“If you love enough, you’ll lie a lot”.

~ Tori Amos, “Jackie’s Strength”

Annétte and her best girlfriend Jamie stood near the entrance into the private school where they were studying. They were talking. The classes were over and they were waiting for their parents to pick them up.

Tourists think they can see The Eiffel Tower from every given suburb of Paris. That’s not so. Even if Annétte or Jamie tried really hard, there was no way they could see it from where they were. On the other hand, after living all sixteen years of her life in Paris, Annétte had seen it many times and it no longer had the same effect on her as it does on the tourists.

“Merde!” said Annétte, smoothing the long sock with the logo of the school on it. “How I hate this horrible school form! I don’t know what to say! Its’ logo is even on the socks. It’s just… moche!”

Annétte knew both English and French. She lived all her life in Paris, but spoke English with her… acquaintances. That's why she spoke in a mix of languages.

Jamie laughed.

“If only I had your troubles! I got a bad mark in History today!”

Annétte was surprised.

“For what?”

“Ah, tu sais” Said Jamie. “I’m bad at remembering names. And we’re supposed to know all of the presidents of USSR…

“Michail Gorbachev, Konstantin Chernenko, Yuri Andropov, Leonid Brezhnev,… And before that – Nikita Chruschev.” Annétte decided to show her knowledge.

Jamie quickly changed the subject. “By the way, as far as I’m concerned, Chruschev was a man. I often wanted to ask you – why does your mother have the name of the man?”

Annétte laughed.

“You too have the name of the man! Why so?” – she teased.

Jamie felt offended. Sometimes, Annétte drove her mad. Especially when she didn’t answer questions. Especially when she didn’t answer questions about her family.

“Is it really so hard to answer? I’m interested! Why don’t you ever talk about your family?”

Annétte’s smile didn’t fade even for a little bit. A stranger wouldn’t have noticed any changes in her. But Jamie, who had known Annétte for ten years, who was her best friend, noticed immediately that her smile no longer reached her eyes. Jamie told Annétte nothing. She knew that her friend wouldn’t answer.

“About my family”, teased Annétte, “or about my father?”

Jamie blushed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

With the same -- now fake -- smile, Annétte said:

“Really?”

Of course, Jamie knew what she was talking about. Of course, about Annétte’s father. Or is it better to say – about her so-impossible-handsome father?

While Jamie, turning even redder, stood with Annétte, the subject of their conversation drove up to the school on his black (of course) car. The sound of the car forced Jamie to look up.

“Don’t worry, Jamie”, said Annétte. “It would have been strange if you didn’t like him. Half of the school is crazy about him. Of course, he’s a bit old for you and also married to my mother, but it’s okay, - on peut rêver! I gotta go, au revoir, copine!"

With that, Annétte grabbed her bag and ran to the car, leaving poor Jamie behind.

Annétte placed her bag at the back seat of the car, took the passenger seat herself and kissed her father’s cheek.

“Hi!’

“Salut! How is everything?”

“Bearable”

Annétte removed a hear elastic and let her hair fall on her shoulders. She had long blond hair. She wasn’t a natural blonde and dyed her hair. So what? Her mother did the same thing and it looked nice. And Annétte wanted to resemble her mother. Cause she was proud to be a daughter of her mother.

Step by step, Annétte’s thoughts drifted to her friend. “Everything shows at poor Jamie’s face” she thought and smiled. This smiled didn’t escape her father’s attention.

“What?”

“C’est Jamie. Elle est amoureuse de toi.”

Annétte knew that it’s better to use her father’s native language while talking about silly things.

”Ce n’est pas vrai” he simply answered.

“Ah oui?”

“Oui.”

The subject was closed. Annétte shrugged her shoulders and looked out of the window at the Parisian streets. Suddenly, she remembered Jamie’s words. Why don’t you ever talk about your family? The question hurt her, even though she didn’t show it. She couldn’t do such a basic thing like telling her best friend about her family. It really caused her pain, combined with the fact that she’d known her since she was six; together they played dolls, did their homework and discussed the latest gossip. It hurt her even more that when she was six years old, she already learnt to lie without blinking, knew the basics of Thai Chi and could hide her tears behind her smile. I’m sorry, Jamie Thought Annétte. It’s for your own good.

