Title: The song remains the same
Summary: Nikita has never had an easy life. What she never realized before was that even though the circumstances changed, her life never truly did.
Rated: T+ references to drugs and violence.
Nikita
When Nikita was young she always dreamed of having her father show up and take her far, far away to a big castle. It didn't even have to be a castle - just an average suburban house would do. Anywhere other than were she was. He would just come take her away. Away from her junky mother and the shady men that always seemed to hang around in their kitchen. Her father would take her away from the trailer park, away from the drugs and violence she witnessed every day of her life.
But her father never showed up. She hadn't expected him to either.
She had been eight when her mother accidentally drowned her little sister in the tub. Nikita knew she should have been watching over Sasha, but her mother had seemed not-so-out-of-it so Nikita had gone to ride the bike she had stolen from Benny - a scrawny boy with no big brothers that could come after her. It had been summer and the man in the kitchen had been looking at her strangely, so going off to ride the bike had seemed like a good idea.
When she got back home there had been police cars in the parking lot and two officers by their trailer. At first she had been scared they were there about Benny's bike, but as she had walked a bit closer she realized they weren't. Her mother was on the dirty porch, holding her unmoving little sister in her arms. She was crying like Nikita had never seen her cry. The police officers told her that she couldn't go any closer but she ran to her mother and sister anyway. Sasha looked very odd; her lips were blue and her skin white. It took Nikita a while to realize her sister was dead.
Nikita knew what dead meant; the cat that lived under their trailer had died. It meant you went still and didn't exist anymore. After that someone dug you a grave and put you in the ground. Nikita really didn't want them to put her sister in the ground. Sasha hated to get dirty, she wasn't like most kids. She stayed clean and played quietly indoors. She was an angel, unlike Nikita who was a child of the devil. Her mother had told her that on several occasions. Nikita had never quite understood all that much about the angels, demons and the devil, her mother talked about in some of her more sober moments. She only knew that she was rough and could take care of herself and Sasha was soft and needed someone to look out for her.
Still Sasha was dead and they were putting her in the ground.
She wasn't allowed to stay with her mother after that, but the people in the big bright office found her a place to stay. It was with a big family, where none of the kids were the parent's real kids. They called it foster care and maybe it was better than the trailer park but Nikita just wanted to go back to her mother. She cried for several nights, but soon she realized just how pointless it was. There was no one that wanted to comfort her in the new strange house. They only wanted her to be quiet so they could sleep.
She stayed there for a year, and then there was another family for a few months. Her mother died too – overdose - two weeks after she got out of jail. Nikita didn't get to go to the funeral. She wasn't sure she even wanted to. Instead she was sent to another foster home. Then another and another.
Garry and Caroline had been the first and last stable home she lived in. Nikita spent six years with them and despite that she could never bring herself to love them. She was glad she never had learned to love them because after Caroline 's death Gary got a lot more violent but at that point Nikita was so over being abused and pushed around. So she ran.
After that the details got a bit fussy. The drugs, the sex and the violence she had wanted to escape had become her life. Still, she told herself she was in control. That was of course, a big fat lie. Anyone with some pills or power had complete control over her. Killing the cop, going to trial and waking up in Division was a big blur too.
Division was the first place that ever cared for her. They had an agenda, but that was life. Everyone wanted something from you. In Division she was at least clothed, fed, had her own room. They trained and for the first time ever she had someone that cared for her because of her. Not because he wanted drugs, sex or anything else from her. Michael made her want to fight to be a good person, a person with a purpose. Made her forget all the awful things she had done. Yet their love could never be. For many reasons. Still, Michael changed her world.
Daniel was a dream come true. For a girl who had lived a life of violence, something not even Michael could show her a life without, he was heaven. An average but sweet guy. And he loved her. Wanted to marry her. To run away to start a new life. He was her chance at a normal life – her first real shot at happiness.
Then Division took that away from her.
It took her a long time to realize the universe was either playing a cruel cosmic joke on her or there was some other reason Daniel was, like so many other she had cared for, dead. Nikita was simply not meant for a life without violence, not meant for a peaceful existence. From stealing Benny's bike to killing cops to assassinating targets. Her life had always been about violence and, she supposed, survival. Taking down Division was not going to be different.
A few last acts of violence. Then the need for surviving wouldn't really matter anymore. She would simply stop existing, just like her sister, her mother and Daniel. That had been her plan at first.
Alex had changed that, made her want to keep fighting, made her imagine a life where she was free from Division and actually living. Then things changed even more. Michael. He was suddenly on her side, fighting with her like she wanted for such a long time. It proved things could be different. He changed the rules, changed her very existence, once again. He made her not have to fight at all, made her feel like she was already free from Division. Like they were both free. A lie, but it was a good lie. When they were together, just them, nothing else mattered. They were free from the past, the present and the future.
But Nikita knew she would never be completely free of the violence; it was a part of her. But somehow, tampered with love for both Michael and Alex, the pounding violence and hate inside her didn't scare her as much anymore. One day when the world was free of Division, maybe just maybe, she would be free to live the normal life she always wanted.
Maybe.
.
.
The End