This chapter follows Nikita on her search for Owen and follows Michael on his search for Nikita, lol. There isn't much of Alex, Percy or Amanda in this chapter I'm afraid. I used the previews we've seen for the next new episode as my inspiration. The plan was to keep it as close to the original story as possible, but I couldn't help playing into the "What If" scenarios here. Anywho... Happy late Thanksgiving everyone! :)
2. Dead Ends
He had no cell phone. No tracking device. Finding Owen when he didn't want to be found, to Nikita, was like trying to find her when she didn't want to be found. Impossible.
"Have you got her?" said Michael into Birkhoff's ear, who was back at Division. Birkhoff sat in front of his computer, chewing on a twizzler.
On his computer monitor, as well as on all the TVs on the wall in front of him, was a video of Nikita kneeling in front of a headstone, her hands searching frantically around in the green grass.
"Yep. She looks good."
"Birkhoff. What's she doing?"
"She's at the cemetery, Michael. Is it just me…or do you feel like we've been here before?"
"She's looking for clues at Emily's grave," said Michael.
"She's trying to find Owen?" guessed Birkhoff. Percy had filled them in.
"Yes. Let me know if anything changes."
Just then, the video Nikita stood up and walked out of the screen.
"Whoa, heads up, she's leaving the scene now, Michael." His hands flew across his keyboard. "Getting her on satellite."
"Where's she going?"
"She just got into a red Volvo." Birkhoff whistled. "Nice car."
He typed something else. A new screen popped up. It was video from a traffic camera. A black truck just ran into a red car at an intersection. A man got out and ran towards the car. He pulled an unconscious woman with dark hair from the passenger side door and began dragging her across the pavement.
"Nikita was in a car accident, Michael. Someone's taking the body. I can't see his face."
"Is she hurt? What's wrong? What happened?"
"A truck sideswiped her. She's unconscious."
Nikita felt someone's hands biting into her underarms, felt the heels of her boots drag across the pavement. For a second she wondered if she was dead, if her blurry vision was any indication and then it cleared and she remembered. She was leaving the cemetery and a black truck had run a red light and sideswiped her.
She turned her head and saw someone's hand, their wrist, a silver watch, a dark boot. Nothing. She smelled men's cologne. Michael didn't wear cologne. Only aftershave. Had told her with a grin one time, in that smoky voice of his that he preferred to smell like the earth. Rich, and dark and clean…
Wait. Focus.
She found her feet and swung her elbow back into the man's temple. He grunted as he grabbed her arm and twisted it around her back. She kicked him in the shin, but he quickly pulled her arm around and flipped her over onto the pavement. Her head cracked hard against the cold ground. Ow. She was still dizzy from the car crash.
She looked up into the face of…
"Owen?"
"You're a hard person to have a conversation with, you know that?" he said, sounding winded as he offered her his hand. He smirked as she came to her feet without his help.
"Get in the car," he said "I need your help."
Nikita bent over at the waist. She groaned. "You couldn't call?"
"I don't have your number."
"That's funny."
He looked around at the cars that were stopping near the intersection. Someone yelled something out his car window, something about crazy people standing in the middle of the road. The sound of a police siren was growing closer.
"For a cleaner, you're sloppy." Nikita took a deep breath as she straightened. "Tell me why I shouldn't just let them come find us? Do you have the black box?"
"I'll take you to it. Just get in the car, Nikita." He held the door open to his large truck, which besides a bent fender was mostly unharmed. Her poor red Volvo on the other hand, wasn't. "Please. We've got a problem."
He backed away from the wreck and drove up the side of the road and then through another red light. Nikita sucked in her breath as a car swerved around them and then crashed head on into another car. They drove away to the sound of car horns blazing behind them.
Nikita glanced back at her mutilated Volvo and then glared at Owen in the driver's seat. "I liked that car."
They drove for a few minutes without saying anything. And then five miles down the road, Owen parked the truck in front of a pharmacy and they slipped into someone's black ford Taurus, who had conveniently left the keys in the ignition.
With the stress of the police now falling behind them, Owen spoke as he sped up the open stretch of highway, heading for the airport. "I was at Emily's grave when your pal, that old geezer caught up with me."
"What are you talking about?"
"Gogol. He wanted to make a trade, he said. He wouldn't tell me what."
"How do you know Gogol?"
"How do you know Gogol?" said Owen.
Nikita didn't answer. "He's bluffing," she said.
Owen shrugged. "Possibly. But he knew where to find me. What do you think about that?"
"You're not thinking of working with them? Gogol is just as worse as Percy. If they get their hands on that black box-"
"Relax, they won't."
"What's your plan? Why did you want me here? You wanted to do this alone."
"I think Gogol has already found one."
"What?"
"At least an agent who's guarding one. What else would he have to trade?"
"Besides you?" She thought a moment. "So he's going to offer her life in exchange for the black box…"
"What makes you think it's a women?"
"Ari Tasperov has weaknesses."
Owen looked skeptical. "Percy only asked certain people to guard his black boxes. People he trusted."
"He asked me."
Owen stared at her for moment. "So that's why. That's how you meant Daniel. That's why you were there so long."
She looked away out the window. "I don't want to talk about Daniel."
"Why did you ask me about Michael before?"
She turned back around. "What?"
"You asked me if Michael knew about the kill order. Why?"
