Mr. & Mrs. Solo

To Forget is Bliss

...La luna ci teneva compagnia, io ti sentivo mia...

Song drifted through his mind, taunting him as his brain slowly awoke with the rest of him. He was lying on something soft, body warm and heavy as he pulled his eyes open regretfully. Almost immediately, his senses were flooded with immense pain from a hangover that would probably last the rest of the day. Napoleon felt trapped in another world, one he had left behind in a dream about Spanish beaches and a woman who he would never deserve.

Closing his eyes once more to drown out the light, Napoleon gently reached over to take hold of Noah and pull her into him, but his fingers came up with only air. Perhaps she had gotten up earlier than he had, thought it wouldn't be too far out of his reach to think so. She had always teased him that he would waste the day by sleeping in, and he had always been able to bargain five more minutes out of her. 

The song on the radio was accompanied by rain tapping on his windows gently, the day overcast and dreary. He was faintly reminded of his first mission with Illya, watching as his partner drowned from the luxury of a dry truck. At times, however, he wasn't sure if he was glad he had saved him or not. Noah had the habit of listening to Italian radio around the house at times, perhaps she was the one who had put the channel on. 

Something moved behind him, and Napoleon's immediate thought was to go for the gun he kept hidden under his pillow before realizing that it was probably Noah. He groaned, squeezing his eyes shut and shoving his face in his pillow. "Good morning," he muttered, voice thick with sleep and the mess of a hangover. "What time is it?" To his question, there came no response. There was someone in the room with him, that was sure, but it wasn't Noah.

Forcing his tired body to wake up, Napoleon's hand went for his gun as his shoulders tensed in preparation for an attack. "Don't even think about it." Came a steely voice from over his shoulder, and though he recognized who it was, it did nothing to calm him. How Gaby had gotten into his home and then his bedroom, he wasn't sure. Noah might have let her in, but she would have woken him shortly after doing so. He sighed, releasing his grip from the pistol and putting his hand in plain sight for her. Opening his mouth to request that she close the curtains, he was sharply cut off. "What did you do?"

Well, as far as he remembered, he had had too much to drink and was paying the price. His eyebrows furrowed slightly as he turned onto his back, squinting through his hammering headache. "I had a lot to drink." Napoleon grumbled, sitting up and pinching the bridge of his nose. "A bit too much, I think." Blinking, his eyes adjusted to the light and he was greeted to the sight of a very angry German girl at the foot of his bed. Her eyes were rimmed with red as if she had been crying, face flushed and hands shaking. His immediate thought was that something had happened to Illya, but she would be far more upset. "...Gaby?"

His face stung suddenly, cheek sporting what he assumed would be a red handprint. Though she was small in size, he forgot at times how hard the East German mechanic could hit. "Don't you dare try and pretend that you don't know what you've done." Gaby fumed, eyes a rage as he turned to meet them. What he'd done?

Napoleon's world came to a halt with the scratch of a record needle. Noah. His mind flooded with every detail of her death that he had tried to drown out with drink, his normally perfect posture folding under the weight of realization as to what he had done. His hands stung from healing cuts wrapped in bandages he had only just noticed, but ignoring the sting he dug the heel of his hand into his eyes. Gaby's voice floated into his mind once more, pacing on his side of the bed angrily. "...and when I came here, with your car on fire and half of the block lined up, I thought you were dead, Napoleon. You were passed out on the floor of your kitchen, covered in blood." She paused for a second, not facing him. He could hear the frustration in her voice, masking the pain of loss. "I should have left you there." She snapped, turning around to face him.