Chapter Text
The first gift Illya had ever given Gaby was what Illya believed all gifts should be: useful, practical, well-made. He’d found it in a small store in the village where his mother used to live, on his one day off while on assignment for the KGB. He’d been walking by, his collar up and his head turned down, when sunlight reflected off the shop’s windows, catching his eye. He’d felt ashamed that his first thought that night had been to call Napoleon.
“Cowboy,” was all Illya had said on the phone.
“Peril,” Napoleon had quipped back.
“It is Gaby’s birthday in several weeks.”
“And?”
The American really had a way of driving Illya insane sometimes. Illya waited a few moments before responding. “I am getting her a gift.”
“Ah, young love. I never would have pegged you as the gifts type, Peril.”
Illya had felt Napoleon smirking on the other end, and wished silently that there weren’t several continents preventing Illya from hitting his partner in the head. Illya had focused only to realize Solo was still talking. “Everything’s exciting, everyone’s all atwitter.”
“I am not atwitter.” Illya’s voice had been steely, his finger tapping against the receiver.
“Well, Peril, I must say I’m shocked at the sentimentality of it all. I didn’t even know they acknowledged birthdays behind the Iron Curtain. What’ll it be for Miss Teller, then? A collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets? Perhaps something more intimate-”
Illya had stopped him right there, curses streaming out of him in his mother tongue. With Napoleon waiting patiently on the other end, Illya had finally confessed his idea about the shop.
Napoleon had laughed. “My God, Peril, you may as well gift the girl a set of eyeglasses!”
“Gaby does not need glasses.”
Solo had only sighed.
As was typical, Illya ignored Solo’s advice, completing his purchase the next morning before reporting to Oleg. He’d kept the gift in its original velvet box, tucking it away in his suitcase beneath one of his dress shirts. He’d taken the box out on his flight back to London and turned it over in his hands repeatedly for the duration of the flight. Upon getting back to London, where Oleg had negotiated with Waverly to release Illya for an undisclosed length of time, he had shown it in secret to Solo after several hours of pestering. “Not bad at all, Peril,” was all Solo had said, shrugging, and Illya had snatched the box out of his hands and stowed it back in his bag.
For days leading up to Gaby’s birthday (September 13th, a date seared into Illya’s brain since the moment he’d read her file in secret), Illya had taken the box out repeatedly, debating whether or not to give it to her at all. On September 12th, he’d almost dumped the box in the waste basket and settled with a bouquet of flowers and jewelry at Napoleon’s suggestion.
Solo was right on the flowers , was the first thing Illya had thought once he’d actually given Gaby the gift. He and Gaby had sat on a bench in the park near her flat; his arm had been around her with Gaby nestled in the crook of his shoulder. The walk had been her only request when Illya had asked how she’d like to spend her birthday, which, in private, had made Illya smile. Under moonlight, Illya had held her hand, running her skinny, warm fingers through his. He’d led her to the bench and presented the gift to her, mumbling “happy birthday” and nothing more. Gaby had opened the small package and looked at its contents for several seconds, saying nothing.
“Do you like it?” Illya had finally asked. He noted the edge in his voice.
“It’s a watch,” was all Gaby had said. It had sounded to Illya like a question, and there had been a funny expression on her face, one Illya couldn't quite place.
“Yes. The same man who made it also made my father’s watch.”
Silently, Gaby had removed it from the box and fumbled to fasten it around her tiny wrist. She’d still had that funny look on her face, and Illya could feel himself gulp away something that reminded him of fear.
“Let me,” Illya had grunted, taking her hand in his and notching it comfortably around her wrist. He’d left her hand in his, and slowly, Gaby turned her palm over to inspect the gift. Without warning, Gaby had turned toward him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and squeezed him tightly. He could feel her face pressing into the spot between his neck and his shoulder, the spot he often woke up to her snoring into. One of her hairs tickled his cheek.
“I love it, Illya,” Gaby had said, and he’d known that she meant it.
