"What was so god damned impor----" she froze in mid sentence, seeing him for the first time. He could see the blood drain from her face and the bag she was carrying fell to the floor with a loud thunk.
"Paige." He managed to whisper, hope and fear warring in his chest.
She couldn't breathe, couldn't think. The apparition standing in the archway couldn't possibly be there. She felt her blood turn to ice as she stared at it. Some part of her mind registered her bag hitting the floor.
The hair was more silver than blond, but still in the slightly shaggy style he had always loved. There were lines around the deep blue eyes that still haunted her dreams, the face though, god that face. Then the apparition spoke, "Paige." 'Oh god.' She whimpered. It had his voice. His voice.
"No." she croaked, pain rasping her voice. "Not real."
"Paige." It spoke again and started to move toward her. She backed up, shaking her head in denial.
"No. HE is dead." She hissed finding her strength in the knowledge that this couldn't possibly be him. She clenched her fists against the pain that slammed through her. "I don't know what or who you are but ILLYA IS DEAD."
"Nyet, dushka. Paige, it is me." It whispered. She shook her head once more. God the sound of his voice, the rough smooth velvet was agony to hear. She choked slightly on the scream that threatened in her throat. With a quick motion she ripped off the shades and tossed them at the apparition hoping to dispel it. But it remained.
"Nonononononoo." She chanted as she backed away from the ghost standing in her living room. She didn't register anyone else there, her eyes saw only the spectre from her past. She kept backing away until she could move no further, the wall slamming against her in cold reality. Panic began to replace pain as the apparition refused to vanish. Frantically she cast around for some out, some way to regain her sanity. The apparition continued to move toward her, its movement slightly jerky, which confused her for a moment. Then her eyes registered the crutch that it leaned against, her eyes roved over it, seeing the limp now. A movement behind it drew her eyes and they settled on the other face that haunted her nightmares.
"Napoleon?" she whispered seeking those dark eyes for confirmation before moving back to the man standing in front of her.
"Yes, Paige." Napoleon answered knowing what it was she sought.
"Reality." She breathed stretching her hand out to the dream standing in front of her. Her fingertips brushed against his cheek, the contact bringing a sob from her chest. She ran them up the line of his jaw to skirt around the curl of his ear. Tremors began to course through her as the warmth and solidity of her "ghost" registered. He reached a hand up and caught hers, pressing it against his cheek, he leaned into the caress.
Almost afraid to move she reached out with her other hand and laid it on the chest where she had laid her head so long ago. The thump of his heart pulsed against it and with a deep choking sob she buried her face into his body, wrapping both arms around him tightly. He responded pulling her into an answering embrace, his voice murmuring soft nonsense into her ears. His shoulders shook in time with her cries as he held her, afraid that if he let her go, he would wake and she would be gone.
Napoleon cast his eyes around the room, his own tears denied as he listened to the sounds his best friend was making. He noticed the hastily averted gazes of the young people that lived with her and smiled at them faintly. It was a long time before the couple separated and turned their attention to their audience. Paige wiped her face on her sleeve and chuckled tightly.
"I never could cry beautifully." She looked up at Illya still in a state of shock.
He wiped a tear from her cheek and grinned. "You are still beautiful."
"And you Dr. Kuryakin still need to wear your glasses." She retorted automatically falling back into the banter that had held so much meaning for them. He fished in his jacket pocket and pulled a pair of cheaters out. He slipped them on and smiled at her again wrapping his arm around her waist.
"Still beautiful." Came the answer like always.
"Oh God." she moaned. Her faced blanched and she swayed. Illya caught her tightly and motioned for someone to help him sit her down. Keeper grabbed her by the other arm and they led her to the futon. "This is so- so- unbelievable. I don't know what to say, what to think."
"I understand, dushka." Illya said softly not taking his eyes off her. "So many questions. So many years."
"All this time, I thought you were dead, Illyusha. Hell, I KNEW you were dead." She opened her eyes and looked into his. "I never once suspected that..."
"Tell us what happened." Napoleon suggested softly.
"You told him about Massachusetts?" She asked. Illya nodded.
