Spark Of Life

Michael arrived at the briefing table just ahead of an irate Operations. As he took his seat beside Nikita, who gave him a nervous look, Operations scowled at them both , then glared at the rest of the team aligned on the opposite side of the table. His subordinates knew immediately that their leader's day was not going well, at all.

Birkoff slumped down in his seat, trying to make himself smaller. "Nowhere," he reported apologetically. "Racer's security system is airtight..." The young computer genius shook his head. "We lost the signal twenty minutes into it..." He sighed. "We have no idea where he is..."

The leader's thin lips pressed together tightly, the cold eyes glaring more fiercely bright. "This is unacceptable," he barked angrily. "This man has developed the most deadly biological weapons known to man, and he plans to use them. SOON." He let out a frustrated sigh.

He rubbed his forehead disconsolately, then raised his head and scanned the faces of the team arrayed across from him. "Well?" he demanded contemptuously. "Do any of the rest of you have any more good news to report?"

Michael shifted forward in his chair and folded his hands calmly in front of him on the table-top. "We've been trying an oblique approach," he reported in his soft, French-accented voice. "Looking for any possible peripheral weaknesses..."

Michael nodded slowly, glancing around at the others, who all had their attention riveted on the handsome Frenchman. "Yes," Michael answered succinctly. "Her father is listed on the birth certificate as William George Racer, Junior. ....."

Michael lowered his gaze to the table-top. "She's enrolled in school, a private women's college in the East...." He glanced up at Nikita briefly, meeting her worried blue eyes. He knew how much she hated bringing innocents into their world, but in this case, he knew it couldn't be helped. They had no choice but to use Andrea if they could.

Andrea Racer, or Andie, as her friends called her, was at that moment walking back to her dorm room after her last class of the day. She was in her final year at college, majoring in social work, with an emphasis on medical support. The sun was just beginning to set, softening the already warm brick buildings of the school to glowing burgundy red.

Her pace slowed, and she trudged to a stop, looking around her at the stately and beautiful ancient oak trees that lined the avenues of the small, private campus. Andie knew she would miss it here, when she graduated and left. The school had been a haven of peaceful serenity for her, almost a retreat of sorts, after her parents had died in her senior year of high school in a car accident.

Andie frowned, remembering. The drunk driver had come out of nowhere. She had been in the back seat, with her seat belt on, listening to her walkman while her parents sat in the front, arguing as usual. About money, like always. Or the lack of it. Her mother had been pleading once again for her father to contact his wealthy relatives, and ask for financial help. Andie's Daddy, like he always did, bristled at the suggestion, and swore he would never speak to "that sick bastard" again, referring to Andrea's grandfather, Bill Racer, Senior.

Andie, uncomfortably a captive audience to their discord, had closed her eyes and turned the volume up on her radio, hoping to drown them out. She never saw the car that swerved into their lane, and hit them head-on. There was a blinding flash of light, then an even more blinding flash of pain, and then... nothing. Nothing at all until she woke up in the hospital several days later, to be told she was an orphan.

Andie shook her head, watching as the lights winked on all over campus as the sun faded further into night. She had never understood it. Her father had cut himself off from his wealthy family a long time ago, after some argument the reasons of which Andie had never been privy to. Since then, her father had financially been only a moderately successful man. They were always struggling to get by. But in the hospital, after her parents' death, a well-dressed young lawyer had visited her, and told her that due to a family trust, Andie need never worry about money again.

She found it odd that her grandfather- for that is who she assumed had arranged it all- whom she had never met, or even talked to, would now suddenly want to take care of her. Odder still, was that even after the accident, she had no contact with him. Other than receiving the large checks deposited in her account each month, Andie was no closer to knowing her father's side of the family than she had ever been.

She floundered, adrift, for a time, unsure what to do with herself as she recuperated from the accident. A medical social worker at the hospital befriended her in her grief and bewildered loneliness, and urged her to attend college, as she had always dreamed of. Andie had chosen this quiet place, and had somehow found her niche here, making friends, being happy, and, almost unconsciously, deciding to major in the same field as the woman who had guided her here.

A light breeze blew through her hair, and Andie shivered, feeling suddenly cold, although it had been a warm Spring day on campus. She shook off her pensive mood, and hurried along the sidewalk, reminding herself that even though it was Friday night and she was a senior, that her dorm mother still expected the residents to check in before heading out for other pursuits on campus. The school administration here was very protective of the students. Due to their strict curfew policy, there hadn't been a rape or abduction for years ...

Andie shivered again. *Why am I thinking like this?* she admonished herself sternly. She was not particularly timid, and she never worried about her own personal safety, not like some people at school who were paranoid about it. *I'm beginning to think like Mrs. Henderson, the dorm mother,* Andie thought wryly to herself, *seeing bogey-men around every corner. * She let out a little laugh, that sounded hollow even to her own ears.

In spite of her dismissal of her fears, something had triggered Andie's sense of wariness; she was instantly on alert, the hair on the back of her neck rising. She quickened her pace again, eager to get home to the safety of her room. She swiveled her head around, all senses strained to the fullest, but she could neither see nor hear anything out of the ordinary. She only felt that, somewhere, out there in the darkness, something, or someone, was watching her.

The young computer genius hesitated. "Well, no," he answered truthfully. "But it has to be her. It's dark and all, but she's headed for the right building, and it's the time of day her class lets out..."

Michael sighed. "Okay," he ordered, hoping that the girl outside was indeed Andrea Racer, and not some other innocent student about to be caught in Section's web. He rose from his seat and pulled his black knit mask down over his face, heading out the van door. "We intercept. Blue Team, go..."

Andie screamed when the sinister shadows between the trees detached themselves from the darkness and emerged right in front of her. She cringed backwards, then whirled, noting with horror that she was surrounded by four bogey-men out of a nightmare- the men were all large, all dressed in sinister black, with black masks hiding their faces. They stared at her intently, and took all took a step forward, ominously encircling her more closely.

A soft voice behind her made her freeze where she stood. "We're not going to hurt you," the man told her improbably, his words warm and rich with a soft French accent. "Please come with us....."

Andie's head swiveled around sharply to meet the eyes of her polite attacker. In fact, it was only his eyes that she could see, his face being covered in a all-concealing black mask. The eyes were silver-green and glittered sympathetically in the faint light. Despite the horror of the situation, Andie found herself for a brief moment fleetingly wanting to trust that soft voice, and those lustrous eyes, to entrust herself to this stranger's care...

But the feeling only lasted for a moment. Then some other, more deeply primal, instinct kicked in. Andie took in a determined deep breath, gathered her courage, and aimed herself at the opening between the two assailants nearest to her. She lowered her head, and ran.

Her desperate dive for freedom failed, Mentz and his companion, Foster, catching her easily by the arms and wrestling her back into the circle. Andie screamed again, sobbing in panic. Foster put his gloved hand over her mouth, quieting her cries for help as she squirmed against him.

"Get her to the van, now," the green-eyed leader ordered them. The men obeyed, hustling their struggling prey forward, as she kicked and twisted futilely between them. Michael and the third team member, Robbins, followed behind, keeping an eye out for witnesses.

The large gray vehicle pulled close to the curb, and seconds later, Andie felt herself hauled off her feet and lifted up the steps into its ominous interior. The men deposited her roughly on the banquette cushion inside, and she scrambled back into the corner of the seat, panting hard, cringing away from them.

Their teammates followed, The green-eyed leader climbing in last, shutting the door behind him. He took a few steps toward the prisoner, looking thoughtfully down at her for a few moments as she cowered in her seat, sobbing in fright.

He pulled his mask off, revealing the handsomely somber face. Michael reached out, placing his hand gently under Andie's chin, lifting her tear-filled eyes to his. "What is your name, please?" he asked gently.

Andie blinked, her anger flaring. "What's it to you, you bastard?" she yelled defiantly, her blue eyes blazing. "Since when do you need to know my pedigree before you rape and kill me?" she shouted in disgust, lunging for his face.

Michael caught her flailing wrists in his firm grip before her blows could land on him. The strength of his grasp made Andie whimper sharply in pain. The green eyes bored intensely into hers for a moment, the look leaving her breathless. Then, suddenly, Michael released her.

Andie cringed back, and began sobbing in panic again as the men pulled her down on the seat and began running their hands over her, patting her down thoroughly and groping in her pockets. After a moment, Robbins straightened, and let out a sigh. "No identification," he reported tensely, looking at Michael.

The last thing Michael wanted to do now was bring in the wrong coed at this stage of the game. Getting Racer was too important, and to make that kind of blundering mistake would not only delay the mission, but could also get him and his entire team cancelled.

Birkoff nodded in understanding, then bent his head over his keyboard, typing furiously. After a moment, he looked up. "Says here that Andrea Racer was in a car accident four years ago," he reported in a low voice. "She should have a long scar on her right shoulder...."

"Good," Michael acknowledged succinctly, then turned back to face the prisoner. Andie was again in the corner of the seat, back pressed up against the wall, her legs drawn up in front of her, gasping in fright.

"Nooo!" Andie screamed as Mentz and Foster came toward her. "No! No, please...." She sobbed. The men held her by the arms, one on each side of her, pulling her to her feet in front of Michael. With her arms twisted painfully behind her back, Andie couldn't move.

As Michael stepped closer and reached for the top button of her sweater, she found she could no longer scream, either. Her strength, her very breath, were gone, as, gripped by fear, she could only close her eyes and weep silently as her green-eyed captor unfastened her blouse and slipped his hand inside, fingers roaming across the creamy skin of her shoulder, searching...

Michael's fingers encountered what he was looking for- a long, narrow raised ridge of flesh, marring the perfection of the surrounding smoothness he had caressed. The scar slashed downward from the hollow of her shoulder in a diagonal line, ending at the top of her right breast.

Andie sobbed in shock again, as she felt Michael's hand lift from inside her blouse to caress the tears off her face. "Shhh," the soft French voice soothed gently. "I won't," he assured her softly. "I won't hurt you....."

She opened her eyes to stare into his numbly. Once more, she found herself mesmerized, wanting to trust herself to those tender green eyes. Her breath caught in her throat again as Michael buttoned her clothes for her and then nodded to his men.

"Let her go," he ordered quietly. The men stepped back from her, and Andie, too shaky to stand, collapsed back onto the bench behind her. Michael gave another nod to Birkoff, and uttered one more command. "Go," he said sharply. Then he sat down beside the prisoner, watching her sadly.

At last the long ride was over, the gray van pulling to a stop at some unknown destination. The team-members flung open the van doors and clambered out, and Michael rose and held out his hand to the trembling prisoner.

Somehow his touch, his guiding presence made her feel less afraid, even though logically she knew he was the leader of these mysterious kidnappers, and she should trust him least of all.

But she DID trust him. She gripped his hand, hard, as he helped her down the van steps and led her out into the glaring light of an endlessly long steel hallway. Eyes wide, body trembling nervously, Andie instinctively moved closer to her captor, as if the sheltering warmth of his shoulder against hers was the only source of protection from the vast coldness of this harsh place she found herself in.

At his urgings, Andie took a few more steps forward. In a moment, they rounded a corner and the prisoner came abruptly face to face with a silver-haired man, whose smile was even colder than the hallways around them.

Michael’s hand slid down Andie’s arm in a reassuring gesture, as if her were gentling a horse, or a frightened animal. Somehow, she was not offended by this touch, but profoundly grateful for it. This cold-eyed man with the authoritative air terrified her. "Yes," Michael acknowledged simply.

"Good," said Operations, turning on his heel and heading further down the corridor. "Madeleine is waiting to interrogate her in the white room," he tossed the words casually over his shoulder.

Andie froze in her tracks. "I-Interrogate….me?" she squeaked out. "No…." she gasped breathlessly, trying to pull away from Michael. He stopped her attempt to escape, gripping her by the arms and forcing her to look up at him.

Again, the green eyes looked softly into hers, melting her fears. "We just want to ask you some questions," Michael told her in the warm French voice. "We’re not going to hurt you…." He soothed her again.

Andie blinked, then nodded, feeling foolish for falling for this line yet again, although she did feel vastly calmer, less panicked, than she had a moment before. "Okay…." She choked out, feeling able to breathe once more.

They wandered, seemingly aimlessly, through the long maze of hallways, until at last Michael halted in front of a large metal door and pushed it open, indicating Andie should precede him inside.

She swallowed hard, and went in. The light here was even more cold and glaring than the rest of this horrid place, she observed fearfully. She stared nervously at the large metal chair in the center of the room, ominously equipped with metal cuffs and straps, which was the room’s only furniture. A voice behind her made her jump in fright.

Andie let out a whimper of terror, panicked, and turned to bury her face in the shelter of Michael’s shoulder, clutching him tightly. "Michael," she begged him with a desperate sob. "Please.. Please don’t leave me here…"

She gave Michael a brief nod and walked to the doorway, heels clicking on the hard tile floor. "Report to me as soon as you’re done," she ordered quietly from the threshold, and then left, closing the door behind her.

After Madeleine had gone, Michael went on holding Andie, letting her quietly sob against him, as she gradually got control of herself. After a few moments, she was calm enough to lift her head from his shoulder, step back from him, and look into his eyes.

Michael gave her another genuinely warm smile, admiring her bravery. "Your grandfather," he began gently. "William George Racer…" Michael tilted his head, watching her thoughtfully. "Tell me about him ."

Michael frowned, his eyes narrowing, but then continued in the gentle voice. "You must know something," he countered, shoving his hands in his pockets. "After all, he supports you, doesn’t he?"

Andie sighed again, shoved back a lock of dark hair from her forehead, and slumped wearily against the cold tile wall. She studiously avoided taking a seat in, or even glancing toward, the horrid metal chair.

She looked up again to meet Michael’s eyes. "I don’t know anything about him, I swear," she confessed sincerely. "I’ve never met him, never talked to him…." She shrugged her shoulders, and went on. "After my parents died, the lawyer showed up at the hospital and told me about the trust fund, and that was that…"

She looked up suddenly, meeting Michael’s green eyes. "I suppose that’s sounds callous and greedy of me," she mused sorrowfully. "But I did TRY. I tried to contact my grandfather, to thank him for helping me, to establish a connection with him- he is, after all, the only family I have left….."

She sighed again, and looked away. "But he didn’t want anything to do with me…." She said sadly. "I suppose the rift between him and my Dad was too strong, so strong it even lasted after my Dad was dead…."

Andie nodded. "They had an argument years ago, I think it was just before I was born…" she told him with a bitter grimace. "My Dad broke off all contact with my grandfather, and they never spoke again…."

The prisoner looked up at him again. "I don’t really know what the original argument was about exactly, but I gather there was some project my grandfather wanted my Dad to join him in, a project that would bring in lots of money…"

She rubbed a hand over her eyes wearily. "My mother kept nagging my Dad to reconsider, to contact my grandfather and do what he wanted, to be in on the deal…" She smiled apologetically at her captor. "We didn’t have much money, you see, and Mama always wanted to be wealthy…."

Michael regarded her thoughtfully. It occurred to him that the "project" Andie’s father had refused to be a part of was the development of biological weapons of terror. The time-line fit. It had been about twenty years ago that the first really virulent strains of diseases had appeared in terrorists arsenals, and had proliferated ever since.

"My Dad always got upset whenever my Mom mentioned it," Andie went on sadly. "He called my grandfather a monster, a sick, perverted bastard…" She sighed heavily, then smiled wryly., and shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe I should be grateful I never met the old guy, you think?"

Andie’s eyes narrowed, looking at Michael appraisingly. "That’s why you want to find him, isn’t it?" she queried shrewdly. "My grandfather’s involved with something really bad, criminal maybe, and you people want to be in on it…"

Michael stepped closer, and looked into her eyes once more. "No," he said, shaking his head. "We don’t want to be in on it," he told her softly, his voice edged with steel. "We want to stop him, if we can…"

"You’re the good guys, then…." She blurted out in shock. "This place…." She said, gesturing around the room, "Your organization.. you’re some kind of Feds, aren’t you?" she guessed breathlessly. "You take down the criminals no one else can get…"

Michael flinched at the accuracy of her assessment. "Yes," he acknowledged with a nod of his head. The soft green eyes looked intently into hers. "Will you help us?" he pleaded urgently. "Please?"

She gave Section the only contact point she had with her grandfather- the telephone number of the mysterious lawyer who took care of all her banking affairs. A message was sent- a not so politely worded ransom note that Andie never saw, in essence, a threat to kill Racer’s granddaughter if he did not deliver a large amount of money to the meeting place designated.

To Michael’s surprise, Racer replied promptly to this missive Within an hour of sending their threat, Racer had responded, agreeing meekly to all of Section’s demands, saying he would be at the swap point- an abandoned warehouse in a run-down, deserted part of town- the next day at precisely the designated hour.

