Chapter 4======================================================

"Well, Lexi," Napoleon said with dramatic flair once he'd walked into Alexana's hospital room at UNCLE headquarters the next morning. "You've certainly kept everyone on the night shift very busy."

"Tell them to quit giving me painkillers!" She spat out angrily through a sweaty, drug-induced haze, her teeth clenched as she motioned to the mirror. "They're making me hallucinate and have nightmares. I'm fine. I can endure the pain. Get me out of these straps! I need to get out of here! I need to find Illya, only he can help."

"You're delirious with a fever." He tried to reason by using short sentences. Hoping that once she saw him she'd try to cooperate more, but she continued thresh her whole body around trying to escape from the restraints that kept her in the hospital bed. "You've a very bad infection. You need rest and antibiotics. We only sedated you to keep you calm. You've already pulled out your IV three times; ripped off your cast twice, reopened some of your stitches, and punched a male orderly. We're still trying to find one of his teeth. I'm not going to let you go. You can't help Illya this way."

Napoleon didn't think that she'd heard half of what he was saying, because she returned to jerking her arm away from the rail, but couldn't quite figure out how to do it in her stupor and then stopped suddenly when he said Illya's name.

"Illya?" she breathed a ragged, pitiful sigh and fell back on to her pillow. Looking back at Napoleon she suddenly appeared very tired and lucid for a moment. "I can't help this. The antidote we had to toast father's memory is having a negative effect with the other medications. Either put me out entirely or stop the medications, all of them. I think… I'm going to be sick..."

"Antidote?"

Napoleon blinked at what Alexana was saying and then sympathetically turned away when she retched forcefully, still trying to fight the straps. Two nurses busted in and started to clean her up. They checked to see if all her lines were still intact as two doctor came in to examine her. Napoleon pulled them aside after Dr. Allen gave her a large amount of sedative.

"What do her tests show, George?" He asked him softly after Alexana finally fell into a deep, restless sleep.

"I've never seen anything like it before." Dr. George Thompson said in star-struck awe. "Some new hybrid antidote obviously designed to counteract most sedative and hypnotic medications."

"I don't think that it was meant to have such a violent reaction, except that she is septic from that plunge into that filthy river." Dr. Allen, the chief surgeon continued for his colleague who was the headquarters' top chemist. "I don't know how long it will take to get the infection under control. That'll determine in how long we'll have to keep her heavily sedated. It's too early to remove the restraints. It's going to take longer for her abdominal incision to heal now that she'd to have some of it closed up again."

"Yes the stronger the sedative, the better in her case. It's all or nothing." Napoleon agreed thinking how much she was just like Illya.

"You know who she reminds me of? Mr. Kuryakin." Dr. Thompson smiled warmly. "I'd like to meet the person who created that antidote and see the formula that it's supposed to counteract."

"You already have." Napoleon nodded back to Alexana, who suddenly jumped and jerked her casted arm away from the restraints with a loud thud against the bedrail. "I'll check on her later. Right now, I've to go and do a few things before I report to Mr. Waverly. Call me if things change."

"Yes, Mr. Solo." Dr. Allen nodded as he turned back to his twitching patient.

After that first progress report, Napoleon began a three-day routine of checking on Alexana and watching her restlessly jerk in her sleep since she was given sedation around the clock. Sometimes, they were given even before it was due, because she was emerging from her drug-induced slumber and becoming more active.

Napoleon also kept tabs on how Maggie was doing learning to speak English more fluently; learning how to get around New York; and the culture shock for someone who had been living in the Soviet Union for most of her life. She was placed in one of the secured UNCLE apartment for safety measures. He had meals with her, took her to a movie, and they visited a couple of museums. He was always the perfect gentleman, although, it wouldn't be hard to turn it into something more. One thing he didn't do was let her visit Alexana until he knew that she was getting better. Maggie was worried, but understood his decision.

The last thing he was assigned to do was to listen for any response from Illya. So far, nothing was happening. There was no extra information from the usual UNLCE networks in the Soviet Union or in any of the surrounding Iron Curtain countries. Not much was even mentioned about the deaths of Cpt. Lt. Alexana Kuryakin or Cpt. Lt. Sasha Noustovich. Napoleon took this as a good sign that Illya was hopefully still safe.

On the fourth day, Alexana's fever finally broke and her injuries were improving enough for most of her medications to be taken away. This began another routine for Napoleon to sit and watch her as she struggled back to sanity. She screamed, shook, and pleaded with earnest to be let go.

