Eroica and Major von dem Eberbach had made it out of the terrorist hideout fairly easily after Klaus dispatched the guards at their cell. He had stepped out the front door of the hideout to find his agents pulling up in front of the building. With that reassuring sight, he had collapsed and allowed himself to slip into the unconsciousness that had teased at the edges of his vision during the mad sprint through the halls.

He had woken up in a hospital. The damage had been a broken arm he'd earned while fighting the guards on the way out, two fractures in his skull, a concussion, a few lacerations on his head and face that needed to be stitched, and an unfortunate fracture to the orbit of his right eye that the doctors feared had cut into the optic nerves. Oh, and they'd had been forced to shave his head completely in order to stitch up the knocks he'd taken. The Major had floated in and out of a drug-induced haze for longer than he would have liked before he'd had enough of his senses back to ask after the others.

B and C were dead. The Major had been out for three days, and Agent J had been there to tell him that they were holding funerals for the Agents in Bonn that afternoon. None of the other agents had suffered injuries during the mission. The terrorists had been taken into custody in Ankara and would be tried there.

Aside from multiple contusions, the Earl had several shattered ribs, including one that had pierced his pancreas. He had to go under the knife in order to have it fixed. The doctors were also worrying about the burns on the Earl's torso, but aside from keeping them covered and sterile, there wasn't much they could do. J told the Major that the doctors expected the Earl back on his feet in a week.

The Major went back to sleep and woke up two days later. He blinked a few times with his good eye, then called the nurse and demanded to know where the Earl of Gloria was being kept. He then dismissed the nurse, who left in an angry huff. Then the Major pulled all his IVs and walked over to the Earl's room. It was dark out, but the Major wasn't sure what time it was, since they'd taken his watch. He settled into a chair next to the Earl and watched the man sleep. He was hooked to a heart monitor that blipped steadily. The Major sat in complete silence and numbness until the sky started graying through the window. Then a nurse came in and the Major left without protest to his own room.

He slept, then went back to the Earl's room when he woke back up. The man was awake this time. He turned in the bed and regarded the Major with wide blue eyes.

>"My poor Siegfried. You look awful."<

The Major put his good hand to his head and found it to be almost completely wrapped in gauze bandages. He imagined he didn't cut such an impressive figure with his arm in a cast and sling around his neck and in the colorless hospital robe.

>"Yes,"< he said, taking a seat. >"But it isn't anything to worry about. Just some cuts."< The thought of his eye danced in the back of his mind, but the Major declined to comment.

>"Yes, I had asked the doctors about you. They said you'd be fine. How are you feeling?"<

The Major looked at the Earl. His shorn golden curls were plastered against his skull, and the Major thought it likely they hadn't been washed in the two weeks that had elapsed since the thief had been captured. His sunken eyes and face were haunted-looking, and a few bruises he had sustained from facial blows had turned ugly colors in the last stages of healing. His arms were also covered in the same ugly-looking bruises, and were still slightly swollen from the worst of the blows. He had his blanket pulled most of the way up his chest, but the Major could see the bandages that were wrapped around his torso were beginning to show the seeping wounds underneath.

"I don't know." The Major answered honestly, closing his eye and leaning back in his chair as he switched to English. "Nothing like this has happened before."

>"Is this the worst you've ever been injured on a mission before?"<

The Major opened his eye and looked at the Earl when the invitation to switch languages had been declined. >"I've been shot several times, and I've been tortured before, by being beaten and burned and cut, but never all at once. But this time they very nearly bashed my head in. I invited it, I guess, but I didn't think they'd hit me that hard if they wanted information."< He was quiet for a minute, then added >"I've also never lost my agents before."<

The Earl was silent as he turned to look at the ceiling from his position in the bed. >"Their funerals were a few days ago. I would have liked to go."<

>"Me too."<

The Major thought of something that had bothered him back in the cell.

>"Have you heard from your men at the castle? Were they injured when the terrorists entered?"<

The Earl turned his head away and looked out the window. >"I don't know. Your agents haven't been able to get ahold of them. G told me he was going to find them for me. I'm not sure what that means."< He turned back to the Major and smiled weakly. >"I think that means they went looking for me. I think G would have told me if they found anyone injured or... or worse at the castle. Hopefully I'll be able to see them now that the agents will be visible around the castle and in Bonn. They'll let my men know."<

The Major was partially relieved to hear that, but still feared a bit that the men were missing. They sat in silence for several more minutes. The Major decided to say what was on his mind.

