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section7mfuTitle: The Deadly Admirer Affair, Act VII: Things Happen in Threes
Rating: PG13
Word count: ~2700
Author: Rose of Pollux
If you prefer reading there, cross-posted to ff.net and AO3.
Illya wasn’t sure for how long he remained in this state between consciousness and unconsciousness, but after what seemed like an eternity, his eyes opened at last.
It was daylight, and Napoleon was still by his side; it was painfully obvious, even at first glance, that Napoleon had just spent his second sleepless night in a row by his side, and Illya couldn’t help but feel a rush of gratitude towards his partner.
But whatever weariness that Napoleon was feeling vanished as it registered to him that Illya was awake at last. A grin lit up his tired features as he clutched Illya’s hand again.
“Took you long enough!” he chided. “You’re never this patient when I’m the one in Medical, let me tell you…”
Illya knew that Napoleon was only channeling his worry through his quips, as he often did.
“But, anyway, I’m glad you’re awake,” Napoleon said, gently wiping Illya’s face with a cold cloth again. “Well, I guess that’s the understatement of the century…” He let his mask slip for an instant. “You really gave me a scare, Illya. For a moment, I thought I really was going to lose you… I still don’t understand what could have happened to you. You were fine when I left…”
Illya tried to speak—tried to warn Napoleon about the poisoner. But only a feeble squeak issued from his lips, and even that was muffled by the oxygen mask.
“Shhhh,” Napoleon instructed, gently placing a hand to Illya’s face. “You’ve got to conserve your strength. Just keep lying there and resting. I’ll make sure you get everything you need.” He gave him a wan smile. “I know it’s no fun getting your nutrients through an IV drip, but, believe me, I look forward to seeing you down a whole meal as much as you’re looking forward to eating it.”
Illya let out his breath quietly, but with noticeable frustration, wishing that he could communicate the seriousness of what was going on. Napoleon’s smile faded as it became clear that something was really bothering his partner. Had Napoleon not been sleep-deprived for the last 48 hours, he probably would have been able to pick up on the exact nature of Illya’s distress—their connection was strong enough that there were times when words were not needed to exchange information.
But in spite of his attempts to hide his own condition, it was clear that Napoleon was tired and exhausted, and not at the top of his game.
All he could do was gently reassure his partner that things would be okay.
“Whatever it is,” he said, softly. “We’ll get through it together. You have my word, Tovarisch.”
Napoleon knew the frustrations and fears of recovering from something this serious; he’d had his own moments, after all. Unable to move… unable to speak… It was as though you were a prisoner in your own body—feeling useless and vulnerable. But, as bad as it felt, seeing his partner in this state was far worse, and he would have gladly traded places with him if it meant sparing Illya this pain.
“You’ve made it this far,” Napoleon went on. “Just rest some more, and I’m sure you’ll be able to get enough strength to talk again soon--”
He was cut off as his communicator whistled. He flinched at the loud noise and switched the device on.
“Solo here,” he said, quietly. “What is it?”
“Mr. Solo?” a voice said over the channel. “Mr. Dennell requests you to come down to the lab right away.”
Napoleon stared at the communicator in befuddlement.
“…Can’t he just tell me over the channel?” he asked.
“He can’t, Sir; he can’t risk saying this on an open channel—or even a phone line,” the caller said. “It concerns you, Mr. Solo—your health and well-being. You really need to come down to the lab.”
“…Illya just woke up,” Napoleon protested. “Whatever it is can wait. Or have George come up here—or send someone.
“He can’t, Mr. Solo; they can’t risk it.”
“Can’t risk it? Can’t risk what?” Napoleon asked.
“I can’t say anything else, Mr. Solo,” the speaker said. “He hasn’t told me. But it’s vital for you to see Mr. Dennell in the lab right away!”
Napoleon let out an extremely vexed sigh.
“Okay, you tell George he’s got to be able to explain everything to me in exactly two minutes, because that’s all I’m going to be able to give him.”
