Just my take on Nikita's thoughts when she is told to leave Section in No One Lives Forever

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I didn't know what they were up to and frankly I didn't care anymore. Nothing should surprise me about this place. I was tired. I still suffered from intense headaches from the recovery process of all the brainwashing they did on me.

When will the next bit drop off the sky? The next bit that says, this is actually a deep cover mission to track a Red Cell operative. Or the one that says this is actually a test to see if we can find more about you than we already know. To see if they can dig into my brain, will you run away if you get the chance to? I don't even care to analyze it anymore.

It still pisses me off that they know more about me than I do myself. Or so they think. There are parts even they cannot reach, parts that I treasure and hold close to me. Michael . Our laughs, his rare smiles. The way his hands run down my back. His love, our bond- it surrounds us like a wall. When I'm with him I'm someone. I have worth, I am beautiful and I am alive.

To be alive again. To feel like each day is within your control. I'll live in a farmhouse with Michael and there would be no telephones, no computers or any other communication devices. We'll eat the most delicious simple meals, and sit by the fire talking, then go up to bed ..our lives would be the simplest. Uncomplicated we could have a child together, she'll be the most adorable baby girl in the world, and I'll call her Roberta, after mom.

Cut it out Nikita. It's pathetic for heaven's sake.

Sometimes all we have are our dreams.

Sometimes. I seem to remember Michael saying that once. I refuse to give in. I refuse to put myself in tears. I will be strong. I am not afraid.

This could be the last time I walk away from Section. My home, my prison, the hell I lived in for the past four years. Ha! I'll be damned if I turn back.

I will not turn back.

Will not.

Will not.

I can hear my heels slapping onto the cold metal ground as I walk towards van access. How many missions have gone through? Hundreds? Thousands? I try to block myself from the memories that threaten to overflow.

I have walked in, each time, happy to be alive; it's always a narrow miss, what if they chose to shoot a little bit more to the left? I'll be dead by now. And Michael ..

What if he doesn't get back in time before I leave?

This is probably a mission. You'll be back in Section before you can say Amen.

I reach van access. Calmly, I walk out. Don't look back Nikita, I warn myself.

This is the last time. The place you've grown up in for the past four years. Say goodbye.

So I turn my head and throw my goodbyes to the slamming door. I am free, for now, until they call me back again, which I had no doubt they would. It would surprise me if they didn't.

The world awaits me. I'll just do the job, like a good operative. For the greater cause, the greater good, for the ends that justifies the means- I'll kill, seduce, lie, and hurt everyone and anyone. I still didn't understand the philosophy; it was getting old on me. I didn't think I ever would. I'll go insane thinking about it any longer.

Everything had been packed and sent to my new home. It was just a few things I had to hand carry, a book, sunglasses, lifesavers, my wallet and the passport to my new life. I am Nikita Samuelle. I am ready to go forth and experience life. Again. I wished I could see Michael before I left. There could be some way later on.

If I knew Section, this was another test of some sort and I'd be back again with a wink of an eye.

I should just pretend it's real. It's better for me that way.

The apartment seemed empty. Hollow. Fragments of memory knitted themselves in my mind.

The first time Michael brought me here and told me it was all mine. I remembered thinking I had to be crazy to be so happy, but I was alive, and too young an operative to know about the ways of Section then. A lot has changed.

Madeline coming and saying it wasn't what she thought it was. How we talked the afternoon away, with me wondering the whole time how I could understand her better. What kind of a woman was she? How did she survive?

Getting a wake up call from Red Cell, that was the last time I slept naked for a long time.

Carla rummaging through my fridge, asking me if I wanted some water, MY water. Carla . Hugging her, laughing, those seemingly innocent days.

I broke into a small smile. I missed her. Although she worked for Adrian and her friendship with me wasn't real in any sense, it had been for me. Perhaps, she did treasure our friendship, I just didn't give her the chance to say anything. We could have remained friends. I could have gotten to know the real her. The pain of betrayal would have vanished over time. She still would have died anyway. Shot in the head.

I closed my eyes, blocking out the shock and sorrow I felt when I saw her there, dead and helpless. As if on queue, images of Michael flooded the back of my mind.

Having to lie to Michael about Adrian. I lied so convincingly, how did he know I was lying? How did he know me so well? When had I let him?

Standing against the wall preparing to kill myself, and then Michael knocking.

