He stepped into the shower, the tiles cold against his bare feet. He turned the hot water on as far as it would go and held his face up to the spray, the sting, feeling it rip the tears from his eyes. He ran his shaking hands through his hair, pushing it back, then pressed them to the wall and rested his forehead against them, enduring the icy hot needles of water piercing his back.
He took a deep breath and exhaled a sob. He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering in the heat, in the coldness inside that nothing could touch. He slid to the ground and stayed there, holding his trembling hands to his face, catching the tears so he could throw them down the drain and dismiss them as water.
The rawness of his throat made him choke on the name he mumbled to himself like a punishment, each syllable a blow to his soul that shook his frame with sorrow.

Adam...

He had stolen a little peace of heaven with his little boy, his angel... They hadn't told him to have Adam. He was one of the few things in his adult life that wasn't a job.

He'd been upset at first when he had found out Elaina was having a baby...because he knew he'd have to let him go.

He also knew that with the birth of his son there'd be a piece of himself in the world that was good and innocent and free and that thought comforted him a little. Perhaps it was selfish of him to think that...but he didn't see himself different from any other man in that respect. All men wanted to leave a mark on the world after they were gone, and he was a phantom leaving flesh and blood.

Section had been elated with the idea of him having a child, and eventually his cover became so thick when he was there in that house, in the arms of his boy, under the kisses of his "wife" that he almost forgot that he couldn't have it - not ever.

Not with Simone.

Simone... The marriage had hurt her deeply. His wife had become his mistress. And their baby had been sacrificed. They had killed it before he even knew it existed.
Section had made Simone abort the baby.
They didn't want his attention divided between the two children.

And he had hated Adam at first. Hated him for being the one his baby was sacrificed for... the one real love had produced...
Adam was a lie...
The embodiment of their love had died for a lie.

But he couldn't hate him...holding him in his arms...so little, so beautiful. His son.
He was a father, a husband.
And his wife had no part of it.
The pieces of him that were supposed to be best were tainted because they were given to someone else.

And then she had died.

He used to creep back to her when he wasn't out on a mission, when he wasn't... "home". The fact that she still loved him after all he had done kept him going, kept him alive.

And then she died.

And he felt sick mourning for his wife in another woman's bed. Felt sick when he felt Elaina next to him so close he could feel her sleeping breath on the back of his neck. He'd move away, dip his hand into the cradle near him beside the bed to touch his sons face and entertain the idea that he looked a bit like Simone.

He'd existed in limbo until she came...

Michael reached up and turned off the hot water. He got shakily to his feet and pushed the curtain back. He pulled a towel from the shelf and pressed it to his face, then held it to his chest as he stared at his reflection clouded in the mirror.

He had wanted her badly. She reminded him of Simone. He had resisted at first because of Elaina, because of Simone... but after he had a taste of her lips at Bauer's...his desire was awakened.
He didn't want to care about her.
He couldn't help it that he did.

Eventually he realised that she wasn't like Simone at all. She was... herself.
She overpowered him with the memory of herself... the smell of her hair against his lips, the curve of her body against his when they danced.
It had been his own choice to prevent her from going with Eric. He had wanted her to stay. He wanted to touch her again.
He made her fall in love with him because he was angry, because he wanted to hurt someone and she was vulnerable then.
It killed him to use her like that.

He stayed away on "business" more and more, hiding in section from Elaina and Adam. From Nikita. But she wouldn't be ignored, and he slowly let go of the idea that what drew him to her again and again was simply lust. It was something so much more than that...

He pushed her away out of shame.

But she had crawled inside him, kept him warm all those cold nights when he and Elaina fought because he was "away too much", because he was "too distant".

And then she had left him as well - the second woman he had ever found a way to love.

He took solace in Elaina. He lied to her - he told her his mother had died. He had used her for her comforting embraces, for her fingers through his hair and her soft voice telling him everything was going to be fine - that she was in heaven where she belonged. And that she loved him.
She thought he was coming back to her, and she clung to him tightly.

Every night after she had fallen asleep, like a prayer he had called to Nikita.
And then one day she answered.

He had made love to her as though the world were about to end. Nothing existed in his world but her and the sound of the waves, the sound of her breathless whispers. Her feather soft touches touched him - for once something touched him... and he pushed her away because he had to. He couldn't go through loving one woman and coming home to another. He couldn't do that to her and he couldn't do that to himself - not again.

He tried to make himself love Elaina as much as he loved Nikita, as much as he adored their son, but it just wasn't there. He could never love her more than a brother could his sister.

He had to keep the lives he led separate. He had to keep himself separate.
She ruined that by showing up at his front door.
He had to sleep under the same roof as her without her. She had never been so far away as she had been in his living room.

And then suddenly it was over.

He was "free", and it was killing him because Adam was gone.
He needed to be alone. He needed to be alone with the memory of his son.

Michael dropped the towel on the floor and pulled on the sweatpants he had left in a heap on the carpet. He opened the door of the bathroom, the steam following him out. Beside the bed was the bicycle he had bought Adam for his birthday. The handlebar was sticking out of the box, the blue paint such a young color...
He had put the bike together and taken it apart three times already.

He left his bedroom and laid down on the cool wood floor in the middle of his living room. He closed his eyes and imagined his son opening that box with the sky blue bike in it... imagined them putting it together together.

He ignored the knock on the door.
It would be Nikita.
His chest hurt.
He turned his head and stared at the door.
"Come in." His voice was hoarse.

She hesitated before pushing the door open and stepping inside.
"Hi."

"Hello." He spoke to her from the floor, and she walked over to him, stared down at him. She dropped to her knees beside him.
"How are you..."
He closed his eyes.
"I... just wanted to stop by and make sure..."
"What?"
"...you were okay..." She leaned forward about to brush a lock of damp hair from his forehead, and he sat up, moving out of her reach.

She was quiet for a moment then said softly, "You want me to leave." He had his back to her, he could feel her shadow on his skin.
"Yes."
"Then why did you say come in Michael...?"
He didn't answer. He heard her stand.

Because I wanted to see my reason for doing this...
My reason for not letting go.

He heard her shut the door quietly behind her. He sat there for a while staring at his wall, listening to her footsteps fade away.

He got up from the floor and went back to his bedroom. He took the bicycle out from its box and began putting it back together again.

The End

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