Of all the things I hate doing it would have to be waiting. For planes at
exotic and hot airports built out the back of a Nissan hut, or taxi cabs in
Manhattan in the pouring rain on a Saturday night, or food in over expensive
restaurants where my latest conquest will batt overly made up long lashes at
me, but this, this is far worse.

To be sitting alone, in the commissary on a Thursday afternoon. Let me
check, oh yes, at 3.31 pm. I am of course being emotional and this is one
of the rare occasions I’ll grant you of accepting this, there are dozens of
agents and office staff walking, talking, making polite conversation with
each other, discussing the upcoming picnic Mr. Waverly has organised, around
me. Snippets of a normal life waft past me, and yet still I can do nothing
but watch the door.

It’s been days since I heard through channels he was alive, days more before
he boarded the plane to come home, and still I haven’t talked to him. To
spend more hours alone looking across at the empty desk would only serve to
haunt me and so being the social best I’ve fled to the commissary. He’ll
know where to find me.

Everything that could have gone wrong did, the contact was less than
helpful, the innocent in the mess wasn’t, the transport was all wrong and
then there was the weather, everything that could have gone against us did.
But still he managed to drag himself into the regional office and demand
with cool authority transport back to New York, forthwith.

Two helicopters, one army jet, four buses and now a taxi ride from the base
office in DC and the waiting is driving me insane. I need to see, to know is
part of it, but I need to see him, to know he is alright, I’m not a doubting
Thomas, just that if I see him, I can rest. Bizarre isn’t it? With what we
go through, and the what if’s and the pain and degrees of separation that
deny us sleep, and unreasonably walk through our conscience with the
distaste of a bad dream, only too easily this nightmare of death and despair
can become reality. This dream could actually kill and take him from me,
and I know I would follow.

It’s now 3.45pm and he’s still not here, my fingers push through the spilt
sugar on the brushed metal table and I wonder if the others feel like this.
The lonely vigil of the partner and comrade left behind like an abandoned
lover, waiting simply for the caress of a voice that can soothe the hurt.
I’m watching them now, the agents that have just come in from assignment who
sit with haunted eyes, faces shadowed in pain and loss, others a weary smile
and nod of the head as they finally, finally relax. And I wonder why we do
it of if we can ever stem the tide and win.

Oh God, he’s watching me. He’s back, the dark clothes scuffed with mud, the
bright shock of blond hair mussed and discoloured from the long ride home,
but he’s alive and whole as I nod and walk so slowly towards him. No words
are needed, he’s home and I know for the moment that as the battles rage
around us, this one, I’ve won.

 

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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.