MFU Fanfiction: Third (Part III - Palme d'Or)
Part III has been a very long time coming, so everyone's patience probably ran out ages ago. If, by some miracle, it has not, then here is a further expansion of Third, an Easter Egg I posted at MFU Writers Survival School in April 2010 and continued in May. Some readers wanted to know more about Illya's mysterious friends. Palme d'Or starts the morning after Parts I and II and explains some of the connections between the characters.
Part I of the story may be found at MFUWSS here.
Part II is here.
(Also posted on MFUWSS.)
Rating: R (there are slash and het aspects)
Length: ~7K
Warning: There are screencaps in this section, so it may be a little slow in loading.
Disclaimer: I don't own MUNCLE and no money is being made. As in the previously posted parts, the non-canon (original) characters are mine.
Author's note: Playing around with reality a bit with regard to the name of the prize given at Cannes in certain years.
Excerpt:
No one lounged against a wall quite like Illya; no one imbued that seemingly relaxed posture with the seductive menace that he did.
****************
Third: Part III
Palme d'Or
The lilacs scented the shade.
Illya turned. His cheek touched Sasha's arm.
The honeysuckle climbed up the trellis near the window. A breeze shook the last raindrops from the leaves.
Eyes shut, Illya reached out, found Sasha's waist and pulled himself closer.
Lily of the valley dabbed between her breasts.
Illya breathed deeply and lay still, sleep reclaiming him.
Sasha held her breath when Illya stirred, letting it out slowly after he settled again. The sheets were fragrant with the oils they had used. Her dream clung to her. Through half-opened eyes Sasha watched the autumn sun play along Illya’s hair. She resisted the urge to stroke it. He needed more sleep. His head was heavy against her chest, his breath warm across her cool skin. The concert had exhausted him. Not completely. She smiled. The papers would be interesting. The press would assume it was a trick, a publicity stunt. How many could recognise it for what it was? Sasha pulled the covers up over Illya's shoulders and hoped that no one who shouldn't would. They had erased the evidence well, before they dispersed. They seemed to be drifting together again though, almost as if by chance. Her mind turned back to Cannes in the spring.
Sasha scanned the reception room from the landing, smiling formally at several familiar faces whose eyes happened to meet hers. Then her cheeks flamed and her smile increased far beyond a polite level. She had spotted him, leaning against the far wall looking to his left.
No one lounged against a wall quite like Illya; no one imbued that seemingly relaxed posture with the seductive menace that he did. Several times she had captured him on film in that position, but she had never been able to direct another actor sufficiently well to recreate the effect. Sasha shrugged her wrap off her shoulders. I haven't analysed it thoroughly. She moved to the other side of the stairs to see if she could catch his eye, but Illya was intent on something else.
“That look. Best not to be on the receiving end of it,” she murmured to herself and followed his line of sight. Ah, Pavel. With hundreds of people here tonight, you are who Illya has to see first! Sasha moved down a few steps, holding the skirt of her gown up delicately between index and middle finger so as not to crease the dark green silk. A veritable drama club reunion. The physicist, the psychologist and Pavel. She took the last few stairs to the floor. Life has taken us far from our student days in Georgia.
Sasha wove her way through the other guests until she stood in front of Illya and touched his right arm. He turned towards her and she urged him a few steps away. She took no notice of Pavel. They had greeted one another courteously on several occasions during the festival; she didn’t want another exchange now. It was quite enough that he might already have seen Illya.
Illya’s face had still not composed itself. “He’s here,” Illya hissed.
“Pavel’s in one of the other films,” Sasha replied, kissing Illya firmly on either cheek and then back on the first one again. She felt the tension in his muscles ease. Illya smiled and kissed her three times, his lips gentle on her cheeks, moving slightly downwards, touching the edge of her smile on the last. “That’s better,” she breathed and looked into his eyes for a moment before taking his arm and leading him to the other side of the room. She grimaced when Illya paused to slip on his glasses. “Those can’t be the same ones!“ she exclaimed.
“No, I’ve replaced them a few times.“ He winked at her, thoughts of Pavel apparently dismissed, and she chuckled. She knew why Illya wore his glasses when he wasn’t reading.
They greeted a dozen or more people before leaving to do the same at another gathering and then a third. Illya received puzzled glances as people tried to place him and decide whether they needed to know who he was. Something in his calm reserve as he introduced himself keep them respectful and they did not turn away from him as they addressed Sasha in congratulations or supplication. “A new producer,” many of them decided. He had none of the eagerness they would have expected from a young actor or a screenwriter nor any of the deference they would have expected from an outsider, someone who would be dazzled by the proximity of cinema figures. So they could only conclude that he had money, as that was the form of power with which they were most familiar.
Some observers noted a radiance in Sasha’s features, the photographers especially, who were very pleased with the shots they took of her that evening. They excluded Illya from all of them because they wanted to send them to press immediately and didn’t have time to research who her companion was. Besides there were plenty of other people to include in the frame as Sasha extended her hand gracefully to colleagues and well-wishers. A few journalists referred in print to her escort, two or three identifying him as the backer for her next project, not too troubled about the distinction between fact and fiction. Sasha glowed because she had just won a coveted prize and Illya was a business partner in attendance because Sasha’s success represented a financial opportunity. They had it all figured out, so they enquired no further.
*************
They were both silent when Illya finished his narration, ending with the visit to the clinic where Napoleon had been kept to rest for a few days before being allowed to fly back to New York. Sasha had almost smiled when Illya had described the phalanx of flirtatious nurses guarding the reluctant patient, but his jesting words weren't a sufficient disguise for his distress. Sasha sipped her wine. Illya glanced at her face; it was blank. He waited for her to finish processing this new information. Other people thought she hadn’t heard whatever they had said when she looked like that. He’d thought it, too, when he first worked with her. After only a few rehearsals he had come to understand that that was when her thoughts had absorbed her totally, leaving her expression empty. He, and the rest of the cast, had learned to be quiet until the light came back into her eyes. He saw it returning now, but before Sasha spoke, he asked, “Did I hurt you like that?” She was thinking again, but this time she kept her gaze on him. Sasha didn’t need to ponder the question long. She had had years to consider it.
“No,” she replied, her eyes wandering over Illya's face, then returning to his eyes. She was stretched out on the sofa, and he was on the ottoman at its end, angled towards her. She was too far away to touch him, yet he leaned forward and she knew he could feel her fingers running down his cheek. “You never denied me.” She sipped more of her wine; her eyes went up to Illya's hair and down to his hand which had moved to rest on the arm of the sofa. She came back to his eyes. “Do you remember the short about the queen and the eagle?”
“My Valkerie,” he murmured and his hand came to rest on the top of her foot.
“Your voice as the sky god made that feature. It won my first award,” she reflected.
"It was our first step towards Paris, but I think the queen had something to do with it.” He lifted Sasha's ankles and settled on the couch with her feet across his lap. When he leaned forward to retrieve his wine from the table, the muscles of his abdomen were hard against her shins.
“We almost fell off the cliff filming the eagle," Illya continued. “I clutched the camera more tightly when the edge started to crumble, thinking Prof Kuzmenkov would kill us if we broke it.“
“I grabbed the back of your belt and yanked hard,” Sasha added. "I didn't want to lose that footage."
Illya smiled. “I landed on top of you, the camera still aloft.” He held his glass high and looked past the coffee table and the beige carpet and saw the trampled grass and the jagged stone of the cliff.
“I thought that I’d torn my skirt and was worried what people would think.” Sasha laughed and shook her head. “We didn’t feel how close death had come.”
“We were very young,” Illya observed, lowering his wine glass and drinking from it.
“That film opened such a different path for me.” Sasha stared into her glass. “I tried to bring you with me, but you wouldn't be dislodged from your laboratory.” Her voice faded away.
“That didn’t pull us apart,” Illya said and paused. “Pavel tried and he failed.”
“Nothing from outside was going to change us. We were impervious, imperious." Sasha finished her wine and began rolling the empty glass between her palms. "The change came from within.” She stretched out a hand for the wine bottle on the table, refilled her glass with careful motions and returned the bottle to its place. “That second year in Paris, I could feel you pulling on the tether, like the eagle." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I never wanted to hold you back. I wanted to let you fly as high as you wanted to go.”
“Even if it hurt when I became a mere speck against the sun?” he asked.
“It didn’t hurt like a wound.” Sasha stared at the ceiling until she saw a winged creature against a remembered sky. “It was a stretching…” She reached out her hand above the back of the couch. “'...when the queen extended her gloved arm, an eagle descended from the clouds',” Sasha recited softly. Illya held his hand above her arm. “Its shadow made the horses paw the ground and shy away, but the queen held the reins tight in one hand until the eagle perched and folded its wings." Illya's fingers settled lightly on Sasha's bare skin. "Its golden eye would fix on her as its talons sunk into the thick leather.” Illya looked at Sasha, saw the brightness in her eyes, the blood in her cheeks, and his fingers tightened.
They leaned towards one another, their lips touching lightly, testing, to learn if this was a place they might still be. They parted and set down their glasses at nearly the same time. Sasha drew closer to Illya, her bent knees a barrier. He rested his head on them, his hand stroking along her thigh. She lay her hand on his hair, softly brushing it away from his face. Illya shut his eyes and inhaled her familiar fragrance. It reminded him of a spring garden. They had been one another's garden, nourishing and inspiring each other. Their youthful paradise had been everywhere, behind the scenery, in the darkroom, in the woods, occasionally, on a bed. Betweentimes, they had studied, morning and night, and excelled, winning honours and scholarships, and yet they had still had the energy to perform the plays and create the films which had brought Sasha renown. They didn't think there was anything they couldn’t do.
