Nikita was scared. She was trembling on the outside so bad she thought she was going to throw up. She might die...and she couldn't do anything about it. She couldn't kill the enemy...she couldn't even SEE it...It was inside of her...maybe.

There was nothing she could do but think of the people she had seen...think of the little girl and know that the same thing could happen to her... Nothing to do but think...She couldn't STOP thinking...blond hair...cherub face...bloody face...angel hair in tufts on the floor...a little hand reaching...reaching with blackened fingernails...stop thinking...oh God stop thinking...

The silence in the room was like a vacuum. It hurt her ears and sucked out all of her energy. She didn't want to move.

She didn't think she could anyway.

She layed on a cot in the corner of the room, curled up like a baby, facing the wall, one hand covering her face, the other pressed flat against it. She was listening for a sound...ANY sound other than her breathing...or her heart beat...She didn't want to count the spaces between anymore...

Michael hadn't spoken to her, nor she him since they had first been quarentined three hours ago. Neither had moved from their beds. Neither had looked at the other.

She turned away from the wall and stared up at the ceiling that seemed so close she could almost touch it. There was a camera in the corner above her bed. She was trapped within a trap within a trap and they were watching her squirm. She couldn't stand that...She couldn't stand...being WATCHED...like some animal in the zoo...

She sat up slowly, keeping her eyes on the camera, and unzipped the sweater they had given her. She stood on top of the cot and hung the sweater up over the camera. It covered it completely. She hopped down and stared at the speaker over the locked door, waiting.

click. "Take that down please." click.

"No."

click. "TAKE THAT DOWN...please." click.

"Come in here and make me."

click "....." click.

She smiled bitterly at the silent speaker. They wouldn't of course. They were scared...scared of breathing the same air as her...scared she might infect them too...

She stood in the middle of the claustrophobic room and tried to stay calm.

Breathing in...breathing out... in... out... in... out... in... out... in... out... in.. out.. in. out. inoutinoutinoutinout...

Her legs collapsed under her, and she fell to her hands and knees on the hard floor. She looked up through the curtain of her hair to see Michael on the other side of the glass wall that seperated their two rooms. He was on one knee, his hand pressed against the glass...

"Sit up and put your head between you knees!" He shouted through the glass. "Count to ten..."

She closed her eyes and did what she was told. By the time she reached ten her breathing had slowed to a normal rate, and the room stopped spinning. She looked up. Michael still knelt by the glass wall. Nikita pushed her hair out of her eyes, embarressed.

"I'm fine..."

He nodded briefly and returned to his bed.

"Why did they do this?"

"What?"

She gestured to the glass.

"We can't be in the same room together...in case one of us is infected and the other isn't..."

She nodded slowly and looked away from him, wrapping her arms around herself.

"This is my fault."

"No."

But it was...Section had told them to evacuate the premisis...Shaw had already released the virus among the hostages...Section told them to leave...The hostages were dead...

But she had heard someone...and she had turned back. Michael had yelled her name as she ran back down the hall.

Everything had seemed to be in slow motion...She wasn't moving fast enough. He footsteps slamming against the floor had echoed in the hallway...but the cry for help had been louder...

She shot the door open and stopped in her tracks. Bodies littered the ground...at least twenty piled into the small room...Their skins were gray...clumps of hair on the floor, on their laps...blood dripping from their open mouths... they were all dead...

Nikita had clutched her stomach, and had held her gloved hand to her mouth, trying not to vomit...

Then she had heard it - a soft wimper in the darkness...

"Is anybody there?" Nikita crept forward into the room, the stench filling her nostrils making her gag. Something moved in the corner of her eye. It was a little girl. She was almost completely hidden by the body of a man that had fallen on top of her. Nikita ran to her and shoved the man off. The little girl was lying on her side. She knelt down and pushed the pale hair out of her eyes. It came off in her hands. The little girls eyes rolled towards her. She spit up a mouthfull of blood and then she was dead.

Nikita had stared at her hands as the little girls blood soaked into her gloves. She ripped them off and threw them to the floor. Michael had found her then. He had grabbed her arm, and tried to pull her out. She hadn't been able to move, so he carried her.

When they had emerged from the building they had been denied access to the van. They had to wait for a second transport. When it came there were instructions inside waiting for them on the table.

