A/N: So sorry for the wait. And episode 12 = do you know how much I died at the hugging scene? A lot! It was so cute. Okay, someone make that gif. :D


When Michael woke up, he didn't know where he was. And he didn't like that. A careful examination of his surroundings gave him probable cause to believe that he wasn't a prisoner, though. It was a small apartment room. Non-descript. He was lying on a bed with an I.V in his arm, medication on the nightstand next to him, and bandages –lots of bandage work on his body. He couldn't feel the pain, but he could feel the stiff fabric patches the bandages created when clumped together.

"How are you feeling?" Nikita sat at the end of the bed, looking at him with concern.

Michael continued to look around. "Fine. Where am I?"

She shrugged. "Nerd's probably around here somewhere…" Nikita looked around expectantly, as if anticipating Birkhoff to come walking in at any moment.

He didn't.

Michael listened for any sounds around him. There was a window nearby, but the curtains were drawn over it. The door to the room was closed.

How very unfortunate. Michael didn't like not knowing where he was and who else was around. Maybe he could get up and…

"-Pull out all the stitches you might have." Nikita says, rejecting the idea immediately. "You stay where you are."

He slumped back into his pillows, exhausted by the strain anyway.

"That's right, Michael. Sleep it off, okay? I'll be here when you wake up."

"Nn… won't." he mumbled as he closed his eyes. "You're dead."


Michael woke next to something disrupting the bandages on his chest.

His eyes flew open.

Birkhoff paused in the middle of peeling back the bandages covering the wound from the gunshot, which was located just above Michael's pelvis. He looked at Michael and then proceeded to remove the bandage not at all gingerly.

Michael winced.

"Welcome back." Birkhoff said. "Thanks for being a pain in the ass, even when you're knocked out cold."

Hm. So that's what he was cranky about.

"How long-?"

"Two whole weeks, man. I've seen people with more injuries walking around after only one week. But you? Hell no." Birkhoff grumbled.

Michael sat up and yanked the I.V out of his arm. He grabbed the roll of bandages out of Birkhoff's hand, "Give me that." He snapped, swinging his legs over the bed. Oh shit oh shit argh shit, fucking OW…

He stubbornly refused to do anything more than wince just a little bit. He did his best to dress the wound himself but his fingers were stiff and he could focus on the task at hand. Eventually he felt Birkhoff tugging the roll out of his hands.

"Jesus, Michael, quit trying."

Michael looked up, a frustrated look on his face.

"Just accept that for the time being…" Birkhoff looked him in the eyes and smirked, "I'm in charge, and you're staying in bed. Now put that needle back in your arm and lie the hell down."


As soon as he could get around himself, Michael took no time for a chance to pester Birkhoff into telling him what was going on.

"Nothing!" Birkhoff finally yelled after several minutes of refusing to answer (usually it wouldn't have taken that long, but Birkhoff had all of the weapons at the moment, so Michael's intimidation approach hadn't worked as efficiently as usual…).

"Alright? We've been holed up in this apartment, wounded, and Percy has all of his precious black boxes again. We're back to square one, so just shut, stop complaining a help me clean this kitchen!" He threw a rag and the Windex at Michael and turned back to trying to scrub a stain off the counter.

Michael sprayed at the air with a dark expression.

He had learned earlier that Birkhoff had rented out a small, one-floor house in a rural area of New York. Unfortunately, the place wasn't the cleanest.

"Clean the counter, Mikey, not the goddamn air." Birkhoff snapped when Michael continued to squirt cleaning liquids into the air.

ELSEWHERE:

"So you have all of your black boxes now," Alex said, standing in front of Percy's desk. "What about Michael and Birkhoff? We've been unable to track them down."

"They're irrelevant right now." Percy said, waving his hand dismissively.

"Then what is relevant?"

"Oversight."

"Oversight?" she repeated with a frown.

"Taking them down. Taking them over. Division doesn't need to answer to a higher council." Percy declared.

"What about funding?"

"We'll have that taken care of."

Alex crossed her arms. "You really think that whatever your plan is, it's going to work?"

"I'm completely confident it will." He replied.


A/N: Ugh. I'm terrible for not working on this. Anyway, not much in this chapter. Just a little bit of domesticizing and foreshadowing. Kinda. Be sure to check my profile page for updates and news, tell me what you'd like to see in future chapters, blah, blah, blah… Review.