"Only until they knocked me out. When I came to I was on a transport plane back to Moscow. It took Napoleon two years to find me but he did and brought me out of a Siberian labor camp." Illya looked down at his damaged leg, she followed his eyes and laid her head on his shoulder. "A souvenir." He motioned to the crutch leaning against the futon. "But we couldn't find you."
She smiled tightly and sighed heavily. "I'm not surprised, considering what happened. After they hit you, they put us in separate cars. The head KGB, his name was Sigorsky, kept me with him. He gloated over his luck in capturing the 'great' Illya Kuryakin so easily." Her eyes focused on the opposite wall and her voice grew cold as she talked.
"We drove out into a state park. I don't know where exactly we were, but it was about two hours from the motel. It was just starting to snow again, the storm moving back in, I can remember watching the flakes hit the window while he talked. He went into great detail about what was going to happen when we got wherever we were going." She shivered and he pulled her tight against him once more. "I didn't know what to do. I couldn't fight, they had me handcuffed and I didn't know if you were awake or not. When the cars stopped, I thought that we might have a chance to escape, it was snowing quite heavily by then. But you were still unconscious when they pulled you from the car. Sigorsky was quite upset that you hadn't come around all the way, I think he wanted to gloat a bit more, to enjoy his assignment. He wouldn't let me any where near you, kept me standing beside the car as they pushed you to your knees..."
Massachusetts Woods, December 24, 1969.
Illya hung suspended between the two men as they dragged him into the snow. His face was still covered by the black hood they had forced over his head at the motel. She tried to struggle to his side, but Sigorsky had one of the others hold her at the car. She could see them moving a bit further into the edge of the trees but not far enough where she wouldn't see what was about to happen. Part of her couldn't believe that this was actually happening, surely this was a nightmare and she would wake to find Illya curled next to her in sleep, his arms wrapped around her waist as always. A sick fear began to coalesce as the reality of it all sank into her psyche. Rage and fear pulsed through her with the fear winning out and her blood thickened to ice. She couldn't hear what was being said over the pounding of her heart.
Breathing became an impossibility as they forced Illya to his knees. He began to struggle weakly and she was certain that he spoke, but the pounding of her heart muffled any sounds. Terror began to blanket everything with a sense of unreality and her vision tunneled slightly. Time slowed as Sigorsky pulled the gun from his waistband and placed the barrel against the back of Illya's head. For a moment he looked at her, triumph in his eyes and the world went silent for her. Her vision grayed out for a moment, but the sound of the pistol's report echoing through the woods brought everything to startling crispness.
She was aware that she was screaming, the now limp body of her beloved falling face first into the deepening snow. She never registered her release, only the crimson snowflakes that dusted the black figure laying so still filled her world. She stumbled to him, falling to her knees, still keening shrilly as she gathered his body into her arms. The departure of his executioners just a shadow on her pain...
"I lost track of time." She squeezed Illya's hand slightly stopping her narrative. "Cliche as it sounds."
"We all know how you love cliche." Keeper muttered.
"Fuck you." She said without missing a beat. "I just wanted to curl up and die. You were gone and nothing else mattered." She shook her head at her past actions. "Stupid I know but there you have it. Any how, I lost track of time. It got dark..."
She was slowly freezing to death lying there in the snow with the cold corpse of her beloved husband in her arms. She was aware of the fall of snowflakes against her cooling skin, the dangerous warmth of their touch. Some part of her noted that they weren't melting any more, she knew it was an important discovery but lacked the will to dig the memory out of her mind. The only thing that mattered was the still body she held so tightly. She couldn't bring herself to remove the hood, not wanting to see the ruin of that face. No, she held enough sense to spare herself the hidden damage.
Time passed and it grew dark. The sudden bob and weave of a handheld light blinded her, startling a soft exclamation from her. She flinched away from the torture device, hiding her face in a rigid shoulder. Movement brought someone to kneel beside her, and she could feel a slight warmth as she was turned from Illya's shoulder. She struggled slightly, resisting her rescuer's effort but it was only a brief success. The cold and shock had stripped her strength and she had to allow this person to pull her away from the now frozen corpse.
