All the positive feedback has really given me motivation to write. Thank you all so much. I seriously do love you, you have no idea.
Alex sat by Nikita's bedside, feeling numb. Or really, she crouched on the floor by the couch where Michael had gently laid Nikita. Nobody had been willing to take the risk of moving her.
This whole day, it was just… impossible. From fighting and flirting with Sean, to watching the woman who had saved her life more times than she could count slowly slip between her fingers? Another day to add to my nightmares. Sometimes she wondered if she had slipped into a coma or something as a little girl, because her life seemed both too horrible and too wonderful to be true. Because really, what are the chances of losing your entire family, your life, and some essential part deep in your soul only to find a new family, a new purpose, and a new future?
Nikita really did have a knack for defying the odds.
She sighed. She didn't really know if she could handle being reminiscent right now. Stupid mother figures. Why do we always lose them first? She had to remind herself that Katya was still alive, that Nikita wasn't really her mother, but she may as well be. Nikita had been more constant and stable and supportive than anyone in the past few years of her life. Which really did speak volumes as to how crazy her life was.
It had sort felt like this, lying underneath a bed watching as her father was shot. Sitting here watching Nikita slowly fade was almost worse than that. When it wasn't so instantaneous, it felt less shocking, and it really shouldn't. It was slower, and she had time to think it through and react. And there was nothing more she could do than keep the wound clean, give Nikita occasionally shots of painkiller to prepare for the unlikely chance she woke up, and wait for Sean and Michael to come back with the doctor. And it was slowly killing her inside.
HomeQuarters will never be home again if we lose our mother.
She felt herself fading in and out of the red and the black. She wasn't sure which way was up and which way was down, or where she was, or how long she had been floating in the sea of red and the ocean of black, and sometimes even her name eluded her. It felt like she was always reaching for something just beyond her reach, longing to wake up, longing to escape the cloud of red pain that overwhelmed her mind. Sometimes she dreamed, convoluted and twisted nightmares where the world was crumbling around her. Other times she was at home with her family, but their faces seemed hidden, as if there was a veil between her new world and theirs. All she really was sure of, in the end, was that the red was pain. Bright, searing, unequaled pain. The prick of the needle in her arm brought the black, gave her blessed respite from the red.
Ever since the black faded for the first time and the red overtook her, they had given her a few pricks of the needle. Sometimes, the black came on its own, swallowing her tired mind and offering to take her away from the hurt of the red forever. She wanted, so badly, to descend into the black. But something held her back. She knew what it was at times, but then the red came again, shattering her defenses and stealing her reasons, shaking her will and destroying her fragile consciousness until all that was left was the red and one word. Please. Sometimes the red was dormant for a second, even for a blessed minute, when she was flowing out of the black into the red. Those were the times she allowed herself to repeat The Words over and over and over in her head. I am Nikita and the red is pain. The black is sleep. I am Nikita and the red is pain. The black is sleep. Sometimes she added little snippets, things she caught before the red engulfed them again. I am loved. That was one of her favorites, although she never was able to hold on to the memory of the person or people who had told her that.
The black came more often now than it had at first. Most of the time she did not need the prick of the needle. It would be so easy to sleep. Far too easy. Maybe she should. She let herself drift, finding there was a grey, for the first time, a grey where the pain could no longer find her. It was too much, too hard to think and far too hard to breathe. The grey was the nothing. The grey was the nothing and spiraled down through the nothing, away from the red and into the endless, welcoming, beckoning black. She thought of a word, before she descended into the grey, a word that she was sure had been a reason to fight the oncoming tide. Michael. But in the grey, Michael was just a word like any other. And words were an unnecessary luxury in the nothingness. And so she let it slip away.
She had another thought. Goodbye. She did not know what it meant, but before she had time to really ponder it properly she felt herself truly fall into the grey. She spiraled down, closer and closer, and closer to the black. And then the black engulfed her, and she took one more shuddering breath.