Sasha's arms closed around Illya's shoulders. She leaned forward to kiss his ear, his cheek. He lifted his head without opening his eyes. Her kisses strayed from his cheek to his lips to his throat, and then Sasha pulled away, leaning back on the cushions. With the grace which had always been his, Illya moved alongside her, his hand sliding between the folds of her robe. “My valkerie,” he murmured.
“L'aigle d‘or,” she replied, turning towards him. Her perfume enveloped them.
They had fallen asleep afterwards, pressed together on the couch. When Illya stirred, Sasha’s hand left his shoulder to run through his hair and down his back. “You’ve filled out a bit,” she said smilingly.
“I was rather scrawny, wasn’t I?” he replied.
“Slender as a willow wand,” she countered.
“I think some people thought you should have chosen a more robust suitor,” he commented. “Like Pavel.”
Sasha's lip curled, “He never felt the slightest attraction to either of us.”
“Iago was a good part for him,” Illya said. “Though he didn‘t bring half the venom to the role he could have.” Sasha felt Illya’s muscles knotting as he spoke. “He was probably afraid to reveal too much of his soul.”
“We, on the other hand, worked very well as Titania and Puck,” she smiled, running her hand down his arm and back up again. "Remember the Kiev performance? How pleased you were that your parents were in the country for it? You pointed them out to me from the wings, the Doctors Kuryakin." Sasha's hand quieted. "I was surprised. I had imagined them younger." She could still picture the dignified white-haired man and the woman with silvery grey hair seated in the front row, could still hear Illya introducing them after the show, his voice just a little higher, his speech a little more rapid than usual. Sasha had met his mother’s gaze and been startled to see Illya’s eyes looking back at her. Dr Kuryakin’s courteous smile had broadened slightly and she had tilted her head to regard Illya with an almost wistful expression. Illya had been talking with his father and hadn't noticed.
Illya chuckled. “I loved playing Puck.”
“Yes, I know. I cast you in it, but it wasn’t a matter of casting. You were Puck,” she mused. “And even the head of the English Department was unable to say a word in dissent. It irked him so that neither of us was in his department. Doing Shakespeare! Oh, how he resented us.”
“And then we were sent off to perform in Kiev. He resented that even more,” Illya remembered. “I had him in mind at the end of the play and I think he knew it.
“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this - and all is mended -
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend;
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I’m an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call:
So, good night unto you all."
Illya took Sasha’s hand and finished his recitation. “Give me your hands, if we be friends.” He looked up at her. “And Robin shall restore amends.” He brushed his lips against her fingertips.
Sasha’s brows drew together. “It may be I who must make amends,” she said.
Illya raised an eyebrow.
“As I came down the stairs this evening, I saw you giving that look of yours to Pavel,” she said.
“Do I have just one?” he asked puckishly.
“You know which one I mean,” she said. “And I thought how you had never given me that look.”
“There was never any reason why I should, Sasha,” Illya said, rising on his elbow and resting their clasped hands between her breasts.
“Maybe tonight there will be,” she murmured and glanced away.
Illya watched a succession of emotions pass over her features: hope, anxiety, fear. His hand could feel her heartbeat accelerating before he drew it away to sit up. Sasha sat up as well and tugged her robe up over her shoulders. Illya reached out and took her face in both hands. Another line from their work together came to him. "Never fear me,” he said and in some corner of his mind he thought he knew what she was going to tell him. She smiled faintly at the reference. “No, my lord,” she replied in character. Sasha glanced away. Illya brushed over her cheekbones with his thumbs and waited. She looked back at him and asked, “You know I’m divorced now?”
“I read about it. I meant to write…” he trailed off, his thumbs ceasing to move.
“He’s on to another marriage, his fourth.”
“Did he give you trouble about custody, or anything?” Illya asked.
“No, he has grown children by his first wife, even grandchildren now, and he isn’t a vindictive man or even very possessive,” she replied. “I have no need for his money, for myself or for Nicolai, so we parted most amiably when he wanted to marry someone else,” she added.
Illya was watching her intently for a clue as to what had caused the fear. “And does Nicolai feel abandoned by his father?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” Sasha replied. “Andre was often away, and his older children, who were at university when Nicolai was small, would come to visit, so I think the idea that fathers and children aren’t always in the same place seems natural to him. Of course, it is hard to know for sure. He is a thoughtful boy and I think he keeps his sadnesses to himself.”
Her eyes had been looking off to the right as she recalled her child and Illya marked the softness in her expression and her voice. Sasha’s eyes came back to Illya’s. “He has your red hair,” Illya stated.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“I always thought your children would,” he replied, keeping his gaze steadily on her. His palms rested just beneath her jaw and he could feel her pulse pounding against them. “And, Nicolai,” he paused and considered the name. “Is he slim as a willow wand?” He saw the film of tears in her eyes. “Do you know?” he asked. Sasha shook her head.
“Mathematics is one of your fields,” she murmured. “I thought, when I sent you the birth announcement, that you might make some computations.”
He looked down at her lips and wanted to kiss away the unhappy curve there. “It never occurred to me. You sent a printed announcement, without a single hand-written word, and I thought it was your way of saying that your marriage had been consecrated by the birth of a child.”
Sasha's eyes studied Illya's face. “Is that why you never visited after that? You thought it was a message to stay away?” Illya nodded and Sasha sighed. “For two people who knew each other so well, and wished each other so well, we certainly failed to communicate, didn’t we?”
Illya hands dropped away. He rose to his knees and pulled Sasha against his chest. “And you thought by staying away I was dismissing the possibility of being your child’s father, didn’t you?” He felt her nodding. His head drooped until it rested against her hair “You were being very subtle,” he added with his own sigh. He felt Sasha nod again.
“Remember your trip to Paris, when I was about eight months pregnant?” Sasha began. She breathed deeply before continuing, “I asked if you wanted to feel the baby kick and you let me take your hand and hold it over my abdomen.“
Illya nodded, his jaw brushing past Sasha's hair. "We stayed like that a long while, your hand over mine." The fingers of Illya's left hand splayed over the middle of Sasha's back. "And then I felt it." His fingertips pressed into her back. "A kick...strong...and then another." Illya's right hand closed around Sasha's shoulder. "I didn’t want to take my hand away." Illya took a deep breath. "I had been staring at our hands. I looked up at you. I thought that if you had anything to tell me, you would do it then." His hand started rubbing Sasha's shoulder, as if he might have gripped too hard. "Without doing any calculations, I must have wondered,” he paused, his brows drawing together. “You wanted me to ask you if the baby was mine, didn’t you?” Sasha's muscles were thrumming with the effort not to weep at the stupidity of it, at the relief to finally talk of it. Illya held her tighter, swaying slightly.
“Have you tried a blood test?” he finally asked.
“It won’t help. We all have the same blood type,” she murmured.
“What?” Illya exclaimed, remembering that he and Sasha did. They had liked that when it had first come to their attention. “O is common, but the negative makes the coincidence highly unlikely." He paused. "Universal donors; we can give blood to anyone, but only receive it from one another." Illya thought of the last time he had seen Andre. “Andre‘s eyes are blue, aren't they? What colour was his hair when he was young?”
Sasha nodded. “Blond,” She replied. Illya leaned back to look at her, both hands on her shoulders. “Early imprinting?” she ventured.
“Perhaps.” Illya exhaled slowly. “Are you sure you weren't angry with me when I left for Cambridge and you just forgot to mention it?”
“I wanted to let you fly. You did, very softly, say that you would be happy to have me go with you.”
“But I added that I didn’t want to take you away from what you loved. Less than a passionate entreaty, eh?” His left hand moved back to her cheek.
“But you were right,” she responded, defending his past self. “You felt how excited I was about what I was doing and it was going so wonderfully. You didn’t want to take that away from me,” she finished, grasping both his shoulders.
“Perhaps our styles are too similar,” Illya remarked.
“Or our philosophy of love,” she ventured quietly. She drew his hand away from her face and contemplated it. “You still wear it,” she observed.
“I’ve never lost the habit of wearing it,” he said.
“The magical ring which transformed from the narrow band around the eagle’s leg to a ring that fit the god’s finger,” she recalled, watching as he bent his thumb across his palm and twirled the ring.
“Almost fit,” he said, “It’s still a bit big.” She leaned forward and rested her cheek against his. "My hands were the only part of me you filmed for that," Illya said and moved them back and forth along her shoulders. Sasha's breathing was evening out.
After a while Illya asked, “Does Andre think that Nicolai might not be his child?”
“I don’t think so, although he isn’t a very involved father. He wasn’t with his older children either, but, once again, I don’t really know. It never came up and Nicolai looks so much like me. As if there were no father at all,” she finished.
“You wanted him to be mine, didn’t you? That’s how you think of Nicolai, isn’t it? As our child?” He felt the tremour run through her. This time she let the tears spill over. “And yet you never told me.”
“It’s the oldest ploy in the world to trap an honourable man, isn’t it? I didn’t want to do that to either of us,” Sasha said, drying her face with two impatient swipes of her hand.
“You and me or you and Nicolai?” Illya asked.
