"How'd you sleep?" Birkhoff sarcastically asked Alex as she stumbled into the kitchen. She was the last one awake, the others having been up and getting ready for the day for about an hour (except for Kyle- he was probably going to be out for a while as he healed). In her defense, after the two couples' late night activities they were able to rest well and relax. Of course they could greet the next day energetically. Meanwhile, she was as grumpy as ever. The nerd didn't help with his quip. Sonya smacked him in warning, and Michael and Nikita hid smirks behind their mugs. Leveling a harsh glare, Alex appeared as though she was going to commit a murder. Honestly, the team wouldn't put it past her in the morning.
"Why are you guys so fucking loud?" Russian tumbled past her lips in harsh, grumbled tones. Although Birkhoff and Sonya had no idea what she had cursed, they averted their gaze and didn't dare say a word. Nikita and Michael, on the other hand, paled and choked on their drinks. They had forgotten how crowded safehouses could be. Sure, their house had been full. But the sound of the crashing waves on the nearby beach was great at drowning out the noises inside. The silence of the woods, however, reminded them of how closely packed they were. It was one thing to somewhat know of the intimacies that occurred at night, it was another to hear it. But Alex ignored all the reactions she was given, continuing her grouchy Russian curses, "Like what was that whole thing with Kyle?"
"Oh. Sonya forgot him in the car and we had to help bring him inside," Relief washed over Nikita. She replied in English with a smug grin, cluing the nerds in on what had been said. Sonya rolled her eyes and refocused on trying to find something to make for breakfast. Birkhoff just shrugged, unbothered by the quip. Whereas the others managed to return to what they were doing before she interrupted, Alex continued to stand in the kitchen and glare. Her mind was still dragged down by sleep. It always took her forever to wake up. She couldn't comprehend the world around her, making her bitter and frustrated. Her team was able to wake up with caffeine and be nice and calm in the morning. She had to suffer through other ways of waking, however.
"I can't fucking stand you. I'm going on a hike, and I'm taking your dog," At least she shook some sleep aside to make her latest grumble a mixture of English and Russian. Alex whistled for Barkhoff, who excitedly wagged his tail. Despite the food and water placed on the floor for him, he had been begging for any potential scraps someone might feed him. Nikita had more or less put a stop to that (they seriously couldn't afford a visit to the vet, not with the doctor appointments she had to stick to). But Michael continued to spoil the dog as a reward for helping them with the Connellys. A chance at exploring the new terrain outside distracted Barkhoff from the silent fight between his owners, though. He immediately shot off after Alex.
"Wait. Buddy system. I'm coming with," Nikita quickly followed too. The dog would probably be alright on a hike as long as he was leashed, except none of them knew the forest around them. Sticking close to somebody else was a good idea as they explored. Besides, Alex was groggy and Barkhoff could only handle being on a leash if one of his owners was holding it. A sane person had to tag along to ensure nothing happened. There was no argument from the tired Russian. She silently let the agent lead, hoping the bright sunshine would improve her mood- her whole team hoped that in all honesty.
While the two women hiked around, Birkhoff, Sonya, and Michael finished preparing for the day. They set aside leftover breakfast for Alex and Nikita, and moved to the computer set up. It was time they started to delve into the ideas they had created. The nerd had caught his fiancée up on their plans, and she was all for it. She finalized the digital file and virus to send to Interpol, while the other hacker burst into the organization's system. The agent thought of waking Kyle and asking him a few more questions, but that might be better for when they had a solid plan. Before Michael could narrow in on where to start, however, Birkhoff interrupted his train of thought, "So we're gonna to butt in on an Interpol raid?"
"Seems like a solid starting off point," Sonya answered. That was good enough for her fiancé as he completed his task. The delayed email from Alexandra Udinov was finally sent to Johnson and Skarsagrd, after encoding an excuse on how it had become lost in the system. They were going to have to wait on Interpol to finalize their next phase of attack on the bastards, yet that only gave the team time to create an ironclad scheme. Improvisations, rapid changes, and half-baked ideas had gotten them from point to point. However, they needed to think ahead. So what if they continued to win the battles, they had to conquer the war.
"What about from there?" Beginning to pace, Michael wondered. What were they supposed to do after they stopped the bastards' next snuggling shipment. It wasn't as though ruining one shipment was going to bring down the whole organization; the team was well aware of that after trying to destroy Division and the Shop mission by mission. They needed clues and information and the upperhand. They were somewhat there with their moles and the bug that had been planted. Yet it just wasn't enough. Even with all of the things they felt they had done, they were nowhere near the end.
"Track their smuggling lines and shut it down," Alex was confident in her statement as she burst back into the safehouse. Michael, Birkhoff, and Sonya must've been hacking and planning for far longer than they thought if she, Nikita, and Barkhoff had already returned from their hike. The women seemed refreshed (especially the formerly grouchy Russian) and were willing to tackle the problem in front of them, while the dog continued exploring the new house. Though, a suggestion was made to start writing and sketching some of their thoughts down first. It'd be easy to come up with something if they had clear things to build off of, or if they could visualize what everyone was thinking.
Once Nikita and Alex settled on the couch with their share of the breakfast, they had a lot of brainstorming to spew. There was no doubt moving around outside with a dog had done them good. The fresh air certainly cleared their minds and their anxiety. In fact, the two appeared excited for what was to come next; they were ready for more and to gain some solid ground against the bastards. Nikita was especially excited that one of her original goals was coming to fruition. Everything they had done was coming together, "Which would cripple their funds and make them desperate."