He closed the channel before the other speaker could respond, and was about to get up when Illya suddenly summoned as much of his strength as he could and clutched at Napoleon’s hand, giving a feeble moan.
Napoleon glanced down in surprise, and was even more startled to see the desperation in Illya’s eyes.
Napoleon, please do not leave me here alone! the Russian silently pleaded. Please! It might be a trap by my poisoner!
Napoleon was still off his game and couldn’t quite pick up on the message—though it was clear to him that Illya did not want him to go.
“Hey,” he said, trying to give him a reassuring smile. “You heard what I said. Two minutes. And then I’ll be right back here.”
Illya moaned again, trying to tighten his feeble grip on Napoleon’s hand in utter desperation, his heart monitor suddenly spiking. Napoleon felt his heart break; Illya had never acted like this before. True, he always preferred Napoleon’s presence during his recovery, just as Napoleon preferred his, but this was more than just preference.
This was fear. Illya was visibly terrified, and it wasn’t something that Napoleon had seen in a very long time.
Napoleon sat back down now, and Illya looked relieved, the heart monitor going back down to where it had been before. He was calm until Napoleon’s communicator suddenly went off again.
“I changed my mind; I’m not going down!” he snapped over the line.
“Mr. Solo, your life is in danger!” the voice from earlier warned him. “Please, Mr. Solo—you have to see Mr. Dennell in the lab right away!”
The urgency in the speaker’s voice sparked a private argument in Napoleon’s mind; his sympathetic side did not want to leave Illya when Illya was clearly begging him to stay, while his rational side argued that if his own life was in danger, then it would be difficult—if not impossible—to keep Illya safe if his own state of well-being was compromised.
“Okay, I’m on my way down,” Napoleon conceded. Like a reflex, he felt Illya clutch at his hand again and give another weak protest. Napoleon closed the channel and looked back at his partner. “I know, Illya, I know. I don’t want to leave you, but I need to be in good condition if I’m going to be able to help you. Please understand, Tovarisch. I will be back in two minutes—I swear.”
Illya let out a feeble moan yet again, and Napoleon felt the knife in his heart twist again. He looked around for a moment, and then called to a passing nurse.
“Hey, can you wait here with Illya for just two minutes?” he asked. “I’ll be right back, and I don’t want him to be alone.”
The nurse shrugged and agreed, sitting down in the chair that Napoleon had been sitting in.
“Thanks,” he said, sincerely, and he gently touched Illya’s face again, wincing as he noticed the heart monitor spiking again. “I’m really sorry, Illya. But I will be right back—I swear.”
Illya let out one more quiet protest, and Napoleon felt an immense wave of guilt crash over him.
“It’s alright, Mr. Solo,” the nurse said. “I’ll watch over him.”
Napoleon nodded and headed out of the intensive care ward. Baba Yaga yowled in protest as she realized that Napoleon was leaving.
“You, too?” he sighed. “I’m sorry…”
The cat protested again as Napoleon left, heading for the lab, where he saw George and Mandy going over the results of the analyzer.
“Napoleon!” George exclaimed. “Thank goodness you’re here!”
“What’s the big deal, George?” he asked, wearily. “I have to get back to Illya as soon as poss--”
“He’s been poisoned!” Mandy exclaimed.
Napoleon froze, stunned.
“…How? With what!? Is there an antidote!?”
“Finding out what it is requires a bit more analysis,” George said. “We’re inspecting the toxin further to find that out, as well as if there’s an antidote available; it shouldn’t be too long now. But, even from the preliminary results, it looks as though Illya was given some sort of biochemical poison that mimics an infection. It’s why Medical couldn’t figure out what was wrong. If we hadn’t done the analysis, we probably would never have figured out that it was poison and gone on assuming that Illya had fallen sick.”
“Biochemical…” Napoleon repeated, silently going over the last 48 hours. When nothing seemed to make sense, he went back further. “…Would Gurnius have been storing some sort of biochemical weapons that Illya might have been exposed to when he went undercover as Nexor?”
