Sacrifices for the Greater Good

Recovery VIII

The next morning, the first thing Illya was aware of was the feeling of the mattress lifting slightly as Gaby rose and left the bed, her bare feet quietly making a padding noise on the floor as she crossed to the other side of the room and headed into the nursery. With a long yawn, Illya decided to get up as well and rummaged through his case for some fresh clothes as he heard Gaby fuss over their son. Once dressed he walked into the adjoining room, better able to see the furnishings in the morning light than he had the previous night.

"Can you see if you can find any clothes for Eric?" Gaby asked. "All the ones I've brought need to be washed." He searched through a few doors, finding a host of useful things like clean diapers until he eventually found a chest of drawers full of clothes for various ages. Picking out some that looked the right side, he handed them to Gaby so she could dress Eric.

Once they were all ready, they headed out of the room and down the stairs, wondering where they should go to get something to eat for breakfast. They didn't have too long to worry about it since they were soon met by the butler who it appeared had gone up to find them.

"Ah there you are." He said. "Lord Barrow wished to know if you would like to eat breakfast together."

"That sounds nice." Gaby said cautiously, they were not sure how much the staff had been told about the operation to install them as the heirs to the estate so were unsure about how they should behave around them. Illya felt that the general cautiousness they had treated everyone with could reasonably also be the behaviour of a family trying to connect with a previously unknown relative, and he had told Gaby as such the previous night.

They were taken to a small dining room, probably one of the more modest places they had seen on the estate so far. Not quite the long room with the huge table Illya had always imagined when he thought of rich person's dining room. The table itself was modestly sized and circular rather than a long thin rectangle. A high seat had already been set up and in front of it was a small arrangement of different baby foods.

"Good morning." David greeted, folding away his paper. "I trust you slept well?"

"Yes thank you." Illya said as he put Eric into the highchair and took his own seat, quickly choosing through the bottles until he found something he thought the child might like. He unscrewed the lid and lid and began to feed Eric.

"The nursery was very nice." Gaby commented. "Thank you for setting all that up."

"It was my pleasure, I wanted to cater to all my guests." Someone soon arrived with a large pot of coffee and a tray of different food items. "Alex told me very little about you two, he said you were retired from the spy business."

"That is correct in a way," she confirmed, "we've not been in that line of work for over a year now."

"What made you change your mind?" He asked curiously.

"The work is meant to be low risk and high reward." Gaby said bluntly, Illya winced at her utter lack of subtlety but David seemed more pleased than insulted by her honesty. "We thought this would be best for Eric."

"That is understandable. Were you MI5 or MI6?" The implicit assumption that they were both British startled them, Gaby was pleased that she had put enough work into changing her voice that she managed to convince a member of the aristocracy but they both shared a brief look as they realised Waverly had not revealed their actual nationalities to his friend.

"We worked for Waverly." Illya said simply, causing David to raise an eyebrow in response.

"A diplomatic answer. I won't take offence at the lack of trust, I might also be a little jumpy if I had been in the same line of work. We are still strangers, although I do hope that will change."

"Your house is nice." Gaby said after searching for a change of subject. "Is it very old?" It reminded her very faintly of the house from her earliest memories, from before her mother died and her father abandoned her.

"It has been in my family for a very long time." He explained. "In a way I'm quite glad Alex took an interest in who would inherit, I don't know what would have happened to this place otherwise." Without Gaby having to ask he immediately launched into a passionate lecture on the building's history, both listening intently and asking the occasional question. It was fascinating to hear, and nice to see someone so passionate about their own home.

Over the next few weeks they spent a lot of time with David as he instructed them on the ins and outs of how they would have to behave now that they were part of his family. He seemed a pleasant enough man, easy to like and with a very British sardonic side that Gaby seemed to appreciate as it went very well with her own deprecating sense of humour. Illya and David also got on very well, with the latter seeming to appreciate that his new son was the quiet and thoughtful type. They played chess on some evenings, and David never seemed to get annoyed that Illya would handily beat him at each game.

