Part 10 It was probably the most he had ever shared with her of his thoughts and feelings in one stretch and while it should have pleased her, she was left feeling angry and insulted instead. Angry that it was always about him, angry that he was always the one to establish the pace of this...this twisted excuse for a relationship. Her reply rushed out of her mouth, cutting and harsh; anxious as she felt in that moment, lost in a sea of fury and betrayal: "It's funny how you make it seem like it's completely about you, Michael. You think you could want Simone, so you bide your time. You choose me, so you come here ready to reveal your inner torment. It's awfully nice of you, but where's my choice in all this? Hearts _do_ break, and pain doesn't just go away because you come back to your senses and realize you were wrong. If you had told me this two months--- hell, two weeks ago, I would have kissed the living daylights out of you, but now...now it seems like just another bone you throw me to keep me content. It's not enough anymore. It's not what I want." She heard her voice breaking and felt the tears, long dried and bottled up inside her, make their way up to her eyes. Nikita hated herself for being so weak, so vulnerable to him, for truly wanting only to be important to him. "I know I made mistakes with you, but I also know that I can remedy them. What's between us is as real as you and me. It isn't a dream. The rest, we can work out." "That's not the point. I waited so long for you and now I don't want to wait anymore. I'm tired of wondering when you'll pull back or if you're ever going to want to get serious about our relationship. Do you want to do me a favor? Leave me alone. Permanently." "I got you a present." "Michael, right now the biggest present you could give me would be disappearing from the face of earth." The hurt she saw on his face mollified her a little, making her regret that she had unintentionally --- no, intentionally if she wanted to be honest --- caused him pain. While it was true that whenever he hurt her, she automatically wanted to hurt him back, it was even more true that looking into his eyes made her want to stop all the hurting from either side. "Take it, please." He sounded so soft, so earnest, that Nikita couldn't refuse him. She opened her palm wordlessly and he placed a beautiful, small parcel in her hand. It was wrapped in gold paper and adorned with a tiny red ribbon. She could sense him watching her face as she carefully opened the parcel. Inside was a smaller velvet box. Surely it wasn't...it couldn't be... "Open it," Michael said, lower and softer still. She did. There it was. A ring, a white gold band with a tiny diamond. Or perhaps a white sapphire. "It's beautiful," Nikita murmured, surprised that she had any voice at all. "It was my mother's. Finding it took awhile." "How long?" She couldn't come up with anything else to say and the subtle amusement in his answer echoed in her mind as she prayed to God that this meant what she thought it did because she was going to snap his neck in two otherwise. "Enough to be late for an important date." "I see," Nikita whispered as a stubborn tear slid down her cheek. She felt him brush a kiss, light and soft as a feather's touch, on her cheek just a moment before he sighed. "I love you. I never meant to hurt you and if I could, I would take everything back. I can't live without you." His arm was wrapped around her shoulders and Nikita watched as Michael, her Michael, put his ring on her left ring finger. It was as perfect as she had dreamed it would be and even more so. Then he asked her the one question that could bury the past behind them forever. "Will you marry me, Nikita?" "Yes, yes, yes, yes..." Nikita and Michael wouldn't remember clearly years later if he had initiated the embrace by enveloping her in a bear hug or if she had done so by nestling herself in his arms, so they compromised by defining their embrace as a mutual act. Even back then, they had known that it didn't happen everyday that one was lucky enough to find someone they could value as much as they valued each other and that they therefore had an obligation to hold on to their love. Because there are things that although found accidentally or unwillingly cannot be forgotten or cancelled or denied because they are indissolubly ours. Things that are the Soul of the World. Things that once were the engine and the flicker of Life and that we can never refer to by their true names because they are not little enough for our mouths. Things that in challenging Death are and will be the breath of Life.