Michael has always been too comfortable in the place where black and white blend together until you don't know which is which. He's always known that things must be done for the end goal. He lives in the gray areas. It's what made him a good soldier for Percy, for Division.
The rain has been dripping for days now, running down the cracked panes of the grimy warehouse windows, muffling the sounds from the street below, making the entire world feel damp and gray. Michael shivers a little but doesn't move from the chair he's perched on, gazing out at the lights of the city but seeing none of it.
"Michael."
Alex crouches next to him, her hair pulled back, a thick wool hat on her head. She's wearing two sweaters, fingerless gloves, and he can still see the goosebumps on her exposed skin. Her breath fogs up and she's cradling a mug in her hands. It steams into the cold air. She looks at him, dark circles ringing her eyes, saying nothing, just watching, and he sees that has the same worried look that everyone else has around him. They watch him and wait, looking for the cracks to start to show, waiting for the grief to come pouring through. Her skin is pale, almost translucent and he wonders when she slept last.
"I thought this might warm you up."
She's talking about the tea in her hand, and he can smell peppermint in the air. It's a gift, an attempt to bridge to wherever he goes when he sits and stares out the window, trying to make sure everything is okay. Nothing is okay, but he'll never tell her that. He is always the soldier. Always the professional.
"I'm not cold."
He doesn't really mean to be so short with Alex. He sees a brief look of hurt cross her face that she quickly pushes down, replacing it with a blank look that says she doesn't care. She's so much like Nikita with that vulnerability that can't be destroyed, that ability to feel that won't die no matter what they do to kill it. He doesn't mean to hurt her.
He can tell Alex wants to say something but doesn't. She wants to reach a hand out and touch his shoulder to remind him that he's not alone, but her hands stay wrapped around the mug. Because she knows that he'll flinch and push her hand away. Michael doesn't do vulnerable. At least not until Nikita, and now that she's gone, so is everything she made him into.
Everyone wants to say something but doesn't. Birkhoff wants to ask how he's doing. Ryan wants to tell him it'll be okay. Alex wants to tell him that Nikita will be back, that she loves him, that she did what she had to do. They all want to heal the wounds they think he has. He needs everyone to move past this. To move past her.
Michael lives in the gray areas.
He dreams of emptying his gun into her, watching her body jolt with every shot, of making her pay, yet he can't breathe the moment he pictures her face, his fingers can still feel her skin under them. He lives with the dichotomy of loving someone and hating them at the same time. Those are the gray areas.
Nikita doesn't have gray areas.
She made him believe in black and white. That there are some absolutes in this world, and the one he could count on was the fact that she loved him. Then she walked away.
They've been in this warehouse for two months now, keeping a low profile, altering their appearances every time they leave. They are "persons of interest", their faces splashed all over the news, newfound notoriety a parting gift from Amanda. Maybe the world will forget the faces that might have helped kill the president. Maybe not. They can't take the risk.
Alex looks tired, and he hears her calling out Sean's name those rare times she sleeps. She says she's okay but Michael sees her jump at the shadows. He sees the way her hands shake.
Ryan has started a board with all the information they know about what Amanda's next move could be. They don't have the wall of monitors that Division had so he's relied on corkboards they've found in the dumpsters, covered them with push pins and papers, strings connecting what they know about The Group. He spends all day staring at it, moving things around, trying to figure his way out of this mess they've been placed in, muttering to himself, biting at his fingers. Michael isn't sure he sleeps.
Burkoff hunches over a computer that Michael doesn't ever ask how he got. He and Alex showed up one morning with it in tow, Birkhoff declaring that it would have to do. He spends all night working on something, maybe the resurrection of Shadownet, maybe something else. There's a ratty wool scarf wrapped around his neck and he's stopped complaining about the cold. Sometimes in the middle of the night he'll tell Michael that he misses her. Misses being called 'nerd'. Misses the old days.
Sonya looks afraid. She's never been in the field before now, not like this, and Michael can tell that Birkhoff spends a lot of time comforting her. She still puts on a brave face.
Michael keeps busy, helping Ryan, talking tactics, looking at what Burkoff comes up with. He goes with Alex to score provisions. He tells everyone that it's just a matter of time before this is done, before Amanda slips up and they catch up with her. The soldier. The professional. He says all the right things but no matter what, their eyes follow him, wait for him to break. The rest of the time he sits, staring through the grime covered windows, watching the water drip down the walls, trying to keep her out of his head.
