section7mfu | Song Story for August: The Day After Children's Day (Reply)

The prompt was "Compared to What?"

“The Children’s Day Affair” mission was over. Finally. Anna, once Ricardo had reappeared in the company of Mr. Waverly, had corralled her charge and headed off after telling the UNCLE men that “boys will be boys.”
Mr. Waverly had ordered up his personal UNCLE jet to return him to New York after the conference and had magnanimously allowed his top agents to ride with him. To Illya’s way of thinking, the best part of that was that he and Napoleon were able to be debriefed during the flight and afterwards, he and Napoleon were able to put together a final draft of their written report to submit to the Secretarial Pool for typing.

By the time they landed at Teterboro in New Jersey, Illya was fed up and had had enough. While Napoleon was speaking with Mr. Waverly and accompanying him off the plane, the Russian jumped into a regular cab after first notifying the Section III who was awaiting the Old Man that he and Napoleon would be there shortly.
He had the cab take him as far as West 40^th Street and Broadway. It was just after five – thirty in the late afternoon and he became part of the sea of people heading home after a long day. One of the things he loved about New York City is the ability to anonymously melt into a crowd.

His mood was as dark as the day was bright and he moved swiftly along Broadway as he headed toward the Village and home. If his stomach hadn’t growled when it did, he wouldn’t have stopped to get food which would have turned his mood even blacker because his fridge was bare except for his vodka. Instead, he stopped at a Polish deli and bought a large order of bigos, a stew made with sausages, sauerkraut, cabbage, onions and mushrooms and a loaf of sourdough bread.

An hour and a half after he’d left Napoleon and Mr. Waverly, he arrived home. He walked into his kitchen in the dark and placed the bag of food on the table and proceeded to head to his bedroom, stripping off his jacket and shirt and dumping them unceremoniously in his chair as he moved toward his chest of drawers to retrieve a clean undershirt. As he pulled the old one over his head, his back began to protest as a couple of places where dried blood had attached it to the shirt separated from his skin. He examined it with an air of detachment as he moved into his bathroom.

He ran cold water in the sink and put the shirt in to soak. He turned so that he could see some of the damage Mother Fear had inflicted upon him. He couldn’t see more than halfway down, but he knew it looked bad all over. Red welts covered his entire back, many of them had split wide open. Mother Fear had been merciless in her questioning. She would whip him for five minutes, go away for five minutes so he could “think things over,” return and question him for five minutes. When he refused to disclose the information she wanted, the cycle would begin again. And again. And again.

Shaking his head to clear his mind, he left the bathroom. Deciding it might be better for his aching back if he let the air hit it for awhile, he headed back to the kitchen. Just as he turned on the light, his phone began to ring. He stared at it, he knew it was Napoleon, but he didn’t want to speak to him or anyone else. Napoleon was stubborn; Illya counted thirty rings before it stopped. A minute later, his communicator started trilling. Chyort, if I don’t answer, he might send a search party. Assembling his device quickly he barked, “Yes, Napoleon, what is it?”

In the brief silence that followed, Illya felt a twinge of guilt for snapping that intensified slightly when Napoleon answered with no rancor, “I just want to know if you’re alright. I knew you weren’t going back to HQ with the Old Man and me, but I thought you would wait to say goodnight. Are you okay?”

“No, I am not ‘okay,’ Napoleon. I am in pain, I am humiliated and right now, I am wondering why I do this. Those children in that school, twisted, horrible and remorseless. They have all been tainted by THRUSH! Mother Fear had some of them observing her while she tortured me! The best way to keep them from growing up to perpetrate evil would be to kill them all now, but Mr. Waverly would never allow such a solution. Keep those children alive? That will make things better? Compared to what?”

Napoleon sat in his living room and listened to Illya rant and rave. He was only surprised that Illya was managing not to yell. He didn’t want to interrupt his partner’s train of thought. He had been quietly devastated when he lifted the Russian’s shirt and looked at the bloody mess that was his back. I can’t blame him for feeling this way. We always end up in a rut: Me with the girl and him with the scars. I don’t blame him for being sick of it all.

Illya spoke non – stop for almost twenty minutes; if Napoleon had wanted to speak, he doubted he could have gotten a word in edgewise. This is his catharsis. Finally, his partner stopped talking. “Illya, do you want me come over there? Or do you want to come here?”

“What makes you think I want either option?”

“I thought you might want to talk some more, but face to face.”

“I have talked myself out for tonight. All I want to do is sit quietly, eat a little food and then drink myself to sleep.”

“Oh, that’s fine.”

“Napoleon. I am not rejecting you or your friendship. Letting me vent was probably exactly what I needed and I appreciate you allowing me to do it. But you are such an American; it is so hard for you to believe that people want to be alone sometimes. I want to be alone tonight. If you wish, you are more than welcome to come here tomorrow morning. Especially if you bring coffee and scones with you.”

Illya heard a chuckle come through the communicator. “It’s a deal. Remember to take your antibiotics.”

“I will do so. Goodnight, Napoleon.”