For Once

Hey all! So I usually (I say that like I'm a constant writer but... thus far, usually) write Castle Fanfics but I'm currently stuck on mine and it's jut... blech. I needed to write and so. This is what came to mind. It's set about 2 days after the end of season 2 but prior to season 3. Characterization... It's ... I'm not as comfortable with these characters as Castle and Beckett but I did my best. If it's utter crap and totally off, tell me and I'll try to fix it. Time frame too, if it doesn't work, let me know. But yeah. Review if you want to. That'd be cool. Constructive criticism, likes, dislike, whatever, just let me know. Hope you enjoy :)

Thanks,

M

For starters, I do not own Nikita or any of the characters from Nikita. I'm just writing for fun, clean and simple.

XXX

Sean was up and half way down the hall before he was even fully awake, terror searing through his veins as she screamed. He was actually thankful that Michael and Nikita were sleeping at the other end of the safe house and that Birkhoff was still at Division with Fletcher.

"Roan, No! Sean! Nikita! NO!" Alex screamed again as he skidded through her partially opened door.

"Alex, hey, wake up." His hand settled against her cheek and her eyes jolted open, hand snapping up, twisting her arm around his and barring his arm faster than he thought possible.

"Ow! Alex, it's me, Sean. It's okay." he was released faster than she'd grabbed him as she scrambled backwards across the bed, wiping her face and holding her right arm aloft.

"Sorry." She mumbled and he could hear the tremor in her voice, the way she fought the shudder that shook through her anyway.

"Alex..."

"Sean, just... go back to bed. Sorry I kicked your ass half asleep."

"Man, those petrified potatoes just keeps getting thicker, don't they?" He scooted up closer to her and gently took her arm.

"Sean just-"

"Is it out of place again?" his fingers skimmed over her collar bone and down her shoulder gently. Something felt off. She had to fight off a completely different kind of shudder that time.

"I'm fine. It was only ever out of placed when Roan got to it."

"Now that is a flat out lie. I saw you and Nikita the other morning. You almost screamed when she popped it back in."

"I'm fine. It's no big deal. I can handle-" She was cut off when Sean pushed up and twisted her arm. She muffled a shriek in her other hand as her shoulder ground back into socket. After the momentary pain had abated, some of the tension leaked out of her body.

"Now that's better, right?" He brushed a lock of hair out of her face as she turned away from him.

"Thank you," She ground out, rolling her shoulders back.

They were silent for a moment as she twisted her hands together. His fingers were still wrapped around a strand of her hair and his thumb brushed the line of her jaw.

"Sean..."

"What happened, Alex?"

"It's nothing , I'm fine." He heard the fracture in her voice and scooted up closer, leaning against the headboard next to her, and dropping his hand from her cheek, "Come on."

"It was just a stupid dream. Just leave it Sean, it's like three in the morning. You need your rest."

"So do you but apparently that's not going to happen. Tell me about it."

"About what?" She hedged, trying to put it off the break down she could feel coming on. If she could just get him out of here before...

"The dream."

She sighed, "It's nothing. I'm being stupid."

"Alex." Sean ducked his head and waited for her to, achingly slowly, bring her gaze up to meet his. Her blue eyes were clouded with barely suppressed tears. He took a chance and slowly cupped her cheek, brushing his thumb under her brimming eyes, "You are many things. Stupid is rarely one of them."

"Stop." she breathed, "Please just..." her head thudded down on his shoulder and he felt a tear drip over his thumb, "I had a handle on it until you came in here."

"Liar," he murmured, reaching around to pull her into his lap. At a more decent hour, he wouldn't have even attempted this much with her, but, since it was so late (or early. whichever) he thought... maybe, "You were spiraling out from the moment you went to sleep last night."

She stiffened at being in his lap but the steady pulse under her rigid hand and his warmth quickly dissolved any reservations she'd been half-heartedly harboring.

The breath huffed from between Sean's lips as he felt her melt against him, one small hand clenching in his shirt, the other coming to rest against his neck. Not wanting to waste an opportunity to be close to her, comfort her, care for her, he leaned back on further on the bed, stroking one hand through her hair and letting the other thumb stroke over her shirt at her hip, "Hey, shhh."

She shuddered again, "I can't get Roan out of my head. He almost ... There were so many times he could have just killed... I don't think he's really dead. He's still out there and-"

"Hey, nothing is going to happen to you. He's gone. Dead. Fried brains," She choked out a laugh at that but he felt another couple of tears saturate his shirt further, "And even is he is, he is never going to touch you. I'll make sure of that."

"It's not me I'm worried about," She whispered.

"We'll watch Nikita's back too. And you know Michael would rather die than see anything happen to her." He didn't add that he was in the same boat. On pure instinct, his head twisted and he pressed his lips firmly against her forehead.

"They're not the only ones I'm worried about either."

"Ryan and Birkhoff are in Division. They should-"

"You're such an idiot!" She burst out suddenly and he turned in time to have her lips collide with his. Her fingers danced up from his chest to bracket his face, holding him to her. His hands slipped up, cupped the back of her head, fingers knotting in her hair and the side of her shirt. She slid off his lap and they kissed again, feverishly, half laying on her bed.

Sean surprised them both by breaking the kiss first, more than a little short of breath, and noticing, with no small jolt of pleasure, that Alex was in a similar state. Her eyes had fluttered closed , foreheads, knocked together and she was trembling again.

"Alex. You... Don't worry about me. I'll be fire. Roan barely touched me."