It’s the watch Illya thinks of now, his eyes focused past the chess set in front of him. Distantly, he thinks he hears the sound of his own foot tapping.
“Christ, Peril,” Napoleon says from the opposite couch, moving a local Belgian newspaper away from his face to look Illya in the eyes. “She’s fine.”
Illya only looks at Solo for a brief moment before focusing his eyes back to the carpet.
“She can handle herself, you know.” Solo’s voice comes from behind the newspaper this time.
“I know she can.”
If Gaby were smarter, and she often wishes she were smarter, she would have seen the warning signs that her mission would be a failed one. She would have exited the site at the first hint of trouble- that the THRUSH chemists she had been tailing had vacated the manufacturing site hours before she’d gotten there. She would have understood that the surprising lack of security guards was not because Gaby outwitted them, but because the facility was prepared to blow up with her in it.
Of course it all seems so obvious now, Gaby thinks, leaning over the steering wheel of her Lotus Cortina. She had parked the car blocks and blocks away from the THRUSH site, following U.N.C.L.E protocol to the letter. On the passenger seat next to her is her gun. With a tug of pain, Gaby smiles to herself, thinking of the explanations she’ll have to give to Waverly, and her partners, if she gets back to them. “Engage with your surroundings as little as possible,” Solo had told her before she’d left. Gaby thought that had been a rich piece of advice, coming from the man with hot hands and a fondness for expensive things.
Illya had agreed from across the room where he sat at the small kitchen table, sharpening Gaby’s knives. “Do not take same way back, either,” he had said, breaking his eyes away from the blade only to look Gaby in the face. “Assume you are being tailed at all times.” This was far from Gaby’s first solo mission, and at the time, she’d rolled her eyes and told the two men to shut up and let her work.
Now, Gaby wonders how her partners will react to the news. Yes, she’d procured the classified documents she was sent in to retrieve, but no, she hadn’t exactly left without a trace. Although her car is tucked away in a back alley she can still hear hundreds of sirens, all flooding to the manufacturing site. She can still feel the heat from the explosion after a hidden bomb had detonated in the THRUSH factory.
Her exit from the site could have gone better, Gaby thinks with a laugh, cut short by a throbbing ache in her ribs. She’d thrown herself out the third story factory window once she’d heard the first explosion go off beneath her. The landing had not been kind to her as she’d attempted to use a move that Illya had taught her, trying to angle herself toward the ground so that she could roll on her shoulder. The move had not worked. Somewhere in the back of Gaby’s mind, she reminds herself to ask Illya to help her perfect it if she gets back.
Illya . Hazily, Gaby’s mind drifts to her partner. Of course he’ll insist that she should not have gone in alone, that he was right all along. Maybe he was , Gaby thinks as she moves her hand away from her gun to the spot, low on the left side of her ribcage, that is bothering her. He’ll insist that it was dangerous, that it was reckless. When they are alone together, he’ll admit, as with all of Gaby’s solo missions, that he worried about her. I don’t want to worry you, Gaby will say, and she will mean it.
But Illya is not here with her. He is posted up in a cottage fifteen minutes outside of Brussels. He is with Solo, probably playing chess by himself and feeling annoyed by their American teammate. With a small smile, Gaby knows Illya is probably counting the minutes until she is forecasted to get back to him. Waverly had given her two short hours to get in, get the documents, and get out. She was to report back to their safehouse at 1:30 a.m.
Remembering Waverly reminds Gaby to check the time. She brings her watch, a birthday present from Illya, into her vision and squints at the numbers. It’s 1:12 in the morning. Scheibe , Gaby thinks. She knows she needs to move. With a sigh, Gaby turns the keys in the ignition. Suddenly, her exhale turns into a wet cough that shakes her shoulders. When Gaby pulls her hand away from her mouth, she sees the dark stain of fresh blood on her fingers.
Wincing through the pain, Gaby grabs the clutch. The action feels to Gaby as if she is moving her arm through cement. She takes one final, labored breath before pulling out into the street. She can make out the body of the man she’d killed moments ago in the rearview mirror as she pulls away.