Author's Notes: Set sometime mid-Season 1 of Nikita.
Alex has never once completely trusted anyone but her father. Not even herself. Maybe especially not herself, particularly lately. But she has to admit that Nikita is the closest she's come in a very long time to actually relying on someone else again.
She's killed again tonight. Not just one man this time, or some group too far in the distance to put a real face to either. She was close enough to see the light leave their eyes one by one. It doesn't make a difference that she's done it before, or that they were strangers to her, or even that they were corrupt and that their desire to see her dead was clearly far more intense than her wish to beat them to it.
The guilt still burns her just as much as it did that first time. Maybe for some people it gets easier over time, but not for her. Not yet, at least. She's actually grateful for that.
She worries about the day that getting blood on her hands, literal or otherwise, won't propel her straight here, right into Nikita's arms. The day she no longer needs the comfort of a hand stroking through her hair and lips pressing briefly against her forehead is the day that she'll have to start wondering just how close she is to reaching the terrifying potential she'd glimpsed in herself.
Alex haltingly relates the parts of her story that Nikita didn't experience first-hand, and by doing so hopes for even a little of what Nikita refers to as catharsis. That's an idea Alex just bets Nikita must have learned from Amanda, who's always seemed intent on picking at Alex's wounds, and clearly never to actually help her. That alone would make Alex sceptical, but talking about it does seem to help nonetheless.
She thinks it seems to help Nikita herself in a way as well. It's one of the only times when she doesn't have to make herself hard and unyielding just to get by.
They curl up together on Nikita's tiny recruit-issue bed and Alex rests her head lightly on Nikita's chest, hoping the slow but repetitious sound of her heartbeat will help lull Alex to into a deep, dreamless sleep.
She doubts it actually will, though. Being here helps, but not that much. She hasn't slept well in far too long to kid herself that tonight will be any different. Still, it's better than having her nightmares without someone there to wake her up and hold her until her breathing evens out and she remembers that she's safe... relatively speaking.
She tries not to look forward to sometime in the future when she'll never have to be alone again, knowing that to do so would only be setting herself up for disappointment. Even though hope has often been all that's kept her alive, she knows it can't be wholly trusted any more than people can.
So she really does try not to feel it.
But, lying with Nikita's fingers trailing down her back and their bodies close enough to warm each other, she fails.
~FIN~