Disclaimer: I do not own Man From U.N.C.L.E., and make no profit from this work.


In The Blink of an Eye

Chapter Five

Outside.

Although, as far as his mind was concerned, Illya had been outside only a week before, his body knew very well where it had really been, and he took a deep lungful of bitter New York air as if he were drowning.

Napoleon had been true to his word: at four o'clock that afternoon, he had clocked off work early, brought Illya his pyjamas, a coat and many, many layers of blankets, and gently argued their way out of Medical and into the outside world.

Illya was unimpressed with the wheelchair, but found himself physically incapable of standing. For the moment, he had ignored it – the effort to hold his own paper cup of hot chocolate that Napoleon had bought from a vendor was enough. There was little, if anything, that he could do about it yet.

He knew how frail he must look. Elderly ladies and mothers with their small children kept looking at him worriedly, and he had a suspicion that the vendor had under-charged Napoleon for their drinks. He was thin and wasted, and bundled in so many layers that it was faintly ridiculous, but even then he could feel the cold itching to get in.

"I'm only letting you stay out here for fifteen minutes or so," Napoleon told him firmly. "You can't afford to get sick, on top of everything else."

Illya said nothing, mutely agreeing, and preferring to spend his precious minutes watching the world. Nothing had obviously changed. There were a few trees gone, or new ones bigger than he remembered, and he faintly thought that fashions had moved on too, but he'd paid so little attention to them that he couldn't be sure anyway.

"You'll catch up, you know."

He glanced at Napoleon. The man was sat on the park bench next to the chair, elbows on his knees and smiling that gentle, patient smile that Illya knew hadn't changed in the slightest.

"You'll catch up," Napoleon repeated. "Three years isn't so long in the grand scheme of things."

"Grand schemes," Illya echoed, then said: "What of my things? My apartment, my belongings?"

"The apartment's gone," Napoleon said. "Your landlord eventually figured out we were paying the rent for an invisible tenant, and demanded that he be able to let it out properly again, to use the space."

"So my..."

"Your belongings," Napoleon interrupted, "are in my apartment. I've kept everything you had, Illya, except the perishables. And I'm afraid that spider plant of yours did perish – it didn't like my apartment, it seems."

A faint echo of sadness that Illya didn't understand entered Napoleon's eyes, then was gone again as quickly as it had come.

"Thank you," Illya said, and Napoleon smiled, and the reality of his situation seemed to fade a little further into the background.


Napoleon left Illya that evening, after helping the nurses feed and bathe him, and waiting until the Russian had finally approached slept. He had been barely conscious when Napoleon had said goodbye, and uttered none of the panic of before, simply giving a small, slightly dopey smile and a small Russian phrase that Napoleon couldn't remember.

He had, over the years, forgotten most of the Russian he had picked up. He had never spoken Russian fluently – had only picked up from Illya's occasional mutterings how to swear, how to insult, and the most basic of phrases. 'Hello', 'yes', 'no', 'goodbye' – tourist Russian, as his late mother would have called it.

He went home to his apartment, and for the first time in three years, it didn't seem so pathetic. He hadn't lied to Illya about keeping his things – but he had not done what would have been normal, and kept them in boxes in the closet or in storage.

Illya's belongings were scattered amongst Napoleon's, and it looked for all the world as if Illya lived there, day in and day out, and had done for years. Their books intermingled on the shelves, and that precious record collection that Napoleon hated listening to lived in its own special cabinet under the window in the main room. The spare room – which had always, really, been Illya's room anyway – was filled with his clothes and personal things, and his black coat hung on the peg by the front door. His bathrobe even occupied a space on the back of the bathroom door, and then there were the photographs.

The pain of losing Illya had caused Napoleon to dig out almost every photograph he owned of the man and have them reproduced, bigger and clearer and to be framed and put around the apartment. There weren't many – theirs was not a job to be photographed, after all – but they were there, and they had, briefly, helped – particularly after the death of the spider plant.

It wasn't one of Napoleon's proudest moments. It had come six months after that mission, and the plant had finally given up the pretence and died. And at the time, it had seemed like an omen to Napoleon, as if Illya would soon die as well. He had spent that night in a drunken stupor, trying to remember and to forget the Russian at the same time, and had rushed to Medical the next morning to make sure that nothing had happened.

And now, finally, after three long and miserable years, Illya would return to him.


He was on the road again, the same dirt road, but another twenty miles along the track. He was in that uniform again, the one he had been proud to wear, once, and the summer sun was as weak as it had ever been.

"When are you going to come home?"

The voice belonged to a man he hadn't seen in years – to a man who was, in all likelihood, dead. He knew it, but he couldn't help the smile that bloomed across his face, and it widened when he smiled in response.

"Stepan."

The name was a blessed one, and they embraced like brothers, and a laugh was bubbling its way out of his chest in euphoria even as his rational mind demanded that he return to the real world, where this man was no longer a part of his life.

"My Illya," the man said, the faint traces of his Siberian accent just as Illya remembered. "Where have you been all this time? We've been trying to get through to you, you know."

"Get through to me?" Illya queried, and he frowned a little. "How could you be? You've been gone a very long time, Stepan."

"Gone?" Stepan demanded. "What do you mean gone?"

"They sent me to Paris," Illya replied. "I haven't heard from you since. You must be dead by now, I imagine, with your habits of irritating the powers that be."

A smile twitched on his face, but Stepan's expression remained concerned, his hands grasping Illya's elbows as if he feared the blond would collapse.

"Is that what you think?" he asked, then cursed. "It's been far too long. They've left this far too long. You need to come home, Illya. You need to come back."

"I'm dreaming," Illya repeated.

"For now," Stepan agreed. "This is the only way I can speak to you. You need to come home; you're in danger where you are."

"I'm not in danger," Illya protested. "Napoleon..."

"The American?" Stepan snorted. "Illya, listen to me. You have lost time. You know that now. Why do you think that is? People don't just wake up after three years in comas – not normal comas, not by natural causes. What do you think happened?"

"I...I was shot."

"Shot? I've been shot. And being shot doesn't put you in a coma!"


Napoleon was told by Dr. Michaels that morning that he could take Illya home.

"I have his discharge papers and care instructions," the doctor said sternly, "and I am only releasing him under the condition that you take care of him. Continually. Take time off if you must, bring him in with you if you have to spend the whole day here for whatever reason. I'm ordering it."

Napoleon had readily agreed, and walked into Illya's hospital room that afteroon pushing an empty wheelchair with a smile on his face.

"Hello," he said, giving Illya a blinding smile and receiving a disconcerted stare in response. "The doctor has signed your release papers. You can come home with me today."

There was a strange battle going on in Illya's eyes, he saw, and he frowned a little, concerned.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Do you need a nurse?"

"No," Illya said. "Sit."

Napoleon perched on the edge of the bed, still frowning, and watched Illya worry at the notion before the Russian said:

"What happened."

"I told you, you were..."

"No. Tell me properly. Tell me everything."