Disclaimer: I don't own em…

A/N: I forgot to mention this before, besides some main story points, the rest of the story is definitely AU. Well here we go, enjoy!

"Nik?It's time to go."

"Wait! I can't do it…I can't leave her here. She'll…he'll kill her."

"You can't save her. There's no time…Nik! She doesn't want to be saved!"

"No! NO let me go we can't leave her here. NO!"

Nikita abruptly woke up and was sitting straight up in her bed. She quickly scanned the room and realized it was a dream.

"It was a dream," she said aloud as if to assure herself that it was really a dream. "It wasn't real." She lied to herself, she knew it was real…it had happened. Seeing James at the briefing earlier in the day had triggered many repressed memories to resurface, however painful.

The ring of her cell phone disrupted her thoughts about James and replaced them with the thought of seeing Michael again.

"Hello," she answered.

"Josephine." His voice was indifferent as always.

She gave her reply before hanging up and springing into action. The mission would be challenging, she'd be dealing with both James and Michael.

At the Section Briefing

Nikita made it a point to either look down at the table or at Operations. She wasn't ready for James' inquisitive looks and Michael's…well she wasn't sure what he wanted from her anymore.

"That will be all. Mission loads in 30mins, inventory is on your panels," Operations said as he finished up.

Off to Walter then, Nikita thought to herself.

Just when she reached Walter, Nikita noticed James was right behind her…as was Michael.

Disregarding Michael's presence James began to speak to Nikita, "I wanted to stop by last night but I figured you might want some time to yourself before I do."

"Oh?" she replied as she glanced over to Michael's direction who was seemingly not interested in them, she knew better however.

James continued, "Yeah, considering the last time we saw each other…it was hard for me too Nik."

There it was again. The use of her nickname.

"Mission loads in 10…make it out alive…then we'll talk." And with that she walked away to the exit point without giving him a chance to respond.

James was now left behind with Walter and Michael.

"Here. Click this once and the timer is set. Click it again and you have 10 seconds to clear yourself out of reach before it goes off." Walter explained to James. "And if you hurt Nikita I'll make sure there's a glitch in your equipment. See you later." He said as he dismissed him and moved over to Michael. James merely smirked before he left.

"Michael…" Walter began when he stopped. The look on Michael's face suggested to not getting involved. After a final look Michael left.

The trip to the drop off location seemed to take longer than it really was. When they finally reached their destination the first team went in. Michael and Nikita were supposed to bring in a woman named Samantha Peters. James was on the second team, he would have to wait for team one's signal to go in. While he was waiting in the van he tried to get Birkoff to talk about Nikita. Birkoff wasn't giving him a lot of information that he didn't already know.

He started to get frustrated. "So is she seeing anyone then?"

"I don't really think you should be asking me these questions." He paused as he heard Michael's voice in his earpiece. "Copy that Michael. James, you're up."

"Yeah, thanks Birkoff," he said referring to Birkoff's lack of cooperation rather than the mission go ahead.

Back in the van Birkoff was updating Michael and Nikita. "Ok James is in place. Nikita, target is in place…go now."

Nikita nodded in agreement to Michael. "Ok Birkoff, I see her." She turned back to Michael however, "it seems she has company…Birkoff?"

"No, no that's not possible. Her husband's out of town and she doesn't socialize. The profile…"

"Well I'm telling you Birkoff, she's not alone. I'm going to distract her companion while Michael and James extract Samantha."

"Michael?" Birkoff asked.

Being team leader he would have to ok if they were to go ahead. "Go." He said to Nikita.

Birkoff contacted James with the new plan. "James, move to beta point. You and Michael will extract the target while Nikita distracts the companion."

"Birkoff, I can take him out. If Nikita goes in she jeopardizes the mission." he replied instead.

"Stand by James," Birkoff said while he conferred with Michael, strategically James was right he noticed as he clicked away at this computer. "Michael, we risk the target if Nikita goes in. James can take him out while you and Nikita get the target."

After a brief silence he heard Michael agreeing. "James, go now," Birkoff said.

James moved closer and took out the companion, soon after he saw Michael and Nikita with the target, his plan had worked.

Back at Section the team was greeted by Operations when they got out. "Good work. James, I need you in Madeline's office immediately. Michael, you're needed at Comm."

Nikita stopped Michael as he began to walk away. She made sure James and Operations were out of sight when she approached him.

"Michael," she said again.

He turned to face her, "yes?"

"We didn't stick to the profile."

"What is your point Nikita?" he replied knowing full well what she going at.

"My point? Normally Sections doesn't want operatives deviating from the profile. It is certainly not encouraged when it does occur. Why is Operations here congratulating us on a job well done?"

"The mission went according to plan; some minor adjustments were made out of necessity."

"Minor? Michael, James acted as the team leader. I want to know why this is being overlooked."

"He didn't take over anything that I didn't allow." He gave her a final look before he left for Comm.

Frustrated as ever Nikita set out to find Birkoff. She wanted to see if he knew anything else about James before going home.

With Birkoff too busy to talk to her, Nikita gave up for the time being and went home. She was barely there for 5 minutes when there was a knock at the door. She looked to see who it was when she tensed up as she saw James standing outside her door.

She hesitantly opened the door, "James? What are you doing here?"

"I did what you said, I made it out alive so I'm here. Can I come in Nik?"

Ugh, you need to stop saying that, she thought to herself. "Sure, come in. Can I get you anything, water, tea?"

"No, I'm fine." He said as he walked over to the sofa. When he sat down he motioned for her to join him, "care to sit with me?"

Her heart was beating a mile a minute, "James…I don't think this is good idea…"

"Come on Nik, I just asked you to sit down. Nothing serious."

"All right nothing serious," she liked that. Maybe he didn't want to revisit the past like she thought he did. Maybe he just wanted to talk, she could do that. "So what brings you here?" she asked again.

"I just want us to be ok. I want you to know that I'm not expecting anything. I know I came on strong the other day at Section, but I realize that this has to be difficult for you."

"I'm just surprised to see you here…here at Section." She'd wanted to ask him how he had ended up at Section and now seemed like the perfect time. "What did you do to get here?"

James was quiet for a few seconds before he began, "I got mixed up with the wrong people." He said smiling innocently. "I didn't know what they were capable of when I first started to hang with them. Finally one day it just went sour…an innocent woman died…I was blamed and even though I didn't kill her with my own hands I could have stopped it and I didn't. I'm to blame Nik…it was my fault." He ended his story there and was waiting for Nikita's response.

She wasn't sure what to say at first, "So she was innocent?"

"Yeah, we were trying to rob this liquor store and it just went bad…" his voice trailed off.

Nikita was lost for words. "James…I…"

"It's ok. I know you, I know that you can't believe me when I say that I'm truly sorry for what I've done…I never meant to hurt her."

"I believe you," she replied. "There's one thing I don't understand though. I remember Madeleine saying that you had some intell for us. Red Cell intell. How did you get a hold of that?"

James looked momentarily distraught. "That was just something I picked up. Listen I'm sorry but I have to leave now. I just remembered I needed to do something…sorry I'll catch you later then?"

She was positive now that James was hiding something from her, "what's wrong James?" she asked trying to make him speak but he was already up and walking to the door.

"It's nothing really…we'll talk later ok? Goodnight Nik," he said as he opened the door to let himself out. "It was great talking to you again, I missed that." With a final smile he closed the door.

"Yeah, it was great," Nikita said to a closed door.