Loss and Gain
A Nikki/Peter one-shot set in the "String Theory" universe.
So maybe both of them were a little broken. So what? Who wasn't broken these days?
- - - -
She called herself Jessica every night, hoping to escape the pain. And me...I was different man – a hard man, used to violence. So what if they were broken? At least they were broken together.
We've lost so much, much more than anyone ever should. Her life was destroyed. So broken and disastrious. Granted, when we first met she wasn't the happiest of people, but she had her son. The first time I saw her after it happened...she was a different person. And I hadn't yet changed – I cared too much to see her in such pain, all alone.
So I was there for her, made her eat and live and be Nikki. I wouldn't let her revert to Jessica to numb the pain – I knew that if she let Jessica take control then that she would never get it back. And I couldn't do that to her. Maybe I did it for myself, too. Maybe I just needed to be needed. We needed each other.
It was hard at first, and our relationship has never been a smooth one. And maybe we're a bit volitile with each other sometimes, but we need one another. We love one another.
She was there for me when my world fell apart. There with me when Nathan became a traitor, when my own mother was hunted and killed, when Claire disappeared. Nikki was there, just as I'd been there for her not too long ago.
And just as I had watched her grieve and change, she watched me do the same. And sometimes when I was harsh, or just plain wrong – she put up with me. Let me know it was okay. When they threatened Nikki – well, that was that and they were dead not much later. She didn't always approve – she was still enough of herself that she still felt it was wrong – but she let me continue on with it. And one day, when she finally did ask me to stop, I did. I stopped because it was the first time she'd ever asked me too.
By that time, I would've done anything for her. I still would. She is all I have left in this world, and she is the most important thing. Nikki is the most important person to ever come into my life, I have no doubt about that. And maybe that's why it'd not a hard choice for me to make when she gives me that ultimatum. Because I love her, and if there is any chance at all that I can change the future, that her son – her life – won't die, then I have to take it.
- - - -
So yeah, we're broken. And we've lost a lot...but we've gained each other.