************************************************************************** Author's Note: The following is a character study set after the events of "Open Heart." It includes spoilers for "Open Heart," "Nikita," "Obsessed," "Hard Landing," and "New Regime." I am also speculating on Michael's past in Section here; I definitely give this an MA-14, as it has bad language and discussions of sexuality and violence. No infringement of any sort is intended here. **************************************************************************

Nikita had begun wandering two hours ago, aimlessly threading through midnight walkers, the homeless, drug dealers, and prostitutes. She had chosen the seediest section of town, one filled with strip clubs and biker bars. Somehow, it suited her mood.

She was still thinking about Jenna, about the mission, . . . about what she might have become. Jenna had called her a whore; now, she was wondering if that were true.

Nikita stared at the ground, as she walked. She knew she was being watched by various men as she passed; if it had been anyone else, the current walk she was taking would have been an invitation to disaster. Nikita knew these streets, though; they were almost identical to the ones she had lived on. Now, too, she was far better prepared to ward off any possible attackers.

Her fears, therefore, weren't external. She was far more concerned with the fact that she was no longer certain of who she was.

The problem had started, of course, when she had been brought into Section. For the first three years, however, minus several periods of severe self-doubt, she had basically understood herself--had known where her values and beliefs lay. Now, she was no longer sure.

Over the past several months, she had begun conforming more and more to Section's standards. There were still deviations, certainly, but she could feel herself being drawn further and further into the power structure of the organization.

She supposed that it might have something to do with who had trained her. Like usually instructed like in Section; Birkoff worked with many of the new technical recruits, while cold ops. were trained by those with several years of experience in the field. . . . Michael was different, though; he was higher up, more firmly a part of the hierarchy. In her almost four years in Section, she had only seen him concentratedly train one op.--herself. He might be brought in for a day or two of training with various other recruits, but he had been specifically assigned to no one since her.

Nikita looked up at the neon of the buildings she passed, listening to the calls of the men trying to entice others into the strip clubs, as she pondered. . . . Why exactly had she been assigned to Michael, anyway? It wasn't because the chain of command saw anything in her; Operations had made his dislike of her known from her first day. Madeline, too, had been icily polite, but she had shown no particular interest in her, as far as Nikita could tell. In fact, as far as she was able to see, Michael was the only one in power who had really seemed to want her there.

Nikita wasn't sure what to make of all this. She wanted to question Michael about it, but she was certain she wouldn't get any straight answers from him. She stopped walking for a second and looked at the street. Had he chosen her, then? Was she a personal selection? She rolled her eyes and kept walking, trying to put the question out of her mind. It wasn't something she was really prepared to think about.

Nikita tried to force her mind onto a new track, away from thoughts of Michael. This last mission had really made her question her position in Section. Operations had seemed more and more satisfied with her since her return from her six-month escape, but this mission had actually seemed to make him happy. She wasn't entirely sure why.

She had followed the profile carefully this time, but she had done the same a hundred times before without pleasing him. Usually, too, when a mission went wrong, even if it wasn't her fault, he still gave her the blame. . . . What had changed his mind so much this time? Possibly it had been her attempts to manipulate Jenna, even if--in reality--it had worked the other way around.

Nikita could see Jenna's plan pretty clearly in retrospect; the Red Cell operative had been telling her the truth when she had told Nikita that she had been waiting for her. Nikita must have just confirmed her suspicions when she had taken out the guard Jenna had bribed to kill her. Nikita shook her head slightly. She might as well have walked in with a giant "Section Operative Here" sign strapped around her.

Jenna had played her, too; she had found desires Nikita hadn't even known about and had used them. Nikita had never felt herself consciously attracted to another woman before, but Jenna's hands had been very delicate--very tender. . . . Nikita hated her for that.

Nikita had had no particular doubts about her sexuality until the last 48 hours or so. It wasn't that she had ever felt insecure enough about her desires to feel the need to publicly label herself; she had just always been drawn very strongly to men. She had enjoyed the tenderness of other women's touch before, but it had always been the contact of a friend; Jenna had changed that.

Nikita hadn't felt any particular desire to kiss her cellmate, when it had happened; that had simply been part of Section's manipulation. Jenna's hands had awoken fragments of desire in her, though, and she wasn't totally sure she understood how to process the feeling.

Nikita was certain, however, that--to an extent--part of this was simply the need to be touched; she missed the sensation. Michael kept about a foot of space between them at all times lately. With the exception of necessity during missions, he hadn't so much as brushed against her in months; she wanted the comfort of tender hands on her again.

She was glad that the mission had called for no further contact with Jenna; Nikita had no idea how far she could have taken things. Being forced to sleep with anonymous targets of whatever sex still horrified her; she still desperately wanted to believe that she could avoid it. . . . It didn't occur to her that this desire strongly argued against the fear that she had prostituted herself.

Nikita came to another area which was busy with streetwalkers. She watched them, as they went about their unhappy, nightly trade--negotiating through the rolled-down windows of cars, being led away by men emerging from the strip clubs. She wondered if this was where she was heading; she had tried to manipulate Jenna's emotions, had lied to her to make her happy. She didn't really know if Red Cell's foot soldier had had any feelings for her which Nikita might have wounded, but she knew that she didn't like playing these manipulative sexual games.

Nikita looked around at the women and wondered if her training with Michael was a foreshadowing of things to come. Would she one day have to learn to seduce and be seduced--to carry it through, as he did? She shuddered very slightly. She prayed not. . . . She wasn't sure, though, that anything was going to save her from it.

