Season Three Arc Spoiler

I write these events down as I remember them, or if I am truthful with myself, how I wish to remember them.

First and foremost, the next time I go and sit in a freezing vestibule for a week straight I will wear a warmer coat, long underwear and three pairs of socks. I am far too proud. Thinking that Michael might wonder down there, fully recovered, and find me looking less than fashionable was dumb. I will gargle with salty water at the first sign of a sore throat and maybe I'll take some of that herbal stuff that Walter is always talking about. Not that herbal stuff. The vitamin kind.

Having a fever of one hundred and three, bronchitis, two cracked ribs and a fractured skull isn't really such a bad thing, I suppose. All I can remember before I got really sick was being deliriously happy. My sweet Michael is back, I remember thinking. I just hope I didn't make any serious confessions when I was out of it.

Walter tells me that I passed out the minute the cargo bay doors opened. Michael caught me seconds before my face hit the floor. Walter said that Michael carried me all the way to medical. I think about that a lot as I scribble in my contraband diary. I think about myself being swooped up in his arms like on one of those romance novel covers, my head lolling romantically on his chest. God, I hope I wasn't too heavy. I'll bet I weigh a lot more than Elena.

I won't think about her just now. I don't remember a lot of things about those first few days. They tell me I was badly concussed and with the bronchitis and the pain killers I guess I was in and out of consciousness a lot of the time. I had a lot of dreams. The usual ones, of course, where I'm a little girl and I'm waiting for my mother to come home from the bar. And the one where I know that section has done something to make me sterile and taken away all my chances. I don't want to remember those.

I do want to remember the ones where Michael bursts into the room and unties me, like an avenging angel. Once I dreamed of him bending over me, so close that I could smell his shaving soap and toothpaste. I could feel the slight roughness of his beard. He kind of rubbed his cheek against mine like an lion might scent its mate. I dreamed that he whispered, " I love you, Kita.. You little fool." He began to smooth back the hair from my temples with his gentle cello-blistered fingers. I know I was crying at the sweetness of it. I could feel the tears as they rolled down over my cheeks and into my ears. Once when I could open my eyes, I saw a single, perfect yellow rose on my pillow. I breathed in the pure, clean scent of it. But I must have dreamed that too because I couldn't find it later, no matter how hard I searched. As it was I pulled out my IV line and the intern gave me a disgusted look when she had to hook it up again.

So, Michael? Did you bring me that perfect, yellow rose? Did you say that you loved me? Or did I wish it so?

I looked in the mirror this morning happy to see that the bruising is faded. The headaches are less insistent now. After three weeks I feel human, or as human as anyone can feel in Section One. I decided to wear my new red dress to work. I looked in the mirror and wondered if I was smouldering. Then I started to cough and a sweat broke out. I don't think I am quite ready to smoulder yet. Perhaps I will only glow a little until I'm truly better.

I was at Section doing that stupid thing again. Watching you, Michael and hoping that you would notice the dress. I won't count on anything. I know how things are, I told myself, as I was thinking that maybe we are friends now. And that being friends is a good thing. I have to be patient. You asked me to be patient once and I couldn't do it. I think back to that night before you brought me back to Section, that night that just turned out to be a beautiful goodbye and then I. . . I don't want to think about that whole stupid time with Jurgen.

Patience, Nikita. You are capable of great restraint. Yeah, I tell myself, like a chocoholic in a Hershey Bar factory.

I asked you to go for coffee. There was still a look of wariness in your eyes, but in only a second's hesitation you said yes. I was trying to be cool, but my hear was jumping in my chest like a kangaroo on speed. It was really hard not to skip on the way to the elevator. As it was, I was having trouble walking on my heels. My sense of balance isn't quite there yet. You were behind me and you reached out to steady my elbow. Of course your touch went through me like high voltage. I can still feel you as I write this, Michael. In my mind I'm replaying your natural politeness as your deep-seeded need to touch me. Isn't that pathetic. There is too little chivalry in my world and you are innately that way, Michael.

" Where would you like to go?" I asked in the car.

" You choose. I'm easy." I congratulate myself now for not jumping on that. Michael, you are never easy. You had this look on your face, the one that says you're humouring me. I used to hate that look, but now I like the way your eyebrow arches like a raven's wing while a secret smile hovers about your lips. I shouldn't look at your mouth, Michael. It is not good for me.