Birkhoff sat at the computer, attempting to pay attention to whatever Mikey and Sean were doing, and drinking his fifth can of Red Bull. If Niki was awake, she probably would be teasing him about trying to set the world record for most energy drinks consumed in one hour, and he'd most likely be explaining that his genius hacker brain required large amounts of caffeine to function. Hell, he usually did manage to find something to argue about. Note to self: When Niki wakes up, try not to be a sarcastic douche to her for an entire week. Or maybe a couple days. But he knew Niki understood. She enjoyed witty banter almost as much as he did. She was much better at the whole "emotional moments" thing, though. Take right now, for example. She would know what to say to comfort Alex if it were Seanny-boy, dying on a couch.
He realized that Sean had been asking him for a confirmation of the time that the Branahan bone-specialist dude's shift ended for about two minutes now. Jeez. First Mikey, then him. Apparently, it was international space-out-on-the-coms day. When Niki woke up, she was going to laugh her ass off at how ridiculous both of them had been. But that was Niki for you. She laughs, she cries, she gets angry, she argues and she never, ever, ever, EVER gives up. Especially if she's arguing. Or on a mission. Okay, maybe just always.
He talked to Sean for a few minutes, letting the automatic data-whisperer part of his brain take over. It was easier than worrying all the time. He must have told Sean the right thing, because he shut up. Good. That dude was WAY to honorable for his blood. He missed Niki calling him Boy Scout. It definitely suited him.
Then he heard the tentative voice behind him. It was Alex. Well, no freaking duh, ShadowWalker. Niki's passed out and there's nobody on the coms right now. Then he registered what Alex was saying.
"Nikita? Nikita! NIKITA! Oh, god, oh, my god, oh, god oh god oh god oh god."
He scrambled up out of his chair, noting for the second time that day that jumping up out of rolling chairs was really not a good idea. Dashing over to the couch, he saw why Alex was panicking. Niki appeared to have stopped breathing.
This, of course, made Birkhoff have a small inner panic attack and freeze up while Alex started administering CPR. Oh, holy flying pancakes from hell, what do I do. Come on bro, be cool. Come on. Be awesome. Oh, shit. I'm panicking. Need to work on that. Ooo, girl on girl. Kind of hot. No, wait, CPR, not hot. Oh, shit. CPR. On Niki. Not good, not good, really very not good. Never was good at CPR. Better at computers, mocking recruits, and occasionally sparring and kicking them in the balls. Maybe there was a real reason he was the computer whisperer and everybody else took the dealing-with-people-and-missions thing.
He had no idea what the hell to do with himself. So, of course, he proceeded to stand there like a complete idiot.
And wait, as he watched Alex frantically work.
Michael felt himself panicking a little bit. Birkhoff had given Sean a vague answer about what time the guy they were tracking was supposed to show up in the employee parking lot of the center for special surgery, where he and Sean were currently staked out. After that, he must have forgotten to turn his com off transmit mode. They could hear him slurping down another Red Bull for a few minutes, and then heard a large crash that sounded like Birkhoff falling out of a rolling chair, and then for the next few minutes he heard nothing but Birkhoff whispering, "oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit," to himself.
He tried to reassure himself. Alex promised to call the second anything changed. But he found that he couldn't. The only reason that Birkhoff would be freaking like that was if Nikita had crashed and… then Alex wouldn't have been able to call because she would have been giving CPR. Dammit. I knew I shouldn't have gone with Sean on this one.
Of course, at the exact moment he was going to tell Sean that they needed to go grab the stupid doctor no matter how many face recognition traps they triggered and then get the hell home, Roan walked into the parking lot, casually pressing a spot on his abdomen and clutching a rather nasty looking gun.
Dammit.
Hang on, Niki, we're coming. If the Terminator doesn't get us first.
I thought I'd copy Nikita and give you the mother of all cliffhangers. But hey. I updated quickly. Sue me.
So... how is it?