Off-Label Uses for the Gelman Process

(Do Not Try This at Home)

Part Two: Idiotic Plastic Badges

On days when she's so inclined, Madeline finds trips to The Tower to be relaxing, an excellent way to relieve tension, and, on occasion, the best way to force Paul to relax for five minutes, when his stress levels get so high that his decisions start creeping past unreasonable and bordering on irrational (though she'll never tell him this, as it would probably only inspire him to act irrational more frequently).

To be honest, she's not often so inclined. It became apparent to her years ago that her personal satisfaction depends, to a great extent, on her ability to bend the chaos of daily life entirely to her will. It's not a trait she's particularly proud of—she generally tries not to admit that her moods are dependent on anything other than the requirements of the moment—but she's far too self-aware to ignore or completely deny the truth.

Today is one of those days when she needs a distraction. Things have been calm—almost too calm—but there's an undercurrent of suspicion in everything. Well, more so than there normally is, anyway. It's just another layer of frustration to deal with on top of George and his frustrating cameras. If Nikita is passing information to Center, then Madeline and Paul need to, accordingly, monitor what information she's made privy to more carefully. It's irritating, the added and utterly unnecessary trouble it all causes. Sometimes she thinks that if Oversight, Center, and Nikita would just let her and Paul get on with the business of keeping the world from falling apart, her life would be much easier—but then, it'd also be far more boring, so she just tries to deal with interferences as they come, finding satisfaction in the thrill of persisting and, more often than not, winning despite the combined efforts of the terrorists of the world, various Center and Oversight idiots, and the occasional traitorous operative.

Paul, on the other hand, is not satisfied with overcoming. He's more apt to react with aggressive solutions, well-timed or otherwise. And right now, that impulse is rather ruining her… stress relief.

He stops halfway through licking his way down her stomach, rests his chin on her hip, and mutters, "We need to find out what she's told them."

Madeline stares a the ceiling for a moment, wondering if his focus will return to the matter at hand if she ignores him, but he doesn't move. With a sigh, she pushes on his shoulder until he rolls off of her, and she gets up, reaching for one of the slightly over-sized robes that are always waiting in the closet near the bed, and sinks into a nearby chair. "And how would you suggest we do that?"

"Torture's usually effective," he says. He's not exactly joking, but she smirks anyway, though she doesn't go quite as far as to dignify the suggestion with a response. "God only knows what information she's passed on to them." He pauses, frowns, then asks, "Adrian? The Gemstone file?"

"It's doubtful, but... possible," Madeline concedes.

"We need to know for sure," he insists again, though his words lack some of his earlier conviction. Their options are limited, and he knows this as well as she does.

"We could put her in abeyance," she says, playing out the scenario in her head and already finding it lacking.

Paul gives voice to her doubts with a derisive snort and a muttered, "Again? The woman has more lives than a damn cat." He pushes himself to his feet and starts pacing between her and the bed, stepping over her feet with each pass until she rolls her eyes and re-situates herself in the chair, her feet tucked underneath her. Usually when he does this, he reminds her of a caged tiger—powerful, on edge, waiting only to be released so it can realize its full potential.

Naked, some of the effect is lost.

Madeline watches him stalk across the room, caught between fondness for him and exasperation. He's brooding, which is not only annoying, but entirely counter-productive.

Of course, he'd hardly be Paul if he didn't.

"We could always use the tried and true method."

"A stake through the heart?" he suggests, slowing his pacing to stare at her impatiently.

She almost laughs at that, but really, there's so very little that she finds amusing about any of this. "Ignoring her. She'll make an error sooner or later in something unrelated, and then we'll have a perfectly valid reason to cancel her that even Center won't be able to dispute. Assuming she doesn't get herself killed first. She's been headed down that road for years as it is."

And she has; it's part of what Madeline cannot stand about Nikita. She has potential, she has the ability to be great. The fact that she refuses to live up to that is irritating at best, and though up until now, Madeline has continued to prod Nikita toward growing into what she could be, Nikita's proven time and again that she will, ultimately, self-destruct. Madeline gave up being disappointed about that long ago, and now just regrets that the girl is bringing Michael down with her.

