Missing scene:

Second season episode

The Children's Day Affair

Synopsis of episode:

The Children's Day Affair is an episode that Solo and Illya go to secure a site for a conference of the Western Hemisphere Section One UNCLE leaders. They run into a boy's school where the boys are trained as THRUSH assassins. Illya gets captured and whipped by the head mistress, Mother Fear. Napoleon later goes in to find evidence and accidentally finds Illya. Napoleon stays to help him. All the while they are being monitored and the head mistress informs her class that Solo's flaw was staying to help his friend.  Solo is captured, too. Later they escape and save the day. This really needed an epilogue.

CHILD'S PLAY

By

G M

---

early December '65

"Mmmm."

Instinctively, Napoleon Solo's eyes snapped open. Seconds passed while he lay still, aware of all around him, assessing the environment while his right hand gripped the stock of the Walther under his pillow. In those fractional instances he remembered exactly where he was, what was happening and who was moaning.

"Mmmm."

Sitting up, Solo stared across the small aisle between the narrow hotel beds. Illya Kuryakin was bunched in a tangle of blankets and sheets. From the pale light of street lamps peeking through the slate blinds he could see that the injured man was sweating. Dream or pain? Considering the last few days it could be either or both.

With a sigh of frustrated distress, Napoleon slid out of bed and knelt on the thin, patchy carpet. Gently, carefully, he lightly placed his hand on Illya's warm forehead. Fever. Not too high, but making sleep uncomfortable. He glanced at the travel clock on the nightstand. The luminescent dial showed it nearly three AM. Not time for more aspirin yet. Typically, Illya had refused any advanced medical aide; insisting simple, local applications were sufficient.

Napoleon had urged -- very forcefully -- that his partner go to a doctor. Mother Fear's lashes had broken the skin in some places on Illya's back. The whipping had raised severe welts and caused an incredible amount of pain. Even through his agony the Russian had stoically done his duty and completed their mission to save the UNCLE summit leaders. Afterwards the burning hurt of the stripes, the bruised skin and muscles, the ache down to the bone, caught up with the injured agent. While they were ordered back to New York immediately, they would not start the arduous train journey back to Geneva for another day.  Following that would be a long and trying plane trip home. Solo had stocked up on first aid supplies and found a cheap hotel near the train station to wait out the prolonged night.

Cringing at the pain he had inflicted on his friend out of necessity, Napoleon had covered the ugly welts with a cream ointment that promised to ease the pain and promote healing. He wondered if he should repeat the excruciating process of applying further necessary medication. The empathy was more than just about friendship. He had languished from his own terrible lashing a year ago when they had run afoul of Captain Shark. Solo understood the suffering these kinds of wounds incurred. His welts had infected and he had spent days recovering in a Honolulu hospital. Again he wondered if he should just ignore his friend's protests and drag the obstinate Russian to the doctor.

This was absolutely the worst part of being a partner. He could handle the danger, the life and death threats on a daily basis. He took for granted that they would be injured and sore and bruised frequently. The meticulous tending, the nursing back to health he found the most grueling and painful process of their relationship. Illya seemed to get battered and torn all too often and he hated to have to pick up the pieces.

Some tough-guy agent he was. Able to face down enemies and flying bullets like child's play. But he got squeamish and disturbed when the emotions were twisted and tortured. He could handle the pain so much better when he was the one wounded. When his partner went down there was always the sting of guilt, the bitter frustration of helplessness, the fear that one day it could be so much worse. This should be the child's play -- the easy part of the big, grandiose, heroic game of espionage. Watching his friend suffer, were instead, the worst moments of his life.

One of the Russian's quirks was that he preferred Napoleon do this kind of mending because Kuryakin abhorred hospitals and doctors with a passion. Naturally, Solo complied, but never confessed how much he loathed to be a necessary contributor to pain. What he did lecture to no end so that his partner had no doubt -- was how much he hated -- really hated -- Illya getting hurt like this.

Delicately he peeled back the sheet and checked the wounds. The abrasions were still an ugly red, but at least not many of the lashes had broken the skin. The crème had worn off, though. After retrieving the ointment from the side table, and as tenderly as possible, he conscientiously applied liberal smears on each laceration on the thin back and shoulders. No fever from the welts. That was a good sign. And none of the wounds were bleeding anymore.

"Mmm. Nooooo."

"Shhh," he whispered, doubtful that his friend even heard him. Illya was trapped somewhere in the mental wadding of near-slumber and unsettling fantasy. "Everything's under control." Slowly, carefully, he turned Illya onto his side. He brushed the damp bangs off the hot forehead. "Just sleep."

