*11*
Nikita was restless.
Nikita hated feeling restless. She'd much rather be doing something useful like stopping Division from cleaning up the mess a US diplomat had made in South Africa so that he'd be brought to justice instead of going about his merry corrupt way, like he would now. For quite a pretty penny - she was sure of that - Division would make all his problems go away. Tax-payers penny's, she fumed. But she'd promised Michael she'd lay low and not interfere until he'd had the chance to get back to her.
He hadn't had that chance yet. He'd sent her a text last night, Not tonight. X, short and sweet, typical Michael. It hadn't made her worry more than she already did. She hadn't really expected him to be back the same night anyway. Michael had accused Percy of playing things close to the vest, but he did exactly the same thing. He would be careful, like she'd asked of him, and make absolutely sure the risk was as small as it could be, before he'd be back. She'd always known she'd be the one taking the risks in this relationship, not Michael. The thought made a smile tug at her lips.
Nevertheless she had missed him last night. After he'd left yesterday morning, she'd spent a little more time in bed. But it had felt a little strange and awkward to be sitting there alone, naked, sipping the coffee he'd brought her. So she'd gotten up and after showering and dressing, she'd set to work on erasing all traces of Michael's presence in the loft, just in case Alex would want to stop by or something.
She'd done the laundry, washed the dishes and had gathered up Michael's bag with his clothes and stuffed them in an unused cupboard in the hall. She'd been meticulous until there was nothing left to do but change the bed. The sheets still smelled of him and the thought of washing his scent from them caused her stomach to tie up in knots. She hesitated for just a second before she berated herself sternly and changed the sheets anyway.
All immediately visible traces of Michael gone from the loft, she got into contact with the supplier that would most likely be able to fill the tall order she had for him, in the least amount of time and managed to negotiate a deal on a state of the art signal jammer. One that would also mask echoes and filter ambient sounds before they were picked up by the receiver of say: a mobile phone. That would ensure a repeat of how Michael had tracked Alex to the loft would not occur. It was going to cost her, the supplier had said to her. She didn't care.
Nikita had been in the middle of paying for her groceries that same afternoon, when she got a text from the supplier telling her where to meet him the next day at noon and what the price was. She had not been able to repress a sigh. She knew a con when she saw one. She was prepared to pay a steep price, but this was just too much. She needed the device though...
There was only one thing for it, persuade him to rethink his asking price. So after she had done her customary check on possible Division activity, she had filled the rest of the day with digging up as much dirt on him as she possible could. She'd compiled an impressive file of said dirt and set a few things in motion to back up her threat if he decided to call her bluff. Michael wouldn't define her plan as laying low exactly, but she had decided that what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him in this particular case and besides, she was doing it to protect the both of them and Alex.
Still somewhat sleep-deprived she'd gone to bed early that evening. Her phone next to her gun on the nightstand on the off chance Michael would text again. She'd dressed in the shirt he had been wearing the day before when he'd returned to the loft, which she'd grabbed from his bag after only briefly arguing with herself on whether she should or not. Like the sheets - she'd since changed, his shirt smelled like him and she found that besides its warmth, she wanted the added comfort his scent gave her while she tried to convince herself she really didn't miss him that much after only three nights together.
Despite being surrounded by his scent, or maybe because it was a reminder of what she'd missed, she'd slept poorly last night. Which had done nothing for her mood this morning when she'd gone to meet with that scrawny little excuse for a man that was to be her supplier today. She'd managed to get him to rethink his asking price after some mild coercion. She would never be able to do business with him again after all was said and done, but she had taken that in stride and was just happy with the fact that she now had what she needed. Her mood had lightened considerably at the thought that anyone setting foot in the loft would now be as untraceable as was technologically possible.
Her improved mood wasn't meant to last apparently. Alex had phoned her only two hours ago and informed her of the clean-up mission that was to take place to save the US diplomat's ass. A team would be deployed to South Africa immediately, Alex wasn't on it, for which Nikita breathed a sigh of relief after all that she'd been through ever since she'd been in detox with Amanda.
Nikita had dared not ask the girl if Michael was going to South Africa, but instead asked her about Nathan and tried to talk to her about a timeline on getting her out of Division. They nearly fought about the first, when Alex told her she'd spent the weekend with him in the Hamptons and because of that the latter didn't appeal to her much at this point in time if she could not take him with her. And that just wasn't an option, it would be difficult enough getting Alex out in relative safety. No, Alex would need to break it off with him, but she just wasn't ready yet and Nikita picked up on the young agent's anxiety over it quite easily.
Nikita felt frustrated that she apparently hadn't been able to impress the danger of getting involved with a civilian upon Alex enough, but at the same time she also knew this was no conversation that should be had over the phone. So she'd let Alex go when she started to become defensive and asked her to please consider her options carefully and told her she cared about her too much for her to willingly put herself in more danger than she already was. Alex had sighed at that and promised she would call her back tomorrow and that had been that.
