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Gaby leans back against the thick embroidered sofa that dominates most of Illya’s hotel room and thumbs through the file in her lap. It’s thick, thicker than most of the files U.N.C.L.E. sends them, and she sees photos, redacted documents, and long tracts of data that is going to take hours to read. She huffs a sigh, says, “And when does Waverly want us to be in Edinburgh?”
“Two days,” Napoleon answers from where he’s lounging against the minibar, unopened file hanging from his hand. “We’re booked onto a flight tomorrow afternoon, so that’s a whole night and morning of fun in the Big Apple without the bosses breathing over our shoulders.”
Illya’s slumped in the armchair next to the window. There are bruised shadows under his eyes and a tired downturn in the corners of his mouth. “If it is alright with you, Cowboy,” he says, “for that night and morning, I will sleep. This has been a… trying mission.”
He’s not wrong. Whenever Gaby moves, her back aches from where she was slammed into a brick wall by the force of an exploding car, and the friction burns and lacerations up her right arm are still scabbing over under her sleeve. Her injuries are practically nothing compared to Illya’s, who’s come away with at least three cracked ribs and a mild concussion: that’s all that he let the medics tend to before he shooed them away, sending them to Gaby who promptly shooed them back again. Solo’s similarly banged up—a dark purple bruise blossoming across his cheek, blood soaked into the shirt that he still hasn’t changed out of, a limp whenever he puts too much weight on his right leg—but that doesn’t stop him from practically pouting. “You’re no fun, Peril.”
Illya gives him a weary look. “I am so sorry,” he says dryly.
Napoleon’s eyes practically sparkle. “No matter,” he says. “I’m sure we can find something to do that doesn’t involve leaving the hotel.”
Gaby decides that it’s probably best to just ignore their flirting. It’s not that she minds, of course not, because they’re possibly the most adorable couple she’s come across, but sometimes they do seem to forget that she’s in the room with them. She flicks through the file Waverly faxed over, peering at a couple of photos of a young bearded man with his arm around an older woman in a thick woollen jumper, then moves onto the front page, to the rough description of the course of events. Mostly surveillance and information-gathering, which is good considering how beat up the three of them currently are, but there’s a couple of notes at the bottom about already-gathered facts, about things they need to know, about people they need to meet before they get on that plane to Scotland. Maybe not so much fun in New York as Napoleon’s looking for.
Gaby looks up, suppresses a smile at the light grip Illya has on Napoleon’s roving hand, says, “Not to burst your bubble, but there’s a CIA contact we need to rendezvous with before we leave. Apparently he’s got information we need, but is refusing to co-operate with U.N.C.L.E. HQ.”
Neither of her partners look particularly surprised. U.N.C.L.E. is comparatively new on the international stage, and some of the older organisations still look down their nose at the new kid on the block, despite the pedigree of agents that Waverly has so far managed to snatch out from under the noses of outfits including but not limited to the CIA, the KGB, Mossad and Waverly’s own MI6. “So what’s the play?” Napoleon asks. “Breaking and entering?” He winces, probes at the bruise on his cheek. “Not sure I’m up for anything less conspicuous.”
Gaby shakes her head. “According to the file,” she says, “he’s agreed to meet with you, Napoleon. Says he knows you, that he might be convinced to trust you—” She quotes. “—‘with the right persuasion’.”
Napoleon frowns. He’s deposited his own copy of the file on the minibar in favour of harassing Illya, and he says, “Is there a name?”
Gaby glances back down at the file. “David Mann,” she reads out. “I don’t have a rank.”
Napoleon drops Illya’s hand, goes and retrieves the file. He flips it open to the page Gaby’s looking at, skims the information – and if Gaby didn’t know better, didn’t know Napoleon almost as well as she knows herself by now, she’d think that there was something almost small in the hunch of his shoulders. Napoleon nods, snaps the file shut. “Mann,” he says, and there’s a familiarity in the way the name rolls off his tongue. “I know him. I should be able to get what we need.”
Napoleon’s hands aren’t clenched. His shoulders aren’t tight, his lips aren’t pressed together. Everything about him is a studied picture of smoothness.
Gaby closes the file carefully. “How do you know Mann?” she asks, because she’s only seen Napoleon like this a handful of times before, when he’s hiding something that he doesn’t want them to know, that he won’t tell them until it’s too late and there’s already gunfire around their ears. She knows she can’t push him. She knows he has to be the one to tell.