“That seems to be the most likely way,” George said.
“So that’s what you meant about it possibly affecting me, too, since I was in that same facility…”
“…What?” George asked, baffled. But any discussion was preempted by April and Mark returning to the lab.
“…Napoleon? What are you doing here!?” April asked, surprised to see Napoleon in the lab.
“Well—”
“Did you get the bullet?” George asked, cutting Napoleon off.
“No,” Mark said, darkly. “That bullet has been stolen.”
“What!?” Napoleon exclaimed. “The bullet that Medical took out of Illya?”
“Yes,” April said. “I had asked Mills to get the bullet from the evidence locker so that we could see where it was issued from. He said it wasn’t there; Mark and I spent the entire night looking for it after we got the right blood sample for George to test. And that’s another story altogether.”
“The first blood samples had been the wrong blood type; they’d been switched. At first, we thought it was a mistake, but now it’s clear that someone had switched the blood vials so that we’d think there was nothing wrong with Illya,” Mandy said.
Napoleon looked from Mark and April to George and Mandy, the realization hitting him like a pile of bricks.
“It wasn’t Gurnius at all; it was an inside job…” he said. His eyes widened. “Oh, God--that’s what Illya was trying to tell me…!”
“He’s awake?” Mandy asked.
“Yeah; I even said that when George had me paged over Channel D.”
“…I didn’t have you paged,” George said, his eyes wide.
Napoleon didn’t wait another moment longer; he turned around and bolted out the lab door, yelling over his shoulder for someone to call security and have them throw the alarm as Mark and April followed behind him, their Specials drawn. The three of them nearly passed a hissing and yowling Baba Yaga in the corridor, who saw that they were coming and turned back around to revert course back to Medical, all four of them hoping that they weren’t already too late.
****************************************
Illya had been lying there, unable to stop worrying since Napoleon had left. His pulse on the monitor was clearly too fast for the nurse’s liking; she was trying to keep him calm, but it didn’t seem to assuage his fears.
The nurse’s attention was suddenly diverted when they both heard Baba Yaga screeching outside, and everything happened in rapid succession after that. She gasped as the door to the intensive care unit swung open to reveal the masked figure from the previous day, but before she could reach for the alarm button, the masked figure rushed in and knocked her unconscious with a karate chop to her shoulders.
After unceremoniously throwing the unconscious nurse to the ground, the attacker now approached Illya, who was feebly trying to move his hand to press the call button by his bed. The attacker quickly put a stop to that, pulling his hand away and tying his arms and torso down to the bed again like before.
“You survived the poison?” the attacker hissed. “Why can’t you just die like a normal human being? …Well, I guess it’s because you aren’t normal. The human part is probably debatable, too.”
The attacker clutched at Illya’s neck with a gloved hand; Illya could only weakly moan in protest as the heart monitor sped up further.
“Look at that. You’re actually scared. Well, you ought to be. You’re about to be found out.” The attacker tightened his grip on Illya’s neck. “I don’t know how you did it—you’ve brainwashed Solo completely. Somehow, you’ve gotten him so under your control, he ignores warnings to his own health. I’ll snap him out of it soon enough. I wish he could have realized it before you were dead, but I see now that as long as you’re alive, he’s never going to break free from your control.”
The attacker released Illya’s neck and took a small pair of scissors and cut the plastic tube connecting Illya’s oxygen mask to the oxygen tank. The attacker then took a large clamp and clamped shut the part of the tubing still attached to Illya’s mask. Illya’s eyes widened in panic as his air supply was completely cut off.
“You survived a bullet. You survived poison,” the attacker hissed. “But not even you can survive without air--”
The alarms began to ring, cutting the attacker off. The attacker swore and fled, already shedding their disguise as they retreated, but Illya was in too much distress from his lack of air to notice. Already, his vision was beginning to blur and darken.
“ILLYA!?”
Napoleon was barreling back into the intensive care unit, his own heart nearly stopping as he saw Illya tied to the bed with a clamp over his severed air tube.