Nikita, in mission blacks, her hair scraped up in a messy ponytail at the top of her head, took a seat in the chair in front of his desk, sprawling her long legs casually in front of her. Michael’s breath caught at how, even this way, in manly garb, she was still stunningly, femininely, beautiful.

Michael tilted his head, his eyes softening. He should have expected this topic, he thought to himself. Nikita was always on the warpath when it came to any innocents that might be in harm’s way- or Section’s. Her compassion was one of the things he secretly cherished about her.

Michel nodded, and smiled gently, glad to be able to tell her the happy truth. "Yes," he answered quickly. "They plan on releasing her when it’s all over, and we have Racer.." He leaned forward, his voice reassuring. "She’ll be fine…"

Nikita sighed, and leaned back in her chair. "Isn’t she?" Nikita said wearily, her voice infinitely sad. "I’ve seen the way she looks at you, Michael," Nikita went on. "The way she clings to you, trusts you… " She paused, took a breath, and went on in a hurt tone. "The way she seems so willing and eager to do anything to please you, even betray her only family…"

Michael uttered and angry groan and stood up abruptly from his desk, almost tipping his chair over in his haste to put distance between himself and Nikita, and her hurtful words. He stalked to the window, gazing out unseeingly, his back to the blonde operative who still sat defiantly in her chair.

"Isn’t Andrea just like all the others, just another woman you’ve manipulated emotionally to get what Section wants?" Nikita went on in an anguished whisper. "Won’t she be just as devastated as all the others, when it’s all over, and she finds out you never ….cared for her at all?" Nikita choked out.

Michael turned sharply to look at her, noting the tears in her blue eyes and the look of strain on her face. He realized suddenly that Nikita included herself in that category, that she considered herself to be one of the women he had duped and manipulated in order to carry out Section’s agendas.

He felt the need to explain himself thoroughly, to make it all clear. He realized he had never done that before, that he had only expressed himself in actions, expecting Nikita to understand his unspoken words, to interpret his meanings.

He knew now that those actions had been open to interpretation, his meaning murky and obscure, anything but clear. Unaccustomed as he was to verbally expressing his feelings, he knew the time had come for talking, for some very plain speaking.

He closed his eyes, and lowered his head, his voice coming out in a bare whisper. "I cared about Rudy, and Lisa, and I care about Andrea…" he went on, caressing Nikita’s fingers in his. "I haven’t always been able to help them, to do as much as I’d like to protect them, but I’ve always given a damn about what happened to them…"

Nikita watched him, wide-eyed and silent, as he sat down heavily on the edge of the desk behind him, and went on. "I didn’t enjoy lying to Lisa, pretending to fall in love with her, but that was the profile I was given…" He looked away, sorrowfully, his jaw tightening. "I never wanted to hurt her…" he choked out painfully.

The memory of that deception gnawed at him still. It had taken all his strength to look into Lisa’s trusting, adoring face after he had made love to her, and lie baldly that he wanted to run away with her, and vow that he would love her forever….

Michael looked up, hearing the rest of the sentence she did not finish.--"And you lied to me, too," – The unspoken phrase echoed loudly between them, even though Nikita had not said the words out-loud.

"I didn’t lie to Andrea," Michael began gently, knowing he was avoiding the real question, but wanting to clear up this other issue first. "She knows her grandfather has done some bad things, and she wanted to help us…"

Michael shook his head. "No," he said softly. "She’s an intelligent woman," he explained with a gentle sigh. "She realizes Racer is into some seriously heinous activities, or an organization like Section wouldn’t be after him…"

"Of course not," Michael assured her quickly. "But like I said, Andrea is intelligent.. and brave...." He paused to let out a sigh. "She guessed on her own that we were a government agency…." He fixed her with a sincere look. "And just to make things clear, I didn’t coerce her to give up her grandfather, Nikita…"

"Andrea was scared when she was brought in- totally terrified…," Michael went on. "Of course, she would be…." He said with a dry laugh. "I tried to reassure her, to calm her down, and she ..trusted me…." He let out a deep sigh. "As a friend…"

"Yes," she answered quickly, embarrassed. She got to her feet. "I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything…" she blurted out apologetically, averting her eyes from him, and heading toward the door.

Michael let out a soft groan and caught her arm before she could escape, pulling her close up against him. Nikita looked up into his face, now just inches from her own, and put her hands on his chest. "M-Michael?" she stammered, eyes wide with alarm, and fear, and perhaps something else…

She felt the tender excitement growing in her, the feeling she always had when he was near her like this. Despite herself, in spite of all the efforts she made to resist him, his charisma, and his persuasive ways, Nikita found herself softening, lost in the depths of those beautiful green eyes.

Her hands came up to tangle in his long hair, pulling him close. She drank in his warmth and strength, enjoying the sweet satisfaction of his firm lips surrendering to hers. He tasted of promises, and fulfillment of dreams, of the surcease of loneliness, of all sweet, beautiful things…

"I do what I have to do for the missions, Nikita," he whispered huskily. "But it has nothing to do with how I feel about you…." He kissed her cheek once more, then lowered his head to nip lightly at her jaw. "Understand?" he choked out hoarsely.

Nikita gripped him firmly by the collar with both hands, pulling his mouth back to hers. "Yes," she growled hungrily against his lips. "I understand…." Then she kissed him again, very, very thoroughly, making sure their was no doubt in his mind just how deep was her understanding, or her love….

At last the hour of the appointed exchange arrived. The teams set out for the rendezvous point at the abandoned warehouse, in a specific, designated formation, Team One- consisting of Michael and the prisoner, Andie- in the lead, far ahead, the rest of the teams following at a careful distance behind.

Racer had requested that the money drop/ kidnap exchange be done as privately and discreetly as possible, and Section was willing to give him that scenario, or at least, the illusion of it.

The back-up teams would be present, but would hold way back until needed. To the casual eye, the only vehicle going in was a medium-sized white van, with only two occupants- Michael and Andie. As soon as the exchange with Racer was completed, Michael would give the signal, and the secondary teams would move in from their far fall back positions and capture the terrorist who had been Section’s nemesis for so long.

Michael couldn’t help feeling incredibly apprehensive as he drove the van smoothly into the warehouse parking lot and pulled to a stop just inside the broken-down chain-linked gate. The bad vibes he had had earlier were still with him. Everything was going just too damned smoothly.

Michael turned admiring eyes to her, impressed with the bravery of this admission. He didn’t want to tell her he was having the same feelings as well. The fact that they were sitting her in the van, alone in the warehouse yard, isolated from their team-mates, almost a sitting duck target, made him jittery, to say the least. But he didn’t want to convey any of that nervousness to the already frightened young girl beside him.

She just wanted this to be over. Michael had told her that her grandfather would be taken alive, so she didn’t feel like a killer, exactly. A Judas, maybe. She couldn’t help feeling like a traitor of sorts, sitting here, preparing to betray her only remaining family. But then she remembered how her father had wanted nothing to do with her grand-father, and how far Michael’s organization was willing to go to stop him, and her resolve hardened.

She glanced at Michael again, wondering if this is how he felt every-time he went out on a mission to take out a heinous criminal- scared out of his mind. But, no, she amended to herself, taking in his still tranquil demeanor. Michael it seemed, was cool, unruffled, and unaffected. Andie thought he must have nerves of steel.

If there was one thing Michael was sure of, it was that William Racer had been definitely determined to retrieve his grand-daughter. The man had been incredibly anxious about her well-being in all their communications with him, acting genuinely relieved when Michael told him that Andie was indeed alive and in one piece.

Michael grimaced. It was the one thing that redeemed Racer in his eyes, that he had been concerned about Andie’s welfare, before and after she had been kidnapped. Apparently the ruthless killer, capable of the casual slaughter of thousands of innocents, had a soft spot for this particular innocent, the child of his own flesh and blood. It relieved Michael of one anxiety about this part of the mission- he knew that Racer would not do anything foolishly daring to endanger his granddaughter during the swap.

The two waited tensely for a few more long minutes, Michael listening to the terse chatter of the final checklists of the back-up teams through his com unit as they took positions several hundred yards away. Then the teams quieted, and the only sound that could be heard was the wind whooshing forlornly through the desolate and bleakly empty warehouse courtyard.

Mouth dry, muscles tight, Michael almost jumped out of his skin when at last they heard their target arriving. Andie let out a gasp and swiveled her head to watch as a large, shiny black van entered the gate behind them, drove past their vehicle, and pulled to a stop in front of them.

The doors of the van ahead opened slowly, and Michael watched with narrowed eyes as the legs of two men emerged, one of them carrying a thick silver suitcase. In a flash, Michael knew something was not right. The men were dressed in thick, white enviro-suits, helmets and face-shields obscuring their identities.

Everything was over in a flash, the time swirling and rushing by, even though Michael wished he could hold it in his hands, and stop it, wished he could somehow reshape the outcome of the next few fleetingly critical moments. But that was not in his power. All he could do was what he had been trained to do- protect the innocent.

Michael sensed, rather than saw the gun come up in the enemy’s hand. One of the white-suited foes had aimed his weapon directly at Andie’s heart. In a split second, Michael leapt forward, pulling his own gun out of his jacket at the same time he arrived in front of the young girl in time to take the bullet for her.

He felt a sharp stab of pain in his shoulder, the impact of the blast sending him forward. He remained in control enough to pull Andie down underneath him as he fell, so that she lay on the ground beneath him, his body protectively covering hers.

With a valiant effort not to pass out, he twisted to look back at his assailants, bringing his gun up as he did so. Blinking rapidly, his hand shaking, Michael managed to shoot the white-suited man with the gun before he could get off another round.

The other assailant ignored the gun-play, and was calmly kneeling by the silver metal case, undoing its fastenings. He reached inside with a white-gloved hand and took out a small glass vial, then carefully unstopped its seal.

Although he could not see the man’s expression through the shielding hood he wore, Michael knew somehow the man was smiling evilly, just before he flung the contents of the test-tube toward Michael, dousing him and Andie with the deadly contents.

Michael had no time to wonder frantically which horrid disease viruses the vial had contained. Gasping, his vision blurring, he used his last ounce of strength to bring his gun up again and shoot at this remaining inhuman attacker. Even in his injured, woozy state, Michael’s aim held true. The assailant crumpled where he stood, falling across the silver suitcase, and lay still, sprawled next to his dead companion on the ground.

Michael floated, suspended, in the warm darkness for a long while, until a greater warmth roused him. Dimly, as if from a great distance, he sensed a woman’s soft touch on his skin, gentle hands skimming between his thighs, and then even more gently, fondling his nakedness.

Something even softer and warmer than flesh, a wet heat, wrapped itself around his hardening penis for a brief moment, then brushed downwards, the warmth soothing him as the gentle touch continued down his legs, under his knees, over calves and ankles, between toes, not missing an inch of his relaxed flesh.

"Nikita.." he moaned softly, eyes still closed. Michael’s whole body felt heavy, and deliciously tired, too exhausted to move. He sighed, and stayed still, feeling too lazily peaceful to try to stir from his groggy Paradise. He supposed he was dreaming, a delicious erotic dream about Nikita, about being naked, about her touching him…

The dream went on, the warm, wet, impossibly smooth, touch continuing, relaxing him further. He gave into the dream, letting the fantasy woman have her way with him. The hands moved upwards, and he felt the soft warmth stream through his hair, fingers first tangling in his curls, then pulling them straight. The woman stroked his forehead and temples, fingers massaging the warmth through his scalp. The touch was caring, gentle, and…. Erotic.

Michael cracked one eyelid, getting a tantalizing one-second glimpse of white skin, bare arms, and one perfectly shaped bare breast before he closed his eyes again, his eyelids too heavy for more than this brief effort.

The hands finished with his hair and moved downward, the warmth brushing across his face and throat in their continued gentle thoroughness. When the wetness reached his chest, and the woman’s touch grazed his nipples, Michael groaned again, and writhed as he felt himself grow hard with longing.

The hands moved lower, the wetness washing down his chest, over his quivering abdomen and hips, headed for his thighs once more. Michael’s languidness dissipated, and, fully excited and aroused, he awakened, determined to become an active participant in the dream. He opened his eyes and lunged upward, to reach for Nikita….. And found he couldn’t move. He let out a sharp gasp of frustration, and blinked rapidly, as reality crashed in and several things became clear. The naked female beauty beside him was not blonde, but had a cloud of rich, wavy brown hair, topping sensitive features and a willowy slender form. Her skin was rich cream ivory, and achingly perfect, except for the scars on her right side. The blue eyes went wide with alarm, and the white skin of her face flushed suddenly bright red.

He struggled to sit up again, failed, and then glanced over to see what was holding his wrists down. They were tied with what looked like soft towels to the bars of a cot he was lying on. He blinked again, seeing with stunned realization that they were in the back of the white van they had arrived in for the mission.

Andie bit her lip and settled next to Michael on the cot. Her eyes softened and she touched one finger to his left shoulder, and the small, but angry red mark there. "You saved my life," she began in a quaveringly soft voice. "You jumped in front of the gun for me…"

Michael sluiced his eyes sideways, trying to see the injury. Beside a twinge of slight soreness, his shoulder did not hurt at all. "Was I shot?" he asked hoarsely, more bewildered than ever. He was sure a bullet had hit him..

Andie nodded, then gave him a sweet smile. "Yes, you were shot, but it was with a tranquilizer dart," she told him. Her fingers caressed the small wound, and she looked down at his shoulder pensively. "You’ll be fine," she said softly, then gazed up at him, her eyes suspiciously bright. "I don’t even think it’ll leave you with a ..sc-scar..." she stammered out brokenly.

Michael blinked, touched that she would care about such a minor, fleeting mark the dart might leave on him, when she had endured the deep permanent marring of her flesh, the ugly reminder of the accident that had caused so much loss in her life.

Michael had been very careful not to mention the name of his employers, or any details about their activities, that might contaminate Andie further. He wanted to make sure she would be released after all this was over, and her ignorance of what she was truly dealing with was a necessary prerequisite to her freedom. Knowing too much could be dangerous.

"Since I grabbed your com unit out of your ear and screamed for help, that’s when," she replied with a small, nervous smile. "I was really scared- you were unconscious on top of me, the two bad guys were d-dead…"

Her breath hitched in her throat for a moment, as she relived the horror, then went on. "There was this sticky blue stuff all over you, and I didn’t know how badly you were hurt, or even if you were .. alive…"

Andie brushed her hand across his cheek gently, tears welling in her eyes. "I talked to Birkoff, and then some biological hazards guy, a doctor, in Medlab…" she continued softly. "He told me what to do…."

Andie nodded. "The back-up teams are safe- they were too far away to have been affected by the virus, or whatever it is," she continued gently. "They were ordered to stay away. Then Section airlifted some medical supplies to me, and the doctor told me what to do…"

She looked away, turning her back to him, unable to face him just then when she told him the rest. "The doctor said I had to take off all our clothes—yours and m-mine… " she stammered nervously, "and put them in a bio-hazard container outside, and then I was supposed to wash you down three times with this disinfectant stuff, making sure I didn’t miss any…p-part of your skin…"

She hesitated a moment, then lifted her head, and turned to look at him over her shoulder, arms still huddled around herself for cover. "Y-Yes?" she said apprehensively. "What is it, Michael?"

Andie blushed, a hand going to her lips. She laughed nervously. "Of course, I’m sorry…" she apologized. She hesitated just a moment and blushed again, before unfolding her arms from her breasts to reach for his bonds, plucking the cloths free from his wrists. Michael, freed, sat up, and to his surprise, she handed him one of the towels she had bound him with. "Here," she said, shoving the long piece of cloth toward him. "This is your hospital gown…"

She turned her back to him, and hastily unfolded her own white piece of material in her hands, pulling it eagerly over her head, and down her body, relieved to have her nakedness shielded from his gaze.

Michael let the cloth drape across his lap, but made no effort to put the garment on. When she turned back to face him, Michael pulled her by the arm to sit down on the bed beside him.

Michael smiled teasingly, and his voice was again rich with desire. "You wouldn’t have to tie me up to do that…" he whispered huskily, caressing the back of his hand down her bare arm.

Andie shivered, and then blushed furiously. "We’re supposed to stay in the van, and not go out," she said tightly, her voice quivering with hurt. She turned her face from him, lowering her voice to a whisper. "So we won’t be contaminated again," she explained breathlessly. "The doctor said you might be … confused and disoriented when you woke up, and try to leave…"

She looked up at him, tears filling her eyes. "I only did it to help you, Michael," she said, voice hitching on sob. "It’s not f-fair of you to t-tease me, when I know a man like you would never be interested in a sc-scarred monstrosity like me, anyway…"

"Andrea.." he groaned, reaching for her. He placed his hands on either side of her face, and gently turned her head to look at him. Her cheeks were wet with tears, her eyes brimming brightly. Impulsively, wanting to soothe her hurt, and at the same time feeling his body tense with sudden desire, he lowered his mouth to hers, and kissed her.