It was no secret who rapidly became David's favourite person in the group though, and neither Gaby nor Illya begrudged him for it. Once enough trust had been established, they even felt comfortable leaving Eric behind with David while they went out for an evening. They both adored Eric, but those nights they could spend at a restaurant or a bar were a great pleasure for them, giving them the chance to speak openly and frankly to each other without having a little person demanding their attention at every waking moment.

One such evening, Gaby had watched suspiciously as David winked at Illya when the two of them left for the night, she had badgered Illya about it for the entire journey to the restaurant but he insisted that she had imagined the whole thing. She had reluctantly dropped the subject to enjoy the meal and halfway through desert he pushed a small box towards her.

"I got you a present." He said offhandedly.

"I knew there was something!" She replied victoriously and took the box, excited to see what was in it. Inside was a ring, simple and elegant with a nicely cut diamond as its main decoration. "It's very nice." She said gratefully. "Thank you. But I already have a ring?" The gold band he had picked up in the USA was still on her finger.

"We bought that when we were on the run. We were in a hurry and I picked something to help with our cover. I wanted to get you something better once we settled down, but we didn't have the money when we were in Scotland."

"Oh Illya." She could feel herself tear up, and was grateful that they were reasonably secluded so no one could witness her slip up. "You didn't have to."

"I know but I wanted to." He said honestly. She had enthusiastically shown her appreciation later that evening, and a few days later conspired with David in order to replace Illya's own quickly bought gold ring with a similarly plain but more carefully picked out platinum band.

They grew very close to David as more and more time passed, but his illness was never too far out of mind. He seemed like a very fit man, but his propensity for cigars and cigarettes appeared to be his downfall and many pleasant evenings had been marred by one of his coughing fits. It was a large and uncomfortable elephant in the room every time the subject of the future was brought up, and nobody knew when his illness would finally finish him off. Eventually his condition did worsen, they both felt unexpectedly pained by the thought that he would die so soon after knowing them. He spent a brief stint in hospital, during which they made a concerted attempt to visit him daily and bring Eric to cheer him up wherever possible. He was normally quite pleased to see them, but very tired and weak. Eric was sometimes a little too rambunctious to bring for a visit. David did recover much to everyone's surprise, his determination to live as long as he possibly could seeming to lend him the necessary energy to get back on his feet.

They had both suggested that David take it easy from now on, a suggestion he had balked at immediately. He had no desire to spend the rest of his days in bed waiting for death to take hold, he wanted to live each moment that he had left. There was also the uncomfortable matter of establishing Illya and Gaby within the social circles he frequented, it was something that had been left quite late as they all established that they were content to take on the roles Waverly had given them. It could not be left forever, and David of all of them seemed to be the most aware of that. He had already done some work on that front, speaking to some of his friends about his newly discovered son, some of those friends had even been by the house to visit him while he was ill and he had taken the opportunity to introduce them to the appropriately sombre Gaby and Illya. These few introductions would not be enough, David knew, he needed to host a party for them to fully ingratiate themselves into the upper class circles.

David requested Gaby's help with the organisation, partly because he did not feel up to it by himself and also in part so she could learn about the appropriate arrangements to make. She more than Illya would be expected to run these kind of events. It had been a wise move to make, she knew very little about the many social subtleties that were necessary. David only hoped that the charm she could summon when necessary would be enough to overcome any suspicions she raised through slightly more questionable choices after he left this world.

The event was mostly a success, David himself kept to the background when it was running, allowing the two younger people to mingle about the crowd and make their own introductions. He rested much easier that night after he realised that they had enough training to make friends at any level, he had managed to fulfil his promise to Waverly. Much to Gaby and Illya's horror, his health deteriorated further once the party was out of the way and led to another period of hospitalisation. This one did not end anywhere near as well as the first and his sudden absence left a void in their life that he had filled for such a short amount of time. For Gaby the feeling was very similar to losing her father again, both men had been in her life for far too brief a time only to be snatched away as she became use to their presence.

Once the funeral was over and any final tears had been shed, Waverly made his approach and delicately asked if they were ready to work. They pushed aside their grief and agreed, ready to get on with the job they had decided to take on.

Author's Note: One chapter left to tidy all the loose ends up and then this story is complete!