Michael watched Nikita from a distance. He had been following her for over two hours now, afraid of where her mental state was leading her, wishing he could help her unravel the knotted pains of her life.

He had thought about many things these past two hours. He knew this last mission had been hard on her. He was certain it must have been; it had been brutal for him.

Michael had been linked in to Nikita the entire time, monitoring. It was a lot harder, in some ways, than actually performing the mission himself. He had had no way to help her, had simply had to listen, as she survived her surroundings. He knew that most of it hadn't been particularly stressful for her, as missions went, but the very fact that she had been imprisoned again was enough to make her very uncomfortable; he had seen the look in her eyes when she had been briefed. He couldn't blame her; his own memories of prison were not fond ones, and he--like she--had at least been in a first-world country at the time.

The hardest part of the mission had come, though, when she had been beaten. Every whip of the cane had made him nauseous, as he heard it. He could have turned his link off for a while, of course, but he had listened quietly to every lash instead, fighting down the desire to shoot his way in and get her out. He had even thought about trying to say something soothing or encouraging to her, while it happened, but there was nothing to say; anything spoken would have been either pathetically inadequate or some Section-authorized excuse.

Besides--possibly selfishly, he didn't want to be any more closely linked to that brutal event in her mind than he had to be.

Michael knew Nikita had undergone worse beatings before--sometimes at his own hands, but it had been vicious and unnecessary, nonetheless. He could see the entire, disgusting scene as it had happened, as well--Nikita stripped bare and restrained. Just picturing it made him feel sick. . . . His mind went back to some of the people he had known; how any vaguely sane person could ever think such things were arousing was beyond him; he--like Nikita--had been abused and degraded enough to know there was no pleasure there.

Michael sighed, watching her covertly now. The other most difficult part of the mission had come soon after that. Nikita had allowed herself to cry after the caning in a way she hadn't after similar tortures before; her cover this time had made it possible. Listening to her cry--the little sniffles and sobs --had torn at his heart; he had wanted so desperately to hold her, to give her comfort. It was one of the reasons why he had made sure the med. techs. had tended to her wounds the second they were on the plane. If he couldn't allow himself to give her help, he could at least see that others did.

Of course, the medical attention had been a Section necessity, as well. Scars were unacceptable; they were easily identifiable and caused far too many questions in undercover situations. There were very few cold ops. who hadn't undergone at least minor plastic surgery for such problems. In fact, the surest sign that your days in Section were numbered was to be told that your scars weren't serious enough to remove; it meant unequivocally that you were in abeyance.

The pain of the mission for Michael, though, continued after this, too. Hearing her call his name in her sleep, crying softly in a voice which asked for help, had made him force back his tears. For the millionth time, he had wished that they lived lives where he could be allowed the simple privilege of comforting the woman he loved.

Michael had seen Nikita's face after the mission, however; none of these things had been the hardest part to deal with for her. What she was still sorting through were her feelings for Jenna and her place in Section.

Michael knew Nikita had had to begin a seduction with Jenna, and he could tell it had confused her. Nikita, in many ways, was too open-hearted for seduction work; she needed to connect with the targets to allow it to happen. She had let herself see bits of her life and personality in Jenna, so she could respond to her. That was the most fatal mistake a seducer could make; it led to sympathy. Michael had no particular doubts about Nikita's sexuality, although he was sure she did, at this point. It was a common stage for sexual ops. in Section, where your sexuality was not your own. While Section mostly used straight ops. for heterosexual seductions and gay ops. for homosexual ones (with the bisexual operatives being more variably assigned), it wasn't always a possibility. Any operative who was being considered for heavy seduction work would, therefore, be trained for all contingencies. It was this bisexual education which was the hardest and the most confusing for any recruit with sex-specific desires.

Michael had been put through all this early on. He had run a few seduction missions since with male targets. All in all, they had been much the same for him as the female ones. He received little real gratification from any of them; that wasn't his assignment, after all. He gave pleasure to whomever the target was, faked the proper reactions, got what Section needed from them, and moved on.

Some seductions were easier than others, of course, and some more pleasant. What every operative who did these sorts of missions had to learn, however, was that--if you allowed it to be (and, for this sort of work, you had to), anyone's touch could be seen as erotic. The rest was a matter of fantasizing and projection, and you couldn't allow yourself to be embarrassed or disgusted when the process worked. It was a lesson every prostitute had to learn.

Michael hoped, however, that Nikita would never really have to know all this. Even if she found some desire for women in her makeup, she would need to learn to accept it and move on. There wasn't enough time in Section to worry about such things.

Michael watched Nikita now, as she stood near the soliciting prostitutes. He could see the fears building in her heart. He shook his head slightly. He had met few people less inclined toward prostitution than her; she had proved--more than anyone he had ever known--that she couldn't be bought and sold. Any attempt she had ever made at it--such as with Petrosian--had ended very quickly. . . .

Michael might have allowed himself or his soul to be bartered away--many times over, but it would never happen to his Nikita . . . not if he could help it. He smiled and walked toward her.

Nikita was still caught up in her thoughts, was still wondering where she belonged, when she heard a familiar, rich voice behind her: "You're not one of them."

It was no more than a whisper. She blinked and spun around but saw him nowhere. "Great, I'm hallucinating," she murmured. She looked around herself and shook her head. "I need to go home," she decided, as she walked a few blocks away to hail a taxi.

Michael followed her to the cab and then, eventually, to her apartment. Once she was inside, he smiled, made a silent wish for her, and walked away.

The End

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