I don't know how I've been able to carry on this long. I'm a strong person, morally and physically. And growing up, I was timid. I let myself be abused, and I sheltered my convictions and my sense of right and wrong deep inside. Those beliefs were like precious treasures, and I shared them with no one, not even my mother. I think she knew about them, though. At least, I want to believe she did.

Now, I know her reasons for the actions she took. I used to think she didn't care about me, but she did - she always did. She just wasn't very good at it.

I look at myself today - my long list of sins and betrayals - and I know that my mother wouldn't want to know me now. I'm not the same person who found wonder in a flower, magic in a sunrise, joy in the smile of a child so many years ago. I keep telling myself that what I do now is for the greater good, but I don't believe it. Too much has happened to me for me to buy into that crap anymore.

Michael tried his best to hammer Section doctrine into me, but he couldn't do it. Not by logic, or by yelling, or by seduction. He used every trick in his formidable arsenal of weapons, but I couldn't be tamed. He subverted my body, but he didn't know that my mind has always acted independently of my body. I proved it, time and time again, everytime I pushed him away when his hands began to wander over sensitive places. My body wanted him - it betrayed me on numerous occasions with obvious reactions to his touch - but my mind screamed louder than my need.

Michael never really figured me out completely. He knew a lot about me - embarrassingly so. He knew exactly what day my period was supposed to start, and he was always careful with his words on that day and the days after, just to be safe. He could pinpoint what would anger me on a mission and handle it. In some ways, he was the perfect complement for me. He completed me.

Now, though, I realize that even Michael couldn't make me love myself and what I've become. All the times I tried so hard to prove to him that he was a valid soul, worth loving, and I didn't even see my own sense of self eroding to silt.

If Michael were here now, he'd no doubt try to "save" me. He'd sacrifice himself - his principles, his pride, his basic beliefs - in order to restore me to the "innocent" I used to be. And I'd probably have to kill him, because that Nikita is long gone. Michael would deserve better than that. I remember a book I read once, about a kid whose dog was killed. He couldn't accept the death, so he was compelled to take desperate measures to bring his dead dog back to life. He did what he had to do, but when his dog came back to life, he wasn't the same old Shep as he'd been before the accident. He didn't look or act the same. Death had altered him, and he was horrible.

I'm afraid I'd be like that dog. I don't want Michael to sell any more of his soul to try to make me alive again. I'm a dead dog, and the dead don't walk. I want him to let me stay dead, because if he tries to bring me back, I know I'd be horribly altered.

As I said before, Michael deserves better than that. The man has already given me more, done more for me, than I can ever repay. The kindest thing I can do for him is to make sure he knows that I have always loved him, and I will always love him, even to death.

One day, he'll know it. One day, when Section One falls and he sees the people he loves free... One day, I'll give back all that he's given to me, and we'll be even. Then, maybe we can love as man and woman, without the mentor/trainee, dark wraith/golden angel stigmas. We can be on level ground.

I think I'd like that. It seems so possible, so real...even more real than this gun I'm holding - the gun that's as much a part of me as my sunglasses.

Maybe it's not the right time for me to die, afterall...

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