This one's post "Open Heart" Rated MA-14

I'm standing in your shoes
I feel your conscience cut right through me
Sensation oh so cruel
You keep your pain so close and cozy
Tomorrow breaks you down again
Your soul committing treason
Tomorrow breaks you down

"Treason" by Velvet Chain

Nikita wandered the halls of Section after her debriefing, the sound of the explosion still reverberating through her mind, her stomach roiling, thoughts jumbled, and needing someone to talk to. Walter hadn't been around, a fact she was in part glad of. She didn't relish the idea of talking to the old man about her mixed up feelings regarding Jenna Vogler. She could just imagine what he'd say, and the last thing she needed was his so-called advice.

This was the first time she'd truly had to manipulate anyone's emotions, and she felt dirty. With Alec Chandler, she had still been very new in her role and it had been more of a game. Her feelings did get tangled up, but they weren't true and neither were his. Then, in the course of her seduction of Grey, she'd foolishly fallen in love. She always let her emotions get too wrapped up in the targets; it was a failing, she knew, because it clouded her judgement, but it was one she had diffculty controlling. This was the first time she had felt nothing for the other person, except maybe contempt, and had to force herself to perform her duty, attain Jenna's trust. She had done her job but the memory of it clung to her like the layer of grime she'd picked up in that prison. She'd showered, but this refused to be washed away as easily as the dirt.

Through her years living on the street Nikita had managed to avoid the filth and depravity which flourished there, mainly because she had not been afraid to die, as long as her soul remained in tact, and she remained true to herself. She'd watched others succumb to the drugs and pimps, because they couldn't live with their own pain and regrets. The vultures had quickly learned to leave her alone when they failed to discover any weakness in her they could exploit. She had no need for their kind of escape and she would never sell her body for a meal.

Nikita's time in prison had been short, but it had been enough time for her to learn the way things worked. There was a certain heirarchy which was apart from the prison officials and the inmates had to be vigilant and mindful of which people were in charge. There had been rules to follow within the community, rules not be broken for fear of the beatings of retribution or worse. They had been more like animals than human beings. Things had happened which Nikita would prefer to forget, though she'd been lucky to avoid the worst of it. Her attractiveness had made her a prime target, but Section One had taken her out of there before any had had a chance to claim her. She'd hated prison, her free, innocent spirit longed for the independence of the streets, as hard as that life had been.

Because of this Nikita had wanted to curse Operations for choosing her for this mission. Just the thought of being locked behind prison walls was suffocating, even when she knew that she would have been freed, within days, at the most. Also, the job, to bring in Red Cell foot soldier Jenna Vogler, was an awkward one. Jenna had represented everything she had fought so hard to protect herself from, all her life, and now she had to giver herself over to that element. Nikita knew of only one way to secure a woman like Jenna's trust, and that was seduction. It sickened her that she had to get so close to Jenna. It was not so much that Jenna was a woman, as it was who she was; a soulless, vicious, animal who preyed on the weak. It also didn't help that Nikita's manipulations had been for nothing. Jenna had always intended to escape the prison with her, in order to accompany her back to Section to destroy it. What surprised Nikita even more than that was how easily she had been willing to do whatever it took to secure Jenna's trust.

There was some truth to Jenna's curse - branding her as Section's whore. Nikita had let them use her to bring Jenna in, ordering her to do whatever it took. They owned her body and felt they had the right to use it in any way they saw fit. The worst of it was that she had allowed it, without protest. Michael had given her the mission profile and she'd followed it. She still wondered how far she would have been willing to take it, to complete that profile. The doubts rolling around in her mind made her sick to her stomach. Would she have used her body instead of merely stopping at manipulating Jenna's emotions? Could she definitely say that she would have done whatever it took?

So far, she had managed to avoid taking that final step of turning herself over to their control, using sex to complete a mission. She'd always feared that one day she would be required to do so, and had wonder if possibly Michael had something to do with the fact that she had managed to escape that final humiliation. He had always managed to show up just in the nick of time. He'd let her learn what kind of a man Chandler really was, and when Suba had her trapped in his backroom lair he'd burst in there playing the jealous husband, or even when she'd been with Jurgen and the phone rang, Michael interupting them. Had he been protecting her? If so, then why hadn't he, now? Obviously, he had not expected it to go so far. No one had, except maybe Operations.

Madeline and Operations required so much of her, so much she was unwilling to give. Or was she unwilling? It was getting easier for her to do what Section One asked of her, but it was still just as hard to brush it off, as it always had been. Even so, with each new mission Nikita felt a little piece of herself being chipped away and it frightened her.