" My place," I said. " I've got wine. And some food." I was suddenly panicked hoping that I did really have something besides stale crackers and tuna.

You seemed unsure. Like I'd said something more. Like you were reading things into the tone of my voice. Like you were wondering what you'd gotten yourself into. I was surprised that you said okay. I think I must have looked like a big, eager puppy. It's just that I was happy.

I tried to make conversation. Did I ever tell you that you have no gift for banter? " Did you get any furniture yet?"

" Madeline said she'd look after it."

I snorted and you asked what was wrong. I told you I was picturing Madeline's taste in decor. Something along the lines of Gothic with a little S and M thrown in. Maybe a mirrored canopy over the bed held up by four statues of naked Nubian slaves. Something very different from your old place. I almost bit my tongue for saying that. I was just thinking about Elena's antiques and the books and the delicious comfort of your study . . .

I didn't expect you to laugh. I love your laugh. It is rich and deep and it comes so rarely that the angels must weep with joy to hear it. I heard it for the first time when you were with Adam. I remember that I stopped what I was doing to gaze at you. I must have had that typical goofy look because Elena asked me what I was thinking about. I just shrugged and told her something to do with our cover. I said that I liked to see you happy. Elena said that you were always laughing at something.

I thought about that and there was this big lump in my throat. I could barely speak. I remember going to bed that night and hearing that throaty laugh in my dreams like a recording played over and over.

We got to the apartment and I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I was thinking that it is hard to be your friend, too much to ask of my woman's soul. Like how it is hard to look at a chocolate and not take a bite, let it melt in a delicious trail down your tongue. You look at that chocolate and recall the bliss of the last one. It is so hard to make this so-called friendship natural because I can still taste the bliss. I want too much. Maybe I should put this want I have for you in a Tupperware compartment and mark it: One of the things Nikita can't have. Right beside the other things that are bad for me, like penicillin and mandarine oranges.

Why am I always hoping that I can change things? Why does the shit always have to hit the fan? I regress here to talk to myself about hope. Hope sucks. Hope can be so damned debilitating. I make a note to myself here: Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It is not attractive.

The fridge was open. You were standing in front of it, staring. I was thinking: How cute. He's dead-eye dick with a gun and he can't find the wine behind the orange juice.

You turned and I could see it in your eyes. Scorched earth. Grey and dull. I swallowed hard. There was a paper in your hand. Adam's drawing that I had stupidly tacked up with a magnet from the gas station. I did that because I wanted to remember him and because he had given it to me in that warm, generous way that I knew came partly from his mom but from you, too. I remember love bubbling up in me like a fountain at the thought that he'd wanted to give me something he had done. He made me promise that I would put it on my own fridge.

I know it by heart. It is Adam's version of daddy. Daddy is printed in big, labourious letters that trail up and off the page. You have a huge head and a smile that cuts your face in half. You have stars that look like spiders for eyes. I asked him why and he said that his dad's eyes are just like that when he is smiling. You have a long Inspector gadget arm and at the end of it is a briefcase. There is a big, red heart on your chest. He told me that he had learned all about loving hearts in Sunday school and that yours is very bright and red.

" Im sorry, Michael. Keep that, if you like." It was all I could think to say.

You nodded and tucked the paper into your coat. " I think that I should go now, Nikita. I don't think I'll be very good company."

Desperate, I said, " I can see if Mick is home. Maybe he has some stories about that party he had."

You smiled then. It was a sad smile but as usual it made me feel light headed like the Snoopy balloon floating over Fifth Avenue. I was hoping again and that Tupperware box was wide open.

" I can see myself out," you said, deflating me.

I looked at the dust bunnies in the corner as you went to the door.

" Kita?"

My head snapped up.

" Don't come to the loft tonight to watch over me. I'm not going to blow my head off."

" Michael, I -" I was going to say that I would do anything for him.

You continued to stare at the door handle. " What you did meant a lot for me. I know what it cost you. I meant to tell you that." With that you opened the door and left.

I stood there for a long time thinking : Tell me what to do, Michael and I will do it. For once I promise I will. I was still thinking about keeping promises when I went to bed.

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