A/N: Hey! Well. After the AMAZING INCREDIBLE EPICNESS that was Wrath, I had no choice but to write a follow up Salex scene for the end after the AWESOME BRILLIANT CUTENESS OVERLOAD cemetery scene.

Mikita. Salex. Future talk. Hand holding. Birkhoff being awesome... AHH! SO many emotions!

DISCLAIMER: No, I don't own Nikita. Otherwise there would be a confirmation for season 3. -.-

Alex let the door close behind with a small bang, letting out a huge sigh that she didn't realise she'd been holding. The safe house was deadly quiet. Not suspiciously quiet. Just...everyone had been through hell and just needed some time alone type of quiet. Alex slipped her coat off her arms, discarding it, along with her hat onto the bench by the staircase, descending the stairs slowly before flopping down on the couch in the main room. Her body felt sluggish and heavy. God – she just needed at least 24 hours to sleep. A shuffle from the hallway snapped her into action and instinctively, Alex had grabbed the gun from the table having it poised at the person approaching her.

'Holy crap, Alex it's me!' Birkhoff yelped, nearly dropping his laptop.

'Sorry, sorry!' Alex murmured. 'Tiring day.'

'Yeah...I know,' Birkhoff said, trudging over to his table of computers, detaching himself from everything else with his headphones and beer. Alex just went back to lying on the couch, her head resting on one of her palms as her fingers absent mindedly played with the curls of her hair. A feeling...scarily close to home...had hit her. She could remember clearly the day when she woke up the morning after the Pale Fire mission, realising (or rather, thinking) that both her parents were dead. That her mother...the one she loved and laughed with and always took for granted...was gone. Alex remembered sliding down the wall of the room she was in, silent sobs racking her body as she curled up in a ball and cried her eyes out for hours. She knew exactly how Sean felt. She was just lucky...her mother had turned out to still be alive. Without really thinking, Alex produced her phone from her pocket and typed in a text to Sean.

Hey. Where are you now? Are you ok?

She glanced at the screen for a moment...hesitating on whether to send it but hit send before she could properly decide. She got a reply back almost instantly.

Hey he'd written. I'm...well...wandering. Trying to process the day's events.

Alex let a small, slightly sad smile cross her face. Feel free to come crash the beach house. It's a pretty dismal party anyway.

Another quick reply said I might just take you up on that. Except seeing as it's a dismal party, I don't think my depressing persona at the moment is gonna help. You wanna catch some burgers at that café down the beach road?

Alex attempted to ignore the leap of her heart at his words. Uh...yes she wanted to! But no, she didn't want to sound like some eager little teenager being asked on a date by her first crush. Although that's kind of how she felt. Wait. Did that mean she liked Sean?

'You gonna answer that text or just stare at the screen all day?' Birkhoff called and Alex pursed her lips. 'Shut up,' she muttered.

'Ah, so it's Sean,' Birkhoff smirked knowingly.

'Is not!' Alex lied, glad Birkhoff couldn't actually see her face properly as it was going bright red.

'Whatever you say,' Birkhoff said with a chuckle, pulling his headphones back on and returning to his computer screen.

Sure Alex typed into her phone. I'll meet you down at the beach(:

~~[[[]]]~~

Kicking the sand by the water, Alex was startled for the third time in the last ten minutes by Sean's voice cutting through the sharp, icy wind.

'Hey,' he said, relieving Alex with one of the smiles she had sorely missed since the news of his mother.

'Hey!' she said, almost cursing herself at how happy she sounded. 'Hell, it's freezing out here.'

'I'd say, the weather's gone awol,' Sean agreed. He cocked his head, furrowing his brow as his eyes swept her up and down.

'W...what?' she asked slowly.

'Nothing,' Sean said with a grin. 'It's just...in the middle of everything that goes on, missions and kicking ass and Division crap...how the hell do you and Nikita still manage to get top of the line clothing and find the time to still put on makeup?'

Alex laughed, shaking back hair from over her shoulders. 'It's like Nikita once said to me,' she smiled as they started walking down the beach. 'If a girl's gonna kick ass...she should at least feel good while she does it and you've gotta look good to feel good.' Her face softened slightly. 'It was just after she got me clean but before...' She stopped abruptly, realising she didn't need this to add to the pity party. That – and she hadn't told anyone about what had happened leading up to her agreement to work with Nikita.

'Before what?' asked Sean quietly. His voice was gentle and they were walking so close, their arms were constantly brushing against each other. Alex shook her head, the curls of her hair falling back onto her shoulders. 'Doesn't matter,' she mumbled but Sean nudged her gently with his elbow, his chocolate-y brown eyes meeting her blue ones. 'If it was ever the time to spout out things that aren't exactly small talk...or things your not proud of, now's probably the perfect time.'

