Then
David is waiting for her in her apartment. He's never been here before. This violates their unspoken protocol to meet only on the weekends, only in public spaces.
He stands in the dark, his face illuminated by the hallway lights. His features are set in harsh lines, but his eyes are tender. Nicky closes the door behind her, gives them the dark, and goes into his arms. His embrace is tight, her trembling body pressed against his.
"Who was she?" David asks.
"Margot Henley. Maggie. Oh God. Maggie. His handler."
"Jesus."
She shudders. "They were also lovers. I don't...I don't know if Treadstone or NRAG knew the last part."
"If they didn't before, they knew it today," he answers.
Nicky recalls the shock, the horror, the...hope, oh God, the hope on Maggie's face when she saw Owen, before she realized he was there for Treadstone.
"They were making a point," he says.
She knows. She understands now why Maggie fled, why Maggie took classified files in the mistaken belief they would protect her. She needed leverage. She thought it would keep her safe. Nicky understands, but they - Treadstone - didn't; don't. As far as they were concerned, one of their analysts stole classified and precious data that could have exposed Treadstone. No one knows about Treadstone, not even the fucking CIA in which they're ensconced.
"Byer was staring at me." Nicky shivers, remembering his predatory stillness, the unblinking, lifeless chill of his eyes. "He knows - "
David shakes his head. "They don't know about us."
"They will."
"Maybe. But neither of us are trying to steal government information or expose Treadstone, so unless we do something to alter those immutable facts of the universe, there's nothing for us to fear."
"David, what are we doing? What am I doing?" Nicky's never ever questioned her role at Treadstone, why she's doing this job. It's not just patriotism. Nicky believes she's doing something necessary, something meaningful, maybe even invaluable - is that naive of her?
"We're doing our jobs, Nicky. People sleep at night because we do our jobs." He sighs. "We are a necessary evil."
Nicky chokes, pressing her hands to her face.
David gently brushes aside her hands, takes her face in his hands. "Nicky, you have to develop a protocol to ensure I can never hurt you."
She starts to protest that he could never; but shuts up, knowing full well he could and might. He may be on his way to becoming her lover, but he is first and foremost, Treadstone's creature. She thinks about the article she was reading earlier, in the psych journal, before Conklin summoned her.
"I want you to be safe with me."
She nods. "All right."
Now
"You've told me this, why I can't hurt you." Jason frowns. "But if I can't hurt you, why were you afraid that morning?" He looks flustered, as if he doesn't know how to phrase the words. "Why were you leaving...me...David?"
Nicky quakes. Here at last, when the tectonic plates that are her life with David Webb, and with Jason Bourne, shatter the earth. With a shaking hand, she lifts the Scotch to her lips and drains it, feeling the booze rush to her brain. Setting down the glass, she grabs her coat from the dining chair. Reaching into the inner pocket, Nicky pulls out the item she asked Alex to bring to her from the Montparnasse apartment.
Nicky places the pink-capped plastic white pen on the table. The blue line in the open window is no longer visible, having evaporated long ago. But it's clearly a pregnancy test.
Jason Bourne's eyes widen, his nostrils flare. Panic floods his face.
Then
David holds up the pregnancy test, the solid blue line telling her what she already knows.
"Brown-eyed kids, Nicky," David says.
Her heart explodes and terror overcomes her. Nicky screams, petrified, scuttling away from him. David is taken aback by her response, tries to reach for her, but Nicky kicks away his hand, scrambling off the bed and runs out of the room. He's only a few steps behind her, and catches her in the hallway.
Nicky twists in his embrace, tries to claw his face; he avoids her slashing nails, grabs her wrists and holds on, pushing her to the ground. Nicky kicks, thrashes, does what she can to escape him, screaming, screaming, screaming.
David slaps a hand over her mouth, pressing down hard enough that she can't bite him - she tries - alarm and concern etched on his face.
"Nicky!" he shouts. "Nicky!"
She can't hear him. She can't see him.
What she sees, all she can see, is Margot Henley's dead body, the twitching of her swollen belly, a baby dying, suffocating inside the womb as its mother's life drained out of a hole in her head.
"You are safe with me!" he yells at her. "You are safe with me!" The urgency in his voice becomes emphatic, louder, as if to penetrate the fog of fear into which she's stumbled.
Must escape must escape must escape.
She has to get away from here, away from him. She has to run and she's going to use her mother's money to hide where they can never never find her or her baby.
Tears leak out, sliding down the sides of her face. She tries to shake her head, tries to force his hand from her mouth. But he is lying on top of her, pressing her into the floor.
Let me go let me go let me go.
"You are safe with me." He looks down at her desperately, and his voice breaks. "Nicky. Nicky. I'm safe with you. You are safe with me."
It's the pain in his voice that snaps through the ether of her fright.
