IN Me Death

By: Kyara Caledonii

She squinted up at the hot noonday sun as she readjusted herself in the lounge chair. She began again to survey her surroundings, waiting a few seconds while her eyes adjusted from the contrast of the blindingly blue sky above. They scanned over the dense tropical foliage covering the high stone wall of the garden, and then back to the pool. It didn't take long for her trained vision to find the barely detectable security laser hidden amongst the flowering vines draped over the wall.

Nikita laughed to herself, appreciating the irony, "Only Section could make a prison look like paradise."

She took a sip of ice tea and settled back, closing her eyes and feeling the warmth of the island sun soak into her. It was the third day of her Section sanctioned "vacation". She reckoned she should be grateful to Madeleine and Operations for having given her this privilege so soon after coming back in, but, she thought, perhaps she just should have kept working after Jurgen's death. Perhaps she should take a page from Michael's book of emotional survival techniques and simply have continued with business as usual.

"Michael", she reflected.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The nightmare began to replay in her mind as nightmares often do: slowly, ponderously, as if the players legs were wading through high water, dragging their movements. She saw him standing there, at the door of the van in Brussels, turning slowly toward the building, preparing to run back inside to detonate the bomb himself. Then he disappeared in to the night. She heard the shot ring out and saw him fall to the ground. In her mind's eye she could discern Jurgen, gun in hand, turning toward her with a look of deep despair and apology in his eyes. And then he was gone - in a ball of flames.

She stood there, transfixed, unable to move or utter a sound except for a sharp intake of breath when she saw the explosion.

Commotion erupted around her and great noise assaulted her ears as security alarms began to sound. Yet, strangely enough, she remembers hearing only a muffled roar where individual voices were indistinguishable, as if they were speaking under water. The scene unfolded before her eyes, players moving in slow motion and detached from her dimention of time.

"The heat I feel now is from his body burning," she thought, morbidly. "It will be the last warmth of his life that I will ever feel from him". Even those morose thoughts were not enough to rouse her from her shock and disbelief that he was dead.

Nikita dragged her eyes from the burning building to Michael, down on the ground, holding his bleeding leg. She saw his head turn from the inferno to look at her. In the depths of his eyes she recalled a look of deep emotion, but at the time she couldn't process what it was. After much reflection, she now knew it was a countenance of great sadness, eyes shadowed with the same look of apology she saw in Jurgen's Eyes, she also thought, which held a hooded look of betrayal. Holding his gaze for what seemed like many long minutes, she knew immediately his visage would haunt her in the coming days and nights as she would try to make sense out of the senseless life she came back to.

"All teams, pull-out! Reconverge at the designated air transport location." Nikita could hear Michael barking orders into his com, but she remained riveted where she stood. She felt someone hit her arm as they ran past, momentarily knocking her off balance.

"Nikita! Gimme a hand here! Nikita! Come on, we've got to get going!" Birkoff was yelling at her from his position on the ground next to Michael, struggling to help him to his feet.

Nikita's head still felt like it was in a fog where shapes and sounds were blurred and indistinct. She shook her head, holding back the sob that threatened to tear her chest open.

"No!" she keened out loud. The pain and the sense of loss she felt inside was almost unbearable. She felt so alone, as if set adrift on a dark cold sea without hope of ever finding comfort or refuge.

One explosion had temporarily set her free from the Section, but then she came back for Michael - or so she believed. She wanted to be with him so desperately that she had been willing to risk their lives even for just one more day of being together. To Nikita, it was worth the risk - but not so for Michael. She felt betrayed and rejected by him, angry that he was unwilling to take the next step with her - whatever that was. Had she fooled herself into thinking that Michael had some feelings for her? Did he bring her in simply because it was part of a scheme to regain control over Jurgen by giving her a reason to turn to him instead of Michael? These doubts nagged at her. She was certainly suspicious that it was back to Section business as usual and she was again their unwilling pawn.

Well, Jurgen hadn't treated her that way. He wanted to be with her; he chose to be with her. It had seemed that he could make a life for himself - and possibly her - within the Section, on his own terms and without interference from anyone. For the first time since she had been recruited, Nikita had briefly felt free from her jailers and she liked it. For all of Michael's esteem and position within Section, he could never have given that to her, never have protected her from Operations the way Jurgen could have. But everything had changed in an instant. Another explosion caused all her hopes to vanish with Jurgen.

"Nikita, he's gone. We can't help him now," she heard one clear voice speak steadily through the confusion in her head, as if reading her thoughts.

The reality of Michael's words somehow began to cut through the confused muddle in her brain . It was then that Nikita then noticed the large pool of blood forming under him, and it literally shocked her out of her stupor. She understood now - it was all becoming clear. Jurgen had shot him and they had to get out of there - now.

She hastened over to Michael, grasped him around his waist and threw his arm over her shoulder, as Birkoff did the same. Together, they managed to stumble into the van just as the factory guards entered their perimeter.

"Let's go!" Nikita yelled to the driver, banging on the panel wall.