No one was in the van. The driver was seperated from them by a thick panel of glass and wire.

She had sat in silence while Michael sat by the window, using the light shining through it to read the papers Section had left. It seemed like hours had passed before the van finally rolled to a stop.

The driver pulled the van into a small parking garage, and stopped in front of two metal doors. They were wide open and waiting. Nikita and Michael entered, and the doors immediately groaned shut behind them. The loud speaker positioned above the doors clicked on.

click. "Go to the elevator. You will recieve further instructions when you reach level twelve." click.

"Where are we Michael?" They stepped into the elevator. He pushed twelve.

"Section." She looked at him. "We're being quarentined."

The elevator doors slid open. The room was bigger than the first. At the back of it were two doors.

click. "Remove all your clothing." click.

Nikita turned her back and stripped down to her underwear.

click. "Everything please." click.

"What?"

"Just do it Nikita." Michael spoke softly from beside her. She paused for a moment. Then shed the rest of her clothing shivering with anger and disgust.

click. "Go to your rooms. There will be clothes waiting for you there." click.

"How long will they keep us here?"

"It took two days for the virus to kill the hostages."

"So - "

"In 48 hours we'll know."

Nikita had turned away from him to face the wall, hot tears burning in her eyes.

In two days...they'd know whether they live or die...

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

"You were hyperventalating."

"I know..."

"Do you feel sick?"

"No...I just...panicked...for a minute...I hate this."

"So you don't feel sick?"

"NO...Michael...I told you I'm fine now..." He stared at her a moment longer, searching her face.

"You're sure."

"Yes..." Seemingly satisfied, he layed back down on his back, stretching out uncomfortably on the small cot. She stared at his profile, memorizing every line of his face even though she knew them by heart. She might never see him again after tomorrow...never kiss him again...never feel his body pressed against hers in the dark of the night...never hear his voice say her name again...

He opened his eyes under her scrutiny, and turned his head to look at her.

"What...?"

"Nothing..." She whispered. She layed down on her own cot, facing him. If they simply reached their hands out they could touch the glass wall that seperated them. Painfull, to be so close yet so far away...She wanted to touch him so badly, to have him touch her. It may be their last chance...

"Michael...?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think we've been infected...?"

"Does it matter?" She stared at him.

"It depends on whether or not you want to live..."

"Do you?" She frowned at him uncertainly.

"Do I want to live?...That's why I ever did any of this in the beginning...to stay alive..."

"Why do you do it now?" She gazed into his eyes, and he looked back unflinchingly.

"I think you know the answer to that Michael...The question is why do YOU do this? Why didn't you say 'no' when they gave you a choice?"

"I was afrain to die then."

"And you aren't now?"

"No."

"Then this doesn't bother you..." "What?"

"Waiting to die." He was silent.

"No."

"So you don't care if you die?"

"If I did I would not be able to do my job." She gazed at him long and hard, trying to find something behind the matter of fact tone in his voice, something behind the passive acceptance in his eyes.

"That's sad Michael."

"That's reality Nikita." She bit her lip, and leaned forward closer to the glass.

"So there's nothing for you to live for..."

She was asking him to reassure her that she meant something to him. She pleaded with her eyes, being too scared to do so with her words. She yearned for him to understand her. She needed to know the truth , whatever it was...

He was silent as he gazed back at her. He opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it. He raised his eyes to the speaker above his door, then back at her, trying to tell her that they were listening to everything they said. She shook her head at him angrily.

"Don't use them as an excuse Michael!" She turned back to the wall. She couldn't stand to look at him. She didn't really mean anything to him. He just didn't have the guts to tell her. She blinked back the hot tears that had begun to gather in her eyes. The coward...

"There is one thing..." He whispered, but she didn't hear.

**********

She had completely lost track of time. There was no clock in either room, and she had left her watch with her clothes.

She didn't like not knowing what time it was...it made her feel disoriented. She thought it was still morning even though so much time had passed. She figured it was probably more like mid-afternoon in the real world.

Nikita had been lying on the floor on her back with her feet up on her bed, deciding it was impossible to get comfortable on that stupid cot, when she heard a noise outside her door. A small section at the bottom of it opened, and a tray of food was pushed through. She caught a glimpse of a gloved hand before the bottom flap of the door clicked shut again.