“Any of us,” she amended more quietly.
Illya raised his hand from her shoulder to her hair, stroking it. “You wanted to keep a part of me with you.”
Sasha nodded her assent. “I would put my arms around my belly and feel that little being in there moving and I thought it had to be yours because you inspired my creativity, so you must have made me fruitful in that way, too,” she paused. “And there was the fact that we hardly stood up during the week you were in Paris about nine months before he was born.”
The memory rushed back and Illya couldn’t help smiling. “We were in danger of starving. But you got engaged a month later to Andre.” He stopped. “I left you again. I’d defended my dissertation just before I came to see you. I was full of my accomplishments, the offers of teaching and research positions, grants and fellowships. I was so focused on myself.”
“Illya,” she sighed. “I was full of myself, too. Agents were calling with scripts, lawyers with contracts, journalists for interviews because my second film had been nominated for an Oscar. ” She paused. “Do you remember which one that was?” Her hand moved into the hair on the back of his neck. “The one with a cameo of you and me, a flashback of the protagonist’s first love affair. You let me badger you into filmng it on one of your visits. That scene got singled out more than any other for praise from the critics. We had 'distilled the essence of young love', I believe was how one of them put it.”
“Hmm,“ Illya remembered the surreal quality of Sasha directing him on how to portray himself, her memory of his even younger self. “But it was your third film that won the next year…”
“Yes. The one I made when I was pregnant.” She was silent a moment. “I used a clip of your opening monologue from Richard III and the two scenes of wooing Anne, first with you playing Gloucester and me Anne, and then the reverse. That got a lot of commentary.” Her fingertips were gliding back and forth along the back of Illya's collar. “And finally your Queen Mab speech.” Sasha paused again. “Your Mercutio was so derisive, almost mad.” Sasha drew back to look at Illya. “As if he couldn’t bear Romeo pursuing one more girl.”
“I…,” Illya began. Sasha raised an eyebrow. “It came out after Nicolai’s was born and…”
“You never saw it,” Sasha finished.
Illya nodded, “I was away most of that year.“
She studied him. “Are you sure I haven’t hurt you, Illya?”
“I begin to wonder how well I know myself,” Illya sighed.
“We were perhaps too clever by half for our own good,” Sasha suggested, stroking Illya’s cheek. “Always in control, always understanding everyone’s motivations and desires, except possibly our own.”
"Hmm,” Illya concurred, wrapping his arms around her again and falling back on the couch, pulling Sasha along with him.
***************
“Delivery services are delightful,” Sasha said the next afternoon as she pushed the front door closed with her shoulder, her arms full of warm, brown bags. Illya emerged from the bedroom still in his pyjamas and helped her arrange the food on the counter which separated the kitchenette from the living room.
“I thought you might not answer my telegram,” he said, taking a knife out of a rack and sliding a baguette from one of the bags. He watched Sasha out of the corner of his eye.
“I would never have done that, no matter how much time had passed. And you sent me all those congratulatory notes over the years." Illya raised his eyebrows. Sasha pulled out two apples and rolled them towards him. "I kept them,“ she explained. “Hardly a word about yourself, but the postmarks told me a alot. And the lack of a return address. You’ve been all over in that time, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” Illya answered, “Even through Paris.” He picked up one of the apples, breathed on it and rubbed it against his blue pyjama top.
“Ah,” Sasha exhaled the syllable slowly as she freed a large container from the last bag. She unsnapped the lid. “You never posted anything to me from there.” The smell of onions filled the air.
“No,” Illya agreed quietly. “I thought it might be awkward.”
“You didn't want to admit that you didn't want to see me,” she said, reaching across the counter for the cruets of oil and vinegar. “What happened recently changed your mind though?” Sasha pulled out a stopper and annointed the salad, set the cruet down and unstoppered the vinegar. The tang of balsamic vinegar curled upwards.
“I'd just concluded my business in Italy when I saw the article about the awards in the newspaper." Illya stopped slicing the apples. He gestured with the knife. "There was a photo of you...and Cannes was so close. I thought..." He set the knife carefully beside the fruit. "If I could rest my…”
The wooden spoons clicked against the sides of the salad bowl when Sasha let go of them. A few strides took her around the counter. She was a couple inches taller than Illya; his head rested comfortably on her shoulder as she held him, one arm across his back, her other hand curved around his head. Against the white wall across the room, she saw a younger Illya open the one, official-looking envelope that had arrived for him in the afternoon post. She had looked away so as not to see what he was reading. Without a sound, he had turned and leaned his forehead against her shoulder. Later, she scanned the few formal sentences notifying Illya that both his parents had died in a laboratory explosion. Through that night, in his narrow bed, she had held him. When the tears finally made their way to the surface just before dawn, she had held him. So she held him now.
*******************
They were finishing the last morsels of the midnight snack they had brought back to bed with them after they’d awoken famished, when Illya’s communicator sounded. It was lying on the nightstand on Sasha’s side of the bed and she reached over quickly and handed it to Illya with a complicit smile. She watched as he deftly twisted it open and said, “Kuryakin here.” She could hear a small voice she was sure must be Napoleon’s asking a couple humorous and thoughtful questions to both of which Illya replied, “No.” Her smile got wider when she heard the voice ask if Illya had been sleeping, and Illya had replied, "No, although I should have been. What can I--". And then she heard Napoleon ask Illya to come home. Sasha watched as Illya began to smile and her director’s ear heard the change of voice in the two words Illya spoke in reply, “Very soon.” He clicked his communicator closed and looked over at her.
She moved closer and put her arms around him. “That sounded very sincere,” she said. “Shall I help you pack now?”
“No,” he said, “I won’t take the earliest flight. I want to spend tonight with you.” He looked up with a furrowed brow, “If you’ll still let me.”
Sasha kissed his hair and his eyes and then his mouth. “Of course, I’ll let you.” She watched the conflicting expressions on Illya’s face and understood that he was far from sure that a happy resolution awaited him in New York. She pulled him back among the pillows. “Tomorrow the eagle will take to the skies again,” she murmured, “But tonight, he can nest with me.”
*******************
Sasha had just finished packing her things when Illya awoke. She handed him a cup of coffee and picked up the phone to call the caretaker to say she would be leaving a bit early and where she would leave the key for him. Illya was in the shower before she hung up.
The day was clear and the air fresh as Sasha maneuvered along the curving roads to the airport. “This has been a very unusual visit,” he observed wryly.
Sasha didn’t turn, but smiled down the road at the typical understatement. “I’m more relaxed than I’ve been in a long while,” she said. “No, and it isn’t only because we’ve hardly been out of bed these two days,” she said. “But that didn’t hurt,” she added, slipping her hand from the stick shift to glide along Illya’s thigh.
He closed his eyes. "Your hand is so warm. If we didn’t have a plane to catch, I'd ask you to pull into some secluded spot." Sasha's glance flickered from the road to Illya and back again. "I know that's an unusual reaction to be having on my way to..."
Sasha's hand slid a bit higher and she laughed. “We don’t have time, Illya,” she exclaimed.
“I know,” he sighed. “Of course, we’re on the same flight to Paris.”
She swatted his thigh lightly. “Was ever woman in this humour woo’d?”
“Was ever woman in this humour won?” he rejoined.
**************
They had fallen asleep shortly after boarding the plane. He’d checked his suitcase through to New York; his connection in Paris was tight. As the plane was beginning its descent into the City of Light, he whispered to Sasha, “I know this is an odd request, but do you have any hair of Nicolai’s?”
Sasha looked at Illya. “Mm, I have his baby teeth and hair.” She looked out the plane window. “His hair was like red gold when he was a baby. I didn‘t cut it for the longest time, but when I did, I kept it.” Her eyes came back to Illya's. “Why?” she asked.
“The science is far from practical yet, but there is work on testing which promises to be far more accurate than blood tests for paternity and other identification matters. If I have some tissue samples on hand, I can take advantage of the early trials,” he paused. “If you would want me to, of course. He assessed the hopeful look on her face. “Although it might not be for a couple years yet, or possibly even longer.”
“Write to me and tell me where to send them to you,” she answered. “And let me know how you are this time, not just where.”
He stroked his knuckles down her cheek. “I will, Sasha,” he promised.
She looked down a moment, then reached under her seat for her bag. She drew out her wallet and flipped through it. “Would you like these?” she asked, in a voice oddly shy. She had two small photographs in her hand. One was a surprisingly flattering school photo of an 11-year-old boy with freckles and spring green eyes, not dark blue-green like his mother’s. The other was a larger snapshot of Nicolai, all long arms and legs, breaking the tape across the finishing line at a track. Illya looked up questioningly. “I have copies at home,” she said.
Illya nodded and took out of his jacket what appeared to be a cigarette case and gingerly slipped them inside.
Sasha knew he didn’t smoke any more, but didn’t ask.
“He’s a very beautiful boy,” he said, glancing back at her.
“And smart…” she began.
He saw her lips close over the next words. He knew she wanted to say, “Like his father,” but she couldn’t be absolutely sure and so said nothing. “I hope he is mine,” he said very softly. “But whether he is or not, he’s yours, and I’d love him just for that, you know.”
She held his gaze and whispered, “Illya.” He’d been living for so long where very few people could say his name the way Sasha could and even fewer had had the opportunities to utter it that she had had. She didn’t reach out to touch him, but he could feel her fingers sliding across his cheek and into his hair.
