat and laying his hands on the wheel had felt good. He had sat there just imagining moving forward at speed, and then Napoleon had said, 'Go on, Illya. Turn the key. The lot's empty. That's why I stopped here.'

Oh, it had been strange at first. Strange and scary. It didn't stop being scary. Napoleon had done up Illya's lap belt, and then said, 'Don't worry. I'll let you know if there's anything you need to stop for. It's a big place.'

So he had started the car and pressed down on the gas, and he had rumbled forwards over the crunching ground. And then he had gone a little faster, and a little faster. It had felt so fast, and he had asked, 'How fast am I going?' and Napoleon had replied, 'A little over thirty, Illya. But it's fun, huh?'

'Oh, god, yes,' he had said. That had been crazy, that evening of driving around that empty place, getting faster and faster on each circuit, until Napoleon was screaming in terror. It had been crazy, but it had been fun.

'Hey, did you hear me? We're at the airport,' an Irish accented voice broke into his thoughts.

'Oh.'

He shook himself and picked up his cane from the footwell and shoved his dark glasses on, then fumbled at the door, searching for the handle. He couldn't find it. He didn't know this car model. He clenched his fist in frustration. Then the driver came around and opened it for him and said, 'Watch your head there on the roof,' as he got out, and he bit back the urge to snap, I always watch my head. Every damn time.

He fumbled for his wallet, asking, 'How much do I owe you?'

He had no idea what money he had in there now. There were American notes, Egyptian notes, Irish notes. The loose change he had was an utter mess. He had meant to ask Napoleon to help him sort it out, but he hadn't. But the driver said, 'No, put it away. I've already been paid a set fare by your uncle. I'm to take you and your luggage in to the terminal.'

'Oh, thank you,' Illya said. That inner voice screamed again. I don't want to be taken in to the terminal. I want to manage on my own. But he stood still and listened while the man got his case from the boot of the car, and when the driver took hold of his arm he didn't bother to rearrange things so he was being guided properly. He just dropped the tip of his cane to the ground and walked where he was taken.

He sat on one of a row of seats in a busy departure lounge. The cab driver had taken him right up to the desk and handed him to a helpful airline lady, who had found his ticket and checked his bag in and brought him here. She had brought him coffee in a polystyrene cup, then left with a promise that although she was busy, as soon as the flight was boarding she would come and help him again.

How he hated it. He had got used to relying on the kindness of strangers, but right now he hated it. Napoleon was miles away in that little town, and he felt like he was being sent home in disgrace.

He sipped his coffee and listened to the hubbub of the airport, the melange of accents that were mostly Irish but occasionally English or American or various other nationalities. He recalled so many hours spent in airports, alone or with Napoleon at his side to exchange sly comments and people-watch with. He missed that. God, how he missed it all...

His communicator warbled, and he put the cup of coffee between his knees and pulled the pen out of his pocket.

'Kuryakin,' he said tersely.

And Napoleon's voice came from the tiny speaker, and his spine relaxed a little at his wonderful voice.

'Illya, I just wanted to see how you're doing.'

He straightened up again, trying to make himself sound more his normal self as he replied, 'Well, I managed to find the airport, Napoleon. It really isn't that difficult. Have you managed to do the same?'

Napoleon gave a small noise of discontent. 'I'm still trying to find a hire car right now, Illya. I'm afraid this might take longer than I'd hoped. But they're sending an agent over from Dublin to give me back up, and if I haven't found one by the time he gets here I guess I can ride share.'

'Oh,' Illya said. The amount of disappointment he felt was ridiculous, but there it was. He felt as if he were being replaced. Waverly had shipped him out because he was a liability and sent someone else in his place. 'Well, be careful, won't you?' he said.

'Illya,' Napoleon replied, and Illya knew that over that distance and through that tinny little speaker Napoleon had read his tone perfectly. 'I could really do with a second gun. There might be any number of hostiles at that airfield.'

'Yes, I know,' Illya said. 'Hence my telling you to take care.'

'I will take care,' Napoleon promised, 'and I will be back in New York as soon as I possibly can.'

'Mr Kuryakin?'

Illya's head jerked up at the voice, then he said, 'Look, Napoleon, I have to go. Check in later, okay? It doesn't matter what time.'

