The Best Woman

I should have died…

Given my situation, my distraction, I should not have survived the night, but I did and now I owe my life to the one person I hated most of all at Section. I wasn't sure if her saving me was a blessing or a curse. Did she want to save me because she thought of me as still a good person at heart, or did she save me just to torture me more with watching her steadily move in on Michael? Either way, I owed her now, and I wasn't sure how I was ever going to square off that debt.

I watched her get grilled by Operations inside The Perch. He likely told her she should have let me get canceled to grab Prager unharmed. Granted, Prager only took a bullet to the leg and a slight concussion. That was nothing compared to what others got trying to protect him. In my opinion, he got off way lighter than most. Section would address his wounds and sew him up, give him a comfortable state before Madeline started in on him with her form of encouragement. He would wish that we had shot him in the stairwell instead of surviving the fall. I didn't have too much pity for him. He, after all, was just a secondary person to our real target. After all the information that he held was extracted, he would get his wish. Madeline would have the Cleaners come and dispose of him as there would be no more use for Prager.

"You shouldn't have done that for me today," I said as I settled on the back wall of Communications.

She was seated at one of the terminals working on the next phase of the Stark Case. I could tell she had been there for a while by the way her shoulders slumped forward. She reclined back in her chair, finger combing out her hair and propping her boots up on the side of the desk. There was something slightly cool about her at that moment as I sized her up. She had always been somewhat of a model to me, no doubt an attribute not lost on Madeline. The fact that she was both blonde and statuesque made her an easy bait for most men looking to flaunt their power by having her on their arm. It was not a surprise that most of her missions involved her cozying up to the most despicable of men to draw out information which she then shared to Section. She was just another Valentine, another rose in Madeline's garden to which she could use to lure in targets. Like Michael, she had no choice in what she was asked to do. For that reason I pitied her. Not only was she not able to express her own feelings towards a man that had no feelings at all, but she also was expected to bury her cares in favor of what Section wanted.

"So I've been told," she said in mid-sigh.

"So why did you do it?"

"Because you're one of us. You're on the team. Whichever way you want to put it."

"You're crazy," I scoffed and shook my head.

Nikita slowly pulled her feet from the desk. "Well, if that's your way of thanking me...you're welcome. Now, I have a lot of work to do so…"

She turned back to her terminal, suggesting a dismissal, but I wasn't going to budge without first knowing the one thing that burned brightly in the pit of my stomach. I stared at the back of her shimmering blonde hair, imagining Michael running his slender fingers through her strands lovingly considering her. I swallowed the huge lump in my throat feeling my mouth go dry. I could barely choke out my next words.

"What's it like?" I asked shakily. "To be loved by Michael? I know I shouldn't ask...I just can't help it."

I was on the brink of tears already, hating myself for even posing the question. I wasn't sure I even wanted to know what she would have to say to the question. I wanted to just run away and never hear her answer, yet my feet remained glued to the floor. I felt foolish and desperate. There was no answer that she could give that would soften the blow of what I already expected to hear. It was not a question anymore of who Michael desired, and after our mission capturing Prager, I understood why. That epiphany did little to calm me down. Instead, it only dug the sword of my despair further deep into my soul. It wasn't Nikita's uniqueness that made her shine brighter than me or anyone else at Section. There were a good twenty other women at Section whose beauty far surpassed her. It wasn't her bravery that made her stand out either. After working with so many different types of team leaders, Nikita's style of confidence only stood out because she was a beautiful blonde woman that could handle herself in a trench fight. She didn't need anyone to look after her. She could do on her own...and often did. It was her humanity that made her different. The fact that she was good despite performing under Section's nefarious rules was what made her attractive. Her eyes showed her soul and the life she guarded venomously. Michael loved her because she had the one thing that he was stripped of, what we were all robbed of once we decided to relinquish ourselves to becoming part of Section.

Nikita was life.

It was apparent to me then that Michael could not love me the same as he did Nikita because I had been drained of the blood that used to make me just as vibrant as Nikita. My spunk and my defiance were crushed out by my pursuit of the man that seemed to be born without a soul. In my journey towards being counted among those whom he could rule, I threw away what would have made me just as attractive to him as Nikita. I had become a ghost, just like all the others. I was dead. Michael did not want a dead thing. He could not hold and love a corpse.

"I was alone...Confused...Scared," I began, thinking back on the time when I first entered Section. "Well, you know what it's like when you first enter Section. Michael seemed like a God. Not afraid of anything. He knew me better than I knew myself."

Nikita stared at me for a moment, her expression falling a little. She nodded her head, very much understanding me. "Yeah…"

"And even then, he…" I hesitated a moment, my thoughts and fantasies beginning to confuse themselves in my head. I couldn't remember what was real and what I imagined any more. "I knew it was just part of the drill. Section wants you to imprint someone, like a...like an animal."

I could tell she wasn't exactly following what I was talking about. I could barely understand myself. Images of both Michael and Taylor melted into one another. What I desired, and what Section imposed upon me was beginning to war with one another. I closed my eyes tight and shook my head.

"You fell in love," Nikita half-whispered.

I sighed heavily. "Sometimes, I really thought he showed signs of caring."

A memory of Michael picking me up from the warehouse floor to save me from being captured and killed flashed in my mind. I remembered the way his arms hooked around my waist as he carried me towards the exit. He wouldn't leave me discarded on the field. He wanted me to survive. A few missions later, I had my turn in his ire as he screamed at me in the helicopter shortly after Lopez was killed. Had it not been for the fact that the helicopter needed to be stabilized and we were nearly about to be overwhelmed with hostile soldiers, he would have canceled me right then.

"Then other times it was obvious that he didn't…" I swallowed hard again, forcing the same lump back down. "And just when I thought I was making some progress...You came along. And that's when I lost it."

I focused my eyes on Nikita, noticing her bright blue eyes firmly locked to me. Her quiet pink lips formed a subtle, empathetic frown as her face relaxed into true sympathy for what she knew was the truth. Whatever she learned about me before us becoming a team, I suppose now made the most sense.

"If you're smart," I began darkly, "you'll stay just out of reach. Michael doesn't need a companion. He needs a quest."

"Well, why don't you become his quest?"

I shook my head. "No. I had my chance. It's too late...Although...I think I'll always love him." I looked out towards the darkened atrium, viewing the sleeping terminals and the deep shadows crowding in the halls. Michael's office was dark, completely symbolizing my hope for him. I looked back at Nikita.

"May the best woman win."

OPERATIVE: Vizcano, Jessica.

CLASS: Level 2 Field Operative.

FIELD PERCENTAGE: 95/100.

TEAM ASSIGNMENT: General Operations/ C-Squad

SUPERVISING LEAD: Wirth, Nikita

OPERATIVE REVIEW: 6 Month...Unsatisfactory (L7; Sand, Madeline)

OPERATIVE STATUS: Probationary Period (L6: Dr. Judith Thurman) Psychological Evaluation

PSYCHE EVAL RESULTS: Highly volatile and delusional; prone to fits of violence, indecisive, and unstable

FIELD OPERATIONS RECOMMENDATION: Deactivate (L5; Samuelle, Michael)

OPERATIVE STATUS: Deactivated / Scheduled Cancellation (L10; Wolfe, Paul)

CANCELLATION MISSION: Stark Initiative / Belarus, Eastern Europe