"3 inches up and right and he'd have hit your femoral artery. He was aiming for it. I'd say that's pretty close." She pulled her face away from his to watch as her fingers smoothed over his flannel pants where the stitches and gauze covered his injury. He winced slightly but caught her fingers, folded his hand over hers.

"I'm okay though, he missed and he's dead."

"What if he hadn't though? You aren't a Division agent, you didn't need to be there. you don't need to be a part of this anymore."

"Neither do you." He caught her cheek, pressing their foreheads back together, "You can leave. You don't need to be there anymore."

Alex covered his hand with hers, eye slipping shut, "Yes I do. I made a promise with Nikita. I'm with her until Division is dead."

"Do you realized how long that could be now?"

"Yes."

"And how much danger you'll still be in?"

"No more than I was before."

"Alex." He choked on her name. She really had no idea, did she? How much he cared for her. How tight his chest got at the thought of her in harm's way, bullets whizzing past her, chemicals polluting the air around her, knives gleaming in half light, racing to cut out her heart. His feelings were almost overwhelming sometime.

She felt something for him too, to be sure. But she hid it better, masked her terror. It was harder since he'd been shot and her brain was quickly losing the battle against her heart. Nothing soothed her quite like slipping out of bed early, earlier than anyone else rose, to sneak a peek into his room, to see him sprawled over the bed, gloriously shirt less and just breathing. No one needed to know about that, though she suspected Nikita had seen her on more than one occasion.

"Can we not talk about this anymore? I'm tired."

Sean sighed but knew he wouldn't get any further with her tonight, "Yeah. I'll just-" He went to sit up but her fingers tightened in his hand and she stiffened beside him.

"Don't... just." Visions from her dream swam before her eyes again, Sean bleeding out in her arms. No. It was too much. If he left now she'd just fall back into that nightmare and... she just couldn't handle that anymore.

"Do you want me to stay?" He murmured, barely daring the hope. Part of him felt guilty for wanting her to need him, but the rest of him wanted to be close to her too much to really care.

In answer she curled onto her left side and tugged her arm over her waist. A twitch of a smile pulled at his mouth and he curved against her back, hauling her closer into his chest and pressing his lips to her bare shoulder, "I'm right here." It came out on a breath, barely there. The fingers that were wound between his tightened momentarily.

Sean's free hand slipped under the pillow upon which her head rested and dropped his head next to hers.

"I'm right here too," it was quiet enough that he wasn't sure if he heard it, but she was snuggling back into him in a distinctly non-Alex way that he found he loved. Sleep would either evade him or be greater than ever before tonight. He wasn't yet sure which.

XXX

The sun was barely up before Nikita was stirring, trying to detangle Michael's arms from her waist as gently as she could.
"No," he grumbled, pulling her back to his chest and burying his face into her neck, "We're sleeping in today. That's final."

"Michael, let me go," she laughed, pressing a quick kiss to his temple, "I need to go check on Alex. I'll be back right after."

"She a big girl, she can handle herself for a little bit. She better still be sleeping too."

"Michael-"

"And I know you, Kita, as soon as you're up, you'll figure something else you have to do and I'll be left in this big comfy bed by myself."

"You do realize that we're sleeping on 3 extra army cots pushed together since Alex got hurt and we gave her the extra bed?"

"Better than the floor." He muttered, eyes still tightly closed.

"Michael, I really need to-"

"I know, I know. I saw you two the other morning. She really needs to get that shoulder checked out." He opened his eyes finally and released one of his arms from around her waist, sitting up slightly.

"I know. But we both know Alex. She's stubborn. She'll be okay though."

Michael sighed and flopped back on their 'bed' for a moment before hauling himself vertically with a grunt.

"Hey, just because I'm getting up doesn't mean you have to. Who knows, maybe knowing you're in here will be incentive for me to come back." She winked.

Michael grinned and pulled her up for a kiss, "Mmm I'd stay but Sean wanted to work out this morning and I'm guessing if one of them is up the other will be too. Or if he is awake, I'll just tell him to go back to sleep."

"Alright, come on." Nikita rolled nimbly to her feet and caught Michael's hands to haul him up with her.

They ambled across the house, connected only by their fingertips, marveling at the quiet that seemed to envelope the save house when it was devoid of a third of its usual occupants. No smartass comments, gloating, or key clacking from Birkhoff as he cracked codes and tried to discreetly win over Sonia. There were almost no more huge stacks of paper for Flech to be rifling through. The paradigm shift in Division had had a ripple effect throughout their lives... Nothing was ever going to be the same.

They reached Alex's door first, and were surprised to see it was open. Michael slipped his fingers from Nikita's to traipse past it to Sean's room when she caught his hand again.

"Michael," he didn't have to look at her to see the smile slowly spreading across her face. He turned to see what she was beaming at and couldn't help the grin that caught him.

Alex, dark hair fanned out over a pillow, was cuddled up against Sean's chest, an arm thrown protectively over his stomach. Sean's hand covered hers, his free arm bracketing her to his side. Her forehead was pressed against his jaw and they breathed in tandem.

"Looks like they can take care of it for now." Michael muttered.

"At least until Alex wakes up."

"They can figure it out. Can we please go back to bed now?" Michael backed Nikita into a wall and let his lips over just out of reach.

"Michael."

"Kita." he countered, leaning in closer.

"Fine." she rotated her head and pressed their lips together. The kiss grew in intensity and Michael lifted her to carry back across the house. Alex and Sean slept on. For once all was peaceful.