Tagging: Nikita, Michael, Alex, Birkhoff, Ryan, Sonya, Owen. More to come, but secret for the element of surprise.
Ships: Undecided.
Rating: T.

This was a rather difficult chapter to write and I am definitely glad it's out of the way. It's more of a filler than anything else, though there's some questions answered, and everything is now set up for the last three chapters! (Whoa!)

Without further ado, because I'm utterly exhausted over writing an extremely uneventful chapter for some reason, the floor is all Amanda's...


| Chapter 12 | February 21, 2015 / Fairfax, VA |


The world is too heavy, too big for my shoulders
Come take this weight off me now
Thousands of answers to one simple question
Come take this weight off me now


People often underestimate the power of a good story. They forget censorship and banning certain works have been a thing for so long for a very legitimate reason. There's nothing more dangerous than an open mind and a deceptive web of concepts and characters.

Amanda is not one of those people.

There's a book in her lap and she'll be the first to acknowledge its genius. Oscar Wilde had never been allowed in Division, she'd made sure of that herself.

Division is beyond her though, and the woman she is reading to is as harmless as a butterfly. (As beautiful, too.)

Nikita...

Well. Not really anymore.

"Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realise his conception of the beautiful."

Amanda slips a bookmark between pages 168 and 169 and looks up. For a moment countless words dance in front of her eyes. Then her vision clears and zooms in on a pouting Nikita curled up on the couch.

"Can we do chapter twelve too, mother?"

"Another time, darling. Our guests can arrive any moment now. Be a doll and go make tea."

She watches Nikita leave the room. Her heart lurches... her body's translation of the conflict between loving this woman more than anything, and knowing this will destroy her life—if it hasn't already.

There was a time when that thoughts like those didn't get to her. Now she need to focus on putting the book back where it belongs, tucked neatly between Oedipus and Pride & Prejudice on the third shelve from the top.

Her fingers rest on the worn cover of Oedipus for a moment, digits soaking in the words that start to feel like her own. It has been her favorite work of literature for years.


Amanda didn't expect to find Nikita the way she had. After the stint with the president, she thought she wouldn't see Nikita alive ever again.

(There was relief there, when things got resolved, even though she refused to admit it. Her best creation couldn't just be wasted by cutting her life short, she figured. It was enough to keep the doubts down.)

After that, Nikita went looking for her. Amanda was always one step ahead, always darted out of her reach until one day she turned around and caught her in her arms instead.

Quite literally, actually. Though in all fairness she had to mention there had been a taser gun involved.

That is almost a week ago now. And it hasn't been easy to find a balance where she doesn't just straight up kill Nikita for years before when she left Division, and, more importantly, left Amanda, but also doesn't cave to that part of her that just wants to do murder-suicide and then everything will be done.

(No way is she leaving without Nikita.)

(Hah.)

Somehow she's pulling it off though and that's the thing, isn't it? That Amanda can do anything?

(Yeah.)


Amanda stirs the spoon through her tea ever so slowly. Her lips are pursed as she looks them over. They'll suffice for the goal she has in mind—they will after she's finished with Nikita, at least. But somehow, none of these feel as satisfying as back when she worked with Division recruits.

The loss of Division is probably hardest on Amanda. It was as much her life's work as it was Percy, even though she started practicing and refining her particular brand of psycho-analyzing and torture and has spent much more time on it.

Division was like her war zone, where no one really looked up strangely when someone was found dead in her lair.

Casualties were calculated in the amount of recruits they got per batch.

They were never anything but prepared for everything, and that's something Amanda has been since she was reborn in that fire that simultaneously set her free and chained her down forever.

"You first," she says between sips, flicking her fingers seemingly carelessly at the only other woman among her company. She doesn't look anything like Alex, even though her curly hair are a shade of brown pretty close to hers, and her eyes have a sheen of blue through the green. It'll do though, and with Amanda's skills...

Well, it could be a monkey and it would work.

"Come with me." She gets up, leaving her half-empty cup of tea on a side table, and leads the woman into the other room. Nikita is strapped to the chair, though looks peaceful. The very first time Nikita wrestled until the straps had left deep purple bruises on her wrists.

This is both less and more amusing.

"Josephine," she whispers sweetly, smiling as she assures the needle is touching the cells it needs to be touching. "This woman looks like this." She says it matter-of-factly and lifts a photo from the tray of tools, pointing at a smiling Alexandra Udinov—from a recent shoot or something. "Do you see it?"

There's a moment of silence and then Nikita smiles. "I see it."

"Good. Very good, sweetheart. She works as a cleaning lady at the hotel you're going to stay for a while. The one in London?"

The smile on Nikita's face widens. "Nice to meet you! I'm Josephine."