Of course, maybe that's all been an act as well. That thought almost inspires grudging respect, but Madeline squashes it down immediately; if Nikita actually realizes what she's doing, that might just be worse. Their work at Section is too important for these… games.

The fact that Michael—quite possible one of the best operatives they've recruited since taking over the Perch all those years ago—has consistently risked his future with Section over someone who, as it turns out, has simply been playing all of them... well. It rather makes the stake-through-the-heart option seem more attractive. Not to mention serving as a perfect example for why relationships inside Section always end in ruin and cancellation.

She chooses not to consider the irony of making such an assertion while in the same room as a naked Paul.

"I'm going to take a shower," she decides, getting to her feet. Paul barely nods—a sure sign that no one but Nikita is on his mind.

When she emerges from the bathroom six minutes later, he's dressed and leaning over the table, scribbling notes and a diagram of some sort on the back of a napkin. She watches him, not without a hint of curiosity—every time he comes up with some plan that ends up turning her world upside down, it always begins with paper. She's not quite sure if the feeling that rushes through her is dread or anticipation.

Finally, he turns and all but shoves the napkin into her hand. She glances down at it, then frowns.

"There's never a valid excuse for the Gelman process," she points out—there hadn't even really been a valid reason to use it on Adrian, honestly—though the wheels in her head are already turning because she knows Paul better than she knows herself, and she can tell by the look on his face and the way he's squared his shoulders that this is the course of action he's going to pursue, whether she approves or not.

"So find one," he insists in that stubbornly irrational tone that she finds both inherently Paul and completely maddening. She sighs. "We could make her tell us what she's told them, then make her forget we'd ever even spoken."

"And then watch her slowly go crazy and, eventually, die?" Madeline asks mildly, her focus more on the scribbled handwriting on the napkin than on the conversation.

"Yes," he says shortly, and she can see by just glancing at him that his feet are itching to resume their pacing.

"Someone in Center might notice if that happened," she says, pointing out the extremely-obvious, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

Paul doesn't look like he much cares. "So find a reason for it to not matter." Grabbing his coat from the table where he hastily discarded it forty-five minutes ago, he heads for the door. "Just figure out a way to make it work," he orders as he leaves.

Madeline looks back down at the note in her hand, reading over the half-formed ideas and possible scenarios that Paul had jotted down, then turns to the table and drops the napkin into the vase standing there. It settles in among the stems of the flowers, and she watches as the water turns an inky blue and the words begin to bleed together.

The idea is flawed, certainly. It has the potential for serious repercussions. She's not even entirely certain the technology can do what Paul seems to think it can—though finding out for sure will probably be the easiest part of the plan, should they decide to go ahead with it. The only matter, really, that stands in the way is how to keep Center from interfering. They obviously are not about to protect Nikita—she's nearly died more times than anyone, field operative or not, has any right to—but Madeline can't imagine a scenario that involves Center not reacting to her and Paul torturing their informant to find out what they've learned.

Of course, the challenge presented by such an endeavor just may be the only redeeming quality of this entire situation.

In the end, that is what decides the matter, and long after the words on the napkin have faded away, Madeline is still sitting at the table, tapping away at a panel and going over possible, and impossible, plans in her mind.

The profile she eventually arrives at is so absolutely ridiculous that its laughable, but… it'll do, anyway—especially if Nikita's opinions have been influencing Center's data files on her and Paul. Nikita always did seem to believe they were out to get her, and most of the time, she was… well, only partially right.

"So..." Paul says three days later, reviewing the panel with an expression of mixed amusement and horror on his face, "we're some sort of... I don't even know what to call this... sex police?"

Madeline smirks. "You have to admit, they'll never see a connection between Nikita's spying and this."

"If you say so…" he mutters, running his finger down the screen to read the rest of what she's come up with. "I feel like we should get a couple of those idiotic, plastic cop badges to wear." He hands the panel back to her as if just holding the idea is offending him. "After all, Center is already going to think we've lost our minds."

She shrugs. "Yes, but it'll work."

"And besides," she adds with a wry smile, "they're insulting our intelligence; we may as well insult theirs."