Napoleon’s expression is open and honest. “He was one of the guys who caught me,” he says wryly, and oh, maybe that’s it. Napoleon’s understandably not a fan of talking about the slip-up that got him pressed firmly under the CIA’s thumb, and he says, “He kept in touch over the years, sometimes spoke up for me when Sanders was being a particularly large asshole.”
Gaby blinks, and her fingers tighten around the edge of her file. Napoleon doesn’t tend to swear when they’re not in immediate danger, when there aren’t bullets whizzing over their heads, so for even that to slip out now? She shifts on the embroidered sofa, feels the ache of her back, the pull of her arm. “Napoleon,” she says, softer than she really means to. “Are you okay to do this?”
Napoleon’s expressing doesn’t change, doesn’t shift. He’s still smooth, still relaxed. “I’m fine, Gaby,” he answers, and tucks the file under his arm. “I’ll go arrange a meeting with Mann, see if I can get all of this sorted out tonight.” He goes back to where Illya’s sitting, ruffles a hand through his hair, says, “Get some sleep, Peril, you’re looking like you need it. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Illya glances up at him, but there’s exhaustion written all through his body. “Do you need backup?” he asks, and takes Napoleon’s hand, squeezes.
Napoleon smiles, but there’s a coldness to his smile that worms its way into Gaby’s stomach. “No,” he says. “The guy’s CIA. I’ll be fine.”
Illya nods, squeezes Napoleon’s hand again. “Safe night,” he says.
Napoleon’s hand lingers over Illya’s shoulder, just for a moment, like he’s not sure what to do with it. He pulls it back, after a second, then looks up at Gaby, gives her a smile that she’s pretty sure is meant to soothe her nerves. “Sleep well,” he says. “Leave this to me.”
He goes, and even as the door is closing behind him his shoulders are still unhunched, still level.
Illya’s slumped even lower in his armchair, now. His expression is slack, blank, empty of everything except pure tiredness, and, if Gaby’s honest, that’s not surprising. Yes, all three of them have been battered and bashed these past few days, but she knows for a fact that Illya hasn’t slept for more than ten minutes in over three days, and the whole climbing up the side of a three-storey building to get Napoleon out probably didn’t help. He should probably be going into hospital rather than heading to the UK for another life-or-death, end-of-the-world U.N.C.L.E. mission – but Gaby can’t exactly do much about that. What she can do something about, though, is tonight.
She puts the file to one side, goes to Illya and shakes him lightly by the shoulders. “Come on,” she says gently. “Time for bed. I’ll come and wake you tomorrow in plenty of time for us to get the flight, so until then, just sleep.” She pauses, just a moment, then adds, quieter, “I’ll keep an eye on Napoleon.”
It’s a mark of how exhausted Illya really is that he goes without argument. It’s another mark against him that he doesn’t notice Gaby taking his tracker from underneath his bed.
Gaby leaves Illya to sleep in the dimness of his room and heads back to her own suite, two floors up and six doors along. Inside, she sits crosslegged on her bed, mission file open to the data on David Mann, Illya’s tracker switched on in front of her, and she watches Napoleon’s blip. Both of them are fully aware of the fact that Illya regularly bugs their rooms and their person—she’s still wearing the tracker ring that Illya gave her, although it didn’t seem quite right to keep it on her left ring finger after Illya started spending most of his nights in Napoleon’s bed—but, to be honest, it’s easier to just let him. He’s not going to stop, and sometimes it even comes in handy.
Like today.
Gaby watches Napoleon’s blip, and eventually figures out from the confusing layout of Illya’s Cyrillic-labelled tracker that he’s still in his hotel room. That’s good. That’s good. She twiddles one of the knobs on the tracker, pulls out the aerial, and plays around with the settings until she picks up on the audio that’s being broadcast from Napoleon’s room. She can hear footsteps and soft jazz, so she settles back against her headboard, gathers the file into her lap, and starts to read.
She’s halfway through the thick file, already absorbed in the intricacies of the life of one Gordon Macpherson, when a knock sounds at her door. She jumps, snaps the file shut, but then there’s the sound of a door being opened and she realises that no, that’s not a knock at her door, that’s a knock at Napoleon’s door. She shakes herself, picks up the tracker, rests it in her lap.
“Agent Mann,” Napoleon says smoothly. “I didn’t expect you so quickly.”
“I was waiting, Agent Solo,” a second voice says, and Gaby’s guessing that’s Mann. His voice is deeper than Napoleon’s with a thicker American accent, and he says, “After your handler got in touch, I figured that it wouldn’t take you long to call.” A pause, and then, deeper, quieter: “I always have time for my favourite agent.”