“No, no, no, no, no…” he murmured, removing the now-deadly mask from his partner’s face.
To his immense relief, Illya gasped for breath, breathing in and out as deeply as he could, given his weakened condition. As Napoleon now got to work untying the rope binding Illya to the bed, Mark did a search of the intensive care ward as April tended to the knocked-out nurse; Baba Yaga meowed, sneaking her way into the ward as she noticed that no one seemed to remember that she wasn’t supposed to be there.
Napoleon now removed the rope as he finally got it untied, and, once again placed his now-shaking hand on the side of Illya’s face and took Illya’s hand with his other hand, clutching it tightly.
“Oh, Illya…” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
But Illya looked up at him with a weak, relieved smile and gently clutched at Napoleon’s hand again.
Baba Yaga now curled up by Illya’s side again, keeping a watchful eye on her human family. Napoleon glanced from her to Illya, and nodded at his partner.
“Okay…” he said. “Mark?”
“Aside from the discarded disguise the attacker was wearing, there’s nothing here,” Mark said. “Whoever it was knew how to disappear.”
“Our nurse seems like she’ll be alright, but I’m going to take her down to the general ward and have her looked at by one of the doctors,” April said.
“Okay. Mark, get George and Mandy here, make a check with Security, and then you and April get right back here, too.”
“Right.”
“Of course.”
The two of them left with the nurse, and Napoleon turned his attention back to his partner.
“Illya,” he said. “I know about the poison. It was an inside job—the shooting, the poison, this…” Napoleon swallowed the lump in his throat. “I shouldn’t have left you alone—if I’d been with you, none of this would have happened.”
Illya gave his head a slight shake. His attacker hated him enough to have continued pursuing him; it hadn’t been a matter of if, but when.
“This time, Tovarisch,” Napoleon said. “I won’t leave you. You can rest now and keep fighting that poison. I’ll be here. I promise.”
And Illya gave a weak nod. He knew Napoleon would watch over him now with a vengeance.
Now, he could finally afford to rest and regain his strength.
Rating: PG13
Word count: ~2700
Author: Rose of Pollux
If you prefer reading there, cross-posted to ff.net and AO3.
Illya wasn’t sure for how long he remained in this state between consciousness and unconsciousness, but after what seemed like an eternity, his eyes opened at last.
It was daylight, and Napoleon was still by his side; it was painfully obvious, even at first glance, that Napoleon had just spent his second sleepless night in a row by his side, and Illya couldn’t help but feel a rush of gratitude towards his partner.
But whatever weariness that Napoleon was feeling vanished as it registered to him that Illya was awake at last. A grin lit up his tired features as he clutched Illya’s hand again.
“Took you long enough!” he chided. “You’re never this patient when I’m the one in Medical, let me tell you…”
Illya knew that Napoleon was only channeling his worry through his quips, as he often did.
“But, anyway, I’m glad you’re awake,” Napoleon said, gently wiping Illya’s face with a cold cloth again. “Well, I guess that’s the understatement of the century…” He let his mask slip for an instant. “You really gave me a scare, Illya. For a moment, I thought I really was going to lose you… I still don’t understand what could have happened to you. You were fine when I left…”
Illya tried to speak—tried to warn Napoleon about the poisoner. But only a feeble squeak issued from his lips, and even that was muffled by the oxygen mask.
“Shhhh,” Napoleon instructed, gently placing a hand to Illya’s face. “You’ve got to conserve your strength. Just keep lying there and resting. I’ll make sure you get everything you need.” He gave him a wan smile. “I know it’s no fun getting your nutrients through an IV drip, but, believe me, I look forward to seeing you down a whole meal as much as you’re looking forward to eating it.”
Illya let out his breath quietly, but with noticeable frustration, wishing that he could communicate the seriousness of what was going on. Napoleon’s smile faded as it became clear that something was really bothering his partner. Had Napoleon not been sleep-deprived for the last 48 hours, he probably would have been able to pick up on the exact nature of Illya’s distress—their connection was strong enough that there were times when words were not needed to exchange information.