The woman glances briefly at Amanda, who nods. "Nice to meet you too, Josephine. I'm Alex."


Amanda hand each of them an envelope with money and further instructions, and then makes them leave. There's no reason to keep the peasants around for any longer.

Long enough to see that she could hurt them if they crossed here, showcasing exactly what years of research on her father's work has amounted to, and plant these people in Josephine's mind as the key roles in Nikita's life... And all of that in thirty minutes.

She should get an award for the things she does. Nobel Prize of Physics.

(She doubts they'll give her the one for Peace.)

When they're gone she retreats to the living room that is a more spacious copy of her office back in Division. There are some things she can't let go of, and the truth is simply that her interior designing in that stage of her life was impeccable.

Why change when it's perfect?

She takes a few minutes to think, hands folded together in her lap; she never bothered writing anything down, keeping files on a computer or in a secret drawer of her desk. Percy documented everything, to the very last detail of even the most insignificant missions—Amanda had always thought of that as extremely foolish, even when she held the man in high regards.

Her mind did all the work for her. When her father had kept her in his chair, he had been trying to create the perfect human being. What she was left with were damaged capabilities of emotions and a more accurate, elaborate brain capacity.

She wasn't one for complaining.

In her mind she had the carefully constructed story of Josephine. She was an even better creation than Nikita had been. She couldn't kill—well. Amanda actually didn't know. Under the right circumstances, maybe she could. But there had been no gun training in the few days she'd been putting together this flawless character.

There had been yoga, and meditating, and dancing. (Nikita's body had shown quite the promise for ballet and as such Amanda had given her those precise skills.) She had kept in fashion and languages and manners and flirting from in Division, just freshened it up a little.

It had felt like when she first taught Nikita, with the exception that Josephine doesn't keep any secrets, she doesn't fuss, she doesn't go and falls in love with someone else. She is loyal as a dog to the woman she believes her mother and that's exactly how Amanda wants it.

And this time around, she strangely enough doesn't feel the need to gloat to a man that stands above her in authority. Being the most powerful being around, even if that means she's alone, beats everything.

She hates that Percy's dead though. Partly because she wanted to be the one to kill him (Nikita took that from her too) and partly because having an object of affection, as wicked as affection is when it's from Amanda, is still something a woman needs and can use to fuel her work.

Percy...

How the mighty fall. Deep, too, apparently.


"Are you ready?" Amanda stands near the dresser in Josephine's bedroom. It's decorated with great eye for detail. She spent a great amount of time on it too. Posters are pinned to the walls and unfinished drawings litter the desk, pencils of all sizes showing of a girl that's been busy drawing...

Except it was all planted that way to look as if the room has been used for years rather than days.

She used to do the same in houses used in deep undercover missions. Nothing supports a cover story like a house that feels like it has had life in it for a while, that breathes the days of one or more people.

This room breathes of Amanda Collins' daughter, star dancer and honor graduate and a wordly person with big aspirations. The kind of daughter Amanda could have been herself had she been given the chance...

Josephine pulls her out of her thoughts. "I am, mother."

She ducks into Amanda's arms. That she hadn't seen coming, but she holds her nonetheless, a little awkwardly but strongly. Josephine smells like happiness supposedly smells, and feels comfortable tucked against her chest.

She has spent so much time hating this person, dreaming up ways to injure and maim this body, and now Amanda clings to it like it's the most precious thing to ever be.

(It is.)

And she has spent so much time in utter anger and fear, directed at herself, for allowing Nikita to live and now it shifts into gratitude.

The last time she stopped being too afraid to do anything she put her old life to ashes. She's terrified of where this might go, but in true Amanda style, it doesn't show.

"Let's go then. We've got a cab to catch."


The goodbye is bittersweet and when she presses a kiss to Josephine's cheek, it feels like she's saying goodbye to a life that could have been, a "what if" sort of thing because she's sticking around to watch Nikita's demise in a steady addiction and abusing people all around her that will taint the picture of the people she loves forever.

She is going to stick around and watch Nikita disappear underneath Josephine, but it won't be the same, and she can't get caught up in this feeling of belonging to this person and serving a higher purpose with her.

But it's goodbye and it stings just as much as it sends the purest sort of pleasure through her.

Because if there's anything she enjoys, it's torture. And this right here is torture at its finest, with a slow build but undoubtedly a satisfying explosion.

She can't wait to see her plan in full action.

[Underestimating the strength of Nikita's mind ultimately causes for her to never witness it at all.]


Oh, I'm like a kid who just won't let it go
Twisting and turning the colors in rows
I'm so intent to find out what it is
This is my rubik's cube
I know I will figure it out