Gaby does not like that tone of voice. Something’s curling in her gut, now, something she doesn’t want to understand, and she hears Napoleon say, brisk and businesslike, “My handler tells me that you have information that will be helpful in our upcoming mission.”
“I do.” There’s a rustling, then a snap that sounds like a briefcase being opened. “There you go,” Mann says. “All the data I have from three years surveillance on Macpherson. Nasty chap, but I was never able to complete my assignment. Hope you can get him before they pull you off it, too.”
“I don’t think U.N.C.L.E. will pull us off mid-mission,” Napoleon says. “They tend to be keen on completion.”
“I’m sure they are,” Mann says. “This U.N.C.L.E. of yours is making quite a name, nowadays. Pulling off some big operations. I’ve been keeping an eye on their progress, because I’d hate to think that my favourite agent—” Said with that same strange deepness. “—was being wasted at a second-rate organisation. Good to see that that’s not the case.”
“Yes, well,” Napoleon says, voice tight, and that’s strange because that’s the kind of thing that he should really have a witty, biting retort for, something that would make this CIA pig back down and think again about whatever he was going to say next.
Gaby blinks, sits back. She’s not quite sure when she got this worked up, but her pulse is thudding in her ears and her cheeks are pinked with something she can’t quite define. It might almost be fear.
“I don’t want to keep you,” Napoleon says, the image of politeness. “Sure you’re a busy man, and I have a mission to prep for.”
Mann chuckles, deep and dark and dangerous. “Now, now, Solo,” he says. “Not so fast. I told your handler, that British creep, that I wasn’t about to give up this information for just anything – and that still holds. I’m not that fond of you.”
Napoleon’s voice is tight. “What do you want?”
“I think you know what I want, Napoleon,” Mann says, and the weight that’s curled into Napoleon’s name, into the play of the syllables and the thickness of the timbre, well, it turns Gaby’s stomach. She doesn’t like this. She doesn’t like it one bit, and Mann says, “You know the rules. Every time you’re in New York, you come to me. Every time, and that doesn’t stop just because you’re not under Sanders’ thumb anymore.”
“I’m not CIA anymore,” Napoleon says. His voice is twisted, bitter, and abruptly Gaby remembers that smallness in his shoulders, how, just for a second, he hunched in on himself, almost like he was hiding from the world. “You haven’t got a hold over me anymore, Mann. You’ve given me the intel, and I can goddamn well take it from you.”
“I’ve told you before,” Mann says, half purr, half steel. “When we’re like this, you call me David.”
“We’re not doing – this.” Gaby doesn’t miss the hesitation before the pronoun. She doesn’t want to believe, but her fingers are clenched in the fabric of her skirt. She’s not stupid. She knows that this business runs on fear, violence and sex, and that sometimes the lines between the three are so very, very blurred.
“Oh, really?” Mann asks, liquid honey. “We’re not? Because I thought you liked working for U.N.C.L.E., working with these new partners of yours. What are their names? Gaby, the pretty girl. And that Commie beast.”
“Don’t talk about them.”
“Ah,” Mann drawls. “You do care about them. I thought as much.” He pauses, and Gaby hears the shift of fabric, the rustle of footsteps. Mann’s moved closer, would be her guess, and then he’s saying, “Technically, you’re still on loan to U.N.C.L.E. from the CIA, but that’s only because, for now, it suits our interests to let your British boss deal with you. But that means that, if I pull enough strings, I can get that loan revoked. I can force U.N.C.L.E. to send you back, and you’d never see your precious partners again.” There’s a moment of silence, a long moment of silence.
Gaby’s heart is beating in her chest so hard she thinks her ribs might crack.
“So,” Mann finally says. “Napoleon.” Laden with sweetness, with honey. “Are you ready to play?”
Gaby’s frozen in place, file spread across her bed, tracker on her knees, and her nails are scratching deep into the expensive bedspread.
“Yes,” Napoleon says, and his voice is raw.
“Good,” Mann says, smug and satisfied. “You know how I like you when you’re all bruised up like this.” A hiss of pain, definitely Napoleon, and Gaby can just imagine Mann’s fingers dug into Napoleon’s cheek, into the purple-black of his bruised skin. “Now,” Mann says. “Get on your knees.”
That’s enough.
Gaby surges up off her bed, crosses the room in three strides and grabs at the phone. She dials down to reception, and before the woman on the desk has even had a chance to answer, she barks, “Get me room four-oh-six.”