Nikita watched the landscape fly passed them for a moment. They passed a river, a recreational park, a small café and a laundry mat.
Owen pushed back on his seat and then settled back down. He clutched the steering wheel in front of him. He looked into the rearview mirror. "Why'd you ask me?" He noticed a gray vehicle switch lanes and sneak up behind them.
Nikita's eyes followed his. She glanced back at the car behind them. She cursed. "It's Michael. When did Gogol want you to meet him?"
"Tomorrow at noon. Le petite fleur café."
"We need to lose him. Turn left here on this bridge."
"What makes you think you're the one giving the orders?"
Her eyebrows rose. "Do you really want me to answer that?"
Michael caught up to them when they swerved down a backstreet and had to avoid an old lady toddling out into the road with her cane and small rat-like terrier. Thom's face tightened at the narrow miss but he didn't say a word.
"Who's Owen?" He asked Michael. "Another rogue agent?"
"You can say that," gritted Michael as he stepped on the gas and nosed the Taurus's bumper.
Thom braced himself as they went swerving down a narrow lane after them. They were out in the country now. They passed a large house every several hundred feet.
"You're going to run us off the road."
"That's the point."
"Michael," said Thom just as the Taurus swerved into a ditch and smashed itself into a tree on the passenger's side. They skidded to a stop just as Owen stumbled out of the driver's side of the destroyed vehicle.
Michael fired his gun at him. But the man had crawled up over a ridge and into someone's front yard and disappeared. The car was smoking. Nikita.
They pulled her out from the driver's side. She was unconscious.
"Is she dead?" Thom asked as they laid her out in the grass underneath a tree.
A large shard of glass stuck out from her chest, her face was bruised and cut up and bleeding. Her left arm was mangled, twisted awkwardly beneath her. More glass was imbedded in her right leg. What had he done?
"Oh God…Nikita…"
Michael knelt down and tore the clothing away from her bleeding chest. He pressed his hands against her bleeding flesh and heard a sucking sound as it began to froth an ugly red. Had her lung collapsed? There was so much blood. So much of it. It stained his hands and he couldn't make it stop.
"Michael!" said Thom's voice from very far away. "She's finished. You've done your job. We have to report this back to Percy."
"We have to get her to a hospital." He heard himself say through numb lips. "Percy will take her alive."
Thom grabbed his arm but he shook him off. "No!"
"She's dead, Michael."
"No. Help me." He took off his shirt and ripped it into pieces, and pressed them against the wound. "There's a kit in my jacket. Get it for me."
"Michael…"
"Do it!" He pressed his hands around the wound. Her lips were turning blue. He felt her pulse, it was fading. He leaned down close, felt her ragged breath against her cheek. "Come on Nikita…"
Thom stood along the side of the road feeling torn at Michael's anguish. Suddenly he missed Alex. Missed her cool-headedness. She always held her own. Never betrayed her emotions. Compared to her, he suddenly felt like a coward.
He ran his hands through Michael's jacket, where it had been thrown on the ground beside him and then tossed him the kit. "I'm going to track down Owen."
"Go then." He barely heard Thom's footsteps as he crunched loudly over dead leaves and up the embankment.
Michael didn't look up from Nikita's body. Her skin was so white. Bloody and white. This was his fault…why hadn't she been wearing a vest? Did she even own one anymore?
Her eyes flickered open. "Michael." Her voice was a faint rasp; blood trickled down the corner of her mouth. Her eyes widened in shock.
"No…no…no…"
He felt her hand graze his and then fall back down to her side. She had been trying to grab his arm.
"Just let it be," she mumbled.
"Don't," he said as he took a small syringe from the kit and stuck her in the thigh.
"Such a waste…" Her eyes flickered and dulled.
"You're not a waste." Feeling numb, he unrolled some tape and wrapped it around the shard of glass sticking out from her chest, tried to seal the wound. He ran his hands underneath her back, no blood there, it hadn't gone all the way through.
There was nothing else he could do. Underneath his hands he could feel her heartbeat slow. Was her blood really cooling or was that the air that blew cool against the tears and sweat on his face?
"Let it go," she gasped. Her eyes rolled up into the back of her head and she sunk completely into the cold, hard ground.
He stood suddenly and stared down at her body and the fear was greater than any he had ever felt. Had he finally killed her? Was it finally done?
"Michael," said Thom in Michael's ear. "Owen's gone. There's no trace of him."
"It doesn't matter, get over here. We've got a body to take care of."
The sound of a bird's song trickled down to his ears. The wind picked up and slapped the dead leaves across the ground, more orange and red leaves flew down from the tree nearest him and swirled around his face.
"Good. Percy will like that," said Thom.
Michael grunted. "We'll see."
He could hear the blood rushing through his ears.
Feeling cold, Michael stared down at the numbers on his cell. What was that phone number again? All his years at Division and he couldn't remember. He pressed seven numbers and waited. 5-4-6-2-7-4-5. The ring on the other end sounded far away and empty, as it straggled on, stopped, and then rang again.
There was a rustle on the other end and the sound of someone's heavy breathing. "Hello?"
AN: Ah, don't hate me! :P I can tell you I do have most of the third chapter written, so there will be more to post when I get the chance. Thanks for reading! :) Isn't NIKITA just the bestest show ever? :D