Nikita had cried alone the first night she returned home, curled up in the big empty bed that had been so recently theirs.
Even after three days of advice and even gentle pleading, he still would not leave medical. She wished with all her heart that he would just simply come home, come back to her, but there was a new pain behind his eyes, something that she could not mend no matter how hard she should try.
They had been through so much. They had damn near killed each other so many times, and yet she had never given up hope, not like now. There had always been a reason to get up in the morning, whether it was a memory of a warm body next to hers or a sleepy Michael nestled underneath her in the golden glow of morning.
He was angry, naturally. She had heard of it and seen it a thousand times before. Life with a permanent injury was a massive, painful, embarrassing endeavor, something that he would need all the support he could muster to muddle through. And yet, he had always preferred to bear his own burdens, whether their guns had been aimed at each other or not.
She tossed and turned, eventually giving up sleep as a hopeless endeavor.
The house had never seemed so cold as she curled up in the armchair around a big mug of tea. The furniture had been pieced together from the surprisingly well-stocked Division storehouse and the out-of-the-way video camera free furniture store she had found a few months ago, when they were first moving into this place.
After a time, she ended up wandering aimlessly through the small-ish space, bare feet padding on the smooth floor. It was quiet. Her tears had already dried on her cheeks or been furiously wiped away. She glanced down at the ring on her finger, glinting at her with a heartless sort of irony.
Standing barefoot and pajama clad in her kitchen, alone at one in the morning, she came to a decision. There would be no more tears. She had been strong before, so many, many times, even if all she had felt like doing was falling down and sobbing. There would be no respite from this hollowness until he was back, filling all the cracks in her life that had formed over the years.
She would not abandon him, she would not leave him alone in this. The ring on her finger was a promise of things yet unfulfilled, and she would not let those promises go unfulfilled. She was his and he was hers, and whether he liked it or not, they needed to talk about this.
But to help him, he would have to let her in. He had already lost more than any person should have ever have to in his life, he had always been strong. It was natural that he should struggle with it now.
Whatever happened in these next few days and weeks, she would not give up. She would hold steadfast.
She straightened her shoulders, placed her empty mug of tea in the sink, and padded back up to bed.
And if an extra tear leaked its way out as she lay there before drifting off into convoluted dreams, then who was to blame her?
Welp. That was short. And sad.
That episode, man.