"Nikita, that l-l-looks pretty bad!" stammered Birkoff, rattled at seeing so much blood and having witnessed the disturbing events of the previous minutes. The blood never looked quite so real from his sheltered perch behind a computer screen inside the van.

"Birkoff!," she said sharply, "Please get me the first aid kit. Then radio the transport team and tell them that we'll need one gurney," ordered Nikita, anticipating the difficulty they would have getting Michael onto the plane.

"That won't be necessary," countermanded Michael through his teeth, "it will slow our departure. I'll get to the plane."

She glanced at Michael. His face was deathly pale, but otherwise inscrutable, back to its operative mode. She donned a pair of rubber gloves and began to wrap Michael's leg in a pressure dressing.

"Michael," Nikita began, "from the looks of it, you have a pretty bad wound here that's bleeding an awful lot. Even if I can get it under control by the time we reach the transport location, you'll just make things worse if you try to walk on it, even with our help."

"We'll follow standard egress procedures, understood?" he responded firmly in his no-nonsense tone of voice.

Nikita knew better than to argue with him. After all, he still was the mission leader. As the van rushed to an outlying tarmac at the airport, Nikita could hear in her ear the other teams checking in with Michael. All hostiles in pursuit of them had been dispatched thus far, so maybe they'd have enough time to get Michael quickly loaded onto the plane without drawing much attention from airport security, she thought, as she worked on bandaging his leg. So far, their airport ground teams were reporting normal activity. She hadn't been able to wrap much of a pressure dressing before they arrived at their destination.

"We're here," Birkoff announced, nervously. The huge transport airplane was already quickly swallowing up the other teams' vehicles into its enormous belly. The noise of the engines was rapidly increasing as the turbines began their rotations. The ground crew scurried about, securing them and preparing for their momentary departure. The ground crew team leader poked his head into the van.

"Status?" asked Michael with effort.

"We're fueled and a go as soon as Team 2 is in. Their ETA is five minutes."

"Fine. Keep me apprised."

"Right, if you are finished..." said Nikita, shouting over the scream of the jet's engines, "Michael, are you sure about this?"

"Let's do it!" he yelled back.

Birkoff came alongside Michael, and together he and Nikita hoisted him to his feet and exited the van. Nikita heard a quick intake of breath and felt Michael's hand clench her shoulder in a painful grip.

She quickly looked over at Birkoff to read his reaction to Michael's unusual display of pain, but she could see that he noted nothing; Michael's hand just hung limply over Birkoff's shoulder. The wound must be really bad. The thought frightened Nikita. She had seen Michael wounded before - too many times - but he always managed to continue on. It amazed her that a human being could be so resilient and could endure so much, but for some reason, this was different. Her hand around his chest could feel the fast pounding of his heart and his ragged, rapid breathing. They had to get him inside the plane quickly.

The trio hurried their way to the stairs leading up to the door of the plane, nearly dragging Michael the last few meters. It was obvious that the three of them abreast could not help him up the narrow steps.

"I'll get him up, Nikita," yelled Birkoff, anticipating the problem.

"You go on and get the stuff ready."

"You sure, Birkoff?" she shouted, uncertain that the slight young man could manage alone.

"Yea, sure. Go!" he shouted back in reply.

"Go on, Kita. We'll manage. Go." Michael said through gritted teeth.

Nikita started up the stairs, noticing out of the corner of her eye, a fuel truck pulling up under the wing of the plane and three men jumping out of the cab. She hesitated. Something was not quite right, her intuition told her. She turned around two-thirds of the way up to check Birkoff and Michael's progress, when she saw the red laser light of a sniper's gun searching for its mark on either of the unsuspecting pair. Nikita felt her scream of warning choke in her throat.

Birkoff stumbled on the steps, falling to his knees, pulling Michael down as the first shots rang out.

"Shooter! Shooter ! Get down!!" shouted Nikita into her com as she drew her gun, hurling herself down the stairs, covering Michael and Birkoff, fearing that they had already been hit. She fired off a few rounds in the direction of the sniper. "We need assistance, now!" Instantaneously, fellow operatives scrambled from their posts outside the cargo bay and the plane door, showering the offender's position with automatic weapon fire.

"Are you OK?" she shouted to them above deafening noise.

"Groovy!," retorted Birkoff. "Now can we get out of here?"

Nikita ordered into her com, "I'm on the stairs and I need some cover to get Michael inside!"

Enough was provided for Nikita and Birkoff to none too gently haul Michael up the last of the stairs. Once inside, they proceeded to the field MedLab area of the cabin which was a smaller version of the real thing. There, wounded operatives were administered to during the flight back to Section - if they made it back. Nikita hurriedly threw some sheets and a pillow onto one of the gurneys before they lowered Michael down.

"Birkoff, please initiate the pre-flight checklist. All teams report," Michael said with considerable effort in a low voice into his com. He was alarmingly paler than before, his face shiny with sweat, causing his auburn hair to curl about his cheeks. He was breathing heavily, almost short of breath. The rudimentary bandage Nikita had wrapped around his leg was now saturated with blood.

