Counterpoise

Madeline’s office door opened with an audible rush of air as Nikita stepped inside. She was curious as to the reason for her summons, but she had no intention of relaying that fact to Madeline. No intention at all.

"You wanted to see me?" Her voice was calm, disinterested. Almost languorous.

Madeline gazed up at the tall operative for a moment, taking in the rigid posture that contradicted the sleepy quality of her voice. Nikita was becoming more skilled at hiding her emotions, but she still had a long way to go. It was obvious to Madeline that she was curious, but determined to appear nonchalant. So be it. With a tilt of her head she indicated the chair across from her desk and asked Nikita to have a seat.

"A certain situation has come to our attention that requires your immediate…" she paused, searching for the correct word, "… assistance. It is a situation which only you can remedy."

Nikita’s only visible response to Madeline’s introduction was to raise her chin slightly. Inside, however, she felt her stomach clench. There was something about Madeline’s tone, the way in which her brown eyes fixated on Nikita’s blue ones, that raised an internal alarm. Nikita intuitively sensed that she was in danger. The threat was not physical, but psychological, a fact which only heightened her sense of fear. Her body began to tingle in response.

As Madeline outlined the parameters for the mission, the tingling of fear in Nikita’s gut escalated to a full-blown electrocution. Nikita felt as though her heart had been gripped by a vise. She dropped all pretense of maintaining a cool exterior and stared at Madeline in horror. She couldn’t believe that Madeline was serious, but as she looked into her unblinking eyes she knew that she was.

And Nikita knew that she would never be the same again.

************

(Section Elevator- Two weeks later)

Michael was frustrated.

He was returning to Section after a petty infiltration mission that would have been better serviced by a rookie agent who needed the field experience. The whole thing had been bogus from the start. If Michael hadn’t stumbled onto the information by accident he would probably still be there… As it was he’d been gone for over two weeks. And the intel was so out of date as to be virtually worthless.

He grew more irritated just thinking about it. What a colossal waste of time. Now he was going to have to spend the next few days holed up in his office taking care of all the projects that had been left unattended in his absence.

What had Madeline been thinking when she gave him the assignment?

When the elevator reached its destination he punched the appropriate codes, endured the requisite retina scan and waited for clearance. The minute the entry bay doors opened he stepped inside and headed swiftly for his office. The sooner he finished his work, the sooner he could conjure up an excuse to see Nikita. He had missed her while he was away.

He barely heard Walter call his name as he passed the old man’s workstation on the way to his office. Without breaking stride he responded, "Not now, Walter, I’m busy…" and continued on toward his destination.

"Michael." Walter called again, this time a bit more forcefully. The level of urgency in the request was unmistakable.

Michael stopped, turned, and headed back toward the workstation. What now?

"Yes?" His curiosity mildly piqued, he waited for Walter to continue. Mentally he started outlining the summary for his recent mission and wondered fleetingly if Operations would object to the use of the word ‘fecal’ as it related to the value of the information collected. Would ‘dung’ perhaps be more appropriate? He developed a rather colorful string of synonyms - in eight languages - as he waited for Walter to continue.

The old man leaned in and lowered his voice so that only Michael could hear. "It’s about Nikita."

"Nikita?"

If Michael hadn’t been paying full attention before, he certainly was now. The mission report faded from his mind. He did a quick appraisal of Walter and didn’t like what he saw. His blue eyes, usually full of humor, were deadly serious. "What about Nikita?"

Walter, who was never at a loss for words, hesitated. That action alone spoke volumes about the seriousness of the situation.

"Walter… what about Nikita?" Michael repeated the question. He was suddenly very afraid, and the look of concern on Walter’s face did nothing to allay that feeling.

"She…" Walter paused again, unconsciously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He’d called Michael over and now he didn’t know what to say. Or, more accurately, how to say it.