Was it his imagination or was the fever escalating? Uncharacteristically Illya had eaten very little. And refused anything stronger than aspirin, the stubborn guy. Maybe he should find something else?  Maybe one of the guests at the hotel was a doctor?

He went to the bathroom and soaked a towel with cool water, then he sat on the floor again and dabbed the cloth on the pale face of his partner. Glancing at the clock, now past three, he grumbled under his breath. No useful place would be open at this hour in this small, remote mountain town in Switzerland. He'd have to break in at the village chemist shop. Illya! Sometimes your obstinate persistence can be so annoying!

"Hey, tovarich, I'm going out for some medicine." He tenderly patted his friend's arm. "Don't worry, I'll be right back."

With alarming speed Illya's hand seized onto his wrist like a steel vice. "No."

"You're getting a fever --"

"Don't leave." The eyes weren't open, but the voice was clear, coherent and flatly demanding.

His friend could be so paranoid. "You'll be all right."

"No." The eyelids snapped open to reveal resolute pleading in the depths of the blue eyes. "Stay."

Napoleon grimaced. "Let me take you to a doctor."

"No."

"You are so stubborn."

"Yes."

"You don't listen to a thing I say."

"You are too demanding." Heavy lids closed, but he didn't release his hold. "And bossy."

Solo nearly snarled. "I'm trying to get you well. If you don't feel better then you'll have a miserable trip tomorrow --" he glanced at the clock, "in a few hours." He sighed, muttering that he would have to plead with Waverly to keep Illya from travel for as long as possible. With a sour twist of his mouth he sharply asked, "How are you feeling now?"

Opening again, the blue eyes stared at his. "Miserable."

"There, you see?" Solo countered smugly.

"Don't be so snobbish."

"I'm not."

"You are. Constantly."

"I'm concerned."

"Over protective." Illya almost sounded annoyed.

"Solicitous," the dark-haired agent corrected pointedly. He started to pull away, but Kuryakin's grip held him tight. His irritation melted quickly and he fondly smiled, gently brushing at the blond bangs. His partner sounded like a big, bad Russian bear, but was -- unlike most other tough-guy spies -- a vulnerable teddy bear underneath the caustic and cynical surface. Fortunately for his partner the secret was safe with Solo. His voice was quiet, retrospective, tightly restrained from revealing the compassion and hurt that rippled through his insides over this latest ugly incident of torture. "And distressed when you get injured like this."

After a time Illya's hand relaxed. Solo casually released his wrist from his friend's grasp, rinsed the towel with cool water again and came back to kneel on the floor. After a moment of disturbed contemplation of the pale Russian he pressed the cloth on Kuryakin's face. The soothing water helped further ease the wounded agent and he settled his head more comfortably on the pillow. With a sigh Napoleon rubbed his eyes, the stubble on his cheeks, then sat down on the edge of the bed.

Not for the first time he wondered what he would have done if something fatal had happened to Illya this time. Long ago, when they were first thrown together on irregular occasions, Solo grew to like the young Russian.  For two agents so dissimilar, they soon discovered an amazing amount of traits, likes and dislikes, in common.  They also found their proficiency, their ability to stay alive and mostly unharmed, increased when they worked together.

Over time he gradually became dependent on Kuryakin. It was a subtle, nimble conquest. Not in the hairs-breadth-nick-of-time-necessity reliance. This was the emotional kind. Which surprised Solo, when he finally came to realize it, because he had never expected to have any particular loyalty or commitment to anyone beyond what was required in the duty of his job. Illya changed all that. And one day, in a dank dungeon in England, while captured by an enemy who seemed approaching success at killing them, Solo understood in his heart what his emotions had been telling him all along. That he had become a devoted part of a partnership. He was no longer a solo operator, no longer a loner.

There were some within UNCLE who thought Kuryakin was a fool to display loyalty to the reckless Solo. There were others that wondered what the dashing, sophisticated American found worthy in the isolationist Russian.

What did Illya bring to the partnership? He had pondered that question a few times in their early years together. The answers were quick in coming -- in nearly every assignment, every peril, the answers were obvious and usually dramatically relevant: Loyalty. Brains. Kuryakin could always pull things together at the last minute -- particularly rescues. And one amazing quality that Napoleon had never encountered in his life: No one ever needed him before. And while the detached Russian would never admit it aloud, he needed Solo. The nice thing about their incredible partnership was that even in that basic quality, they were in tandem. Because Napoleon had never needed anyone before this either.

"This is all your fault."