Things and people began to move about them in a manic flurry. The perimeter teams' reports crackled in their ears that all outside activity had been contained and all hostiles eliminated. Operatives quickly filed into the plane, stowing equipment and themselves, readying for take-off.

"Flight deck, you are cleared to go," Michael directed, after Birkoff had handed him the checklist to sign off.

Nikita could hear the huge doors of the transport closing and locking with a shudder. The increasing whine of the engines aggravated the throbbing tension in her temples. She rubbed her forehead with the back of her bloodied hand, closing her eyes briefly. Behind her eyelids, Nikita unwillingly replayed the flash of the explosion and the haunted look on Jurgen's fading face. She snapped open her brimming eyes to find Michael watching her.

"Are...you O.K.?" he asked gently, but noticeably working harder to catch his breath between words.

She didn't answer. She couldn't think about everything that had just happened - not yet. She had to concentrate on the job at hand, otherwise she'd loose it and completely disgrace herself in front of the other team members, but more importantly, in front of Michael.

She couldn't let her emotional state control her and cause her to make any mistakes, especially now. This was one lesson she learned from the master. Implementation, however, was another matter altogether. Later, she thought, I'll think about it all later.

"Let's get you strapped in and hooked up," she said, changing the subject.

She quickly secured him to the gurney and reached for the monitor leads and oxygen tubing She could feel the plane begin its course down the runway, vibrating furiously as it accelerated for take-off and then lifting into the night sky, but she ignored the pilot's directions to fasten her seat belt. She reached behind Michael's head, gently lifting it to place the oxygen mask over his face. He turned his head and pushed her hand away.

"I...don't need...that. I want to...talk to... you about..." he started, breathlessly.

"Michael, please. You're huffing and puffing already," Nikita interupted. "When this cabin gets pressurized to ten thousand feet, you'll really feel short of breath and won't be able to give any orders," she said with a forced smile in an attempt to lighten the moment, trying to keep control of the conversation and away from painful subjects. Michael was always in such fit shape, that his shortness of breath worried her. He must be loosing a lot of blood, she thought to herself as she replaced the oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

"How's he doing?' asked Birkoff, reappearing at her side.

"Just in time, Seymour. Here, give me a hand. I need to get Michael's vest off so I can hook up the monitor," Nikita directed.

They carefully lifted his shoulders and slipped off his combat gear. He gave an involuntary shudder, and she could feel that his smooth skin was drenched in a cold, clammy sweat. Shock was setting in. His sculpted chest was mottled with purplish striations, like the marks seen on a fine piece of marble, except this one was defaced with scars from bullets and knives. She remembered running her fingers over the old, healed wounds when they were together in Lyon, feeling his muscles tighten with pleasure at her touch. Now her touch might only cause him more pain, or worse, indifference.

'Later, I'll think about it later.'

Working quickly, she placed the heart monitor leads on his chest and covered him with a blanket. She flipped on the monitor and watched as the green jagged lines blipped by at an alarmingly fast rate. One hundred twenty-seven, she noted silently to herself. Too fast for him. She had to slow down the bleeding somehow. As calmly as possible, she asked Birkoff with a smile, handing him the blood pressure cuff as she pulled down dressing supplies from a shelf,

"Could you please check his blood pressure?"

"Me? I don't remember anything from training!" he hissed sotto voce, looking quickly at Michael to see if he heard. "Besides," he lied, "I haven't been scheduled yet for my annual first-aid review."

He failed to reveal that he had easily hacked into the education data base files and reset the dates on his annual review notices so that he wouldn't be bothered with having to go. Now, considering the circumstances, he began to regret his mischief.

"Just do it!" Nikita snapped, her eyes crackling with cold blue fire.

Michael had been lying quietly with his eyes closed, trying to concentrate on controlling the searing pain in his leg. He was loosing the battle on all fields. He knew that the wound was a serious one for he sensed that what little taste he had for life was slipping away, drip by bloody drip. He wasn't afraid of death; he lost that human instinct long ago after Simone died.

However, the scenario had changed somewhat when Nikita became his 'material'. He wasn't stupid. He knew that Operations and Madeleine put her in his charge because, except for the job, he had ceased to care about anyone or anything - including himself. He had entered into his personal black hole, not allowing anyone in to reach him or the light of his soul to radiate out. He dove into the depths of his anguish so deeply, that to survive being lost forever to the madness of sorrow, he re-emerged a man whose outward form was now that of a impenetrable, emotionally absent spectre who connected with no one. But then, Nikita appeared.

Initially, his interest in Nikita had been simply a pragmatic, professional one. If she failed, he failed. But as he grew to know her more as 'Nikita' instead of simply 'Josephine', he slowly rediscovered in her person, in her humanity, the life force he thought he had lost.

The little corner of his soul which hadn't been effaced by Section and circumstance admired and was warmed by her tenacious hold onto what she believed in and who she was. Her compassion and strength of character were unusual for a Section recruit, and they did not lessen, despite their attempts to squash it.