When she slept, it was full of nightmares from her past. When she was awake, she was trying to get away and cried out for Illya. To have someone help save him or for him to come and help save her. It took all his strength to sit through this. She babbled and laughed out in many different languages; confronting the demons that lived inside her. They were some of the same terrors and fears that lived deep within inside of him as well.

Slowly, at the end of the second night, she started to calm down. Outbursts were becoming more infrequent and Alexana struggled less. She slept more fitfully and for longer times each day after. Finally, after a week and a half, she was able to be left unrestrained and allowed to walk around the room.

It was clear to everyone around Alexana that she was still in a lot of pain, but steeled herself against it. While she was over the worst, Alexana had caused almost more damage to herself than the fall from the bridge did.

Her broken arm and collarbone had to be reset and recasted several times. She had deep welts and marks on her wrists and ankles from the restraints, scratches, and ripped fingernails in her failed attempts to escape. The dark shadows under eyes made her look twenty years older than she did even a week ago, but she was improving.

After two weeks of being in UNCLE's infirmary, Napoleon walked into Alexana's room with presents. It's the same ones he usually brought for Illya: technical magazines, but in chemistry not physics; fresh exercise clothes; and something special that would have get him shot if he'd give them to his partner, flowers.

"Oh, Napoleon, how sweet," Alexana smiled meekly and he set the presents on her lap. "Thank you for this and too many other things to mention."

"You're very welcome. You did most of this on your own, you know." He gave her hands a gentle squeeze, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I do believe the worst is over for you now. It's the time to concentrate on Illya, not your real cousin..."

"Have you heard anything from him yet?" She asked quietly as he shook his head. She was almost too sedate while she was staring deeply in his eyes. Not the bouncy, vibrate person he met in Kiev. Something tangible was missing. "We both need him back, you as much as I do, Napoleon."

"True."

It was the only thing each one on them could say and not say as they sat quietly holding hands.

"I hold his past and you hold his future." Alexana finally broke the silence. "We both keep him grounded as he keeps us sane. Our quirky, mad Russian with no strings attached. No words are needed to know what the other is thinking. Nothing too serious, nothing voiced in terms of love or caring, because it's against the rules, but it's there. Our lives valued in just being alive somewhere out there." She waved her good hand gracefully around in the air.

Napoleon looked her in sheer shock. She had nailed his friendship with Illya perfectly. No strings, expectations, or worries of jealousies between them over women. It's more important to just be there for one another; to save each other. In this act of living and dying within their world of violence and heroics that was UNCLE.

"And that is what you get with a Master's in Abnormal Psychology from University of Georgia by correspondence." Alexana laughed out as they were dwelling too much on their own dark thoughts,

"Shall we start with the files on your father's experiment?" Napoleon looked at her as he released her hands. "Now, I have tried to read the technical information, but don't understand much of it, sorry, Illya's forte in such matters I'm afraid. Most of it is medication doses, timeframes, and training sessions completed. The comments you wanted Maggie to see don't say much other than how he called you by your experimental subject numbers. There's nothing to really tell me what you two went through."

"It's not going to say it directly," Alexana finished for him. "No other notes were found about the type of training we endured, just vague, general comments on our performances. What it does show you is the sample of the test subjects, possibly why Illya and I are the only two left, and why we succeeded where the others failed.

"If you look at it closely, each boy and girl was matched up in pairs that worked for optimal training. Father wanted to have teams of assassins that could assist one another to manipulate others in any given situation."

"A male for a female counter point and a female for a male counter point."

"Exactly, but he wanted to find out what was the best combination. To have the pair related to each other in some way, but different: same age, different ages, twins, cousins, brother and sister, and finally one non-related pair. You know which one we were…?"

"Yes, the close, but unrelated pair." Napoleon added.

"We were placed in all situations, given drugs that were to improve with enhanced learning, response times, endurance to pain, and hypnotized to suppress feelings of love, individualism, and loyalty to anything other than to duty."

"So, did it work?"

"Yes," Alexana said matter-of-factly. "We'd all made our first kills by the age of ten. But, what made the scientists, including my mother, want to shut the experiment down was the final "conditioning" training course for that summer before we were shipped off to different state schools. Father wanted all his experimental pairs to go through it to check our toughness to survive any situation.