>"I... I think I will need some time by myself after this. I will be forced to take time off to recover, and I may take some time after that as well. To think about things. To be alone."< He looked at the Earl and hope he had made himself understood.

The Earl turned his head to look at him, expressionless. He didn't say a word, which made the Major uncomfortable.

The Major didn't really have anything else to add, so he stood to leave. He turned his back to the Earl and walked to the door. He paused.

Without turning back around, he added >"I will call you when I am finished. Give me two months."<

"Jawohl." The Earl added quietly as he watched the Major walk away. 

*****

His heart broke. He knew the Major wasn't the type to take something like this lightly. And all this had to happen after he'd made so much progress! Tears filled the man's eyes. He hoped the Major didn't decide to push him away or something silly because he thought he was too dangerous to be around.

Well, he had another thing coming if he thought Eroica would leave his side so easily. Only death would ever part him from the Major, if he had anything to say about it.

*****

Two weeks later, the Major studied himself in the mirror. He was still away on medical leave from NATO, and sitting around the house was driving him crazy. The bandages on his head had come off, and the stitches had come out a few days ago. They would leave scars, but he had small nicks and scars on his face anyway. They faded and were almost invisible after two or so months. The gash over his eye would leave a larger scar. His bangs would cover it when his hair grew back out, though. His head had been completely shaved at the hospital, and now was covered in short, dark hair that bristled from his skull. He had bullied the doctors into giving him a brace for his arm instead of a cast since it had been a clean break, so he wore his arm in a splint wrapped in a bandage. And exercised it every night to avoid muscle atrophy, which he was fairly certain would have given the doctor a stroke to hear, but it hadn't increased his pain any, and the doctors didn't seem to notice on his check-ups, so he continued.

His eye was the more problematic thing. As the doctors had predicted, he hadn't been able to see out of it when the bandages had come off. They said the damage to the nerves was beyond their surgical ability. This wouldn't exclude him from active duty, since he could still see just fine out of the other eye, but he was sure the chief would use it as an excuse to give him lesser missions. He'd been carping for years to leave the dangerous ones to the younger agents. 

The chef hadn't wanted to give him this one. There were still three counter-espionage units active in NATO. The Major's unit was the oldest and most experienced, and still got the bulk of the dangerous assignments. The two younger Spymasters outranked him though, and for this mission, the only reason he had been sent was because the Lieutenant-Colonel had been away on a mission and the Colonel's wife had gone missing the day before the assignment, so he had not been available.

The Major's stomach tightened. The terrorists had covered all their bases and kidnapped someone dear to all three of the Spymasters. The wives of the other two men had been held in cells adjacent to the one the thief was in. The Earl had been kidnapped four days before the other two women, but nobody had noticed his absence except his own men. It hadn't occurred to the Major to check for other prisoners. The priority had been escaping from the compound and contacting his men to surround them fast enough to capture them, so he didn't feel guilty, per se, but it was not a comforting thought.

His thoughts strayed back to his reflection. He looked himself in the eye. The dead eye had lost its color and faded to gray. There was still a little hope of regaining some vision when the orbit healed fully, but the doctors were not optimistic. He could still aim and fire a weapon as well as with two eyes, the Major had tried that the first day, but it was obvious he had a weak side now.

Work was all he had to entertain himself. Without it, even while convalescing, he was going insane. What drove him the craziest was that his thoughts would not stay away from that damn thief.

His chest had tightened as the memories of the man being beaten had played themselves over and over again through his mind while he lied awake at night. He was thankful that nothing terrible had happened. He was also thankful that the thief had been able to untie his bonds, because otherwise the Major was certain that both men would have died in that cell.

It should never have happened in the first place. He should have changed their meeting place, should have been aware that he was being watched. He couldn't believe he'd been so careless when it had mattered most. He couldn't afford to ever, ever put the man through another ordeal like that. He knew he couldn't live if he had to see it again.

Best to stay away, then. Best to sever all ties and go back to the life he was living before. He didn't have anyone that terrorists could ply him with before, and it hadn't happened in the past. He hadn't ever been put in a dangerous situation like that.