Long ago, before he was brought in to Section, he was as naive and idealistic and headstrong as she was now. But, ultimately, these traits were at great cost to both of them. It cost him his previous life; at times these qualities in her caused her serious peril. Perhaps that is why he felt compelled to protect her time and again. He saw parts of himself in her - the person that he was before.

He had once asked her to be patient with him. Michael knew it was asking a lot from someone so needy and impulsive as Nikita, but it was all he was capable of. He felt he had nothing else to offer her. The blood cover could not be risked.

Part of him couldn't blame her for seeking out Jurgen, but it silently tormented him, nonetheless. He tried to warn her about Jurgen, to help her see that he was not all that he seemed to be, but she had chosen to pursue a relationship with him, nevertheless.

He needed Nikita because she had become vital to his miserable shell of a life. His conscious mind would never admit to himself that she was like a life preserver to the drowning man that he was. He could tread water for just so long; however, too many waves had swamped him, tired, and finally began to beat the fight out of him. No one else knew this - not even Madeleine with her all-seeing eyes and intuition - but Nikita had come along, just in time.

The harsh rip of the Velcro separating on the blood pressure cuff aroused Michael enough to open his eyes.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Seventy over forty," answered Birkoff quietly, avoiding Michael's eyes and looking only at Nikita, awaiting her next order.

Michael was in a critical situation. He was dying before her eyes. His blood pressure was dropping, his heart and breathing rate were elevated, and his leg was still bleeding profusely. Nikita felt a wave of panic gathering momentum within her chest, moving up into her throat. They were trapped in an airplane, hours from the MedLab and people who knew what they were doing.

"Birkoff, get someone from MedLab on the horn now, please."

"Nikita, you know I can't." he whispered. "We're in the blackout zone. No communications are possible, even if they were permitted."

"Oh, God," she whispered, her mouth dry. Her eyes darted about, as if she was looking for something but could not find its location. She suddenly felt so closed in. She felt this irrational desire to open the cabin door and take a deep breath of fresh air.

"Michael, I - I don't know what to do. I can't remember what I'm supposed to do!" she said with the timber of her voice slowly rising with panic which reflected in her widening blue eyes."

Michael touched her hand. How cold it felt. "Birkoff," he said in a depleted voice, turning to Nikita's unsuited assistant, "Would you please leave us for a minute?"

"Uh, I dunno...Nikita?" he hesitated, yet quite happy to be dismissed from his role as nursing assistant, if only temporarily. He looked back at Michael and re-read his order of withdrawal on Michael's face. Birkoff didn't need to be told twice.

"Just call me when you need me," he said, touching Nikita lightly on her shoulder.

"Michael, I'm so sorry," she whispered, not wanting the others to hear. Her eyes filled with tears that threatened to spill over. "I never meant for this to happen. I never meant to hurt you." She felt somehow responsible for all that had happened, and the guilt was tearing her apart. How could she have been so selfish, so stupid!

"Nikita? Nikita listen to me! It can't be helped now." He reached up and touched the tears on her cheek with the back of his fingers. He could feel the darkness creeping in to envelope him as he struggled to find the words before he surrendered to the depths. "I'm not afraid of leaving this life. I have no illusions left of it. But I am afraid of leaving you...alone. You are the strong one, Nikita." He turned his head to the side and added, "I envy that." Michael looked back at her. "You can do this."

She wiped her nose on her sleeve and looked into his Green-gray eyes, remembering all the times he knowingly or unknowingly was her strength, her guardian and protector, and her heart's and mind's betrayer. She was so confused, her thoughts a chaotic jumble in her head. She closed her eyes and began to repeat again her sustaining mantra: I can't think about this now. I can't think about this now.

All she knew for certain was that Michael would die if she did nothing.

She opened her eyes. "OK Michael, what do I...Michael? Oh God, Michael!" Nikita saw that he was slipping away into unconsciousness. The monitor to her right began to bleep irrhythmically as Michael's heart grew irritable with its diminishing blood supply.

"Birkoff! Birkoff! Get over here! I need your help!"

"What's happened? Oh, shit." he whispered when he saw the unresponsive Michael and Nikita's reaction.

"There's no time! Hold this dressing hard on his leg to slow down the bleeding. I have to try and start an IV."

She tried hard to focus and remember her field medic training. She ripped open a package containing a large liter IV bag filled with normal saline and spiked it with the pointed end of the tubing line. Squeezing the drip chamber, she prayed for it to fill and prime the line quickly without the troublesome bubbles which plagued her when she had practiced this drill. Mercifully, only a few inconsequential ones floated through. Now came the hard part - starting the IV. She tied a tourniquet around the firm biceps of Michael's left arm and chose a needle catheter from the box. She searched his forearm for a bulging vein, but to her horror, there were few to choose from; his blood pressure was too low. She would have to just have to try and take a blind shot at it.

