by Kei

"Is there still a challenge!"

Though Sergei's booming voice was directed at everyone and no-one, first in Russian and then in English, all eyes turned to the unrepentant Fyodr and his small group, both damning them all and daring them all in the same cold glance. The tension became suffocating. "Bah!" Fyodr spat the word out like bitter bile, and, turning imperiously on his heal, stalked angrily from the gathering place, followed by his men.

Napoleon exhaled heavily as though an invisible weight had been lifted from his -*now*...he could breathe. He felt Illya's smaller hand surreptitiously close around his own, warm and reassuring. "Tovarisch..." The American U.N.CL.E. agent turned toward the small, almost delicate voice that unerringly cut through his troubled reverie. Tanya, her tears dried, met his eyes evenly -indeed, it was as if the small elfin face was but a mask for a maturity that had no age. "Do you understand, Solo
-friend of Pierun, what has happened here?"

A small voice seemed to whisper in the back of Napoleon's brain. "A...test?"

"Da..." Misha said with that same curious maturity as if the boy was somehow older than he. "A test in which you and our Pierun triumphed, and Fyodr and his house failed...a test of faith." The boy seemed to study the older man with mounting curiosity and then, satisfaction. "And do you, Solo -friend of Pierun, understand why *you* are here?"

Napoleon knew this question was important, perhaps more important than any he had had to answer in the past. He knew part of it. He knew that, at first, his concern for the partner who had become his friend had driven him to seek answers he didn't have. He *knew* that that friendship had grown into a love that had demanded that he follow when logic had said that he should stay away. He knew--  Napoleon's dark brown eyes met and locked with the crystalline blue eyes of his partner, with Illya, holding there for a seeming eternity, before he once again met the stern twin gazes of two children who somehow made him feel as though *he* were the child. "I'm here ...because I belong here."

"Yes." Twin, elfin faces smiled. "In ancient days, when the battle between the forces of darkness and light was still young, ancient evil gained one victory in that many of the ancient houses under the order of the Light were scattered, disbursed to the four corners of the Earth, forgetting with the passage of time, their purpose." Misha turned to his sister. "But," she
said, "the Enemy failed to realize that by and by, when the time was right, we of the ancient houses would be drawn here to this place...to this battle nonetheless by the instinct that is our birthright."

Solo's voice stuck in his throat,  that small part of him that held feebly onto old preconceptions as yet struggling not to let go of them. "Napoleon..." Illya's soft voice broke through the last of the confusion."You knew to be here, you ultimately knew the words of the ancient custom and of the ceremony even though you were never taught them...even though you could not know *why* you knew. Napasha...no-one that is here is not a member of one of the ancient houses under the order of the Light...even the scattered houses. A thousand lifetimes before or today, you have been, you are, and you always will be a part of us...a part of me."

Another piece of the puzzle fell into place at that moment and Napoleon Solo, lover of many and yet always alone, felt that small empty place that had always ached hollowly within his heart suddenly filled as he gathered his slight, blonde partner into his arms and carried him to the bed even as the curtains were drawn, allowing them both privacy in this one thing. He drew a hand through the golden silk of Illya's hair as he laid him gently against the pillows, one last, fleeting shadow of uncertainty passing before the brown eyes. "We do this only for duty then?"

"Nyet...lyubov. Never only that." Illya drew the larger man closer, his own eyes bright. "We do this for love."
 
 

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