The woman splutters something that might be “Yes, ma’am.”, and then the dial tone sounds in Gaby’s ear.
From Illya’s tracker, she can hear the phone ringing in Napoleon’s suite.
There’s a pause, and then Napoleon says, “I have to—”
“Answer the damn phone,” Mann replies, clearly irritated.
Footsteps. Tense breathing. And then—
“Hello?” Napoleon’s voice sounds in Gaby’s ear and from the tracker on her bed.
“Agent Solo,” Gaby says, forcing her voice to stay calm and clear. “Something urgent has come up. I need you in my suite immediately.”
Napoleon’s quiet for a second, and then he says, “On my way.”
Gaby puts down the phone with far too much force than is strictly necessary, and ignores the fact that the plastic handset now has a thick crack running down the middle. Illya’s tracker is still transmitting, and from the other side of the room she hears Napoleon say, “That was my partner, Gaby. She needs me.”
“She can wait.” There’s a dangerous thickness in Mann’s voice.
“She can’t,” Napoleon says, and his voice is back his usual smoothness, now, cool and calm. “Raincheck?”
Gaby doesn’t like that.
“Fine,” Mann says sharply. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning, Solo. Don’t keep me waiting.” A pause, and then, thick, lascivious: “Don’t change. I like the blood.”
Gaby can’t listen to anything else. She slams the tracker off and fights the urge to hurl the damn thing across the room.
There’s a knock at her door four minutes later, and when she opens it Napoleon’s stood there, expression studiedly blank. If she looks, she swears she can see fingermarks dug into his cheek, and he says, “You called?”
“Come in,” Gaby says.
Napoleon walks past her, and he’s still shot through with that infuriating looseness. He comes to a stop in the middle of her suite, glances around as she’s closing the door – and Gaby sees the moment he stiffens. He’s staring into her bedroom, right at her bed, at the file and the tracker, and Gaby feels the coldness chill through her stomach, bitter and acid.
When Napoleon speaks, his voice is hard. “I told you to leave it.”
“How could I?” Gaby spits. “You were acting like you’d just seen a ghost. Not subtle. Not like you.”
Napoleon rounds on her. “It’s none of your business,” he bites.
“You’re my partner,” she bites back. “It’s my business if some CIA pig is—”
“Gaby,” Napoleon snaps. “I got the information from Mann. Anything else that happens is for the good of the mission.”
“The good of the mission?” Gaby repeats, incredulous. “I heard all of that, Napoleon, everything he said to you.” She pauses, and her heart is pounding so very hard in her ears. “How long has this been going on for?”
A muscle twitches in Napoleon’s jaw. “Stop.”
“How long?” Gaby insists.
Napoleon’s stiff, rigid, but she can see from the blueness of his eyes that he’s going to talk. There’s silence for a long, long moment, but then Napoleon’s shoulders slump, his hands unclenched, and he says, “Since they caught me.”
Outrage floods through Gaby’s throat. “Ten years?”
Napoleon’s fingers twitch. “Yes,” he says, flat and angry. “Ten years. Because being a thief on the CIA’s leash isn’t exactly all fun and games, you know? I was stuck with a handler that hated me and colleagues who thought I was only a step above the criminals they spent their time catching. I needed protection, and he could give me it.” He pauses. “If I had to give him something in exchange, well, then that’s a sacrifice I was willing to make.”
“Sex,” Gaby says flatly. “You gave him sex.”
Napoleon looks away. “It’s done, Gaby,” he says. “It’s over. I’m not CIA anymore, and this is just a one-time thing. I’ll just get through it, and then—”
“Napoleon,” Gaby says, gentler. “I heard what he said. He’s not going to let you go. You have to—”
“What?” Napoleon snaps. “I have to do what? Refuse him? Then I get dragged back to the CIA, away from you, away from Illya. So what, should I kill him? I’d have the whole CIA on my tail. What choice do I have but to just let him take whatever the hell he wants?” He’s shaking, hands balled into fists at his sides, skin pale and clammy. He’s on the edge, and this is worse than Gaby’s ever seen him before.
“You can’t let him do this to you,” Gaby says. “You can’t.” She pauses, throat thick, and she knows it’s a low blow but it’s all she’s got left. She says, “Are you going to tell Illya?”
Napoleon’s jaw clamps shut. “Illya can’t know,” he says sharply. “He can’t.”
