A sequel of sorts to Blind, set between Approaching Zero and Darkness Visible the characters of Camille Arnessen and Frank are the inventions of the authors

**********

One of the ways Michael kept in touch with his outside contacts was through a secure e-mail drop box, which was not part of Birkhoff's system, and could not be accessed from within Section. About eight months after the botched assignment in Florence, Michael went out for his regular round of contact sites. He had finished training for the day, there were no scheduled briefings, and this was as close to time off as he allowed himself. He found a new internet cafe, ordered an espresso, and logged on. There was one message - a text file attached to a wave file, ostensibly sent from the Toronto Public Library. Michael dismissed that as an obvious blind. The text file was small so he opened that first. No subject line, no signature, yesterday's date:

Meet me tomorrow four o'clock Inamorata.

Michael knew the name not as informant or safe house, but as a minimalist and extremely expensive women's store, more Madeline's style than Nikita's. Michael was running through a mental list of possible senders as he clicked on the .wav file. A few bars of the last song he ever wanted to hear again floated tinnily out of the speaker. Camille, it had to be. He checked his watch - 3:45. Could he get there in time? Would she wait? He decided to risk a phone call, dialling even as he deleted the files.

"Is my ...girlfriend still there - tall, blonde, English?"

"Momento. La signorina Arnesson?"

"Yes. Please tell her I'm on my way."

He hung up before they could ask for a name.

There was a stick-thin shop assistant waiting for him at the bronze glass doors.

"Let me take you to her, signor. This way."

Michael unbuttoned his jacket, for easier access to his holster, but then he felt foolish. Nothing more dangerous than Camille in a fitted black dress confronted him.

"There you are at last, darling." She kissed him lightly on the cheek.

"Sorry."

"I've weeded it down to three or four things. Thank you, Sofia."

"Signorina." Sofia closed the dressing room door behind her.

"Hello, Michael. Thank you for coming."

"Why here?"

"The room is soundproof, no one will interrupt us or suspect us."

Michael considered this a deliberately evasive answer. "Why am I here?"

"I'm not sure - curiosity?" Seeing no response on his face, Camille went on. "I asked you here, I hoped you would come, so I could tell you something in confidence. Unofficially."

Now she had piqued Michael's curiosity - what could make her violate protocol this way? He leaned against the door to listen more comfortably. Instead of continuing, Camille sat down on the chair provided, crossed her ankles, and focussed on her shoes instead of him.

"Tomorrow or the next day, you'll be called into a briefing on the civil war in the Maghreb."

"I thought it was cooling off."

"It's about to blow up again. There will be no mention of the organization I belong to in the briefing."

"But you provided the intell."

"Some of it." She looked up at him. "We couldn't get clearance to look after it ourselves. Conflicting politics. It's a messy situation, and I don't envy you. That's why I'm going to be around for the op."

"On the team?" Michael couldn't keep the surprise or the dismay out of his voice.

"Of course, I'm dying to meet Nikita." Her quick, caustic tongue was not like Simone or like Nikita; that was part of Camille, hiding some anxiety or fear behind a moment of flippancy.

"Distant backup, monitoring you. We can't come in, but we might be able to help you get out. Consider it an emergency fallback position."

"You think we'll need it?"

"I hope you won't. But civil wars are always ugly." She stood up abruptly and changed the subject. "Do you like this dress?"

Michael gave his attention to the matter. "The trouser suit is better." He pointed at it, hanging behind her, dark blue wool with brushed platinum clasps at shoulder and waist.

"I agree with you. Unzip me before you go." She turned her back on him, but watched him in the mirror, that wry amusement back in her eyes.

"Of course." He moved close to her for the first time, and caught the faint scent he associated only with her. She swept her hair to one side and held it out of his way. He was tempted, no use lying to himself, by the smooth champagne-coloured skin he revealed from nape to waist. He even traced two fingers down her spine and felt the muscles tense, but there was no change in her face reflected in the mirror.

"Teasing?" she inquired.

"Remembering."

The perfume, the taste of the skin under his fingers, the way he been willing to use her, and how thoroughly she had deceived him. He would not fall into that trap again.