Beyond fatigue and anxiety, the senior agent was in no mood for the wry scorn. He glanced at the clock. Near four AM. Time always passed so slowly on these horrible vigils when his friend was damaged. This incident was relatively minor compared with too many other affairs when Illya lay in the hospital, or bleeding in some obscure, dirty alley. Always, at these moments of despair and depression, Solo wondered why they continued. Were the world-saving times worth the agonies?

Illya shifted to get a better look at his friend. "Aren't you going to ask why?"

"Why?" he responded without humor or any trace of interest in the bantering.

"Because you came back for me."

Solo's stomach twisted remembering the moment he had been looking for an escape route from the THRUSH training school and heard the all too Kuryakin-familiar moans coming from a cell. There had been no choice, of course. No matter what threats surrounded him he could have never walked away knowing his partner was hurt and captured. He scoffed. "When I tried to rescue you from the cell? Not much of a rescue. I was trapped, too." He released a deep exhale. "Not exactly one of my glory moments."

Illya sat up straighter. "You could have escaped if you wouldn't have stopped to get me out."

Napoleon gently pushed Kuryakin to flatten out, stomach down. "You think I would ever leave you behind?"

Shaking his head in the pillow, the Russian removed the towel and threw it on the floor. Turning his head, he stared at the wall. "When Mother Fear was beating me I could handle it. You know how it is. You endure it because by getting through it you defeat the enemy in some small way. Even while captured and tortured you somehow, psychologically win."

Solo's mirthless grin was knowingly sad. "Yes, I know. It's a good trick while it lasts."

The blond head nodded slightly. "Yes, while it lasts. But alone in the cell --" He sighed deeply. "That was when I was at my lowest point. Floundering in the pain and fever. All I wanted was for you to come for me."

Tenderly, Napoleon brushed his hand on the damp head. "I'm glad I did."

His voice became tight and hoarse. "And you were captured. Because of me."

Closing his eyes, fighting down the chill that shivered along his skin, he bent over to lean his head against the Russian. "I can't think of a better reason to get captured, tovarich." He drew in a shuddered breath. He would do anything for his friend. Anything. Illya knew that. They both felt that way. And that scared them.

Illya shook his head again, but it was a subdued protest. "You should --" he yawned -- "have more sense -- sometimes you are so foolish . . . . " Gradually he was creeping toward unconsciousness.

"Shhh. Sleep," Napoleon breathed peacefully in a hushed murmur. Shaken, he kept a custodial hold on his friend. "Anything for you." He held back the mixture of anger and anguish he felt at moments like this. When the hurt of his friend was out of his control. But in a breath he released a touch of the helplessness, the pain. "Even this," he sighed quietly, ruefully. "Child's play."

***

Unlocking the door to Illya's apartment, Napoleon juggled the bags in his arms as he pressed a secret button along the wall. Once the security system was temporarily disengaged he struggled through the door and shut it with his foot.

"Hey, I could use some help."

He placed the bags on the nearby kitchen table and engaged the electronic system again. Then he started unloading tins canned goods, cartons of salad and sandwiches, bags of chips and cans of Coca-Cola. As an extra treat he had brought the neighborhood specialty from Ivan's Deli -- chocolate chip cheesecake. A favorite of the invalid's. It would help boost morale around the modest apartment.

"Can't you smell Ivan's special corned beef?" he called.

When there was no response he tensed. Illya not responding to food? Slipping his hand deftly under his jacket, his palm lightly caressed the stock of the Walther under his arm, as he smoothly slid into the living room.

The shades were drawn. The eerie light from the soap opera about a vampire?!? on TV cast odd shadows in the darkened room. Books and magazines littered the floor around the couch. Illya, without a shirt, was draped face-down across the sofa. For an instant Solo's heart skipped a beat. Then he heard the cough/snort of a snore. Chagrined and embarrassed at his over-reaction, he grumbled out a sigh.

"I don't believe this," he muttered sourly. He shut off the television and turned on a table lamp. The illumination and noise brought Kuryakin slowly awake. Napoleon leaned over close to his drowsy, lethargic friend. "Once again I perform a timely and necessary rescue. Soap operas about the supernatural? Illya, really," he tsked.

"Days Of Our Lives is more prosaic . . . . " he yawned. Then he blinked, sluggishly becoming aware of the conversation. "Napoleon!" He slowly sat up and rubbed his face. "What time is it?"

"After dinnertime. Isn't your stomach on schedule?" He checked the pill bottle on the end table. "Have you been keeping up on your medications?"

