Set between seasons 2 & 3. The team has to pack up the safehouse.

"Wake up sleepyheads! It's moving day!" Alex burst into the safehouse just after the sun rose, arms full of boxes and body full of energy. The team of former rogues finally had their own apartments to live in, which meant they didn't need a safehouse anymore. They- thankfully- no longer had to live with one another. Their safehouse would be empty and quiet. They thought about just letting it be and possibly using it incase a problem arose later. Yet with how bright everything looked, they didn't see the necessity. They could just sell the place and use the money to kickstart New Division. All they had to do first was move all of their shit out.

"Where does she get her energy from?" As Alex dropped her boxes and moved to wake Birkhoff and Ryan, Michael muttered to Nikita. The young woman had texted them before coming over, so they knew to haul themselves out of bed and prepare some coffee. However, the two still weren't awake enough to start moving. Nikita and Michael just slumped against each other and the counter, and sipped their precious caffeine.

"Youth," Through a yawn, Nikita huffed. Michael chuckled around his mug. While Alex very rudely woke Birkhoff and Ryan and called Sean to order him to join, Michael and Nikita sipped their coffee and attempted to wake up. They still weren't as energetic as the young woman. But that might not ever be true. They simply had to stifle their yawns and start moving.

Once the team of former rogues were all together- and more or less energized- they decided to pack their belongings in groups. Some things were to be moved to Division, such as weapons and gear. Others were going to their individual apartments. It was obvious which of their personal belongings went where; whoever owned it got to keep it. As for communal items, such as dishes, entertainment, and furniture, those were difficult to separate.

The team somewhat decided that whoever needed the item the most should have it. Alex's and Sean's apartments already had everything they needed- and if not, they had the money or an actual job to buy more things. Birkhoff, Michael and Nikita, and Ryan had to take whatever they could to furnish their new places. So, they just split the communal items as best they could. The appliances were to be left for any future residents.

When their belongings were finally sorted, and the team was sufficiently awake (still not matching Alex's youthful energy) moving officially began. They worked in pairs. Ryan and Birkhoff gathered items and separated them into their respective groups. Alex and Michael boxed and labeled everything. And Sean and Nikita placed the boxes into the vans that would carry them to their destinations. It was a great working assembly line. Everyone had their jobs, keeping things organized and calm. At least, for a while.

Eventually, as it always happened with the former rogues, chaos soon reigned. It was a quiet chaos compared to all the events that had to suffer through. Mostly, their conversations just dissolved into arguments full of teases and taunts. But the different quips and shouts were difficult to keep track of. Especially the ones coming from Sean and Nikita. The two kept moving in and out of the safehouse, so only snippets of their conversations were heard. They started civilly at first- simply talking about their lives and things like that.

Yet it soon devolved from there. No one knew who to blame for the arguments, or even who started it. However, none of that mattered. Sean and Nikita stormed back into the safehouse, grabbing more boxes of weapons. She moved faster than him, which made him have to chase after her. He made sure his words were loud and clear enough for her to hear, though, "What do you mean you don't know what weapons you have?"

"I don't take stock of everything. Besides, you don't always need a weapon to hurt people. I'm great at improvising weapons. You know this," Smirking over her shoulder, Nikita replied. Sean rolled his eyes.

"Throwing my gun in my face doesn't count," Picking up a box with a heavy sigh, the Seal refused to accept the rogue's example. Taking his weapon and throwing it in his face wasn't improvised. She was just being annoying.

"What about a vacuum cleaner tube to kill a Gogol agent?" Nikita continued being maddening. She let the door close behind her, right in Sean's face.

"Are you serious?" He was too shocked to be irritated, however. Sean threw open the door and demanded answers.

After the commotion between the movers, Alex turned to Michael. If anyone knew what Nikita was talking about, it'd be her boyfriend. Her best friend certainly didn't. Except, as Alex stared at Michael, he only shrugged. He continued to pack up the pile in front of him, shaking his head, "Don't look at me."

"I don't understand a lot of the things she did that first year," Alex began to shake her head as well. She blamed the lack of steady communication for that. She and Nikita weren't able to tell each other everything as they had worked on different fronts to take down Division. They still didn't know about all the crazy situations they had faced during that time. At that rate, though, they probably never would.

"I actually still have a lot of questions for you about that. Figure now should be the time to ask," Changing the subject, Michael mentioned. There were some things left out of the debrief when he joined Alex and Nikita on their side of the war. They weren't that important for him to know. He was able to help and be successful without the knowledge. But since the war had finally ended, he wanted to have some loose ends tied up.

"For me?" Alex stopped packing for a second. She couldn't think of anything that she did during her time as a mole that would leave Michael confused. Okay, maybe a few choices she had made in her spying. But she wasn't the one running around with a deadly vacuum tube.