She looked upside down at Michael's door as his lunch was pushed through. He ignored it.

He hadn't moved from his position on the cot since they had "talked" earlier, and Nikita had layed on her own bed feeling sorry for herself for over an hour before she decided it was pointless to get upset. It wouldn't fix anything, and besides...Michael DID care about her...In his own way he had admitted as much many times before. At times she thought he was on the verge of saying even more...but then he would immediately click the security sound system back on before they got suspiscious...or rather, before he said something he couldn't take back.

He said he didn't want them to get caught caring about something, or someone, other than Section. That was dangerous...

She understood that, and she had tried to accept it...mostly...But HERE...NOW... Didn't he understand that THIS was their last chance? That there may not BE a tomorrow for him to tell her how he really felt...

If they had contracted the virus nothing would matter anymore. Section couldn't do anything to them - they would already be dead. They couldn't punish her for loving him, and they couldn't punish him for loving her back...

But still...he remained silent.

She looked over at the food on her tray. It reminded her of a high school cafeteria. Everything was packaged and generic. She wasn't very hungary, but she reached for the apple anyway, and began muching on it still lying upside down on the floor.

When she finished it, she tossed the core back onto the tray. Michael's still sat undisturbed on the floor. Nikita knocked on the glass. Michael looked down at her.

"Can I have your apple?"

He smiled breifly.

"I'll save it for you..."

***********

Day One - part two

"...for when we get out of here..." Nikita gazed at him silently. Does he really believe that...? That we'll survive...? Was that HOPE coming from MICHAEL of all people? Or was he just trying to make her feel bett-

The bottom flaps of their doors opened.

click. "Please put out your arm." click.

Nikita looked at Michael questioningly. He simply nodded at her before leaving his bed and crouching down beside the door. He slipped his arm through. She did the same and cried out as whoever was out there stuck a needle into her exposed forearm.

click "Don't move please." click.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"They're taking blood." Michael answered her as he stepped back from the door and glanced at the tiny bit of blood on his arm disinterestedly. She felt the gloved hands release hers, and angrily yanked her arm back.

"Shouldn't they have done that when we first came in?"

"No...It takes a while for the virus to show up in the bloodstream. They can track its growth if they take our blood now.

By tomorrow...if it fully manifests itself in the samples...they'll know...and so will we."

"Coulda WARNED us..." She said sourly as she gingerly tested her arm. She looked up at him. "Those papers you were reading in the transport...were they about the virus?"

"Yes."

"What does Section know about it?"

"Not much...except that it mostly attacks the circulatory system...and that it takes a while to integrate itself into the bloodstream, but when it does it works fast... You saw what it does to its victims..." She swallowed thickly and nodded.

"...yes..."

"Shaw invented it. It's never been encountered before...so...at this time there is no known cure. Shaw destroyed all of his files. We don't know for sure if it's even contageous...He may have injected it into each of the hostages seperately, or he may have released it into the room through the ventalation system..."

"So we don't know how it's transmitted?"

"No."

"So we might not be infected..."

"It may have been spread through the air...", he continued, "or it could have been spread among the hostages through physical contact. Shaw might have sent someone in to infect the whole..."

"Skin to skin contact..." she whispered, and he looked at her a momment before saying exactly what she was thinking.

"You touched her Nikita...and I touched you..."

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

Day One - part three

"What time do you think it is?" Shw was asking Michael, but she directed it at the ceiling.

"I don't know..."

"I feel like I'm missing something...like I should be somewhere."

"Where?"

"Not here..." she whispered "I think I'm going to go crazy in here...how can you stand it?" He had been laying there calmly for most of the day, waiting patiently for the hours to pass while she had paced, exercised, pounded out "We Will Rock You" on the walls and complained about what a headache she was getting from all the whiteness. Even the clothes they had given them were white.

He didn't answer her, and she flopped back down on her cot. She had moved beyond the point of panic and fear, and was now settling comfortably into denial. She had been trying to keep herself busy so she wouldn't have to think about what was happening...and so far it had worked. She felt invincible.

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

"Michael?"

"Yes?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

"That sounds interesting...anything else?" He didn't answer, and she sighed. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to initiate some sort of a conversation here...and you aren't really helping...people do it everyday you know...talk...? Don't worry - I'll keep it simple so they -" she gestured to the speakers above their doors, "won't get uncomfortable, okay?"