***

Nikita tore away from the display of her computer to take a look at her daughter’s picture. “It’s probably the only one printed photograph in Section,” she thought. Nikita was, most probably, right. Who needs printed photos if there are digital cameras? A photograph? Better tell what file format exactly! Nikita touched the frame. But neither glossy paper nor pixels of the monitor could show the beauty of her daughter. “I’m a typical mom,” Nikita thought. “My daughter is the prettiest in the world to me.”

And neither debriefings nor reports could show all the lies, briberies, blackmails and blood that were necessary to make Annétte’s birth possible.

17 years ago.

It was raining. The balcony doors were open. Nikita sat on the floor in front of them, staring at the rain with unseeing eyes. In her hands she held a mug of an already cold tea. Sometimes, a tear would drop into the mug and then circles appeared on the surface.

Thoughts mixed up in her head, giving place to the condition that resembled trance, as the time passed. “You are the Section Operative”, her conscience told her. “You were taught to think rationally”. Nikita thought this over and decided that she actually didn’t care much about it. She didn’t know how much time she spent sitting like that, but there already was a very impressive puddle near the threshold of the balcony. It was raining hard.

When she heard a key turning in the lock, she didn’t even bother to turn around. The postman knocked, the terrorists usually didn’t, so it could be just one person.

He came up and sat next to her. Another tear dropped into tea.

“Nikita”, he asked. “What happened?”

So she told him about the baby.

“What are we going to do now?” she asked in a whisper.

The first thing they’d done, as strange as it sounds, was to get married. No Notre Dame de Paris though. It would have undoubtedly attracted attention of Section’s spies and, whatever wedding dress she’d have chosen, it would’ve been analyzed in a second and her psychological profile would’ve been updated. Madeline learnt about it anyway, but not until after three weeks. That gave them time to prepare for the battle…

Nikita’s ponders were disturbed when Annétte, still dressed in her school form, entered the office.

“Maman”, Annétte said. “How’s everything?”

Nikita raised from the table to kiss her daughter.

“I’m fine. How are you?”

“Tired”, Annétte made a face, “Je déteste l’école! »

Nikita smiled. That’s where they resembled each other. She, too, hated school,… When she was attending it, which didn’t last for a long time.

“Maybe you should go change your clothes?” Nikita suggested. “Me and your Father will finish the work in a few hours and we’ll go home”.

“Okay”, Annétte agreed. “I’ll also check out the new toys Birkoff bought”.

With that, Annétte left Nikita’s office.

Nikita’s office was earlier known as Madeline’s office. A lot has changed in Section since then. Madeline was still working as Head Strategist, but Nikita was now Second-In-Command. Paul died soon after Annétte’s birth. Michael replaced him. Of course. No surprises.

Though there was one surprise.

Annétte.

Madeline remembered that day; she liked remembering it. Who was the winner of that battle? There was so much at stake. Did they ask too little? Or did they get too much?

17 years ago.

“A baby?” Operations was furious.

Madeline was surprised. Not by the fact of the baby’s existence, but because Michael decided to tell Operations about it. She didn’t show anything on her face, but she was thrilled to find out what would be next. She noted that Paul should’ve been more in hold of his emotions.

The three of them stood in Operation’s office. The windows were darkened; obviously, Paul didn’t want everybody to see his fury. “Which is probably the reason behind Nikita’s absence”, Madeline thought.

“Are you saying that she’ll have a baby???” Operation asked in rage.

“We’ll have a baby”, Michael corrected him calmly.

Operations looked at him as if he couldn’t believe his own ears.

“Whatever. You don’t think that it can be born?!”

“It can and it will” Michael said with the same calm.

Operations shrugged.

“And how do you plan to manage to do that?”

Michael looked him straight in the eye.

“Adrian”, he said.

“Adrian? I’m afraid you won’t scare me with that. It’s possible, that George won’t be happy when he learns the truth about her, but baby is a too serious violation of protocol. Adrian isn’t enough to blackmail me, Michael, sorry”, Operations smiled sarcastically.

“You don’t understand. I’ll give you Adrian”.

This attracted Operations’ attention.