She sobbed at first against his lips, and struggled. Then, as the kiss went on, she relaxed into the intimate caress, her arms coming up around him to embrace him, pulling him close. Tentatively at first, then more boldly, she responded to the kiss, eagerly surrendering her mouth to be plundered by his.

Michael’s hand stole upwards to cup her breast in his palm, the breast he knew was slashed with scars. She flinched, and started to cry again; Michael pulled her head down on his chest, letting her sob into his shoulder, still caressing her.

Impatiently, Michael turned her in his arms to lie under him on the bed. His towel slipped to the floor, and there was nothing between his hard arousal and her softness but the insubstantially thin barrier of her flimsy gown.

Something broke in Andie’s soul, the harsh, cold chains of self-hatred that had bound her for so long. A new warmth flooded her, a sweet healing confidence, and a burgeoning acceptance and love, for herself, and for Michael. He had pushed past her defenses, uncovered the hard scabs covering her soul wounds, and had revealed the true purity and perfection underneath. Her sorrow lifted, cleansed away by Michael’s fervent touch. She was healed, she was renewed, she was….. free.

"Of course," she whispered happily, smiling through her tears. "I’m fine, I’m…. beautiful…." She giggled, pulling him close, lifting one slender leg to wrap around his body, molding it to hers.

Much later, naked together on the small cot, Andie and Michael lay snuggled spoon-fashioned, basking in the after-glow of their passionate, tender love-making. Andie’s smaller body fit perfectly against his, her head resting back in the firm shelter of his broad shoulder, her slender hips wedged snugly against his.

Michael laughed gently at her enjoyment of his teasing touch. He brushed his fingers deliberately over her stiffening nipple and caressed the underside of her breast, then moved lower…

Andie tensed suddenly, not from apprehension that he might be about to touch her more intimately, but because his fingers had encountered the second set of scars, a raised scoring of ridged flesh that cross-hatched for several inches across her ribs.

Michael relaxed, and kissed the sensitive spot at the juncture of her shoulder and neck, a spot that he had discovered earlier was particularly responsive to his touch. He laughed warmly again. "Then I must have tickled you then, to get you to jump like that…." He murmured caressingly.

Andie tensed again, and turned to bury her face deeper in the crook of his shoulder. "No…." she whimpered, feeling embarrassed and exposed with Michael’s palm resting directly over the scarred flesh, her source of shame. She felt unable suddenly to bear this touch any longer, and made a lunge to rise from the cot, struggling frantically to get up.

Michael, comprehending at once, stopped her. Holding her gently, he quickly turned her in one deft movement to lie under him. She tried to sit up again, but he held her down, his hands pinning her wrists to the bed.

Andie closed her eyes, a single tear squeezing out from under her thick eyelashes. Her breath hitched on a sob as she moaned out his name. "Michael…." The word was both a plea and a rejection, as confused, Andie felt extremely emotionally vulnerable at that moment. She knew that whatever Michael did next might heal her further, or deepen the already painfully deep wounds on her psyche, that cut deeper than any of the surface scarring.

Andie’s breath caught again, then she relaxed, letting herself go limp on the cot, feeling a sudden complete trust in him. Michael, she knew, just as he promised her with the first words when they had met, would never hurt her.

He smiled into her eyes, kissed her lightly, and then his gaze flickered lower to the scar below her breast. Unlike the one on her shoulder above, which was a jagged and irregular slash mark, this one was a patterned, regular, scoring of flesh- almost….. deliberate.

Andie let out a high whimper, anticipating pain, but then relaxed again as she realized how good it felt to have this vulnerable place on her body touched, and to be able to at last talk to someone about it, someone caring and accepting….

"No, it’s older…" she told him, amazed at how free she suddenly felt, how calm. Here in the safety of Michael’s intimate embrace, she discovered it was okay to let go, to discuss a touchy subject she had tried to suppress and ignore all her life. "I’ve had that one since I was a baby…"

Andie nodded, and lifted her hand to caress his cheek, touched by the concern and anger in his voice. "I don’t know the details," she went on softly. "My father always got upset whenever I asked him about it…" She smiled shyly into Michael’s eyes. "I don’t know for sure, but I got the impression that the treatment was.. well, experimental, and I suspect that my father didn’t approve of what they did to me…."

"Hey," she said with quick laugh, feeling suddenly light-hearted. "It’s all right…" Andie brushed her hand across his hair. "I lived, I got well, and I wasn’t sick anymore after that," she told him, feeling happy. "In fact, I am so disgustingly healthy, you wouldn’t believe it…." She continued with a giggle. "I’ve never even had a cold since, not once…"

Michael smiled at her. "Good…" he whispered huskily. "Because I don’t think I could stand it if you suffered anymore, Ma Cher…" Letting out a loud moan, he gathered her close, crushing her to his chest, and fervently kissed her until she was breathless.

Andie kissed him back, happily, then became at first puzzled, then alarmed, at the intensity of his embrace, and the almost desperate way he was holding her. It struck her suddenly that Michael was afraid.

She placed her hands on both sides of his firm jaw and tilted his head up to look into his face. The green eyes glittered with worry. "What’s wrong?" she asked breathlessly. Then, trying to keep her tone light, she added flippantly, "You don’t think I can handle getting a cold?"

The green eyes looked sorrowfully into hers, and his hand strayed upward to caress one wayward, dark curl of hair from her cheek. "Not a cold," he said tensely. "I meant, whatever horrid viral disease you were exposed to…." He went on with a sigh, his jaw clenched tightly. "I should have protected you……"

Andie moaned, and reached up to hold him close once more. "Shhh, you DID protect me, Michael.." she protested, lips pressed to his ear. She shivered, suddenly engulfed in fear. "You were the one who was exposed to it, more than I was…"

Michael’s firm lips brushed gently over hers. "Oui, I promise…" he moaned against her mouth, and then kissed her again, this time the kiss was not light, but tender and deep. His muscular length covered hers, and he groaned again, as he felt his body quickening urgently in response to her nearness, ready to be joined with hers.

Andie sighed just as loudly, and pointed to a small black box on the floor nearby. "It’s the doctor from Medlab," she explained in a sorrowful tone. "I think he wants to talk to you."

"I have good news," the elderly male voice reported cheerily, oblivious of the aggravation his interruption had caused his patients. "Our telemetry shows that the last blood test we ran on you both was negative for infectious agents…"

"It’s been eight hours since your exposure," the doctor went on. "That’s not a lot of time, but given that we must assume the agents used are fast-acting, we can be reasonably sure that neither one of you has been infected." They could almost hear the doctor smile through the com link. "Quarantine is over," he told them happily. "We’re sending a team to bring you home."

Michael sighed, closed his eyes, conflicted. He was both elated and depressed at this news. He was relieved, and at the same time sorrowful that his time with Andie had been cut short. "ETA of retrieval team?" Michael barked, more harshly than he intended.

Michael met Andie’s wide blue eyes, as the roar of a helicopter engine sounded loudly outside, and the van rocked and shook around them, as the vehicle was buffeted by the high winds created by the chopper’s blades.

There was no time, he realized. No time for more love-making, more touching, more ….. healing. This time alone had been as precious and important to him as it had been for her, and now, all too soon, it was over.

Michael took the last few seconds that were left to gather her in his arms and kiss her once again. "I’m sorry," he whispered hoarsely against her throat, clutching her tightly, his face buried in her soft hair. "I’m sorry…"

Andie was unable to stop the tears from filling her eyes as she hugged him back. She allowed herself one last sweet, frantic caress, desperately pulling his head down to hers and capturing his lips hungrily as her tears fell unheeded down her cheeks to her mouth, the wetness mingling in the kiss.

The Med-Team had arrived in bio-hazard gear, suited up for protection against what might await them at the warehouse site. Mendez, the newest member of the team, jumped with his comrades out of the helicopter as soon as it touched down, and raced toward the van. He was prepared to deal with virulent, incurable virus-borne diseases, as well as the operatives who might have succumbed to said diseases after their exposure. When the doors of the van were flung open, Mendez was prepared to treat the patients that needed his help. He was not prepared for the sight of Section’s top Class Five operative, naked, aroused, and entwined intimately with an equally naked and aroused female.

"Holy sh*t!" he blurted out, unable to stop his automatic response of surprise. The other two members of his team just eyed him sternly through their face masks in silent warning. If he knew what was good for him, their glances seemed to say, he’d be smart not to do anything to p*ss Michael off.

Mendez gulped hard and turned to look at the patients again. Michael had disentangled himself from his young companion, and had positioned himself on the bed in front of her, his body shielding hers from their view. The young lady seemed quite shy and embarrassed, cowering behind him and hiding her head against the back of Michael’s shoulder. Mendez thought she might even have been crying.

Even in a situation like this one where he should have been at a disadvantage, or at the very least, uncomfortable, Michael still kept his air of cool command. Amazingly, Mendez thought, Michael seemed unfazed by being stark naked in front of three strangers after experiencing a rude coitus interruptus, sitting there coolly composed while his crying girlfriend clung to him.

"Yes, Sir," Mendez squeaked out, and fled for the helicopter to obey his orders. When he had returned with a com-unit linked to Birkoff, two blankets, and two sets of baggy green scrubs, he found the door to the van firmly closed, and his team-mates outside, awaiting his return.

"But I didn’t DO anything!" Mendez protested. " I was just a little surprised, that’s all…. " he said defensively, shaking his head. "Jesus, how the hell was I supposed to know he’d be in there with some chick in a compromising position…."

His teammates just looked at each other knowingly. One of them rolled his eyes, and then drawled, "You always expect it, man," he informed him dryly. "This is MICHAEL we’re talking about…."

"Gee, thanks," Mendez answered in a surly tone. Then he sighed deeply, and knocked discreetly on the van door before opening it, averting his gaze, and handed the items Michael had requested inside. As soon as this was done, the door closed abruptly and the three medtechs waited nervously outside.

After a few short minutes, the van doors opened and Michael emerged, dressed in the wrinkled, baggy pajama-like scrubs, a blanket draped casually over his shoulders. Mendez noted that somehow Michael managed to carry himself with as much dignity as if he had been wearing an elegant tuxedo topped with an evening cape. Mendez had to admit it, this guy Michael had STYLE.

Michael turned to lean back inside the van and held out his hand to help the shy young lady down to the concrete. She looked frail and tiny, swamped in the oversized clothes, clutching the blanket tightly around her. Michael pulled her close and wrapped one arm around her, letting her shelter once more against his shoulder. The girl seemed to relax at his touch, and even smiled bravely up at him.

It wasn’t until two days later, that a frantic and seething Nikita was finally allowed to see Michael. Upon the arrival of the rescue team, he and Andie had been whisked immediately to the isolation ward of Medlab, and had been held there, incommunicado, while the doctors ran tests, poked and prodded, and, in Andie’s opinion, took enough blood from them to create a good case of anemia.

Nikita had been frustrated that she had been unable to talk to Michael. When the news came in that the mission had failed, and that Michael had been doused with killer microbes by Racer’s men, Nikita had been alarmed to the point of frenzy. She had haunted the Medlab halls until at last the doctor heading the project had told her that Michael and Andie showed no signs of infection, and would likely be fine, but he wanted to run more tests to be sure. Relieved beyond belief, Nikita was about to thank him warmly for this news when the doctor, annoyed at her hounding of him, told her in exasperated tones to get out of his Medlab, and not come back until invited.

Banned from Medlab, Nikita continued to haunt the hallways, looking for any scrap of information about Michael. When she saw one of the Medteam members emerging through the Medlab doors, her eyes lit up, and she pounced on her prey.

"Hi!" she said brightly, putting on a beaming, phony smile. "Aren’t you one of the guys who rescued Team One after the Racer mission went sour?" she said, in hushed awe, batting her lashes.

"Yeah, that was me," the young man said, preening. He stuck his chest out a little in pride. "It’s a dangerous job, but someone has to do it…." He told her self-importantly, enjoying the admiration in this beautiful girl’s eyes.

"Sure!" Mendez responded enthusiastically. He seldom found anyone who was interested in listening to him discuss microbes, bacteria, viral agents, and the damage they could do to the human body. One of his old girlfriends had dumped him when he had mentioned oozing pustules one time too often…..

"Tell me about this last mission," Nikita interjected swiftly, seeing the light in his eyes, and not wanting her target to go off on a tangent. "How were the victims holding up?" she asked innocently, eyes wide.

Mendez gave another chuckle, and then assumed a worldly expression. "Well, you know," he answered suavely, "This is MICHAEL we’re talking about here.." He nodded his head sagely. "Finding him naked with a nice looking babe is just par for the course, I suppose…"

"It’s true," he nodded wisely. "Saw it myself, with my own eyes…." He declared in a tone of deep satisfaction, smacking his lips. "We opened the doors of the van, and there they were, Michael and that cute little brunette, all cuddled up together…."

Nikita gripped his arm to steady herself. "But you could have mistaken what they were doing," she said, grasping at straws in her efforts to deny the hurtful vision his words had created in her head. "Maybe they were just trying to keep warm…."

He wiped a tear from his eye, after laughing hard, and went on. "These two weren’t WARM, Nikita, they were HOT…." He nodded his head and smiled. "Hot and HEAVY…" he chuckled at his own joke. "Man , that Michael was hard as a rock, ready to slip it to her…."

"I think they were just about to have a second or third go- round, too…" he said, nudging her with his elbow, and winking at her. "That van smelled like hot, raunchy sex…" He laughed again. "I bet you anything they had done it at least two times already…."

Nikita sobbed brokenly, pulled her arm from Mendez’s side, and stumbled blindly away from him, running. Confused by her reaction, the young medtech stared after her. "Was it something I said?" he asked, bewildered.

Instead of leaving Section to find some private place to lick her wounds, Nikita found herself in the corridors of Medlab, heading to Michael’s room, becoming more blazingly angry with each step. She was furious. Furious with him, that he had lied to her about his real feelings for Andie, furious with herself, that she had believed him when he had told that he and Andie were just friends.

She stomped through the hallways, until she reached the exam room where Michael was being tested once again. Bursting through the doors, she stalked up to her tormentor, her betrayer, her one true love, lying on the bed.

He was dressed in white sweatpants and a white tank top. He lay half-reclined against the pillows, holding out one finely muscled arm as a lab-tech stood at his bedside, drawing yet another tube of blood. Michael straightened at her approach, and sat up, his green eyes alight with joy at seeing her, until he caught the ravaged expression on her face.

Before he could say anything further, Nikita lost control. "Shut up!" she screamed at him. "How could you?" she sobbed harshly. "How COULD you?" She took a step forward and raised her hand to strike him.

Her palm connected with his cheek in a resounding blow, that Michael did nothing to prevent. His head snapped back from the force of the slap, and then he turned back to look at her, his eyes liquid with sorrow.

She collapsed, sobbing on the edge of the bed, burying her face in her hands. Michael took her into his arms, pulling her head down on his shoulder. Nikita resisted at first, and then leaned into him, crying softly.

"I didn’t do it to hurt you," Michael whispered gently, not bothering to pretend he didn’t know why she was upset. He knew sooner or later she would have found out about Andie. He just wished he had been able to break it to her himself first.

Michael lifted his hand to caress her cheek, then stopped, thinking better of it. Right then, he knew she did want the comfort of his touch. "I do.." he told her sincerely. "I always have, I always will.."

Nikita closed her eyes against the pain. "Because she was a challenge?" Nikita choked out. "Because you needed to see if you could?" She opened her eyes and stared at him again. "Was she like me…" she sobbed brokenly. "Just another notch on your belt?"

The blonde stared up at him, holding his gaze for a long moment, then shook her head. "You love me," she said, voice rich in irony and pain. "That’s a good one, Michael…." She let out a long sigh, and then her pressed her lips in a grim line. "Where does that leave Andrea?" she demanded.

Michael lowered his head, and let out a shaky breath. When he spoke at last, his voice was suffused with pain. "It leaves her hurt, like you…." He answered forlornly. "Although I did it to spare her from being hurt, at the time…"

Nikita let out an angry moan and then stood up from the bed. "Jesus, Michael, give me a BREAK!" she growled harshly. "You’re saying you f*cked her out of …… KINDNESS??" Her voice rose higher, the vitriolic words flowing with years of pent-up ire and hurt. "Or was it PITY?" Nikita raged on, eyes blazing.

" I think it’s even worse than that," she continued scathingly. "I bet you are so ARROGANT that you probably consider ALL your little romps in the sack as mercy-f*cks, just like it was your God-given mission in life to grant all us lowly, pathetic women the great honor of your esteemed company…."