And Napoleon said goodbye, and Illya read the unspoken love in his tone, and he capped the communicator and turned his face up to the woman who had spoken, asking, 'Is the flight boarding now?'

'Yes, Mr Kuryakin, I'm to take you on before the other passengers. Your luggage has all gone through.'

Illya sighed and put down the empty coffee cup on the seat beside him, and then followed the woman's arm. It was still raining, or raining again, as they crossed the tarmac. He was starting to wonder if it ever stopped raining in this place. When the stewardess at the top of the steps asked him in a very kind voice to leave his cane with her he resisted for a moment, but he felt so tired of all of this, so he relinquished it and followed his guide to his seat, an aisle seat not far into the plane. Soon enough, he supposed, he would have to get up to let someone else take the window seat.

He gave the stewardess his overcoat when she asked and heard her put it in the locker. He considered asking to be shown the bathroom, but no. He was tired. He felt enormously tired by all of this. He hadn't felt this bone weary in a long time. Perhaps he had just grown unused to this kind of travel, swapping countries and climates with such rapidity. Or perhaps he was just tired of the whole thing, of being dependent, of being sidelined, of being trapped in this horrible vague blur that stopped him from doing almost everything that he loved to do.

The plane started to fill with the other passengers, and sure enough, he had to get out of his seat to let someone else take their window seat. It was a man, elderly by the sound of his voice, rather deferential, probably pleasant. He probably would have been pleasant if Illya had been in the mood, but he wasn't in the mood for anything. He just closed his eyes and leant his head back, and when the stewardess came to make sure he could manage his seatbelt for take off he let her do it for him without protest. The plane's engines roared, it trundled over the tarmac, he was pressed back into the seat by sudden acceleration, and then they were in the air.

((O))

He drifted in and out of sleep. The plane vibrated around him. The air seemed to hiss. It was thick with cigarette smoke and dry in his lungs. Then someone was poking him in the arm and saying, 'They're bringing round dinner, young man. I thought you might want to be awake.'

Illya blinked and shuffled in his chair and pushed his sunglasses more firmly back onto his nose. His legs felt stiff and he wished he could get up and walk about.

'Dinner?' he asked, stupid with sleep.

'You've been asleep – oh, about two hours, I think.'

'Oh,' Illya said. Being on an aircraft without being able to see and without Napoleon to tell him what was out of the window felt vaguely unreal.

He reached out in front of him and fiddled with the clip that let the tray down over his knees. He listened to the slow progression of the stewardess down the length of the cabin asking, 'Beef or fish? Coffee or tea?' And then she got to him and he chose beef and was left with a dubious smelling tray on the table in front of him, and a cup of black coffee. He had learnt in these few recent trips that he hated eating on aeroplanes. He ate very carefully, and willed the man next to him not to strike up conversation, but of course he did, because it was the habit of people to talk over food.

'Hard work, travelling on your own, I suppose.'

'Not really,' Illya replied. He wanted to inject a Siberian winter into his tone but he tried to keep it civil, at least. 'There isn't much to do on a flight like this.'

He wished he had something to read, but his Braille books were really too big and cumbersome for getting out on a plane, so the Camus and the article he had read and re-read were stored in his suitcase in the hold. He wished for the convenient ease of a paperback novel or a sheaf of papers, although of course he couldn't really get U.N.C.L.E. papers out with a civilian sitting next to him.

'The movie will be starting in a minute,' the man said. 'Some romantic comedy, I suppose. They hate to offend, don't they? I heartily wish people would take more time to offend these days.'

Illya grunted. He didn't really want to sit here listening to a film soundtrack either. He scraped about in the depression in his tray with his fork, then asked, 'Is there dessert on here?'

'Er, there is, young man,' his seatmate said instantly. 'Apple pie and custard, I think. Top right of the tray.'

So Illya thanked him and found his spoon and finished off the rather mediocre tasting dessert, then dropped his hands back to his lap and closed his eyes. After a while the stewardess came past, collecting all the trays. She asked him if he were all right, and he told her politely that he was fine. He sat there while the inane film played through speakers and people around him chatted quietly. He felt the hands on his watch. They had been in the air for about four hours. He was going to spend this whole trip stuck in this seat, ruminating.