But he had been set up this time. NATO had been set up, and he had taken the fall, fallen into the terrorists' trap. And the torture hadn't worked. Word had gotten around that the thief had been tortured and Iron Klaus hadn't cracked. And they had already been gossiping about he and the thief for years.

Which led him to the next problem. He knew that man would never accept no. Never leave him in peace. He would pursue him to his grave and follow him into it. The Major had no doubts that the man's feelings for him were genuine. He just wished he wasn't so... well, flamboyant about it. The thief was one of the few people who wasn't intimidated by Iron Klaus, which was impressive given how many enemy spies and government leaders the Major had terrified over the years.

The other problem was... well. The Major looked at his eyes in the mirror again as his chest tightened. The problem was that he hadn't been able to stop thinking about the thief for the past two weeks. It was all he could do not to call the man to find out how he was doing. That he was okay. To find out what had happened since they'd last spoken. It was just like Leni. The thief was everything to him, to the point where his depressing and inevitable downhill slide at NATO was being pushed to the edges of his mind because of thoughts of the man. And he knew the thief... well, he wouldn't go and become a hausfrau anytime soon.

He turned away from the mirror and lit a cigarette. Schiesse. What to do about that. The Major supposed it was his fault, anyway, for pushing things this far.

*****

A week later, the Major found himself in America after the doctors had okayed him for travel. His head still hurt since the fractures were still healing, but pain like that was a matter of discipline. America was loud, busy, and obnoxious enough to distract him from his problems. It also privately amused him to be there, since he recalled a certain loud, obnoxious CIA operative who promised him he would never be allowed back in the country again. But that was years ago, and he wasn't traveling under his real name at the moment. He wound up prowling around a large city in the dead center of the country, losing himself in the crowds as he drifted from place to place that foreigners like himself went to. It wasn't satisfying, and it wasn't the least bit distracting.

He found himself pacing like a caged bear and pushing people out of the way as he made his way from crowded room to crowded room looking for peace one day. Then... then something caught his eye. Well, he shouldn't say it caught his eye. The Major had never really been enamored with anything like this in the past. It was just that... he saw it, and he knew it was something a certain degenerate art thief would love. He was surprised that the thief didn't own it already.

He wondered briefly about what would happen if he were wrong. It would be horribly embarrassing if the thief made fun of his philistine nature again. He'd had quite enough of that over the years.

He checked the date and country. Well, that seemed close enough to what he remembered. As far as he could tell, it was well-done. Well, it looked all right to him, anyway. It was what it was that caught the Major's eye.

A plan set itself in motion.

*****

July 21st arrived. The Earl woke and stretched out in bed, allowing himself a moment to luxuriate in the sunlight and enjoy the feeling of the cool silk sheets on his body. His bruises had all healed, the mess on his torso had miraculously healed cleanly, his ribs were only a little sore, and the small incision that they had made to operate had healed and would only leave a little mark that followed the line of his lower rib.

He allowed himself a moment to think of his Major, and wondered sadly about what their next meeting would be like. How awkward would it be? He knew the man, and he knew he would be told to stay away. Well, as if that had ever made a difference. Now that he knew he was wanted, he was going to be twice as persistent as before. He still had three weeks until the Major's deadline.  Waiting was a kind of torture. If the deadline passed, he would wait another week, then show up at the Major's castle to find out what was going on. He sadly looked over to find his nightstand empty, remembering the wonderful birthday he'd had last year. Now he was turning 39, and that was only one year away from 40, and he wasn't going to have nearly as much fun. He sighed, twisted his body around to put his feet on the floor, and walked over to the bathroom to get himself ready for the day.

*****

"Morning, Bonham!" The Earl greeted his man brightly, offering him a smile.

"Morning, Earl.  'appy birthday, cheers to turning 24." Bonham had winked at him as the Earl sat down to his breakfast, which today was fit for a king. His full breakfast was James' gift to him every year, and while he smiled to think of what it meant to the man to allow the money to be spent on the food, the gift would mean a little more if he wasn't reminded of it all day afterwards.