He stepped away from her, and she shrugged out of the dress. In nothing but opaque tights and shoes, she reached for the suit and put it on, buckling the jacket snugly at throat and waist.

"You needn't feel obliged to wait."

"Wouldn't it look better it we left together?"

"You're in much better shape that the last time I saw you." She looked him over approvingly. "Anything changed?"

"Why would I tell you?" But there was no resentment in his tone.

"Fair enough." She gave her reflection a final critical look. "Come on, darling, we can't waste all day on mere clothes."

She linked her arm through his and kept it there as they walked through the shop and out to her car at the curb. Camille knew Sofia would put away the dress and send the bill to her hotel.

"Good evening, Frank."

"Evening, sir."

Camille let Michael put her into the car, and kiss her cheek. "Good luck, Michael," she whispered. "You'll need it."

He watched the car vanish into traffic.

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

The following day, Nikita strode out of her apartment, needing some fresh air and some time around normal people before the briefing Michael had just summoned her to. Caught up in her own annoyance, she nearly tripped over a woman trying to persuade a stroller down the front steps.

"Can I give you a hand with that?"

"Thanks. You're Nikita, aren't you?"

Nikita stiffened, and examined the woman facing her, but didn't let go of her end of the stroller. The woman continued talking, apparently unaware of Nikita's reaction.

"Carla told me you lived across from her. I just moved in downstairs. My name's Theresa, and the snoring one is Dylan."

Nikita looked down into the stroller for the first time, and saw a squirrel-cheeked face with tufts of red hair escaping from under a fleece hat. "He's cute." She had to struggle to keep the edge out of her voice; Nikita hated being around women with babies. But now, unless she was willing to be rude, she was stuck walking beside Theresa into the park.

Apparently Theresa didn't get much chance to talk to adults; she continued chatting despite Nikita's lack of enthusiasm.

" I work for Ecosystems. They've been great agreeing to let me telecommute from home for the next couple of years until Dylan is old enough to go into daycare. I thought it would be simple, when I first decided to have a child, you know, work and look after an infant at the same time, but boy was I wrong. I have way more respect for Mrs. Cleever now. But I still think that if you want something badly enough, you just make it happen. " She laughed.

Nikita thought of looking after a baby, about having the choice to have a child and an employer who would go out of their way to make it possible. She could feel the old bitterness welling up inside of her. Forcing a broad smile, Nikita nodded her approval of Ecosystem's labour standards.

"You know, I am dying for a coffee. The vendor over there makes the best decaf lattes. Would you mind watching Dylan while I get one? It's hell trying to get the stroller up the stairs to him." Theresa motioned with her head to a one-man cappuccino stand.

"Sure, no problem. " Nikita answered. Decaf lattes, another sacrifice of motherhood.

"Can I get you something?"

"No, thanks. If I have any more caffeine this morning, I'll start to get jittery."

Caffeine's not the only thing that's making me jittery, Nikita thought. With one final check on Dylan, Theresa smiled and walked towards the vendor. When she glanced back once or twice to make sure that her little one was safe, Nikita smiled reassuringly.

Nikita saw Michael crossing the park towards her, and deliberately turned her attention to Dylan, who was continuing to snore like a walrus. She was rewarded by a definite crispness in Michael's voice when he arrived at the bench.

"What are you doing? We have a briefing in half an hour."

"The mum lives in my building - she's just at the coffee stand. I'll be there on time. What are you, following me again?"

"I thought we might go in together."

Nikita wasn't sure whether Michael was trying to be nice or just avoiding her question. But Theresa was back with coffee, and making the obvious assumption.

"I see your date's here early. Is Dylan still asleep?"

Michael looked into the stroller for a long moment, his face not so much blank as immobile, a mask of control. "Fast asleep."

"I've got my coffee, I'm set. Thanks, Nikita."

And Nikita had no choice but to walk away with Michael, but that didn't mean she had to make conversation.

The briefing was just what Michael had been expecting - a map of North Africa on the screen, and Operations talking about the civil war.

"We've received reliable intell that the losing side in the war has made plans to strike back. They've been able to set up a biological weapons lab within the country, and we have a location."

The map changed to a larger scale, showing roads and villages in detail.

