She still vividly remembered his second words to her: "I'm not going to hurt you." What a lie that had been. In the more than two years since she had met Michael, it seemed like he had done little else.

Nikita was at home now, chewing lethargically at the cord of a balloon, mental and emotional inertia making it impossible for her to do much else. She had been twisted around too many times recently, and Michael's latest betrayal was proving to be more than she could easily forgive.

Michael. She had never known what to make of him, had never been sure when those beautiful eyes were lying to her and when they held a truth the Section lies he mouthed contradicted. Most of all, right now, she wasn't sure why she still gave a damn.

He had *never* been honest with her--not from the very first words he had spoken; it wasn't a good morning. It had been the beginning of, not a new life, but a half life--one where she could never trust, never speak honestly, never love. She couldn't even believe in the simple joys she had at least had on the street; at least there she had had some sort of control, some sense of minor self-determination, of freedom. Even prison seemed preferable. At least there she wouldn't have been a pawn in the power games of a clandestine organization which wouldn't pause for a second before ordering her death. More than anything, she was tired of games.

She stopped chewing on the cord and closed her eyes for a second, but Michael's face filled her mental field. Damn him. How many lies was it now? How many times had she come to believe that he cared, only to have him hurt her? She thought back to her first mission-- the evening out at the restaurant. She opened her eyes, laughed disgustedly to herself, and shook her head. "What kind of an idiot was I to think that he cared?" she thought. But his eyes had seemed so real, so sincere that night. . . He had never even apologized-- explained, he was good at that, but not apologize. She laughed ironically again. "He just gave me an apartment instead," she pondered, "like a present for services rendered."

She looked around her apartment. She had made it her own, made it reflect her personality, but, she knew, that it didn't really belong to her. The Section--Michael--could take it away as quickly as it had been given.

She owned nothing, really, she realized suddenly. Her clothes were chosen by Maddy half the time. Even her soul was theirs, according to them--if they wouldn't consider it treason to have one. That really was, Nikita decided, where they disagreed the most. Not even Michael and those damned eyes were able to make a true claim to it. Nikita looked at her bedroom. She thought back to playing dress-up with her supposed friend, the "friend" Michael had had to rescue her from. "It's all make believe," she thought. "We're like overgrown children, playing high-tech king-of-the-mountain. . . Only, our bullets are real, and, when we shoot, the other kids don't bounce back up and keep playing."

Nikita leaned her head back against the wall and sighed. Michael had told her, time and again, how important their work was--how they were helping to save lives, to protect democracy. That was another lie. Operations had made that clear tonight when he had berated her for killing Chandler. The kids that were being sold were meaningless to Section; they were as much a commodity to them as they had been to Alec. The whole mission had simply been aimed at gaining a new pawn --that he was a slaver made no difference to them. Michael had been ready to give him a deal, to let him go free, maybe even to continue slaving, in return for his help. That wasn't justice; it wasn't democracy. It was just another one of their soulless games.

Nikita closed her eyes again for a minute and saw the flames of the pyre she had created hours before. She had taken pleasure in them; she still did. "So much for the little girl who likes kittens," she thought, closing her eyes tighter still. It wasn't just the world at large who thought she was dead; it was a metaphorical truth. It had happened the first time she had pulled the trigger and had watched the life evaporate in shock from her enemy's eyes. And she had done it for *him*.

Nikita opened her eyes again, growing more angry. Michael. The first person she had killed, she had destroyed to save him. It would have taken only a millimeter's worth of adjustment to kill him instead. She shook her head. "Why didn't I? Why did I give up part of myself to save him?" she wondered. "Why couldn't I just look into those beautiful, deceptive green eyes and pull the trigger?"

Nikita went back to chewing on the cord, shaking her head. "He doesn't love me; he couldn't. I don't know if he's even capable of it." Then, she thought of Simone, of Michael's desperate pleas to coax her back to humanity, to protection. It was the only time she had ever seen him so affected, so desperate. She had saved his life that day, too, she realized. He would have preferred to have died with his wife, to allow the heat and the explosion to destroy them both, unaware of Nikita's presence. "Maybe I *should* have let him die there."

She stopped chewing again and looked down. She had thought she had had him figured out then, that it was just a matter of working past the thick layers of emotional scar tissue to find his soul. There had been a closeness, almost, after that, a gentleness in his eyes she hadn't seen since he had saved her from being tortured. . . But it was different now. He had seemed almost jealous of her affection for Alec. She wondered now if he hadn't allowed her to view the interrogation of Chandler's courier solely as a form of payback for her caring about someone else. Control--that was all he really seemed to function on, after all, she decided. Just like Maddy or Operations, all he wanted in the end was control.

Nikita went back to chewing on her balloon string, having concluded that all of Michael's supposed and sporatic affection was just a power play. She kept this opinion until Michael had come (letting himself in with a key, as he seemed to feel he had a right to) and left again, taking her conviction with him. His achingly gentle kiss on her hand, the look of unspeakable sadness in those damned eyes, and his refusal to deny the validity of her pain left her back at the start of her reflections, not a single step closer to solving his mystery or letting him go.

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