A spear of anger pushed through him. He'd be damned if he were going to do that. He touched his hand to his pocket to feel his communicator, then asked the man beside him, 'Could you tell me where the bathroom is?'

'Oh, it's – ' The man hesitated, then said, 'There are five rows of seats in front of ours, then the bathroom is on the left. Do you need some help?'

'No, thank you,' Illya said politely. He pushed himself up and felt his way forward past the seats, wishing he had been more forceful when they asked him to give up his cane. He hated being without it, hated having to walk with his hands held out like this.

He went past the fifth row of seats then felt a smooth wall blocking in both sides of the aisle. He slipped his fingers along until they touched a seam. He had found the door. There was a little plaque screwed to the door, which he assumed said toilet, but it was smooth and he couldn't tell. He just had to trust to the man's directions. He found the catch and opened the door, and the smell of chemical disinfectant told him that he was in the right place. He hadn't found out what type of aircraft this was, though, so he couldn't rely on his stock of memory of different aeroplane bathrooms. He had to find the toilet by carefully feeling about with his foot. He really wished he had the cane.

But he found it, and he sat down, and he pulled his communicator out of his pocket and sat there silently for a moment, just pressing it against his forehead, eyes closed. He had no real reason to call Napoleon. He might be in the middle of something. But then, that never stopped Waverly. He uncapped it and pulled out the aerial and said, 'Open channel D. Napoleon?'

Napoleon's reply was instant. 'Illya, how are you doing?'

He resisted the rather pathetic impulse to grouse and moan. Napoleon would just feel awful.

'I'm all right,' he said. 'Somewhere over the Atlantic. I'm in the bathroom. I thought I'd take the chance to call you.'

'Ah, that's why I hear water running. Well in that case, I change my greeting,' Napoleon said, his voice rich with warmth. 'Good afternoon, my beautiful Russian lover. How are you really feeling, because I can tell by your voice that you're still in that brood. I wish I could see the pout on your face, because it just makes me want to kiss you all over.'

Illya smiled at that. So, Napoleon was alone too, then. The colleague from Dublin must not have arrived yet.

'I am trying not to brood,' he promised. 'But thinking of you back there on your own, and sitting on an aeroplane without anything to do, next to an interminable bore...'

'Not a lovely young lady, then?' Napoleon said, sounding glad.

'That wasn't really fair. He's not a bore and he's been very helpful. But I am so bored, Napoleon. And they took my cane.' He heard the whine in his voice but he didn't try to hide it.

'They are scoundrels of the highest degree. I'm sorry you're bored, but if it helps, I'm bored too. I didn't manage to persuade the lovely Nugents to let me keep my room, and I don't blame them after I nearly got them and their clientèle killed. The agent from Dublin hasn't gotten here yet. I'm in a miserable little room in the back of our delightful Garda's house, because I couldn't persuade anyone else in town to give a bed to the mad American who brings gun fights to town, and I haven't managed to hire a car either, so I'm stuck here listening to the rain and looking at the damp patch in the corner of the ceiling until he gets here. I wish I were with you. I really do. I thought Ireland was a welcoming place, but this is as close to a hostile nation as I've been recently.'

'Well, they don't like it when you nearly get their citizens killed, Napoleon,' Illya commented with a slight smile. It shouldn't help, but it did help that Napoleon was bored and miserable too.

'You, at least, will be able to go home tonight and light the fire and order take out – do order take out, Illya. Don't cobble together leftovers. I don't want you eating anything mouldy.'

'I can taste mould, you know, and smell it,' Illya commented.

'And use the fire guard,' Napoleon continued as if he hadn't spoken. 'I don't want to come home to a burned out shell.'

'I can look after the fire quite well now, too,' Illya objected. 'I always use the fire guard. I've got no more desire to be burnt to death than any normal man.'

'Still, I worry,' Napoleon sighed.

'I know you do,' Illya smiled. 'And I worry about you. But we'll both be all right, won't we? And you'll be home soon.'

'I will be home as soon as I can ever free myself of this blasted rain-drenched emerald isle, Illya, I promise. I'm not going to let a couple of Thrush goons keep me from you. So you go back to your interminable bore and rejoice in the fact that your toes are warm, unlike mine. Call me when you get in, any time. I don't care what time it is at either end. Promise?'

