Section One wasn't the nicest place in which to grow older, but it sure beat the alternative. Angst with a fluff chaser, set during late Season Three. A birthday gift for the lovely Rita.

~*~*~*~

It was almost four o'clock in the afternoon before she remembered it was her birthday.

Awoken before dawn by the soft bleating of her cell phone, she'd been in three different countries before lunch time. The emergency briefing had been rushed, the last takedown skewed beyond belief. Not only had they lost three Abeyance Ops, but the target's husband and child had been caught in the crossfire.

Back at Section, the usual verbal postmortem had been held, the 'where, why and how' hashed and rehashed until the faces of all the dead blurred together in her mind. Losing Abeyance Ops always left her feeling restless and disheartened, but losing innocents made her as though she was suffering the worst kind of seasickness - wobbly legs, queasy stomach, clammy hands.

It was only after the debriefing - when she was leaning against the cold wall of a stainless steel Section shower cubicle, watching the dust and blood drain away in a pink swirl - that Nikita remembered she was another year older.

She stood still for a moment, not quite believing she'd forgotten her own birthday, then shook her head. "Well, I'll be damned," she muttered as she closed her eyes, bowing her head until the hot water ran over the knotted muscles across her shoulders. She may have only been one year older, but she felt as though she'd aged an eternity in the last twelve months. Perhaps Section years were like dog years? She snorted softly at the thought, then shut off the water and reached for her towel.

Five minutes later, she was dressed in black sweats, her hair scraped back into a ponytail, her feet hastily shoved into flip flops. It wasn't something she would normally wear whilst inside Section, but she was down for the rest of the day and not in the frame of mind to play dress-ups.

She left the ready room and walked slowly through Section, a fidgety feeling of disquiet creeping into her thoughts. It was the oddest feeling, almost like a mental form of itching powder. You're just feeling squirrelly because of the mission, she told herself firmly. It couldn't be a birthday thing. After all, this was her fifth birthday as a non-person - she'd gotten used to non-celebrating a long time ago.

As she started to make her way towards the corridor that led to the surface access elevator, she heard the familiar bark of Walter's laugh. Glancing towards Munitions, she saw him, deep in conversation with Gardiner and Ellis. She also saw how Gardiner kept her eyes on Ellis as she flirted with Walter, how Ellis' right hand lingered on the curve of Gardiner's thigh as he helped her adjust her holster.

The 'itching powder' feeling in Nikita's thoughts worsened. As she started to turn away, Walter caught her eye. Over Ellis' shoulder, he gave her a wave and an apologetic grin. Noting the range of weaponry and equipment on the Munitions bench, Nikita took the hint - he'd be with the two Level Two Ops for quite a while. She blew him a kiss and turned away, telling herself that it didn't matter.

She didn't bother venturing into Comm. or towards Michael's office. Birkoff had spent all of yesterday reminding everybody that he was about to have twelve hours downtime and Michael's team was still in Bosnia. She shoved her hands into the back pockets of her sweatpants and began to walk towards the surface access corridor, doing her best to ignore the growing feeling of emptiness gnawing at her. Five people had died this morning. In the scheme of things, being alone on her birthday didn't - shouldn't - matter.

Thirty minutes later she unlocked her front door, keeping a watchful eye on the door to Mick Schtoppel's apartment. She was never really in the mood for Mick, but she definitely wasn't in the mood for Mr. Jones today. Their last conversation - a terse exchange on the familiar topic of his definition of 'need to know' - was still ringing in her ears. Given her present mood, she wasn't sure she would be able to keep the proverbial civil tongue in her head if he presented himself for the next round.

The apartment looked just as it had when she'd left it that morning - the living quarters of someone who'd been abruptly woken before dressing in the almost-dark. Clothes draped over the back of the couch, the mug of coffee she'd had time to make but not to drink sitting on the kitchen bench. The sight was vaguely depressing, inspiring her to busy herself with routine tasks - choosing a CD, boiling the kettle for tea, gathering up her clothes and dumping them in the laundry hamper, throwing together a haphazard meal of rice and vegetables. Nothing resembling birthday cake in the slightest, but that was okay. Birthday cakes had never played a major role in her life in or out of Section.

At nine o'clock, she was lying on the couch, television remote in hand, aimlessly channel-surfing. Her eyes were gritty with weariness, but she didn't want to go to bed. She didn't want to go to bed and lie awake in the darkness, thinking of the brutal fragility of life. She didn't want to go to bed and dream of the dead little girl and her dead father. She closed her eyes against the warm swell of tears as the thought came unbidden. I wonder when her next birthday would have been?

~*~*~

Her cell phone rang at eleven o'clock precisely, just as she was staring bleary-eyed at the flashy opening sequence of the late evening news. Her hand was already reaching for the phone and flipping it open before her mind had had time to catch up and decide that Section were fooling themselves if they thought she was coming back in tonight.

"Hello?"

"Hi."

Her stomach flipped over at the very unexpected sound of Michael's voice. "Where are you?"

"Section."

Her thoughts still fuzzy with weariness, she blinked, then licked her dry lips. "I thought you weren't due back until tomorrow evening?"

"We had an early abort."

Five little words of commonplace Section-speak, but they made her heart sing. "Do you have to debrief?"

"It's done."

She knew that he would have secured the line before he called, but she couldn't quite bring herself to move the conversation into more personal, more dangerous, territory. "Any losses?"

"Gibson and Hobbs."

Her throat tightened. She'd grabbed a late night drink with Gibson and Hobbs only last week. It had been, she realised with a miserable jolt of realisation, Gibson's birthday. And now he was dead.

She heard Michael exhale. "It's late. I should go."

Closing her eyes, Nikita pressed the phone hard against her ear, as though that might help her hear the words he wasn't saying, wishing she could just say what she wanted to say. Why couldn't it ever be simple between them? She thought of Gardiner and Ellis, sharing lingering glances and smiling touches before heading out on a mission from which there was every chance one of them might not return. She thought of Gibson, then took a deep breath.

"It's not that late, is it?"

~*~*~

He knocked on her door at ten minutes past midnight. At eleven minutes past midnight he was kissing her, his mouth warm, his fingertips cool against the nape of her neck. She wrapped her arms around him, memorizing anew the feel of his body against hers, and returned his kiss fiercely, tasting the dark sweetness of his mouth as though it was the first time.

When it was over, she buried her face in the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of his skin. "Thank you for coming," she whispered against his jaw, smiling at the feel of his whiskers against her lips.

There was an answering smile in his voice. "You're welcome." His hands slid down her back, urging her closer. She could feel the urgency in his body, an echo of the same desire that warmed her own blood.

She brushed her lips against his throat, tasted a tremulous pulse. "It's my birthday," she reminded him, her smile fading.

"I know." The hand on her right hip tightened, one thumb etching a trail over the jut of her hipbone. "Is that a problem?"

"I'm another year older," she muttered unhappily, knowing that she was doing a very bad job of explaining her muddled thoughts but also knowing that if anyone might understand her muddled thoughts, it was Michael. "Another year spent in Section."

She felt the sigh that rumbled deep in his chest as much as she heard it. "Another year of staying alive." He, perhaps better than anyone in Section, knew about the brutal fragility of life. "Growing older is not a bad thing."

She thought of all the ghosts she'd encountered that day and swallowed hard, then lifted her mouth to his for another kiss. "It beats the alternative."

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