"Each experimental pair, according to their scores, was placed in a torture situation. The boys were to stop or watch the girls being…." Alexana let Napoleon fill in the blanks for a moment as she drifted back to that time and space with a painful hardness reflected in her eyes. "Some of the boys were not spared as well..."

"And…"

"Illya got his second kill, trying to save me and I helped him avoid being taken advantage of… and then I got my second kill. We were both just eleven years old. Well, we buried that memory deep inside."

"Lexi," Napoleon said quietly as she pulled herself slightly, further away and then physically shook it off.

"Nothing was talked about that "session" between us until the verbal and written scores were given. We were the only ones that seemed to pass without becoming a former shell of ourselves. Hurray for us, we got the highest scores! My mother was furious with father, the great man in her life. She was eight months pregnant with Margaret at the time. She tried everything to convince father what they were doing was wrong, especially to me and Illya, but he wouldn't listen. He only took her seriously when she killed herself and blamed him for it. He was there when she shot herself and was able to save their child by removing it from her dying body.

"He never really did give up his aspirations, just changed them a little. He wasn't aware of the damage he caused until the others started to act out in time. We did as well. Most of them suicides or pushing people to hate them enough to murder them, but Illya and I were different…I just don't exactly know why, but…"

"What?" Napoleon asked with overwhelming desire to understand his friend better. "What had you two found that made you survive?"

"We had each other." She simply stated. "We were placed together even before the experiment as our fathers went to war and we stayed together. We developed a loyalty to one another that no one can break. Silly, just knowing that the other exists is enough. It's as close to love as we could get with another person. Again, no strings, commitments, or simple jealousies, we simply chose to work with our training than against it, like the others had.

"We listed our strengths and improved on them. We manipulated others and competed with each other to give us some pleasure. Dark humor and revenge on those who had taken advantage of us kept us focused and somewhat sane. Sometimes the game was the most important thing. Our father was right, that day did make us stronger."

"So why," Napoleon asked finally. "Did Illya not say anything about you to me?"

"Because, that would've opened the door to the darkest part of his soul and father wanted us separated, so we were ordered not to make it common knowledge. We didn't want to tell the world what we were and had become as well. It was still against the rules to have this kind of loyalty to just one person for us.

"Our lives began to parallel each other and then our loving adoptive father channeled our acquired talents towards the spy world, which fit us like a glove. We were made cousins and we simply played that role in front of everyone, him, and ourselves at times. He purposely divided us, knowing that we would do our duty in any given situation, but we still stayed connected in the most secret ways..."

"And Mr. Waverly," Napoleon asked.

"He knew only what father wanted him to know about the experiment. Father portrayed us as one big happy family. Illya and I did as we were told. Slowly, we are learning to overcome what we were made into and becoming more…human. Most of that lately for Illya is because of you, Napoleon. You've taken my place. You could let him be himself and not worry about exposing too much if he doesn't want to and I thank you for that."

"What about you now? How'll you figure in all of this?" Napoleon wanted to desperately know if this was going to end his partnership with Illya.

"That'll have to be played out, I'm afraid," Alexana said retrospectively. "Now that we aren't pulled to Kiev to take orders from father, maybe, we can live more in the open. Although, I do like playing the spy game; hiding my relationship with Illya; and being a trained killer for the KBG…I could become a world renowned chemist…I don't know, maybe I'll just fade away and leave all this together, get married and have kids…"

"You wouldn't be happy in life without Illya."

"True." She smiled back at him and laughed. "I couldn't torture him or you, now that we've officially been given permission to meet and then there is killing people…"

"Well, I wish that we'd met sooner." Napoleon shot back, a chuckle rumbled in his while he half swallowed his jealous anger for not knowing all of this.

"I know, Napoleon, but we had are reasons." Alexana's blue eyes steeled and turned serious. "Don't ever take Illya for a victim in this little game of ours. He will tear you apart."

"Oh, I have found that out already about him." Napoleon said easily. "I'm not taking that chance with either one of you; especially with that perfume you created to draw men to you. I hadn't noticed how powerful it was until you didn't have it on you here in the infirmary and how you handled Sasha."

"Ah…Napoleon, you are not a dull or stupid man. No wonder Illya picked you to be his partner..."

"Hey!" Napoleon said indignantly. "I choose him. What did he tell you?"

"The same things you are. The games we all play, but I will help you stir the pot with him if you want. Consider it a thank you gift from me for not being too mad as us from on letting you in our little secret?"

"What! I would love to know what I can use against him."

