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Even in his worst nightmares, Illya could never have imagined Gaby dying like this.
Single combat had always been a strong possibility, he knows, but here, on this makeshift battlefield, it seems somehow beneath her to be laid low by a sweaty-faced teen with a sword. Gaby gasps and grunts and writhes, panting out a speech he could hardly believe she’d had breath for.
She doesn’t get to finish it.
Her head lolls to the side, body going limp and then preternaturally still. Her assailant looks down almost ruefully at her prone figure and finishes the rest of her sentence for her. It is a small mercy. By the time the man plunges into his own soliloquy, Illya has planned out no fewer than thirty-three ways to end this miserable—
But he can’t.
Illya must stay still, stay silent, even if every instinct is screaming at him to do otherwise. His fingers are keeping time with his pulse, and he can hardly hear this incongruous eulogizing over the roaring in his ears.
A few more minutes, he thinks. He can keep it together for that long. For Gaby’s sake.
Half-hidden in shadow, Illya is removed from the immediacy of the chaos, but is still intimately intertwined with it. He is helpless: uniquely, infuriatingly helpless. He is constrained to the sidelines, unable to do anything but watch as the drama unfolds.
Not for the first time in this wretched mission does Illya come to the same conclusion… he really hates Shakespeare.
When Waverly had approached them with this assignment almost two months ago, Illya had, rightfully, balked at the absurdity of such a notion. What place did UNCLE have among an amateur Shakespearean theatre company in northern Wales?
Apparently enough to warrant participation in this travesty of a production.
Henry IV, Part 1.
The idea that this storyline could have multiple installments is enough to make Illya consider turning the (prop) sword on himself. He’s more than tempted to.
It had come as no surprise that Gaby had managed to win over the casting director and secure a starring role for herself. Inexplicably, however, her character is a man: the upstart rebel leader, Henry “Hotspur” Percy.
Meanwhile, Solo has charmed his way into being—well, Illya isn’t quite sure what the Cowboy’s title is—only that he has strong opinions about everything and seems to get his way.
And Illya?
He has applied himself to something of actual value for this mission: gathering intel while building and painting sets.
He hadn’t been invited to audition.
Not that he had wanted to anyway.
No, Illya is an altogether different kind of leading man. He is the KGB’s best, the ranking agent on his team, and as such, it falls upon his shoulders to see that this is a success both on and off the stage.
After weeks of whispered shouting matches with the American over the so-called ‘direction’ of the show, of suffering through torturous rehearsal after torturous rehearsal watching Gaby die a thousand ridiculous, unceremonious deaths, Illya has finally had enough.
It is up to him to save the play… and he knows exactly where to start.
Illya pushes to his feet decisively. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Cowboy slowly edging towards him as he approaches the stage. Henry V has finally stopped talking, and Falstaff is in the middle of his ‘miraculous’ recovery from the dead.
But the fiend before him is no Lazarus.
He is a coward and now prepares to stab the fallen Hotspur and take credit for the kill. The sword is raised, the lines delivered with more passion than talent when Illya brings the whole charade to a halt.
“Stop,” he growls, a low rumble that pierces through the silent theatre.
Falstaff falters, looks beseechingly at the director for instruction. The man is gesturing indignantly from the shadows when Solo smoothly intervenes.
“My apologies, sir,” he mutters, before continuing to approach Illya, a wary, warning look in his eye. “If this is about the sets again, Sergei, then I—”
“There is nothing wrong with the sets,” he huffs. “It is the only part of this show where that can truly be said.”
Illya ignores the outraged hmph from his dearly departed mechanic and hops nimbly onto the stage. He plucks the sword from Falstaff’s hands and sighs. “This isn’t working. Do you even know what you are saying?”
He rounds on Henry V next. “And you. Have you never dueled with a sword before? Your form is terrible. No one is going to believe you could defeat Gaby.” When the young man opens his mouth in protest, Illya shoves the weapon into his chest. “You are future king of England. Convince us that you deserve to be.”
Gaby has propped herself up to a seated position, daring him to critique her. Illya helps her to her feet and looks down at her softly. “You are excellent,” he tells her, “but your death is not. You need to reconsider your acting choices.”
A shocked, little laugh escapes her before she scowls at him. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. Is overdone and completely unrealistic. To begin with, no one announces their death like that—”
“It’s in the script!”
“—and then, when they are dying, they do not have time to give full monologue.”
“It’s. In. The. Script,” she hisses again. “I can’t just leave it out.”
Illya gives her a flat, almost pitying look for her naivety. “This production has taken every possible ‘liberty’ it can. Please tell me that this is not where you decide to draw the line.”
He cuts her off before she can answer. “Did Vinciguerra say anything when he died? No. It was quick and classy death. He did not cheapen it by giving a speech.”
Gaby tips her head back to look up at him, eyes sparking with anger though her voice is calm. Good, he thinks. She can use that in her performance. “Maybe,” she says a little too sweetly, “it’s because you put a knife between his ribs."
“And you have just been stabbed with a sword. All the more reason to not overstay your welcome.”
He gives her a token of a smile before he claps his hands to get the cast’s attention. Not that he needed to. Illya commands the stage, and after this most recent revelation about his past, the actors appear more than anxious to comply.
“Come,” he announces. “We take it from the top.”
Gaby rolls her eyes, turning on her heel with a scoff. She storms to the foot of the stage where Cowboy seems to suddenly have turned to stone. “What is he doing?” she demands.
“I don’t know, Gaby,” he says slowly, “but I think we’re about to learn Shakespeare the Russian way.”