She rubbed a potential spot with an alcohol wipe and took a deep breath, trying to steady her shaking hand just as the plane hit some turbulence. The cabin shuddered as invisible air streams batted about the huge transport.

"Shit!" she muttered.

"Nikita," advised Birkoff, "just wait a minute until it's over."

"Birkoff, he doesn't have a minute!"

She gripped his arm even tighter with her left hand and she positioned the needle over the site and pushed through the skin. She glanced up quickly to see if Michael reacted to the pain of the needle stick. He hadn't. She felt the tip of the needle hit the outside of the vein, but instead of seeing the hub of her catheter fill with blood indicating that she was in, she instead saw an expanding bump of blood rising from underneath his skin. The vein had blown.

Nikita was undaunted. She grabbed a fresh needle and searched for another site farther up his arm. Taking another deep breath she punctured his skin. At first she felt nothing but soft tissue with the tip of the needle. A bead of sweat rolled down between her breasts. Pulling back a little on the needle catheter, she tried an ever so slightly different angle. Nothing. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears, like a clock ticking away. Nikita took a deep breath in and held it. Once again, pull out a little and push. This time the needle tip hit something firm, like the membrane on a thick balloon.

Ever so slowly she advanced the needle and felt a slight 'thunk'.

"I'm in!" she exclaimed as she watched the hub of her catheter fill with dark blood. Quickly releasing the tourniquet, she withdrew the needle advancer from the inside of the plastic catheter which would remain in Michael's arm. Carefully, trying not to dislodge her precious catheter, she hooked up the tip of the IV tubing to the catheter hub and opened the roller clamp wide open, sending the flow of saline down into his vein. Her last task was to securely tape everything down.

"Good job, Nikita," congratulated Birkoff. "You'd better take a look at this leg now."

"Keep pressure on it while I cut away his pant leg," she directed, as she donned a pair of gloves and snipped away the bloodied, sticky fabric. After she removed his boot, she checked the pulse in his foot. It was thready, but present. A good sign.

"OK, I'm going to cut away all this old dressing, but you keep holding on until I tell you."

Birkoff looked paler (if that was possible) at the sight of all the blood before him, and thought of vomiting quietly in a corner first chance he got. He could care less if they thought he was a computer nerd hack. He literally had no stomach for this 007 shit. Give me a nice, cozy work station to cuddle up to and I'm a happy bulldog.

Nikita stole a sideways glance at him and could sense his growing queasiness.

"You OK, Seymour?" she asked, smiling to herself.

"Just peachy. Hey, hurry up will ya, Nikita? I've got some paperwork to take care of before we land or else Madeleine will have my balls for breakfast."

"When I say 'go', you slowly take off that pad and let me have a look. OK, go ahead."

As Birkoff removed the saturated dressing, Nikita examined the wound. She believed the bleeding had slowed, but it was still oozing from the bullet's entry site. From the little she knew, the bullet hadn't hit an artery. No exit wound, she noted, as she gingerly lifted Michael's leg. The bullet was still inside. The tissues around the wound were grossly swollen and already bruising from the bleeding in and around his leg muscles. Michael's pain must have be excruciating, she thought, but he never said a word. She packed the wound and rewraped it.

"I think I'll be all right. You can go now." Birkoff got up to leave. "Oh, Birkoff," she said flashing him her biggest smile, "Thanks. I owe you a big, juicy, wet one when we get back to Section."

Birkoff blushed to his buzzed roots. "Just no tongue. I don't do tongue with older women," he retorted.

He side-stepped just as a roll of tape went flying past his ear.

She stripped off her soiled gloves, throwing them on the floor and checked the monitor. One hundred two and regular. A quick blood pressure reading measured one hundred over seventy. Much better. The IV bag was almost ready to be replaced with a fresh one.

She repositioned the blanket under his chin, tracing her finger lightly over his full lips. She fought her desire to kiss them lightly; how she longed to do so again. The memory of his kisses and of that night sent a shiver of pleasure down her spine. He was so beautiful to her eyes that he sometimes took her breath away. His face reminded her of a thirteenth century Italian fresco she had once seen somewhere in a book. It was of an angel playing a lute, its face looking up to heaven.

Michael's face looked so guileless, so peaceful in sleep. She wanted to protect him and wished that he could stay like this forever, removed from the dangers and lies and manipulations that usually filled his normal waking hours. She knew it was nonsense, however, a fantasy life that could exist only in her mind. Their reality was more like the nightmares she knew Michael frequently endured. The trick was to keep from screaming after you had woken up, when you've realized that it wasn't a dream after all.

Nikita shook her head, as if doing so could change the thoughts in her brain. She tried to refocus again on what she was doing. It worried her a bit that Michael still was unconscious, or perhaps he had just transitioned into an exhausted sleep. As she struggled with the decision if she should try and wake him, she didn't hear a team member approach.

"Hi, Nikita. Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. How's he doing? The others sent me up to find out," Parker inquired in a hushed tone, crouching down beside her.