Voices spoke just beyond her understanding and she was wrapped in a dry coat, carefully picked up and carried out of the woods. The headlights of cars confirmed her rescue and she turned back toward the copse of trees, trying to plead for them to rescue Illya as well. The sight of his body being zipped into a body bag shone clearly in the lights now held by several people and she lost consciousness, unable to process any more.
"There is no record any where of UNCLE retrieving a body." Napoleon said softly when she stopped talking. She looked at him for a long moment then smiled a soft, slightly condescending smile.
"Who said anything about UNCLE?" she whispered. "To say that things changed that night would be a understatement of epic proportions, Napoleon. When I woke up three days and nights later, it was to find myself in a THRUSH facility. Seems an old friend of yours, Angelique, had intercepted the communication that Sigorsky sent to Moscow to confirm the execution. She managed to figure out where he was and got lucky enough to find me."
"I owe her then." Illya said softly. He kissed Shado’s hand gently. "She saved your life."
"Why did you disappear?" Napoleon persisted. Something wasn't adding up, Illya was too wrapped up in finding Paige again to notice it, but there was something they were hiding. He had a feeling that it was something very important.
"I had my reasons Napoleon, most of the based in the fact that I didn't know who to trust. Someone had just killed my husband, you were incommunicado, my father was strangely silent on the whole thing- take your pick. Plus I just wanted to get as far away from everyone as I possibly could. There was nothing in New York for me." she shifted until she could look Illya in the eyes. "I really thought you were dead."
"It's all right, dushka. You couldn't know." He comforted her.
"That doesn't tell me how you found me after all this time. I mean there is no way you could have figured it out. I've been so very careful." She was suddenly worried that their cover was blown and that they were in danger of being caught.
"We got a transmission from Illya's old communicator. Which he says he left in Waverly's office when he left that day." Napoleon said.
"A transmission, communicator? I don’t under---" her sentence trailed off and she slowly turned to the heretofore silent observers of her unfolding drama. Brit waved one hand sheepishly as they all tried to look elsewhere. Napoleon and Illya could almost feel the change come over her as she oh so slowly leaned forward. Her posture was tight and the watching kids cringed.
"Major, would you care to explain how this breach in security came about?" her voice was a whip crack of command catching the agents by surprise.
"Ma'am no ma'am except to say that it was an accident." The one they knew as Mark offered hesitantly.
"That is NOT an explanation Major. I expect an answer."
"Well it was a joint operation, Col. The attic needed insulation therefore we needed to shift stuff from it into the storage in the basement. Your old footlocker accidentally met with an accident, which meant it needed to be emptied as well." He looked around for help. "There was this shoebox, and a photo-"
"Major I am quite aware of the contents of my footlocker." She hissed. "You, all of you, took it upon yourselves to violate my trust, go through my personal kit...and you are still sitting in my house?!" she glared at them long enough to make them all squirm. They knew she had the right to be totally pissed, they just didn't know what form retribution would take. Suddenly she was laughing. "God damn and I thought I had brass balls!"
"Then you aren’t too terribly upset?" Faln ventured hopefully.
"Oh trust me once all this has a chance to sink in, you guys are going to be in serious shit. Consider yourselves warned accordingly." She said shaking her head.
"Dushka?" Illya asked softly. All the anomalies had finally wormed their way through his shock and she looked at him with understanding.
"Babe, so much has changed in the past twenty years. So very much." She laid back for a moment. "Do you trust me Illyusha?" Illya canted his head in thought. "That answers my question right there. You don't know me any more, just like I don't know you any more."
"I want to say that I trust you. I want to." he said just as softly.
"BUT- it would be great if things could go back to the way they were, my love." She traced a finger over his lower lip. "But the reality is this, there are things in both of our lives that make that impossible." She looked at him considering for a moment. "I really hope you can understand if I ask you to give me a bit of time to get used to all this. There is more at stake here than you can imagine." She touched his cheek tenderly. "Just until tomorrow, husband. I'll try to answer all your questions then. Please."
Illya nodded, there was a lot that they both needed to think about. He was reluctant to let her out of his sight, afraid if he did so, she would disappear once more and he would never find her. As if she read his mind, she spoke again.
"I promise I won't run. Just you come back too, ok? I don't want to lose you."