"And we'll be there to destroy them when they make a mistake," With a little doodle of what that might look like, Alex finished the agent's thought. That had worked in the past for them. The team could ensure that happened again. Birkhoff and Sonya were soon engulfed in the excitement, agreeing with the idea. That seemed plausible to them. After all, exploiting weaknesses was a talent of the team's. Over the years they had dismantled human trafficking rings and other atrocities by tearing apart organizations by their weak seems. Although the bastards were far more complicated, they weren't anything they hadn't faced before.
"That's all good in theory. But how are we to ensure that happens?" Michael, on the other hand, put a realistic weight on things. Nikita's excitement always made him feel lighter, of course. But they still had to plan things out. He didn't want any more stress to affect the team. They were under enough pressure as it was. They should make everything as airtight as possible. Not only did they need to secure plan A, but also plan B and so on and so forth. Knowing what they could do and how to achieve their goals from different angles could help them breathe and settle. They'd need that if they were going to keep pushing further into the unknown.
"Sharing intel, piggybacking on investigations, and having airtight plans and backup plans," Alex voiced what Michael was thinking. Past wars and crusades took away too much from the team. That couldn't be a possibility that time around. Despite having her own opinions on the matter, Nikita stayed silent. She wanted to voice that the field was too chaotic, nothing they could do could prepare them for that; they just needed information, and from there they could kick the bastards' asses. Yet she knew better than to argue with the looks her husband and best friend had cast her way; she couldn't fight her current situation.
For someone who kept voicing how things were going to change, she had to actually wrap her head around the fact. Yes, the bastards weren't any different than they had faced before. But the team was different. They were missing key members, and Nikita was pregnant. Her skills and abilities hadn't been affected by that, yet that didn't mean she got to continue at her normal pace. Michael didn't get to either, his concern for his wife overwhelming. They had to adapt and become smarter and better. Fortunately, Sonya discovered a way the team could do all of that. She had checked their updated deaddrop to see if Sam or Vasquez had sent them anything, and one of their moles had. It wasn't information. But the idea presented was an excellent one, "What Vasquez is suggesting sounds good."
Crowding around the computer, the team read over Vasquez's proposal. Whoever was leading the bastards continued to be a frustrating mystery. They might have had ideas of who it could've been. However, the team continued to stumble around in the dark. Just as they had learned from past mistakes, apparently so had their enemies. Yet that wasn't any reason to bring their spirits down. They were a team of strong and capable agents; they could adapt and overcome, even with an outrageous idea to bring the leader out of the shadows. Flashing a crooked grin, Michael couldn't help but glance at Nikita as he mused, "That's gotta be a huge dramatic operation."
"I'm going to take it as a compliment that you all thought of me," Nikita grinned in return. She had been teased before for her crazy schemes; she was nothing if not one for the dramatics. Except, that obviously served its purpose. She could irritate and taunt a leader out of hiding, no matter how smart or cunning they thought they were. After all, she had gotten Oversight to host an emergency meeting when they were trying to hide from her, allowing her to identify the remaining members. The agent could make that happen a second time. Hopefully without having to take several bullets to the Kevlar.
"While you be a creative genius, we'll do all the Interpol stuff," Michael encouraged Nikita as he put the team back on track. They might have to run the two operations congruently, but they'd cross that bridge when they came to it. For the time being, it was all about taking their time. There was no active mission to run off and prepare for or ruin. They got to take a moment and apply their spy skills instead of just their secret agent ones. Beating the shit out of their enemies served its purpose, but when had brute force ever saved the day. Spycraft and intelligence was going to get them far, as well as secure their future.
"Not to be a downer. But this seems too barebones to really work," After a while, Birkhoff expressed some of his doubts. The same anxieties that were eating at Michael, Nikita, and Alex started to affect him too. There was just so much more to lose when things went badly. And didn't things always turn for the worst around them. They already had to fake a death, scramble around on simple missions, fight to keep innocents out of their crusade, and go on the run. Optimism that things would be better seemed a bit too far fetched. If they didn't plan appropriately, it could all fall apart.
"We've gone off worse plans," Shrugging, Nikita did her best to assure Birkhoff. It wasn't like they were going to run off with what they currently had. What they were creating was just the structure they could build off of. That thought was at least helping her. Knowing that she had the time to breathe let her relax. Things were fast approaching, but they weren't happening all at once. The team could separate it out, compartmentalize. If they focused on one thing at a time, or split it up amongst themselves, it wasn't too much- it was all manageable.
"You've gone off no plans. We have to be better," The quip hid Birkhoff's concern, but not well. The team's resources and numbers couldn't match the bastards. They might have done the whole David and Goliath thing before, but that was with a crusade that lasted years. It felt like a cycle of fear and dread they had fallen in before, yet it was true. For them to be truly better than they were before, they couldn't be running the same missions and schemes. The team had to grow and shape into something that couldn't be caught off guard or swept up in internal drama. Although they had gotten better about that over the years, there was still room for improvement.
"We will. We've got time to be smart about this," Alex had settled into a lot of confidence since their last war. She knew what she and her team were capable of. Of anyone in the world to take down the bastards, they were the ones who could do it. They definitely had the courage and heart to accomplish the task. They were also the only ones crazy enough to keep going when it all seemed impossible. It was alright to have anxieties and some regrets (she knew she still hated the fact that her death was faked) but those emotions didn't get to control them.
"As long as we don't have more surprises," Sonya couldn't help but point out. It wasn't to frighten anyone; it was simply a way for her to sort through the reality of what was happening. Making progress with ideas could only get them so far- as would realizing their faults and striving to fix them. The team had to be aware of everything. But that was something they could do. It wasn't too far out of grasp. Their schemes were awesome and so were they.
"Then we should get to work."