*********************
Despite the preparations for the next assignment and the prolonged lack of sleep, Illya remembered to drop an envelope addressed to Paris in the outgoing mail tray before he and Napoleon left for the airport. He enclosed a card with a post office box on it instead of a street address. On the back he wrote, “No resolution here. Not sure when, but hope to update you in person before too long. Kiss N. for me.” RG
Illya felt fairly certain she would slip the card in her wallet along with her copies of the photos she had given him on the plane.
*****************
The waiter had just turned away with Alexandra's order when Illya stepped behind her chair and placed both his hands on her shoulders. He felt only the slightest start before one hand rose to her left shoulder and brushed across his hand. It stopped when her fingertips reached the ring. He leaned down and pressed his cheek against hers. “Did you order for me, too?” he asked.
She nodded. He took her hand and lightly kissed the back, then turned it over and kissed the palm more firmly as he slid into the wrought iron chair next to her on the little terrace. It had been six weeks since they had parted at the airport. He kept hold of her hand and smiled. “Even though we never agreed on where to rendezvous?”
“You said to confirm the date and hour and that you would find me.”
He raised her hand and moved it slowly back and forth along his lower lip before responding. “You were confident I would be here?”
Her brow furrowed, “Unless something you couldn’t help detained you, I was sure you would come.”
“Eleven years ago, you were very unsure of me. Did I inspire so much confidence in Cannes?”
She kept a steady gaze into his summer sky eyes and pondered whether she had subconsciously decided to finally use the oldest snare in the world to draw him back to her. Illya watched her shake her head ever so slightly and shut her eyes for an instant. She saw herself and Illya embracing as from a distance ~ Illya with his head upon her shoulder. “Yes,” she answered, opening her eyes. “Yes, you did.”
The waiter came and set down their coffee cups, a carafe of water, two glasses, a couple plates and a basket of pain au chocolate. Illya released her hand and picked up the basket to offer it to her. “You didn’t question how I would find you?”
Sasha selected a pastry and set it on her plate, then reached beneath the table and drew a thick envelope out of the bag tucked between her feet and placed it next to his plate with a small smile. “See if that tells you why.”
He set down his cup and opened the heavy envelope. “'The Life and Works of Christopher Marlowe',” he read off the title page as he drew out the contents. Illya reached inside his jacket for his glasses before perusing the summary, then he flipped to the end and read through the scene where Marlowe was assassinated in the tavern in Deptford. “You haven’t worked this up since I saw you last?”
“I’ve revised it,” she explained between bites of pastry.
“It’s what you were thinking of doing after we completed Richard III,” he remembered. “But we got diverted with A Midsummer Night's Dream then Much Ado About Nothing.” The intervening years moved to one side and those student days seemed recent again. You weren’t sure whether to have me read Edward or his lover.” His voice dropped. “We read through the scene between Isabella and Gaveston a couple times.” He flipped from tab to tab until he found the scene.
Sasha watched his eyes run over the text. It was her original copy with notes in the margins. The morning sunlight highlighted the faint flush which had come into his cheeks as he read. Illya regarded her over the edge of the papers. How tightly you could have bound me to you, he thought.
“But you are a creature of the air. You would have died in captivity,” she replied as though to his thought. Illya’s eyes widened. “Years of filming close-ups,” she said.
Illya nodded and turned the page. We hadn’t finished the second read through. He glanced at Sasha again and saw her eyes gleaming.
“Perhaps we should go now,” she said. Illya motioned to the waiter for the check. “There’s a place I want to show you. It’s a short walk from here.”
Illya slipped the manuscript back into the envelope and put some notes under a saucer before the waiter reached the table. Sasha took Illya's arm as they stepped onto the pavement and steered him away from the river.
He wasn’t surprised when they stopped at a familiar entrance. He’d realised when he’d located the café that they were close to their old neighbourhood. The door was painted a different colour, but little else appeared to have changed along the small street.
“It came on the market a couple years ago, and I bought it.” Sasha explained as she unclipped her keys from inside her satchel. “Rather a prescient impulse, don’t you think?” Illya followed her across the courtyard and up the inner stairs to the top floor. “The flat next door was for sale as well; I’ve let that to an Algerian family who come for the summers and occasional long weekends.” They stepped inside and closed the door. Sasha moved quickly across the dim room to open the shutters. The southward facing balcony doors flooded the room with light. When Sasha turned around, it glowed about her. Illya dropped the envelope on a table as he closed the distance between them.
Several kisses had merged one into the other before he paused to look at her. Her breath was uneven and her eyes had the same plea in them they had had all those years ago. The only way he’d been able to imagine doing the part was to promise himself he’d make love to her every time they finished rehearsing it. To taunt someone like that, even if one hated the person…and yet he had been able to play the part. So well, she’d told him later that she had felt ready to faint by the end, yet she’d said they should try it once more. He hadn’t been able to finish the second reading without responding to her.
“It’s such a cruel part,” he said later, running his hand from her thigh to her stomach and pressing gently there as he leaned over to kiss her. She stretched towards him. “Do you see me as having such a cruel side?” he asked when they’d parted.
“I see you as having a lot of acting talent,” she answered, stroking his cheek and brow. He watched as her eyes followed her fingertips around his face. “You could have had a great dramatic career. You could still.”
“I use a fair amount of it in my current job,” he said. “All the world is a stage.”
“Yes, and we do play many parts,” she agreed. Her fingers moved through his hair, down his neck and back up into his hair again. “I haven’t given you a chance to tell me how you’ve fared since we parted.”
Illya closed his eyes. He heard Napoleon‘s voice and felt himself being lifted off the pillows.
Sasha felt a tremour run through Illya. She had seen no image, just felt a wave of heat. Illya opened his eyes. “Our path was so unclear,” he started.
“But you reached your goal,” she prompted. “There’s a light, an energy in you which wasn’t there when you arrived in Cannes. I saw a flicker of it after you spoke to him there.”
“We reached a goal, but there is another barrier and this one is in me,” he explained looking down at her mouth and wanting to kiss it again. When he did, her whole body responded to him. He touched her lips once more and her arms closed around him pressing him against her. "This was the reaction I had wanted from Napoleon at the clinic," Illya thought. "Oh, Sasha. This is what you accustomed me to!" Illya rolled onto his back.
“Napoleon thought he could have all of me, without offering all of himself in return,” Illya expanded. Sasha turned onto her side and raised an eyebrow. They had encountered those issues before.
“If you deny anyone else, it will be because you don’t want to hurt that person, even ones who keep assuring you that they are willing to take the risk,” she responded.
“Sasha, until a few weeks ago, you hadn’t seen me for a decade. How do you know that and Napoleon doesn’t? He and I have been working together for years now.”
“We knew each other so well when we were still so young,” she suggested. “And we are so alike.”
"And we shared something few people can," she thought.
“I told him that as far as anyone else was concerned, I’d quit when he did.”
Sasha raised both eyebrows.
“He’s been trying. But a few days ago, off he wandered.”
“And you came here,” she finished.
Illya’s brow furrowed.
She reached over and smoothed the crease in his forehead. “Right after you reached New York, you wrote that you would come soon,” she said.
“Yes, but you’re right. When he behaved in his usual fashion towards a pretty young lady, I telegraphed you immediately.”
“You needed to talk with me and you promised me you would.”
“You’re trying to make me feel better,” Illya murmured.
“I’m grateful Napoleon hasn’t yet satisfied you body and soul,” she answered, “So there is still some of you left for me.”
Illya moved closer to Sasha. “This is a strange journey we are embarking on,” he sighed and shut his eyes.
Sasha leaned over Illya. “Yes,” she agreed, “But when we work together, we are so strong.”
Illya felt light kisses on his cheek and neck. The cherry tree’s flowers were falling on them. Sasha’s kisses were so delicate that he couldn’t distinguish the touch of her lips from that of the petals. As Sasha proceeded downwards she pressed her kisses more firmly against the muscles and the scars she found there.
Illya let out a long, slow breath.
*******************
Daria opened the door to the hotel suite. The waiter wheeled in the cart from room service. She gave him his tip and put the “Do not disturb” sign on the doorknob before shutting it and slipping the chain lock in place after him. Kyrill had already left for his lunch appointment and would go straight from there to his radio interview and on to the concert hall for rehearsal. They wouldn’t get to see him until they attended the concert in the evening.
Daria raised the covers on the dishes to check that she had received what she had ordered. Satisfied, she headed across the living room and knocked on Sasha’s bedroom door. “Wake up, sleepy heads, I have breakfast for you.” Daria waited for a response. “Or shall I bring it in?” she added.
Sasha opened the door with a finger raised to her smiling lips. Daria looked around her to the bed. Illya had rolled onto his back, one arm stretched across the bed, the sheets only half-way up his chest. Sasha glanced over her shoulder for a moment, then turned back to Daria. They exchanged a look. “We should feed him first,” Sasha said.
Nodding, Daria went to retrieve the trolley. Sasha went to close the drapes.
*********************
The bedroom was bright when Napoleon opened his eyes, the breeze coming in the window fresh. He brought his wrist up in front of his face, dropped his arm back on the bed and shut his eyes again, but he didn’t sleep.
The Saturday morning traffic was beginning to flow, tires hissing along the still wet pavement. The high voices of several children shouting and laughing rose and fell as though they were chasing a ball, a balloon or one another in the park. A dog barked excitedly. A horn honked.
