There was one thing to say for Helen Wick. She had taught her to enjoy tea.

Nikita smiled and looked down at her cup. She was sitting in the open French doors in her apartment, leaning against the frame, enjoying the sunlight which was shining down on her, keeping her bare feet from getting chilly in the afternoon breeze. She set her cup down beside her and went back to staring out into the distance.

She had thought a lot about Helen the last day or so--had thought a lot about the various mothers her life had given her. These reflections had been started when she was passing by a window display in a flower shop, on her way home from Section a few days ago. A large poster, showing a happy—extremely white--mother surrounded by kids bearing gifts, had loudly proclaimed: "REMEMBER YOUR MOTHER! MOTHER'S DAY--MAY 10." Nikita shook her head slightly, wondering why those posters always seemed to look like ads for The Ozzie and Harriet Show.

Still, she supposed you wouldn't make much money if you put her mother on a poster. "REMEMBER THE DRUNKEN WOMAN WHO TOSSED YOU OUT ON THE STREET IN FAVOR OF AN ABUSIVE BOYFRIEND! MOTHER'S DAY--MAY 10" really didn't have the same ring to it. She smiled ironically. . . . No, no one made 50's tv shows about moms like hers--90's tv movies maybe . . . Nikita laughed ruefully and picked back up her tea, sipping thoughtfully. Her mother should never have had children, really, although Nikita supposed that she had never planned on it, anyway. No, she knew that she had been a classic "accident"--a sexual experience with a terrible aftermath. She took another sip of tea to wash down the lump in her throat and then put the cup back down. Her mother had *never* let her forget it, either.

Nikita sighed and pulled her legs in to sit up, cross-legged, for a while. She was half-way through thinking that she would never treat a child like that, when she stopped and laughed sharply at herself. Like that were even a possibility for her. She might as well be sterile for all the chance she had of having children. . . . It was funny how, sometimes, even when you saw the walls all around you, you could forget that you were in jail.

She propped her elbow on her knee and leaned onto it, closing her eyes and covering them with her hand. She had tried to tell herself--many times that her mother's treatment of her didn't matter--that it didn't affect her. . . .She knew it was a lie, though.

She remembered telling Michael, on that terrible, pretend "date" so long ago, that he shouldn't feel bad for her because of her treatment by her mother that she had never regretted being thrown out by her. . . . She had known, even then, though, that it was a lie; she just hated being pitied. Sympathy was alright--could be very comforting, in fact, but pity brought out her most primal rage.

Nikita thought back to Jenna's debriefing. She remembered the woman asking whether Nikita had pitied her; she had agreed, even though she hadn't. It just hadn't been the proper place to distinguish the difference between the two emotions.

She had seen too much of it on the street--too many people cleansing their consciences of their various sins by throwing a couple of quarters her way--all the while muttering something like, "Get a job"--as though she had never tried to do that. Just what the hell did they think a homeless, 18-year-old girl with no job skills or high school diploma was going to do, anyway? Become a damn corporate president? . . . Who, besides the pimps and the drug dealers, hired someone without an address, anyway?

Nikita looked up and shook her head. She had never asked for anyone's damn pity. She had rarely even gone into any of the charities for help. . . . Some of them were nice, of course, but others wanted some sort of fealty for their help--such as conversion to whatever the religion-of-the-day was. She had been sick of being preached at about her sins, tired of being told that God had smote her with her homeless state, and now she better act right to pay him back. . . . She had just wanted to be let alone.

She pulled her knees up in front of her and rested her chin on them. God hadn't made her homeless; her own mother had. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead on her knees. She knew her mother had her reasons--had problems which drove her to do terrible things, but she also knew that this was not an excuse. She raised her head again and pressed her lips to her legs. . . . She wanted to forgive her mother, felt she needed to--in some ways--to move on. . . . She couldn't, though; she understood, but she couldn't forgive . . . not yet.

