AN: I'm starting to feel the full force of Nikita withdrawal. Ughhh April 7th, where are you?

4

It was a rare, uneventful afternoon at Division, and Michael found himself with some precious free time on his hands when it was only 11 pm—a seldom occurring phenomenon. He was contemplating the possibilities—read a book? watch tv? coddle his neglected social life?—as he made his last rounds when he noticed a light at the back of the computer lab.

"You're supposed to be in your quarters," he said, recognizing the figure.

She glanced at him, and turned back to the screen. "I need to finish this. If I don't…well, I'm not giving Nerd the satisfaction."

Michael walked up behind Nikita and watched her fumble around on the keyboard for a few moments—he counted three obvious mistakes in less than a minute. Clearly, she had some work to do.

Nikita said a silent prayer to herself and hit enter—beeeep, encryption failed.

"Damn it!" she growled, hitting the keyboard furiously. She turned up to Michael and ground out, "I'm never going to get this."

Michael raised an eyebrow a pulled up a chair next to her. "First of all, stop abusing the equipment," he said, glancing down at the keyboard. "Second, you will. This stuff takes practice."

"Nerd said it was basic."

"Birkhoff," Michael said pointedly, "exaggerates. Frequently."

She sighed. "Still."

Michael checked his watch. 11:04. "I have some time; let's see what you're doing wrong."

Michael settled into his seat, and the pair set out to work on Nikita's lacking encryption skills. In between tech jargon, they talked about other things, like:

"How have you been getting along?"

"Fine, I guess."

"I see you're getting along with Hamilton."

"Matt? He's annoying."

"But you've been getting along."

A pause. "I suppose."

"That's good. Amanda will be happy."

A longer pause. "Amanda scares me."

He laughed, something she didn't know he could do. The sound bounced around her head. "She only wants the best for you."

"She's still creepy. And Nerd's a jerk. The other recruits avoid me like the plague. Everyone here annoys the hell out of me—"

She stopped realizing she just put her foot in her mouth.

Michael simply raised a characteristic eyebrow. "Not everyone, I hope?"

She reddened, embarrassed, and looked down. "Maybe not everyone."

He smiled. "Good."

And:

"It's getting late."

"I'm almost done."

"Actually, you're far from being done, and the fact that you think you're almost done shows me that you still have no idea what you're doing."

She gives him her best glare. "Ass."

His face is deadpan as usual, but she gets the impression he's hiding a smile.

"Maybe I'd be better if I had a competent teacher."

"Maybe I'd try harder if my student wasn't so hopeless."

She considers this, and laughs. He finds it harder to maintain a straight face.

"Fine, you win this round."

She goes back to her screen, still smiling, feeling a deal less frustrated than before.

And:

"I'm still…don't get it."

"It's control-shift-F9, just—"

She turns, her expression exasperated. "That's not what I meant." He watched her grasp for words. "…Michael, what am I doing here?

"I thought we were trying to encrypt this file."

"Are you trying to be funny?"

He gives her a stern look—Michael doesn't do funny. "I don't try to be facetious."

She rolls his eyes at him. "What I'm trying to say is, what am I doing here? At Division?"

This was a question he got about three times a week, a question he asks himself all too often. "You've learning to serve—"

"My country. Yeah. That's the bullshit I get every time. What exactly does 'serving my country' entail?"

"Missions. We go undercover to get intel, stop terrorists…" He sees the look on her face—this isn't the answer she's looking for. "What have you heard?"

She meets his eyes and he can tell she's been thinking about this for a while. "I heard we kill people."

He lets out a long breath, wondering how to best phrase his reply. "That…is sometimes a necessary by-product."

She scrutinizes him, and he feels like she sees a part of him he didn't even know he had. "I heard that's all we do. I heard you're training us to be assassins, to kill and nothing else."

He can see she hates this idea, and he hates being the one to force it on her.

But that was his job. "It is not," he says, his tone frigid, "'all we do.' You are also serving your country, which isn't just a euphemism, Nikita. Believe it or not , we're protecting innocent lives and administering justice here, and you shouldn't take that lightly."

His expression is rigid, and she feels that she may have over stepped her boundaries.

"And I advise you to take what you hear," he continues sternly, "with a grain of salt next time."

She gulps and turns back to her screen like a reprimanded puppy, while he tries to not think about how right she really is.

And finally:

"Oh, shit! Is that the time?"

Nikita looks down at the forgotten lower right corner of the screen, which reads 4:49.

She hurriedly goes though proper log-out protocol, while mumbling to herself. "I have to get up early tomorrow too, for…shit, shit, shit, stupid Nerd…"

He watched her fumbled around with slight amusement. She wipes the log and clears the history, as per Division standards, finally logging out of her server and gets up to leave.

"Thanks for the help, Michael," she says as she walks swiftly to the exit. By the door, she stops, as though considering something, and turns around, smiling. "Good night."

He watches her turn the corner with a flash of dark, silky hair.

There go his prospects of a nice, quiet evening…and yet he couldn't bring himself to regret it.

It was the beginnings of a different kind of friendship.