Napoleon stood up and ambled to the bathroom. He hated waking up in his clothes. More and more he hated waking up alone.
******************
To read some of the backstory about how Sasha, Daria and Illya came to know one another, click here.
Part I of the story may be found at MFUWSS here.
Part II is here.
(Also posted on MFUWSS.)
Rating: R (there are slash and het aspects)
Length: ~7K
Warning: There are screencaps in this section, so it may be a little slow in loading.
Disclaimer: I don't own MUNCLE and no money is being made. As in the previously posted parts, the non-canon (original) characters are mine.
Author's note: Playing around with reality a bit with regard to the name of the prize given at Cannes in certain years.
Excerpt:
No one lounged against a wall quite like Illya; no one imbued that seemingly relaxed posture with the seductive menace that he did.
****************
Third: Part III
Palme d'Or
The lilacs scented the shade.
Illya turned. His cheek touched Sasha's arm.
The honeysuckle climbed up the trellis near the window. A breeze shook the last raindrops from the leaves.
Eyes shut, Illya reached out, found Sasha's waist and pulled himself closer.
Lily of the valley dabbed between her breasts.
Illya breathed deeply and lay still, sleep reclaiming him.
Sasha held her breath when Illya stirred, letting it out slowly after he settled again. The sheets were fragrant with the oils they had used. Her dream clung to her. Through half-opened eyes Sasha watched the autumn sun play along Illya’s hair. She resisted the urge to stroke it. He needed more sleep. His head was heavy against her chest, his breath warm across her cool skin. The concert had exhausted him. Not completely. She smiled. The papers would be interesting. The press would assume it was a trick, a publicity stunt. How many could recognise it for what it was? Sasha pulled the covers up over Illya's shoulders and hoped that no one who shouldn't would. They had erased the evidence well, before they dispersed. They seemed to be drifting together again though, almost as if by chance. Her mind turned back to Cannes in the spring.
Sasha scanned the reception room from the landing, smiling formally at several familiar faces whose eyes happened to meet hers. Then her cheeks flamed and her smile increased far beyond a polite level. She had spotted him, leaning against the far wall looking to his left.
No one lounged against a wall quite like Illya; no one imbued that seemingly relaxed posture with the seductive menace that he did. Several times she had captured him on film in that position, but she had never been able to direct another actor sufficiently well to recreate the effect. Sasha shrugged her wrap off her shoulders. I haven't analysed it thoroughly. She moved to the other side of the stairs to see if she could catch his eye, but Illya was intent on something else.
“That look. Best not to be on the receiving end of it,” she murmured to herself and followed his line of sight. Ah, Pavel. With hundreds of people here tonight, you are who Illya has to see first! Sasha moved down a few steps, holding the skirt of her gown up delicately between index and middle finger so as not to crease the dark green silk. A veritable drama club reunion. The physicist, the psychologist and Pavel. She took the last few stairs to the floor. Life has taken us far from our student days in Georgia.
Sasha wove her way through the other guests until she stood in front of Illya and touched his right arm. He turned towards her and she urged him a few steps away. She took no notice of Pavel. They had greeted one another courteously on several occasions during the festival; she didn’t want another exchange now. It was quite enough that he might already have seen Illya.
Illya’s face had still not composed itself. “He’s here,” Illya hissed.
“Pavel’s in one of the other films,” Sasha replied, kissing Illya firmly on either cheek and then back on the first one again. She felt the tension in his muscles ease. Illya smiled and kissed her three times, his lips gentle on her cheeks, moving slightly downwards, touching the edge of her smile on the last. “That’s better,” she breathed and looked into his eyes for a moment before taking his arm and leading him to the other side of the room. She grimaced when Illya paused to slip on his glasses. “Those can’t be the same ones!“ she exclaimed.
“No, I’ve replaced them a few times.“ He winked at her, thoughts of Pavel apparently dismissed, and she chuckled. She knew why Illya wore his glasses when he wasn’t reading.
They greeted a dozen or more people before leaving to do the same at another gathering and then a third. Illya received puzzled glances as people tried to place him and decide whether they needed to know who he was. Something in his calm reserve as he introduced himself keep them respectful and they did not turn away from him as they addressed Sasha in congratulations or supplication. “A new producer,” many of them decided. He had none of the eagerness they would have expected from a young actor or a screenwriter nor any of the deference they would have expected from an outsider, someone who would be dazzled by the proximity of cinema figures. So they could only conclude that he had money, as that was the form of power with which they were most familiar.
Some observers noted a radiance in Sasha’s features, the photographers especially, who were very pleased with the shots they took of her that evening. They excluded Illya from all of them because they wanted to send them to press immediately and didn’t have time to research who her companion was. Besides there were plenty of other people to include in the frame as Sasha extended her hand gracefully to colleagues and well-wishers. A few journalists referred in print to her escort, two or three identifying him as the backer for her next project, not too troubled about the distinction between fact and fiction. Sasha glowed because she had just won a coveted prize and Illya was a business partner in attendance because Sasha’s success represented a financial opportunity. They had it all figured out, so they enquired no further.
*************
They were both silent when Illya finished his narration, ending with the visit to the clinic where Napoleon had been kept to rest for a few days before being allowed to fly back to New York. Sasha had almost smiled when Illya had described the phalanx of flirtatious nurses guarding the reluctant patient, but his jesting words weren't a sufficient disguise for his distress. Sasha sipped her wine. Illya glanced at her face; it was blank. He waited for her to finish processing this new information. Other people thought she hadn’t heard whatever they had said when she looked like that. He’d thought it, too, when he first worked with her. After only a few rehearsals he had come to understand that that was when her thoughts had absorbed her totally, leaving her expression empty. He, and the rest of the cast, had learned to be quiet until the light came back into her eyes. He saw it returning now, but before Sasha spoke, he asked, “Did I hurt you like that?” She was thinking again, but this time she kept her gaze on him. Sasha didn’t need to ponder the question long. She had had years to consider it.
“No,” she replied, her eyes wandering over Illya's face, then returning to his eyes. She was stretched out on the sofa, and he was on the ottoman at its end, angled towards her. She was too far away to touch him, yet he leaned forward and she knew he could feel her fingers running down his cheek. “You never denied me.” She sipped more of her wine; her eyes went up to Illya's hair and down to his hand which had moved to rest on the arm of the sofa. She came back to his eyes. “Do you remember the short about the queen and the eagle?”
“My Valkerie,” he murmured and his hand came to rest on the top of her foot.
“Your voice as the sky god made that feature. It won my first award,” she reflected.
"It was our first step towards Paris, but I think the queen had something to do with it.” He lifted Sasha's ankles and settled on the couch with her feet across his lap. When he leaned forward to retrieve his wine from the table, the muscles of his abdomen were hard against her shins.
“We almost fell off the cliff filming the eagle," Illya continued. “I clutched the camera more tightly when the edge started to crumble, thinking Prof Kuzmenkov would kill us if we broke it.“
“I grabbed the back of your belt and yanked hard,” Sasha added. "I didn't want to lose that footage."
Illya smiled. “I landed on top of you, the camera still aloft.” He held his glass high and looked past the coffee table and the beige carpet and saw the trampled grass and the jagged stone of the cliff.
“I thought that I’d torn my skirt and was worried what people would think.” Sasha laughed and shook her head. “We didn’t feel how close death had come.”
“We were very young,” Illya observed, lowering his wine glass and drinking from it.
“That film opened such a different path for me.” Sasha stared into her glass. “I tried to bring you with me, but you wouldn't be dislodged from your laboratory.” Her voice faded away.
“That didn’t pull us apart,” Illya said and paused. “Pavel tried and he failed.”
“Nothing from outside was going to change us. We were impervious, imperious." Sasha finished her wine and began rolling the empty glass between her palms. "The change came from within.” She stretched out a hand for the wine bottle on the table, refilled her glass with careful motions and returned the bottle to its place. “That second year in Paris, I could feel you pulling on the tether, like the eagle." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I never wanted to hold you back. I wanted to let you fly as high as you wanted to go.”
“Even if it hurt when I became a mere speck against the sun?” he asked.
“It didn’t hurt like a wound.” Sasha stared at the ceiling until she saw a winged creature against a remembered sky. “It was a stretching…” She reached out her hand above the back of the couch. “'...when the queen extended her gloved arm, an eagle descended from the clouds',” Sasha recited softly. Illya held his hand above her arm. “Its shadow made the horses paw the ground and shy away, but the queen held the reins tight in one hand until the eagle perched and folded its wings." Illya's fingers settled lightly on Sasha's bare skin. "Its golden eye would fix on her as its talons sunk into the thick leather.” Illya looked at Sasha, saw the brightness in her eyes, the blood in her cheeks, and his fingers tightened.
They leaned towards one another, their lips touching lightly, testing, to learn if this was a place they might still be. They parted and set down their glasses at nearly the same time. Sasha drew closer to Illya, her bent knees a barrier. He rested his head on them, his hand stroking along her thigh. She lay her hand on his hair, softly brushing it away from his face. Illya shut his eyes and inhaled her familiar fragrance. It reminded him of a spring garden. They had been one another's garden, nourishing and inspiring each other. Their youthful paradise had been everywhere, behind the scenery, in the darkroom, in the woods, occasionally, on a bed. Betweentimes, they had studied, morning and night, and excelled, winning honours and scholarships, and yet they had still had the energy to perform the plays and create the films which had brought Sasha renown. They didn't think there was anything they couldn’t do.
