The first thing he does after months of captivity is bury a body.
It wasn't really on his bucket list of things to do (if) when he got out, first from jail, and then from Division, but if there is one thing he's learned in this past year it's that things rarely ever go the way you expect them to.
He and Michael wrap the body up in white plastic sheeting and spend the afternoon digging a hole big enough for it. When the sun sets and darkness falls upon the safe house, they carry Carla out together and all four of them give their final respects to the woman who betrayed them.
Birkhoff is the first to leave, kicking up sand as he hightails it back to the beach house and Nikita follows quickly behind him. Michael hesitates, as though it pains him to watch them go, but continues to shovel sand and dirt back over the body.
"I've got this." Ryan says quietly. "You go inside."
"It'll take you too long." Michael says, and shakes his head.
Ryan shrugs. "More time for me to relish the fresh air. They need more help than I do right now."
"Thanks man." Michael thrusts his shovel down into the sand, where it sticks up in place, and claps Ryan on the back. "I appreciate it."
"No problem." He says, and watches Michael walk away, towards the people who'll need him more.
Birkhoff puts up a good front and tries to not let it show how much he's affected by the events of the night, but Nikita sees straight through it and sends him to bed with sleeping pills. He takes them without a fuss, which is good, because she doesn't really want to lace his red bull with them but she will if she has to.
Once he's down for the night, she returns to the living space and surveys the damage. The computer bays are destroyed, glass and chipped marble everywhere. Then there is the blood stain in the corner.
She tries not to look at that.
Nikita starts at the beginning. She finds the broom and sweeps up the glass and marble. When the floors are tidy she hefts the destroyed computers out to the garage, though she's careful to extract the hard drives before she tosses the rest- maybe when Birkhoff is awake and up to it he'll be able to retrieve some of the data. Michael returns from outside as she's unscrewing the last of the drives from its casing, but before he has a chance to help her finish up (she'd been desperately hoping he'd volunteer to mop up the blood) his phone rings and he excuses himself to take a call from the Boy Scout; he and Alex are returning home sooner than expected. They have news.
Soon enough the living room is clean of debris, and there is only the blood in the corner left to go. Nikita fills a bucket with hot water and bleach, and fetches a fresh pair of rubber gloves and a scouring brush from beneath the sink. She stands above the stain with the bucket and the scouring brush held in each hand and ponders the stain.
She sees the stain, and she sees the bloody mess she'd left on the floor of Carla's apartment when she'd killed that cop. She sees the stain, and she sees the vomit and the mess she'd made after one of her benders, and how carefully and kindly Carla had cared for her afterwards.
She hears the screen door open and close, and she glances up to see Ryan shuffling in from inside. Their eyes meet for a brief second, his are red rimmed, and it is like a jolt to her system. She kneels down on the rough stone floor, dips her brush into the hot, bleachy water then begins scrubbing viciously at the drying blood pools, the messy hand-prints, the smears, the memories and her heartbreak at being betrayed again.
When will she catch a break? Who will be next?
They leave Russia earlier than expected, leaving the camera crew and Ari Taserov and Sergei Semak and her mother and Zetrov, and everything behind, for now.
They have the Gulfstream to themselves since it belongs to Sean's family anyway. Alex suspects the camera crew will be a little miffed at being left in the mansion without a wide-eyed, eager Alexandra Udinov to follow around, but she can't find it in her heart to care too much. Instead she stares at the photograph of Cassandra and her mind spins out trying to connect all the dots in their tangled web. Cassandra and Michael have a child, but Michael and Nikita love each other and have done for years. Nikita saved her and helped her become a powerful, strong, independent woman again, but she was the one who killed her beloved father. But Semak was the real culprit, who is protected he is protected by Taserov. Taserov who is working with Amanda, the woman who is helping Alex reclaim her rightful place. But Alex doesn't believe for a second that Amanda is ignorant of Cassandra, and the power she holds over Michael and Nikita...
"Stop it." Sean's soft voice commands from the seat opposite. She looks up at him, reclining in his seat with his eyes closed. If he hadn't just spoken, she could easily believe he was asleep. "Stop thinking about it."
"I can't." Alex insists, gesturing to the glowing laptop screen with its glaring truths. "How did we not see this?"
"We can't see everything." Sean insists. "We can't know everything. But you know what I do know? We're on the better side, Michael, Nikita, Birkhoff, You- you're all the best at what you do, you'll figure out a way to get past this and come out stronger on the other side."
