Illya knew what Napolean was going to do – there was no question. The only unusual thing was that Illya was less inclined to be annoyed by it than normal.

"Get on with it," he said, and watched as Napolean presented Abby with her own safety pin, making a quip that Illya considered cheesy, and then kissing her, of course. Old habit prompted Illya to roll his eyes, but his heart wasn't in it. He was too happy.

He'd volunteered – not quite demanded – to pick Napolean up at the airport. That Napolean arrived with a girl shouldn't have been surprising, and wasn't, really. And Illya didn't need to see Napolean alone; he just needed to see Napolean. There was nothing to say. He just had to see for himself that his partner was actually alive. So the fact that Napolean was with a beautiful girl and was almost entirely preoccupied with her wasn't a problem. In fact, it probably kept said partner, who was much more inclined towards teasing that Illya would prefer, from noticing that Illya wasn't acting quite normal himself.

He'd had a long drive through the desert in just the company of that desperately expensive red box. There had been no question in his mind that he was doing the right thing – everything in its proper order. The fact that he was leaving behind him his partner's body, lying at the bottom of what had to be a very steep cliff, broken, baked in the sun and now casting a long, motionless shadow in the afternoon light, made no difference to anything. First he must bring the gun home, ensuring that it would be forever beyond THRUSH's power-hungry reach. He'd planned to put in for a return ticket as soon as he met the other agents at the airport. But during that whole drive, he felt nothing. He wouldn't allow it. He was working.

As hard as it was to drive away, he'd known it was going to be at least as hard to come back.

He'd been in the air, in the company of other uncle agents (who had noticed, he was sure, how stiffly he was acting) when it had crossed his mind that the loss of Napolean was going to change things at work significantly. He hadn't just lost a partner. If he'd been anyone else, he'd probably have been made top field agent. But there was no way in the world that UNCLE was going to give that position to a Russian. At very least, someone would be promoted past him. He'd probably care very deeply about that in a few days. He couldn't just yet. He was still working.

And he'd been working right up until Napolean's call interrupted his dissembling of the molecular gun. He'd known it was Napolean's voice, even through all that static; fortunately he'd been able to grasp the content of what was said, which gave him an excuse to hurry out of the room before anyone could get a good look at his face. Even Waverly was taken aback by his abrupt departure.

But he was working. And by the time he'd got the bomb safely exploded in the tank, he was used to the idea: Napolean was alive. All was as it always was, and he did not need to make the return trip to the desert. Napolean could have walked in the door right then and all anyone would have seen from him would be a look up and a perfectly ordinary, warm, and definitely not over-wrought greeting.

So when Abby left, having recived Napolean's standard pretty-girl goodbye kiss, Illya just shook his head.

Napolean pretended to be on the defensive. "I told her to stay in the car," he said. "She insisted on coming with me."

"I'm sure," Illya agreed.

"But I'm so glad she was along," Napolean said seriously. "She deserves a kiss from everyone. That pin – I wouldn't have been able to fix that radio..." He put his hand to his mouth. "Oh, Illya... I didn't know... headquarters, and everyone in it..." He looked at Illya. "And I suppose you were right there in front of it the whole time."

"Close nearby, yes," Illya said.

Napolean nodded. "I haven't been that sc- worried – in a long time," he said. "I thought I'd lost pretty nearly everything."

Illya was in a fine mood, but there was still no way he was going to make any comparable admission. He shrugged. "Don't be melodramatic. It was just a day at work – nothing to go on about," he said, and Napolean frowned.

Of course, the girl from Section 6 came popping in right then.

"Here's your ticket, Mr. Kuryakin," she said cheerfully. "Your flight is first thing tomorrow – leaves at 5:30 AM."

Illya managed to bluster a 'thank-you,' and she left, the damage done.

"Waverly's sent you off again already?" Napolean was curious.

"No," Illya sighed, "this was something else. On my own time." He stuffed the ticket into his jacket pocket..

"Oh? Where to?"

"Nowhere," Illya replied.

Napolean knew he'd hit on something that Illya didn't want to tell him. "Funny sort of airline, that sells plane tickets to nowhere," he said, eyebrows raised.

"Nowhere in the sense that I'm not going anymore, so it doesn't matter," Illya said, a little shortly, and he pulled the ticket out again, tore it in half, and let it fall into the wastbasket near the desk he was going to use. He sat down at the desk and prepared to begin a report on the day's mission.

"Why aren't you going?"

"Plans have changed," Illya said. He put a sheet of paper in the typewriter and started to type.

Napolean waited until Illya's attention was completely on the report, and then reached down and made a smooth grab for the torn ticket, just ahead of Illya, who noticed too late.

"Napolean – that's – give that back," he exclaimed, but Napolean had already held the ticket together and read it. He handed it back to his cloudy-faced partner.

"We were just there," he said. "Why were you going back?"

He would get teased if he told the whole truth. "I thought that I was leaving somthing undone when I left yesterday, and I was retuning to do it. I found out after I arranged for the ticket that I was wrong. That's all."

"That's all?" Napolean asked, eyes narrowed.

"Yes," said Illya, a little tersely.

Napolean was confident that that was not all, and thought of a possible, and amusing, explanation. "Were you going back to see a woman?" he asked playfully.

Illya turned to him. "No, Napolean," he said, very sarcastically, "a man. I was going back to see a man."

"Well, if you're going to be silly..."

"Yes, that was exactly what I was being. Silly. Are you finished now?"

The universe was not aligned to Illya's convenience that day. Waverly came through at that juncture.

"Ah, Mr. Solo, it's good to have you back. We were very glad to hear from you when we did."

"I was relieved that you did, sir," Napolean replied.

"I've never been quite so pleased to hear that one of my agents was mistaken," Waverly added.

"I wasn't mistaken, sir – it was a bomb -"

"Not you, Mr. Solo. Mr. Kuryakin."

"Well, we were all mistaken about the nature of the bomb at first, not to mention the loyalties of Dr. Febray..."

Waverly shook his head. "Mr. Kuryakin was entirely convinced that you were deceased, Mr. Solo. It's good to have you back, considering." Having said that, he continued on his way to his office.

Illya kept typing.

"Just a day at work," Napolean quipped, grinning. "Nothing to go on about."

"I called in to report, he asked where you were, I told him what I believed to be the truth," Illya said. "Nothing more."

"Except the plane ticket."

"What is so funny?" Illya asked.

"You could have waited to be sent, or let someone else go," Napolean suggested.

"No," said Illya. "I couldn't."

Napolean sat down on the corner of the desk. "Because dead bodies are great company for... contemplation? Conversation? Report writing?" He flicked the paper protruding from the typewriter.

Napolean was teasing, and Illya was annoyed. But he answered seriously.

"Because it was you," he said, looking up from the report for a few moments. He turned back to the paper, but he could feel Napolean watching him.

"What does that mean?" Napolean finally asked. Illya smirked.

He didn't stop typing as he spoke. "It means that you are mine," he said. "You are my partner, and if you are lost it is my loss, not a mess to be cleaned up by hired help. On the long term it is best. I know -" he stopped himself from adding 'from experience' just in time, though he suspected that Napolean could hear him think it. He kept speaking mostly to paste over the gap. "The nature of the job is that, someday, one of both of us may not come back – which we all know, and accept on paper. But we never expect it to be today." He sighed, even as he continued typing. "I felt it, Napolean," he admitted. "But there's no reason to dwell on it. You're not lying dead in the desert; you're here in New York, very much alive, and taking up desk space."

Napolean got up off the desk. "Just a day at work," he repeated.

Illya nodded. He was still working.