Alex let out a weak chuckle. 'I guess.'

'So what were you gonna say?' Sean asked. Alex sighed heavily, averting his eyes as they continued walking. 'It was just after Nikita had got me clean but before...before I tried to OD.'

'You what?' Sean exclaimed, obviously not expecting anything close to what she had just said. Alex stared hard down at the ground, chewing hard on her bottom lip. 'Yeah...' she said, her voice barely a whisper. 'Not really something I'm incredibly proud of.'

'What happened?' Sean asked and they started walking again. 'You know. After you tried...'

'Nikita found me in time,' Alex said in assurance. She grimaced. 'She uh...mixed a mug of water with dishwashing liquid and poured it down my throat.'

'Lovely,' Sean said through his teeth. 'You know, I could never think of you as a junkie. Or even having once been a junkie...or a sex worker. You're just so strong, now.'

Alex glanced away with a smile. 'Well, thank Nikita and Michael. From inside and outside of Division, they've both trained me and that's how I got here.'

Sean laughed. 'Remind me to send my regards.' He gave her a small push forwards. 'There's the beach café.'

'Burgers or nachos?'

Sean grinned, his eyes twinkling. 'Both?'

'Duh!'

~~[[[]]]~~

'You're kidding me.'

'Nope.'

'Are you telling me that a Navy Seal knows every line of Maid in Manhattan because he watched it with his sister?'

'Yep.' Sean dunked a nacho in sauce, rolling his eyes at Alex's obvious incredulity to his confession.

'Okay, I am so holding you to that!' Alex decided. 'I'll get Birkhoff to get a hold of the movie and I'm going to test you on your lines.'

'Oh God – it's been almost four years. You cannot expect me to still remember!'

Alex hesitated. 'Why four years?' she asked, scratching her nail into the wood of the café table. Sean grit his teeth. 'That was when I joined Oversight.'

'Ah. Do your sisters know anything about it?' She genuinely was curious about his sisters' role in everything. They'd been at the funeral...and one of them had been extremely young – younger than Alex.

'Nothing whatsoever,' Sean said. 'Mom made sure to never involve them. She didn't want to involve me but I was volunteered by another member of Oversight which didn't give my mother a choice. Apparently, seeing as I was a Navy Seal, I had sufficient training etc for me to be the perfect new member.'

'You didn't have a choice?' Alex said in surprise. She'd expected that he'd willingly joined Oversight...even if it was just to protect his mother and family; she hadn't realised it had been about as voluntary for him as it was for recruits of Division.

'Sounding more and more like Division, huh?' Sean murmured. Alex nodded. Sean frowned a bit. 'Hey, do you know what's the situation with the recruits inside Division? Because they're not being trained anymore...and you don't see them being activated for any missions. Do you think Amanda...you know...?'

'Killed them?' Alex finished grimly. 'No, I doubt it. I think they're still there, in the silo. Just during the period Amanda was in charge, nothing was happening. I think Percy will reinstate the recruits programme once he gets Division back on track, God forbid.'

'He did manage to get his hands on the plutonium,' Sean muttered. 'Oh hell.'

Alex's answer was interrupted by her phone, vibrating in her pocket. She reached out to get it, tapping the screen to view the message received.

Nikita - Birkhoff says you're with Sean.;) Confirm it so we know you're ok.

Alex narrowed her eyes. She was gonna kill Birkhoff. Quickly, she typed in her reply.

Yep - we're at the beach café. And shut up -.-

'Nikita?' Sean guessed.

'Yeah, just checking in,' Alex explained. 'After today...with sudden disappearing slash kidnapping acts going on, we can't be too careful.'

'No kidding,' Sean agreed. He swallowed. 'Alex...thanks. For being there today. It means a lot.'

'I owed you for getting my mother to safety,' Alex smiled with a shrug. 'And there's the fact that you were my bodyguard in Russia so don't thank me just yet. I still owe you one.'

'We'll think of something.' Sean reused his words to her in Russia, sparking a twinkle in her eyes.

'And while we've just mentioned sisters...' Sean said, producing his ringing phone. He hit answer, pressing it to his ear. 'Hey Jen...' His nose wrinkled in confusion. 'Jesse? What the hell are you doing there?'

Alex rested her head on her knuckles, left to wonder who Jesse was.

'What?' Sean choked out, the kind of alarm in his voice that made Alex sit up straight and pull out the cash from her pocket, preparing to leave. Sean glanced up at her, nodding and they both pushed their chairs in, hurrying out of the café as Sean kept talking on the phone.

'Look, of course she's run away because she's upset,' Sean hissed into the phone, 'but find her! She's sixteen!' He slammed his thumb down on the end call button, letting out a long chain of swear words, kicking the a stone into the water.

