Work Text:
They are, it seems, to depart Rome together in the morning.
Illya had thought that they’d be based in Europe – his first choice would have been Paris, though his French is awful. Or London, given Waverly’s nationality. Instead, Waverly has said that they’ll be issued quarters in New York – a place that he and Gaby Teller have never even been. He can’t imagine what advantage they’d have there over the United States’ own assets.
Perhaps Napoleon Solo knew the city, though Illya couldn’t work out when he’d have had the time.
Maybe the three of them were that exceptional?
Maybe, but thinking such a thing could get you killed, by nervous superiors or jealous peers; or by the actual job, done cocksure.
It didn’t really matter, did it? Only Gaby had control over her own fate. She could just return to her chop-shop in East Berlin.
So, no choice at all, really.
For his final night in Italy, Illya would have preferred – oh, he didn’t know.
A night at the opera? A glass of wine or two in Piazza Navona?
Instead, he’s chosen to spend the evening following, from a distance, their Miss Gaby, chronologically an adult woman, as she travels from pub to pub.
What she is trying to do will not work. And, as coping mechanisms go – well, there are no old men in Russia, not anymore.
She’s leaving the fourth establishment now, on the arm of a man who, from a distance, seems to be a tourist - no, a businessman, but, from his shoes and hat, Italian, most likely from the north. Perhaps he’d planned to pay for sex, and met Gaby instead.
Illya cannot tell how drunk she is. She’s been at this perhaps 90 minutes, which is long enough…
She slaps the man, and Illya rises. She turns to leave, the man grabs for her arm…
And another man – Napoleon Solo – is there, diverting the first, who flees.
As Illya reaches them, Napoleon has taken the man’s place, and Gaby is no more pleased by him; she shakes Napoleon off, and he steps back.
“Go away,” she says to both of them, “I’m busy.”
Illya wants to tell her that her night is over, but it’s Napoleon who speaks first. “Okay, kiddo,” he say. “I was just passing by. Enjoy your night.”
Illya follows him around a corner. “I think she can go all night,” says Napoleon. “You up for this?”
“No, I do not think that she will last much longer,” says Illya. The other night, he had had not inkling of how close she’d been to oblivion. And he had almost…
Illya suspects that Gaby has no clear memory of that night; he is both grateful and horrified.
Napoleon produces a bit of mirror, deploys it to see around the corner; in a minute they are moving, but not for long. Gaby is not particular.
While they wait, they do not speak.
When she emerges, she is done. She leans against a Renault, her head down, then starts to walk, then sits down hard upon the curb, inelegant, disheveled.
“Here we go,” says Napoleon, and it is he who gets her to her feet, steers her to a bench, arranges her with care, cushions her head with her handbag, drapes his jacket like a blanket.
He then collapses onto a bench adjacent; Illya, with a sigh, joins him.
“You seem very good at this,” he says.
“Maybe I am,” says Solo. “Though usually it takes less subtlety, and usually it’s men. Boys. Men who are still boys. And it’s not always liquor.”
“Your world is very different from mine,” Illya observes.
“And here I pegged you for a softy,” says Solo, and Illya does not know if he is joking.
“The thing is, I actually envy them,” Solo says, more soberly. “Can you imagine thinking that you’ll drink your grief away?”
“If you spend enough time numb, perhaps it doesn’t matter that nothing is ever different in the morning,” Illya says.
“That’s a lot of time numb,” says Solo.
“Decades,” says Illya. “It can take decades to kill you.” But it does. There are no old men in Russia anymore.
“If nothing else does first,” says Napoleon.
Meaning the job, of course.
“What do you think she thinks?” Napoleon asks, surprising him.
“I know she’s scared,” he says. “Even of me, and you moreso.”
“Can we rely on her?”
“Unless she has other instructions.”
“I suppose that that will always be the case,” says Napoleon; and then, “Can I trust you?”
“I do not know if that is wise,” says Illya.
Gaby now stirs, and presses her eyes closed. Is she not asleep? When Napoleon doesn’t move, Illya goes to her and runs his right hand carefully through her hair. “Sleep, my little chop-shop girl,” he says.
Napoleon laughs. “I think she’ll bite your hand off if you do that when she’s sober,” he says.
“Then she’d better stay sober,” says Illya.