She clasped her hands in front of her, and leaned on her knees. "So...read any good books lately?"

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

Day One - part three (cont.)

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Are you serious?" She smiled.

"Sure." He was silent, and she stared at him expectantly. He sighed.

"It was a collection of essays...Oscar Wilde." He sounded reluctant to give up the information, and she grinned at him.

He shifted slightly so he could face her, and hesitantly continued the conversation.

"What...about you?"

"Um...The last book I read was "The Horsewhisperer"" He looked at her blankly and she shrugged. "I didn't like it. He dies."

"Who?"

"Robert Redford." She paused and thought for a moment. "Well...he's SUPPOSED to die...but he doesn't in the movie..." She couldn't tell if he was enjoying their "conversation" or not, but she was. She'd never talked to Michael about simple things like this before...simple things that everyday people talked about...

"Speaking of movies," she continued, "What was the last one you saw?" He thought a moment, then smiled a little smile.

"Bringing Up Baby..." She layed back down on her cot and smiled back at him.

"Cary Grant...", She sighed.

"Katherine Hepburn..." He corrected. "What was the last..." Nikita turned her face into her elbow embarressed.

"X-Files..." She mumbled into it.

"What?"

"The X-FILES movie..." She laughed into her arm, and looked at him. "It was a moment of weakness..." Beat.

"So...you like old movies...?" He nodded.

"There was...a Katherine Hepburn marathon...I think it must have been her birthday. They showed five of her movies...I watched all of them."

"You were on standby?"

"No...I just couldn't sleep."

"Oh..."

They were quiet for a moment as they layed on their seperate beds, facing eachother through the glass wall. She didn't know if she should ask this question...but she WANTED to...besides what harm could it possibly do?

"Michael...where do you live?" He stared at her and she laughed after a moment to let him know that it was okay if he didn't want to answer. But it wasn't. She really wanted to know...well, rather, she wanted to assure herself that he didn't live where she thought he did. He looked into her eyes, watching for a reaction, as answered her.

"Section."

"Why..." She whispered.

"I had a house once...but I sold it after Simone died...I haven't looked for another place. I don't need one...it's fine...here." She shivered and stared up at the camera that was still being used as a hanger for her sweater.

"I don't think I'd be able to stand living here...being watched all of the time...being alone..."

"You get used to it..."

"What? Being watched or being alone?"

"Both." She paused.

"You shouldn't HAVE to get used to it...no one should..."

He was quiet. He turned away from her slightly. to let her know that he was done talking.

"It's late..." he said softly. "You should try to get some sleep..."

"I don't know if I can with the lights on..." A second after she said it they snapped off. She glared at the speakers before pulling her sheet up around her shoulders and settling into her pillow. She could see the curve of Michael's back in the darkness. She knew he wasn't going to sleep. She knew she wasn't either.

One more day... She closed her eyes against the thought.

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

A noise. She felt as though she were shaken awake. Her eyes blinked against the darkness. She saw Michael twisting in his sleep, twisted in the sheets, his head thrashing from side to side on the pillow, clawing at the air. She pushed back her own covers and stumbled to the ground. She slapped at the glass wall with her hands, crying out in frustration, calling out his name again and again and again...

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

He felt as though he had been shaken awake. He opened his eyes and blinked against the darkness. He turned his head. She slept beside him. There was no wall...only the tiniest bit of space between them... All he had to do was reach out... Her hand uncurled from it's fist in her sleep. It layed open on the bed waiting for him to take it, to kiss it, to feel the curve of his cheek within it. He reached his hand out. He touched her. She awoke with a smile, the corners of her mouth turning up sweetly. She slipped into his arms, her naked skin like silk, covering his feverish flesh. She was real...this was real...the taste of her lips...the carress of her hands...this was real...this was real... He slipped his fingers into her hair, loving the feeling of the strands as they waterfalled down her shoulders, whispering against his face. They slid through his fingers like liquid...onto the floor. He opened his eyes. He touched her lips in the darkness. She pushed his hand away. She kissed him. He tasted blood. She shuddered in his arms. He touched the wetness on her chin. His fingers came away red...even in the darkness he could see... He held her shivering body untill she was silent and only the sound of his shallow breathing colored the air...