But in spite of his attempts to hide his own condition, it was clear that Napoleon was tired and exhausted, and not at the top of his game.
All he could do was gently reassure his partner that things would be okay.
“Whatever it is,” he said, softly. “We’ll get through it together. You have my word, Tovarisch.”
Napoleon knew the frustrations and fears of recovering from something this serious; he’d had his own moments, after all. Unable to move… unable to speak… It was as though you were a prisoner in your own body—feeling useless and vulnerable. But, as bad as it felt, seeing his partner in this state was far worse, and he would have gladly traded places with him if it meant sparing Illya this pain.
“You’ve made it this far,” Napoleon went on. “Just rest some more, and I’m sure you’ll be able to get enough strength to talk again soon--”
He was cut off as his communicator whistled. He flinched at the loud noise and switched the device on.
“Solo here,” he said, quietly. “What is it?”
“Mr. Solo?” a voice said over the channel. “Mr. Dennell requests you to come down to the lab right away.”
Napoleon stared at the communicator in befuddlement.
“…Can’t he just tell me over the channel?” he asked.
“He can’t, Sir; he can’t risk saying this on an open channel—or even a phone line,” the caller said. “It concerns you, Mr. Solo—your health and well-being. You really need to come down to the lab.”
“…Illya just woke up,” Napoleon protested. “Whatever it is can wait. Or have George come up here—or send someone.
“He can’t, Mr. Solo; they can’t risk it.”
“Can’t risk it? Can’t risk what?” Napoleon asked.
“I can’t say anything else, Mr. Solo,” the speaker said. “He hasn’t told me. But it’s vital for you to see Mr. Dennell in the lab right away!”
Napoleon let out an extremely vexed sigh.
“Okay, you tell George he’s got to be able to explain everything to me in exactly two minutes, because that’s all I’m going to be able to give him.”
He closed the channel before the other speaker could respond, and was about to get up when Illya suddenly summoned as much of his strength as he could and clutched at Napoleon’s hand, giving a feeble moan.
Napoleon glanced down in surprise, and was even more startled to see the desperation in Illya’s eyes.
Napoleon, please do not leave me here alone! the Russian silently pleaded. Please! It might be a trap by my poisoner!
Napoleon was still off his game and couldn’t quite pick up on the message—though it was clear to him that Illya did not want him to go.
“Hey,” he said, trying to give him a reassuring smile. “You heard what I said. Two minutes. And then I’ll be right back here.”
Illya moaned again, trying to tighten his feeble grip on Napoleon’s hand in utter desperation, his heart monitor suddenly spiking. Napoleon felt his heart break; Illya had never acted like this before. True, he always preferred Napoleon’s presence during his recovery, just as Napoleon preferred his, but this was more than just preference.
This was fear. Illya was visibly terrified, and it wasn’t something that Napoleon had seen in a very long time.
Napoleon sat back down now, and Illya looked relieved, the heart monitor going back down to where it had been before. He was calm until Napoleon’s communicator suddenly went off again.
“I changed my mind; I’m not going down!” he snapped over the line.
“Mr. Solo, your life is in danger!” the voice from earlier warned him. “Please, Mr. Solo—you have to see Mr. Dennell in the lab right away!”
The urgency in the speaker’s voice sparked a private argument in Napoleon’s mind; his sympathetic side did not want to leave Illya when Illya was clearly begging him to stay, while his rational side argued that if his own life was in danger, then it would be difficult—if not impossible—to keep Illya safe if his own state of well-being was compromised.
“Okay, I’m on my way down,” Napoleon conceded. Like a reflex, he felt Illya clutch at his hand again and give another weak protest. Napoleon closed the channel and looked back at his partner. “I know, Illya, I know. I don’t want to leave you, but I need to be in good condition if I’m going to be able to help you. Please understand, Tovarisch. I will be back in two minutes—I swear.”
