Chapter One
Alex was the first one to notice that Michael still had not returned to the group. She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach- it could not be good news. Everyone looked nervously at each other and Alex stood up to go find Michael. Her mind was racing- there was no way that Nikita would abandon them- she had to know that they were a family and they would all protect each other as they had through this whole fight.
As she made her way down the stairs, she tried to convince herself Nikita just needed some air, needed a moment to herself to think things out. When she saw Michael standing frozen in the open doorway, she immediately knew that wasn't the case. In Michael's hand Alex caught the gleam of something shiny- and her breath caught in her throat as she realized it was Nikita's engagement ring. Michael's body was outlined by the setting sun as he stared out into nowhere. In the other hand, an unanswered cell phone being clutched mindlessly.
Alex slowly approached Michael, but he did not move. "Michael?" she gently said.
Michael did not flinch. As Alex moved closer yet, she realized the big, strong agent, one that hardly ever showed any emotion, was crying, his eyes puffy and red. It felt strange to see Michael this vulnerable. "We will find her Michael." Alex tried to reassure him, gently placing a hand on his back.
"I can't lose her like this." Michael sobbed.
"We will find her Michael." Alex repeated. "C'mon, we have to go back to the others and come up with a plan. We have to find her and we will all retire together if it's the last thing we do."
Hesitating, Michael slowly followed Alex back upstairs to where the others waited. Normally they would have been laughing, sipping champagne in celebration, but no one felt like celebrating now. The last day's events had put an extreme damper on the satisfaction that should have been. Everyone in the group could tell things were bad when Michael came up the stair behind Alex. "What happened?" Ryan asked.
"She's gone." Alex replied, "Won't answer her cell. And she left her engagement ring."
Birkhoff was the first to respond. "Listen, Mikey, I'm really sorry."
"We'll find her Michael." Sonya added, "We will bring back the missing part of our family."
"We will get her back." Michael mechanically insisted.
"No arguments here." Ryan agreed, "So what's our first step?"
Birkhoff instinctually sat behind a computer, cracking his knuckles over his keyboard at the ready. "Would Amanda's tracker be useable?" Alex asked.
"It is." Birkhoff frantically typed into the computer, 'But she is not going to let us get to her that way. Nikki's too smart for that. We have to convince her to come back and she has to feel ready to do it, otherwise she will just run again."
"So how do we get her?" Michael wasn't thinking straight.
Everyone thought for a minute. "We have to eliminate the threats." Sonya finally replied, "We have to take Amanda down and clear up the confusion about the President, and that will make Nikita safe.
"Only then will she come back home to us." Alex agreed.
"Right now she's only putting distance between us because we are being threatened by her being here. We eliminate the threat and she feels safe- she can come back." Ryan agreed while thinking out loud.
"The best way to do that is getting to Amanda. So what is our plan to do that?" Alex asked.
"First things first- we have to find her." Birkhoff explained, "Any suggestions?"
"We've found her before- we can find her again." Michael added.
"So what do we do now?" Ryan asked.
I was offered a job- a post as a liaison for human trafficking." Alex started to think aloud.
"We know Amanda is working with the Shop- if I take that post we will have access to child trafficking hubs, which is where the Shop is based and where we can get information about Amanda and hopefully find Amanda again.
"But how do we know where Amanda is working for them? There are shops everywhere. We could always be one step behind her." Birkhoff decided someone had to be the devil's advocate.
"We break into two teams." Sonya quickly suggested, "Michael and Ryan go with Alex as assistants or whatever. Then Seymour and Nikita and provide technical support."
Everyone looked around at each other nervously. It could certainly work. They had found Amanda before and they could do it again. "How long will it take you to set this up?" Michael looked at Alex.
Calculating in her head, she finally replied, "I'm not sure. Let me call them and accept the post. Then we can get a better idea." she replied.
Alex walked off to make her call and Ryan turned his attention to Michael. "Are you going to be okay?" he asked him.
Michael just nodded in reply. "I think so. I just want to find her. I know that she is just scared what may happen to us, but I can't survive without her."