They came then...The men in white...they tried to take her away...He pushed at them...tore at their fingers as they tried to lift her from his embrace... They held him down...They took her away...They carried her out the door...She was reaching for him in that deep sleep...He saw her hand lying open, waiting for his...but the men in white held him down, they held him back...He couldn't breathe...He began to choke on his own tears...

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

"Michael...please!"

He sat up suddenly, the sheets giving way and ripping apart, setting him free. He stared at his door, breathing hard. It was closed. He heard her crying, and he saw her...he saw her curled up on the floor beside the wall, one hand pressed against the glass. He drank in the air like a drowning man, and came to her, layed beside her on the floor. He pressed his hand to hers through the glass knowing if he tried hard enough it would disapear...

**********

The lights flickered on when it was time for them to wake up. Michael opened his eyes, squinting against the sudden brightness, but Nikita slept on, her eyelashes forming cresent moons on her pale cheeks. A long strand of her honey colored hair had fallen between her lips. He automatically reached out to brush it away, and his fingers struck the wall.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she gazed at him sleepily.

"What?" she mumbled, her lips grazing the glass.

"You look like an angel..." he whispered. His chest felt tight, and he blinked back the tears burning in his eyes. Her own eyes softened, and her lips parted in exhalation. She pressed her hand back against the glass, and he did the same. He watched her close her eyes. He watched her imagine that she could feel him...that he could feel her. He watched the tears that he was unable to shed slip down her cheek to settle in the corner of her mouth.

click "Good morning." click.

He twisted away from the wall guiltily, his back to her. He didn't want to see the stricken expression on her face.

The bottom flaps of their doors opened, and their breakfast was shoved through. They both stared at their food wordlessly, neither hungry.

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

"You won't say it will you?...Not ever...You CAN'T..." He turned his head slightly at the sound of her voice. He listened to her stand and throw the sheet she had wrapped around herself to the ground angrily. He watched out of the corner of his eye as she crouched down beside the glass wall, beside him.

"What are you so afraid of?", she whispered. "Are you afraid that I'll love you back...?" She bit her lip and tilted her head to the side trying to see his face. "You already know I do..." She waited for him to say something...anything.

He wanted to answer. He didn't know how. She turned away from him and sat down on her cot. She stared at his back.

"You're afraid of THEM...that they'll kill you..." He looked at her then, and she looked away, knowing even as she said it that that was untrue. He wasn't afraid to die and never had been. She swallowed painfully before meeting his stare.

"You're afraid that they'll kill me..." She amended. "You don't care if you die as long as I don't...is that it?" She smiled sadly, shaking her head. "Michael...I feel the same way about you...Section knows it...Everyody knows it...Why don't you?" He closed his eyes.

"I...can't..talk about this Nikita...not now..."

"Then when? When CAN you "talk about it"? When I'm DEAD?" She took a deep breath. "...I hate...needing you to tell me that you..." She cut herself off, breathing hard, her heart racing. "I don't want to be like my mother Michael...She...stayed with these men who didn't care about her...who USED her...lied to her...She needed to be loved so badly...she took every kind of abuse they could give her just to hear those words...She let them HURT her...I can't...I WON'T be like that..."

"I hurt you..." He said softly.

"When you lie you hurt me...When you pretend you don't care you hurt me..." She laughed bitterly. "When you pretend you DO care it hurts me...more than anything else..."

"No..." He stood, and turned to face her, putting both of his hands up against the wall. "I've never pretended to love you..."

She stard at him silently for a moment, her mouth hanging open in disbelief, before coming to stand before him, her eyes hardening.

"Eric. Red Cell. That nigh-"

"I wasn't pretending."

"You were..."

"I wasn't."

"Don't LIE!" She struck the wall with her fist. He didn't flinch, but continued to gaze at her through the trembling glass.

"I'm not lying." She slumped back down onto her bed.

"You really are amazing you know that? I've heard this story so many times I don't know what to think anymore...You're so good at this...at seducing...at confusing someone untill they give in and believe you...because they WANT to believe you...I want to believe you...but I can't...", she whispered. "I've been thinking for a while about you...About how you know everything about me...How you know how to get me right where you want me...And I know nothing about you...I know...about things that have...happend to you...but I don't know you...I don't even know your name Michael...We've worked together for four years and I don't even know your name...you never told me..."