But Alex can't see it. All she can see is how this will drive another wedge into their little family. She's not sure how much longer they can weather it before they break apart for good.
He doesn't take the pills Nikki forced on him.
He drinks, instead.
He finds most of a bottle of tequila in a cabinet in his room, one he squirrelled away while he recovered from surgery. Nikki didn't want him drinking then, and he knows she doesn't want him drinking now, but he trusts the numbness alcohol brings more than the dull void of a sleeping pill. He knows it's not healthy, he knows he shouldn't. His mother used to drink like this too, and he's smart enough and educated enough to have read all the stats, about alcoholism and genetics.
But frankly right now he doesn't care. He knocks back half the bottle in less than half an hour, and the warmth that spreads through his chest and down to his fingers and toes, and he thinks to himself how he can't feel the pain in his hand anymore. Instead it's an almost tingly, pleasant feeling. It went away so easily.
He takes another swig from the bottle and stares at his hand. It's speckled with healing scars, and one of the knuckles is swollen, and he thinks it's amazing that he was able to hold a gun steady with this hand anyway. Hehehe, maybe all the pins he has in there it means he's just that much more badass and with badassness comes sweet ass gun skillz.
He chuckles to himself out loud. Sweet gun skillz. Yeah, watch out Terminator. He'll be back.
He leans back on the bed, embracing the dizzy spell that rolls over him from one side to the other and stares at the sloped ceiling. This is the master bedroom and he is the master. He should've known he'd ascend to this level of badassery sooner rather than later, he is the ShadowWalker after all. It's in his blood. He takes his once broken hand and makes a gun with his fingers and takes aim at a crack in the ceiling.
But he falters. There is blood on his hands still, drying brown stuff caked beneath his fingernails. He rolls out of bed and stumbles back into his ensuite to scrub his hands again, but his fingers falter with the faucet, he twists it hard, but no water comes out the nozzle until it occurs to him dumbly that he's been twisting twists the other way, and that he's only made it harder for himself.
He pauses, and glances up at himself in the mirror, and is shocked and surprised to see the tears there on his face again. When had he started crying? Or hadn't he ever stopped? He furiously rubs them away from his eyes, but it only makes him feel worse. All he is is tears and blood and tequila and nothing will ever be right again.
Nothing.
Michael is on his way to his room when he hears sobbing coming from Birkhoff's room. Ryan is still outside, burying Carla, and Nikita is downstairs furiously cleaning, so he knows it is up to him to pick up the pieces here.
He finds the man sitting on the floor, reeking of too much tequila, and Michael mentally kicks himself for not keeping a closer eye on the man. They've known each other for years, and if he knows anything about Birkhoff its that he has very little regard for his own personal well-being in the stressful times.
But now is not the time to berate. He hoists the broken man up by the armpits, and goads him back to bed. When Birkhoff is safely tucked in, and when Michael has forced a big glass of water down his gullet, he shuts off the lights, takes the empty bottle of tequila with him as he leaves and bumps into Nikita as he turns down the hall.
"Sorry." He mutters, but NIkita doesn't seem to care. Her eyes are on the empty bottle in his hands.
"Is he alright?" She asks quietly, and she reaches out a hand to finger the rim of the bottle lightly.
Michael shrugs, "Not yet." He says, and hands the bottle to her. "I think he decided to self-medicate."
"Oh, Birkhoff." She says, and he can hear the heartbreak in her tone, the concern, the guilt. She steps forward to open his door, but Michael puts himself in between, gently grabbing her hand.
"He's sleeping. He'll be fine for now." He says.
"But..."
He shakes his head, "Just give him time. We can be there for him tomorrow."
He watches anguish flit across her face, and he wants nothing more than to reach out and pull her to him in a crushing embrace, to hold her and never let go, to protect her from the heartbreak he knows she's feeling now, over the death of her mother, over Birkhoff's pain, but he knows he can't right now, not when they haven't worked through their own problems.
So he changes the topic. "Alex has news for us. We should get some sleep, she said she'd call in the morning, when they've landed."
"Did she say what it was about?"
"No." He admits, "But I didn't ask. Whatever it is, we can deal with it tomorrow."
"Yeah." She says, and sighs. "Tomorrow."
A/N: Thank you for reading, and for everyone who left reviews on Cuts Both Ways. I'm working on Part 4 right now, but I started this last week after I watched 2.16 and had to finish it before I could continue on. Poor Birkhoff. Poor Nikki. :(
Reviews are wonderful!