"…’She’ what, Walter?" Michael interrupted. "Get to the point!" His voice was harsher than he intended, but where Nikita was concerned he couldn’t be bothered with politeness. Where was she? Was she hurt? Was she captured? Worst case scenarios whirled through his mind.

"She’s changed, Michael," he blurted out. "They got to her."

Of all the possibilities that had ever run through Michael’s head regarding Nikita, "she’s changed" and "they got to her" were not on the list. He had deluded himself into thinking that if her soul had remained intact for this long, that she was out of the woods. She had succeeded in spite of her humanity, so why would they pull something now? What purpose did it serve? What had changed?

Michael could only stare in disbelief as he felt his world tip on its axis. Nikita had become his fulcrum… she was the one constant source of sanity in his life. He refused to believe that Section could successfully reprogram her in such a short period of time. They may have tried, but he refused to accept the possibility that they could succeed.

He stepped back as if in denial. There had to be an explanation. "How?"

"That’s what I need you to find out," he stated softly. "She’s not talking."

Michael raised an inquiring eyebrow at Walter.

"She’s not talking to anybody, Michael… Not me… Not Birkoff… She comes in when summoned, completes the job, then goes home…It’s like she’s a Stepford operative." His voice trailed off as he stared at the space over Michael’s right shoulder. In a whisper he continued, "I’ve never seen her like this before."

Michael closed his eyes briefly for a moment to collect himself. Walter watched in fascination as he slipped into machine mode in a matter of seconds. As his equilibrium returned his body straightened, and his eyes popped back open. The fleeting look of fear that Walter had caught earlier was replaced by one of sheer determination.

"When." Michael demanded, fearing he knew what the answer would be.

"Two weeks ago, just after you left."

Suddenly Michael knew what Madeline had been thinking when she’d sent him on that mission.

************

The next thing Michael knew he was standing in front of Nikita’s apartment knocking on the door.

He barely remembered walking away from his conversation with Walter, let alone driving over. The minute he had connected the timing of his mission with Nikita’s behavioral transformation he felt compelled to see her. To see what they had done. To offer what belated support he could.

A part of Michael hoped that Walter was misreading the situation, but his mind knew better. He’d felt something brewing ever since he and Nikita had returned from the mission in the Balkans. It had been a general sense of unease, like a shift in barometric pressure, that his body had instinctively understood but his mind had been unable to calibrate. Until now.

He knew that he had broken standard protocol in leaving Section prior to debriefing, but he felt no remorse for his misconduct. It was not as if his mission had been real in the first place. It was a well-planned ruse to remove him from Section and leave Nikita unprotected.

Unprotected.

He shuddered at the implications of the word. For him to have been physically removed so that Nikita could be manipulated could only mean that Madeline felt he would strenuously object to their methods. Knowing what he had already done to Nikita since her induction, he didn’t even want to contemplate what Madeline felt he would deem ‘objectionable.’

Michael heard Nikita’s footsteps approach the door and mentally braced himself for something akin to what he had witnessed during her withdrawal from the phasing shell. He knew she was putting on a show of strength for Section, but if she stayed true to form she would be licking her wounds in the relative privacy of her own home.

If she so much as tried to tell him that ‘now was not a good time,’ he vowed silently, she would find herself in need of yet another new door.

Expecting the worst, Michael was completely unprepared for the sight which greeted him as her door opened.

The Nikita that stood before him was not in pain. She was not in distress. If anything, she had never looked lovelier. Michael perused her stylish navy pantsuit and strappy shoes, absorbing the way in which the tailored outfit displayed her height to its full advantage. Her hair was caught up in a topknot. Her makeup was subdued, elegant.

"Hello, Michael," she greeted him in her sotto voice. "Did you just get back?"

No, she definitely did not look like she was in pain. What the hell was going on?

He peered at her intently for a moment, trying to reconcile the image before him with what he had been expecting. Realizing he would never find the answer to that unspoken question standing in her hallway, he replied, "May I come in?"

"Of course." She gave her standard reply, and opened the door so he could step inside.

