hypatia_66

Short Affair challenge 6 March 2018.

Illya must be told

Click on image for AO3

 Short challenge (Discover, White)

The ice is thin

The commissary was fairly full; at this time of the morning, it provided breakfast for agents arriving early and unfed, or returning from late missions (also unfed). It was a good time, therefore, to introduce a new colleague to the male talent on offer. The older men, their home lives providing not only stability but also a more relaxed and healthy breakfast, were already at work in their offices. The talent on offer, then, was worth seeing – to set the blood racing for the day – being younger, fitter, and often very good looking.

( Read more... )

All in honour, pt 4 

Mending a heart and a broken friendship.

Title and chapter headings from a sonnet about parting, by Michael Drayton (1563-1631). See notes below.

Shake hands forever

Prologue. 1968. Come let us kiss and part

He was in a very deep, dark hole. No light seemed to penetrate into his mind and give him back his insouciance, or his love of life. He had become an automaton, acting out the part he had played so successfully for so many years. No-one seemed to notice, so it worked for a while.

But before his eyes, every moment of the day, and in his nightmares, was the sight of that execution squad. It wasn’t as if it hadn’t happened before. They had been rescued at the last minute many times, but this time even his partner had run out of useful tactics – he had stood apparently unmoved, not reacting to anything; numb. It had been sheer chance that it had been called off. They might have died. It wasn’t the dying, though. It was the nightmare helplessness. In a way, he had died.( Read more... )**********************************

Chapter 1. 1983. Nay, I have done, you get no more of me

Still youthful, his sun-streaked hair untouched by frost, Vanya’s age showed in an inexplicable bitterness that had recently begun to draw lines in his face. Increasingly quick to anger, impatient, sarcastic, he could nevertheless be endlessly kind and helpful to anyone who tried hard, or whom he liked. There must have been several of those because his staff adored him.

It didn’t, however, include the former partner in his old life who had left him high and dry with no explanation. He had never spoken of him or, for that matter, the Organisation he had worked for, especially since Yugoslavia. So, why were they trying to contact him now? He wouldn’t answer. He wasn’t to be found; didn’t want to be found; refused to come to the phone. It had been too long and no-one had ever tried to make contact before; there could be no forgiveness for betrayal.( Read more... )