"Oh, he's doing better, thanks," she smiled up at him, warmed by the fact that the other operatives seemed genuinely concerned about Michael's condition. She knew a lot of people feared Michael and his machine-like coldness, but deep down they respected his leadership skills and appreciated the responsibility he felt toward his team members.

"Do you need any help? Can I get you anything? You look pretty tired."

"We're fine, thanks, but I'd love a bottle of water."

"Here, take this one with my compliments," he said handing his to her. "It's unopened. By the way, I think you should put in for a Section transfer to the MedLab. You make a pretty damn good nurse," he admired, smiling at her and patting her arm as he got up to leave.

"Thanks," Nikita blushed as she took a long sip from the bottle.

A nurse, she mused, staring at the gloves she had thrown on the floor. She remembered that as a little girl she had wanted to be a nurse after reading some old Cherry Ames books she'd found in the school library. Cherry was always dressed in a clean, crisp, white apron, never soiling it as she solved exciting mysteries with the young, handsome intern - whom she secretly loved - at her side.

But as she grew up, life was never so neatly wrapped up with a happy ending as in her beloved Cherry Ames stories. While she was bright enough to go to university and study nursing, there would be no money to do so. There was hardly any money on which to live. She and her mother were always needing to move, one step ahead of the landlord demanding his overdue rent money. That was when her mother's boyfriends would come in handy for a time, sheltering them as long as Mama kept them supplied with beer and... . Soon that wasn't even enough. It was the beatings and the drunken, late night visits she could no longer fight off that finally sent her into the streets at fifteen. That was the end of high school and her dreams of the university.

At first the loneliness was the most difficult part for Nikita. So many of the street people were whacked out, off in their own drugged or schizophrenic worlds. She felt so small, out there by herself. Her mother had never really paid that much attention to her, barely fed and clothed her properly, but she still was a person to whom Nikita felt connected. On the streets, you had only yourself, your shopping cart of hoarded meager possessions, and your wits.

But she slowly began to make a life for herself out there, getting to know the regulars on the park benches, the kind nuns and brothers in the soup kitchens, the hookers on the street corners. It still required so much energy just to survive, but she was free and accountable to no one but herself. All in all, it was a livable life.

Nikita's experience had been to learn not to expect things and people to last forever in her world. And while this philosophy spared her much disappointment in her circumstances, she still harbored a strong hope for better days. Her craving for the security and trust that a loved one could give her - that which she never felt as a child - was like a hunger that went unsatisfied.

As a Section operative, her basic needs were taken care of: she had a comfortable apartment to call her own, beautiful clothes to wear, and a steady - albeit repugnant - job. And along came Michael. An enigma of a man who could be so cold, so calculating and manipulative, who lied to her too many times to count. Yet he watched over her and protected her, often at great risk to his own safety.

She thought - she hoped - she could have it all when she came back in. Michael had led her to believe that they could build something together. Didn't their one night together prove that, she told herself? She was willing to take the risk to make it work, but Michael seemed to retreat and slip into his old Section shadow. Did he bring her back in just to become a Section pawn once more? Her frustrated disappointment in him and feelings of rejection brought out her survival instincts which quickly sought safe haven with Jurgen.

It wasn't a premeditated move; she felt she had few other options available to her. And now she was back out on the streets again, emotionally. Oh, God, won't this ache ever go away? Nikita cried inwardly.

"Mmm...," Michael began to moan, hearing his own voice as he struggled to rise through the depths of blackness which had enveloped him.

"Michael, Michael, it's OK," soothed Nikita, holding down his arms and trying to keep him from pulling out the IV as he tried to throw off the blanket she had tucked in around him. "It's me, Nikita."

He blinked a few times, disoriented with his surroundings and tried to remember what had happened. His eyes began to focus and take in the interior of the airplane. So it hadn't been one of his nightmares. It was the nightmare that was his life - next chapter, same verse.

"How long?" he asked.

"A little over an hour. How are you feeling?" Nikita watched his face closely to discern if he was going to tell her the truth.

"I've had better days," Michael replied with a rare small smile that turned up the corners of his mouth. He tried to shift his hips to a more comfortable position, but it immediately sent a fiery hot pain through his leg. His look of discomfort was not lost on Nikita.

"You must be very uncomfortable. Do you want something for the pain. There's some morphine here." she said, reaching for the medicine box.

"That won't be necessary. I'm OK now."

"Michael just..." She stopped and shut her mouth. She was too tired to reason with him. She began speaking, trying to sound light, as she made a pretense of checking his leg wound. "You gave m...us quite a scare a little while ago. You should have seen Birkoff's face, poor thing. I think he went off and got sick in the toilet."

But she couldn't keep up the facade, the stress and fatigue of the past few hours had worn down her mettle. She paused before she continued.

"We almost lost you." Nikita whispered finally, her voice cracking as she kept her head down, not wanting him to see her emotions displayed all over her face.

He looked at her, silently calling her until she had to turn her face to him. She was so beautiful it made his body ache with longing for her. The pupils of her sky blue eyes were huge and round, reflecting her worry and fright for him. How mercurial she was. Last week she could hardly be in the same room with him.