"One day, tell Illya that you heard that while we were in school that he and I were in competition for which one of us had the most conquests at any given moment."

"And who won?" He asked with peaked interest at the games they played.

"That is all you get and who says that we've stopped?" Alexana smiled seductively. "Now, you need to go. I've told you all I can. Like, I almost 'promised' you."

"I guess that's my cue to leave and check to see if our favorite Russian has called in, Madam." Napoleon said for he could tell that Alexana was looking very tired and softly groaned in pain as she shifted her casted arm while trying to settle it in more of a comfortable spot on the bed. He gave her hand a squeeze and smiled as he left.

The next day Alexana asked Napoleon if she could be let out of her room or at least, not be under constant monitoring. He said that he'd consider it as he had a lunch guess for her. Napoleon had Margaret come into the room.

She had been not allowed to visit for a long time and she was desperate to see with her own eyes that Alexana was truly getting better. Margaret thought she still looked haggard and tired, but she was smiling and walked over to greet her with a small, stiff, tenuous hug.

"Margaret." Alexana pulled her away from her a little bit to look at her. "I'm so sorry that I said those things to you. I know that you cared for the General. I'll have to tell you more about our mother; the good things. One was her smile for one thing which you have by the way."

Napoleon looked from one woman to the other and noticed that they were indeed sisters; similar looks, body shape, eyes, and mannerisms. Illya looks and character seems to fit in there as well. It was easy to see why everyone would think that Alexana and Illya were cousins.

"Maybe, Mr. Solo here will let us go somewhere else to eat, a place a little noisier and less sterile looking?" Alexana pleaded with him as she brought him back from his thoughts. "I'd love to see how the English lessons are going. You'll have to tell me where Napoleon has been taking you while I have been stuck in here getting back on my feet again with only hospital food to eat..."

"Oh please, Napoleon?" Margaret pleaded as well in broken English. "I saw that the cafeteria in the main hall was serving meatloaf. It is one of my favorites. We had it on one of the first days I was here. Can we all go there? We will not keep Alexana out of her room for very long."

"Fine," Napoleon agreed after being ganged up on by two beautiful women. "Lunch only. I don't want to tire you out, Lexi. I'd never hear the end of it from Dr. Allen if I did. Oh, Dr. Thompson's been dying to talk to you about your formula for that antidote. He babbled on about discussing your reaction and things too technical for me to understand or care about."

"Thank you, Napoleon!" Both women said in harmony as each one took a arm. Alexana was already dressed in the casual clothes he had brought a few days before. The only thing that showed that she was still was stay interred in Medical was the identification band on her right wrist.

They all stopped at the Nurse's station to get a temporary badge for Alexana to wear as they left the medical facility so the alarms wouldn't go off. The cafeteria was down the hallway and two floors down; near the back entrance.

It had been a pleasant visit for all of them and lasted longer than Napoleon wanted. Even Mr. Waverly had heard of their adventure out of the medical wing and joined them for over an hour. Alexana appeared only slightly tired out from their trip as they made it back to her room as she stiffly sat back down on the edge of the hospital bed. She sharply eyed Napoleon to silently ask when she was going to get out of this room.

"We'll see," Napoleon said noncommittally and shrugged his shoulders. "One trip to the cafeteria does not constitute a new room assignment. The night shift still says you're having nightmares."

"I'm fine." She said flatly.

"I also can see that it's still hard for you to get around. Dr. Allen, the big boss man of Medical, wouldn't even let Illya out this early from the injuries that you have suffered. You can ask him yourself if you want to."

"Are those all your reasons?" Alexana said through clinched teeth, seemingly ready to strike him.

"One more," Napoleon said firmly to remind her that he was in charge of her and not to do anything drastic. "Mr. Waverly wants you to stay here until we've heard from Illya. Just today, our spy networks are picking up movements of THRUSH in the Soviet Union. He could be coming back shortly. It wouldn't be smart of them to keep him there much longer without arising any more suspicions."

"All right, for now," Alexana tried to stare him down while she listened intently to what he was saying. The room suddenly got colder, Napoleon thought, but wasn't fazed and only raised one of his eyebrows at her. "All right!"

Alexana returned her own non-verbal signs that this conversation wasn't over yet before she turned to Margaret and they said their good-byes for now. They planned to have lunch again tomorrow if Napoleon agreed to it.

Alexana gave Margaret another stiff, tentative hug. Holding her a little longer then Napoleon expected her to before she let Margret leave with him.