"You know Nikita likes to be 'mysterious'," Michael admitted. Alex would be far more honest than Nikita. If he asked his girlfriend, she'd only taunt him like she was Sean.

"You had what put where for how long?" For instance, something she had said caused Ryan to shout from across the room. Nikita only shrugged as she and Sean walked past him. No one was getting any answers from her.

Whereas Michael stared in bewilderment as his girlfriend, Alex attempted to get back on task. She labeled a box and signaled for Michael's attention, "What do you want to know?"

"How did Nikita find you?" Michael jumped right into it. Although Nikita had told him about Alex's true identity and how she had saved her from Division, she never told him how she found the lost heiress on the streets. He asked numerous times, but she never opened up. He could never understand why that was.

"I still have no idea," After taking a second to think, Alex admitted. She thought she could figure out how Nikita managed to track her down. But nothing she came up with made sense. And just like with Michael, Nikita never told Alex how she found her. She told her almost everything else she wanted to know, but not that. The young woman began to think that she didn't want to know. There could be a reason Nikita refused to talk.

"So I know it was your idea to help Nikita, and it was your idea to infiltrate Division. But what was your plan if it didn't work? What if Division never grabbed you from prison? What if we didn't even hear about you?" Michael asked his next series of questions, distracting Alex from her thoughts. He knew how Alex infiltrated Division. What he had to know was if there were any contingencies. There had been no guaranteed ways into the hellhole. It had to be the right amount of bad luck and ill-timing.

"I smuggled a phone into prison. I texted Nikita updates every night. So she knew when I wasn't taken and then when I finally was. If I wasn't grabbed in a few days, she was going to break me out, and we were going to try again," Alex explained simply. She and Nikita hadn't thought of a lot of contingencies. They were certain that their plan would have worked. Obviously, they had been right.

Michael nodded in understanding. He had suspected there'd be reasonable answers to his questions. Nikita and Alex had come up with a great plan, and they were usually pretty good at considering everything. Their schemes- including the insane ones- could be trusted. The two women were well trained and prepared to take on anything. That thought made Alex smirk. Michael had no idea how prepared she actually was to take Division apart from the inside, "Don't worry. We made sure Division would hear about me. Nikita taught me exactly what to do to capture your attention."

Before a very confused Michael could explore what that meant, Sean and Nikita came storming back towards the packed boxes. They were having the same argument they had been. The Seal simply wouldn't believe a single word the former rogue was saying, "There's no way you beat all those Gogol agents with improvised weapons."

"It's just Gogol. They're not that impressive," Nikita brushed him off and grabbed a box. She wasn't downplaying her own accomplishments with the statement. She was only saying that Gogol was no match for her.

"I thought they were the Russian Division. That's intense," Sean, however, disagreed. He was sure Nikita could take on a handful of Gogol agents. She had managed to take out an entire room of Division recruits and guards. But she couldn't have taken on as many agents as she claimed. There was simply no way she managed to kill one with a plastic tube.

"That's just old Cold War scare tactics Percy held onto to freak out the recruits. You've met Ari. He's definitely not as bad as Percy. I mean, he never used killchips," Moving back outside, Nikita informed Sean. Gogol was incomparable to Division. Gogol was legal and had actual hired agents. Division was a criminal organization that kidnapped messed up kids for fun. Although Gogol still had world destroying actions, which ones were the real villains.

"Oh yeah. Alex told me about those," Grabbing a box for himself, Sean muttered. He absolutely abhorred the idea of the killchips. He couldn't believe his mother had been a part of that. He also couldn't believe that there were potential bombs in many Division agents' heads. Fortunately, they could be turned off- which the team had already taken care of. But they weren't permanently disabled. Only Alex's had been. Yet even how that came to be was horrific. The killchips were the stuff of nightmares. Sean hoped they never made another appearance.

"You mean you didn't know about the killchips before Alex told you? You are the worst informed person who has ever tried to kill me," Nikita couldn't believe it. How had Sean even been a threat when he was hardly told anything about Division, Oversight, and the rogues.

Whereas Sean rushed after Nikita in a sad attempt to defend himself, Alex moved the topic along. She didn't want to discuss killchips; she wanted those things far away from her. However, she did want to reiterate Nikita's point about the Cold War. Neither Nikita nor Sean were around even more to hear Alex, but she could still tell Michael, "My papa held onto some of those Cold War sentiments about America. Guess it's an old guy thing."