"Does it matter-"

"Yes it MATTERS...You never give anything of yourself do you Michael? All you do is take..."

"What have I taken from you?"

She shook her head and pushed the tears off her cheeks with the back of her hand not answering. Both of them were silent for a long while untill Michael pressed his foreheadand whispered against it...

"I want to give you something..."

click. "..." click.

He didn't look away from her as the speakers gave their warning. He didn't care about what they would do...Nothing mattered anymore...only her...and what she meant to him.

She tilted her head back and gazed at him, tears still glittering in her eyes.

"What do you want to give me Michael?" He leaned closer to the wall, wanting so badly for it to disappear.

"I want to give you my heart..."

click. "..." click.

"My love..."

click. "..." click.

"I love you Nikita." She bit her lip, trying not to cry. She smiled a little smile at him.

"If we get out of here I'm holding you to that..."

He smiled back, just as sadly.

"Promise me."

"I promise."

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

Day Two - Part Two

His love was poison. He had accepted that long ago, never apologized for it. He couldn't apologize for who he was, because he was all he had. He had tried to have a life inside of Section...had tried to love inside of Section... But that didn't work. It never would.

He had no right to love anything...he finally began to understand that when he lost Simone.

He had cut himself off. That was what Section wanted, and it was easier to just let things happen rather than fight them.

He had been fighting his entire life. He was sick of fighting. He didn't even feel angry anymore...didn't feel hate...didn't feel hope...didn't feel alive...Until four years ago... She saved him from himself. She brought him back to life. She was like a drug...all consuming...he needed her even though he knew that she was bad for him...that he was bad for her.

He had let her go that night because he loved her...and it had almost killed him. In her absence, he felt himself being drawn back into his old habits...his old life...And when he saw her again...it was like somebody had thrown him a life preserver.

She was the only one in the world who could make him forget who he was.

That night on the boat was sacred to him. He thought about it constantly...about how she had drowned out the rest of the world with her whispers...about how she had pulled him out of the prison of himself and loved him despite everything he had done... despite everything he was and wasn't...

And she was right. He never had given anything of himself to her. He was ready to...he WANTED to...but it was too late.

It was quiet in the room. The air was so still...it hovered above him almost suffocating in it's heaviness. He looked over at Nikita who was sound asleep on her bed, curled up like a cat. He smiled at her. He regretted nothing, and basked in the feeling of freedom that had come with the realization that they probably would die here.

They had not been told anything about the results of their blood tests.

That would be just like Section...to let them waste away, and die in the midst of their foolish hope. Michael was too smart for that. He had abandoned hope long ago. He didn't cling to it now. Something was going to happen...because something ALWAYS happened whenever he was beginning to feel happy...peacefull...safe.

No one was safe. Not ever.

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

Day Two - Part Two (cont.)

He stood from his cot and stretched out his back. There was nowhere to go in the room. You could lay down. You could sit. On the bed or the floor. He hated that damn bed. He sat on the floor and picked up a piece of dry toast from his plate and inspected it. He tossed it back down disgusted, and stared doubtfully at the glass of pulpy orange juice.

He wasn't feeling well...he felt...dizzy...

He held his hands to his head and closed his eyes against the waves of dull pain that began to throb within it.

He looked up dazedly when heard a noise outside his door...

His dream had been wrong. They weren't coming for Nikita. They were coming for him.

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

Nikita yawned and stretched out her arms, then cursed as she punched the wall behind her head. She sat up rubbing her fists and turned to Michael's side of the room laughing at herself...and stopped.

His room was empty.

The sheets were stripped from the cot.

The tray of food was gone.

A splash of dried blood was smeared on the glass wall, frozen streams of it leading down to a small puddle on the floor.

She stood slowly and came to the wall. She touched it where the blood was...She sank down to the floor following the trail with her fingers... She couldn't cry...She couldn't think of anything but how red the blood was...like the little girl's...

She closed her eyes, and layed down on the floor, pressing her face to the coolness.

"Michael..." her voice cracked against the tiles.

click "You can leave." click.

Nikita looked up at the speaker not really seeing it, and jumped as her door swung open by itself. No one waited on the other side. She was alone.

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

Day Two - Part Three

"No..." she whispered "He can't be dead...he can't be dead..."

click "Go to the elevator." click. She slowly got to her feet and went to the door like a sleepwalker her mind completely disconnected from her movements.