Nicky draws a quivering breath and stops fighting him. He removes his hand from her mouth immediately, lowers his head, presses his forehead to hers, those brilliant blue eyes burning as he looks down at her. Nicky bursts into tears and she rolls into his arms. They lie on the hallway floor, David holding her, stroking her hair, murmuring soft words of comfort.
When she can finally talk again, she tells him: "I have to go, I have to leave."
His arms tighten around her, his face twists with fury. "No. You're not going anywhere. We stay together. We get out."
Nicky shoves hard at him, gets to her feet. "You're crazy. They're not going to let their primary weapon walk out the door!"
David is frustrated. "We haven't done anything wrong, Nicky!"
Nicky stares at him, like he's stupid. "Do you really think Conklin's going to let you resign, just like that? Jason Bourne is an indentured servant and he can never pay his way out."
"Fine. They might not let me go. But we haven't broken any rules."
"I'm leverage now, don't you understand?" she cries. "And once this baby is born, he or she will never be free. Our child is going to be the chain that Treadstone holds to keep you collared."
Why doesn't he see this? Why doesn't he understand?
"Nicky, if you run, they'll hunt you."
"I can resign. I haven't done anything. I'm nothing. I'm nothing to them."
"Goddammit," he explodes. "You're everything to me." He grabs her arm, imploringly. "Don't leave me. We can figure this out."
And so they go, on and on for an hour, arguing the same points, both refusing to back down. When she finally takes his wrist, points out the time, David grabs her arms, holds her still.
"Maggie." The word is like an epithet between them. He's shattered. "Nicky, please don't make them force me to hunt you."
Tears gather in her eyes. She breaks out of his hold, sweeps an arm across her eyes.
This is penance, she thinks. In their fucked up world, Treadstone is God and they have sinned, they have stolen each other, taken for themselves what was Treadstone's. They violated the primary commandment to place no other before Treadstone, and now they must pay for their trespass.
"I'm coming back for you, Nicky. I promise."
Tempted, tempted.
And she finds herself whispering, "All right."
Maybe David's kiss was meant to be reassuring; instead it's desperate, and Nicky's response is just as frenzied.
They don't do what they're supposed to do: David doesn't get dressed, doesn't grab his bag and go. Nicky doesn't shower, doesn't get ready for work. No. They're going to add one more transgression against Treadstone.
Nicky breaks off their kiss, takes his hand and pulls him down the hall. He follows willingly, but in the bedroom, he closes the gap between them, pulls her against his chest, kisses the back of her neck, proprietary hands sliding from her rounded hips to the still-flat plane of stomach. She turns, lifts her arms so he can pull his Delta t-shirt over her head, and she slides her hands down his muscled torso, hooking her fingers into the waistline of his pajama bottoms. Clothes are dropped to the ground, and their heated bodies twist and fall on the bed, arms and legs entwined. Lips touch, exchanging feverish, probing kisses. His hands wind in her hair, slanting her head, controlling their embrace, his tongue pushing into the soft recess of her mouth before his kisses slide to the corner of her lips, down the vulnerable slope of her throat.
The ragged breath she draws morphs into a sigh of pleasure when his mouth settles over the peak of her breast, his voracious tongue flicking over her nipple, his fingers bruising the soft flesh of her hips. Nicky revels in the feel of him against her body, the silk of his hair between her fingers. She pulls him closer, trying to fill the emptiness, the ache, the certain knowledge that...
...There's no time.
Maybe deep down inside, they both know this truth.
But Nicky doesn't care; she only wants to keep feeling the rightness of being with him, the overwhelming love she feels for David Webb. This is sacred, this is profane: her legs opening to welcome his weight between her thighs, the hard thrust that joins his body to hers, the restless pace of his deepening strokes, the way he kisses her, the way he never stops kissing her, except...except when pleasure sweeps up his spine, overcomes him before he can attend to her satisfaction; but she doesn't let him stop, doesn't let him pause - she wraps her legs tightly around his waist, lifts her hips, pushes back onto him, over and over, ignoring his soft entreaties to slow down, to let him wait for her.
She doesn't want him to wait for her. She's going to wait for him. She said so.
This is not going to end well.
David Webb surges into her once, twice; buries himself deeply, calls her name, his hands gripping hers tightly.
And if tears gather in her eyes again, Nicky can pretend it's because it was good, so good.
Was.
It's the last time she kisses David Webb, the last time they make love, the last time she sees him, because he leaves for his mission shortly thereafter.
Nicky, for the first time since being assigned to Bourne's team, does not attend his briefing. She calls in from the road, and tells them she's waiting for the gendarmes. She doesn't tell them she deliberately caused the accident, only that she's amidst a melee of wrecked cars.
Wrecked, everything wrecked.
A.N.
Elizabeth, thank you for being my beta reader, for catching my mistakes, and for encouraging me.
Everyone: thank you so so much for your continued patience, your kind words, and for reading! It means more than I can say.