The Whole Problem, a nikita fanfic

The Whole Problem
by misscam

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

Author's Note: Based on a comment from one of the show-runners that there was a gap of about a week between episode 17 and 18. So of course I got to wondering what could have happened in that week. This is the result. Obviously, spoilers for episode 17.

Things will be different, she told him. This isn't yet.

Nikita's fingers in his hair, her hips around his waist, her lips parted and brushing his, the bed underneath her and her underneath him, echoes of another bed, another time, another kiss. He stopped it then.

He won't this time. Percy himself could walk in right now and he wouldn't. Hell, he might even be more inspired by it, knowing how much it would infuriate Percy. Percy, who got his family killed and his whole life with it. Percy, who got Nikita's fiancé killed and her dreams of another life with it. Percy, who would see Nikita dead too, when she is the only thing apart from vengeance that can make Michael feel alive any more. Fighting him or kissing him, though he has to admit the latter holds the edge.

But oh, it's still a fight in a way. Who can rip the other's clothes off the fastest (he's got the edge there, since she is wearing less), who make the other groan with touches even through cloth (she's got the edge there, since she can cup a very good feel), who can kiss the other most thoroughly (a tie), who can be the most impatient (can't be called until they've reached the finishing line).

The impatience has good cause. Five years. Five years of wanting her, being angry at her, missing her, wishing she hadn't complicated his existence, envying her courage to change, wanting.

He wants so much his fingers feel stiff and clumsy, his body aching and he can't seem to kiss her enough. This isn't the time for leisurely exploration. Too much need, too much hurry, too much impatience. But that's all right. That's for next time. (There will be one, he already knows. That, he suspects, was half the problem to begin with – that they both knew it wouldn't be a one-night stand between them.)

He fumbles his leather coat off, Nikita's jumper being trickier to remove since it would involve breaking the kiss to lift it over her head and neither wants to. His shirt is easier, but even so, she only seems to manage to unbutton it before her hands move to the line of his pants. Her pelvis is already grinding a little against him, even more so when he presses a hand against her. Even through the cotton he can feel heat, and the thin layer might as well be skin. Will be skin.

All skin and Nikita and Michael, changing things between them.

Afterwards, they still can't seem to stop kissing, sometimes feather-light, sometimes devouring, sometimes merely holding, as if linking lips rather than linking hands. Kissing, kissing, kissing, until her tongue is pushing into his mouth and he's pushing into her, less urgently this time but no less intently.

Never could be just once, as he knew.

In the morning, he gets dressed without a word, and Nikita merely watches him the way she does, speaking volumes. He just wasn't always willing to listen.

When he's done, he kneels by her bed, kissing the knee she's pulled up to her chest.

"I should go," he says. "Percy is expecting me early this morning. My job sadly isn't planting moles and bringing down the bad guys from a loft."

"It could be," she replies. "It would come with benefits."

Her kiss is soft, and her lips upturned in a smile. He lets himself lean into it, if just for a few seconds.

"I told Percy I was with him," he tells her, unable to keep the scowl out of his voice as he does. She touches his face gently, her palm brushing his cheek.

"We're going to bring him down," she promises, and despite the absurdity of it, given the odds, he believes her.

Division.

It is strange how one revelation can change perception so, tilt the world around on its axis. What once was familiar scaffolding holding his life together, a sort of home, now feels like a tomb.

When Percy talks about the safety of this country, all Michael can see is the graves of his wife and daughter. All he wants to see is Percy's grave too.

One day, he vows. One day he will stand looking down at it, Nikita in hand.

He has to believe that to keep himself from strangling Percy here and now, everything else be damned.

For a moment, when Alex passes him in a hallway, he wants to reach out and halt her. Tell her he knows, have her know about him, have someone in here who doesn't feel an enemy now.

But he lets her pass, knowing she would probably believe it a trap to begin with.

It would be just the sort of thing Amanda would encourage him to try, after all.

When he walks into her loft, Nikita is working out. He can tell she is aware of his presence, but she doesn't hold up. After a moment, he sheds his jacket and joins her, parrying her blows, while she dodges his. She smiles at that, doubling her effort until they're both sweaty and warm and somehow, a planned punch becomes pulling her against his chest instead.