She went to the elevator. The doors slid open with a hiss.

click. "Sixth floor." click.

She stepped inside. She pressed six.

The doors opened. She stepped out.

There was only one way to go.

She turned left and walked down the straight corridor untill it snaked a right. Suddenly she was standing behind Walter's desk. His equipment was scattered over the top of it. Pieces of wire and metal were placed carefully to the sides away from eachother. There was no comfort in the familiarity of the scene. Walter wasn't there.

Nikita turned down Madelaines hallway. They wanted her to see her she knew.

She stood on the other side of the door for a long while her fist raised to knock.

Regular activity continued behind her. New recruits...operatives...they continued on with their work behind her...they continued doing their jobs...living their "lives"...completely unaware...

She lowered her fist without knocking and turned away from the door. She couldn't see Madelaine. Not today. Maybe not ever.

She found her way back to the elevator and stepped inside.

***********

Epilogue

The spray of the water that torched her skin felt like pinpricks being stuck into her body. She had turned the knob as far as it would go, as hot as it would go. She slid down the wall of her shower to the floor and rested her forehead on her knees, the scalding water pounding down her back.

It didn't seem real...not the pain in her body...in her heart.

It felt like a dream...

Yes...

It WAS a dream...She was still lying in that awful cot...and Michael was just beside her in the next room...She could hear him breathing...he was alive...This wasn't real...the water wasn't real...this wasn't real...all she had to do was wake up and prove it to herself...

Tears mingled with the spray that washed her face as she lifted her head.

It was hot. It hurt. And she was already awake. It wasn't a dream. This was real. Michael was gone. He was dead.

She reached up and turned off the water.

She opened the shower door, and the cooler air outside of it soothed her tender skin.

She stepped out of the shower and wrapped a robe around herself. It was the same robe Michael had worn the last time he had been in her apartment...The last time they had danced...the first time he had needed her to protect him.

She layed down on her bed and stared at the same ceiling she had stared at so many nights before...thinking about him...remembering things he had said...replaying scenes in her head...

She felt numb.

She understood now what Michael meant about not caring whether he lived or died. She understood.

She didn't move for her gun when she heard the intruder make his way down her hallway.

She closed her eyes and waited.

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

Epilogue (conclusion)

She heard the intruder enter the bedroom. She opened her eyes. It was dark in the room. the only light came from the window - blue light, soft and silvery. It fell upon the intruders face as he turned and saw her.

"oh God..." He choked. She heard all of his breath leave him as he stumbled to the side of the bed. He said her name.

There were tears in his eyes. That's how she knew it was a dream.

Michael never cried.

He held her to him and pressed his face against her neck. She was surprized to actually feel his hands against her back, his tears slipping down to her shoulder. She gave into his kisses even though she knew they weren't real, and closed her eyes. She tilted her head back as her hands carressed the sides of his arms, his back.

"You aren't here...this isn't real..." She whispered even as she rested her head on his shoulder, amazed at how solid and strong it felt.

Michael pulled back the slightest bit and pushed the hair away from her eyes.

"What...?"

"It's a dream...You're dead...You're dead because of me...because I didn't listen...I went back...I touched her... touched you...I killed you..."

"No..." he whispered and drew her close again. "No...I'm right here...I'm here...with you... see?" He took her hands and pressed them to his face, kissing her open palms. He held them and gazed at them, at her fingers intertwined with his. "I thought...you died...They wouldn't tell me if you had contracted the virus...They wouldn't tell me..." She withdrew her hands from his and shook her head.

"No...there was blood...your blood on the glass..."

"It wasn't mine."

"What...?"

"It wasn't mine...They tried to make me leave you...after I was cleared. I hit one of them. Hard. It wasn't my blood."

"But...I touched you..."

"Section found Shaw Nikita...He told us that he injected each of the hostages seperately with the virus...he was testing it on them...We're safe Nikita...We're safe..." She hesitently raised her hands to his face and traced the outline of his lips with her fingers...the slope of his cheekbones...touching his face...his hair...his chest...making sure he was really there...that he hadn't left her.

His lips against hers...the weight of his body on hers...it was all real...

"I love you Nikita..." She closed her eyes, as he held her in the cradle of his arms knowing that that was real too...

The End

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