“You… what?”

“In exchange for my baby’s life”.

Operations began thinking this over.

“Say, I agree. Why is that you think that I will keep my promise once I have Adrian?”

“If you place even a finger on my wife”, Michael answered, “George will know not only the whole truth about Adrian, but also will get the copies of Gemstone and the Key File”.

Madeline tried to swallow the last bit of information without choking on it, which she managed to do, but not without difficulties. So, a) Nikita was pregnant, b) She and Michael were married and c) He had the copies of two most important files of Operations. Truly, that was the day of surprises!

Operations decided to think about surprises later, but in the meantime, he was looking for weak spots in Michael’s plan. When he eventually found what he thought was this spot, a smile appeared on his face.

“But then, George will know for sure that it was you who gave Adrian to us!” he said in almost happy voice.

But Michael already had a ready answer.

“If I am forced to use this method, this means that I won’t care by then”.

Operations ran out of his arguments. Not wanting to accept his defeat, he quickly dismissed Michael.

“I’ll… I’ll think about it. You can go”.

Michael didn’t say a word and exited the Perch. Madeline breathed out. Operations turned to her and asked:

“Well, what do you think?”

To her own surprise, Madeline answered:

“You know, I always wanted to make a psych profile of a person, raised in Section. We have Birkoff, but he both works and lives here. I’d like to analyze the behavior of a person who leads a normal life, but is also tightly connected to the Section. It would help we to make more accurate psych profiles in certain situations. I think, we could allow them to have the baby. It would be an interesting experiment. Besides, we are looking for Adrian for over a year now and without any luck”.

Operations just shrugged his shoulders.

A baby, Madeline thought. If there’s a girl, she’ll probably have dolls…

****

Annétte stood near Birkoff’s computer and was looking through his disks, taking opportunity of him not being anywhere near. She took off her school form and changed into black leather pants and top. She liked black. “It’s probably genes” she thought and smiled.

She didn’t notice that Birkoff had come up to her.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

Annétte almost jumped out of her skin.

“Looking at your toys. You scared the hell out of me!”

“What makes you think that I’ll lend you my disks?” he asked, taking a seat at his computer.

Annétte smiled.

“Birky”, she said, “my love, you aren’t gonna refuse me, are you?”

“Don’t you think that I’m too old for you?” he smiled back.

“Oh well, my parents have a ten years difference in ages!”

“Better get out of here, while you still can”, he shrugged.

Annétte shook her head. Hooting over Birkoff was one of few ways to entertain herself. It was a pity that he wasn’t in mood. She sighed and headed in direction of Common area, wondering what to do. Then she noticed Madeline. It’s not that Annétte adored Madeline, but she liked her. Madeline taught her to dress stylishly and to behave herself; she always was so calm and self-confident… But Annétte didn’t trust her.

“Bonjour”, Madeline said, coming up to stand right in front of her.

“Bonsoir”, Annétte corrected. “It’s kind of hard to keep the track of day and night change when you’re five hundreds feet underground, isn’t it, Madeline?”

Madeline gave her one of her Mona Lisa smiles.

“I see that you’re in good mood. How was your day?”

“Oh, please, don’t ask me about school again! Everything’s fine.”

“Well, I’ll let you go then”, Madeline turned to leave.

Annétte hesitated, then called her name.

“Do you have any work for me to do? We’re gonna go home in two hours and Birkoff won’t share his disks with me.”

Madeline again came up to her and smiled.

“Actually, I have some paper work to do. I will really appreciate it if you do it for me.”

“’Paper work,’” Annétte shrugged. “That’s an interesting term for a organization where you can’t find even a piece of paper… So, what do you want me to do?”

Madeline looked at her.

“Come with me,” she said, “I’ll show.”

She headed to her office and Annétte followed her.

After two hours Annétte finished writing the last file. She smiled, satisfied with the work done.

And everybody is wondering why I have such a good results in Computers! she thought.

Annétte always had good results in Computers, Sports, History… Especially in History. She could’ve told her teacher many interesting facts and correct many of his mistakes. Instead, she chose to sit at her desk, with a mysterious smile on her face, while poor Jamie was writing something in her exercise book. And whenever she was asked about something, she always gave the right answer. Annétte liked History; she was a part of it herself.