"This settlement is their base. You'll need to concentrate on the lab first. Our intell says they're incubating a particularly virulent strain of typhoid there, with which they plan to infect the capital's water supply. Casualty projections if they succeed go up to 100,000. So we'll need to strike quickly and thoroughly, eliminate the whole settlement. No survivors - do I make myself clear? Any evidence that this was committed by outsiders will be enough to give them what they want, an excuse to reignite a civil war that's already killed tens of thousands. Walter will give you the technical specs."

Walter stood up, and the display switched to building schematics.

"The compound is self-sufficient. You'll need to take out the electrical generator first, here, and then the propane tanks. I've designed incendiaries that will burn without trace, so it will look like an electrical fire spreading, but they'll need to be placed by hand. Once the tanks blow, nothing can save the place."

"What will we be up against in terms of defense?" The most tactful way Nikita could think of to ask, are we dealing with terrorists or civilians.

"If they realize you're there - anything up to rocket launchers. The idea is to infiltrate, not invade, Nikita. Taking out the generator first should mean taking out their communications, but we'll also monitor for cell phone transmissions."

"But it's a settlement, right?"

"Your point, Nikita?" There was a thread of impatience showing in Operations' voice. "This group is ready to kill a hundred thousand civilians to achieve their goal of renewing the civil war. Any one of them would kill you without a second thought." And answer my prayers.

"Any other questions?" Operations asked in a tone that invited none. "Good. Get your gear together. The plane leaves in an hour."

***********

Nikita walked back with Walter to his workshop.

"Walter, Operations said this was a settlement. Does that mean women and children are there?"

"What difference would that make?" Walter replied looking down at the weapon that he was assembling.

"Why would we have to kill the children? They're the real victims of civil wars. Shouldn't we be helping them? I mean we are the good guys, right?"

"You're just as dead if a twelve year old shoots you. There are no civilians in civil wars, haven't you noticed? Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Zaire, I could go on but I wouldn't want to bore you , sugar." But Walter kept his eyes on his work.

A sudden horrible thought struck Nikita.

"Walter, the two little boys left behind when we kidnapped Jericho Perez, what happened to them?"

"I can't say."

"Walter -"

"Don't ask me, sugar, unless you really want to hear the answer." Walter finally looked up, staring directly into Nikita's eyes. Nikita met the stare for a moment and then turned away. She shook her head slightly, stuck her hands in her pockets and slowly walked from the room. They were dead and she had asked someone to "take care of them". She hadn't meant..... but had they thought...? She would figure this out later, she told herself. There's no time now. But she was rationalizing and she knew it, just trying to get the picture out of her mind.

As the team headed out, Birkhoff called to Michael from his computer station.

"As soon as that recon is complete, I'll download it to your laptop en route. You'll get it well before you land." Michael nodded and followed his team.

The raid itself began smoothly. The team arrived at an abandoned building approximately two kilometres from the settlement by what looked like a local bus and disembarked there.

"We go on foot from here and will rendezvous back at 01:00 hours. Darlene and Bob take the west side, Peter and Iain the south. Louise, your job is to blow the generator at the east end. Our source tells us that the lab is at the north end of the compound, near the sleeping quarters, Nikita and I will take the north end. Everyone have your incendiaries? Any questions? Move." The team scattered, each group finding cover in the rough scrub.

Michael and Nikita made it to the settlement in less than 10 minutes and hid themselves behind what looked like an abandoned jeep, waiting for the first explosion. Within seconds, they heard a tremendous blast and the east end of the settlement burst into flames. They could hear voices from within the settlement and saw figures running towards the source of the fire. Almost immediately the fire began to spread, the heat and noise covering the other smaller explosions that had started around the settlement. Michael caught Nikita's eye and they both ran towards the building that had been identified as the lab in the schematics.

Before entering, Nikita thought she saw a smaller figure running away from the building out of another exit. "Damn," she thought, "Why do I have to see them?" Unbidden, the lyrics to Zombie came into her mind.

Another head hangs lowly
Child is slowly taken
And the violence caused such silence
Who are we mistaken

Shaking her head, Nikita ran into the building realizing that Michael was already inside and out of sight. After entering Nikita stood for a moment until her eyes adjusted from the glare of the fires outside to the dim of the building. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the glint of a rifle barrel. In one motion, Nikita turned, released the safety on her automatic and shot. A woman, dressed in nightclothes fell, managing to fire once as she died, but the bullet went into the wall above Nikita's head.