He gave her a sidelong glance as he entered, trying unsuccessfully to catch her eye, then followed his traditional path through her kitchen, around the table and back to the center of the room. As he moved through the area he noted that she had made a number of decorative changes since the last time he’d been over. The space was austere, devoid of her usual array of colorful knick-knacks and bric-a-brac. The unrelieved white-on-white seemed almost antiseptic in its severity. It was too calculated, too controlled.

Come to think of it, he realized, so was she. What had Walter called her? A ‘Stepford’ operative?

From his vantage point in the center of the room he stared again at Nikita, who had closed the door and moved to lean against the kitchen counter. She stared blankly into space, neither accepting or rejecting his presence.

"Ni-ki-ta..?" he said quietly, pronouncing her name as if it were a question.

"Hmm?" She turned her head and met his concerned stare. Her eyes, usually so full of laughter, were devoid of all emotion. They did not even register curiosity at the inquiring tone of his voice.

In that moment, Michael knew with sickening clarity that everything Walter had said was true.

************

At first, Michael could only stare at Nikita, hoping against hope that he had been mistaken in reading the closed expression in her eyes. He wanted so desperately to blame the look on a wayward play of light, or the cast of a shadow from the setting sun, but he knew better.

He knew better because when he looked at her, he saw shades of himself. Reflections of his own face, his own eyes, his own pain. It was a realization that brought Michael nothing but acute sorrow. He had hoped that he would never be able to relate to Nikita on this level.

However, if he had to, then he would. He knew that Nikita felt in some small way that part of her purpose in Section was to save him from himself. She was his self-appointed guardian angel Perhaps, he mused fatalistically, the role was mutual. If he could use the information that he had gained through years of manipulations and betrayals by Section to heal her, then he would consider it time well spent.

First, he had to find out what had happened. He had to get her to verbally identify whatever role she had been forced to play, and then he had to get her to accept it. Because until she accepted it, she wouldn’t be able to move past it.

A part of him wanted to walk over and shake the information out of her, but he knew that any type of overt physical confrontation would only cause her to retreat deeper into herself than she already had.

So, he stayed where he was and met her unrelenting stare.

She had continued to stare at him, not really seeing him, for several minutes. Perhaps she was waiting for a response, perhaps not. He decided to give her one.

He slowly moved toward her, never taking his eyes from hers. A small spark of fear flashed in her eyes before she suppressed it, broke eye contact and fixed her stare on the base of his throat. She seemed determined to avoid eye contact. He took that as a positive sign, since it implied that there were emotions close to the surface that she did not want him to see.

When he was just a step away, he stopped.

She continued to stare at the base of his throat, her face giving no indication as to her thoughts.

"Nikita?" He said her name again… a whispered question.

No response.

Reaching forward, he cupped her chin in his hand and gently raised her face until her eyes once again met his. They were perfectly calm, serene. She’d had time to compose herself.

"I want to know what is going on, Nikita." The request was uttered softly, with an undertone of steel. Clearly, Michael was not leaving until he got an answer.

The blue eyes never wavered.

He repeated his request, to no avail. Then, he began to absently stroke her cheek with his thumb. He caught a quick jolt of something… surprise? desire? fear? … flashing in her eyes before it too was suppressed.

"I think you should leave, Michael," was her only response.

"Why?" he murmured in a low voice, "Afraid you might feel something?"

************

"Why?" he murmured in a low voice, "Afraid you might feel something?"

"No," she replied without inflection.

"Are you sure?" His eyes challenged her to disagree.

He continued to rub the pad of his thumb rhythmically against her cheek. Slowly, back and forth, his touch so light as to be barely perceptible. She gave no outward response that she felt his caress… but she did not reject it, either.

Michael noted with satisfaction that the pulse point in her neck was pounding. How appropriate, he mused, that her heart would give her away. It was the one thing she had always been unable to control.

