CHAPTER 7

"Where's Hawke?" Archangel demanded, leaning wearily on his cane. "I need to speak with him."

"He ain't here," the owner of Santini Air replied coolly, "just like I told you before you drove over here."

"Dominic, I'm serious. I've spent the last week trying to make contact with a rogue agent then I get word Hawke has known where she is all along. I'm tired of dancing around the issue. Where is he?"

"I don't know."

"Don't lie to me!"

"Okay, he's somewhere between here and Canada, at least last I heard from him. Now you know as much as I do."

"Does he know where Lexa is?"

"Assuming she showed up."

"He flew all the way out there not knowing if she would even be there?" he asked incredulously.

"Actually he drove, left around midnight."

"He drove?"

"Yep."

"The more I find out, the less I believe it."

\A/

Despite his personal feeling that it was a terrible idea, Hawke had let Lexa drive the next leg of the trip home, too tired to worry how much over the speed limit she probably was. No matter how hard he tried to ignore the myriad of of questions still plaguing him long enough to get a few minutes of sleep, rest eluded him. Or maybe it was just that every time he was about to doze off Lexa would swing around the car in front of them and race off again, unless she was disapproving of their driving ability in which cases she usually slammed on the brakes right in front of them before speeding away.

Neither one of them had spoken since they left the gas station, but there were still plenty of unfinished issues to work through.

"Will you at least think about it?" Lexa asked, catching him off guard.

"Think about what?"

"Adopting Nikita."

"I... I don't see that working very well. The last thing I need is another kid to look after. I already need to do a better job with Le, and between charters at Santini Air and Airwolf missions I'm gone a lot myself. It's not a responsibility I think I can really take on. Besides that, you and I aren't exactly on the friendliest terms most of the time and I know you're going to want to see her."

"I'm not asking you to do the day to day care – I'll handle food, clothes, school supplies, everything. I just need you to take care of the legal matters. The only real problem would be papers that need a guardian's signature and visits by the social workers. I can forge the signature," she started until she saw the look he gave her, "or I could drop them off at Santini Air... You can use my apartment for the other too. I'll put... I'm not sure where I'll put them yet, but I'll stash things they might not deem 'appropriate' around the house elsewhere beforehand. All I need you to do is sign the dotted line."

"What if something happens to one of us? Neither one of our jobs is particularly low risk."

"If something happens to me so that I couldn't take care of her, I have a friend that would take over for me."

"What about me? Since I'm your clean record, you would have a problem."

"I guess I'd have to do the same thing I'd do if you don't help."

"Which is?"

"Take her and flee the country."

"You can't just keep running, Lexa. That's my biggest reservation to doing this for you. You never want to own up to your mistakes and take the consequences, always trying to just avoid the situation."

"Maybe it's my problem separating personal and job life; they always tell you to get out of those kind of situations, it's hard to suddenly start accepting punishment when you know you could get out of it."

"But for what you just did you deserve to go to jail. I can't send you there because I don't have any evidence against you, but I can't in good conscience let you get away with everything. She is family though and I admire your efforts to right old wrongs."

"So you'll help me?"

"I will think about it."

"You might want to think quickly because there's a roadblock ahead and I'd bet they're looking for us."

"If they catch us now I don't think you're going to have to worry about that clean record of mine."

"That just won't work. Hang on, we're getting past this thing."

\A/

"Marella?" Nikita asked, reappearing from the dark hallway again.

"Yes?"

"Do I have to go to school tomorrow?"

"I suppose you ought to go. What school am I taking you to?"

"I dunno."

"Haven't you gone to school already this year?"

"Yeah, but I didn't like it there. Mommy said I could go to a different school starting Monday."

"Where's your new school going to be?"

"I don't the name of it. She said it was far away and I would have to fly there but she would visit me as much as she could."

"I see. Well, how about this? You can stay with me tomorrow and hopefully we can get this whole thing sorted out so you can start Tuesday."

"Okay," she turned back toward the guest bedroom, but stopped after only a couple steps. "When is Mommy coming back?"

"I don't know," Marella answered uncertainly, "it might be a while."

"How come?"

Marella didn't answer immediately. It was obvious Nikita missed Lexa, but in reality she might never see her again. If half the rumors against her were true she could end up in prison for the rest of her life, or worse. Any way she looked at it, guardianship of Nikita wasn't likely.

"It's complicated."

"Why?"

"I don't know how to explain it to you. It has a lot to do with her job and where she's been for the last few days. There have been rumors about why she's been gone so lone and possibly going places she shouldn't have been, but I don't want to talk about it much until we get her back and hear her side of the story."

"Alright."