Sasha's arms closed around Illya's shoulders. She leaned forward to kiss his ear, his cheek. He lifted his head without opening his eyes. Her kisses strayed from his cheek to his lips to his throat, and then Sasha pulled away, leaning back on the cushions. With the grace which had always been his, Illya moved alongside her, his hand sliding between the folds of her robe. “My valkerie,” he murmured.
“L'aigle d‘or,” she replied, turning towards him. Her perfume enveloped them.
They had fallen asleep afterwards, pressed together on the couch. When Illya stirred, Sasha’s hand left his shoulder to run through his hair and down his back. “You’ve filled out a bit,” she said smilingly.
“I was rather scrawny, wasn’t I?” he replied.
“Slender as a willow wand,” she countered.
“I think some people thought you should have chosen a more robust suitor,” he commented. “Like Pavel.”
Sasha's lip curled, “He never felt the slightest attraction to either of us.”
“Iago was a good part for him,” Illya said. “Though he didn‘t bring half the venom to the role he could have.” Sasha felt Illya’s muscles knotting as he spoke. “He was probably afraid to reveal too much of his soul.”
“We, on the other hand, worked very well as Titania and Puck,” she smiled, running her hand down his arm and back up again. "Remember the Kiev performance? How pleased you were that your parents were in the country for it? You pointed them out to me from the wings, the Doctors Kuryakin." Sasha's hand quieted. "I was surprised. I had imagined them younger." She could still picture the dignified white-haired man and the woman with silvery grey hair seated in the front row, could still hear Illya introducing them after the show, his voice just a little higher, his speech a little more rapid than usual. Sasha had met his mother’s gaze and been startled to see Illya’s eyes looking back at her. Dr Kuryakin’s courteous smile had broadened slightly and she had tilted her head to regard Illya with an almost wistful expression. Illya had been talking with his father and hadn't noticed.
Illya chuckled. “I loved playing Puck.”
“Yes, I know. I cast you in it, but it wasn’t a matter of casting. You were Puck,” she mused. “And even the head of the English Department was unable to say a word in dissent. It irked him so that neither of us was in his department. Doing Shakespeare! Oh, how he resented us.”
“And then we were sent off to perform in Kiev. He resented that even more,” Illya remembered. “I had him in mind at the end of the play and I think he knew it.
“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this - and all is mended -
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend;
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I’m an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call:
So, good night unto you all."
Illya took Sasha’s hand and finished his recitation. “Give me your hands, if we be friends.” He looked up at her. “And Robin shall restore amends.” He brushed his lips against her fingertips.
Sasha’s brows drew together. “It may be I who must make amends,” she said.
Illya raised an eyebrow.
“As I came down the stairs this evening, I saw you giving that look of yours to Pavel,” she said.
“Do I have just one?” he asked puckishly.
“You know which one I mean,” she said. “And I thought how you had never given me that look.”
“There was never any reason why I should, Sasha,” Illya said, rising on his elbow and resting their clasped hands between her breasts.
“Maybe tonight there will be,” she murmured and glanced away.
Illya watched a succession of emotions pass over her features: hope, anxiety, fear. His hand could feel her heartbeat accelerating before he drew it away to sit up. Sasha sat up as well and tugged her robe up over her shoulders. Illya reached out and took her face in both hands. Another line from their work together came to him. "Never fear me,” he said and in some corner of his mind he thought he knew what she was going to tell him. She smiled faintly at the reference. “No, my lord,” she replied in character. Sasha glanced away. Illya brushed over her cheekbones with his thumbs and waited. She looked back at him and asked, “You know I’m divorced now?”
“I read about it. I meant to write…” he trailed off, his thumbs ceasing to move.
“He’s on to another marriage, his fourth.”
“Did he give you trouble about custody, or anything?” Illya asked.
“No, he has grown children by his first wife, even grandchildren now, and he isn’t a vindictive man or even very possessive,” she replied. “I have no need for his money, for myself or for Nicolai, so we parted most amiably when he wanted to marry someone else,” she added.
Illya was watching her intently for a clue as to what had caused the fear. “And does Nicolai feel abandoned by his father?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” Sasha replied. “Andre was often away, and his older children, who were at university when Nicolai was small, would come to visit, so I think the idea that fathers and children aren’t always in the same place seems natural to him. Of course, it is hard to know for sure. He is a thoughtful boy and I think he keeps his sadnesses to himself.”
Her eyes had been looking off to the right as she recalled her child and Illya marked the softness in her expression and her voice. Sasha’s eyes came back to Illya’s. “He has your red hair,” Illya stated.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“I always thought your children would,” he replied, keeping his gaze steadily on her. His palms rested just beneath her jaw and he could feel her pulse pounding against them. “And, Nicolai,” he paused and considered the name. “Is he slim as a willow wand?” He saw the film of tears in her eyes. “Do you know?” he asked. Sasha shook her head.
“Mathematics is one of your fields,” she murmured. “I thought, when I sent you the birth announcement, that you might make some computations.”
He looked down at her lips and wanted to kiss away the unhappy curve there. “It never occurred to me. You sent a printed announcement, without a single hand-written word, and I thought it was your way of saying that your marriage had been consecrated by the birth of a child.”
Sasha's eyes studied Illya's face. “Is that why you never visited after that? You thought it was a message to stay away?” Illya nodded and Sasha sighed. “For two people who knew each other so well, and wished each other so well, we certainly failed to communicate, didn’t we?”
Illya hands dropped away. He rose to his knees and pulled Sasha against his chest. “And you thought by staying away I was dismissing the possibility of being your child’s father, didn’t you?” He felt her nodding. His head drooped until it rested against her hair “You were being very subtle,” he added with his own sigh. He felt Sasha nod again.
“Remember your trip to Paris, when I was about eight months pregnant?” Sasha began. She breathed deeply before continuing, “I asked if you wanted to feel the baby kick and you let me take your hand and hold it over my abdomen.“
Illya nodded, his jaw brushing past Sasha's hair. "We stayed like that a long while, your hand over mine." The fingers of Illya's left hand splayed over the middle of Sasha's back. "And then I felt it." His fingertips pressed into her back. "A kick...strong...and then another." Illya's right hand closed around Sasha's shoulder. "I didn’t want to take my hand away." Illya took a deep breath. "I had been staring at our hands. I looked up at you. I thought that if you had anything to tell me, you would do it then." His hand started rubbing Sasha's shoulder, as if he might have gripped too hard. "Without doing any calculations, I must have wondered,” he paused, his brows drawing together. “You wanted me to ask you if the baby was mine, didn’t you?” Sasha's muscles were thrumming with the effort not to weep at the stupidity of it, at the relief to finally talk of it. Illya held her tighter, swaying slightly.
“Have you tried a blood test?” he finally asked.
“It won’t help. We all have the same blood type,” she murmured.
“What?” Illya exclaimed, remembering that he and Sasha did. They had liked that when it had first come to their attention. “O is common, but the negative makes the coincidence highly unlikely." He paused. "Universal donors; we can give blood to anyone, but only receive it from one another." Illya thought of the last time he had seen Andre. “Andre‘s eyes are blue, aren't they? What colour was his hair when he was young?”
Sasha nodded. “Blond,” She replied. Illya leaned back to look at her, both hands on her shoulders. “Early imprinting?” she ventured.
“Perhaps.” Illya exhaled slowly. “Are you sure you weren't angry with me when I left for Cambridge and you just forgot to mention it?”
“I wanted to let you fly. You did, very softly, say that you would be happy to have me go with you.”
“But I added that I didn’t want to take you away from what you loved. Less than a passionate entreaty, eh?” His left hand moved back to her cheek.
“But you were right,” she responded, defending his past self. “You felt how excited I was about what I was doing and it was going so wonderfully. You didn’t want to take that away from me,” she finished, grasping both his shoulders.
“Perhaps our styles are too similar,” Illya remarked.
“Or our philosophy of love,” she ventured quietly. She drew his hand away from her face and contemplated it. “You still wear it,” she observed.
“I’ve never lost the habit of wearing it,” he said.
“The magical ring which transformed from the narrow band around the eagle’s leg to a ring that fit the god’s finger,” she recalled, watching as he bent his thumb across his palm and twirled the ring.
“Almost fit,” he said, “It’s still a bit big.” She leaned forward and rested her cheek against his. "My hands were the only part of me you filmed for that," Illya said and moved them back and forth along her shoulders. Sasha's breathing was evening out.
After a while Illya asked, “Does Andre think that Nicolai might not be his child?”
“I don’t think so, although he isn’t a very involved father. He wasn’t with his older children either, but, once again, I don’t really know. It never came up and Nicolai looks so much like me. As if there were no father at all,” she finished.
“You wanted him to be mine, didn’t you? That’s how you think of Nicolai, isn’t it? As our child?” He felt the tremour run through her. This time she let the tears spill over. “And yet you never told me.”
“It’s the oldest ploy in the world to trap an honourable man, isn’t it? I didn’t want to do that to either of us,” Sasha said, drying her face with two impatient swipes of her hand.
“You and me or you and Nicolai?” Illya asked.
“Any of us,” she amended more quietly.
Illya raised his hand from her shoulder to her hair, stroking it. “You wanted to keep a part of me with you.”