"I'm sorry, Nikita." They both were silent for a moment, lost in their own thoughts. Michael looked off to the side, and was the first to break their quiet "He shouldn't have gone in. The mission was my responsibility. It would have been better if he hadn't interfered."

Nikita knew Michael could be cold, but this was too much even for him. He is worried because the perameters of his precious mission were compromised and there would be hell to pay with Operations?

"How convenient, however, that he did. Wouldn't you say?" she retorted sarcastically, missing Michael's intention and, as usual, jumping to conclusions. Part of her was suspicious enought to believe that Section had the explosive malfunction in their mission profile, knowing that Jurgen could never continue there, submitting to their whims as any another operative must, and forcing him to choose a way out. They just provided him with a convenient door. Just what was Michael's role in all this?

"That was not what I meant," he said patiently.

"Then you'll have to send me your primer on 'Understanding Michael's True Meanings,' because I seem to have difficulty these days understanding exactly what they are," Nikita snapped backed.

She was immediately sorry she had. She was so weary of rehashing the same old issues with him, of always treading water. She was too exhausted and raw. But that was no excuse for her to verbally beat him up right now.

Michael sighed deeply, and looked over her shoulder before he spoke again, wearily.

"Nikita, we're both tired. I don't want to quarrel about this. We can finish this conversation when we get back."

They said little else to each other for the remainder of the flight. As soon as they landed, the MedLab staff were waiting to transport Michael straight to surgery. Meanwhile, Nikita was extensively debriefed by both Madeleine and Operations along with the rest of the team as they pieced together the sequence of events to their satisfaction. She sensed that because Housekeeping was unable to recover Jurgen's body, they wouldn't be happy with her answers until they could grill Michael themselves.

As tired and as dirty as she was, she sat by Michael's bedside until he awoke from the anesthesia and until she knew the worst was over. He was very groggy coming out of its effects, his eyes glazed and unfocused. Although she told him she was there and that everything went well, she wasn't sure if Michael heard her before he drifted back to sleep.

As usual, Michael didn't spend much time in MedLab despite doctor's orders, and was soon seen hobbling around Section on crutches. That's where Nikita saw him last, before she left for her vacation.

They didn't say much to each other. Although he had expressed words of condolence to her about Jurgen, her anger and hurt from yet another possible betrayal by him colored her response to one of cold indifference. Looking back and remembering their encounter, she could see that Jurgen's death was a loss for Michael, as well. He had been, after all, Michael's trainer just as Michael had been hers. For a time, he had been an important person in Michael's life.

Nikita understood all this now. Being away from Section on "vacation" had allowed her some time to view things in perspective, but it still left a lot of unanswered questions for her with respect to Michael, and it certainly would take more than a week's vacation to sort it all out - if she ever could.

"Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to waste any more of this glorious day bothering about him!" she said aloud to no one as she returned from her ruminations.

"Bothering about whom?"

Nikita spun off the lounge, grabbing her gun from the beach bag beside her and crouched down into a defensive position. She had to put a hand out to keep herself from falling over when she saw who the intruder was who had entered first the house, and then the garden, undetected.

"How did you find me?" she asked coolly, straightening up.

His eyes traveled appreciatively down the length of her and up again to her face. Although she could read in his eyes his male approval for her bathing suit, she tugged down at the back self-consciously and felt herself blushing.

"You didn't answer my question. How did you know where I was?" she demanded.

"It wasn't difficult. I am familiar with the list of Section safe houses. I assumed that since it was winter, you might choose someplace a little warmer for your holiday."

"I see. So you assumed I'd be here? Funny that you didn't change your wardrobe for something a little, oh - cooler?" she commented sarcastically, crossing her arms. She was annoyed at herself that she had been so distracted, therefore allowing someone to breach the house's security system without her knowing it. If it had been an operative from Red Cell, she'd be dead now. The fact that it was Michael almost made her humiliation worse.

She punctuated her critique of a his choice of resort wear with a smug smile that played about her lips. Now it was her turn to regard him closely. He was dressed in his usual black habit, but upon closer inspection, he had exchanged his winter wool suit for one of fine Italian linen. Her smirk dissolved, instantaneously, and her discomfort at being caught twice amused him. Looking to change the subject, she noted that he no longer walked with the crutches, but instead, had substituted them for a single cane. He was leaning on it heavily, looking tired.

"How's the leg?" Nikita asked, pointing to it with her gun hand

"Better, thank you. May I sit down?" The flight had been a long one, making the leg go stiff, and now the wound was beginning to throb painfully despite his efforts to ignore it. Nikita could see Michael wince as he sat down heavily in the chair she offered. Without being asked, she placed a folded towel on a small table and lifted Michael's injured leg onto it.

"There. Better?" she smiled down at him, suddenly changing tactics.

She wanted to know why he had come all this way, and saw that being nice would be to her advantage. You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar was something she remembered hearing Madeleine say to her once.