So here she was, feeling restless. She'd conducted a search on the internet on the diplomat and checked in with a few sources and now she had all this knowledge and nowhere to go with it. Nikita couldn't decide on what had been the worse idea, her promising Michael she'd lay low for the time being or gathering more intel on a mission she couldn't prevent or steer in another direction anyway. Nikita sighed in frustration and decided on doing some yoga, to try and clear her head and burn some energy.
Another couple of hours later she'd put her body through a gruelling workout, fixed herself a veggie shake that she drank only half-heartedly and debated with herself on having a long soak in the tub or opting for a quick shower. She checked her phone for a text from Michael even though she knew there wouldn't be one as the sound was on and it hadn't left her vicinity once that day.
If she were being honest with herself, Nikita might have admitted that she was only mildly irritated at not being able to do anything to stop Division in its tracks at present and that she was mostly crabby because she hadn't heard from Michael apart from that text last night and hated not knowing if he was even on the continent right now. But to admit that would be to admit that she might just miss him more than she had anticipated and that maybe, just maybe, she wasn't really as comfortable with being totally self-reliant as she'd liked to believe she was after all. It made you lonely at times.
In the end Nikita decided on taking a bath. She took a glass of wine with her, hoping the warm water combined with the ingestion of alcohol would calm her mind. The scented bubble bath she'd used filled the room with the smell of citrus and that combined with the ingestion alcohol allowed her to relax. She stayed in the bath until her fingers and toes were pruned beyond recognition and the water started to cool too much to be comfortable anymore.
Another glance at her phone told her again she had no new messages. She imagined he was probably in South Africa. Resigned to not seeing him again tonight, she went to bed. Wrapped once again in Michael's shirt, she fell asleep nearly as soon as her head hit her pillow. The soft, toned down beep of her phone signalling an incoming text message just twenty minutes later, never even consciously registered with her.
For Michael the past day and a half, had progressed in a similarly tiring way. Division was quiet when he arrived yesterday morning, but that hadn't lasted long. Before he had even had time to figure out how to best embark on his search for the remaining guardians and the black boxes in their custody, he'd been swamped in one task after another, the last of which was overseeing the South African mission that went down tonight.
The one good thing about immediately being back in the thick of all things Division was the fact that he could only conclude that the Black Ops organisation and its leaders were none the wiser to Nikita's whereabouts or his and Alex's subterfuge. The bad thing about it, besides not having been able to gain any knowledge on the remaining black boxes just yet, was the fact that he'd been working almost non-stop. Except for the three hours he'd crashed on a Division bunk last night, he had had no time to spare to consult or even inform Nikita of this fact. He had only just managed to send her a text last night he wouldn't make it back to her, and one mere hours ago informing her he wanted to be by tonight, but would be very very late.
Michael had not been required in the field, but he had been the one to oversee tactical support from Operations right next to Birkhoff. The mission had gone like clockwork, but try as he might, he hadn't been able to help the nervous feeling that had come over him as it played out. This was a mission Nikita most definitely would have interfered with before. They had agreed she wouldn't come after Division until he checked in with her, but still…
It wasn't that he didn't trust her, he just had trouble shaking a feeling of impending doom. He wasn't really worried about her going back on her word, he was more worried about the fact that if he expected her to interfere in a mission, others would too. And when she didn't, that might raise questions too… He knew he was driving himself crazy with paranoia, but he hadn't survived within Division's walls for nine plus years not learning a thing or two about its masters.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered Birkhoff's voice rambling on. He'd long ago mastered the fine art of tuning out nerd - as Nikita had always been fond of calling him - when he was spouting non-relevant information, to save himself from a brain haemorrhage by irritation. The sound of his name leaving Birkhoff's lips made him tune in again though, the hacker rarely called him by his given name when it was just the two of them, "Michael! Have you heard anything I just said?"
"Actually, no."
A long suffering sigh preceded Birkhoff's next words, "Right, well, I'm going to call it a night. Maybe you should too, the way you've been zoning out, hmm?"
Michael swallowed a curse, being bone-tired lowered his tolerance level significantly. Birkhoff was staring at him, a frown marring the hacker's forehead, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, didn't get much sleep last night", Michael offered in the most neutral tone he could manage. "I think I'll head out too."
The frown didn't completely leave Birkhoff's face, but other than a "Yeah, right. Well, good night Mikey", he offered nothing more and just got up and made his way out of Operations, his chair still swivelling as Birkhoff disappeared from view completely. Michael sighed, he'd have to mind himself much more carefully around Birkhoff now…
He noticed it was already well past midnight and his frustration at the way the past forty plus hours had progressed was complete when he pulled out his phone to check for a reply from Nikita and saw there was none. Inwardly cursing, he weighed his options for a few seconds before deciding he would go to the loft anyway, neither the thought of spending another night in Division nor the thought of returning to the loneliness of his king-sized bed in his empty apartment appealed to him in the slightest.