Michael coming to dinner. Laughing in the kitchen. Wine afterwards. Michael sleeping on my bed, looking like he belonged there. Playing with each others bodies, wrestling with him on the floor, then letting our passion flow later on, when the lights grew dim and the moon was high in the sky.

The nights spent on the balcony, staring at the city lights, wishing as hard as I could, that if I closed my eyes and then re opened them again, my life would be different. I would be a different person. Someone that section wouldn't recruit, someone whose mother wouldn't kick out of the streets. Who knew? I could be someone . else. I wouldn't be me.

I bit my lip feeling tears pool up in my eyes.

Someone knocks on the door.

Who else? Michael. I smile, but my heart squeezes as I come suddenly into grips with the fact that I wouldn't be seeing him around anymore. There would be no private chats in his office, no gentle kisses when we thought no one was looking, no more of his presence around me during a mission, just being with him soothed me. There was a time being with him had nearly been close to unbearable, the sexual tension was frying up the air between us. If I just dared to plant my lips onto his, he would break and we would tumble into bed- work out the frustration we felt for each other with our bodies. But of course, he never did, and I would rather have died then to break as well. That was quite a while ago.

Although he still had the ability to make my heart beat faster.

Tentatively, I reach out and touch his face reflected on the screen beside my door. I love him so much, this man who has done everything and anything to bring me back. Who would do it again.

Slowly, I open the door.

We look at each other. Each reading in the other's posture, eyes and expression, something that section trained in us, so deeply embedded in our psyche's we don't even notice we do it anymore. Somehow when we look at one another it's different. Maybe that's why, because I know he loves me.

He is tired, he missed me and he rushed all the way here to say goodbye. He doesn't want me to go, but he knows Section and he can't stop them.

I try to memorise that face, the features strangely attractive and male, I won't see him again, not for a long time. Doesn't seem fair. I look down, and then look up again. I open my mouth. I try to speak, I try to tell him my feelings, but I can't seem to form the words, my throat is too constricted. I am too emotional today.

He strokes my cheek, not speaking. He knows. He can tell what I'm feeling by just one glance.

"I came to say goodbye."

We kiss and he is still such a gentleman when it comes to smooching. His coat slips off, our clothes melt away and we end up on my bed. Tenderly, we explore each other again and again, we touch, we kiss, the boundaries melt away and we are one once more. My eyes are full of tears as I hear myself gasp out his name.

I grip his back and arch towards him. I hold him like I don't ever want to let him go. Love like this scares me sometimes. I can't let him see the tears in my eyes, he'll feel even worse.

So I don't, as we find our release together, my tears fall between our bodies, on this back, binding us closer to one another.

It's been two weeks since I left Section. I think, my hands systematically combing through my wet hair. I was walking around in my undies, the many pleasures of living without surveillance. Still, it was cold. I put on my robe and went to make myself some hot chocolate.

The silence enveloped me. I was beginning to feel like I could never get used to living out here away from Section. Each time the phone rings, I answer, almost expecting a soft French accent in my ear saying Josephine. Briefing in twenty minutes, come in. Or counting the days I've been away from Section, wondering when the bombshell will drop. What are they going to have me do next? Will a profile pop up one day? Will I find Madeline at my doorstep, or Operations?

The silence swirled and stayed. I felt like screaming. Quiet! Quiet! Silence! Peace! Calm! This was all too boring for me. I wanted to hold a gun, practice shooting with Walter leering at my figure. I wanted to pinch oreos from Birkoff ..  wanted to talk to Michael. If there was anyone who really understood me, it was him. Is this my life now? When would I stop counting the days when they could send for me? What if they never did? Like Charles Sand? Was there a life for me? When would I stop being afraid? When is the real profile coming in?

I don't know who I am anymore. I've lost myself somewhere. Maybe it'll come back one day. Maybe it won't.

I'm alone. I've been alone before in the streets. Why is this so different? Loneliness shouldn't come as a surprise.

I liked working at the bookshop. I liked chatting up the customers. All kinds of people came to the bookshop. There were the hardcore Science Fiction readers, some were hopeless romantics, some were fantasy readers, others read bibliographies, there were students, middle-aged men, housewives, businessmen and shopkeepers.

Occasionally a handsome man with a nice butt would walk in. At this, Jenny would poke me in the ribs and wink conspicuously at me. I would laugh and shoo her away.

Jenny was the owner of the bookshop. Walter would really have liked her.