But you see it's not me
it's not my family
In your head, in your head,
they are fighting

Nikita didn't turn her back on the woman until she checked to make sure there was no pulse, then she, more cautiously this time, followed the hallway into the interior of the building.

Michael stood in the middle of what was obviously the lab. He was setting the incendiaries around the many bottles of liquid, being careful not to brush against any of them.

"You have your gloves on?"

"Yes."

"Don't touch anything. I heard the shots, any difficulties?"

"No."

"Good." Michael went back to setting the bombs.

Nikita, her job being point for Michael, slowly moved around the room, checking the three doors that opened into it. One of the doors led to a corridor, Nikita assumed it connected to the next building, and she could just make out bunks in an open room approximately 10 feet away.

"Michael, are you nearly finished? I think I hear someone this way," she whispered.

"Check it out. I will be right behind you." Michael motioned with his head for her to go. He had three incendiaries left to set.

Nikita eased the door further open, crept down the hallway, and peered into the bunk room. Not seeing anyone, she moved cautiously forward, sweeping the room with her eyes, her gun ready. Suddenly, a boy about thirteen rolled out from under a bunk and confronted her, a grenade in his hand. His lips moved, but Nikita couldn't understand what he was saying. She seemed to have frozen. The song in her head was deafening. She stood there, staring at a face that had never needed shaving, and watched him pull the pin with an eerie smile on his face.

With their tanks and their bombs
And their bombs and their guns

In your head,
in your head, they are crying

A shot came over her shoulder, and the boy crumpled, the blood spreading over his face. Michael stepped past her, unhurried, took the pin from the dead hand and replaced it in the grenade.

In your head
Zombie
That's in your head, in your head
Zombie

"The explosion would have killed all three of us. We need to move, the fire's already starting to spread."

Before she could obey, a small child stumbled out of an inner room - sleepy-eyed and fretful, perhaps two years old. Michael stepped over the dead boy and scooped him up.

"Get going, Nikita. I'll deal with this."

"Deal with it?"

"Would you rather?" There was something ugly in his eyes.

Nikita despised herself for it, but she left the room, making her way to the rendezvous point. She didn't see Michael again before Birkhoff's voice came through her link.

"The fire's starting to draw a crowd. Michael?"

"All teams withdraw. I'll stay here and verify containment, get back on my own. Make sure no one reports our presence here, Birkhoff."

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

Michael had snatched up the child and walked through the door before he had a chance to look at him. Michael put the child down as he looked around, realizing that he was standing in a nursery, rudimentary to Western standards, but unmistakeable. These had been poor people - clean cloth diapers lay piled up in a corner for want of a drawer, a few toys lay scattered, discarded where they had been dropped by the child, and small perfect clothes, handmade with obvious care and love, draped over the end of a makeshift crib.

Michael felt heat rising to his face; his chest started to constrict and he could hear his blood rushing in his ears. He thought he was either going to throw up or faint and knew that he could not afford either. Not knowing where to look he looked down and was met by wide brown frightened eyes. Michael knew that the child was too terrified to cry. The little boy held out his arms and Michael knew without being told that he wanted to be picked up and comforted.

"Grand Dieu," Michael muttered under his breath. He had seen eyes like that before, brown almond eyes that looked at him with recognition. Eyes that haunted his waking mind and unlocked dreams more horrible than he could describe. He knew, as Madeline had told him time and again, that it would help to purge his memories, he thought she really meant his conscience, if he could at least commit those dreams to paper, but he had never dared.

Michael squatted on the floor as he took the child in his arms and held him, listening as the boy made little comforted sounds and nuzzled into Michael's chest. Michael breathed in deeply, and remembered distinctly a time when he held a small dark haired bundle in his arms, his heart bursting with joy, and his senses overwhelmed with that child's wonderful smell and the softness of his skin. Absently, still thinking of that other child, Michael pulled his gun out of his holster and put the cold steel to the boy's temple, instinctively turning him to one side so that his blood wouldn't spray Michael. The child, having found sanctuary in Michael's arms, didn't seem to notice as Michael released the safety on his gun and moved a trembling finger to the trigger.