Was this what she had been meant from the moment of her recruitment? She thought back to that first day and Michael's words, 'A woman with your looks who can kill in cold blood.' And then her first meeting with Madeline, 'You can learn to fight. You can learn to shoot but there is no weapon more powerful than your feminity.' From day one she had been meant to be the female equivalent of Michael, a seduction artist. They had used her to secure targets this way before, but this had been a final lesson, in more ways than one. Of field mechanics, to see how she would react to the mission, and a final shout in her ear that she was Section's blond bombshell, their main whore.

To Operations she was just a machine, not made of flesh and blood with dreams, nightmares, hopes and a conscience. He wasn't asking a human being to seduce the enemy, he was asking one of his property. She was no better than a whore to him, and he would pimp her without qualms, with no regard to how she might feel afterward. Section was, in many ways, a worse hell than the streets ever had been. At least there, she'd had a choice.

"Nikita?"

She refocused her eyes, at the sound of her name to find that she had stopped in her wandering and was standing in the doorway of Michael's office. She glanced around, wondering what she was doing there.

"I, uh. . . I'm sorry." She started to go but he had gotten to his feet and grasped her arm, to stop her, before she'd gone too far, and lead her back into his office.

"Something's bothering you?" He gestured for her to sit, as he closed the door. Then he perched on the edge of his desk in front of her.

She took a deep breath, staring down at her fingers, entwined in her lap, then bit her lip, before finally deciding to come out and ask it.

"Is this how you feel?" Her eyes swiftly rose to his questioning ones.

At the mention of feelings he was up and around the desk, where he pulled out the little drawer and punched in the code to disable the surveillance equipment. Then he turned his attention to her fully.

"Is this how you feel," she repeated, "when Section orders you to seduce someone?"

He approached her again, linking his hands in front of him and looking down at her.

"How do you feel?" Answering a question with a question, typical tactic.

She answered anyway. "Disgusted with myself. Like I've betrayed myself, and her."

"You didn't care about her." It was half question, half statement.

He was genuinely curious. She toyed with the idea of throwing one of his own classic responses back at him, 'I thought you knew me better than that.' Then decided against it. She was too raw at the moment for games.

"I didn't. She was everything we fight against, here. Everything *I* fought against, out there, before I came to Section." Nikita drew in a breath and let it out slowly. "You didn't answer my question, Michael. Is this how you felt when you were with Lisa Fanning? Did it ever make you sick? Or was it easy for you to seduce her?"

He took a deep breath and sank down against his desk, again.

"It's never easy, Nikita," he answered. "But Lisa was different. She was an innocent. Jenna was one of Red Cell's foot soldiers."

"I know. That's why I feel so dirty. I let myself be convinced I had to seduce her, because I thought I knew what she wanted. I convinced myself that it was the only way. But, when she touched me--" Nikita felt herself tense, and the urge to shake, as if she could shake off the memory of Jenna touching her.

Nikita stared at the far wall, embarrassed and suddenly uncertain as to why she was here. A part of her just needed someone to talk to, and if anyone could relate to what she was going through it would be Michael, the Section's master of seduction. The other part of her wanted to throw herself at Michael, to remind herself how his body felt, how deliciously sweet the lips of someone she cared about could feel.

In an uncharacteristic display of emotion, Michael placed his hand on her shoulder. She leaned into that hand, letting her eyes drift closed as she tilted her head so that her cheek brushed it, feeling his masculine strength, breathing in the faint scent that was him. His hand lifted to caress her cheek and, with her mind already beginning to cloud, she turned and pressed her lips to his palm.

Slowly, he withdrew the hand, and she opened her eyes, her skin tingling with the effect of his touch, disappointed, but understanding that they had to stop. She thought she detected a hint of disappointment in his eyes, as well.

"We do what we have to do. You know that, Nikita." He straightened, all professionalism, once more. "No one said we have to like it. We just have to get the job done. And you did that, today."

Nikita stood then, recognizing it as a dismissal, and feeling her stomach tighten at something that was almost a compliment but not quite. She had done her job, and well, but that didn't erase the fact, for either of them, that with it they had taken a little piece of her. She nodded and smiled weakly at Michael, unsure of what to say, before she turned her back to leave.

"Nikita," he called her back, as her hand curled around the door handle.

"Hmm." She turned her head to face him. He was standing by the window, the light filtering through the blinds lighting only half of his face, accentuating the lines. His eyes were open and clear.

"Go home, sleep, and forget about her."

"Umm," it came from deep in her throat, vibrating low. "Good night, Michael."

She pulled the door open, then and left. To do exactly as he said.

--

The End

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