Hey guys, in order to understand this fic you have to read Untitled and When Doves Cry. Keep dropping reviews and PMs as I feel this will end next chapter. We'll see. Anyway, keep on plugging (Missing writers) and enjoy.

- Me.

She can't take it back. I hammer away at what is supposed to be a bookshelf until there are dents in the wood. She doesn't stop me for a second. She has never pacified me and today is no exception. My will has always rivalled hers; it a part of who I am…who we are. Our pragmatism organised my life into what was expendable and what was not. She sacrificed children, love and family during those years just as I have forgone the stability of a real nine-to-five to walk her path. I let go of the hammer and my muscles relax; the evidence of eighteen months of military style training, all to be prepared. I'm leaving for Virginia in a matter of weeks and I choose this opportunity to break it to her. The word 'Quantico' doesn't even raise her eyebrow. She meets 'Agent' with nonchalance. Even namedropping Pollock doesn't get to her the way I thought it would. Like a toddler in a tantrum I want her attention and she's depriving me. It pins me to the floor, subdued like it always did and she gets to me even further by saying in a calm, frustratingly relaxed tone, "Where was I?"

"Nikki," She held her breath. Luckily he couldn't see how tight her jam was clenched in the dark.

"What's wrong baby?"

"I need you…"

"I need you too." She murmured, interrupting him.

"I need you to come out with me."

She turned on the lamp on her bedside table. "We're supposed to be leaving soon; you want to get tied up in all that?"

"When I make some more money we'll be out of here."

"What about the eight grand?" She referred to the money she counted for him days ago, that she had already exchanged for the steel piece she was hiding in their bedroom. "That's enough for us."

"He kissed her condescendingly. "For you maybe."

"What if you get hurt?"

"That's why you'll be there with me. Chris, remember?"

"That was a lucky shot and I still can't live with myself over that D." She couldn't mask her fear, or her guilt. That night she held the gun in her hand she didn't know what she was doing so she shut her eyes and pull the trigger, adding sharp note to the crescendo of gunfire playing around her. She didn't shoot Chris like Darnell thought; his brother did, and behind her shut eyes Nicole accidentally shot Courtney in the knee, relegating him to the wheelchair-bound life he lived now. In bed, she was shaking and he tried to hold her still. It felt nice, to be in the embrace that bound them; but not the context. He did have the ability to treat her well but having that on his terms was the reason why she couldn't trust him, and why the gun from Rivers was underneath his pillow. "I'll come with you."

Her change of mind came too easily, he expected more resistance. "Why?"

"Just so I know you're okay."

She turned off the light but he couldn't get back to sleep. He lay there watching her, wondering if getting her back was such a good idea. There was something unhinged about her, something she was hiding and he refused to take what she said at face value. It was a performance of Nikki that he was sleeping with but Nicole seemed to have crept in and he couldn't remember when. Nicole was where all the problems began; she was independent, didn't listen to him and worst of all had the nerve to leave him. That's why he sent Tiffany Pell to Ricochet in the first place; she would have walked to the Moon for some good draw, and all it took was one-slip up to place Nikki back in the bucket of crab where she belonged, but Nikki was long gone. That's why Nicole awoke to a demolished room where she had gone through ever piece of furniture, item of clothing and everything she had brought with her.

"What are you doing?"

"What are you doing?" He fired the question back with his nostrils flared as he flung the drawer across the room. He didn't understand his own anger or frustration but at least hoped it would scare a confession out of her and give him something to understand her better or at all. "Do you think I don't know what you came back here for?" He didn't but hoped these open-ended questions would answer themselves.

"I don't know what you think about anything anymore, least of all me."

Anger knows no reason, which Darnell demonstrated as he struggled to decode her response. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Last night I thought…I felt, you loved me, that it would be better, that it was better between us but it's not enough. You don't love me, you don't even like me and you definitely don't trust me. So I give up." She drew the gun from behind his pillow. "You have it; there no use in trying to protect you anymore. Have it."

His heavy breathing provided the soundtrack to his eyes flitting up and down, from her face to the gun and back again. She had him mentally pinned against the wall and he surrendered. "Keep it."

Nicole looked up from the spreadsheet long enough to catch a glimpse at S.A. Fontaine's face. "Reception sent me up."

"Oh joy." She said with enough sarcasm for four people. "Did you remember your warrant this time?"

"This is off the record. Your boyfriend's in Terre Haute, Indiana."

"And?"

"He was found with fifteen thousand dollars in cash."

"Maybe he went to the casino."

Fontaine resisted the urge to raise his voice, not that he could be heard in the noisy office. Sixty temps were kept apart by four-foot-tall grey dividers and four companies operated on that floor alone. "You know he didn't. So how did he get so rich so fast?"

"I have no idea."

"Forensics examined his car and found traces of bodily fluids on the back seat. Female bodily fluids."

"Whoop de whoo, we were apart for a long time. So he's not a monk; big surprise."

"It is when they belong to Tiffany Pell."

That stopped her in her tracks. "Where are they holding him?"

Nicole posted bail for him out of her curiosity and own pocket. A bruised from being manhandled by the arresting officer was forming on his face. She traced over it with her finger, never touching his skin. She once thought he brought out her gentler side but came to learn it was misplaced altruism that he took advantage of. "I should have come with you."

He shook his head and she saw something brewing behind his eyes. "Where's the gun?"

"I hid it."

"What are you doing out here? What if they search the house?"

"They won't find anything."

"What makes you so sure?"

"What have I done now?"

"Nothing. Get in the car."

"No. Not until you tell me…"

"It's your fault."

"How?"

"You wanted to leave Chicago; that's why I got arrested. I'm on two strikes. Now get in the car."

Nicole got in the driver's seat and considered riding over his foot. He slumped into the passenger's seat. "The way they followed me, it's like the pigs knew where I was going."

"I'm the only person you can trust D. Don't turn on me because of this."

"I'm thinking about that." He said as they got on the highway. "There's one thing I have to tie up tonight."

"What?"

"That bastard Rivers."

We salvaged my bookcase and the dents gave it character; Scott character. We eat together for the first in a very long time. The storm has cleared between us for the time being and after a few glasses of wine she asks, "So you really want to join, huh?"