Michael felt tears rising to his eyes. He could hear his voice telling Operations "We had total containment" and Madeline, who was always somewhere in the room smiling and saying "Well done, Michael". He knew what he had to do, he knew that he had no choice, he also knew that he couldn't do it, not like this.

The heat of the fire outside the room brought Michael back to his senses. He needed to end this and soon or he and the child would burn to death in the damn nursery. Michael felt like an animal in a leg hold trap with the only option being the unthinkable. Then he remembered his trank darts.

"If he just goes to sleep..."

Still holding the boy, Michael reached for one of the darts out of his belt and took it apart. Taking the child's face in his hands he put the opened dart to his mouth. The child, evidently hungry, eagerly took the liquid, but grimaced and set his jaw after the first taste. Still he had taken some, and Michael knew that one trank dart was enough to seriously incapacitate a full grown man. Michael watched as the little boy knuckled his eyes and snuggled back into him, curling up in Michael's arms. Michael sat immobile as he watched the little chest move rhythmically up and down, slower and slower as the child fell deeper into a drug-induced sleep. At that moment, Michael knew he wanted nothing more than to die.

***********

The flight back seemed endless to Nikita. She couldn't get away from the smell and the taste of smoke. Whenever she closed her eyes, she saw the dead boy's face, the child in Michael's arms, and heard the endless crying of orphaned children. It had taken her weeks after that op, after Eric's death, to get away from the nightmares, and now they were twice as strong. She told herself it was just the smoke that make her eyes water, but no matter how much she bathed them, the tears kept coming back. She could hear Theresa's voice like a refrain "you make it happen". The only thing Nikita wanted that badly was never to see a child die again. Michael had said the explosion would have killed all three of them. Maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad solution.

Operations himself was waiting to meet them when they arrived back at Section, with the smug expression he considered a smile on his face.

"Excellent work, people. Michael has reported total containment. He'll be back tomorrow. Turn in your gear and go home."

Nikita, in no hurry to go back to an empty room where she could listen to a baby cry downstairs, waited to talk to Birkhoff.

"How's Michael getting home? We haven't got a substation in five hundred miles of that location."

"Contact in place. That English girl from Florence, the model. It showed up on the wide-range recon he asked for. She's there for a fashion shoot, twenty miles away. He could've been there before dawn if he hotwired a car."

"How nice for him - champagne and a private jet!" Nikita was still feeling sick about the little child she'd left with him; she didn't even know if it had been a boy or a girl. She was disgusted with herself, and she loathed Michael for doing the unspeakable in the name of orders. So she spent the night in Section, drinking coffee and getting on Birkhoff's nerves, and met Michael at the arrivals gate around noon the next day.

"Total containment, huh? You must be proud of yourself."

Michael didn't look proud, or even especially rested. He'd managed to shave, somewhere, and find civilian clothes, but he looked haggard. He closed his eyes for a moment, as though they hurt him, but kept walking. "Can't this wait, Nikita?"

"A child, Michael, a little child." The only way she could think of to escape the guilt was to hurt him, to make him take responsibility, take it away from her.

Michael was acutely aware that Ops and Madeline were watching them from the loft.

"I'm not going to discuss this with you, Nikita. The job had to be done."

"Michael," Birkhoff interrupted. "I've got some of the data you asked for from Heathrow, but I don't think I can get the degree of visual resolution you want on your laptop. Can I send it to a station?"

"Fine." He turned his back on Nikita's anger.

Exhaustion, or something else, lowered Michael's radar - he didn't notice immediately that she had followed him to the computer station and was watching over his shoulder. Nikita saw that he was reviewing news footage - a group of Catholic sisters bringing refugee children into the United States with a voice over about political pressure and the children having no countries, no papers. Michael was zooming in on children's faces. One magnified into something Nikita thought she recognized, almond eyes and a thatch of black hair. Michael jumped when he realized she was there; he started to reach for his holster, and then hit the Delete button. The screen went blank.

"Don't pry, Nikita."