“Why not?” Gaby says thinly. “You’re telling me all this. Why can’t you tell Illya? What, do you think he might not like it? The idea of some asshole using you like that?” There’s a fire in her voice, a fire that’s been glowering in her gut ever since she read the name out of the file. “And you think I do like it? You think I could possibly just sit by and let this happen? He’s raping you, Napoleon!”
Napoleon visibly flinches. “Don’t say that word.”
“What, rape?” Gaby asks. “Why not? That’s what it is, that’s what’s happening here – and I am not okay with some CIA bastard raping you just because you think he has some kind of control over you.”
“He does have control over me,” Napoleon grinds out. “You heard that, too. He can get me away from U.N.C.L.E., and that can’t happen.” His voice is softer, softer. “I won’t let that happen. I’d give anything to not lose you.”
There’s a rawness in his tone, an openness, and it’s so unlike Napoleon that Gaby wants to scream. “I won’t let that happen,” she says. “I can’t.”
Napoleon’s eyes are bleak. “`I don’t see how there’s anything you can do about it,” he answers.
Gaby’s jaw tightens. “Watch me.”
Napoleon leaves without another word, not of censure, not of thanks, and Gaby can’t get the sight of him, hunched and angry and bitter, out of her head. When the door slams behind him, she takes a breath, takes another, then goes to work. She picks up the now-cracked handset, puts in an outside number, listens to the dial tone. Two rings and a voice picks up: “London Bridge Radio Communications, how may I help you?”
“I’m interested in the latest Waverly model,” Gaby says. “Specifically, seven-six-charlie-oh-bravo. Can you help?”
A pause, then: “I’ll just put you through.”
Another few rings.
Gaby clenches and unclenches her fist, examines the fingernail marks in her palm, forces herself to bring her breathing under control. Panic and anger won’t do a damn thing.
“Miss Teller,” Waverly’s cut-glass tones say.
“Sir,” Gaby answers, crisp as she can manage. “Sorry to call like this on an unsecured line.”
“Quite alright,” Waverly says. “Is this about the Macpherson file?”
“No,” Gaby says. “Sir, I’m sorry about this, but I need to ask you a favour.”
Gaby doesn’t sleep that night, despite the ache in her back and the pain in her arm. She spends half an hour on the phone to Waverly, and then when he hangs up with a lick of anger threaded through his voice, she goes back to the tracker, switches it on again and looks for Napoleon’s blip. He’s not in his room, not in Illya’s either, not that she’s hugely surprised, and she cross-references the tracker’s co-ordinates with a map of the city. Waverly calls her back before she’s done, gives her details and asks a few more questions – and after that she couldn’t sleep even if she wanted to, so she paces through her suite, kicks cushions around the floor and spends twenty minutes contemplating whether heavy drinking is at all a good idea.
The final call comes through when the sun is peeking over the horizon.
“It’s done.” Waverly’s tone is hard. “Had to burn a lot of bridges at the CIA and the FBI, but it’s done.” He pauses, then: “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Miss Teller. This sort of thing is… unacceptable. Utterly unacceptable.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Gaby says, and can’t quite quell the warmth that’s spreading through her gut.
“I assume that this will not affect the Macpherson mission?”
“Of course not, sir,” Gaby answers. “We will be on the plane at the assigned time, and will rendezvous with you in Edinburgh.” She pauses, and then: “If I could ask one more thing, sir?”
“Go ahead.”
Gaby looks out the window at the rising sun, at its stain across the roofs of New York. “I know this is being kept out of official U.N.C.L.E. records,” she says. “Could I also ask that it could be kept from Illya, too?”
Waverly is quiet for a moment. “You want to keep this from your partner?” he asks.
“Yes,” Gaby says. “Yes, I do. Illya is… protective of Solo, of us both. He would not react well to this, even knowing that it’s done.” What she doesn’t say, of course, is that she knows Illya loves Napoleon even if he doesn’t know it himself, and she knows full well that if Illya knew even the smallest part of this, he would lose it, lose it worse than he has ever lost it before. There’s only so much anger he can express by breaking hotel rooms before he progresses to breaking people, and one person in particular. David Mann is an abuser of power and an abuser of people, but that doesn’t mean that there would be no consequences for killing him. Napoleon was right. Illya can’t know, because Illya can deal with a lot of things but, with his history, with his mother, this is not one of them.
Thing is, though, Waverly probably knows all of that already. “Alright, Miss Teller,” he says. “This stays between us. And Mr Solo, of course.”
“Of course,” Gaby says. “Thank you, sir.”