'I promise,' Illya assured him. He smiled quietly for a moment, then said, 'I love you, Napoleon.'

'As I do you, more than you know, sweetheart,' Napoleon replied. 'And when I get back we will prove it to each other in so many ways...'

'So many positions...'

'So many places,' Napoleon finished off.

'I'd better go, or they'll start banging on the door,' Illya said reluctantly.

'Then au revoir, my love,' Napoleon told him, and Illya distinctly heard the sound of him kissing the microphone on his communicator.

'Do svidaniya, Napoleon,' Illya replied, and he capped the communicator before Napoleon could eke out the conversation even further in sweet nothings, and pushed it into his pocket.

((O))

Illya wasn't sure what time it was when the plane landed. He wasn't sure he cared, because all he really wanted was his bed. He was tired and stiff and he was still in his Russian brood. The eight hour flight hadn't served to make him feel any better, and the only relief when the elderly man next to him poked his arm and woke him up was that they had landed and it was finally over. He waited in his seat, listening to the other passengers all moving down the aisle, and hoped the stewardess would remember him. Finally she came to him and got his coat from the locker and said, 'I'd put it on now, if I were you, Mr Kuryakin. It's cold out there.'

'Thank you,' he said, shrugging into the coat, and he let her guide him towards the door, where the cold was pressing in to the warm interior of the plane, and then she stopped and said, 'Oh!'

'What is it?' he asked rather grumpily.

'I – er – Betsy, have you seen Mr Kuryakin's cane? It was right here.'

His heart sank. A passenger or two edged past him, and the stewardess gently moved him over to the side and said, 'I can't see your cane, Mr Kuryakin. It was right here. I made sure it was here for you...'

'I left it in your care,' Illya said very darkly. 'I expected it to be here.'

'Oh, but it was!' she said, flustered. 'Betsy, are you sure you – ?'

Illya sighed and leant against the wall, and waited, but they couldn't find the cane.

'Look, just let me off the plane,' he said at last. 'It's freezing cold here. I want to get inside.'

'Oh, well – ' She sounded so upset, but Illya couldn't bring himself to feel much sympathy. 'Well, then, come on. Take care of the steps, though. There's a lot of snow...'

'I take your arm,' Illya said in a growl as she started to propel him towards the open door. He had visions of his trip ending in a nice long fall down icy steps to the tarmac below. He hated this, having to go down steps upon which the snow had no doubt been trodden into a thin crust of ice, with no cane and an inept guide. But he got to the bottom safely and stumbled tiredly across the tarmac holding the arm of the stewardess with snow flying into his face, shivering and huddling against the bitter cold.

'I'm so sorry, Mr Kuryakin,' the stewardess kept saying. 'It was right by the exit. I'm afraid someone must have taken it.'

'They must have thought it was a marvellous joke,' Illya said bitterly. 'I have a spare in my case. That will do for now.'

'Now, how do you fit it in your case?' she asked in an astonished voice.

'It folds up,' Illya said, trying so hard to keep the withering disdain he felt from his voice.

She patted her hand over his. 'Well, let's go to the carousel and get your luggage. How many cases do you have?'

'Just the one,' he said. He had left all the equipment except his brailler with Napoleon.

'Well, then, it will only be a few minutes, I'm sure,' she assured him. 'Oh, the door,' she said a little too late, and Illya put out his hand and whacked his knuckles on the glass. It was yet another small sting in a very bad day.

As they went inside the snow stopped, at least, and it was a little warmer. At least this way he was fast tracked through customs, which was fast anyway due to his U.N.C.L.E. identification. Soon they were at the carousel and the woman said, 'What does your case look like, Mr Kuryakin?'

Illya stifled a slightly hysterical urge to laugh. 'I don't know,' he said blandly. 'I'm blind.' Napoleon had bought the luggage a few months ago the last time they had taken a weekend away. Then he sighed and said, 'It's a rigid suitcase, rather modern, plastic finish. About so big,' and he let go of her arm for long enough to show the dimensions.

'Oh, well, we'll just have to have a good look,' she told him cheerfully. 'Come on, now, Mr Kuryakin.'