'Youngest sister, run away?' Alex went for after the conversation she'd overheard.

'Bulls eye,' Sean growled. 'I know she's upset about the fact that Mom is dead but she also knows that she's in danger! Even if she hasn't been told the truth that Brandt was the one who killed Mom, Meg should at least figure that with anti government terrorists killing U.S. senators, she should stay in a safe place!'

'But in actual fact, she is safe, Sean,' Alex reminded, grabbing his arm to slow him down. 'Hey. Right now, you're an overprotective brother and you've all just lost your mom. Calm down. Come back to the beach house, Birkhoff can see what he can do to try and find your sister and we'll get her back home safely.'

Sean let out a shaky breath. 'Yeah. You're right. Oh my God...what's going on with me? Usually I'm the calm one!'

'Well. Events change people and can start a chain reaction with one single decision so don't do anything rash.'

'Nikita tell you that?' Sean asked.

'I inferred,' Alex clarified. 'With Daniel's death, she went rogue and now look where everyone is. You, Birkhoff, Owen and Michael have all swapped sides, Ryan's working against the CIA...in hiding, I'm no longer a junkie, my mom's alive, Semak's dead, I've cashed out the Udinov fortune and Amanda and Ari are both on the run. How's that for a turn in events?'

'Well, when you put it like that,' Sean said, whistling in awe. There was a small silence between them and the only noise was the howling of the sea wind and the waves lapping onto the sand.

'Sean...' Alex began but the rest of her words got completely lost as Sean turned to face her, his lips crashing down onto hers. For a moment...everything went completely blank and the only thing that would register in Alex's mind was the glaringly obvious fact that

Sean Pierce was kissing her.

And then without a second thought, her arms came locking around his neck and she kissed him back as if her life depended on it. His hands came to rest on her waist and all she could think back to was the minute when the car bomb had gone off... the terror that filled her at the possibility that he could be dead...

He broke away, his eyes meeting hers.

It was insane...

This could not just have happened...

Both of them burst out laughing. He pulled her into a hug and she clung to him tightly, the smile unable to erase itself off her face.

'Oh man, Birkhoff's gonna be saying I told you so forever, now,' Alex groaned, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

'Why?' Sean asked, pulling back so that he could see her.

'Because...' Alex grinned in slight embarrassment. '...I was blushing when you texted me and Birkhoff guessed it was from you...'

'Blushing, huh?' Sean smirked in amusement, earning an elbow in the stomach.

'I don't think you owe me anything anymore,' he said, entwining their gloved fingers as they headed back to the beach house. 'You never really did.'

'Cheesy,' Alex accused but she was fighting the overwhelming smile on her face. Sean shrugged, grinning. 'Romantic can often me mistaken for cheesy. I can live with that.'

'No – that was just cheesy,' Alex insisted, letting out a shriek of shock when Sean wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her up.

'You son of a – Sean, put me down!' Alex squealed, her eyes filled with happiness. She hadn't had fun like this since before Nikita had inserted her into Division.

'Magic words?' Sean teased.

'I'm guessing it's not please,' Alex said with a wry smile.

'I may be cheesy...but I'm not entirely cliched,' Sean said defensively. Alex rolled her eyes, hooking her legs around his waist. She gently tickled the back of his neck with her fingers, making the corners of his mouth tug upwards.

'I love you?' Alex guessed, her lips inches from his. His eyes flickered with about a million emotions before he pulled her downwards carefully to meet her lips again. Alex knew that now that Percy had the plutonium, things were going to literally blow up in their faces for a while and there was still the matter of finding Sean's sister and bringing down Division on the whole.

But it's like one of the other, many things Nikita had told her.

Things might've been difficult...well, difficult was an understatement. They might be kick-ass spies trying to take down a rogue black ops agency...but they were still human. They couldn't forget to live, too. And just before Nikita and Alex had left for the mission that sent Alex into Division's arms, Nikita had told the young girl that if she ever wanted to back out or step back to the sidelines and pretend to have a normal life, she could. She was still a teen.

Her father's words echoed in her head as Sean let her down, pulling her close as they headed back to the beach house.

'Although at times, the things that happen may seem unfair and overwhelming but eventually, you'll see that life never throws you more than you can handle. Whatever's meant to be will work out.'

Alex chuckled quietly. The people she loved had given her enough advice for her to lead the best life she could have.

Yeah... Division was definitely going to be stopped. That life was waiting for her and she was planning on making the most of it.

A/N: Was Wrath amazing or WHAT? Seriously, if Nikita doesn't get renewed, I'm gonna crawl up in a ball and cry for the rest of my life.

But as for this! You know what to do! Read and review!