Michael, stung, closed his eyes and balled his hands into fists beside him on the bed. Her words hurt him deeply, cutting him to the quick. They would have been insulting coming from anyone, but hearing them on Nikita’s lips stabbed him to his very soul. He knew she screamed at him out of hurt, and his guilt was part of the pain he was feeling, as well as his sorrow at her pain. But at the same time, overwhelming the guilt and the sorrow, Michael was becoming very angry in his own right. Nikita was twisting the knife in his wounded animal soul, and as everyone knows, there is nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal, taunted beyond bearing.

Her words dissolved the last thread of Michael’s tenuous hold on his patience and restraint. Wounded and enraged, Michael’s control snapped, and he leapt from the bed, lunging toward her.

Before she knew what was happening, Michael had caught her by the wrists, spun her around, and shoved her up against the wall. Panting hard, Michael pressed his body into hers, immobilizing any attempts she might make to escape.

Nikita stared into the ravaged face just inches from hers, and quivered at what she saw there. This was a Michael she had never seen, his mask ripped away, his cool exterior gone, revealing the raw, anguished, raging animal underneath…

"Shut up!" he groaned hoarsely, then whispered the words again, with an intensity of need and longing that left Nikita breathless, the words echoing from the bottomless abyss of his hurt and pathos and … desire.

The kiss was more of an assault than a caress; Nikita, helpless, found herself reeling under this attack of his firm lips on hers, his tongue forcing her lips apart, plunging inside her sweet depths, devouring her hungrily… Although his mouth was forceful, insistent, unrelenting, Nikita realized suddenly that, even though she had accused him of this quality just moments before, nothing about the kiss was ….. cruel. This desperate plundering of her lips had nothing to do with hurting her, she realized with a jolt. No, this Blitz-Krieg on her senses was not about exacting revenge, or inflicting pain, but something else entirely. But what?

Michael began moaning against her mouth, the kiss going ever deeper, his manner almost frantic in its intensity. It was as if he were trying to draw from her lips the air he needed to survive…. Then she knew with a swift bolt of clarity that what had prompted the kiss was not anger, but…. need.

As Nikita struggled to breathe under the onslaught on his hard mouth on hers, she found herself responding to the kiss in spite of herself. Her own anger dissipated as she felt Michael begin to tremble against her, and she grew alarmed when he broke the kiss with a gasping sob and rested his head despondently against her shoulder.

She felt his warm breath on her neck as he groaned harshly once more, then, as suddenly as the attack had begun, he released her, striding away several steps, to stand near the bed, his back to her. "I’m sorry…." He gasped out brokenly. "I’m sorry…."

Nikita slumped shakily against the wall for support, feeling suddenly cold and bereft, now that he had removed his warm length from hers. She shivered, and found herself wishing for his strong arms to be around her again, wishing that he would continue that fervent kiss….

Nikita swallowed hard, and took a few tentative steps toward him, instantly forgiving. "And I shouldn’t have said what I did…" she whispered in apology, reaching out one hand to touch his shoulder. "It wasn’t true…."

Nikita blinked, still frozen in silence, unsure what to make of this Michael, seemingly lost in guilt and bent on self-castigation. She shook her head, and uttered a gentle protest. "No, Michael, you aren’t…."

"Aren’t what?" he interrupted her forcefully. "An ego-maniac?" He let out a sharp, mirthless laugh. "You’re wrong," he insisted, ignoring her denials. "That’s exactly what I am…."

"I try very hard to turn my feelings off during missions, to just do the job, even if my own actions disgust me…" he went on in a tense whisper. "I try to ignore the emotions that come up when I’m whoring, manipulating, killing….."

"Usually I succeed in controlling my own personal desires and needs, to subsume them all under the greater needs of the mission, or of Section…." He choked out, his voice tense and distraught. "But sometimes I fail……"

The soft French voice lowered to a bare whisper. "I failed to control my feelings for you, and I failed this time with Andrea…." Michael sobbed out. "I gave in to what my ego needed…"

"I suppose I need sometimes to feel admired, to be seen as someone strong, and noble, and…. good…." Michael let the words out on a sigh. "Not as a debased killer, but a hero- a knight, perhaps…"

He laughed bitterly again, and ran his hand through the tangled auburn curls. "That’s why I succumbed so easily to Andrea," he said with a sharp shake of his head, his voice full of self-loathing. "There she was, looking up to me like I was some kind of Superman, a Prince, a Saviour.."

Nikita trembled, and began to cry silently, her heart wrenched by the painful revelations of Michael’s bare soul. This was the inner man she was seeing, not the cold impenetrable machine that Section had built, but the very human man underneath, the frail human who needed to be reassured of his value, his worthiness, who craved succor and approval, and desired to be accepted unconditionally, in spite of all his sins…A man who needed to feel….. loved.

"Andrea thought so highly of me that she didn’t consider herself worthy to make love with me.." Michael went on, unconsciously being discreet about the existence of the emotionally wounding scars that Andie had trustingly revealed to him in confidence, a secret he would not divulge to anyone, even Nikita. "And I felt the same way about her…." He choked out. "But I was too weak to resist when we tried to prove each other wrong….."

Somehow, unreasonably, she felt a surge of an unexpected , overwhelming emotion grip her insides- a burning guilt in her stomach. Guilt? HE was the one who had cheated and betrayed, not HER. But hadn’t her attitude contributed to Michael’s pain, she thought? Hadn’t her expectations of him to be perfect, to never fail, driven him into the adoring arms of another woman, a woman who accepted him, trusted him..

A woman who was less critical, less suspicious, a woman who , unlike her, did not construe his every act to be motivated by cunning and deceit. A woman who saw the good side of him, and could overlook the bad…..

Maybe Michael had been vulnerable to Andrea just because she had accepted him, just as he was. Maybe Michael had enjoyed being just accepted, and not judged, for once. Or, if Andie HAD judged him, it was as a person who met with her overwhelming approval.

Approval. Nikita shook her head, stunned at the idea that Michael, the loner, the man who seemed to need no one, Section’s almost inhuman machine, could crave this simple human contact. She thought back to all their encounters, all their conversations, over the past four years, and cringed when she realized how little positive reinforcement she had actually given him in all that time.

As a rebellious recruit, she had questioned his motivations, chafed under his commands. Every calculated, cold-blooded, ruthless thing that Section had done in the name of the greater good, she had lain to his door. The manipulations and tricks he had been forced to inflict upon her by Section had eroded that trust more.

No, she had to be honest. She didn’t trust Michael. She couldn’t. Not in the sweet, devoted, almost child-like way Andie had. But perhaps her trust went levels deeper than that. She trusted Michael with her life, just as she knew he trusted her with his. And she would defend him, fight for him, sacrifice for him, even die for him., just like he would- and did- for her.

They loved each other. But it had never been a love that expressed itself in words. With a jolt, Nikita realized that within the last week, Michael had told her twice that he loved her. Had she ever said the same to him? Had she ever really let him know just how deeply she cared for him, appreciated him, and, yes, admired him? Had she ever once, without qualification, just let him bask in the glow of her esteem?

Nikita realized she had been wrong about Michael’s motivations for being with Andrea. It was not a purely physical need, but an emotional one, that had driven the two of them together. And she had certainly been wrong to call Michael arrogant. There was no one less self-important, or self-seeking, than Michael, she knew now. His tryst with Andie had nothing to do with vanity, or a large ego- In fact, it may have happened just because he lacked those very qualities. The problem was not that he thought too much of himself, but too little.

Michael startled her from her reverie by letting out a sharp groan. He had interpreted her long silence as an indication of her hurt, anger, and disapproval. Or, even worse, her vast contempt. He shuddered, let out his gasp of pain, and uttered the words that revealed his greatest fear.

With a sharp cry of her own, Nikita went to him then, closing the distance between them in a few short steps. She slipped her arms under his and wrapped herself around him, pressing close. Startled, Michael tentatively held her, and allowed himself to be held, tensing for her next words, as if preparing for a blow.

Instead of the rejection he expected, or the cursing he thought he deserved, Nikita’s lips parted and the most beautiful words he had ever heard came tumbling form her lips- bright words, holy words, words that erupted like a fountain of healing waters in the desert of his parched and wounded soul.

This kiss, unlike its predecessor, was not a forceful attack, but the sweetest of tender caresses. It was as if they exchanged souls, their love mingling in the soft interchange of breath, the delicate tangling of tongues and lips. Michael slid his mouth across her sweetly offered lips, claiming them as his own. Nikita, in turn, drank in the warm depths of Paradise that he had surrendered to her alone.

Unconscious that she did so, Nikita moaned for more, and pulled him closer. Her hands found and knotted in the soft tangle of hair at the back of his neck, holding his head still so his mouth would stay firmly on hers.

Michael responded with a gentle cry of his own, a soft sigh in the back of his throat, as if the kiss, and her claiming of it, had satisfied a deep thirsting emptiness in him, that had raged for years. As, indeed, it had. The longing of his heart, his soul, was at last requited. The hunger for her words, her touch, sated and fulfilled.

Nikita watched in alarm as the light of love in his eyes darkened, the pupils dilating, the irises glassing over. Suddenly, Michael shuddered against her, and she saw the gooseflesh rise in waves over the skin of his bare arms. Still shivering, he swayed all at once on his feet, his eyes closing, his head thrown back, as he slipped into unconsciousness….

Frantically, she managed to lay him on the cot as his weight slumped full on her shoulders. He was out cold. As soon as she had arranged him on the bed, she checked his pulse at his carotid artery, and found it erratically racing and pounding in his neck. He was deathly pale, and unresponsive to her repeated calls of his name, and finally, to her desperate, sharp slap to his cheek. Nothing roused him.

Panicking, she ran to the door and flung it open, to the shock of the young med-tech who happened to be bustling by through the hallway. "I need help, NOW!" she screamed at him, and grabbed him by the coat-sleeve, hauling him bodily into the room.

The med-tech took a breath, and went to work. He held Michael down, strapped him to the cot, and tilted his head back to keep the air passageways clear. He checked the patient’s breathing, and was alarmed by what he heard. Or didn’t hear. Michael’s chest was not rising and falling like it should, but was ominously still.

Nikita stared coldly at the nurse, a man she did not recognize until just now as Mendez, the tactless newbie who had so crudely described Michael and Andie’s tryst to her. Once more, she grasped the man by his lab coat, taking two big fistfuls of white cotton in her grip.

Mendez blinked twice, and nodded meekly. "Of course…" he squeaked out. He had only been in Section a week, and had received two death threats, once by Michael, once by Michael’s woman. Again, his life flashed before his eyes.

The next moment Nikita released him, and Mendez turned to the patient on the bed, bent on saving all their lives- his own, Michael’s, and a third that he didn’t realize would be lost if Michael did not survive- Nikita’s.

Fourteen hours later, a small, chastenedly pale group met at the Section briefing table, which seem conspicuously large and empty due to the glaring absence of the team leader, Section head, and Weapons specialist. All three were in Medlab, stabilized, for now, but on ventilators, not breathing on their own.

Along with Michael, Operations, and Walter, at least five percent of Section had succumbed to the disease, including a significant number of Medlab personnel, and the numbers were climbing by the hour. There had been four deaths, due to attacks that occurred in isolation, when the victims had not been able to get to help in time. The disease acted quickly, as it was designed to do.

Madeleine sat, grim-faced, at the head of the table, leading the briefing. She eyed the equally grim-faced operatives across the table- Nikita, Taylor, Birkoff, and Mendez, who was one of the few remaining bio-hazard specialists who had stayed disease-free.

Madeleine nodded to the hapless Med-tech, who cowered before her, slumping low in his chair. His third death-threat of the week had come just a few hours earlier from La Belle Dame herself, when Operations has succumbed to the disease. Mendez supposed to himself that he ought to be getting used to it by now.

The Med-tech cleared his throat nervously. " Nothing’s changed since my last report," he stated mulishly. "The casualty list is growing, and we still have no idea how the disease is spread, or if any of our attempts at prevention are worth a damn…."

He shook his head in disgust. "Nastiest designer virus I’ve ever seen- fast acting, deadly, and, worst of all, undetectable…" he said with a frustrated sigh. "We followed all the usual quarantine protocols, but this stuff seems to defy all the rules…" He looked up and met Nikita’s worried blue eyes. "We didn’t it see it coming," he told her, almost apologetically.

Mendez looked at him kindly. Taylor was one of the few people present that hadn’t threatened his life so far this week. "We’re trying," he replied with another sigh. "But it’s going to take a dedicated team to crack this puzzle, and it would help if we could access the creator’s files, so we at least had a clue where to start…"

"I see," said Madeleine in a depressed tone. She nodded her head at Nikita and Taylor. "I want you two, as well as any other available operative, on this. Help Mendez find an antidote, and do it quickly, before we are forced to take the alternate solution to our problem…"

The face on the screen was an aged one, a white-haired, ruddy-cheeked, portly gentleman with a merry glint in his eye. The surface resemblance to a benevolent Santa Claus ended there. This man’s mouth was not kindly and sweet, but twisted into a cruel grin.

"I’m sure by now you are enjoying the results of my little experiment," Racer’s image cackled gleefully. He gave the camera lens a wide grin, and shrugged his shoulders. "Or maybe, not…."

"Bastard…." Nikita muttered under her breath. She couldn’t get the image of Michael as she had last seen him out of her mind- lying still and pale on the bed, a tube down his throat as a machine breathed for him……

Racer’s smile faded, and his eyed lost their merry gleam. "I want my granddaughter back," he intoned seriously. "And I want her returned in one piece, unharmed, is that clear?" His voice rose on the last words to an almost hysterical pitch. "Because if you don’t return her to me, I will destroy ALL the antidote serum for the virus," he continued in a threatening tone, "…. and you will spend the last few remaining hours of your miserable lives watching everyone you know die…."

"So far, she has remained disease free," came the calm reply. She fixed Nikita with her deadly chocolate-brown gaze. "I suggest you and Mendez use her to help you find a cure," she ordered tightly. "Before any other lives besides hers are sacrificed."

Nikita pushed back her chair and swiveled it toward Mendez. She stood up and again gripped the Med-Tech by the sleeve. "Let’s go, Bozo," she hissed at him, quick marching him toward Medlab. "Remember what I said about what I’ll do to you if you don’t save Michael…."

Mendez led his two helpers, Taylor and Nikita, into a Medlab laboratory where he had set up a command center of sorts at a table in one corner, flanked by a bank of computers. Print-outs, books, disks, and scribbled notes littered the table top, as well as a collection of empty soda pop cans and candy bar wrappers.

"Hey!" Mendez protested. "Look, it’s not my fault this virus is wickedly tricky," he told her, slumping in a chair in front of a computer and pulling up a file. He ran a weary hand through his short, dark hair. "We’ve been killing ourselves here trying to figure out the etiology of this thing…."

"Etiology?" Taylor asked, perching carefully on the edge of a nearby desk. He eyed the laboratory surroundings warily, and shuddered when his glance fell on some glass specimen jars with some unidentifiable and stomach-turning contents. Hastily, he focused his attention back on Mendez.

"Yeah, etiology," Mendez continued, going into lecture mode. "How the disease starts. How it spreads…" He shook his head wearily and sighed, and automatically started unwrapping his Snickers bar. "If we could find that out, we’d be a long way ahead to stopping the disease from spreading, and finding a cure.."

He bit into the candy voraciously, chewed, swallowed and went on. "This thing has us stumped," he told them. "There’s no discernable pattern of contamination, no clear starting point of contagion….." He sighed again. "The victims just suddenly stop breathing and die…"

Mendez pointed to the huge, teetering stack of computer print-outs on the edge of the table. "There’s all out data so far," Mendez said with another sigh. "Patient notes, test results….." He took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. "You can help me sort through those, and see if anything jumps out at you, because, frankly, we’re at a dead end…."

Mendez swallowed, smiled, and went on. "Oozing pustules," he said enthusiastically. "Like small pox. Then you’ve got a disease spread point, you see. Or if the victims’ blood vessels all burst, like in the Black Death, or some other cool plague…"

Taylor eyed the med-tech in cold disgust. "Mendez," he said tightly. "If you say the word "death" one more time, or mention oozing pustules again.." the operative promised grimly, "I’ll kill you…."

Mendez gulped. "Jeez Louise!" he protested in a squeaky voice. "I was just trying to explain what a difficult disease this is to work with…" he defended himself. "It’s not like a disease at all, really…."

Mendez shrugged, and swiveled in his chair. "I don’t know," he said absently. "More like an extreme allergic reaction, you know, like when some one has a bad bee-sting, or a snake bite, and goes into anaphylactic shock…."