"Why else do you think you were able to sneak in here?" the Russian moped groggily, rubbing his hair into place. "They put me to sleep."

"That's the point."

"You are being an obnoxious and annoying mother hen."

"Oh, don't put me in that role, tovarich. Half the female population at headquarters would like to take on that assignment."

Kuryakin scowled. "What happened with Waverly?"

Solo shrugged, ignoring the question and fussed around, questioning the patient about medications, food and TV. He teased that nurse Maddie was pleased with Illya's progress and would allow him back to work in one week providing he passed her scrutiny in a house call. Grimacing at the still painful-looking welts on Illya's back, Solo sat down on the couch and started gently applying more ointment to the wounds.

"Maybe you should go on holiday with all this time off," the senior agent suggested. "I would if I had the chance."

The Russian shook his head, the blond hair flying into his face. He edged away so he could face his partner. "What happened?" he demanded, suddenly alert and intent. "Something bad. You are prevaricating."

"I am not. I stocked your kitchen with deli --"

"Napoleon! What happened with Waverly!" the slight man nearly shouted.

"Oh, well," Solo shrugged easily, hoping his expression reflected the casual air he wanted to project. "I turned in the report about the boy's school and told him it was all your fault we were nearly late saving his life --"

"Napoleon!" Kuryakin jumped unsteadily to his feet. "Be serious. You didn't blame me, but you should have. It was my fault. If you hadn't come back for me you could have prepared security --"

"Illya --"

"I won't let you take the blame on this --" Illya took a quick breath and rapidly assured, "I will -- it's my fault. My capture led to your capture and led to THRUSH finding the summit meeting. If you get in trouble I will explain you were only watching out for me." He gulped in some air, ignoring Solo's objections. "Maybe I should quit the partnership. It would be safer for you if nothing else. A split --"

"Illya!" He huffed, irritated at the monologue. "I think the medication has you a little jumbled inside that complex brain." He stood, ruffled the blond's hair, and gestured to the sofa. "Calm down. Sit. Take a deep breath." When his orders were obeyed, assured he had his partner's attention, Solo winked and sat on the arm of the sofa. "Have a little faith, partner. What do you think I told him?" he smugly, slyly inquired.

Illya's eyebrows raised in speculation. "A lie?"

"I would never lie to my superior," Solo assured, his right hand covering his heart. His fingers automatically straightened his tie. "I just left out certain -- incidents." His smile was as smooth as his tone.

Shaking his head in adamant negativity, Kuryakin denied the blithe cover-up. "You are hiding something, Napoleon. Don't try to trick me. I know you too well."

Solo scowled. "Well, when the reports were submitted Waverly did -- kind of -- read between the lines. He was -- uh -- pretty unhappy -- is a good term." Illya was about to interject another defense and Solo stopped him. "It's okay. Nothing serious. I have a chance to redeem myself. I'm leaving tonight for Spain."

Instantly Kuryakin's attitude shifted to defensive irritation. "I should be there to help you," he muttered darkly. "If I were only back on my feet --"

"Now who's being over protective?" Solo smiled. He removed his jacket, loosened his tie, and rolled up his sleeves. "Don't worry, it's just a simple little problem with THRUSH and some noxious chemical plant. I'll be back before you're certified back to the office." His expressive face scowled as he reconsidered his boast. "Knowing you -- it's safer to claim I'll be home before Christmas." He wagged a cautioning finger at his partner. "And I don't want to see you showing up for a surprise visit in Madrid. Just stay here and recover." He gestured toward the kitchen. "I'm starving. Come and get some food."

The discontent was obvious in Illya's tone and brooding glower. "Be careful."

A myriad of whiplash-sarcastic responses instinctively came to mind. He had gotten along just fine without Illya for a long time. He could take care of himself. He WAS the head of Section Two and able to handle an assignment on his own! The quips died as instantly as they had formed. They were only partially true and he knew it. Yeah, he would do fine in Spain and probably come back alive. But it wouldn't be as easy, or as fun, without his partner.

"I will," he promised with an indulgent smile.

Illya's fair eyebrows knitted together in concern. "Napoleon . . . . ."

"Hmmm?"

"Thank you."

Solo offered a slight bow. "Glad to be of service."

Heading for the kitchen, Napoleon grinned, feeling much better about life. They both knew the Russian's simple words were thin veneers camouflaging complex messages concerning the actions and reactions of the last few days. They had lived through yet more dangers and threats and were about to sit down together over sandwiches and cheesecake. For the existence of a weary, worn spy, things were looking pretty good in this golden moment in time.

The End