Michael could almost feel the intensity of Nikita's angry stare, as he turned his back on her and walked over to his office. Once inside, the door locked, he slumped at his desk, closing his eyes. He was getting careless, he should have insisted on privacy. But could he have managed with less visual accuracy? Even now he wasn't completely sure. God, his eyes wouldn't stop aching.

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

He went over in his mind the scene after his team had left him at the fire. After talking to Birkhoff, Michael had found cover from which to watch the blaze. As soon as he had reported in, he had headed south-west, making for the nearest village where he thought he could steal transport. Barely half a mile from the still burning buildings, Michael had been intercepted by armed men (the gender he assumed) in the hooded cloaks of the north Sahara. He had lifted a similar one out of the settlement himself. Faced with six semi-automatic rifles, Michael raised his hands. One of them used the muzzle of his gun to push back Michael's hood, and a thin flashlight beam touched his face. Then a Coronation-Street-English voice came out of the darkness, as Frank repeated the same phrase he had last said to Michael.

"Evening, sir."

"Good evening, Frank." Michael wasn't one to laugh out loud, but the humour of the situation didn't escape him. "Is the signorina with you?"

"She's at the van."

Michael tucked his arms back under the cloak, and followed Frank. Just outside the range of the Section mobile surveillance there was another van. Not sleek charcoal-grey, but a ratty old Westphalia that only needed a couple of goats tethered outside to blend into the scenery completely, right down to the local license plates and the evil-eye amulet hanging from the rear-view mirror.

"I need to speak with her alone."

"That's what she expected." Frank opened the door for him. Inside it was considerably better kept and equipped, the equivalent in all important respects of Section's mobile comm unit with the addition of a working three-burner stove. Camille, in black leggings and turtleneck, stood in the open doorway and offered him tea.

"Black or mint?" He loathed the syrup-sweet peppermint beverage so beloved in north Africa, in his mind like drinking a boiled candycane.

"Do you have to ask? Or I could make you coffee."

"Tea is fine." Michael hesitated instead of following her into the van.

"Are you hurt?"

"No, just filthy." Michael felt as though he had been dipped in tar, so thick and acrid the smoke had been, like the fumes of Belsen or Dachau.

"You warned me about this, when you didn't have to. I don't think you're here officially."

"I'm not. Interpol wants no political comeback on them. That's why Camille is having her picture taken."

"But you are expected to report in."

"I already have - situation contained and sanitized. Your team did a good job."

"I may have made a mistake, but I'm going to trust you." His hands moved as though shifting something he carried under his cloak.

"You'd better come in and tell me about it."

Frank closed the door behind them and leaned against it.

Some time later, Camille went to the door and opened it a crack. "Frank." Her voice was soft, but it carried.

So did Michael's, as he said "Frank works for you, not Interpol."

"Very good." Camille answered over her shoulder.

Frank came to the van door. Camille whispered to him, and then passed him a bundle of dark cloth.

"It's out of your hands now, Michael.."

"What are you going to do?"

"Isn't it safer for you not to know?"

Michael was growing to hate the way Camille out-maneuvered him.

"Now what?"

"You'll come back with us to the villa we rented for the photo shoot. Tomorrow we'll fly back together as far as London, and then you're free to return to Section. But Section needs to believe you deliberately used that model contact of yours for cover."

"What about Frank?"

"He'll be back at the villa by dawn." And that was all the conversation he got out of Camille. The rest of her team packed into the van with their gear, and they drove in silence to a walled house on the edge of a town.

Camille showed Michael to an empty bedroom, provided him with pyjamas, towels, and a change of clothes, and told him he could ring for breakfast whenever he liked. He didn't see her again until late morning, when she tapped on his door.

"Ready? The car's outside."

Opaque black sunglasses were all very well for north Africa - but inside this dim, thick-walled house? Michael, who had been standing at the window, looked at her as though for the first time, studying her not for resemblance but as Camille, younger and to look at more delicate than Nikita, weariness in every line of her body and every syllable of her words despite the elegant clothes and beautifully done hair. He walked up to her and tilted down the glasses. Makeup had done its best, but it hid nothing from six inches away.

"You haven't slept."

"Neither did you." The bed was undisturbed, but the towels were now piled damply on the bathroom floor.