The scientist blinked, his mouth gaping open. "That’s IT!" he cried, jumping up from his chair. He trembled with excitement. "Holy sh*t, we’ve been looking at blood chemistries all along, and it has nothing to do with that….."

Nikita left Mendez to do his work, and slipped out into the Medlab corridor. She turned right, heading down the hallway to the isolation ward to see Michael. As she passed by one of the exam rooms on the way there, she stopped in her tracks when she heard a familiar voice cry out from behind the closed door.

Andie was lying on an exam table, helpless, strapped down by wrists and ankles. She was surrounded by a team of white-coated technicians, all wearing face-masks, and all doing the same thing- taking blood and tissue samples from various parts of her body. The inside of the girl’s arms were a parade of black and blue, and her legs bore angry, raw patches where the skin had been taken off.

The Med-techs scattered, skittering away in her wake. They knew better than to tangle with a Class Two operative, particularly one trained by Michael. Only one of the doctors remained, a dour-faced older man who eyed her stubbornly.

"We’re trying to find a cure, that’s what," he answered glumly. "Don’t interfere…" He turned back to what he was doing, ready to slip a needle in Andie’s arm to draw another vial of blood.

Before he could touch the trembling girl again, Nikita grabbed him by the arm, wrenched the needle away from him, and threw it to the floor. Then she gripped the doctor by the lapels and hauled him up on his tip toes, her eyes blazing inches from his.

Nikita didn’t spare him a second glance, but turned back to cross the room to the shaken girl on the bed. Nikita began working the straps loose, freeing her from her bonds, and helping her sit up.

"Thank you," Andie breathed, exhaling a sigh of relief, as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and unsteadily stood up. She gripped Nikita urgently by the arm. "How’s Michael?" she asked anxiously, her eyes wide with fear. "They wouldn’t tell me anything…"

"Yeah," Nikita told her huskily. She was not about to deny this woman access to the man they both cared for. Andie deserved to spend time at Michael’s bedside, Nikita thought, just as much as she did. Nikita only hoped there would be more time left for him, and that these precious few moments they would spend at his bedside would not be the last ones they had together.

Still clinging to each other for support, Andie and Nikita traveled the short distance down the hallway to the isolation ward. The cold glass doors and even colder white walls were guarded by a weary looking Med-tech in green scrubs. The nurse, a short blonde woman, was pale and exhausted, but managed to greet them with a sad smile, despite her fatigue.

Sherri assured her quickly, "No, he’s not gone, but he is worse…." The nurse sobbed and looked away. "We’ve lost three more in the last hour, and I’m afraid Michael might be next….."

Together, the women hurried down the passage. On either side of the corridor they entered were screened alcoves, each narrow enclosure containing a hospital bed, each with its still occupant. The patients’ idle immobility seemed offset by the frantic activity of the machinery they were attached to, as the ventilators continuously pumped air into useless lungs with noisy industry.

Nikita’s heart wrenched for the quiet, almost corpse-like victims, and then nearly stood still when she reached the alcove that was Michael’s. Even though she had steeled herself for this moment, she found she was not prepared for the sight of him like this.

His color had worsened since she had seen him last, his skin almost pale gray, hardly darker than the white sheets that covered him like a shroud. His dark hair that stood out in stark relief to his unrelenting paleness was matted with sweat, strands clinging to his noble forehead. The beautiful green eyes were tightly closed, and Nikita flinched at the thought that came unbidden to her mind, that he may never open them again.

She had to touch him, had to feel him, just to assure herself he was alive. With this overwhelming need driving her, Andie rushed past Nikita to stand at the side of the bed, and took Michael’s hand in hers. It felt cold, his fingers that had so recently and skillfully danced warm and delicate over her body, now lay limp and unresponsive in hers.

Sobbing, her tears blinding her, Andie lifted her hand to Michael’s face, and stroked his pale cheek, her fingertips reading his face like the pages of a book in Braille. Again, he felt cold to her, as if the soul in him had already retreated to some faraway, better place, more hospitable than this heavy, cold body that lay so stilly on the bed.

"Michael…" Andie wailed again, her tears flowing freely now. Instinctively, she leaned down to embrace him, wanting urgently to impart some of her warmth to him, and perhaps to capture the wayward , escaping soul before it fled its useless prison.

She was hampered by the lines and equipment he was hooked up to, particularly the breathing tube that ran down his throat and was taped in place across his beautiful, sensitive-lipped mouth. Still, Andie sought to kiss him, lowering her face to his.

Watching numbly from the foot of the bed, Nikita did nothing to prevent this desperate, possibly last, caress. She could tell Andie was not trying to dislodge the breathing equipment, and that her movements were slow and gentle, her touch tender, as if in final farewell. Andie’s lips brushed Michael’s forehead, then his cheeks, his eyes, his jaw where she could reach, raining kisses on him, even as her tears flowed like rain over his face, warming his coldness with her harsh sobs.

Nikita closed her eyes, unable to bear the sight of so much pain. Andie’s sorrow seemed to magnify her own, at the same time eased it, for being shared. Her heart tore in two, and she felt her soul scream inside her, protesting the wrenchingly sharp agony of their approaching loss.

The monitors had all flared to life, sounding their strident warnings. Michael no longer lay still on the bed, but was bucking and convulsing as his whole body jerked in a final death dance. Andie let out a scream, as Michael’s breath rattled his throat, and he gasped and choked for air, his hands coming up to claw at the tube in his throat, thrashing violently.

Andie refused to let him go. "No, Michael!" she screamed. "Don’t leave me! No….." Her hands clutched at him, and Nikita, moving as if in a trance, numbly approached the hysterical girl, hauling her away from the bed, and out of the way, as the Medteam nurses swarmed into the alcove in response to the monitors warnings, and immediately began working over Michael’s body.

Andie fought to be free, still screaming. Nikita dragged her several feet down the hallway, and then stopped, holding he shuddering girl in her arms. Andie subsided into broken sobs on Nikita’s shoulder.

Nikita stood in the hallway sobbing, holding Andie in her arms as the two wept out their fierce grief together. Nikita tried not to listen to the sounds coming from the Meb-bay alcove just a few feet beyond them. She wanted to shut out the disturbing, terrifying siren wails of the monitors, and the frantic voices of the doctors and nurses as they worked over Michael, but she couldn’t. Helplessly, she was forced to hear the last anguished moments of Michael’s life before the bright flame that was his life, and her heart and soul, was snuffed out.

Brokenly, tormented, she listened to Michael’s harsh, wracking coughing, as he struggled for life, choking out his last breaths. She heard him gasp horribly one more time, and then there was the most horrid sound of all.

The monitors had stopped their disrespectful beeping, the doctors’ voices were stilled, as if in awe. The very walls of Section, the universe itself, Nikita felt, were hushed and reverent, as this bright light winked out, and passed from among them. Michael, she knew, was dead.

Before she could scream, or faint, or react in any other way to this unthinkable loss, the silence was shattered by an unwelcome, rude voice from behind the screen around Michael’s bed.

Andie, who had been sobbing weakly in Nikita’s arms, flinched. The women pulled apart, and looked at each other in shock. There was a swift, murmured conference among the medical personnel, and then the curtain around the alcove was swept aside, and the doctor who had just uttered the harsh curse came flying out, headed right toward them.

"Mendez?" Nikita gulped, becoming angry. What was this boorish nemesis trying to do now, she thought, glaring at him, enraged at his violation of Michael’s last moments of life with his classless remarks, and disrespectful intrusions in their grief…

Mendez pressed on, ignoring the warning look in Nikita’s eyes. He walked up to them, staring accusingly from Andie to Nikita and then back again. "Well?" he demanded. "One of you is responsible for this, damn it! Which one of you did it to him?"

"Yes, of COURSE, Chicky, that’s what I meant," Mendez went on impatiently in an imperious tone. "You two are the last ones to be with him before the event," Mendez continued, exasperated with their denseness.. "Of course, it was your fault…" He shook his head in disgust. "Just tell me what the f*ck you did to get such a quick result?"

Nikita had had enough. Blood boiling, she grabbed the hapless Medtech by the lapels, hauled him up on his tiptoes, and slammed him against the wall. Mendez dangled there in her grip, his eyes going wide with fright.

"Listen, you little boorish Bastard," she hissed. "We didn’t do anything. We went to see Michael, to say g-goodbye.." she choked on the last word, and with a despondent sob, her anger dissipating into devastated sorrow, as the realization of her loss stabbed her anew, she stepped back, releasing him.

Andie stared at him with an astonished look, mouth agape at his bizarre question. This doctor had to be the strangest, weirdest bird she had ever encountered. "Yes!" she yelled angrily. "I kissed him! I kissed him all over his beautiful face!" she choked out, beginning to sob again. "What’s it to you?"

Mendez froze, and stared at her, as if mesmerized by her tears. He reached out one hand to touch her wet cheek, capturing one salty tear, and then rubbing the precious moisture between his fingers. He stared at her some more, his eyes glazing over in astonishment, as if entranced by her weeping.

Suddenly, the doctor roused from his reverie, his face breaking out into smiles. He let out a harsh laugh of triumph. "Holy F*CK!!!" he exclaimed. "I can’t BELIEVE IT! The TEARS! It was the tears that did it…"

Mendez nodded, shrugging back into his lab-coat after Nikita had disarranged it. "There must have been some kind of enzyme in her tears that counter-acted the virus," he explained, grinning happily. "We have our cure…."

Mendez’s eyebrows went up, as if in shocked disbelief. "Isn’t it obvious?" he said blandly, and tut-tutted in a supercilious tone. "Even the greenest med student knows that when a patient on a ventilator starts breathing on their own, they start choking, and the breathing tube has to be removed….." he continued arrogantly.

A short, frantic ten hours later, Madeleine called another briefing to deal with Racer. This time, the briefing table was not conspicuous for the empty chairs of absent team members. All the players had returned, recovered from their sojourns in the valley of death.

Operations was pale and haggard, his voice rough and gravelly from the breathing tube that had been so recently removed from his throat. He sat straight in his chair next to Madeleine, and began the briefing.

Nikita, sitting across the table, marveled at how quickly the victims of Racer’s plague had recovered from their ordeal, and were now acting as if nothing traumatically life-changing had happened.

She sluiced her eyes side-ways to drink in the sight of Michael in the chair next to hers. He was dressed in his usual black, his hair combed and neat, his strong face composed and alert. Except for his slight pallor and the faint trace of circles under his eyes, there was no evidence he had been ill at all, let alone on his death-bed a few hours before.

Nikita resisted the urge to slip her hand under the table and link her fingers with his, although the impulse to touch him, to reassure herself that he was there, was very strong. For her, the past few days had tumbled her world upside-down. She thought she had lost Michael, twice- Once to Andie, and once to the Angel of Death.

But she had not lost him. She had realized he was more alive, and more HERS, than ever before. And both of those gifts, Michael’s life, and the revelation of Michael’s love, had been due to the real angel among them- Andie.

Nikita smiled warmly to herself, remembering how quickly Andie had saved the day. Mendez had hauled her off to his lab, and in a very short time, she had provided him with enough of her tears to analyze for the antidote. As soon as she given the scientists the samples they required to get to work, Andie began the rounds in Medlab, going from bed to bed, bestowing her healing touch on as many patients as she could. Behind her, the Med-techs followed, tending to each awakening patient in turn as, like Sleeping Beauty in reverse, the Princess aroused them from their slumbers.

She cried for them.. She cried for joy that Michael was alive. She cried in sorrow for the ones who had died. She cried in humility that she was able to bestow life. She cried out her grief, her pathos, her heart; she cried for every sweet, good thing, and every sorrow of her life. When she could summon no more tears, she would pinch the tender bruises on the inside of her arm, using her own pain to generate the needed tears. She cried, and cried, and cried; each tear precious, each one a boon to everyone she touched.

And then she cried because she knew that none of her pain, her grief, her sorrow in life had been wasted, no moment of deep feeling in her life had been for naught. None of her losses and burdens had been useless- Here, now, among the patients that needed her, she turned her sorrow, her empathy, the wounds of her heart, into healing for others, freely giving them her life-tears as a sacred gift.

Just when the girl was reaching the point of exhaustion, and had no more tears to give, Mendez emerged from his laboratory, happily triumphant, with a supply of the antidote synthesized from Andie’s tears. The Med-Teams stayed at work, carrying on Andie’s healing mission, this time without her.

It was Mendez himself who supported Andie to a bed in a quiet room off of the lab, and carefully tucked her in, leaving her to get some well-deserved and much- needed rest. Even he, the most emotionally insensitive among them, had been touched into admiration for her selfless bravery, had been moved to awed respect.

"We have a 100% cure rate," Mendez reported in a tone of awe. "Except for the fifteen operatives who died, everyone else effected has responded to the antidote, and has made a complete recovery." He shook his head in amazement. "That Andie chick was something else," he commented admiringly.

Mendez puffed out his chest, basking in the leader’s approving smile, and this moment of heroic glory. This sure beat the heck out of having his life threatened every time he turned around, he thought. "Yup, that’s about the size of it, Boss," he announced proudly. "We’re A-OK."

Madeleine inclined her head in acknowledgement of this statement. "No, he doesn’t," she replied serenely. "He no doubt expects that his virus has decimated us, and that we are in a state of extremis, desperate for his antidote…"

Mendez leaned forward, looking confused. "I don’t get it," he said, scratching his short-cropped head. "Something’s really screwy here. If the S.O.B. really gave a rat’s ass about Andie’s well being, like he says he does, why the hell did he expose her to the killer virus in the first place?" He shook his head in disgust. "How did Racer know she would even live long enough to be traded for the antidote?" he demanded, angrily. "How does he even know she survived?"

Michael blinked, and shifted in his seat, as images from the first kidnap exchange flashed through his mind. He remembered how Racer’s man had aimed the gun right at Andie. Michael, leaping to the rescue, had caught the bullet meant for her. Only it hadn’t been a bullet. It had been a tranquilizer dart.

Michael’s eyes widened. Had Racer meant to retrieve Andie, and then contaminate Michael only, and send him back to Section, to contaminate and infect the others? Only Michael’s quick reactions in shooting Racer’s men had prevented this from happening. Michael had no doubt that Racer wanted his granddaughter returned, and he wouldn’t have exposed her to the virus unless….

Madeleine tilted her head, and then nodded in surprise. "Logical," she said approvingly, raising one eyebrow. "But I thought you said that Andrea never met her grandfather, or had any dealings with him……"

Operations narrowed his eyes. "That’s what she SAID," he drawled suspiciously. "But it’s not the first time we’ve brought a Trojan horse inside Section walls…." He intoned grimly, remembering the time not so long ago when Section was tricked by Red Cell into bringing a virus into their midst, with deadly consequences.

Nikita sat straight up in her chair. "She didn’t lie!" the blonde protested, glancing apprehensively from one steely-faced Section leader to the other. "Andrea is a sweet, kind, person ! She wouldn’t have anything to do with a piece of slime like Racer, or be in on any plot with him…."

"To her knowledge, she didn’t," he amended Nikita’s statement, his eyes soft and sad. "But Racer MUST have had some contact with her at some point, otherwise he wouldn’t have known she was immune…."

"But, Michael!" Nikita protested. "Wouldn’t she remember getting a disease like this, and recovering from it?" she demanded, shaking her head. "I would think she’d recall having her lungs stop working, don’t you?" she added sarcastically, crossing her arms across her chest and glared at the assembled team leaders defiantly.

Mendez, who had been idly doodling on a piece of paper in front of him, interrupted. "This isn’t a case of the mumps, you know," he said tensely, staring down at the drawing he was making. "That sh*t that just almost killed us was not your ordinary, every day little flu…."

The biological hazards specialist looked up at them, eyeing each face around the table grimly. "There was nothing natural about that f*cking bug we just fought," he went on, tapping his finger on the paper in front of him for emphasis. "That was a genuine, God-damned designer virus. The only way a person could be immune to it, would be if they were deliberately exposed to it, and in this case, given the virulence of the disease," he went on grimly, "it would have had to have been introduced under the skin in a very controlled amounts, sort of like an allergy test is done…."

Michael stared at the crosshatch pattern of parallel lines, something like a tic-tac-toe board, that Mendez had drawn. Something about it was disturbingly familiar…. Where had he seen these markings before?

All eyes turned to Michael, who sat stunned in his chair, the green eyes wide with shock. "Oh, God…" he breathed out, trembling, and then shut his eyes, feeling like he had just been punched in the gut. "Oh, God…."

Michael silenced him with a look that promised certain death if Mendez said one more word. The med-tech subsided in his chair, and Michael turned back to Madeleine and went on, after being so rudely interrupted.