Illya let out a feeble moan yet again, and Napoleon felt the knife in his heart twist again. He looked around for a moment, and then called to a passing nurse.
“Hey, can you wait here with Illya for just two minutes?” he asked. “I’ll be right back, and I don’t want him to be alone.”
The nurse shrugged and agreed, sitting down in the chair that Napoleon had been sitting in.
“Thanks,” he said, sincerely, and he gently touched Illya’s face again, wincing as he noticed the heart monitor spiking again. “I’m really sorry, Illya. But I will be right back—I swear.”
Illya let out one more quiet protest, and Napoleon felt an immense wave of guilt crash over him.
“It’s alright, Mr. Solo,” the nurse said. “I’ll watch over him.”
Napoleon nodded and headed out of the intensive care ward. Baba Yaga yowled in protest as she realized that Napoleon was leaving.
“You, too?” he sighed. “I’m sorry…”
The cat protested again as Napoleon left, heading for the lab, where he saw George and Mandy going over the results of the analyzer.
“Napoleon!” George exclaimed. “Thank goodness you’re here!”
“What’s the big deal, George?” he asked, wearily. “I have to get back to Illya as soon as poss--”
“He’s been poisoned!” Mandy exclaimed.
Napoleon froze, stunned.
“…How? With what!? Is there an antidote!?”
“Finding out what it is requires a bit more analysis,” George said. “We’re inspecting the toxin further to find that out, as well as if there’s an antidote available; it shouldn’t be too long now. But, even from the preliminary results, it looks as though Illya was given some sort of biochemical poison that mimics an infection. It’s why Medical couldn’t figure out what was wrong. If we hadn’t done the analysis, we probably would never have figured out that it was poison and gone on assuming that Illya had fallen sick.”
“Biochemical…” Napoleon repeated, silently going over the last 48 hours. When nothing seemed to make sense, he went back further. “…Would Gurnius have been storing some sort of biochemical weapons that Illya might have been exposed to when he went undercover as Nexor?”
“That seems to be the most likely way,” George said.
“So that’s what you meant about it possibly affecting me, too, since I was in that same facility…”
“…What?” George asked, baffled. But any discussion was preempted by April and Mark returning to the lab.
“…Napoleon? What are you doing here!?” April asked, surprised to see Napoleon in the lab.
“Well—”
“Did you get the bullet?” George asked, cutting Napoleon off.
“No,” Mark said, darkly. “That bullet has been stolen.”
“What!?” Napoleon exclaimed. “The bullet that Medical took out of Illya?”
“Yes,” April said. “I had asked Mills to get the bullet from the evidence locker so that we could see where it was issued from. He said it wasn’t there; Mark and I spent the entire night looking for it after we got the right blood sample for George to test. And that’s another story altogether.”
“The first blood samples had been the wrong blood type; they’d been switched. At first, we thought it was a mistake, but now it’s clear that someone had switched the blood vials so that we’d think there was nothing wrong with Illya,” Mandy said.
Napoleon looked from Mark and April to George and Mandy, the realization hitting him like a pile of bricks.
“It wasn’t Gurnius at all; it was an inside job…” he said. His eyes widened. “Oh, God--that’s what Illya was trying to tell me…!”
“He’s awake?” Mandy asked.
“Yeah; I even said that when George had me paged over Channel D.”
“…I didn’t have you paged,” George said, his eyes wide.
Napoleon didn’t wait another moment longer; he turned around and bolted out the lab door, yelling over his shoulder for someone to call security and have them throw the alarm as Mark and April followed behind him, their Specials drawn. The three of them nearly passed a hissing and yowling Baba Yaga in the corridor, who saw that they were coming and turned back around to revert course back to Medical, all four of them hoping that they weren’t already too late.
Illya had been lying there, unable to stop worrying since Napoleon had left. His pulse on the monitor was clearly too fast for the nurse’s liking; she was trying to keep him calm, but it didn’t seem to assuage his fears.