They found the warehouse pretty quickly, chasing out the rodents and stealing electricity from a nearby powerline. Their new base of operations, a far cry from the sophistication of Division's underground bunker that had been enveloped in flames. It was in a part of town that no one cared about except those who had something to hide, near the river that flowed deep and dark, full of industrial waste dumped decades ago, before people knew that there were consequences to treating the environment like it was there for you to destroy.
It was the river that took her ring.
Michael stood on its edge, staring at the rusting hulk of a truck that had been left in its waters. Her ring was in his hand, cutting into his palm, and he wished he could ask her why. Why did she walk away when all anyone wanted to do was help her. He will never ask her because he knows why. He knows Nikita better than he knows himself. He always has.
Nikita lives in a world of black and white.
She left because she wanted to keep them safe. Because as long as she was with them, they would all be in danger. She made the deepest cut because it was what she thought she had to do. He knows this so there's nothing left to ask. She knew there would be pain with the cut. She knew there would be blood. She did it anyway. Nikita. He knew she did it because she cares and she did it because she's selfish, because she can see only one way. If she leaves, they are safe. She was wrong.
Nikita the Martyr, never wrong. Always working for what she thinks is right.
Michael stood at the edge of the river that day, her voice in his head, telling him she loved him, telling him she would marry him and stay with him forever. Telling him they could have a life, like the life he lost all those years ago when his wife and daughter were blown to bits in front of him. Michael closed his eyes and his jaw clenched because he could almost feel her and that was what he wanted more than anything. To feel her again. Then he opened them and tried to let her go again. They would never be what he had thought. With a swift motion he threw her ring into the murky waters, watched it glint as it sunk into the darkness. He stood there until it was dark, staring, then he turned and walked back to the warehouse. Maybe this time he would finally be rid of her ghost, but he knew she would be back in his dreams that night.
During the day they don't move much, keeping quiet so no one will hear them. At night they keep the lights off, not wanting to attract attention. Everything is veiled in gray, lacking color, and sometimes it feels like they might suffocate from the sheer dreariness of it all.
"Michael."
He looks up at the sound of his name and sees that Alex has gone and the mug is sitting on the ground next to the chair, cold and untouched. He doesn't move, doesn't turn around. Michael doesn't want anyone to disturb his revery.
"MICHAEL."
It's Birkhoff. He's peering around the screen and looking at Michael with his eyes wide. Michael almost knows what he's going to say before it comes out of his mouth.
"She's surfaced."
Nikita.
Alex rushes over to the computer and leans over Birkhoff's shoulder, staring at the screen. Michael sees her lips moving as she reads whatever Birkhoff has found. He stands up from his chair, his muscles sore from remaining in one position for so long. He stands, not moving, just watching. Ryan moves from his board and stands next to Alex and Birkhoff.
"Holy shit." Ryan mutters.
Michael finally decides to walk over to the computer. Nikita is a highly trained operative that could take out any military trained special forces personnel. She can survive on nothing for extended periods of time. She's skilled at not being found, and she's not careless or sloppy. If she's surfaced it means one of two things. Either she wants to be found, or…
Michael feels his breath hitch and he stumbles a little as he walks towards the monitor. No one is looking at him.
She wants to be found or she's…
He can almost feel her again, the way she holds herself close to him but never close enough to touch, the way his skin vibrates when she's near him. It's always been that way with her, from the moment they brought her kicking and screaming into Division, not much more than a wild animal, dirty and strung out on the drugs they had given her. He had always been strangely tuned into her.
She wants to be found or she's…
...dead.
Nikita.
Her name is on his lips and everything feels sharp and jagged. Finally he finds the words.
"Is she…"
Alex looks up and he must be entirely ripped open because a look of shock passes over her face, and she knows what he's been thinking because the next thing out of her mouth leaves Michael almost shaking, and he hadn't realized how much tension he'd been holding as it rushed out of him, and it takes everything in him, every last bit of strength to remain standing, to act like the very idea of losing Nikita wouldn't destroy him. He might live in the gray areas but his love for her was entirely black and white. The only absolute Michael would ever know in his life.
"No," Alex gasps. "No, she's not dead. Not yet. But she needs our help."
TBC