A little less than three quarters of an hour later, Michael found himself standing at the entrance to her building. Circumventing the security measures she had in place was just as easy to him now as it had been the last two times he'd shown up unannounced. Silently creeping up the stairs to the loft, he breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of a very familiar lump underneath the sheets.
A smile tugged at his lips and for the first time since he had left her, he felt a feeling of peace spreading through him, warming him from the inside out. Coming here had been the right decision, even if it was only for a few short hours.
A couple of quick but quiet strides brought him to her. He knelt beside the bed and slowly reached out, smiling at her choice of sleep attire. A couple of fingers softly connected with her face as he brushed her hair behind her ear. Nikita woke instantly, drawing a shuddering breath at the unidentified touch and releasing it on a sigh as she opened her eyes to look into his glowing ones.
"Hi." The sound of her sleep hoarse voice was music to his ears and he bent down a little as she pushed herself up slightly to catch her lips in a tender kiss. His lips lingering over hers, her head cradled in his hand, he whispered back to her, "Hi."
Nikita pressed her lips to his again for a slightly lengthier but just as sweet mating of their mouths, her tongue darting out to caress his bottom lip lovingly, before deepening their kiss. Resting on one elbow, her free hand came up to his neck, holding him to her as her fingers burrowed into his hair. She heard Michael make a soft sound of pleasure in the back of his throat, which made her smile a smile as old as Eve, just as she released him from their kiss. Michael sighed and closed his eyes as she whispered, "I wasn't expecting you back tonight."
"Hmm, I sent you a text a few hours ago..."
"You did?", Nikita sat up straighter and reached for her phone. Pressing the home button, the screen lit up with a preview of Michael's message, sent at 10.02 p.m.. "You did", she affirmed, "I'm sorry, I don't know why I didn't hear it..." Checking the volume and adjusting it accordingly, she added soberly, "Sound was nearly off, I must have slept right through it..."
Nikita replaced the phone next to her gun on the nightstand and Michael reached for her again, enveloping her in his arms and burying his face in her hair. Nikita kissed his cheek and hugged him back, frowning a little at his lack of a verbal response and the overload of affection he bestowed upon her as he held on to her tightly.
"Is everything okay?", she asked him, worry evident in her voice.
"Yeah...", he was silent for a beat, "I haven't had the chance to find out more about the black boxes or the guardians yet, it's been hectic." Nikita squeezed him to her a little, he sounded tired and she most definitely wasn't going to pump him for information at this time of night.
"On the up side, for now I have no reason to believe Percy or Amanda suspect anything either", Michael continued.
Nikita let out a sigh of at least partial relief at this bit of info, "Good."
She pulled back a little to look at him. "How are you?", she enquired while stroking her fingers through his hair.
His trademark half-smile appeared, "Tired."
Dead on your feet's more likely, she thought taking a good look at him, but she didn't tell him that. Instead she tilted her head and semi-playfully asked, "Then why don't you take off your clothes and stay a while?"
"I have to be up in...", Michael glanced at his watch, "...four hours."
She looked at him curiously, "How much sleep did you get last night?"
"Less than that", his half-smile stretched to a full one at her overprotectiveness.
She flopped back down on her tiny bed, curling back on her side and holding up the sheet invitingly. "Come to bed then", her tone indicated she was not taking no for an answer and in case he wasn't convinced of that fact yet, she added, "I'm not letting you drive home like this."
Michael bent down to gently peck her lips and then did as she asked. Stripped down to his underwear, he slid between the sheets and into her waiting arms. One of his hands came around her and burrowed underneath his shirt to touch the warm skin of her back. His voice was slightly muffled as he nuzzled her neck, "You're wearing my shirt."
Busted, she thought and considered a few answers before settling on the simple truth. In a timid voice she replied, "It smells like you."
Michael pulled her in closer and rolled onto his back, taking her with him and settling her on his chest. "I missed you too", he whispered as he placed his fingers underneath her chin to tilt her head up and catch her lips in a searing kiss.
When they broke apart, Nikita's hand that had cupped his jaw, slowly stroked over the side of his face. She looked her fill of him and smiled the most endearing smile Michael had ever seen gracing her lips. One hand tracing patterns on her naked back and one tangling in her hair, he brought her face down for another loving kiss or two before she wished him goodnight and rested her head over his heart and tucked her fingers beneath his ribs.
Michael felt Nikita drifting off almost instantly and as he let the feeling of utter peace at having her in his arms again wash over him, he let out a sigh, closed his eyes and joined his love in slumber.
