A/N: I've been toying around with an idea for an AU story for some time. Not sure if it will ever see the light of day, but in the meantime this one demanded to be written. Hope you like it.
Nikita is not mine, any mistake you will undoubtedly encounter, sadly is. Happy reading :)
Unfinished Affairs
She may have decided to leave him and the rest of their unruly gang behind out of some misguided need to keep them safe, but who ever said safety was what he wanted? He can't believe she's done this to him again.
Wanted
Anger is an emotion Michael is familiar with.
From the day he entered Division up until now, he's felt it. Anger at Kasim for taking his family, at Percy for taking his life, at Nikita for leaving him for three years, at Cassandra and Nikita for keeping his son a secret from him, at Nikita for putting his son's life over hers, at Percy for being a psychopath bastard that never knew when to quit, at Amanda for hurting Nikita in every sick way she has ever come up with, at Nikita for taking his hand in order to save his life, at himself for being angry at Nikita for taking his hand, at Nikita again for leaving him behind. Again.
When he frantically runs down the stairs of the warehouse they've holed up in to try and catch up with her and she doesn't answer her phone, he knows. The light that reflects off the diamond they promised each other the rest of their lives with, presents him with unnecessary confirmation of what he can already feel in every fibre of his body.
She's gone.
A month passes. His anger at her for leaving him behind doesn't. He searches for her. He wants to know why. No that's not quite it. He knows why, he just doesn't understand.
Alex and Sonya have just left for India to work the human-trafficking angle. Ryan and Birkhoff are trying every other angle based from a cargo plane. All of them trying to expose the Shop, trying to clear Nikita's name so she can come back.
Michael can't stand to stay with them for more than a couple of days at a time. He's angry at them too.
Angry at the women, Alex mostly, for the look of concern she can't keep out of her eyes whenever she looks at him. Angry at Fletcher for accepting Nikita's decision to run off alone way too easily and angry at Birkhoff for trying to be his friend.
His best friend has left him, taking his heart with her. Without his heart he has no need for another friend.
Seven weeks and two days have passed when he thinks he's picked up her trail in Texas. He can't be sure it's really her, but something inside him says it is. He can feel it. So when the border patrol threatens to get on to her as well, he has Birkhoff working round the clock to keep them off her scent.
Birkhoff has some trouble, but Birkhoff wouldn't be Birkhoff if he didn't pull it off.
Too bad Nikita manages to disappear not only from the border patrol's radar but from theirs too. This pisses him off royally.
Fletcher and Birkhoff point out that maybe it wasn't her after all. This thought alone pisses him off even more.
Exactly one hundred days have gone by since he found the ring he had sought out so carefully and fought so hard to keep and slid onto her third finger so gently, mocking him from the brick window sill.
All of his leads on her have led to nothing. His anger at her for doing this to him, to them, hasn't dissipated in the slightest. Instead it has gained hopelessness for a partner and for the second time in his life Michael feels the cold claws of depression grasping at him. For a second he wonders why he should even bother to get out of bed this morning.
He's been having more and more trouble sleeping, managing only a few short hours at a time.
He doesn't dream anymore, which is a relief. It means he doesn't wake drenched in sweat anymore because in his dreams either she's returned to him as if she'd only stepped out for a bit, engagement ring still firmly around her finger and he shows her exactly how much he loves her still, how much he's loved her always. Or they've finally found her, dead, her frail body broken and bloody and he'll never be able to show her anything at all anymore.
What would be the use of trying to show her anything anyway?, he asks himself more and more. Love alone is not enough, not with them apparently. He's never been able to impress the knowledge upon her that there's more strength and safety in standing together than standing alone. At the first sign of a threat she takes over and takes charge, bypassing anyone and anything, doing whatever she feels is necessary, as she has been doing all her life. No room for discussion, just action.
He vows to himself that if he ever does find her, they won't be getting back together. He can't do this again. He can't lose her again and he's sure he will at some point. He doesn't want to go through this again. He's done.
He's going to have to figure out what to do with the ring that for the past hundred days has been residing in a little velour jewellery bag in the left pocket of the pants he happens to be wearing. He doesn't want to carry it around anymore, as a reminder of what could have been. It hurts too much.
He gets out of bed and dresses, removes the ring from his pocket and drops it into the bag containing his gear. Quite fittingly, it gets lost between guns and ammo instantly.
When he gets the call from Birkhoff that Shadownet's picked her up in Vermont, he pays for the triple espresso he's just ordered and asks to take it to go.
Bypassing the Feds to inspect all that Nikita's left behind when she made a break for it, is ridiculously easy. Figuring out where she went next only slightly less so and within an hour of receiving Birkhoff's call he's well on his way to New York, a mission profile forming in his head.
As soon as he arrives at ENN he realises his newly formed profile will need some adjustment. The FBI are absolutely everywhere.
He's not prepared for what the sound of her breathy voice speaking his name over the phone does to him. He has to steel himself to answer her. The slight panic in her voice almost makes his resolve crumble, almost. Until she takes over and starts calling the shots. He tastes blood from biting the inside of his cheek to prevent from blowing up at her. This is not the time.
He hangs up the phone though and rolls his eyes for good measure.
Birkhoff calls him back to tell him Nikita's stuck inside the building.
A little bit of clever improvisation lets her exfil soon enough and he's there waiting for her when she drops from the exhaust vent. He reaches out to her, her hand slipping into his as if it hasn't been one hundred days since they last touched. Their eyes lock and without even thinking, his hands span her waist. He lifts her down to the floor and for just a second nothing matters anymore except for the fact that he's holding her again. Like some horrible cliché, time just seems to slow, then stop altogether and all that crap as they lose themselves in each other's gaze, something he chastises himself for greatly later on.
He snaps out of it, but knows he's rambling when he tells her what's happening on the roof and he can't suppress the tingle that runs through him when he trails his fingers beneath her hair and over her ear to relieve her of her headset. Judging by the way Nikita immediately refocuses upon his eyes at his touch, Graham standing only a few feet away all but forgotten, it's the same for her.
The short reprieve from his wayward emotions at seeing her again before they're supposed to meet up at the zoo, lets him refocus on all the anger that has been driving him the last three plus months. Anger that gets lifted to a whole new level, when she doesn't show up at the meeting point.
He's just asked Birkhoff to find her when he hears the APB on the walkie he took from the deputy director and he's on his way tracking her. Again.