Disclaimer: All intellectual properties belong to Stieg Larsson. However, anything not related to the Millennium Trilogy belong to This Rhythm. Plagiarism is a serious offense, and it shows you do not have respect or imagination.

This is a oneshot which takes place right after The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I have not read The Girl Who Played with Fire, for I finished Tattoo today, so please forgive me if something is not correct. Also, pardon me for any mistakes.

Reviews - constructive, nice, and even flames - are greatly appreciated.

Lisbeth Salander was the biggest fucking fool there was.

It unnerved her how easily she had let her guard down. For twenty-four years, Lisbeth had created firewalls of her own, impenetrable – even the most skilled hacker could not get in. The worst part of this whole ordeal was how the naïve and flaccid Mikael Blomkvist had wormed his way in. Lisbeth had survived for so long without a man's love. Her non-loving streak was now broken.

For a time, Lisbeth thought Mikael would love her back. Of course, this was not possible; Lisbeth was a freak, a criminal, a woman who had no morals. Mikael was a passive asshole. He was also a talented journalist. He had fucking Berger. He was celebrity. Lisbeth, on the other hand, was another dark haired tattooed girl in the police database.

She went to her clean home. It wasn't long until she started to throw everything around and it became unclean. She didn't know how to feel about trashing her flat. So she sat down and proceeded to take out a pack of cigarettes, calming herself with chain smoking.

Fuck – really, Lisbeth was stupid. She was hurt. She could handle an occasional blow here and there. But this was something entirely different, and it wasn't fair. Lisbeth was trained when it came to computers and digging through people's secret dirt. If someone wanted to know how she knew certain information, she gave them a blank stare and quite possibly scared them shitless. She knew how to handle the people who controlled a very subtle part of her life – take Nils Bjurman for instance. She had enough kronor to last her a lifetime - if she spent it frugally - because she knew the before and after.

Her love for Blomkvist was unfair because she did not have a before and after. She fell into a trap headfirst. Lisbeth recalled the morning he had barged in her life. She was accepting of his presence. Here, she made her first mistake: she did not have a before. Meaning, she was not prepared for Mikael to enter her life. Her second mistake was not having an after: she was not ready for falling in love with Blomkvist, and she was not geared up to feel the crushing blow once she saw Blomkvist and Berger together.

She should have known. For some reason pretending Berger was a thing in Mikael's past was a foolish thought. He had already explained his relationship with Berger. They were friends, lovers, and business partners. They trusted each other. Lisbeth trusted Mikael. Lisbeth had a feeling Mikael didn't trust her as much as she trusted him.

He was a nice, handsome, caring motherfucker.

~/~

Mikael and Erika walked back to his apartment in Stockholm. They laughed and touched, both drunk over their recent victory. Once Mikael opened the door, she wrapped her thin arms around him, kissing him with fervor. Mikael smiled. He missed this.

Erika's expensive suit was pushed down her shoulders. Mikael saw she had cut her hair a little bit. He smiled again, letting his hands run through her hair. They were still stuck by the door, Berger's back against the wall adjacent to the door. Mikael began the task of burying his face in her neck, her shoulders.

She pressed his face up to her breasts. Such big, lovely breasts. "You're not involved with Salander, are you?"

He froze for a moment. He was not involved with her as he was with Erika. So he answered, "No."

Erika pulled his face up and stared at him. "Good. Because if you were, I planned to make you forget everything anyway."

Mikael ended up thinking of Salander for a good three minutes before Erika's delicious hands journeyed elsewhere.

~/~

Lisbeth took out her third cigarette. The lights were off, save for a lamp she forgot to throw around. She pondered another few minutes.

It was all Mikael's fault. Why? He never took the initiative. He let people make their own decisions. Lisbeth, on the other hand, persuaded, forced, pushed and refrained from speaking to others, eventually making them do what she pleased. When it came to loving Mikael, she needed a push. Mikael did not to that. Hence, Lisbeth was confused. He was a passive asshole, she reminded herself. All men were jerks. Even him.

Just because Lisbeth looked mean and looked in control did not mean she knew what she was doing. Her love for Mikael was so foreign; more foreign than her latex boobs she once adorned. Contrary to popular belief, Lisbeth did not know everything. She just knew the facts, the hard copies. Emotions were not written down in emails and explained thoroughly. They were primal human instincts. As far as she knew, her instincts were violent, cold, and worthy enough to be studied by egotistical Harvard researchers.

Maybe part of it was her fault. Perhaps she mixed up sex with love. Perhaps Mikael thought their sexual relationship was nothing more than a fuck deemed necessary while they worked. She really was an idiot.

~/~

Blomkvist left a sleeping Erika at around 1:00 in the morning and looked out the window. He was standing naked as he peered into the dreaming Stockholm. He stretched; Erika was more enthusiastic than he remembered. She had asked him about the marks on his neck, but he quickly brushed her question aside. Mikael noticed she narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. She would have to be satisfied with nothing for now.

Thinking of his burn mark made him think of Lisbeth. He wondered what she was doing. She seemed resigned last he saw her. He shrugged; she was always moody. A series of images ran through his mind – Lisbeth's extortion of Hans-Erik Wennerström's money made him chuckle. She was something.

A small wave of guilt came over him. He wondered if Salander would approve of his actions tonight. It wasn't as if he was lying. Lisbeth knew of his relationship with Erika. Still, it made him feel fidgety. He could tell Lisbeth didn't like Erika. Did Lisbeth think only her and Mikael were together? It didn't seem she cared if Mikael was with Erika, although he could be wrong.

He padded over the side table and picked up his mobile, punching in Lisbeth's number. It rang six times before it went to voicemail. Frowning, he set his phone aside and climbed back under the covers, unable to fall back asleep.

~/~

Lisbeth couldn't believe he had the nerve to call her. She let the phone ring, contemplating whether or not she should answer. She didn't. Let him sweat, Lisbeth pouted. He deserved it.

But what if it was a new set of information he wanted to tell her? No, Lisbeth thought. All she had to do was break into his computer and remember all the new stuff he was working on. She did not have to talk to him.

Lisbeth glanced at the clock. There was still time to get rid of her demons and foul mood. She burned out her cigarette and gathered her leather jacket, her boots crunching on the broken glass. A quick look in the mirror showed her how pathetic she looked. She could apply some makeup but thought better of it.

She walked out of her flat and headed straight towards Technicolor, a two year old club she had been going to. It was still packed, but almost everyone was tired from drinking and dancing. It was a modest rave club, but she had been to others heavier than this. Lisbeth wasn't one for dancing, anyway. Her objective today was to sleep with another asshole.

It took twenty minutes to find a man who would not force himself upon her. His name was Alexander, and he was a pretty boy who landed in a club full of Goths. He seemed to enjoy it and he appeared to like Lisbeth. Why, she didn't know. After a couple of minutes, he confessed he admired her stubborn attitude. This made Lisbeth want to take Alexander outside.

They fucked in his car, and Lisbeth concluded Alexander was not a jerk, which made her angry all over again. The whole point of going tonight was to meet up with a jerk and prove her point that all men were jerks. Once she left the car, she glanced up at the sky and flipped off whoever the hell was up there. Fate had a cruel and twisted way of screwing up her plans.

She also secretly flipped off Mikael Blomkvist for making her fall in love with him.