Illya suppressed a growl. He didn't like being spoken to as if he were a dog. He just took the woman's arm again and followed her to the carousel, where they had to wait until almost everyone else had retrieved their luggage before his could be identified. He was tired and fed up and he just wanted to go home, and the woman wouldn't even let him carry his own case once she got it. But as they walked through into another great echoing area he heard such a wonderfully familiar voice saying, 'Mr Kuryakin! Over here!'

His shoulders relaxed, and he sighed.

'That's my personal assistant,' he told the woman guiding him. 'Thank you. She'll help me now.'

A moment later he was in the reassuring presence of Sarah, who was saying, 'Here's your case, Illya. Why, where's your cane?'

'The airline lost it,' Illya said tartly, hoping the stewardess was still in earshot. 'Don't worry. I will be lodging a complaint tomorrow. I have my spare in my case. If there's somewhere I can put it down...'

'Oh, just over here,' Sarah said quickly, guiding him. 'There's a counter.'

So Illya reached out for the counter and put the case down, unlocked it, and found his folding cane, which Napoleon had thoughtfully packed right on top.

'I won't let them take it again,' he said, straightening out the spare cane and tapping it to the ground. He didn't like having to use his spare. It felt different, it was weighted differently, and everything felt different through it. 'They'd better find it and get it back to me.'

'If you speak to them in that voice I'm sure they'll go to the ends of the earth to get it to you,' Sarah said in an amused tone, and just as she was speaking those words a man's voice called, 'Mr Kuryakin! Mr Kuryakin!' and he reached Illya breathlessly, saying, 'Mr Kuryakin, we've found your cane. Some scamp of a boy ... father's threatening to take him out to the woodshed ... it is yours, I think...'

And Illya reached out and touched the familiar handle. 'Yes, that is it,' he said, keeping a Siberian chill in his tone. 'Thank you.' He folded the spare cane away, and sighed. 'Sarah, will you take me home? I assume Mr Waverly will allow me one night of peace before I have to face his reckoning?'

'One night, I think,' she confirmed. 'He wants to see you tomorrow morning. Come on. The car's right out front.'

((O))

The heater was on full blast but his feet were so cold. It was such a change from Egypt, and even from the wet of Ireland. The snow was falling so thickly that Sarah was driving at a snail's pace, as were all the other cars around. The snow seemed to muffle everything as they drove through Queens, even the horns that tooted regularly, and they sat in traffic on the bridge for a full half hour. Illya sat with his arms huddled around his body and not much urge to talk. He felt bad that Sarah had been dragged out to act as his taxi driver when he could have got a cab. He always felt bad to have a woman driving him.

'You know, it's not all that bad, Illya,' she tried to reassure him after a long while of silence. 'Mr Waverly worries about you, that's all. When he heard about the gunfire he was afraid for your safety.'

Illya grunted. 'When I could see, Sarah, Mr Waverly would have happily sent me against a battalion of sharp shooters, if it had been to U.N.C.L.E.'s benefit. I don't like being mollycoddled because I am blind.'

'No, I know,' she said patiently, slowing down again. The tyres shushed through slushy snow.

'Where are we now?' Illya asked impatiently. He hated not being able to tell, and he was used to Napoleon giving him quiet little updates without being asked.

'Just coming off the bridge. We should be back soon.'

'We've been driving for two hours,' Illya groused. 'I always feel that in this sort of weather driving is best left to – '

'Illya, if you say driving is best left to a man I shall take your cane and snap it in half and throw it through the window,' Sarah told him tersely. 'Then I will step out of the car and leave you to drive. I have done you a favour by coming to pick you up. It's almost eleven at night, and there's not a cab to be had. You wouldn't have enjoyed sleeping at the airport.'

'No, I wouldn't,' Illya admitted. 'I'm sorry, Sarah. It's been a long day. I'm not sure what time zone my body's stuck in, but it's not EST. I'm exhausted.'

He had been so close for a moment to snapping, to raging at her, to shouting that he was sick of relying on favours done by other people, sick of relying on cab drivers and helpful stewardesses and personal assistants who gave up their time off to ferry him around. But he had swallowed all of that and apologised, because alienating Sarah would be a really stupid thing to do. But he wished he could. He wished he could let the lid of the volcano blow and storm away from the car, slamming the door behind him. He was at the end of his tether. Napoleon was really the only person he could break down in front of like that, and Napoleon was miles and time zones away.

