section7mfu | I Resolve - PicFic 7/5 (Reply)

There would be no going back now. The damage was done and two UNCLE agents knew that nothing in their arsenal of skill or gadgetry could create a panacea to assuage the horrific effects of THRUSH's latest horror.

Illya Kuryakin was still trembling from the cocktail of drugs in his system. His partner, Napoleon Solo, was battered from a series of brutal interrogations prior to the ultimate showdown between Kaz Hiromata and the Fates.

"Illya, can you stay with me please, don't black out." The tremor in Solo's voice betrayed his emotional state. The fire and smoke on the horizon was what remained of Hiromata's compound; lives had been lost and the lightening emanating from the carnage seemed like the punctuation to the lines in a horror story. It was almost miraculous that the pair of agents had escaped, and in fact their current state belied any ability to have done so.

"Where are we Napoleon?" The burr of a Russian accent was stronger now as Illya tried to conjure up some type of composure. His entire body felt like it had been struck by that bolt of lightening; he was a living testimony to the truth of one's blood boiling. He only hoped that he would survive once more.

Napoleon surveyed the small craft on which they were floating, on which they had escaped the fire of destruction even as they had certain death. Neither of them could account for their situation, and the only certainty in either of their minds was that had they remained, death would have claimed them as surely as it had those caught beneath the surface of that small, man made island.

"Just hold on a little longer Illya, the last beacon of our existence just ignited. I'm fairly certain that there will be help on the way… soon.' Napoleon caught a sigh before it erupted into a full blown sob. Too many deaths, too many innocents whose lives they hadn't been able to save. So why were they still here?

"I don't know how this happened, but for the first time in my life … perhaps …" And then the floodgates opened. Illya reached out a trembling hand and placed it on his friend's bloody arm. A knife wound that had gone untreated was threatening the CEA of UNCL Northwest, but nothing seemed as deadly as the sight he now watched from the safety of their little escape vessel.

"We live to fight another day moy brat." Illya's accent was stronger, more emphatic as he tried to reassure his friend and partner that there would still be battles in which they were needed. Nothing was fair, and never equal. It simply was.

Napoleon nodded, the tears in his eyes making the faraway scene more like an impressionist painting. He was tired, bone tired. Help would be on the way and there was nothing he could do now for those whose lives were surely lost. He was glad of one thing only: he and his friend were alive to go back to work and defeat the evil that was the Hierarchy.

A life's work was ahead of him, so he lay down his head and slept.