Michael strode down the gray hall to the waiting van. His gaze flicked up and he noted distantly the red words that scrolled across the screen. Another mission coming in carrying wounded. Michael paused, letting black clad operatives slice past him on their own personal missions. His team waited behind him, primed and ready to go, to get busy. As the metal door swung open, Michael ran through the mission mentally, noting problematic points and potential pitfalls. He kept his eyes locked straight ahead but focused inwardly, desperately trying not to see his present surroundings. The off loading mission was one that Nikita had been sent on and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't squash the fear that she might be one of the wounded.

The medical teams rushed in and Michael tensed. He couldn't help himself. His eyes followed the white clad personnel and he strained to hear their voices. He hated this, hated feeling this helpless. Only years of practiced control kept him still, from turning the corner to see if she was there-alive and well.

Michael ground his teeth together, fighting the dry ache that gripped his throat. The last four months had been hell for him, almost worse than not knowing if she were alive or dead for those six months. He had not known details then, during the time Nikita was out of Section. He could only guess and speculate and although it had been far from easy, he had finally just locked himself away and forced himself to believe she was alive and happy. It was a distant hope, but it was hope none the less.

This time, he didn't have that. This time, he knew exactly what was going on. Section was trying to kill her. Increased mission frequency was a subtle yet efficient method of termination that would raise no questions or garner any need for approval. No doubt the idea had come from Madeline.

Michael forced himself to blink. The first gurney was rushing past and he followed it with his eyes until he could clearly see the mans face. He blinked again and had time to take a breath before the next gurney hurried past, wheeling another moaning man down to medical.

It had only been seconds but Michael felt as though he had aged ten years. No other operatives unloaded from the van but he could hear their various voices mixed in with the cool tones of the medical team. He closed his eyes briefly, wishing he couldn't hear what was going on but desperately needing to know that it wasn't Nikita they were talking about.

"BP's falling!"

"Get that IV in NOW!"

"Will she be all right? I'd hate to lose her. She was great. Saved more than one of us."

"What did you guys do? Set her up as target practice?"

"We had no choice. It was in the profile."

"OK, let's move her, STAT!"

He held his breath as the gurney emerged. His eyes were drawn like a magnet to the white sheets and the too-still form lying on it. Time slowed then, as the gurney wheeled past and revealed vivid splashes of red on white and golden hair matted with blood and sweat. Michael watched, transfixed by the macabre scene as his mind fought to deny this nightmare. Her eyes were closed, her angled face pale with blood loss and inside himself, Michael screamed.

Unable to look away, his eyes followed her down the hall until the white-clad forms rounded the corner. When they were gone, Michael shifted his gaze to the trim figure standing demurely at the same corner. Mocha eyes met his for an instant and the dark head tilted. He couldn't breath. He thought for certain that his heart would cease to beat in this moment and he would fall dead at Madeline's feet. He willed it to be so. Then she smiled a tiny smile and he felt his heart beat, dull and thick in his aching chest. He blinked and looked away from her terrible visage, turning back to the impending mission, the one small piece of sanity in his world. Michael motioned his team forward and into the van. They passed him without sound or eye contact. They had nothing to say, which suited him fine. They should focus on the mission at hand and not the thousands of blood drops they stepped over. The mission, its myriad details and their focus on it, would keep them alive.

Michael sat in the van, his thoughts formless and void. He clung to the mission they were on, going over the parameter again and again and again. Still, Nikita crept into his thoughts. The way she smiled, the way she walked, and the way she had been so pale against the crimson soaked sheets as they had wheeled her past. He ached for her, wished he could just pick her up and cradle her bruised form to his chest, to soothe her hair from her pale face. Instead he was traveling miles away from her, to deliver Section's deadly message once more.

Death. Michael closed his eyes against the word. Even now as he sat there, this very minute Nikita could be growing cold in its enticing embrace. Even now, Section could be drawing the white sheet up over her beautiful face, covering it forever and keeping her image from his sight. Even now, as he breathed and took in his surroundings, even now as he lived she could be lost to him.

Something passed over him at the thought and he stilled, searching to identify it. It wasn't fear, he was certain, but something stronger. Grief, then. Michael considered it, oddly detached from himself, pushing everything away and letting this new puzzle occupy his mind. It was something he had never quite experienced before. Grief mixed with . . . what? Despair, maybe? Love? I've forgotten what love is. His own words brushed against the void that surrounded him. Was this love, then?

