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Disclaimer:
This page is an unofficial site that exists only for the fun of it. All characters and situations from the television show "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." are property of Norman Felton and Warner Bros. Nothing ill is intended by this use of any television characters in these amateur efforts. Any fiction linked to these pages is the intellectual property of the amateur author who created it and is not presented here for profit.

Classification: T for Teen (or used to be PG-13 or so)

Author's Notes: Just because she's too good to be true, does that
make her a problem?

Pairing: Unknown

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“Well?”

Illya shrugged his shoulders in answer.

“So we pass her?” Napoleon pushed.

He looked over the dossier. Everything was in order. Everything checked out.
If she was THRUSH, she was so confident in her cover there was no way to
shake her here. He closed the file and frowned slightly as he met his
partner’s questioning gaze. “We pass her. We can’t do anything else.”

That wasn’t strictly true. They could kill her, feed her the amnesia drug or
simply fail her. Any of which would be a shame is she was genuine, and there
was nothing but a gut feeling to say that she wasn’t. The problem was, his
gut wasn’t saying she wasn’t UNCLE material, it was saying that she was
lying about something.

He met Napoleon’s look again and shrugged again. “I can’t pinpoint it.
Something is ‘off’. I have no idea what.”

“Two options: Assign her to New York or assign her to the smallest, least
likely to encounter problems office we have.”

“New York.”

“You really are expecting trouble.”

Illya sighed and shook his head. “Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies
closer. Old Russian saying.”

While the Russian was frequently cryptic, this was going interesting places
even for him. Napoleon looked over the dossier, nodded and made his
recommendation that Cheri Christiana Yuconovich be assigned to the New York
office through her probationary period.

"Still suspicious?"

"Of course."

Napoleon laughed. "Good. She's a hard worker." He nodded to his nearly
pristine desk.

"She is, what's the word?"

"Brown-nosing?"

Illya snorted in response. "Not that bad. But knows which side the bread has
been buttered."

"That's an odd observation."

The Russian's frown deepened, then faded. "She is.. adaptable."

"You don't trust her." Napoleon was trying hard to fathom what Illya
perceived about the new agent that he did not.

The younger man leaned back in his chair with a shake of his head and relaxed.
"I don't know. All I know is that she is not what she says. There is not just the case
of who and what we are, but something more?" He knew he wasn't making a lot of
sense to his partner. Still, Cheri put him on edge and he wasn't certain he wished to know
enough to find out whether he should accept her or not. He struggled with that very
confused thought, translated it into his mother tongue and was no more satisfied
with that than with the English. "Maybe I'm seeing things where there is nothing to see."

"And maybe you're seeing things no one else is," Napoleon countered.
"You frequently do, my friend."

"˜My friend.' The words distracted Illya from his quandary over Cheri. There
was no accounting for how much that simple phrase from his partner made his life
warmer. He hadn't come to the US looking for friends. Caring made life so much more
dangerous... and so much more worth living.

Cheri declined to join the others for dinner, taking the containers
from Illya with a breathless thank you and retreating behind a closed
and locked door. He could hear her cough, then silence. Troubled, he
returned to the room he was sharing with Napoleon.

"Not joining us?"

"No. The cough is worse."

"Emergency Room?"

"Not yet. Check on her in a while." He tucked into his food and let
silence fall.

A while later, Napoleon displayed the contents of his pockets. All of
the items he carried, including his UNCLE pen, looked ancient, eaten
away. His skin and his clothing were unmarred, although the wetting
had ruined his suit just as immersion in water would have.

Illya examined each item and shook his head. "You are feeling no ill
effects?"

"I didn't inhale any of the stuff. Or get it in my mouth."

"Ingestion could make a major difference. Just the consistency could
explain the lung problem. We should leave now."

"If we were being chased, I'd agree. There aren't any flights out of
Bangor until 6am."

"Hospitals?"

"Like you said, we'll check on her. You have a key?"

Illya nodded and produced the spare he'd picked up. "Connecting doors
would have made more sense, but they did not have them next to each
other."

Napoleon correctly deciphered this as the reason they were across the
hall from Cheri. "Get some rest. I'll take first watch." Now why had
he phrased it that way? The problem was handled. Only the THRUSH
operatives were still loose. They'd reported their findings and the
subsequent proceedings to New York as he drove. Waverly had seemed
un-phased by their decision not to pursue THRUSH. That brought up
questions.