Annétte took the minidisk from her computer, exited the room and headed for Madeline’s office.

She stopped in front of the door to her office and punched a code. “Is there really one person in the Section, who doesn’t know the code to her office?” she thought. “And what’s the use of it, anyway?”

The door opened soundlessly. Annétte entered the room; already opening her mouth to inform Madeline of a completed task, when she noticed that Madeline wasn’t there. The office was empty.

Annétte wanted to go away in order to come later, but then she saw Madeline’s computer. “Interesting,” she thought, “what files does she store there?” Her conscience told her that the thing she was going to do was very, very bad. But the temptation was too big. Annétte decided that nothing would happen if she just took a look. Besides, she new computers enough not to leave traces. So, Annétte took a quick look around and after she didn’t see anyone else in the room, she came up to the computer.

The first thing she thought was Madeline forgot to close the program. At the monitor, there was a video of some white round room. There were four people in it. One was seated at the funny-looking chair in the center of a room. And three others…

The disk felt from Annétte’s hand when she raised it to her mouth in the unsuccessful attempt to suppress the scream.

“You think it’s Madeline?”

Nikita sat on the chair in their kitchen. She was holding a cup of coffee in her hands. Her husband stood at the window.

Michael sighed. He didn't know. Perhaps, Madeline left the video playing on the purpose, knowing that Annétte would see it. But there was possibility that Madeline had just forgotten. However he inclined to the first version. Madeline rarely forgot something.

“Where is she?” he asked.

Nikita understood, at once, that he was talking about their daughter.

“Upstairs, in her room,” she said, “Hasn’t come out since last evening, when we brought her home. Let her skip the school, nothing’s going to happen because of that”.

Yeah, there can’t possibly happen anything worse, her conscience noted sarcastically.

“That’s my fault”, Michael said. “I couldn’t protect her.”

Nikita put the cup on the table and came up to him.

“Don’t talk like that”, she said. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t create Section. We do what we do to make people’s lives better. The only way it can be done is using ruthless ways.”

“It’ll be kind of hard for me to explain this to Annétte,”he noted bitterly. “I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me.”

“She’ll forgive us,” said Nikita, emphasizing the word ‘us’. “And she’ll understand why we didn’t tell her about it. I love you. We’ve been through much worse. Won’t we really be able to tell our child who we really are?”

He kissed her.

“Thank you,” he said.

And then they saw Annétte standing at the door. She was dressed in her school form, her face was red from tears and her hair was uncombed. She reminder Michael of Nikita, almost twenty years ago, when she told him “Not enough to lie to them. Gotta lie to each other, too?” And his heart ached at this resemblance.

“Annétte, ma chérie!” Nikita exclaimed. “You don't have to go to school today. You can stay at home and…”

“I have to go,” Annétte cut off. “Allons.”

Epilogue

Annétte walked through the school hallways, all the time feeling her friends' eyes on her. She didn't look perfect that day. But she didn't care much.

Jamie first noticed her and understood at once, that something awful happened.

“Jamie…,” Annétte whispered, her eyes full of tears.

Her friend didn’t start asking questions that she wouldn’t answer anyway. She didn’t start calming her. Jamie just hugged Annétte and let her cry.

They stood in the middle of school hallway; others watched them and couldn't understand what tragedy could've happened to Annétte at sixteen…

The End

Author’s notes:

I decided to write this one, cause I read many fanfics on the same topic, and just couldn’t resist giving my own *version*. =)

English/French is NOT my native language, but, as far as I’m concerned, Jamie is a boy’s name. However, in this story, Jamie is a girl.

The translation of the French words:
Merde – sh!t;
Moche – disgusting;
Tu sais – you know;
on peut rêver – one can dream;
au revoir, copine – goodbye, friend;
Salut – hi;
C’est Jamie. Elle est amoureuse de toi – This is Jamie. She’s in love with you;
Ce n’est pas vrai – That’s not true;
Oui – Yes;
Je déteste l’école – I hate school;
Bonjour – *Good day*;
Bonsoir – Good evening;
Annétte, ma chérie – Annétte, my dear;
Allons – let’s go.