"It was a huge part of their lives. They grew up in that fear and propaganda. Your dad didn't want you to grow up with the same atrocities," Gladly jumping onto Alex's change of subjects, Michael told her what he thought about her father's beliefs about American culture. He had his reasons for restricting the media she consumed and music she listened to. It was only to keep her safe. Which was in direct opposition of why Percy was so strict, and why he ruled by fear mongering. He wasn't aiming for safety, just blind soldiers, "Percy, on the other hand…"

Alex chuckled. Michael smiled. He was glad he was able to help her see some lightness in such serious subjects. She didn't have to be weighed down by them. Also, she could be redirected to another topic. Michael still had one more question to ask Alex about her time as a mole. Since they weren't being distracted, he could receive his answer, "Hey, I have another question. What was the plan if Nikita died while you were still in Division?"

"Her plan was for me to escape and take that identity packet she made for me. My plan was to avenge her too," Alex grinned wickedly. She never told Nikita that, but those had been her intentions. She wouldn't have let the rogue die in vain.

"Oh great. There's two of you," Michael lightly nudged Alex. The two chuckled and attempted to continue their work without any more distractions. They didn't have much luck.

"Wait! Michael!" Nikita's sudden shouts could be heard from the inside. She crashed back into the safehouse, slamming into walls in her haste. Michael stared at her in alarm. But she was unconcerned with her clumsiness. She desperately needed an answer to the horrible thought that came to her mind, "Ari's son. Who's his mother?"

Silence washed over the safehouse. Nikita's terrible thought raced through everyone else's minds. Ari and Amanda had had an affair for give or take fifteen years. That was about how old Ari's son was. Panicked eyes begged Michael for an answer. He panicked for a second as well. But, fortunately, he remembered his research on the former head of Gogol and sighed, "He had a wife, remember. She died. Or was killed. Or just ran off. All I know is that she disappeared. But she did exist, and she's the mother of his son."

"Oh thank fucking God. Can you imagine Amanda as a mother?" Nikita's sigh almost sounded like a relieved laugh. She couldn't believe she had even thought Amanda would've mothered Ari's son in the first place. It was so ridiculous.

"Yeah. She'd drug her kids, then invade their dreams to see what they really think about her," Alex scoffed. That bitch was no mother, despite her attempts to mother the recruits.

"If she didn't go full inquisitor on their asses before then," Birkhoff chimed in bitterly. He'd never get over what Amanda did to him. And why should he. She was a bitch.

"Mother of the year," Adding items to a pile that had to be packed, Ryan couldn't help but quip. The team broke into laughter. That was the most ridiculous thought yet.

Their laughter eventually helped them refocus on packing and moving. The team settled down and resumed their tasks. There was peace once again. Yet just like last time, it didn't last long. Sean and Nikita were right back to their argument about weapons and fighting abilities. It had escalated to a challenge, one Nikita was determined to win, "I so can to beat you up with an improvised weapon."

"Can you find one mid-fight without lowering your defenses?" Sean dared. He didn't doubt that Nikita could turn anything into a weapon. But he was certain that her searching for something deadly to use would cost her time and energy she couldn't spare. He could easily slip past her defenses and kick her ass.

"Oh, definitely. Let's go. I'll show you," Forgetting all about moving, Nikita dropped into a sparring stance. Sean copied her with a smirk.

"Outside!" Michael ordered before Nikita and Sean could begin their fight. He didn't know how it was going to go. But judging by the determined glints in both their eyes, it was going to be destructive.

"Why am I the only one still working?" Birkhoff huffed. Nikita and Sean moved their sparring outside, Michael and Alex were distracted by them, and Ryan was absorbed in a book he had found. The hacker should not be the only one still moving. It was all of their shit they had to deal with. They should've all been packing so they could get it done before the end of the day.

Reluctantly, Ryan put away the book and Alex and Michael stopped trying to watch Sean and Nikita through the windows. Birkhoff was right- for once. They should keep their focus on packing up an entire safehouse that they had all used. If they had to spend a whole other day moving, they might lose their minds.

Besides, they had no idea how long Sean's and Nikita's fight could last. The others should get as much boxed before the end of it so the two could immediately get back to moving the boxes to the vans. Maybe if they stayed busy, they'd stop arguing. As ideal as that seemed in theory, that wasn't true in practice. When Nikita and Sean eventually came back inside, he was massaging a sore shoulder, and she was only in her sports bra. Her t-shirt was rolled up in her hands. She had made her point. But he wasn't happy about it. He kept trying to challenge her, "Fine. But you can't kill someone with just a t-shirt."

"I can strangle you or snap your neck if I get the right angle," Tossing her t-shirt at Birkhoff's unsuspecting face, Nikita warned. She had twisted the garment up and treated it like a rope. In a real fight, she could've strangled her assailant or even snapped their neck with her twisted shirt. For sparring purposes, though, she only whipped Sean and pulled at his limbs.

"You're just setting up more problems for yourself," Sean was fed up with the whole thing. Improvised weapons would never be as great as the real ones. It didn't matter if they got the job done. They were hardly efficient.