"You certainly haven't lost your touch," she says, looking up at him with bright eyes.

"You've improved yours," he observes, and as if to prove it, she slides her leg between his. He has a moment to enjoy it before she moves and suddenly he is on his back and Nikita is straddling him.

"Yes. I have," she says seriously, and her hair falls around her face as she leans down and kisses him.

Nikita exhales, her fingers digging sharply into his shoulder and her teeth scraping her own bottom lip as her body shudders against his. He merely holds her, both hands steadying her back as her head tilts slightly backwards.

Yes, he thinks faintly, and then he doesn't think much at all for a while.

"I am sorry about Daniel," he tells her sleeping form. "I'm sorry about not following you when you left. I'm sorry about coming to double-cross you. I'm sorry about a lot of things."

Saying sorry doesn't make up for them, he knows. But it is a start. Like she's made.

When he falls asleep as well, he doesn't dream at all, at least nothing he remembers.

In the morning, he kisses her good morning, she kisses him good day, and they both kiss the other goodbye. As if they are a normal couple heading off to their respective jobs, and he isn't in an organization that has her death as a stated goal and she isn't a rogue who has death of his boss as an oath of office.

Normal is what you make of it, and he still isn't sure what to make of this.

"You haven't asked about any possible new intel on Nikita," Birkhoff observes as the two watch security footage on the screen.

"So?"

"You always ask. You haven't gone to Amanda and gotten some sort of Nikita-patch, have you?"

"I am not addicted to Nikita."

"Of course not," Birkhoff says, giving him a look. "You certainly don't talk about her constantly, take everything she does personally and have her conveniently slip through your fingers every time you come near her."

Held onto her pretty well last night, Michael doesn't say. He merely gives a pointed look, making Birkhoff roll his eyes.

"Just don't let Percy see that look," Birkhoff says, and Michael wonders if that's a warning or friendly advice.

"I shouldn't keep coming here," he tells her, but Nikita merely kisses him again, as she's kept doing ever since he's walked into the door, pushing him down on her bed as they reach it.

"You should definitely keep coming," she says, tearing her top off in one smooth motion. "And make me, too."

So he does.

"Good day at work?" Nikita asks. They've curled up in bed, her head on his shoulder, her breasts still naked against his side.

"I didn't kill anyone."

"Bet that disappointed Percy."

"I have high hopes to disappoint Percy frequently," he says, unable to keep some of the bitterness from his voice. "I've been a disappointment to him a lot lately. My inability to kill you, for one."

"Why does he send you every time?" she asks, looking serious. "I've been expecting cleaners the last few times."

"He doesn't just want you dead," he says. "He wants me to do it. To defeat you twice. Amanda's pet theory about it."

"Amanda told you a pet theory of hers?"

"No." When she raises an eyebrow at that, he continues. "I have eyes and ears everywhere."

"You mean, you accidentally overheard it?"

"Maybe."

"Definitely," she says, and it annoys him greatly that she is right. At least until she smiles, and then he's just annoyed her smile can make him forget being annoyed at her.

All too easy to forget with her, and he lets himself do so.

He wakes before she does, her arms around him even as she sleeps. His own have come to rest on her hip, and he traces the bone of it through skin with a thumb. Moving upwards, he feels the edges of her ribs, remembering one mission she returned from with a broken rib.

It was the first time he realised he was slightly too invested in her staying safe. That hasn't changed. Not even when she was the opposition (not the enemy, never the enemy). He can't even remember what it felt like not wanting her safe, wanting her happy, just wanting her.

He lifts his hand even higher, cupping her breast as she opens her eyes.

"Hi," she says softly.

"Hi," he echoes, tilting his head and she lifts hers, their noses brushing briefly before their lips do. It feels strangely more intimate than all the sex they've had. Sex can just be lust, after all. This... This is the whole problem.

All heart and Michael and Nikita, what's always been between them.

When he pulls back, she doesn't let him, her arms around his neck and her lips finding his again, kissing him as if she can't quite stop.

Things will be different, she told him.

She is wrong.

They've been this way a long time already.

FIN