"Andrea told me she had been very sick as an infant," he forced out in a scratchy, low whisper. " She almost died….." he choked out, his mouth twisting in anger. "She thinks the scar is from a treatment she received for her illness," Michael spat out in disgust. "But it wasn’t from the treatment, it was from being deliberately infected…."

Michael turned his head to look at him. He stared at the med-tech intently for several long moments, studying the young man critically, as if measuring the motivation for this question and his reasons for this eager curiosity. Deciding that Mendez , despite the horribly gauche and tactless way he went about it, was, in this instance, totally sincere and pure in his pursuit of Scientific knowledge, Michael answered.

Mendez’ eyes grew big. "Holy F*ckin’ CRAP!" he declared loudly. "The Bastard must have subjected her to more than one of his friggin’ designer disease creations, to get a result like that…" he shook his head and gulped, an expression of angry fury coming over his face. " Jesus Christ!" he swore. "What a complete, total F*CK-WAD…"

Andie lay sleeping on her side, her back to him, when Michael entered the small room. Against the stark white sheets and white walls of the sterile hospital environment, her soft, brown hair and dewy pink skin stood out with all the richness of a Monet watercolor against a blank canvas. She WAS beautiful, just as he had told her.

Silently, he approached the bed, and looked down at the delicate face of the sleeping girl. Scrubbed clean of make-up, her features were almost those of a child, a true innocent, her mouth soft and relaxed…….

Blue eyes popped open, and the next moment Michael found himself wrapped in an embrace as warm and sweet as their kiss. Andie slipped her arms under his, and held him tight, crushing him to her, her hands clinging to his broad shoulders.

"I’m fine," Michael told her softly. He caressed a tendril of sweetly curling hair that lay on her neck, tempting him to touch it, and the velvet skin underneath. His fingers stroked her with sharp poignancy. He knew this was probably their last private moment together.

Michael did not answer right away, but took her hand in his and pulled her down to sit beside him on the bed. Her fingers trembled in his, but then gripped his hand hard, taking and imparting strength from the warm touch.

Michael swallowed hard, and began. "In a few hours, we’re going to be at a meeting place designated by your grandfather," he said in the soft voice she loved. "Section is going to exchange you for the antidote…."

She tried to smile bravely through her tears, her lower lip trembling. She reached out one hand to gently stroke his cheek. "My grandfather won’t hurt me, he’s made that clear…." She took a deep shaky breath. "But he’s tried to kill YOU, and he almost succeeded…." Andie sobbed, looking at him wide-eyed. "How can I know you’ll be safe?"

Michael blinked in shock at the loving selflessness of this question, his soul warming inside him at the evidence of her caring concern. He leaned toward her and kissed her lightly once more.

"I’ll be fine, I promise…." He told her, struggling between laughter and tears. He was a cold op; it was his job to be at risk. His personal safety was not on a high priority list, except for those few that valued him as a human being, and not a killing machine- Nikita, and Andie.

Andie sobbed and slumped against him, burying her face in his shoulder. Her hands twisted tightly in his lapels, clutching him fiercely. "Then I’ll never see you again…" she cried.

Andie tensed at these words, then remained very still against his shoulder. Her sobs quieted, and she exhaled softly all the air in her lungs. It seemed to Michael as if she were gathering herself, looking inward for the strength to say her next words.

Michael’s eyes widened, and then he carefully matched his playful tone to hers, his voice surfacely flippant but with an underlying ocean of seriousness. He smiled back. "I’ll never be sorry about that…." He said, and then almost choked out the last words. "For any moment we had together…."

Andie almost dissolved in tears, but her smile held, and gulping back a sob, she tilted her head coquettishly, and went on in the teasing voice, "Me, too," she whispered, and then stroked her finger down his cheek. "So," she challenged, "Are you going to take it back?"

Michael smiled again, continuing the game. He realized what she was doing was making the good-bye easier on both of them. "Yes," he said warmly. "I take it back….." His eyes met hers in deep communication, and both knew that Michael was about to lie. "I’m… not ….sorry…" he said with an effort of will not to cry.

"When this is over, you said you’d be okay," she began softly. "But I won’t have any way of knowing that for sure…" She looked up at him, meeting the soft green eyes, her blue ones bright and intense, her flippant tone gone.

"I have to KNOW, Michael," Andie pleaded softly. "I think it’s the only way I’ll be able to go on, to … recover…." She stopped, struggling to control the tears that threatened to overcome her. "I just need you to find some way to get a message to me that you made it, some signal that you’re all right…"

Andie laughed, her face brightening as if his answer had relieved her of all concerns. She snuggled back against him, and wriggled onto his lap. She put her arms around his neck and looked up at him, batting her lashes innocently. " I’m very bossy and demanding, aren’t I?" she asked, openly flirtatious, her tone light one more.

Michael smiled. "Yes, your Highness, you are…." He answered teasingly. He inched closer, pulling her more firmly down on his lap, his mouth mere centimeters from hers. The look in his eyes made her tremble with sudden desire.

His next words took her breath away. "Command me," he begged hoarsely. Then, before she could order it, he obeyed her heart’s unspoken request, stealing what was left of her breath away with a long, passionate kiss…..

There was only a little time left before the mission for the handsome Prince to serve the commands of the sweet Princess, Queen of his heart, but he managed to fulfill them all, to her Highness’s complete satisfaction.

Without her having to say a word, Michael obeyed her every request, reading his orders in her touch, the look in her eyes, and in the fervency of her kisses. Just as fervently, he obeyed his own desires as well, finding fulfillment of his own in his strivings to please her.

Time stood still for them, or at least, later, in her cherished memories, that is how Andie thought of these moments in Michael’s arms. They savored each other, unhurried, as if they had all the time in the world, instead of just this swiftly ebbing, and heart-breakingly brief, hour. The sorrow of their impending separation did not touch this magical time, joined as they were- body, heart, soul- in the mystical union of timeless love.

"Michael…" Andie breathed out in a sigh as she lay basking in the afterglow in the circle of her strong lover’s arms. "You are so good to me…." She whispered, kissing the soft down of hair on his chest. "You’ve made me so …… happy……."

"No…." came his automatic response, the word out of his mouth before he could recall it. He had kidnapped her, imprisoned her, endangered her by bringing her into Section, had exposed her to her grandfather’s biological weapons, had placed her in the middle of the mission, the crisis, the crossfire of Section’s war to bring down the criminals no one else could get. And more than that, Michael was tormented by the idea that he, personally, had taken advantage of her vulnerability and helplessness to get what he wanted. Hadn’t he?

Andie pressed her fingers to his soft lips before he could go on. "Shh, Michael…" she soothed him, understanding instantly his self-doubts and fears. "You think you …..used me?" she asked very softly, pulling back to look in the suffering green eyes.

This time, before he could go on, Andie stopped him with a kiss, quick and tender, on his mouth, then followed it by others, raining caresses on his face, each kiss as sweet and light and pure as the heart that beat inside the young girl’s chest, each one as loving, and bright as her glorious soul.

"Stop it, Silly…" she teased him in gentle voice, warm with love. "You didn’t use me…." Her eyes glittered with tears. "You took care of me, you … cherished me, you made me feel… b-beautiful…"

"You ARE…. beautiful……." He insisted urgently. "So utterly beautiful…." Then, with a wrenching cry, he turned his head away from her. "God, what will I do without you?" he moaned roughly.

Andie knew she had to stop him, before she broke down in tears, knowing that if she started to cry, she would never stop. She pushed him back down on his back, and in a moment, to his surprise, she had straddled him, and had pinned him by his wrists down to the bed, holding him prisoner.

Michael managed a small, startled smile, the corner of his mouth quirking up in delighted amusement. "Yes, Your Highness…." He acquiesced meekly. "Am I under orders to please you?" he teased back, his voice suddenly roughened with desire.

Andie took in a sharp breath, almost undone by those words, that smile. But she forced herself to focus on her purpose, even though her body cried out to melt into his, to succumb to desire……

"Yes.." she groaned, allowing herself one, sweet, but brief kiss, before continuing her mission. She was determined that in these last moments together, she would leave Michael with no regrets, no guilt, no sorrow, only warm love and sweet memories.

Michael blinked, and held perfectly still. "I’m yours to command.." he vowed, in a solemn tone, his eyes searching her face in rapt attention; The mood had shifted from light-hearted teasing back to utter seriousness again.

Andie let out a sigh. "You have been a loyal and devoted Servant to me, My Prince…" she whispered softly. "You sought me out, you rescued me, you awakened me—HEALED me --- with your kiss…." She released one of Michael’s wrists and brought his hand up to rest lightly on the jagged scar across her breast. Michael caressed it with his fingers, his eyes never leaving hers.

Andie pushed him back down again, her fingers lingering on the rise of hard chest, and then moving up to stroke a soft tendril of hair off his cheek. "You’re my Hero, My lovely, lovely Prince…" her voice caressed him as tenderly as her fingers. "And I command you to do one last thing for me…."

His eyes glittered brightly as he watched her, enraptured by the lovely woman above him. "Anything…" he promised rashly in a fervent whisper. "I’ll do anything…" he begged. Andie knew he begged not only for her next command, but, for her forgiveness, her blessing, and, wrenchingly, for her sweet farewell.

She breathed the last word of her command into his parted lips. "….after……" she moaned, and then plunged her soft tongue in his mouth, kissing him with fervent passion, as her tears fell like blessings, like angel kisses, on his face.

Michael could hold back no longer. With a groan, he turned her in his arms to lie under him on the bed. Covering her body with his, his strong arms gathered her to him, and he began returning her fervent kisses with all the passionate fervency of his own, his heart, though breaking, was light and free….

"Holy God-damn SH*T!" exclaimed Mendez as he burst into the room, candy-bar in hand. He took a bite of his Snickers and eyed the naked lovers avidly, as if he was a spectator at the movies. "Are you two going at it AGAIN?" he said with a grin.

The passionate green eyes that had only seconds before regarded her with such warm adoration, now were icy green shards of frozen malice, aimed laser-like at Mendez. Andie shivered. Along with her very natural resentment at his intrusion, she could not help but feel an involuntary pang of pity for the incredibly tactless and blundering Mendez, who was now the target of Michael’s icy wrath.

Mendez, to Michael’s shock, did not obey. "No can do," the med-tech said stubbornly, with a casual shrug of his shoulders. He took another bite of candy bar. "I’ve got orders from Operations himself…." He told them proudly. Mendez had been basking in the glow of the Section leader’s good favor, and, for now, foolishly, he felt that he was untouchable, and that Michael’s ill-will was no longer a threat to his well-being, or his survival.

Michael gathered up the sheets on the bed, wrapping Andie in one, and himself in the other. His movements were slow and deliberate, seemingly calm, but Andie could sense the leashed anger building up inside the Section operative, and marveled at how clueless the cocky, self-important Mendez could be, not to be afraid of Michael’s quiet, poised tranquility, not unlike the silent stealth of a panther just before it strikes.

Oblivious to his own mortal danger, the obtuse Med-tech smiled and pulled a rather alarmingly large syringe out of his lab-coat pocket. "I’m supposed to inject the Andie-babe here," he indicated the girl next to Michael with a nod, "with a tracker before the mission," Mendez explained in a proud tone. He waggled the needle and grinned. Girls always got grossed out by needles and blood and other cool stuff, he thought with a superior smile.

Andie swallowed hard and resisted the urge to cower against Michael. Bravely, she held out her bruised, needle-punctured arm. "Okay," she said meekly, biting her lower lip. "Go ahead and get it over with…" she said in a resigned tone.

Andie tensed, and she felt Michael stiffen beside her. He put his arm protectively around her shoulders and then fixed Mendez with his piercingly cold gaze. "Where does it go, then?" he asked in the deceptively soft voice, feeling his control slipping. If Mendez asked Andie to bend over for a shot in her very pretty, charmingly curved derriere, Michael didn’t know if he could keep from throttling the haplessly rude med-tech. Michael was already fantasizing about getting his hands around the dim-wit’s throat….

Mendez, to their astonishment, was perceptive enough to read their fears. "I’m not going to give you a shot in the butt," he explained to Andie eagerly, unable to contain his excitement. "It’s WAY cooler than that…."

Mendez perched on the end of the cot, next to Andie, leaning forward. His words came out in a rush of excitement and eager Snicker-scented breaths. "It’s like this," he began enthusiastically. "Walter and I got together and worked it out…."

"Well, see…." Mendez continued enthusiastically, searching his pockets for his candy bar. He found it, took another bite and went on. "We determined together that the best place to place the tracker would be, logically, in the part of her body that was already f*cked, so to speak…"

Clueless to the imminence of his approaching death, Mendez obeyed. "Yeah, I mean, the tissue there is perfect, ya know?" he told them in wide-eyed eagerness. "Smooth, perfect for concealment, and the number of nerve endings is ideal…." He grinned, and gestured with the needle toward Andie’s middle. "All we gotta do is just slip this baby right in there in her little …."

No longer able to endure the med-tech’s prattling on about the most intimate of Andie’s body parts, Michael lost control. With a growl, the panther struck. In an instant, Michael was off the cot, springing up in one smooth movement to grip Mendez by the lapels of his lab-coat, whirl him around, and pin him to the wall.

Mendez found himself staring straight into the panther’s green eyes. "Finish that sentence and you die," Michael stated tensely, coiled like a predatory animal ready to strike in defense of its mate.

Andie shrank back on the bed, watching the two men anxiously. In spite of her discomfort and fear, she couldn’t help admiring how Michael looked in that moment- the sheet knotted low on his lean waist, the muscles working in his bare chest and shoulders as he held Mendez helpless in his strong grasp, his whole stance the embodiment of sheer strength and power, his eyes glittering with dangerous wildness—He was magnificent, Andie thought. Simply magnificent.

"What IS the problem?" the dense Mendez protested, clueless as to what he had done to offend the furious operative before him. He shook his head, and turned hurt innocent brown eyes to Michael’s glittering green ones. "Hey, man, YOU’RE the one who told everybody about it in the first place, at the briefing table …."

Michael froze, holding perfectly still for a long, tense moment. No one breathed, no one moved. Then, with a sigh, Michael released him, and then walked a few paces away. Crossing his arms across his chest, and careful to not look at Andie, Michael turned back to fix Mendez with his intense gaze.

Mendez smoothed down his rumpled collar, and adjusted the lab-coat back on his shoulders. "Jesus Christ, man, I already told you," he whined. "The scar tissue’s already raised and puffy, puckered so that the tracker won’t be noticeable to the naked eye…" He let out an exasperated sigh. "And I told you about the nerve endings…."

Mendez threw Andie a pleading look. "Walter and I just wanted to work out a way to make things easier on you, Kid," he told the startled girl. "After you being such a trooper and all…"

"Oh!" said Andie, startled. She was having trouble processing this new Mendez, with his compassion, and his gentle sensitivity. She was also struggling mightily with the shock of knowing Michael had discussed her most intimate secrets- her scars, her wounds- with the whole of Section, at a public briefing, no less.

Andie shrank back from him, avoiding his touch. "Go," she said coldly, averting her face. "Just go, please….." She bit her lip to keep back the sob that threatened to escape from her throat.

Michael hesitated, torn between gathering her in his arms and explaining things, or quietly leaving, complying with her request, in the hopes that there would be time to talk and sort things out later. As much as he wanted to hold her, soothe her hurts, wrenchingly, he made his decision to opt for the latter alternative, mostly to spare her more pain.

Michael had not wanted Andie to find out just how badly her grandfather had used her, subjecting her to experiments when she was just an infant. He was hoping that she never found out about that, and could keep the illusion that the callous Racer truly cared for her.

It was just this impression of Racer’s caring regard for her welfare, Michael knew, that gave Andie the confidence to submit to the kidnap exchange, and go through the mission, without being afraid for her own life. Michael wanted to do nothing to subject her to more terror, or add to the stress she was already under. Discussing the origin of her scars now, before the mission, would only shatter and wound her more.

Devastated, Andie buried her face in her hands and let go her pain in wrenching tears. This time, the tears held no magic or healing in them, no peace or consoling sweetness, as before. Michael was gone. She wept, the harsh tears stinging her cruelly this time with only an achingly bitter sorrow.

Thoughtfully, he chewed another bite of candy bar, then carefully swallowed. What the hell did women cry about, anyway? he mused, feeling decidedly out of his depth. He KNEW microbes and bacteria, was in his element in a laboratory with his head bent over a microscope, but this girl thing was a total mystery to him.

"You know," he began gently, "This is Michael we’re talking about here…" He patted her shoulder awkwardly. "You gotta be glad he pays any attention to you at all, him being so busy with the others, I mean….."

Mendez nodded sagely, as if wise in the ways of the world. "Like I said, this is Michael we’re talking about here.." he went on in a commiserating tone. "He may have been in the sack with you a few times this week, but you’re not the only dessert on the menu, if you get my drift…."