Nikita sat back up and grabbed her cup again. The tea was cold, by this point, but she gulped down the last few sips, anyway. It was still good, and it made her think about Helen again. She had even tried out a recipe this morning she had found for making scones, because of her memories of that mission, but she hadn't quite got the knack of it yet. They weren't bad, but . . .

She shook her head. She wasn't entirely sure why she still remembered Helen so clearly. That mission had happened a long time ago, and she had only been a target, anyway.

Still, the older woman had shown more maternal feeling toward her than anyone else in her life had. And, in an odd way, Helen had saved her life; Nikita had no doubt that Michael would have simply watched them kill her--if it had come to that--had Helen not stopped him. . . . She wondered briefly whether he would still do the same thing--if he had to--or if the changes she felt between them, since then, were real. She shook her head and decided not to think about it.

She got up and took her cup back to the kitchen, pouring herself some more of the tea she had been keeping warm on the stove, and grabbed one of the scones she had made. She stopped for a second and then got out the cream and jam she had bought before going over to sit on the floor in front of her coffee table. She looked down at her small meal and smiled, remembering the look on Helen's face when she had first served her a similar one.

Nikita attacked her meal with the same street-urchin grace she had used when she had been with Helen; sometimes, manners were a bore. Helen's eyes had been so loving--so gentle with her, after her initial questions had been answered. .. . Nikita had never been wanted like that before. She had almost felt guilty betraying Helen; she had had to remind herself that--in all the other aspects of her life--Helen Wick was a monster. Still, that one good side made her outrank Nikita's real mother, even if her real mother's bad sides weren't as dramatic.

Nikita licked some cream off her fingers and reached for her tea. Helen had made her like the drink. Before that, she had mostly been exposed to it in Madeline's lessons on manners, which had made it seem dull, at best. Ever since that mission with Helen, though, she had come to be a fan.

It was certainly better than Michael's stupid coffee, anyway, which he seemed to drink despite a certain distaste for it. He had even included a coffee machine with the equipment for her new apartment, when he had given it to her.. . . Although she had never known for sure if he had been responsible for most of the decorations, she had been certain that one touch, at least, was his.

He had managed--overall, though, to unknowingly rehabilitate that drink for her. Before her training, the smell of coffee had always reminded her of her mother; it had even made her feel a bit ill--had forced back into her mind the image of her mother sitting with her coffee and cigarettes, glowering at her. After a few months in Section, though, she had come to associate the smell with Michael; the scent lingered on his clothes and--as she had come to learn more recently--occasionally on his skin. Instead of the feelings of fear and abandonment the scent had brought to her before, she was now made happy by it. At times, she even felt embraced by it; she found it fairly erotic.

Nikita shook her head and plopped the last bit of the jam-and-cream-covered scone in her mouth. She had enough on her mind right now without starting to fantasize about Michael. She wondered, though, as she gulped down the last of her tea, whether Michael had done what she had asked for Helen--whether he had let her continue to believe that she had found her real daughter. He had never promised that he would, however, she remembered now, and the look on his face had been decidedly noncommittal. She hoped, though; Helen had deserved that much, even if she had also earned her death.

Nikita thought about that mission again. Along with Helen, of course, she knew she remembered it most for how it had ended. Watching Michael order her to be beaten had given her a few more emotional scars, despite the fact that he had tried--in that terrible pattern he had developed during her first year as an operative--to apologize for it afterward. She propped her head in her hand and shook it. They had come a long way together since those days, but, she knew that--no matter how far their relationship might develop--he had given her some scars from which she would never be free.

Nikita shook her head again and laughed slightly, sitting up. Why did her thoughts always seem to return to Michael, wherever they may have started? She wondered briefly if he ever had the same trouble with her, before she diverted herself again.