Finding out his men were okay after the incident had been one of the greatest reliefs of his life, especially after seeing what those terrorists had thoughtlessly done to B and C. He had no idea how, but the terrorists had missed every single other bedroom in the house and had woken no one when they kidnapped the Earl. The men had indeed been looking for him all week, and came out of hiding when the one stationed to watch the NATO headquarters in Bonn reported the alphabets had returned and earnestly asked for their help.

Without another word, the Earl picked up his fork and began enjoying his breakfast.

*****

Bonham regarded his long-time employer as he watched the man eat.

The kidnapping had been a horrible fright. Neither Bonham nor any of the other men had suspected anyone capable of penetrating the castle as those terrorists had. They had used some pretty clever and dirty tricks to get past their security. He would have to remember to ask Mr. A if the NATO agents would have been able to pull it off.

The team had thought the Earl had taken one of his flights of fancy again and gone off to... well, wherever it was he went on Saturdays, or off to Germany to see the Major, but when he hadn't returned after a couple evenings, or even been in touch, they began to worry. They had traveled to Bonn, but none of the agents in the Major's unit had been there to ask, either if they'd seen the Earl or if they could help look for him. The Major was quite hard-headed, but he was sure even that loud, violent wanker would help look for the Earl if they could get him to understand that something like this had ever happened before.

Poor Mr. B and Mr. C. He had found the agents the same day as their funerals, and he had stopped what he was doing to attend. Mr. A had been absolutely inconsolable. Mr. B had been his partner for years. Known the man longer than his wife. Bonham had been close to both men since he always seemed to wind up working with the pair when he was inevitably coerced into working as one of the Major's men.

Bonham nearly had a heart attack when he finally got to see the Earl again. He had taken a lot of abuse, all because they thought that Major cared about him! The circumstances had made him want to kill that insensitive man for what had happened. He tried again to get the Earl to stay clear of the Major. For his own good, he had begged. 

The Earl hadn't wanted to talk about it. Hadn't wanted to talk about much of anything after the incident, in fact. He didn't look traumatized or sad, but somehow... alternately happy and thoughtful? It had puzzled Bonham a great deal.

He looked at the man a bit sadly now. He'd lost a lot of weight the past five weeks, and looked like a wraith of his former self, especially with his head shaved. The terrorists had cut his hair, but Bonham could not, for the life of him, understand why the Earl wanted his head shaved completely. The short hair wasn't completely unsalvageable. Now he ate breakfast with the beginnings of short, tight blond curls covering his head in a thin layer.

His thoughts strayed to the present. He wasn't sure the Earl wanted to go out when he didn't look himself. So what was he going to do to entertain the Earl on his birthday? He hoped to make it a day where the man could begin to go back to his old self. His thoughts strayed to activities around the castle before he suddenly remembered something. He rushed out of the room, coming back with a large, flat package.

"Oh, Earl! A parcel arrived for you this morning, first thing. I would expect more from your friends in the Guild later, but this one was unmarked. I thought you might like to open it first."

The Earl paused, a slice of toast in his mouth. He looked at the package as he slowly chewed and swallowed his toast. "No sender? Where is it from?"

Bonham checked the postmark. "Er... America?"

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Bonham couldn't think of a single soul who would send the Earl a birthday present from America.

The Earl pursed his lips in thought, then got up to take the package from Bonham. 

"Well, I'm not sure what this could be. What a wonderful surprise! I wonder who thought I would want anything in America..." The Earl said slowly as he began to unwrap the paper and pry open the wooden slats protecting the package. He stopped when he slid the item free. He stared at it for several minutes, a perfect "O" of shock on his face.

*****

The Major was privately very disappointed. He had expected the thief to show up at his house immediately after he received the package, or at the very least, to have dinner on his birthday. He figured he would come the next night. And then he didn't. He didn't come all that week.

The Major ran his hands through his short hair as he walked the halls of his house. Six weeks since the incident, and he was more or less fully healed. He had started doing more vigorous exercises to get the strength fully back in his arm, and was returning to work in two day's time. He was looking forward to the distraction work would once again provide. Sitting at home by himself with nothing to do had nearly driven him batty. He had only spoken enough to bark out orders to his staff in order to keep them terrified and away. He could see the pity when they looked at him. He couldn't stand the drivel on television, and he was too worried about the thief and work in order to concentrate enough to study or read a book. He had walked a lot, and that was about it. He was sure the staff was getting ready to throw him out of the house.