Mendez nodded, and perched beside her on the bed. Awkwardly, he patted her shoulder again. "Yup," he answered. "One of the guys in Medlab told me she was his woman…" He sighed, envying Michael down to his scuffed tennis shoes. Some guys were just babe magnets, and some guys, like himself, seemed to just drive them away. There was no explanation for this curious phenomenon. It was a mystery that even the best scientific minds, his in particular, were at a total loss to understand.

"Hey, Kid," he ventured, groping for words of comfort. "At least, he cares about you a lot, you know?" He nodded emphatically. "I mean, he threatened to kill me twice already because of you……" He grinned. "That has to mean SOMETHING, right?"

To Mendez’s surprise, his words had the desired effect. Andie giggled, and wiped her eyes. She took a deep breath and looked at the absurdly earnest young Med-tech. His attempts at counseling were pathetic, to say the least, but he was TRYING.

She decided she preferred to have him in his professional capacity rather than this amateur role he had assumed of psychologist. Whatever types of intelligence Mendez might possess, and she acknowledged that in some areas it was considerable, Andie knew emotional intelligence was not among his strong suits.

She sat up straight and nodded at him, pointing to the needle he held in his hand. "Well, why don’t we get this over with, then?" she said brightly. Taking a deep breath, she carefully adjusted the sheet so that it draped down over her shoulder, revealing the jagged scar that skimmed the top of one soft, creamy-skinned breast.

Andie opened her eyes, and blinked at him, confused. Talking to Mendez was a bit like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing. Or maybe it was like playing cards without a full deck, she thought wryly. She let out a sigh.

Mendez gave her an equally exasperated sigh. He didn’t know why it was that conversations with people were always so difficult. Give him a good computer any day, or any other type of machine. Now MACHINERY he could interface with, unlike humans…..

Eagerly, but with an instinctive tenderness, Mendez carefully pushed back the sheet to take a good look at the scar he had glimpsed a moment before. His fingers, very lightly, wholly gentle, traced the outline of the regular pattern of marred flesh over her ribs.

Mendez withdrew his hand from her skin and then carefully drew the sheet back up to her shoulders, tucking it in to cover her modestly. Settling beside her on the bed, he let out a sigh, his mouth twisting with disgust. "Because, number one, he’s a sick, totally f*cked up bastard, and number two, " the medical man went on, "he was probably trying to see if he could create in you a walking, talking, antidote supply cupboard on legs…"

For once, Mendez was not impatient with her questions. He patted her knee gently. "Infants have the most responsive immune systems," he began softly. "Your grandfather was into some pretty exotic and volatile designer viruses and assorted deadly bugs, SO…." He continued with a sigh, "I guess when you were born, he saw his opportunity to get the fail-safe he needed, a back-up in case any of his nasty little bacteria creations got out of hand…."

Andie clutched her midriff, her hands folded protectively over the scar that she knew now had been deliberately inflicted by her own flesh and blood. "My grandfather exposed me to his… his man-made plagues, and I recovered, and that’s why my tears cured everyone… "

She let out a sharp breath, and turned angry eyes to the doctor beside her. "I thought it was some MIRACLE or something, a special blessing, that I was able to cure this plague, but it wasn’t a miracle at all, was it?" she choked out. "It had nothing to do with chance, or Providence….."

"No," Mendez answered sympathetically. "It didn’t." He let out a sigh of his own. "Michael figured it out in the briefing. He realized that your grandfather wanted to retrieve you because you had all the immunities he needed, and he didn’t want you falling into anyone else’s hands…"

Andie blanched suddenly, the idea that came to her next almost making her gag. "Do you think it was no accident that Section located me?" she blurted out. She turned wide, frightened eyes to Mendez. "What if my grandfather leaked that information himself, so that he would have a chance to poison Section, or any other enemy that showed up to kidnap me?"

He scratched the dark fuzz on his scalp, and let out a wry laugh. "Jesus, the bastard could lure out all his enemies with that trap. He’d infect them at the swap, they’d go back to their headquarters and infect everyone else. And then they’d die, never knowing that they had traded away the antidote they needed all along…."

She sat up straighter on the bed, a determined look coming over her face. "We have to make sure he never uses me that way again," she declared stubbornly. "We have to make sure he never gets the chance to hurt anyone again…."

Strangely, the idea of her grandfather’s insidious manipulation of her did not sting her at all, it only made her angry. The idea that Michael might have used her just as callously was what had hurt her to the quick. Now a new joy sang in her heart. Her hero had not betrayed her after all- his love, his words, his touch , had all been real, not a cruel illusion.

"Michael will take care of your grandfather," Mendez warned her gently. "That’s his job.." He held up the needle, and gave her a bright smile. "Your job is to let me stick you with this needle, and then play the damsel in distress, got it?"

Andie grinned back, and offered him her scarred shoulder once more. She hardly felt it as the needle went in- he was right, she thought- the tracker didn’t hurt when inserted in nerve-deadened tissue. "Got it," she agreed happily. "Thank you," she told Mendez softly, and then, impulsively, overcome with gratitude, she kissed him.

Life was good, he thought. Really good. That is, it would be, as long as Michael didn’t find out that all his women had a weakness for a certain irresistible man of science, he thought smugly……….

Before she knew it , the mission was underway. Andie, dressed now in her school clothes of jeans, blouse, and sweater, found herself in the staging area outside of van access among the swarm of milling operatives loading for the mission.

Mendez stood protectively beside her in the crowd. He, too, would be going along with the teams that would be following Andie to her grandfather’s hide-a-way, and his storehouse of biological weapons of death. The med-tech was thrilled to be in on this great adventure, his eyes wide with excitement.

Andie ignored the hubbub and Mendez’s comments, looking forlornly around the corridor at the operatives rushing by, wondering if she would see Michael. She longed to speak to him, just one last time, to apologize. She didn’t want his last memory of her to be her words of cold rejection. If only she had the chance for one last good-bye, she thought, or even just a glimpse….

He was wearing an intimidating array of weapons over mission blacks, gun strapped to his thigh, Kevlar vest bristling with ammo, his ear sprouting a sleek communication device, also in black. The look in his eyes was intimidating as well. Gone was the warmth, the emotion, and the humanity- Michael had turned that part of himself off. It was the machine-Michael that stood in front of her now, his soul and heart as distant from her now as if he were on the other side of the earth, and not right here, close enough to touch….Still, she dared to touch…She reached for him, but he side-stepped her hand, deftly. For a moment, Andie thought she saw a flash of pain in his eyes, but it was there, and then gone, covered by the cold mask, so fleetingly quick that she thought she might have imagined it. To her hurt dismay, Michael did not respond to her calling of his name, or even look at her. He addressed his remarks to Mendez instead.

Michael quelled him with a look, cold as ice. His stare was as blank as a closed door, which is how Andie viewed that his heart was to her. The look wrenched her, and filled her with despair. She wished she could talk to him, touch him, reach him somehow, before the mission was over, and there was no chance at all……

Mendez gave him another unabashedly smug grin. "Been there, done that, man," he answered. He leaned toward the auburn -haired operative and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I’m digging the sh*t out of this Spy stuff, Dude…." Mendez confided. "Do you think you can get me a gun or something to carry on the mission, or maybe, you know, some cool gadget or nifty bomb or something?"

Michael paled, the idea of the bumbling Mendez handling firearms making him blanch. "Here, use these…." He offered, removing a pair of silver hand-cuffs from his belt and handing them to Mendez.

The med-tech/would-be-Spy stared at him dumbly, dangling the cuffs from one finger. "Use them on WHO?" he asked, confused. He had been hoping for something more high-tech than cuffs. Michael really knew how to snub a guy, he thought. Must be some kind of operative vs. Scientist rivalry thing, he guessed shrewdly.

Mendez said nothing, the cuffs still dangling slackly from his hand. He was beginning to think this cool Spy stuff had its down-side, after all. He made no move to shackle the girl beside him.

The three stood frozen and silent for a long, tense moment, then Michael snatched the cuffs from Mendez’s hand. "I’ll do it," he said tightly, and before Andie knew what was happening, he had clicked the cuffs closed around her wrists, binding her hands in front of her.

"Michael?" she gasped. "Michael, please…." She reached for him again, lifting her hands up to caress his face, but he pulled back from her once more, a muscle in his jaw working tightly.

"Get her to van access," he ordered Mendez, and then turned on his heel and walked away, his back stiff with the effort to remain in control. He had not wanted to restrain her this way. Instead, he had wanted to cuff himself to her, had wanted to bind her to him always. He longed to touch her, to pull her into his arms for one last time, but he couldn’t. Not here in the middle of Section.

It was not the good-bye he wanted. He did not want this cold parting, but it was better this way. Better that Andie be angry at him, and disappointed. Perhaps disgusted, repulsed, even. She would get over him more quickly that way, not spend her days pining over what might have been, like he would……

Andie trembled with shock as she watched him walk away. This couldn’t be happening, she thought. This couldn’t be the last memory she had of him , his stiff back moving away from her, cutting her off from his presence, his touch, his love….No, it was too horrible, she thought. She couldn’t endure it. She WOULDN’T. Not as long as there was breath in her body…. "STOP!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "Everybody, STOP!"

Beside her, Mendez jumped in shock. The operatives rushing by held still, and paused in their activities to look at her curiously. The room quieted. Michael’s quick steps slowed and came to a halt, his back still to her.

Slowly, Michael turned to face her. He held her look for a long moment, but came no closer, not trusting himself. It had taken all he had to reject her just now, and he didn’t know if he would be able to do it again. Still, he tried.

Andie’s chin went up, defiantly. She planted her feet squarely apart, and glared at him. "I’m not going on your stupid mission," she hissed. "Not until you talk to me!" Andie was in a fine state of temper.

Michael’s eyes narrowed at this challenge. He took several steps closer, striding quickly forward. "Don’t talk nonsense," he chided her. "Of course you’re coming on the mission. NOW. There’s no time for this……."

He closed the space between them, and grabbed Andie by the arm to drag her along to the van. Before Michael could get even a few feet down the corridor with his captive, he felt a firm hand grip his shoulder from behind. Michael twisted his head back to see who it was who had had the nerve to detain him.

The room froze, everyone present falling into stunned silence. The operatives witnessing this singular event could not believe that this mere Med-tech was daring to challenge a Class Five operative. Michael, no less.

"Christ, that kid is stupid," whispered a member of Team Three from the back of the hall. His words expressed what everyone was thinking, but was too shocked to say. "He’s dead meat……"

Mendez pressed his point home. "She saved your life, man," he said in earnest protest. "Hell, she saved this whole damn place…." He dropped his hand from Michael’s shoulder and stepped back. "C’mon, the least you can do for her is give her a few paltry minutes of your time to say good-bye…"

Michael shifted his head slightly and met Mendez’s eyes. The two men stared at each other, facing off. The room was still hushed and quiet, immersed deep in a tense and deadly silence. Then an amazing thing happened, an event that would go down in Section lore and legend.

Andie let out a shaky breath and realized her knees were shaking as well. "Okay," she agreed in a whisper, relief flooding her, her heart soaring with hope once more. She smiled her brave smile. "Thank you…"

Michael drank her in, his heart in his eyes. Emotions welling in him, Michael found himself with an overwhelming urge to kiss her. He couldn’t help himself. She was so beautiful, so vulnerable, so sweet, and he desired more than anything this tender reconciliation before she was gone from him forever…

With a soft groan, he gave in to the impulsive urgings of his heart. He lowered his head and claimed Andie’s lips with his own. As his soft mouth pressed hard against hers, the hushed crowd broke into cheers. Mendez was the loudest among them.

Neither spoke until they were inside with the door locked and the window blinds firmly closed. Andie moved first, lifting her cuffed hands to rest on his broad chest and leaning close. "I didn’t mean to cause a scene back there, Michael," she began shyly, focusing her gaze at the base of his strong throat, not daring just yet to raise her eyes to his. "I just had to have a chance to say…"

Michael blinked, and reflexively tightened his grip on her shoulders in astonishment. "Sorry?" he choked out. "My God, what on earth would you have to be sorry about?" he blurted out in shock.

Andie trembled, and leaned her head against his shoulder. "I’m sorry about misjudging you," she whispered. "I should have known you didn’t tell them about my… secrets - my scars-at the briefing out of callousness…."

Michael held his breath, his mind whirling. "How do you know that?" he gasped out softly. He knew Andie had assumed that he had done just that, and he had done nothing to change her interpretation of events; Michael had not wanted her to know anything about how heinous her grandfather had really been to her.

Michael closed his eyes, and pulled her closer. He let out a shaky sigh. "I’m sorry," he said softly, a muscle in his jaw working tightly. "So very, very, sorry, Andrea. I didn’t want you to know…."

Andie blinked back her tears, and tilted her head up to look at him. "I don’t care what he did to me, Michael," she whispered hoarsely. "He’s a bastard. A murderer. He’s nothing to me…."

She stroked her hand down Michael’s lean cheek. "I don’t care about him or about the scars he left on me," she insisted stubbornly. "All that matters is that what he did to me let me save you….."

Michael let himself melt against her then, his mouth blending in sweet union with hers. He felt her hot tears on his face, and tasted the poignant salt of them on his lips as the kiss went on.

Michael let out a soft laugh, and pulled her closer, resting his chin on her silky hair. "I remember, Your Highness," he teased in a gentle tone, his heart light. "Your servant will obey…."

"After the mission, you’ll let me know you’re okay," she said again, anxiously. "And… and you promised to be happy…" she pleaded breathlessly. "You promised to live happily ever after…"

Andie smiled, dazzling him with the brightness of the light of her soul shining in her eyes. "Thank you, My Prince…" she whispered, and then stood on tip-toe to kiss him again, one last time.

An acerbic booming voice from the intercom jolted them apart. "Michael!" Operations barked tartly. "Where are you? The mission is loading!" the Section leader commanded impatiently. "Michael?"

Silently, Michael nodded, and led her to the door, his arm around her shoulders. Before he opened the door to leave, he turned to Andie and, raising her cuffed hands to his lips, he softly kissed them.

Michael gasped, a kaleidoscope of feelings wrenching him all at once, pulling him in two different directions, joy warring with despair inside him. He marveled at how his heart could be soaring so high and breaking so painfully at the same time. This moment of gaining her love, only to lose it, tore him apart.

When the couple entered the staging area, they were met by wild cheers. The operatives waiting at van access all smiled indulgently, their eyes soft on Andie. She had saved them from the plague; each individual present owed his own life, or the life of a comrade, to her.

Andie smiled back and went to move toward him. Before she had taken two steps, Michael reached out his hand and pulled her back to stand by his side. "No. You’ll go in the next van, with Team One…" he explained softly.

Michael shook his head solemnly. "No," he said sorrowfully. "I’ll be with Team Two. We want Racer to think I carried the plague back from the mission, infected everyone, and died, along with the rest of Section…."

"This is good-bye then," she said softly, gazing fondly at the med-tech who had helped her and all the other victims of her grandfather’s designer weapons. She knew that hidden behind his clumsy, clueless and crude exterior, there lay a sweet, compassionate, well-meaning soul inside. Impulsively, Andie stepped quickly forward to kiss a startled Mendez warmly on the lips.

When the brief, but fervent, kiss was over, Mendez stood in wide-eyed shock for a moment, and then broke out in a dazzling grin. To their surprise, he did a little victory dance, turning in a circle and raising his hands high in the air.

"F*ckin’-A!!" he crowed triumphantly. "Man, the babes just DIG me!" he leered at Andie. "Between you and that hot little number, Nikita, who can’t keep her lips off me, I’ve been just about kissed to death lately…"Mendez bragged happily. He let out a giddy chuckle, until he glanced up at Michael.

Andie broke out into a smile. "I was there when Nikita kissed him," she explained with a twinkle in he eye. "It was in Medlab, and Mendez had just told us that you weren’t dead……"

"Yeah, yeah…that’s right, Dude!" Mendez pleaded, his eyes still wide with fear. "It was a token gratitude kind of thing, ya know?" he begged. "PURELY platonic, very brother-sister…." He swallowed hard, and went on begging. "No tongue, I swear!" he blurted out. "Okay?" he squeaked.

Andie giggled. "Promise you won’t kill him, Michael," she said again, for Mendez’ benefit. She knew very well that Michael had no plans to hurt the newly-heroic and terrified med-tech.

Mendez blinked, then grinned, and then vigorously shook the offered hand, pumping Michael’s arm up and down enthusiastically. Beaming happily at this gesture of friendship, Mendez offered his own friendship back. What his offer lacked in finesse, was made up for in bubbling sincerity.