Birkhoff joined the conversation, adding, "None of us can survive without Nikki. She's the glue that holds us together. I doubt we would be this family without Nikki- most of us would never have even communicated much outside of Division."
"We'll find her Michael. We'll all be together again you know we'll make sure of it." Sonya contributed.
"What else do we need to get ready?" Ryan wanted to make sure they were prepared for everything.
"We need a home base. The guys here will let us stay for a while, but we don't want to get them caught up in our situation." Birkhoff said, "We'll need to find a safe house. They can get Sonya and me the equipment well need to set up."
Everyone nodded in understanding. Birkhoff was right- they certainly did not want to involve any more people than needed and chance anyone else getting killed while being involved. "Where do we want to go?" Ryan asked.
The group knew after the President's murder, they should probably distance themselves from the old Division. I say we should go totally opposite coast." Alex suggested as she walked back into the room, "Another beach house."
"What if we need to be in Washington?" Michael questioned.
"The President is dead. We won't have any ties to the next one. There isn't really anything we would have to be there for." Sonya reminded.
He had to admit that she was right; there really was no reason they couldn't. They still had Birkhoff's jet to get around after all. They could just as easily be in New York and need to be in Los Angeles, so it made sense that they start off their new lives in a new location. "Okay, let's start over." Michael agreed, still hoping that someday Nikita would join them.
Pulling into a motel parking lot, it had not been very long ago that Nikita realized she was exhausted. It had been hours since she had climbed into the car leaving her old life behind while trying to protect her friends and Michael, the love of her life. She still had no idea where she was going, what she was doing, but she knew she was completely sick of putting her friends and loved ones in harm's way and that meant leaving them behind. Telling them or saying goodbye wasn't an option either- they all would have tried to stop her, to reason with her, but she knew what she was doing was right. She couldn't tell them where she was going either because even on the off chance they had given her a cooling off period, they eventually would have been trying to convince her to come back. Turning off the ignition, Nikita checked her hair in the mirror, and then stepped out of her car. The first chance she got she was going to need a new car that the others wouldn't be able to find and she would need a new phone. It was just too painful to keep the other one where her friends could try to contact her- regardless of if she answered or not. She knew that eventually she would have given in and answered and that was not what she wanted to do. Putting the others and Michael in danger again was just not an option.
Nikita walked into the motel lobby. She had made sure she was in the middle of nowhere before deciding to stop. There was no taking any chances. She had already pulled on a short brunette wig and her stand-by glasses which were luckily tucked inside the glove box for exactly an emergency like this. Checking her reflection one more time, Nikita walked into the motel lobby. There was no question this was a dump but Nikita knew that a dump was the only way to not take any unnecessary chances. A fat man wearing stained clothes- he reminded her a lot of her step-father Gary, stood behind the counter watching her. "What can I do for you toots?" he asked, the leer in his voice way too obvious.
"I need a room for the night." Nikita calmly replied, pulling on her Division training to ignore the rude comment.
"I've got a room open." He answered after quickly reading through his ledger, a perverted smile crossing his face, "It will be $55 for the night."
Nikita quickly signed the paperwork and paid the man,, then walked to her room at the very end of the row. There was no one around and that was exactly what Nikita wanted. "Walking into the room, she was glad to find it was relatively clean.. Stripping down to just her undershirt and underwear, Nikita climbed into the bed, ready to get some sleep so she could get an early start. She knew it was going to be difficult to sleep, but there was nothing else to do.
It had broken her heart to leave Michael and all of her friends that way, but she knew it was what she had to do to keep them safe, to protect them. Al she could hope was that they would understand and wouldn't come after her. She hoped they would remain safe and find themselves a nice beach under the radar where no one would be coming after them, where they could be safe to spend the rest of their lives. When she had left, that is what she wanted- she wanted them to live the rest of their lives. Yet, deep down she knew no matter her intentions Michael would be heartbroken along with the rest of the group and they would not rest until they found her again and tried to rescue her.