“For my best agents?” Waverly says. “Anything.”
Gaby puts the phone down, smoothes her thumb across the crack in the plastic, and turns away.
At eight in the morning, she goes to Napoleon’s room. She knocks sharply, then takes a step back, takes a breath. She’s tired, so tired, after missions and fear and anger, and she’s so close to crashing, she knows that – but not yet. Not yet.
Napoleon opens the door, shadows heavy under his eyes. He’s still wearing the same shirt he’s been wearing for two days, sweaty and bloody and creased, and the neck is pulled open, exposing Napoleon’s collarbone, the fine skin of his chest. It’s a move that Gaby recognises, a move calculated to seduce and attract, and that twists her stomach. Napoleon’s lips thin when he sees her, and he says, “Gaby, get out of here. I don’t want you to see this.”
Gaby doesn’t think about the bitterness that curdles in her gut at the sight of him, battered and bruised and just waiting. She breezes past him into his room, says, “See what? I was hoping we could go out, see the sights. I’ve never been to New York before, and I’d like to see some of it without having a gun to my head.”
Napoleon’s eyes are bitter. “Gaby,” he says. “We’ve already had this conversation. Please don’t make us have it again.”
“Yes,” Gaby says. “Yes, we had this conversation. And then I went and had another conversation with Waverly.”
Something spasms across Napoleon’s face. “You did what?”
“I talked to Waverly,” Gaby says, “about Mann. About what he did.”
Napoleon’s face goes white. “Why would you do that?” he hisses. “Why would you tell our boss—”
“Because he can help,” Gaby interrupts sharply. “Because he has helped. Because he’s fixed this.”
Napoleon’s forehead furrows. “What?” he barks. “What are you talking about?”
Gaby takes a breath, a long breath. “David William Mann,” she says, slow and careful, enunciating every single syllable because this is true, this is real, this is happening, “is no longer an agent with the CIA.”
Napoleon looks like he’s been punched in the face. Gaby knows, because it’s a look she’s seen before. “What?”
“Irregularities in his paperwork,” Gaby says, smart as the report she knows is currently sitting on the director of the CIA’s desk. “Significant irregularities. Meddling in cases, suppressing evidence, inappropriate treatment of on-mission assets. More importantly, siphoning off CIA funds for his own personal use.” She smiles a grim smile. “Higher ups always tend to be more interested in the money than the people behind it.”
Napoleon’s shaking his head. “No,” he says. “No, I know Mann. He’d never take money from the organisation, no, he’s too much of a patriot for that.” Scorn, laced through his voice.
Gaby shrugs. “Not relevant,” she says.
Napoleon’s eyes narrow. “What did you do?”
“Me? Nothing.” Gaby smiles. “I don’t have the necessary contacts. Waverly, on the other hand?” She shrugs.
There’s a brightness starting to shine in Napoleon’s eyes, a brightness that Gaby hasn’t seen since she read that damn name from that damn file. “If this is a joke,” he says, and his voice is thick, half-choked.
Gaby reaches out, grabs his hand, feels his fingers wind through hers involuntarily. “It’s not a joke,” she says. “I would never joke about this, you know that.”
Napoleon cups her cheek, brushes his thumb across her skin. She can feel him trembling even though he looks as steady as he always does, and the morning sun shines off the greening bruise on his cheek as he says, “You don’t know what you’ve done for me. You don’t know what this means.”
Gaby thinks about the look on Napoleon’s face when he heard that name, about the fear in his eyes when he saw Illya’s tracker on Gaby’s bed, thinks about Get on your knees and I like the blood. “I would do anything for you,” she says. “You are my partner, our partner.”
Consternation flickers through Napoleon’s eyes. “Illya,” he says.
Gaby shakes her head. “Illya doesn’t know,” she says. “Illya won’t know.”
Napoleon’s lips twist. “I don’t like you keeping secrets for me,” he says. “Especially not from Illya.”
Gaby shrugs, covers the hand that’s touching her face. “Like I said,” she says, and smiles a smile that’s not quite bittersweet. “Anything.”
Napoleon’s face is a mess, a picture, a skein of confusion and hope and fear that breaks Gaby’s heart – and for once in his life, he seems to be at a loss for words. There’s a smile growing on his lips, broad and face-cracking, and before Gaby really knows what’s happening he’s hugging her, crushing her to his chest, his face buried in her hair and he’s saying, “Thank you. Thank you.”
Gaby closes her eyes, holds him tight, and doesn’t need to say a word.
finis