"I rested. What were you doing?"

"I met up with Frank. I wanted to be sure everything went smoothly."

"You always have to do it yourself."

"Something we have in common?" She pushed the glasses back on.

The journey to England from north Africa was uneventful. Any observer would have been convinced that this was a pair of lovers, not because they were so demonstrative but because Michael was so attentive to Camille's wishes. She seemed to have a headache - she kept her sunglasses on and refused everything but mineral water, hardly even speaking to Michael.

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

Uneventful, but not restful, Michael thought as he sat at his desk, carefully stretching out his muscles. The adrenaline had finally run through his system, and he was now aware of small burns, eyes and throat irritated by the smoke, and an exhaustion too profound for sleep. Michael also knew, although he hated to admit it, that he was unlikely to be able to rest, given the disgust he felt inside and the way his conscience seemed to torture him in his sleep. He wanted to shower again, but knew that it would not help. Instead, he picked up the phone and dialled Madeline's inside line.

"Yes?" Madeline's voice seemed somewhat distracted, probably eating lunch, Michael thought.

"It's Michael. I can't sleep."

There was a pause. "I'll send them down."

Madeline knew of Michael's "difficulties" and after many episodes, had been able to refine the type of medication and the strength needed to calm Michael enough to let him sleep without trapping him in his nightmares. She also knew that Michael hated having to ask for help, that he felt somehow she could, and probably would use this against him, keeping a running tally of the number of times he'd had to ask. One day he would reach the magic number and be cancelled. Madeline smiled quietly to herself. It never hurt to keep people worried.

A few minutes later there was a knock on Michael's office door. He looked up and found Nikita standing in the doorway with a small package in her hand.

"I don't know what this is about, but Madeline said you needed this. I didn't realize you were hurt."

"It's nothing, just a few burns."

Nikita looked at Michael carefully. She recognized the tiredness that she had first noticed when he arrived in Section. But there was more - Michael looked drained, devoid of energy. Even the ever-present sexuality that she had thought as much a part of him as his breath was gone.

"Michael, did you kill that child?"

"Do you really want to know the truth?"

Nikita thought for a moment. Would it help her to be sure? She swallowed, then answered, "Yes".

"I don't know." Michael looked down.

"What the hell do you mean you don't know? You ask me if I want to hear the truth and then you say you don't know, what kind of a half-assed answer is that? Does everything coming out of your mouth have to be manipulation, evasion or lies?" Nikita glared at Michael, arms crossed over her chest, daring him to reply.

"He was alive the last time I saw him."

"Oh, so you just left him to burn to death. A little child, dying alone in those flames. Very nice, Michael, I'm sure".

"Please Nikita, I can't ...." Michael caught himself. He didn't trust Nikita enough to tell her how much her words hurt him, how much he feared they were true.

"No, Michael, I'm sure you can."

Nikita was about to turn on her heel and walk out, but then she noticed that Michael, who had stood when she had originally entered the room, was now slumped down at the desk. She tried to see his face, but could not as he sat huddled, staring at the floor.

"You're upset, aren't you?" Nikita realized as the words left her mouth how stupid they sounded. Of course he was upset, but no one ever expected Michael to have feelings.

Michael literally didn't have the strength to keep up the charade.

"Yes" was his only reply.

For once the mask had slipped and just for a moment Nikita believed she saw genuine pain and despair. Michael was already in the hell of guilt that she wanted to send him to, and from the look of him, he was suffering everything she could wish on him.

"Michael, " Nikita said as she walked over and knelt beside him. She reached to touch his hair and he moved to lean his head against her shoulder. Nikita found a twisted kind of comfort in knowing that she wasn't alone in her pain. As she stroked Michael's hair, she could not erase from her mind the lyrics of a song that Carla had made her listen to. Hopelessly romantic, but now it made sense.

So much controlled by so few, stumbling from one disaster to another,

But I want all the world to know, that your love's all I need, all that I need,

And if we are lost, then we are lost together.

Credits: Zombie, the Cranberries, No Need to Argue, 1994
Lost Together, Blue Rodeo, 1992.

Send suggestions and comments to ranma.
OR
If you would like to send comments to E and H, click HERE!