"Gee, thanks, Dude!" Mendez gushed. He let go of Michael’s hand and slapped him on the back. "Hey, Mike," he went on, his voice totally sincere and innocent. "You think maybe you and I can be buds from now on?" he asked fervently. ""You know, we could get together, hang out, knock back a few beers, shoot the breeze, talk about chicks…" Mendez gasped. "Oops! Sh*t! Uh, I mean…. uh…" he stammered to a halt, afraid again. He dropped his hand from Michael’s shoulder and jumped back, cowering against the van.

Andie, at Michael’s side, turned to meet the blue eyes of the operative behind her, taking in the blond hair done up in a top-knot, and the unrelieved black of her mission attire, complete with a gun on her thigh, like Michael’s.

Andie watched the two, seeing the wordless exchange of tenderness between them, knowing that each sensed the other’s pain. There was a palpable connection between the two handsome operatives, each so beautiful, Andie thought, each so strong, so perfectly matched. It was very clear to her. Michael and Nikita loved each other.

Andie sighed, squared her shoulders, and impulsively stood on tiptoe and gave Michael one last farewell kiss, her lips just brushing his strong jaw. "Goodbye, Michael," she said lightly, forcing a bright smile. Then, before he could reach for her, or kiss her back, she whirled on her heel and walked away, forcing Nikita to follow beside her.

Andie quickened her pace, walking out to the van, and out of Michael’s life, forever. She knew that he was safe, that he was loved, and that he would survive without her. And with that knowledge, she had the strength to go on.

Andie spent the long ride in the van to the swap site in numb silence. Sitting in the passenger seat while Nikita drove, her cuffed hands lying limply in her lap, Andie stared out the window at the dreary scenery and tried to shut her mind off, tried not to think, or feel anything. Because she knew if she did, the true enormity of her shattering loss would overwhelm her.

Angrily, she bit her lip and shook her head to free her mind from this train of thought. And then, feeling guilty, she thought of herself. What would happen now, after her grandfather had been "taken care of" by Section? She knew it was crass to think about money, but, even though it had been for his own selfish purposes, her grandfather HAD supported her. Andie wondered disconsolately how she would pay for school now, where she would live, what she would do. She had no one, no family. Vainly, she tried not to feel bitter at how Fate had contrived for her to save Section and many innocent lives, and in doing so, essentially destroy her own. And not just her own, she thought despairingly.

Her anger turned inward. It had been stupid of her, foolish, she thought, to fall in love with Michael. She should have known a man like that, so deep, so complicated, so compellingly sensual, would already have someone to love in his life, someone who loved him. Tensely, she turned to gaze forlornly at the woman beside her.

"Yeah?" the blonde answered quickly back, taken by surprise that her passenger had at last spoken. She had sensed Andie’s silent discomfort and stress, and had chalked it up to nerves about the mission. "We’re almost there," Nikita explained soothingly. "You’ll have to go alone once Racer’s men retrieve you, but the Teams will be right behind you…"

She glanced briefly from the road to smile reassuringly at the young girl beside her. "Remember, we have the tracker on you," Nikita went on. "As soon as you are taken to your grandfather, we’ll come in, take him out, and pull you out of there…." Nikita reached out to pat Andie’s knee. "It’ll be okay," she said softly. "Don’t worry…"

Andie nodded, and turned her face away to stare blindly out the van window. "I didn’t mean to ruin anything between you," she said in a small voice. "I didn’t mean to hurt anyone…"

Andie let out a sob and buried her face in her cuffed hands. "I just seemed to manage to screw everything up without intending to…" she cried in bitter self-recrimination. "Your life, mine, Michael’s…."

Andie lifted tear-filled eyes to the woman beside her. "Maybe…" she said hoarsely. "But that doesn’t change the fact that I hurt you, Nikita…" Her mouth tightened grimly. "You know I did."

Nikita sighed, and bit back her automatic protest. Flicking her com unit to receive only, the operative scanned the area, and then, satisfied that Racer’s men had not arrived yet, gave her attention to Andie.

"Okay, it hurt," Nikita admitted. "It hurt A LOT…" Nikita’s hands tightened on the wheel, knuckles going white. "Of course I didn’t like knowing that you had been with Michael. But it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for us.."

Nikita gave her the charming, rueful smile again, and then laughed. "That we never made love?" she finished. She shook her head. "No, that’s not what I denied him…" She laughed again, her voice wistful and sad. "It wasn’t in bed that I withheld from him…….."

Andie blinked, trying to process this revelation. "But you do, Nikita!" she protested. "I saw you at his bedside, I saw you working together on the mission….’ Andie shook her head. "No one could be more supportive and caring than you……."

She turned her head to face Nikita, determined to give Michael this one last gift, a healing between him and Nikita. "The last time I was here, in this van, when the swap went wrong, when Michael was unconscious …" she paused, and took a deep breath. "He called your name," Andie said softly. "He was hurt, in pain, and he called for you. When I touched him, he called for you…."

Andie shifted in her seat, aware of the press of time, aware that this was her last chance to help the man she loved. "Promise me you won’t give up on Michael, Nikita," she pleaded urgently. "Promise me you’ll be the one to love him now, enough for both of us," she choked. "Promise me you’ll take care of him for me…"

Andie smiled, and then, a moment later, so did Nikita. The women had only this brief second to exchange their look of understanding, before they were jolted back to the present, their attention riveted once more on the mission.

This time the swap went smoothly, with no hidden surprises, as before. Nikita marveled at how ordinary and business-like the transaction took place. Again, just as had happened previously, two white suited men in biohazard garb emerged from the back of the black van. One of them carried a small metal valise, presumably containing the promised antidote.

Nikita stared at him appraisingly for a long moment, then turned to Andie in the passenger seat and gave her a firm nod. "She’s here," Nikita answered, and walked around the front of the van to open Andie’s door for her and assist her down from the van. Nikita could feel the girl trembling as she helped her step out onto the concrete. Andie was pale, her whole body taut with tension.

"We’ll be right behind you, remember…" Nikita muttered reassuringly under her breath to the girl, patting her arm. Andie gave her a slight nod, indicating she had understood. Her eyes were bright with fear, her expression grave.

Slowly, the girl began walking- stiffly, reluctantly- to the other vehicle. Nikita watched her go, apprehensively putting her hand on the handle of the gun strapped to her thigh, and feeling a sudden pang of loss as Andie left her side. She realized suddenly with a sharp pain in her heart that she was losing a good friend.

When Andie drew near enough, one of the men grabbed her arm and helped her into the back of the black van. Racer’s men climbed in behind her, and shut the doors, not giving Nikita a second glance.

From behind the warehouse door, a white-suited figure emerged, carrying a small case of equipment, and came loping forward. The biohazard gear covered all his features, rendering the man unrecognizable, except for his eager gait and the enthusiastic swearing that came out of his mouth.

"F*ckin’ A!" the med-tech exclaimed, his voice slightly muffled through his helmet. He knelt by the case Racer’s men had left, and waved at Nikita. "Get back, Nikita," he yelled at her, then rubbed his gloved hands together in anticipation. "Okay, let’s see what that son -of -a -bitch low-life slime-ball left for us…." Mendez declared, and gingerly flipped the case open.

Nikita watched apprehensively as Mendez froze still as a statue, staring down at the contents of the case. Even through the obscuring suit he wore, Nikita could tell by the tension in Mendez’s stance that what he saw inside had shocked and distressed him.

The med-tech was silent for a long moment, and then he rose from his crouch and staggered back from the case, swearing furiously. "Jesus Christ!" he yelled angrily. "That mother-f*ckin’ murdering BASTARD!" he screamed.

To her surprise, the young medical man let out a harsh laugh, and then pulled his helmet off, revealing flashing brown eyes, and skin flushed red with fury. "F*ck, no," he answered her gruffly, and then picked up the case Racer had left for them, and held it upside down.

Mendez dropped the case to the ground, and then gave it a vicious kick with his white-booted foot. He stripped off his gloves angrily and stalked to Nikita’s side, his eyes bright with rage.

He looked away for a moment, a muscle in his jaw working. When he turned back, Nikita was shocked to see tears in his eyes. "And now that heartless bastard has Andie…" Mendez choked out.

Andie’s trip in the van to her grandfather’s lair was not unlike her trip to Section a short time before. One kidnapping was eerily like the other, she thought, except this time there was no green-eyed, soft-spoken abductor to charm her fears away.

As before, she was patted down and searched (the tracker remaining undetected), and shoved into a seat. A hood was placed over her head, and then the men sat on either side of her as the van rumbled on to its destination.

Andie strained uncomfortably against the hand-cuffs that the men had left on her. She was now getting heartily sick of them. She longed to be free; she longed for all this mess to be over. And most of all, sitting blind and helpless, captive between Racer’s men, she longed for her hero, Michael.

Underneath the hood, she bit her lip and stifled her tears, trying to wait out the time bravely until she was rescued. After what seemed like hours, at last the van stopped, and she heard the rear doors of the vehicle open.

"Let’s go," one of the men grunted roughly, and hauled Andie to her feet. Stumbling out of the van, Andie was led by her captors through an outdoor area and into a house. Still blind and hooded, she staggered awkwardly up a flight of stairs and down a long hallway. At last her guards halted just outside a doorway, and shoved her into the upstairs room.

The hood was lifted from her, and then the handcuffs removed. Andie stood blinking dazedly at the sudden light, and then looked up to meet the eyes of a merry looking white-haired old man.

Andie said nothing, just stared at him blankly. The old man beamed at her kindly, and then waved her escorts away. "Leave us," he ordered his men, and then he gestured at a nearby chair, across from the one in which he sat in front of the fireplace.

Awash in a sense of profound unreality, Andie at last found her voice. "Please," she agreed meekly to tea, and stumbled forward to drop into the offered chair, not sure her wobbly knees would hold her up any longer.

As her grandfather poured her tea, Andie had a chance to get her bearings, and look around the room. It was a large drawing room, elegantly furnished, all the appointments understated, but screaming of wealth.

Andie gasped in shock. She had been right. Her grandfather had leaked her whereabouts to deliberately entrap the agencies looking for him into a swap, setting them up to be annihilated by the deadly designer virus he had created.

Andie froze at this derogatory comment about her dead father, anger flaring through her so intense that she almost screamed and came out of her seat. She clamped down hard on this emotion, forcing herself to listen as the old man went on.

"He didn’t want you involved in any part of my business, and he was furious when I went behind his back to have you inoculated anyway.." The old man smiled smugly. "But you can see now how beneficial it's been," he went on with a nod of his gray head.

"You’re healthy as a horse, never sick, and now that I have achieved enough wealth and success in my business to draw the attention of the agencies wanting to stop me, YOU, my dear Andrea, are here…"

Andie bit her lip hard to keep from screaming at him. She wanted to curse him, wanted to strike him, to slap the gloating grin off his face as he talked so callously about using her to kill, and about how he had used and deceived her father.

A harsh sob escaped her. Her father had been a kind, sweet, gentle man. Nothing like this horrible monster in front of her. How could she be related to this killer, she wondered, this full-blown psychopath? She knew now that her grandfather had long ago lost all rationality. He was totally, completely insane.

Andie flinched at the sound, and then flinched again as she felt a sharp pain bite into her shoulder. She crumpled to her knees and then fell on her side, sprawling across the top of the landing.

She was already unconscious before she hit the ground, and did not see her grandfather clutch his chest as the bullets ripped through him, nor did she see him fall tumbling down the stairs to his death, never to hurt anyone again. It was over.

Andie moaned softly and opened her eyes. The glare from white walls and the smell of disinfectant assailed her senses. She was in a hospital, she thought, but which one? Was she in Medlab again? Letting out a gasp, she struggled to sit up. "Mendez?" she whispered. "Michael?"

The movement caused a wrenching pain in her side, above and below her right breast. Falling back on the pillows, she ran her hand down the site of the pain, feeling the thick bandages that swaddled her scars. Andie trembled. What had they done to her? What had HE done to her?

Andie blanched, flash-backing on the car wreck that had killed her parents. Her mind whirled. Shaking her head in confusion, she repeated Mrs. Henderson’s words, blankly. "Car… accident?"

The old lady squeezed her hand. "Yes, Dear," she replied softly, taking a deep breath before going on. "You disappeared on Friday night, and no one knew where you were. I was frantic…"

"I didn’t know what had happened to you, until your Mr. Prince called me last night and explained everything," the dorm mother went on. "And then, of course, I came right here to the hospital to see you…."

Mrs. Henderson pushed her gently back down on the pillows, her lower lip trembling. "Mr. Prince is the estate lawyer who has been handling all your grandfather’s affairs these past few days, since the accident, when your grandfather … died….." the old lady choked out. She wiped her eyes, patted Andie’s arm again and went on.

"You see, Dear, apparently Friday night your grandfather came to pick you up from school, and on the way back to his house, he lost control of the car, and skidded off the road.." she frowned sadly. "The doctors think he had a stroke while he was driving…" She took a shaky breath. "He was killed instantly when the car hit a tree. You were injured, unconscious, and brought here to the hospital…"

Andie tossed her head on the pillow. "Oh…" she gasped, understanding a little. Michael had told her she would be returned to school- she guessed this was Section’s way of inserting her back into her old life, with a correct cover story to explain her absence and her missing time from school. The outside world would never know what had really happened.

"I see," Andie said, letting out a sigh. The reality of her situation hit her. She was back, the mission was over, and Michael was gone. She would never see him again. She closed her eyes and let the tears slowly fall.

"I’m so sorry, Dear," Mrs. Henderson said again. She groped for words of comfort for the bereaved child on the bed, wishing to tell her some good news. "There’s no need for you to do anything but rest and get well, Andie," the old lady said gently. "Mr. Prince has made all the arrangements for the burial, the funeral, and so on. As well as all the financial and legal procedures to see that you inherit and have access to your grandfather’s considerable estate…"

"Of course, Dear," she said in a bracing tone. "You are his sole heir, of course you will get your grandfather’s money," she explained patiently. "And of course you will return to school, as soon as you are well……"

The old lady gave her a compassionate look. "It’s all right, Dear," she told the frightened girl gently. "You had some rather bad lacerations, on your shoulder and across your ribs, but the doctors have done a wonderful job…" She smiled encouragingly. "Your plastic surgeon said that by the time the bandages come off , you won’t even be able to see the scars…"

Andie gasped and clutched her side. "No …. scars??" she choked out. "I won’t have any scars?" Her eyes grew wide, and she trembled violently, her mind reeling. Not only had Section arranged to return her back to school, they had also seen to it that she was provided for financially, something she had never expected. And, amazingly, above all that, they had eliminated from her body the last traces of her grandfather’s evil experiments, just as they had seen to it that her grandfather himself was eliminated, and would never hurt anyone again….

No, she amended in her thoughts. Section hadn’t cared about her, her future, her school work. Section hadn’t cared how damaged she had felt by her scars. It wasn’t Section that had done these things.

"Yes Dear," the old lady explained patiently, a little dismayed at how disoriented her young charge was. "I told you about him being here already, remember?" She nodded her gray head vigorously. "Michael Prince, your grandfather’s lawyer…."

Mrs. Henderson watched Andie solemnly for several moments, and then stood, and stepped back from the side of the bed. She knew it was time to let the young patient process all that she had told her, and let her be alone to grieve.

Andie turned bright, tear-filled eyes to the motherly figure beside her. "Thank you," she said softly, realizing that Michael had arranged for her to have the comfort of Mrs. Henderson’ presence, too, along with his other gifts.

The old lady nodded, teary-eyed. "You’re welcome, Darling," she replied softly, and turned to go. Before she reached the door, she turned back. "Oh, I almost forgot…" Mrs. Henderson said, and pointed to a bulky manila envelope on the night-stand.

"Mr. Prince left that for you. I suppose it’s estate papers and things…" she tilted her head, and gave another small nod. "He said you should open it when you started feeling better…."

" Please accept this token of my adoration, My Princess, Queen of my Heart. Even though its beauty pales next to yours, Your Highness, still it represents how exquisitely precious your love has been to me…."

Andie pressed the letter to her bosom and bowed her head, crying uncontrollably. It was several minutes before she had gained enough control of herself to open the black velvet box resting across her knees. When she did, what she saw made her cry harder.

There, lying nestled in its satin liner, lay a necklace, more beautiful than any she had ever seen. From the delicate, silver filigreed chain hung a large diamond, sparkling, gleaming, full of fire…. A diamond shaped just like a tear.

Sobbing blindly, Andie lifted the jewel from its box and slipped it over her head. The silver chain felt like a caress on her skin, the glittering gem rested against her bosom, just above the start of the scar that Michael had healed, first with his kisses, and now with the surgeon’s skill.

Exhausted, spent with crying, but filled with a great peace, the Princess laid her head on the pillow, closed her eyes, and slept, the tears on her cheeks no less beautiful than the diamond that lay on her breast.