((O))

It was too late to order take out. It felt too late to do anything, but Illya was hungry, and even the worst mood in the world didn't stop him from wanting to eat. He didn't want to wait for something to cook from frozen from the freezer, so he poked around at the contents of the fridge, trying to discern what was edible and what was not. It was true that he could smell mould, but when things were chilled it was hard to smell anything. In the end he just cooked himself a dish of pasta and covered it in a tomato sauce made from tins and grated some rather hard cheese over the top. It wasn't great, but it was food. He took it into the sitting room and carefully lit the fire, and sat there on the rug right next to the fire guard, spooning the pasta into his mouth and drinking from an anonymous bottle of wine that he had slipped from the wine rack. When he was full he pushed the bowl aside and lay back on the thick fur rug, feeling the heat flickering along his left side, feeling the chill of an apartment left empty on his right. The heating always took time to kick in.

Oh, he missed Napoleon tonight. He was so tired, he hardly knew which way he was facing, and everything was harder when he was tired without sight. Had he really been in Ireland this morning? Had he made love with Napoleon in that big brass-framed bed last night?

He loosened his tie and shoved it away, then took off his shirt as the fire pushed more warmth into him. He remembered the last time he had made love to Napoleon here, right in front of this fire, on this soft rug. There was a little patch there, a bit of hardness in the fur, that must have been left behind after Napoleon had cleaned up. He felt his watch to see what time it was, then tried to remember if he had changed it for Eastern time or not. He thought he had. It was one in the morning, New York time, so as far as Irish time went it was more like six and Napoleon should be waking up soon, or would be if he were more of a morning person.

He shouldn't have lit the fire. Now he had to worry about it until it went out. He didn't usually light it if Napoleon wasn't going to be back before he went to bed. But it was faintly ridiculous to think he couldn't tend a simple fire. He poked the charred logs to be sure they were well back from the front, made sure the guard was properly in place, and left it. He took his suitcase through to the bedroom, stripped off his clothes, then opened the case on the bed, looking for his pyjamas.

He felt something in there that was definitely not his. It was soft, probably cashmere, a sweater. He drew it out and pressed it against his face and inhaled. Napoleon. It was rich with the scent of Napoleon, his aftershave, his sweat. He pulled it on over his bare torso and hugged his arms around himself, hugged the scent into himself. But it was a thin feeling. There was no one there. He pulled the sweater off again and balled it up and just hugged it.

Oh, this was ridiculous. He found his pyjamas and put them on, then slipped into the bed that was chill from being empty for too long. He moved his hand over to the other side of the bed, where Napoleon usually lay. He had the cashmere sweater balled up under his arm like a teddy bear, and he appreciated it so much. He picked up his communicator then and opened a channel to Napoleon.

'Good morning, Napoleon,' he said sleepily, and Napoleon replied just as sleepily, 'Morning, Illya. Is it morning?'

Illya smiled. 'I thought you might be awake already. It's one here. Six where you are. You told me to call you when I got in.'

Napoleon sounded barely awake. 'Hmmm, you just got in? Took you long enough.'

Illya grimaced. 'It was a bitch of a journey,' he said, 'but I've been back an hour. I'm going to sleep now, but you told me to call. Any time.'

'Yeah, any time,' Napoleon echoed. 'I did. Any time.' There was a moment of silence, then he said, 'Hey, it's still raining.'

'Snowing here. Thick. I thought we might not make it back over the bridge. But we did. I suppose I was lucky the plane wasn't diverted.' Suddenly he felt so enormously tired. 'Sorry, Napoleon. I have to sleep. You should get more sleep.'

'Yeah, sleep. Sleep is good.'

'Thank you for the sweater, Napoleon,' Illya said, bringing it up to his face and inhaling Napoleon's scent.

'You know, I want to come home and find you wearing it and nothing else,' Napoleon replied with a smile in his sleepy voice.

'I know,' Illya said. 'I love you, Napoleon. Good night.'

'Good night, sweetness,' Napoleon said, and Illya sleepily capped the communicator and huddled himself around that sweater, and fell into dreams.