Sasha nodded her assent. “I would put my arms around my belly and feel that little being in there moving and I thought it had to be yours because you inspired my creativity, so you must have made me fruitful in that way, too,” she paused. “And there was the fact that we hardly stood up during the week you were in Paris about nine months before he was born.”
The memory rushed back and Illya couldn’t help smiling. “We were in danger of starving. But you got engaged a month later to Andre.” He stopped. “I left you again. I’d defended my dissertation just before I came to see you. I was full of my accomplishments, the offers of teaching and research positions, grants and fellowships. I was so focused on myself.”
“Illya,” she sighed. “I was full of myself, too. Agents were calling with scripts, lawyers with contracts, journalists for interviews because my second film had been nominated for an Oscar. ” She paused. “Do you remember which one that was?” Her hand moved into the hair on the back of his neck. “The one with a cameo of you and me, a flashback of the protagonist’s first love affair. You let me badger you into filmng it on one of your visits. That scene got singled out more than any other for praise from the critics. We had 'distilled the essence of young love', I believe was how one of them put it.”
“Hmm,“ Illya remembered the surreal quality of Sasha directing him on how to portray himself, her memory of his even younger self. “But it was your third film that won the next year…”
“Yes. The one I made when I was pregnant.” She was silent a moment. “I used a clip of your opening monologue from Richard III and the two scenes of wooing Anne, first with you playing Gloucester and me Anne, and then the reverse. That got a lot of commentary.” Her fingertips were gliding back and forth along the back of Illya's collar. “And finally your Queen Mab speech.” Sasha paused again. “Your Mercutio was so derisive, almost mad.” Sasha drew back to look at Illya. “As if he couldn’t bear Romeo pursuing one more girl.”
“I…,” Illya began. Sasha raised an eyebrow. “It came out after Nicolai’s was born and…”
“You never saw it,” Sasha finished.
Illya nodded, “I was away most of that year.“
She studied him. “Are you sure I haven’t hurt you, Illya?”
“I begin to wonder how well I know myself,” Illya sighed.
“We were perhaps too clever by half for our own good,” Sasha suggested, stroking Illya’s cheek. “Always in control, always understanding everyone’s motivations and desires, except possibly our own.”
"Hmm,” Illya concurred, wrapping his arms around her again and falling back on the couch, pulling Sasha along with him.
***************
“Delivery services are delightful,” Sasha said the next afternoon as she pushed the front door closed with her shoulder, her arms full of warm, brown bags. Illya emerged from the bedroom still in his pyjamas and helped her arrange the food on the counter which separated the kitchenette from the living room.
“I thought you might not answer my telegram,” he said, taking a knife out of a rack and sliding a baguette from one of the bags. He watched Sasha out of the corner of his eye.
“I would never have done that, no matter how much time had passed. And you sent me all those congratulatory notes over the years." Illya raised his eyebrows. Sasha pulled out two apples and rolled them towards him. "I kept them,“ she explained. “Hardly a word about yourself, but the postmarks told me a alot. And the lack of a return address. You’ve been all over in that time, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” Illya answered, “Even through Paris.” He picked up one of the apples, breathed on it and rubbed it against his blue pyjama top.
“Ah,” Sasha exhaled the syllable slowly as she freed a large container from the last bag. She unsnapped the lid. “You never posted anything to me from there.” The smell of onions filled the air.
“No,” Illya agreed quietly. “I thought it might be awkward.”
“You didn't want to admit that you didn't want to see me,” she said, reaching across the counter for the cruets of oil and vinegar. “What happened recently changed your mind though?” Sasha pulled out a stopper and annointed the salad, set the cruet down and unstoppered the vinegar. The tang of balsamic vinegar curled upwards.
“I'd just concluded my business in Italy when I saw the article about the awards in the newspaper." Illya stopped slicing the apples. He gestured with the knife. "There was a photo of you...and Cannes was so close. I thought..." He set the knife carefully beside the fruit. "If I could rest my…”
The wooden spoons clicked against the sides of the salad bowl when Sasha let go of them. A few strides took her around the counter. She was a couple inches taller than Illya; his head rested comfortably on her shoulder as she held him, one arm across his back, her other hand curved around his head. Against the white wall across the room, she saw a younger Illya open the one, official-looking envelope that had arrived for him in the afternoon post. She had looked away so as not to see what he was reading. Without a sound, he had turned and leaned his forehead against her shoulder. Later, she scanned the few formal sentences notifying Illya that both his parents had died in a laboratory explosion. Through that night, in his narrow bed, she had held him. When the tears finally made their way to the surface just before dawn, she had held him. So she held him now.
*******************
They were finishing the last morsels of the midnight snack they had brought back to bed with them after they’d awoken famished, when Illya’s communicator sounded. It was lying on the nightstand on Sasha’s side of the bed and she reached over quickly and handed it to Illya with a complicit smile. She watched as he deftly twisted it open and said, “Kuryakin here.” She could hear a small voice she was sure must be Napoleon’s asking a couple humorous and thoughtful questions to both of which Illya replied, “No.” Her smile got wider when she heard the voice ask if Illya had been sleeping, and Illya had replied, "No, although I should have been. What can I--". And then she heard Napoleon ask Illya to come home. Sasha watched as Illya began to smile and her director’s ear heard the change of voice in the two words Illya spoke in reply, “Very soon.” He clicked his communicator closed and looked over at her.
She moved closer and put her arms around him. “That sounded very sincere,” she said. “Shall I help you pack now?”
“No,” he said, “I won’t take the earliest flight. I want to spend tonight with you.” He looked up with a furrowed brow, “If you’ll still let me.”
Sasha kissed his hair and his eyes and then his mouth. “Of course, I’ll let you.” She watched the conflicting expressions on Illya’s face and understood that he was far from sure that a happy resolution awaited him in New York. She pulled him back among the pillows. “Tomorrow the eagle will take to the skies again,” she murmured, “But tonight, he can nest with me.”
*******************
Sasha had just finished packing her things when Illya awoke. She handed him a cup of coffee and picked up the phone to call the caretaker to say she would be leaving a bit early and where she would leave the key for him. Illya was in the shower before she hung up.
The day was clear and the air fresh as Sasha maneuvered along the curving roads to the airport. “This has been a very unusual visit,” he observed wryly.
Sasha didn’t turn, but smiled down the road at the typical understatement. “I’m more relaxed than I’ve been in a long while,” she said. “No, and it isn’t only because we’ve hardly been out of bed these two days,” she said. “But that didn’t hurt,” she added, slipping her hand from the stick shift to glide along Illya’s thigh.
He closed his eyes. "Your hand is so warm. If we didn’t have a plane to catch, I'd ask you to pull into some secluded spot." Sasha's glance flickered from the road to Illya and back again. "I know that's an unusual reaction to be having on my way to..."
Sasha's hand slid a bit higher and she laughed. “We don’t have time, Illya,” she exclaimed.
“I know,” he sighed. “Of course, we’re on the same flight to Paris.”
She swatted his thigh lightly. “Was ever woman in this humour woo’d?”
“Was ever woman in this humour won?” he rejoined.
**************
They had fallen asleep shortly after boarding the plane. He’d checked his suitcase through to New York; his connection in Paris was tight. As the plane was beginning its descent into the City of Light, he whispered to Sasha, “I know this is an odd request, but do you have any hair of Nicolai’s?”
Sasha looked at Illya. “Mm, I have his baby teeth and hair.” She looked out the plane window. “His hair was like red gold when he was a baby. I didn‘t cut it for the longest time, but when I did, I kept it.” Her eyes came back to Illya's. “Why?” she asked.
“The science is far from practical yet, but there is work on testing which promises to be far more accurate than blood tests for paternity and other identification matters. If I have some tissue samples on hand, I can take advantage of the early trials,” he paused. “If you would want me to, of course. He assessed the hopeful look on her face. “Although it might not be for a couple years yet, or possibly even longer.”
“Write to me and tell me where to send them to you,” she answered. “And let me know how you are this time, not just where.”
He stroked his knuckles down her cheek. “I will, Sasha,” he promised.
She looked down a moment, then reached under her seat for her bag. She drew out her wallet and flipped through it. “Would you like these?” she asked, in a voice oddly shy. She had two small photographs in her hand. One was a surprisingly flattering school photo of an 11-year-old boy with freckles and spring green eyes, not dark blue-green like his mother’s. The other was a larger snapshot of Nicolai, all long arms and legs, breaking the tape across the finishing line at a track. Illya looked up questioningly. “I have copies at home,” she said.
Illya nodded and took out of his jacket what appeared to be a cigarette case and gingerly slipped them inside.
Sasha knew he didn’t smoke any more, but didn’t ask.
“He’s a very beautiful boy,” he said, glancing back at her.
“And smart…” she began.
He saw her lips close over the next words. He knew she wanted to say, “Like his father,” but she couldn’t be absolutely sure and so said nothing. “I hope he is mine,” he said very softly. “But whether he is or not, he’s yours, and I’d love him just for that, you know.”
She held his gaze and whispered, “Illya.” He’d been living for so long where very few people could say his name the way Sasha could and even fewer had had the opportunities to utter it that she had had. She didn’t reach out to touch him, but he could feel her fingers sliding across his cheek and into his hair.