"Would you like something to drink?"

"Yes, thank you. Whatever you have will be fine." he replied.

She walked into the house to throw on a cover-up and get some fresh ice tea and a bowl of fruit. She took her time, composing herself as she performed the mundane tasks any hostess would preparing refreshments for an unexpected guest. He had caught her completely off guard with his sudden unexpected arrival. She wasn't prepared emotionally yet for a confrontation with him, but here they were. When she returned, she saw that Michael had removed his jacket and put on his sun glasses. His face was tipped back to capture the warmth of the sun, and the lines of fatigue she had noticed a few minutes earlier were beginning to relax.

"Looks like I'm not the only one who enjoys a beach holiday," she observed with a grin as she handed him a glass.

He turned to her with a regretful look. "I can't stay. They think I'm in Managua gathering intel." He took a long sip of the cold ice tea.

"Oh." Nikita's heart sank with disappointment.

While she thought she had been enjoying her solitude, Michael's sudden appearance made her realize how much she wished she could share this time away with someone...with him. They had left each other with so many things unsaid, with so much hurt that hung on the air between them. She pulled down the sunglasses which she had parked on the top of her head.

"So, why did you come then?"

He regarded her quietly for a moment, searching her face. For what, she didn't know - she never knew. Many times during mission briefings she could sense him staring at her. It disconcerted her, but she knew he would never tell her why he watched her, even if she asked.

He averted his eyes as he began, "I wanted to thank you for everything you did for me that night."

She stared at him skeptically "You came all this way just to tell me that? Why are you really here Michael?"

He looked back at her. "I'm here because we needed to talk about what happened, away from there and away from them. I know all this hasn't been easy for you - coming back, re-training...Jurgen." His voice trailed off as he looked again past her over her shoulder, unwilling or unable to meet her eyes. He turned to look at the pool in front of them. "It's been difficult for all of us, but we have to get past it and go on. We will still be working together, Nikita, going out on missions, being part of a team. It's important that you can put aside whatever...opinions...you might have of me right now which might keep you from being focused. Do you understand, Nikita?"

Nikita could feel the blood rush to her face at Michael's insinuation that she would let their relationship interfere in her work, as loathsome as it was. How dare he assume that she would jeopardize the execution or outcome of a mission and the safety of her team members because he thought she couldn't handle working with him!

What an arrogant bastard he was and she was about to tell him so, but for once in her life she took a deep breath and thought the better of it. He hadn't come all this way just to bait and scold her. That was more Operation's modus operandi. No, Michael often has his own underlying agenda, but what exactly was it this time? Could she ever really figure him out? Indeed, why should she bother? Her thoughts turned to a particular street in Barcelona where they had been dispatched to deal with a particularly factious group of Basque separatists that had set up a substation there. She had never been to Spain before, and felt drawn to the flavor and passion for life she sensed from what she saw. What brought her thoughts to Spain at this particular moment was her memory of the doors. All over the city she noticed these beautifully constructed, immensely forbidding doors on all the homes and apartments. They lent an aura of mystery and she often wondered who the people were who lived behind them. In this particular situation, a group of insurrectionists, who planned death and destruction for those who dared contradict their mandate for existence lived behind the disguise of wooden artistry.

Nikita appreciated the irony and easily recognized the parallels her brain drew for her. How many doors would she have to tear down to learn the truths within? While she did not have any answers for her many questions about the mysteries of Michael or their connection to each other, she nevertheless resigned herself to the fact that they would have to work together, and in order to do so they'd have to reach some kind of understanding that they both could live with. Yes, she was beginning to develop an agenda of her own.

"All right, Michael, I'll be a good soldier," she purred, demurely.

He eyed her suspiciously but said nothing. That had been too easy, but he wasn't going to pursue it now. Things would evolve as they would. He had learned the value of patience. Hopefully, Nikita was ready to learn it, too.

"I'd better be going," he said getting up stiffly. He paused. "This is a beautiful place. You made a good choice." he said, stopping to look around again.

For some reason, Nikita sensed that Michael had been here before. It suddenly dawned on her that's how he had gotten in so easily.

"Oh, have you been here before?" she fished with one of her best innocent smiles.

He turned away, putting his glass down on the table. "Simone and I came here after we were married." he said impassively.

Nikita was mortified. She reached out to touch him on his arm.

"Oh, Michael, I didn't know. I didn't mean to - ."

"There was no way you could have. It was a long time ago," he replied, softly.

Nikita imagined what memories of this place must hold for him. It must have been difficult for him to come once he knew where she was, and yet, he still came.

"I'll see you when you get back, all right?"

Michael moved toward her, lifting her sunglasses up to her head, slowly and deliberately. He brushed her hair away from the side of her face, allowing his fingers to trace a path down along her jaw bone until they reached her chin. His eyes lingered there, on her lips, expectantly. Nikita felt her pulse quicken; she was transfixed by his touch. She closed her eyes as she felt the sweet whisper of his kiss tenderly brush her mouth.

And then he was gone.