She still remembered being introduced to the third of her mothers: Madeline; Michael had even described her that way. Nikita wasn't certain where in her maternal line-up Section's main profiler belonged. Even though she had probably ordered her death a few times, she had still treated her better than her own mother had. There were times, after all, when you could go to Madeline for help. They were rare, admittedly, but they happened. Section's doyenne, too, had given her back much of the confidence her own mother had stolen from her--pointing out the beauty her mother had always denied in her.

Of course, Madeline was probably also the coldest of the bunch--capable of playing with the lives of millions as though she were dealing with a multi-level chess game. Helen had simply been indifferent to others' lives, but she had let her husband handle the true dirty work. . . . Her own mother's indifference seemed to only encompass Nikita.

Nikita turned her head and thought suddenly about what her mother's childhood might have been like. She had only met her grandparents once; they were bitter, cruel people who could find nothing but fault in their daughter and showed little interest in her child. . . . Nikita had never known her father. She wondered if her mother had simply never had the time or the opportunity to recover from her own upbringing before she found herself a parent-to-be.

It made sense, really. With no time to break away from the abusive patterns of her past and no one to help her look deeply enough into them to spot and analyze those patterns, her mother had seen no path before her which didn't extend from the ones behind; therefore, she followed it blindly, never really understanding that it would lead into yet more pain for herself and another generation to come.

Nikita felt tears coming to her eyes. She suddenly felt tremendously sorry for her mother and the unhappy path she had unwittingly chosen; she wished she could go back in time and talk to the confused girl her mother must have been--could point out where the blame should be placed in her life, so that she would stop misdirecting it at herself and--eventually--her child. . . . She wished she could have saved her.

She sighed, feeling a sudden, internal change. "I forgive you, Mom," she murmured, before rubbing a tear from her eye.

It wasn't that she saw her mother as blameless; there was plenty of guilt to go around. Nikita let go, finally, though, of the bitterness she had been holding in her heart for the woman who had unwillingly given her life.

Getting a sudden inspiration, Nikita sat up, put on her shoes, grabbed her keys, and left the apartment.

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

A few days later, Michael was surreptitiously looking through Nikita's expense records. He didn't trust himself enough to be too close to her, so he liked to use this as an odd sort of comfort--allowing him to be near her with less danger.

He could imagine her activities, as he looked at her charges. He could pull up her records and note every item she bought; that was the whole reason, after all, that Section gave its operatives fairly-limitless credit cards instead of allowing them cash. He smiled, noting the new types of tea she seemed to be trying out.

One item, though, brought him to a halt; it was a rather large charge at a florist's shop, apparently for several flower arrangements. It seemed odd for Nikita. He did a bit of digging, therefore, tracing it further, before he noted what was really being delivered: a small wreath with a banner marked, "Mother," to be placed on the grave of Helen Wick.

Michael blinked before tapping a few keys to erase the real records, keeping Nikita's cover on them firmly in place, in hopes of avoiding the possibility of having any difficult questions being asked to her. Why, though, he wondered, would she do such a thing? He knew that she had been affected by Wick, but she had still been inexperienced then. . . . Why send a tribute to a target from two years ago?

He remembered the mission, of course. How could he forget almost having to kill her? He rubbed his eyes, trying to drive the thoughts away. She had requested, at the time, that Helen be allowed to keep her delusions; Michael, though, had had no intention of letting that happen. He had dealt with his anger and guilt at his Section-ordered actions with Nikita by diverting the blame to Wick. As soon as he had left the battered Nikita's hospital room that day, he had walked into Wick's cell, told her the entire story of her betrayal by her supposed daughter, and shot her in the head, while staring into her confused, horrified, angry eyes.

Michael looked up once more. He wasn't proud of his behavior, but he also wasn't sure he would do anything differently, if it happened again. . . . He was uncertain, though, whether he would be able to carry the mission that far these days. . . . He hoped he would never have to find out.

He sighed and swallowed a growing lump in his throat before going back to reviewing Nikita's recent purchases, ignoring the question of her current motives and trying to erase the memories of his past injuries to her by enjoying this virtual way of being part of her life.

[The End]

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