Satisfied that he was affecting her, Michael removed his hand from her face and stepped back. He knew he had the ability to manipulate her romantically, but he would not use it more than he already had. To do so would be reprehensible. Nikita needed the truth. And she needed it conveyed in such a straightforward manner that later, when she was alone, she would not doubt its sincerity.

"I believe I asked you to leave, Michael," she stated as he stepped away.

"I believe I asked you to tell me what was going on, Nikita," he replied emphatically. "I’m not leaving until you do." He crossed his arms over his chest and widened his stance… His entire body radiated control. Purpose.

"Fine…," she practically hissed, "I’ll leave."

She turned to move toward the door but found her arm caught in Michael’s firm grip. Apparently his high-handed tactics were the final straw. She turned to stare at his face, her eyes flashing, her muscles tensing, her body poised to strike. Shades of her former rebellious self were reflected in the depths of her clear blue eyes. At last, the barriers which she had erected were starting to come down. For the first time since Michael had seen her, he had some glimpse into her mind. Into what she was really thinking, feeling.

Michael saw fury… But he also saw a self-loathing that was so intense as to approach his own. And he saw something else that he had never seen before… Shame.

At that moment, Michael understood what Section had done. He didn’t know how, but he knew what. He dropped his hand as if stung, and stepped back.

Free from his grasp, Nikita moved toward the door, only to stop at the pleading sound of Michael’s voice.

"Nikita, please stay. Don’t run away from this… from me. Let me help you to understand." The choice was clearly hers. He wasn’t going to force her.

She stopped just before she reached the door, but did not turn around. "Understand what?"

Michael contemplated her back for a moment, transfixed by the contradiction between the stiffness of her posture and the broken sound of her voice. How could he put this - whatever ‘this’ was - in perspective?

"You have always presented a challenge to Section, you know," he began in a voice that suddenly sounded tired. "They have never been able to control you through conventional methods."

Nikita stared at the door for a moment, as if contemplating whether to run or stay, then slowly turned to face Michael. She raised her chin in a habitual gesture of defiance and replied, "conventional methods?"

"Guilt."

Her eyes widened for a second in surprise. "I beg your pardon?" Obviously, that was not the answer she had been expecting.

Michael noted that he had her full attention. Good.

"You have always represented a problem because you are an Innocent.."

He could hear Nikita’s sharp intake of breath from across the room, and he paused speaking for a moment to silently communicate with his eyes that he believed in her innocence. That he always had. She stared at him blindly, wondering why he had never admitted this to her before. There had been so many opportunities.

"..Yes, I did believe you…" He paused speaking for a moment, then continued. "Have you ever really thought about how Section controls its operatives? It’s not the threat of cancellation… many operatives are ready, if not willing, to die…"

Nikita took a step toward Michael, then stopped. Was he talking about operatives in general, or himself?

"…Section recruits individuals who have committed heinous crimes, but who still retain some sense of morality. They may be flawed in other areas… but they all have one attribute in common. They regret the action that resulted in their arrest and subsequent recruitment."

Michael broke eye contact with Nikita at this point, satisfied that he had her attention. He turned and walked toward her window, continuing to speak as he stared out over the city. "Section controls its operatives by capitalizing on these feelings of guilt, preying on the fact that their operatives feel they deserve what is coming to them. That their time in Section is penance for the acts that brought them there. Here…"

Nikita was compelled to take a few more steps forward until she reached the center of the room. Hearing her approach, Michael turned around to face her.

"Why did you recommend that Karen be canceled?"

Nikita was taken aback by the change in topic. She tried to think about Karen as little as possible. "She…. I told you before, she liked it. She enjoyed killing…" Nikita’s eyes widened in understanding. "She had no regret… No morality. She couldn’t be controlled…" Her voice trailed off.

"Exactly… But you… you are her exact opposite, or complement. You may possess an innate sense of morality, yet because you never acted illegally, Section has had no way to really control you. Your self-righteous behavior has always been justified… until now."