*********************
Despite the preparations for the next assignment and the prolonged lack of sleep, Illya remembered to drop an envelope addressed to Paris in the outgoing mail tray before he and Napoleon left for the airport. He enclosed a card with a post office box on it instead of a street address. On the back he wrote, “No resolution here. Not sure when, but hope to update you in person before too long. Kiss N. for me.” RG
Illya felt fairly certain she would slip the card in her wallet along with her copies of the photos she had given him on the plane.
*****************
The waiter had just turned away with Alexandra's order when Illya stepped behind her chair and placed both his hands on her shoulders. He felt only the slightest start before one hand rose to her left shoulder and brushed across his hand. It stopped when her fingertips reached the ring. He leaned down and pressed his cheek against hers. “Did you order for me, too?” he asked.
She nodded. He took her hand and lightly kissed the back, then turned it over and kissed the palm more firmly as he slid into the wrought iron chair next to her on the little terrace. It had been six weeks since they had parted at the airport. He kept hold of her hand and smiled. “Even though we never agreed on where to rendezvous?”
“You said to confirm the date and hour and that you would find me.”
He raised her hand and moved it slowly back and forth along his lower lip before responding. “You were confident I would be here?”
Her brow furrowed, “Unless something you couldn’t help detained you, I was sure you would come.”
“Eleven years ago, you were very unsure of me. Did I inspire so much confidence in Cannes?”
She kept a steady gaze into his summer sky eyes and pondered whether she had subconsciously decided to finally use the oldest snare in the world to draw him back to her. Illya watched her shake her head ever so slightly and shut her eyes for an instant. She saw herself and Illya embracing as from a distance ~ Illya with his head upon her shoulder. “Yes,” she answered, opening her eyes. “Yes, you did.”
The waiter came and set down their coffee cups, a carafe of water, two glasses, a couple plates and a basket of pain au chocolate. Illya released her hand and picked up the basket to offer it to her. “You didn’t question how I would find you?”
Sasha selected a pastry and set it on her plate, then reached beneath the table and drew a thick envelope out of the bag tucked between her feet and placed it next to his plate with a small smile. “See if that tells you why.”
He set down his cup and opened the heavy envelope. “'The Life and Works of Christopher Marlowe',” he read off the title page as he drew out the contents. Illya reached inside his jacket for his glasses before perusing the summary, then he flipped to the end and read through the scene where Marlowe was assassinated in the tavern in Deptford. “You haven’t worked this up since I saw you last?”
“I’ve revised it,” she explained between bites of pastry.
“It’s what you were thinking of doing after we completed Richard III,” he remembered. “But we got diverted with A Midsummer Night's Dream then Much Ado About Nothing.” The intervening years moved to one side and those student days seemed recent again. You weren’t sure whether to have me read Edward or his lover.” His voice dropped. “We read through the scene between Isabella and Gaveston a couple times.” He flipped from tab to tab until he found the scene.
Sasha watched his eyes run over the text. It was her original copy with notes in the margins. The morning sunlight highlighted the faint flush which had come into his cheeks as he read. Illya regarded her over the edge of the papers. How tightly you could have bound me to you, he thought.
“But you are a creature of the air. You would have died in captivity,” she replied as though to his thought. Illya’s eyes widened. “Years of filming close-ups,” she said.
Illya nodded and turned the page. We hadn’t finished the second read through. He glanced at Sasha again and saw her eyes gleaming.
“Perhaps we should go now,” she said. Illya motioned to the waiter for the check. “There’s a place I want to show you. It’s a short walk from here.”
Illya slipped the manuscript back into the envelope and put some notes under a saucer before the waiter reached the table. Sasha took Illya's arm as they stepped onto the pavement and steered him away from the river.
He wasn’t surprised when they stopped at a familiar entrance. He’d realised when he’d located the café that they were close to their old neighbourhood. The door was painted a different colour, but little else appeared to have changed along the small street.
“It came on the market a couple years ago, and I bought it.” Sasha explained as she unclipped her keys from inside her satchel. “Rather a prescient impulse, don’t you think?” Illya followed her across the courtyard and up the inner stairs to the top floor. “The flat next door was for sale as well; I’ve let that to an Algerian family who come for the summers and occasional long weekends.” They stepped inside and closed the door. Sasha moved quickly across the dim room to open the shutters. The southward facing balcony doors flooded the room with light. When Sasha turned around, it glowed about her. Illya dropped the envelope on a table as he closed the distance between them.
Several kisses had merged one into the other before he paused to look at her. Her breath was uneven and her eyes had the same plea in them they had had all those years ago. The only way he’d been able to imagine doing the part was to promise himself he’d make love to her every time they finished rehearsing it. To taunt someone like that, even if one hated the person…and yet he had been able to play the part. So well, she’d told him later that she had felt ready to faint by the end, yet she’d said they should try it once more. He hadn’t been able to finish the second reading without responding to her.
“It’s such a cruel part,” he said later, running his hand from her thigh to her stomach and pressing gently there as he leaned over to kiss her. She stretched towards him. “Do you see me as having such a cruel side?” he asked when they’d parted.
“I see you as having a lot of acting talent,” she answered, stroking his cheek and brow. He watched as her eyes followed her fingertips around his face. “You could have had a great dramatic career. You could still.”
“I use a fair amount of it in my current job,” he said. “All the world is a stage.”
“Yes, and we do play many parts,” she agreed. Her fingers moved through his hair, down his neck and back up into his hair again. “I haven’t given you a chance to tell me how you’ve fared since we parted.”
Illya closed his eyes. He heard Napoleon‘s voice and felt himself being lifted off the pillows.
Sasha felt a tremour run through Illya. She had seen no image, just felt a wave of heat. Illya opened his eyes. “Our path was so unclear,” he started.
“But you reached your goal,” she prompted. “There’s a light, an energy in you which wasn’t there when you arrived in Cannes. I saw a flicker of it after you spoke to him there.”
“We reached a goal, but there is another barrier and this one is in me,” he explained looking down at her mouth and wanting to kiss it again. When he did, her whole body responded to him. He touched her lips once more and her arms closed around him pressing him against her. "This was the reaction I had wanted from Napoleon at the clinic," Illya thought. "Oh, Sasha. This is what you accustomed me to!" Illya rolled onto his back.
“Napoleon thought he could have all of me, without offering all of himself in return,” Illya expanded. Sasha turned onto her side and raised an eyebrow. They had encountered those issues before.
“If you deny anyone else, it will be because you don’t want to hurt that person, even ones who keep assuring you that they are willing to take the risk,” she responded.
“Sasha, until a few weeks ago, you hadn’t seen me for a decade. How do you know that and Napoleon doesn’t? He and I have been working together for years now.”
“We knew each other so well when we were still so young,” she suggested. “And we are so alike.”
"And we shared something few people can," she thought.
“I told him that as far as anyone else was concerned, I’d quit when he did.”
Sasha raised both eyebrows.
“He’s been trying. But a few days ago, off he wandered.”
“And you came here,” she finished.
Illya’s brow furrowed.
She reached over and smoothed the crease in his forehead. “Right after you reached New York, you wrote that you would come soon,” she said.
“Yes, but you’re right. When he behaved in his usual fashion towards a pretty young lady, I telegraphed you immediately.”
“You needed to talk with me and you promised me you would.”
“You’re trying to make me feel better,” Illya murmured.
“I’m grateful Napoleon hasn’t yet satisfied you body and soul,” she answered, “So there is still some of you left for me.”
Illya moved closer to Sasha. “This is a strange journey we are embarking on,” he sighed and shut his eyes.
Sasha leaned over Illya. “Yes,” she agreed, “But when we work together, we are so strong.”
Illya felt light kisses on his cheek and neck. The cherry tree’s flowers were falling on them. Sasha’s kisses were so delicate that he couldn’t distinguish the touch of her lips from that of the petals. As Sasha proceeded downwards she pressed her kisses more firmly against the muscles and the scars she found there.
Illya let out a long, slow breath.
*******************
Daria opened the door to the hotel suite. The waiter wheeled in the cart from room service. She gave him his tip and put the “Do not disturb” sign on the doorknob before shutting it and slipping the chain lock in place after him. Kyrill had already left for his lunch appointment and would go straight from there to his radio interview and on to the concert hall for rehearsal. They wouldn’t get to see him until they attended the concert in the evening.
Daria raised the covers on the dishes to check that she had received what she had ordered. Satisfied, she headed across the living room and knocked on Sasha’s bedroom door. “Wake up, sleepy heads, I have breakfast for you.” Daria waited for a response. “Or shall I bring it in?” she added.
Sasha opened the door with a finger raised to her smiling lips. Daria looked around her to the bed. Illya had rolled onto his back, one arm stretched across the bed, the sheets only half-way up his chest. Sasha glanced over her shoulder for a moment, then turned back to Daria. They exchanged a look. “We should feed him first,” Sasha said.
Nodding, Daria went to retrieve the trolley. Sasha went to close the drapes.
*********************
The bedroom was bright when Napoleon opened his eyes, the breeze coming in the window fresh. He brought his wrist up in front of his face, dropped his arm back on the bed and shut his eyes again, but he didn’t sleep.
The Saturday morning traffic was beginning to flow, tires hissing along the still wet pavement. The high voices of several children shouting and laughing rose and fell as though they were chasing a ball, a balloon or one another in the park. A dog barked excitedly. A horn honked.
Napoleon stood up and ambled to the bathroom. He hated waking up in his clothes. More and more he hated waking up alone.
******************
To read some of the backstory about how Sasha, Daria and Illya came to know one another, click here.