He opened the door to his study and started when he saw someone sitting at his desk. His hand had gone to his side, searching for the gun he wasn't wearing before he realized he was looking at the Earl of Gloria. Then the Major's heart stopped.

The man sat leaned back in the chair, with his ankles crossed, looking for all the world like he had just been waiting for the Major to return to discuss the weather. He was wearing boots that were cut just above his ankle made out of soft brown leather, skin-tight gray pants, and a dark blue button-down collared shirt that had loose sleeves, but fit him right everywhere else. He wore a brown scarf around his neck. As the Major's eyes moved up his body, he locked on to the blue eyes and noticed the Earl's hair was much shorter than it had been cut before, and realized he must have shaved his head at the hospital as well.

The Major was wearing his usual ensemble consisting of brown suit pants, a white button-down shirt with a navy blue tie, and that belt that somehow had not worn out over the course of the 30 years it had held the man's pants up. The Earl's heart broke as he took in the short brown hair and the eye that had dimmed. He rose from his seat and offered his hand out.

"Forgive me for showing up unannounced, but I thought I might have been summoned earlier in the week."

The Major turned his back on the thief to hide a blush. "I don't know what you're talking about." He answered gruffly.

"Well, then, I think it was worth the trip to Bonn to tell you what happened. I received the most wonderful birthday present this year. It was "Mars Chastising Cupid," an exquisite painting by Bartolomeo Manfredi from the beginning of the 17th century. It depicts the soldier Mars beating a blindfolded Cupid while Venus looks on in the background, looking to get between the two. Mars is punishing Cupid for having designs on his own mother. Except the look on Cupid's face is one of complete ecstasy, since it was really Mars, Venus's lover, whose eye Cupid had been trying to catch. Really, it was exactly to my tastes. I could not have chosen a better birthday present had I gone out and acquired it myself."

The Major gained control of his face well enough to turn around and face the thief. He let Iron Klaus take over. "And why are you telling me this?! Why are you in Bonn, in my house of all places! I told you to wait three more weeks before I contacted you! I do not need to hear of a painting of the planets! Take your degenerate nonsense elsewhere!"

The Earl smiled. "Well, you didn't let me finish. That wasn't the fun part of this present. The fun part is that it's part of the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago. I wasn't sure how it wound up in my house on my birthday."

The Major snorted. "You keep a colony of art thieves on your premises at all times. I'm sure one of them could have managed it for you, thinking to catch your degenerate eye."

"Well, that's just the thing, Major. It did catch my eye. Except none of my men would ever go to America, nor would they steal something like this for me since my tastes are notoriously fickle. They are afraid to choose ingredients for dinner sometimes, but that has more to do with James than me. Anyway. They also do not work alone. I wasn't sure it was the real thing at first, since I'd never seen it in person, so I flew to America to find out. They had another in the museum, except it was only an excellent forgery. I stayed in town a few days, chatting up those wonderful locals, and found a boy that had been absolutely terrified out of his skin earlier in the week, but had been paid handsomely to produce a replica of the piece."

The silence lay thick between the two men.

"He said the man that had paid him was a tall German with short dark hair. He'd pulled him straight out of his classroom and scared him nearly out of his wits trying to make him confess that he could imitate... let me make sure I get this right... ‘those degenerate paintings of the men in robes,’ I believe is what I was told." The Earl turned to look out the window, but shot a glance at the Major out of the corner of his eye.

The Major lit a cigarette and said nothing. True enough. It had been as simple as making up his mind. He had gone to the back of the museum, and there had been a school. He had just grabbed the first boy he saw painting something that looked the same and made him do it. The switch had been harder, and had felt bad, but he was a professional spy, after all. He knew how to be quiet and foil security systems. And it's not like he hadn't put one just like it on the wall. He was sure only the thief could tell the difference. The boy had told him they were exactly alike in every way, which seemed true enough to the Major when he'd held them side by side and inspected them in the dim light diffusing through the skylight at the museum.

>"You're crazy if you think I would go to America, let alone steal a painting."<

>"You know, that's what I thought, too. But then I remembered you had been hit in the head awfully hard."<

The Major exhaled a cloud of smoke. >"Whatever."<

*****