We all remember things that are better to forget.  The look in your eyes, the shape of your hands, even the often innocent wonder in a face that should not still have such a fragile emotion and this is all I can remember. Your voice is soft and sure encased with a wicked steel edge humour that often is lost on those who don't care to listen.

Did I ever tell you Illya? That I listened? To every word you said, to every move you made to every breath you took, because to ignore them was like ignoring the fire in my heart that was life itself? Or that to deny you was the only way left for me, for us?

Do you honestly think I never saw you there? I did my beloved, I saw you and I was scared of what you saw in me.  The face of a friend, the trust in a world where we cannot? Scared of what I would do to you if I failed you and our positions were reversed, 'what if's' ringing in my mind unable to answer the call of your nature to mine and despising myself for not telling you how I feel.

I knew, call it instinct that you would not turn me away.  That sex with me was not an issue, you would give yourself to me and all that I demanded from you and with it you would give your heart and for that my friend I am sorry because I could not take such a sweet gift.  Could not shatter that fragile bird of hope that danced in your breast, nor take the fire from your eyes when I would betray you over and over again with the woman who danced around me like a moth to flame.

The only person I ever wanted to seduce was you, the only heart that I wanted to hear beating against my own was yours, the only pain I could never forgive was the look in your eyes when you knew you couldn't save me.

All these things I remember, and now it's too late to tell you how very much you are loved.  They tell me that you are safe, that sometime soon you'll come back to me and I'll be waiting right here by your side as I've done for this last week.

You look so pale and thin, but then you normally do, it's only your eyes that make you shine and the wicked little smile.  I don't know how long they'll let me sit here by you I can hear the night nurse moving around me now, and I have to find the people who did this to you. I have to have something to occupy my mind because it's just not in me to sit here and watch you drift slowly away from me.

Napoleon stood up and pulled the heavy cashmere coat over broad shoulders and looked down at the broken sleeping form of his partner.  He reached over a hand and brushed back the bangs from his bruised forehead and kissed the parchment like skin, heedless of those who stood and watched.  He trailed his fingers down the side of the beloved face and whispered softly, "Hurry home little one."

Reluctantly he stood and left knowing full well the folly of turning around, his mind was sharp and focused and he vowed that hell would freeze before he would ever give up.

TBC….?????

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