The nurse’s attention was suddenly diverted when they both heard Baba Yaga screeching outside, and everything happened in rapid succession after that. She gasped as the door to the intensive care unit swung open to reveal the masked figure from the previous day, but before she could reach for the alarm button, the masked figure rushed in and knocked her unconscious with a karate chop to her shoulders.
After unceremoniously throwing the unconscious nurse to the ground, the attacker now approached Illya, who was feebly trying to move his hand to press the call button by his bed. The attacker quickly put a stop to that, pulling his hand away and tying his arms and torso down to the bed again like before.
“You survived the poison?” the attacker hissed. “Why can’t you just die like a normal human being? …Well, I guess it’s because you aren’t normal. The human part is probably debatable, too.”
The attacker clutched at Illya’s neck with a gloved hand; Illya could only weakly moan in protest as the heart monitor sped up further.
“Look at that. You’re actually scared. Well, you ought to be. You’re about to be found out.” The attacker tightened his grip on Illya’s neck. “I don’t know how you did it—you’ve brainwashed Solo completely. Somehow, you’ve gotten him so under your control, he ignores warnings to his own health. I’ll snap him out of it soon enough. I wish he could have realized it before you were dead, but I see now that as long as you’re alive, he’s never going to break free from your control.”
The attacker released Illya’s neck and took a small pair of scissors and cut the plastic tube connecting Illya’s oxygen mask to the oxygen tank. The attacker then took a large clamp and clamped shut the part of the tubing still attached to Illya’s mask. Illya’s eyes widened in panic as his air supply was completely cut off.
“You survived a bullet. You survived poison,” the attacker hissed. “But not even you can survive without air--”
The alarms began to ring, cutting the attacker off. The attacker swore and fled, already shedding their disguise as they retreated, but Illya was in too much distress from his lack of air to notice. Already, his vision was beginning to blur and darken.
“ILLYA!?”
Napoleon was barreling back into the intensive care unit, his own heart nearly stopping as he saw Illya tied to the bed with a clamp over his severed air tube.
“No, no, no, no, no…” he murmured, removing the now-deadly mask from his partner’s face.
To his immense relief, Illya gasped for breath, breathing in and out as deeply as he could, given his weakened condition. As Napoleon now got to work untying the rope binding Illya to the bed, Mark did a search of the intensive care ward as April tended to the knocked-out nurse; Baba Yaga meowed, sneaking her way into the ward as she noticed that no one seemed to remember that she wasn’t supposed to be there.
Napoleon now removed the rope as he finally got it untied, and, once again placed his now-shaking hand on the side of Illya’s face and took Illya’s hand with his other hand, clutching it tightly.
“Oh, Illya…” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
But Illya looked up at him with a weak, relieved smile and gently clutched at Napoleon’s hand again.
Baba Yaga now curled up by Illya’s side again, keeping a watchful eye on her human family. Napoleon glanced from her to Illya, and nodded at his partner.
“Okay…” he said. “Mark?”
“Aside from the discarded disguise the attacker was wearing, there’s nothing here,” Mark said. “Whoever it was knew how to disappear.”
“Our nurse seems like she’ll be alright, but I’m going to take her down to the general ward and have her looked at by one of the doctors,” April said.
“Okay. Mark, get George and Mandy here, make a check with Security, and then you and April get right back here, too.”
“Right.”
“Of course.”
The two of them left with the nurse, and Napoleon turned his attention back to his partner.
“Illya,” he said. “I know about the poison. It was an inside job—the shooting, the poison, this…” Napoleon swallowed the lump in his throat. “I shouldn’t have left you alone—if I’d been with you, none of this would have happened.”
Illya gave his head a slight shake. His attacker hated him enough to have continued pursuing him; it hadn’t been a matter of if, but when.
“This time, Tovarisch,” Napoleon said. “I won’t leave you. You can rest now and keep fighting that poison. I’ll be here. I promise.”
And Illya gave a weak nod. He knew Napoleon would watch over him now with a vengeance.
Now, he could finally afford to rest and regain his strength.
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