Michael could see that she recognized the truth in his statement. He walked toward her, hoping that she would not withdraw. She did not.

"Now, they’ve given you something to feel guilty about. And they will capitalize on the sense of self-hatred that I see in your eyes and they will use it to break you."

"No," she whispered softly, plaintively, shaking her head in denial. "No…" She raised her eyes to his in a silent plea for help.

He cupped her face with his hands.

"What did they have you do? What did they give you to feel guilty about, Nikita?"

She continued to shake her head, murmuring "No" over and over. The pain emanating from her was tangible. Michael could feel it seep inside and he welcomed it, praying that he could draw the venom out of her and into himself.

"Tell me, Nikita," he urged softly.

"I… I can’t Michael…" She turned away from his hand, from his touch. "Please. Please leave." She was practically begging him to go. Her body was quivering, on the brink of a meltdown.

"Would you leave me if I asked you to?" Michael asked. It was a rhetorical question, since they both knew that Nikita would never leave Michael alone in a similar situation.

Michael stepped forward again, only this time he did more that just touch her face. He enveloped her in his arms, bringing her head to gently rest on his shoulder. Her arms were trapped in the embrace, her hands pressed palm forward against his chest reflexively kneading the pectoral muscles she found there. As he soothingly stroked her back, he asked her yet again to tell him what she had done.

She remained silent for a while, content to lean against him. To hear the steady beat of his heart. Michael was the first person to touch her since the whole nightmare had begun two weeks before. Walter had tried, but she wouldn’t let him in. She couldn’t let him know that she had fallen out of his ‘five percent’ club.

But Michael… she couldn’t stay away from Michael. No matter how much she knew she should push him away, preserve him from her own pain, she couldn’t. She needed him too much. Was this how he felt around her? Conflicted? She wanted him to hold her forever, to tell her that everything would be okay, yet at the same time she wanted to hide everything from him because she knew he would take the blame for her actions upon himself. Her guilt would become his personal failure because he had not protected her from Section in the first place.

Since the situation was untenable no matter how she looked at it, she decided to give him what he had asked for. The truth.

Gathering her strength, she stood up straight and stepped back. Michael’s arms remained on her shoulders, and hers remained on his chest. She looked straight into his eyes, taking courage from the look of understanding that she found there. Her voice shook as she spoke.

"I canceled Rudy."

***********

There.

She had said it.

Nikita stared into Michael’s eyes, waiting for the look of revulsion which she was sure would come when he realized that her innocence was truly gone. In a way, she wanted him to reject her. It would be a deserving punishment for her crime.

But Michael did not reject her. He did not recoil in horror, he did not even flinch. Instead, his eyes filled with the tears that Nikita seemed unable to shed for herself. Never in his wildest imaginings had Michael believed that Section would do such a thing. It would have been easier for her to cancel Carla.

He gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze, communicating that he understood and accepted her act. His gaze held no censure, only support. He realized that Nikita’s admission was an important step, but that her healing process had only just begun.

"Tell me," he urged gently, drawing her over to sit on the couch. "It’s better if you talk about it."

Nikita seemed dumbfounded by his actions. She had become what she abhorred, and here Michael was calmly asking her to have a seat and tell him all about it? And yet, a part of her wanted to tell him. She hadn’t spoken about the event since it had happened other than to call Madeline and inform her that the sequence was complete. Those had been her exact words… ‘the sequence is complete.’ Michael was the only person she could tell. The only person who might understand.

So, Nikita took a deep breath and began speaking in a soft monotone.

"Madeline called me in…it was Monday, the day after you left…she said that Red Cell had learned of Rudy’s existence and was actively working to locate him…" Nikita paused, mentally reliving the scene in Madeline’s office. Feeling yet again the premonition that she was in danger…

Michael waited patiently until she returned to the present and continued speaking.

"…Such an event was deemed unacceptable, for obvious reasons, so Madeline called me in to eliminate the ‘problem’ because I had given my word that I would do so if Rudy ever became a security risk…"

Nikita did not look at Michael as she spoke. She stared ahead with unfocused eyes.

