Chapter 2

He fast grabed the envelope and open it. Inside, he found her engagement ring and a small piece of paper:

"I'm sorry... for everything."

She didn't bother writing her name or anything else. And just like that he knew what she meant. Sundenly, he felt her pain.

It came up to him the time he blamed her for all that and he, instantly, regreated it but before he could amend it, she ran off with tears on her eyes. He didn't bother chasing her. He was a creep. She deseved better. The hurt he'd caused her, consequently hurting himself he found out to be the trigger to finally make his metal hand close. How ironic was that? That alone enraged him so much that he turned his frustation into the nearest locker. Trying to gobble the guilt and pain in every troughing punch. The locker was smashed and bent but he still felt like crap.

The diamond lustered silently at the dim light on the shaft and it broke his heart into pieces.

He asked her space and in the middle he started to wonder if she wasn't better off with someone else rather more complete than he was. Someone that could protect her and love her without being a burden, the way he flet he was. He couldn't even button up his shirt without help, for Crist's sake! He was getting accustomed to that ideia, day by day, even if the loneliness was killing him inside out. This was probably for the best. She deserved better...

When Birkhoof, in a guilty-consciousness and waiving letter, come to him with the doctor-Dna story, he knew what she went to do. He knew that she would take all risks for him. And upon the sudden ideia of losing her... to spend a all life-time without her. No. That would be the death of him. She was everything to him. Now more than any other day or time he realized that. This all thing with his hand had been comsuming him day by day and he knew he had pushed her away too many times, too far.

He knew she was recoursefull enough to get out of any situation. But why had she chosen to stay behind? Tears arise to his eyes and treatened to fall but he hang on.

The way he had treated her this couple of weeks it led her to this. In their last metting she call out for him. She pleaded him to be her partner in life, she wanted him to fight for her and he just walked away, like a stupid child tomented by his own selfish fears, unable to give her an answer. Unable to even reply her kiss back, savouring those lips he so much loved.

Time was ticking... He had to fix this! He knew what he was up against to get her back. But failing was not an option and even an all army wouldn't stop him from getting her back.

The soldier in him kicked in as Michael coldly ordered a retriving team to collect the scared Doctor home and prep the Alpha team with the blue prints of the building they were about to seize...

Another electric shock rocked her all body. Blood was sloshing now from her mouth. Nilita felt the end was near. She felt so weak and numb. She could barely see or ear anything. She had been in and out of consciousness for, what seemed, an eternity. Just a few more and she would finally rest her sorrows in Hell. A pacefull change she would gladly embrace.

But, all of a sudden, the alarm break out. Running. Shootings. Screams. The guards that once surrounded her were now backing down and dropping dead on the floor. Nikita didn't even had the strengh to lift her head up. She couldn't see anything except smudging figures around slowing circuling her around.

The coronel, once so superior, so sure of himself, was the last man standing in a sea of dead bodys around. Gutless as he was he ran behind the prisioner, seeking hidding as he pointed a gun at her head.

"STAY BACK, you ear me?! I'll KILL the whore!"

It was so hard for her to talk and she spitted blood a few times before a choked, husky voice came trough.

"Go on... Do it!"

The coronel looked shocked at Nikita like he was looking at a statue that sudenly had came to live, after hours without one word, and was now speaking with him, in his own languange.

The soldiers look at the lider's aprovall to gun down the last member but the answer was a shake of the head. They understood and just stood montionless, guns firmly pointed up.

Nikita barely saw a fast troughing figure at the pointed gun that, with two braced blows, disarmed the general's gun to the floor.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" - He grabbed the coward by the collar and shoved him against the nearest wall.

After seeing Nikita's messed up condition, Michael lost control of himself. That bastard had clearly been her torturer. His robotic hand curled into a fist that spoke his own mind as he hit him again and again. Teeths were flying out, bones were broking.

Nikita's heart jolted when she recognize Michael's voice. How was he where? Hadn't he given up on field work? Could she be imagining things? She was fighting so hard to just keep herself awake that she could barelly think.

"THAT'S MY FIANCÉ!" She'd ear him yelled. It was him, after all! A glimpse of naive joy ran trough her all body just thinking he was there for her, but then she remembered he might be there to save the Doctor, that would give him a new hand and she felt hurt.

Michael's last punch was so hard that he literally shoved the general's face inside out, spreading bones and brain matter across the wall as he did. He let the dead glide off to the ground.

He, himself was covered in blood and grey matter. He couldn't remember the last time he'd use such violence to kill a man. Guess, last time, he wasn't that enfuriated as he was right now and, last time he didn't had an iron fist at his disposal either. He grinned. He was lucky Nikita was still breathing it granted him a merceful death. This was way better than he actually deserve: a quick death - no matter how violent it was- was always a good death. Not like we was doing to Nikita, God knows for how long... Nikita...

He immediately ran to hold her face on his hands. Her eyes didn't even lift up to meet his. She was hardly breathing. Barbed wires cutting her wrists, her stomach, her ankles. There was so much blood in her...out of her. She was so pale. It scared him to the core. She was half naked stringuing silently on the air. There wasn't a piece of her body that wasn't either cut or brused. He never seen her like this in all of their years together, never.

He had to act fast. He ordered the cut of all the wires and as she fallen into his arms, like a rag doll, she managed to open a bit of her eyes.

"Mi-ch-ael?..." - Her voice barelly a whisper.

"Yes, honey. I'm here. It's ok now..."

He has wrapping her most deeper wounds - her the wrists - as fast as he could with the bandages one of the soldier's brought him. There was a medical young agent that helped with her ankles and then moved on to her stomach.

"You've... f-ou-nd hi-m...?" She managed to said.

"Yes, I found him! Now, please baby... save your strengh."

Nikita looked away. A painfull sneer cropped upon her bloody lips.

"What for...?" - She mumbled in a defeated voice.

Michael's heart skipped a beat. He swallowed dry. It hurted him so much to see her like this and her lack of will to live... it wasn't like her. Beaten: body and soul. He was just speculating early on about her real intentions, but now he was sure: she did came there on a suicide mission! He loved her with all his heart and she was giving up her life for what? To send him a doctor that would restore his hand. Save his hand... his hand? What was she thinking?! A stupid hand! If he lose her because of that he could never forgive himself. All he wanted was to yell at her. Called her to reason! How could she even do something like this to them? But before he could do any of that, she slide into inconsciousness in his arms...

First things first. Michael had to take her out of there alive and then, after a long couple of days of recovery, she will listen him apologize to her, saying just how must of a creep he was to her and then she will listen his long, long sermon about the value of her life to him. That if she would ever think about leaving him again, she would better pray he couldn't find her, because if he did he would spank her all the way home back to him again. That, that ring, was a life-time commitment and that he loved her more than he loved himself.

The jact was crossing the sound barrier when Michael was holding Nikita tight on his lap. She was still out of consciousness, tucked in a warm blanket while two bags of serum hanged in over her. He knew they were almost at their destiny. He smiled down at her as he reachead her right hand and gently sneaked her engagement ring back into her finger. Back into the right place.

Now, her only challenge will be to survive him, if she survive first.

"Hang on, baby. Hang on! We're almost there!"

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