"That'll be twenty, thank you," I said, looking up at Andy's smiling face. I smiled back warmly, wrapped the book up and handed it to him.

Andy was a regular customer to the bookshop. He'd tried to talk to me when he first came in, I wasn't very friendly, thinking that Section sent him.

I like him. It could grow. If this keeps up. If.

"Hey, how about dinner?" he asks suddenly.

I open my mouth to say no, then clamp it down again. This is the second time he's tried asking me out. He likes me. I like him. What's stopping me?

M i c h a e l 

Right.

But my sometime lover wasn't here right now. Andy was.

"I'll give you a call," I say, smiling.

He lets out a small whoop and grins at me.

"She finally agrees!"

"Not so fast," I laugh, surprising myself. "I haven't exactly agreed to dinner with you yet!"

"Well, we could always watch ballet," he says, glancing at his watch. "Have to go, gotta catch the train, bye"

"Bye." I watch him rush out of the store, wondering where he was going. I wondered what it was like to have a family to visit every weekend, nieces and nephews to play with, I wondered what it was like to go home every night, secure in your existence, not worried or wondering what was going to happen the next day-would you be dead? Would you loose a leg? Or would you get taken and tortured? I wondered what a normal existence was. Andy seemed to represent normality at its highest peak.

I'm attracted to normal men. Then promptly an image of Michael filtered through my mind. I guess if Michael wasn't a level five operative in Section, he'll be pretty normal. I wondered how Adam and Elena were doing.

"Daydreaming?" A male voice reaches my ears. It sounded faintly amused.

I jerk to reality again. I look up and meet two gorgeous green eyes. Eyes like Michael's, almost, but not quite.

A pang shoots through my heart as I realise how much I miss him. Missing Michael was like a little stream that meandered itself all around my heart. I'll never notice the stream until someone throws a pebble and ripples the surface.

"Um," I flounder uncomfortably. "Yes," I flash him a meek smile. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, actually I'm looking for a book, a gift for my wife."

Back to work.

So there I was watching ballet with Andy. We were watching The Merry Widow. I was trying to understand it. 

I don't even know what ballet is. It consisted mainly of weird, thin girls dancing on tiptoe. Andy seemed to really enjoy it though. I had briefly heard Madeline say something on ballet and elegance. It was years ago and I wasn't really paying attention.

After the last curtain call, we rose to go. I scanned the crowd. It was a habit I knew I'll never get rid of.

Scanning the crowd gave me a sort of control. Andy looked at me and grinned.

"Come on, supper's my treat."

"Mmmm," I say. "I'm starving."

As we follow the crowd out to the street. I had a sense like I was ordinary. Doing what a normal woman would do on a Saturday night. I was part of a crowd, going for supper after watching ballet. I felt suddenly ridiculously overjoyed. I gave Andy a goofy grin. He goofy grinned me back.

After supper he insisted on walking me home.

"I'm a true gentlemen," he said.

"Yeah right," I replied laughing.

"Well," he said, seriously this time. "If nothing else, I enjoy the pleasure of your company."

But I hardly spoke the whole night! What is he talking about? Careful Nikita, he might have other interests besides your personality. A little voice told me. I laughed inwardly.

"Would you like me to walk you inside?"

"No, that's okay," I say, thinking I could give him a kiss right now, and wondering if I should. I do. I give him a chaste peck on the lips. Didn't want him to get any pre-conceived ideas.

"Can I call you tomorrow?"

He really likes me! I grin.

"I'll be upset if you didn't."

I watch him walk away. I glanced up at the sky. It was a full moon. I should have known.

Just the moon and me as I reach for my keys. It's always been just her and me. Nights I've thought and agonized over my existence, it's just been the two of us. I remember staring out of the train after the explosion that should have killed me. It was a full moon then. But, that was when freedom had a price. Freedom now, seems to be, blessed, authorised and approved by Section.

Maybe, this policy thing is for real. Maybe I'm really free. Maybe the other shoe won't drop from the sky. I'll live my life, the way I've always wanted to. I'm free! I could give Andy a call and tell him I want to watch ballet with him, every single weekend until we get tired of each other.

As I open my door, I glance up again at the moon. She seems to be smiling at me tonight, maybe, just maybe,

I'm moving on and I'm living again. Freedom is a feeling like a floating sensation. I am flying again, this time, to the stars.

I walk into my apartment, smiling to myself.

End.

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