"I pleaded with her to relocate him… but she said it was too late. That a man with his disabilities was too easy to trace…" She paused yet again. She kept reliving that night over and over and over again in her mind. It was all she had thought about for the past two weeks.

"It was a solo mission. No one at Section knew… knows. Madeline said it was up to my discretion if I wanted to speak of it…You were gone… I didn’t…I don’t…" She crossed her arms protectively around her chest as though she was shivering. "I still can’t believe it’s real. I have these moments when I forget, and then it all comes rushing back…"

She turned to face him, her eyes meeting his. "I keep seeing him, Michael. I watched him for hours, waiting for him to go to bed… He was drawing pictures for his sister, pictures she’ll never receive… He had a box of Crayola’s and would only use the colors that began with the letter "r"…I know this because he was talking to himself the entire time." Her voice faded. Michael noticed that she was in fact shivering so he put an arm around her shoulder and drew her close.

She took a fortifying breath. Would the images never go away?

"Finally, he went to sleep. I crept in, and gave him a quick injection… he never moved. He lay there with a smile on his face like he was having this wonderful dream… I killed him while he was dreaming… while he was dreaming…" Nikita hugged herself harder, leaning forward as though she was in physical pain. "I stayed until it was over. I didn’t… I couldn’t let him die alone. I couldn’t."

She looked at him with tear-filled eyes. "I said I would… I gave my word…"

"I know you did."

Michael pulled her onto his lap and cradled her as she finally cried for what she had done. For what she had lost. He murmured soft words and smoothed her hair.

He could just imagine Madeline delivering her little ‘speech.’ How like her treat the entire event like a shameful little secret that Nikita had to keep to herself. It would have been much better had the act been performed in standard mission format with a team in place. Then, at least, Nikita would have had a better chance of disassociating herself from it. But as it was, asking her to slink into Rudy’s apartment at night like a true assassin… He ached for what she had endured in his absence…

After a while Nikita stopped crying and seemed to return to the present. She slowly withdrew from his lap and curled up on the opposite side of the couch, facing him. She regarded him quietly for a moment, and then she spoke in a voice that almost passed for normal. "Thank you."

With those words she thanked him for being there, for caring, for understanding, for not rejecting her, for helping her to begin healing…

Michael understood her thanks, and responded with "You’re welcome." His gaze communicated his continued support.

They remained seated for some time, content in each other’s presence. Neither felt the need to speak.

Reality soon intruded in the form of Michael’s ringing cell phone. Upon answering it, he turned to her with a look of concern. "If I leave, will you be okay?"

She gave him a small smile. "Yes."

They stood up together and walked to the door. When they reached their destination, Michael opened the door and turned to face Nikita.

"Before I go, I want you to know something." He stared at her intently, communicating the seriousness of what he was about to say. "You were initially targeted for recruitment because of your physical beauty. In the time since then, I have come to believe that you are infinitely more beautiful on the inside." He reached up and caressed her cheek. With a ragged sigh he said, "I still do… If I had been here, I would have done it for you."

With a soft kiss to her lips, he was gone.

********

"Come in, Michael… I’ve been expecting you," Madeline greeted him as he entered her office. "Please sit down."

Michael ignored her offer of a chair and walked over to study the bonsai trees which were carefully arranged against her far wall. He noted how diligently she kept them up… How she had shaped, pruned and manipulated each tiny stem so it would grow in the desired direction.

He would have thought she would be more subtle in her choice of foliage. Bonsai were so…. obvious.

Turning at last to face her, he fixed her with his coldest stare.

"I have one question." His voice was clipped, the underlying rage barely contained.

"Yes?" she replied softly, waiting.

"Was the threat real?"

Madeline seemed taken aback by the force with which he asked the question. She weighed him for a moment, then decided to give him the truth. "No, it was not."

THE END

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