"Keep doubting me, and I'll show you," Finally grabbing another box to move, Nikita glared at the Seal. Either he was going to drop the topic, or she'd make him.

"Sean. Sean. She once dislocated her own shoulder to win a fight. I wouldn't," Gaining the Seal's attention, Michael warned. He shouldn't go down that rabbithole with Nikita. There was only pain and more bruised egos on the other side.

Studying Nikita's retreating back, Sean decided to heed Michael's advice. He took a box and went outside. Alex spared a glance towards Michael. She knew what event he was referring to, and there was an important part he was leaving out. Nikita wasn't fighting just anybody when she injured herself to get the upper hand. She had fought her former handler turned boyfriend, "You're not going to tell him she did it while fighting you?"

"That's irrelevant," Michael deadpanned. Alex instantly called him out for that with a laugh. But she didn't say anything else. She just resumed her packing.

The next time Nikita and Sean came in for boxes, they were laughing. The Seal and the rogue had miraculously made up from their fight and had begun to joke around. Michael and Alex couldn't understand the sudden shift, but they could revel in it. They made jokes and sarcastic comments too. While Sean rolled his eyes as they moved back outside, Nikita stuck out her tongue and made a funny face. Michael laughed. Alex faced him in awe, "You know. I've never seen Nikita like that until you came along."

"What? Insane?" Rolling his eyes, Michael huffed. For as long as he had known Nikita, she had been insane and uncontrollable. Him being in her life didn't change that. She was never going to listen to him or anybody else.

"No. She's always been insane. And sarcastic. And bossy. But she wasn't really goofy, until you," Alex shrugged. She and Nikita had had their fun when it was just them against the world, but it wasn't the same as it was then. Nikita seemed far more free and happy since she had Michael at her side. He did too as Alex thought about it. He definitely wasn't her intimidating handler anymore, "You're not as serious either. Or scary."

Chuckling to himself, Michael couldn't help his wide grin. Alex was absolutely right. He and Nikita had softened since they had gotten together. It was a blessing. They were both the greatest things to happen to one another in a long time, "Believe it or not, love does that to you."

"Gross," Alex scrunched up her nose in disgust. Michael caught her sarcasm, however, and nudged her again. She broke into giggles.

"You'll figure out what I mean later," Noticing the charged gaze Sean and Alex shared when the Seal came over for another box, Michael muttered. He believed the young woman would be so caught up in Sean that she wouldn't hear him. She did, however. And as soon as the Seal left, she shot Michael a look.

Luckily, he was saved by Birkhoff. The hacker abandoned his task to move closer to the others. His stomach had loudly noticed how long they had been working. If he didn't bring it up to the others, chances were they'd keep working until they were dead on their feet. Or too cranky to function, "I don't know about you guys, but I'm starving."

"Pizza!" Whatever Alex had wanted to say to Michael was quickly shaken from her mind. She needed food, and she wanted pizza.

"You buying?" Ryan asked. He'd be down for pizza if the heiress paid for it. She had the money to buy good food- the kind that'd actually taste delicious and fill them up. After moving around so much, and spending so long as a rogue agent, the cheap stuff wouldn't cut it.

"Yeah. Come on, Sean. Help me pick it up," Instantly dropping her things, Alex rushed over to Sean. He didn't have a chance to say anything. She grabbed his hand tightly and yanked him out of the safehouse.

"Can't we just have it delivered now?" Sean was heard arguing as the door slammed shut. The others laughed, but they didn't stop Alex from dragging him away.

With her moving partner gone, and one of the vehicles taken to get food, Nikita decided to stop moving boxes. She invaded her boyfriend's space, resting her chin on his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his waist. Michael quickly turned her around in his arms. He wanted to place his hands on her bare waist and look her in her eyes. Relaxing at his touch, she sighed, "I can't wait to get out of here."

"You'll miss it, though," Michael assured. The safehouse was loud, crazy, hectic, unbearable, and chaotic. But it was also full of family. It would be strange living without them.

"Homequarters? Right?" Recalling the silly made up name Michael had called the safehouse, Nikita beamed. Safehouses had been her home for a while. Although she might miss the time she had spent with her friends, she was ready for a new home. A home she could share with just her boyfriend.

"Definitely," With a crooked smile, Michael pulled Nikita closer to him. She hummed contently. Their lips brushed together in a soft kiss.

"Do you see how much stuff we have left to pack? Let's go," Finally throwing Nikita's t-shirt back at her, Birkhoff bit. Michael and Nikita continued their kiss just to spite him. He flipped them off, yet otherwise left them alone. Everyone couldn't wait to get out of the safehouse. But at least in the meantime, they could keep enjoying (or annoying) the company of their insane family.