"Nikita. Nikita. Nikita."
Nikita's eyes flew open and her heart nearly stopped. She was in MedLab, she didn't need to see the doctors or hear the machines to know. She just knew. Dread threatened to choke her.
"How are you?"
With a start, Nikita turned as much as she was able, to see Madeline standing just inside of the entrance, watching her with a slight smile on her otherwise inscrutable face. Still more than a little off balance, Nikita unwittingly gave the standard Section response. "I'm fine."
With a slight smile on her lips Madeline advanced to Nikita's bedside. "We were concerned for a while there. Had the bullet lodged half an inch to either the left or right your chances of survival would have been minimal at best."
When Nikita didn't respond Madeline instructed her to get some rest and turned to leave. She paused at the door's threshold and turned back to Nikita. With seeming innocuousness she asked, "Did you know that you talk in your sleep?" Mona Lisa smile firmly in place Madeline continued out of the door, not bothering to wait for a response.
As she stared at the ceiling Nikita allowed the tears to flow unchecked. With a profound sense of bereavement she hesitantly touched her stomach, flat and taut, where only a dream ago it had been full with the promise of new life. Pain and sorrow tugged at her, mercilessly pulling her toward the edge of the abyss. Images of her "children", her "life", mocked her, they thundered through her emptiness, while longing stole her breath. Trying to fight off the anesthesia, Nikita attempted to focus on the pain, to bring reality into sharp focus.
"Nikita", a soft whisper came from the doorway.
Turning toward the sound of Michael's softly accented voice, Nikita struggled to prop herself up. In an instant he was there, placing a comforting, if restraining, hand on her shoulder. In tact obiedence Nikita laid back and studied Michael. Noting the differences between this Michael and the Michael of her dreams.
It was in the eyes. The constant guard, the layers of protective barriers, and the distance he kept between himself and everyone he encountered. Amazed at the extent to which she had stripped Michael of all that kept them apart, Nikita stared in wonder at this familiar stranger.
"How are you feeling?" he queried.
"What happened?" she countered.
"The initial Intel gathered was incomplete. Therefore the profile was flawed. There was insufficient time to allow for egress following the surgical strike. Team Two laid down cover fire but we were out-manned and out-gunned. We suffered heavy losses in the ensuing firefight. You were hit.""Did we achieve end game?"
"Yes," he replied with an ironic twist of his lips.
"Madeline said something about there being a question of my surviving." Nikita whispered weakly.
"There was some concern, yes. En route to the Section you went into cardiac arrest and respiratory distress. After the doctors removed as many of the bullet fragments as they dared you lapsed into a coma.""How long?"
"Six days."
"S...six days," she faltered, "I've been in a coma for six days?"
"You came out of it yesterday and have been sleeping fitfully since." He paused, looking at her. "How do you feel?"
"I'll be fine," she murmured and closed her eyes, effectively shutting him out. But she wasn't fine. She might never be fine again, Nikita thought. Her vulnerability had been brought home to her once again. Even unconscious she had managed to betray herself. She felt as if her heart were breaking. With a small sigh she surrendered to the darkness.
Watching her sleep, Michael noticed when her breathing grew shallow and rapid, then, suddenly the machine monitoring her heart screamed in alarm. Doctors rushed in firing instructions to the nurses that followed hard on their heals.
With a sense of disjointment, Michael stepped out of their way, moving to the foot of Nikita's bed. As he watched, the medical staff worked on her, one nurse started an IV, while another took her blood pressure. While everyone rushed around, Michael watched the scene with an unnatural calm. He watched as one of the new doctors began chest compressions. When Nikita flat-lined, he grabbed a set of paddles from a nurse and ordered everyone away. Once, twice, a third time.
From a seemingly great distance, an urgently pleading voice broke through the fog of shock and pain, Michael didn't realize that it was his own, he didn't recognize his voice urgently calling out Nikita's name. Over and over and over again, "Nikita. Nikita. Nikita."