Nikita. Her name meant light to him, passion, life. He knew he cared for her, more deeply than he had cared for anyone in a long time. He even thought he loved her, but this . . . wrenching . . . was different. Grief, despair, love. Was it all of these or none? Somehow, it was deeper than mere love.

Beloved. That was it. She was a part of him, an extension of himself, of his very heart and soul. Somehow, he realized, she became more than light and passion. She had enfolded herself into him. Her essence had embraced him, absorbed him, become him so completely, so deeply, that he couldn't tell where she ended and he began. She was . . . beloved.

Michael closed his eyes against the war raging inside him. Outwardly, he was careful to maintain an easy, relaxed appearance. It was vital that his team believe him focused on this mission. And he was focused on it, in an odd sort of way. The parameters were there, flowing across the emptiness that enveloped him. He could access the details in a moment's notice. It was just that, at least for now, the two halves of himself had played some sick game of role reversal. He had always been able to separate his emotions from his Section self. It was a strange dichotomy, but he had been using it long before he came into Section. He supposed that he first discovered it when his parents had died then honed the skill when he had set the bomb knowing it would kill. Somehow, this action self could function independently from his emotional self. The people he had killed with that bomb were not real, the families didn't exist. Even his sister lived in only half his life. There had only been one person to bridge the gap between his two selves and no matter how hard he tried, how many storms raged over it, the bridge held secure.

Would death be able to destroy this bridge? If Nikita, his beloved, this vital part of himself, had surrendered to death's sweet embrace, what was left of himself? The action half or the emotional half? He opened his eyes again and stared unseeing at the floor. Deep inside, he knew the answer. Neither. One existed because of the other. They worked separately yet together. If the bridge, the support structure, disappeared now, he would collapse.

all the leaves will fall on my breast,

He felt himself begin to crumple. The pressure in his chest was building, the silent tears he inwardly shed were filling his lungs and heart. It was crushing him, the strong grip of death that sought Nikita had him firmly in its grasp. It was squeezing, banding tight around his ribs and torso. Light as a feather, heavier than all the weight of the world. Every word he had said to her, every thought, every touch, floated down and landed gently on him, adding their crushing weight to his damaged structure.

He had seen her wounds as she rolled by so still and pale. He had seen them and recognized them for what they were. It was a miracle that she had lived long enough to make it back to Section. He was no fool. He knew death when he saw it.

Michael shifted slightly, flicking his green eyes over the occupants of the van. They were settled and waiting and eager to be moving. They were completely unaware that the void he had built around himself so carefully, so tenderly, was shattering into a thousand parts. Each piece splintered and fell, raining down in a never-ending shower. They pattered gently against his being, his soul, crying softly as they landed.

Like snowflakes, each shard was unique, each bearing its own brand of fire. This should be good and healthy thing, to lose the distance that keeps you from the living, Michael thought. But it's not good or healthy. It's . . . cold and biting. He could feel each piece burning into him, and it hurt, somehow. But only for a moment. Michael considered. The intense burning was soon replaced by the numbness that precedes freezing. He was falling into a sweet stupor, tempered by blazing snow.

He was unaware of it but his team members noticed the cold curve to his lips.

The van stopped and the team moved to take their places. Michael moved silently with cat-like grace. Carefully, he poised himself on top of the building. Gently he lowered himself in. Snow clung to his hair and he shook it free as he landed. His teams reported in. They were in position. Unsmiling now, he went about setting charges. Checking twice to make certain they were armed: He didn't want another fiasco like the one at that chemical plant. He'd had to go back and arm the charges and although he had been successful then, this building wasn't as easy to get to as the chemical plant. There would not be time to rearm in this scenario.

Satisfied, Michael finally moved away. This building would fall in a fiery gust of flame and debris. There would be no survivors, he was certain of that. Another job well done by Section. Another few hundred people killed in the name of justice. Even as he shattered inside, Michael embraced the job he had been given. He had walked the edge for a long time now, balancing between life and death, between good and evil. He was gray, the line blurred irreversibly inside of him. He realized, as he climbed the rope to the roof, that he was the cold of winter crawling in and eliminating the weak or ill prepared. He was the fire that swept through forests during the hot, dry spring and summer, burning away all the scrubby weeds that choked the healthy and gave birth to the vermin. He was the ice and the fire and . . . death.

He was dead. As surely as Nikita was dead, even now. He closed his eyes again, listening distantly as his team reported in again. Then he realized, suddenly, abruptly, that he could go with her. That he didn't have to stay as his world fractured around him. He didn't have to be a ghost anymore, he didn't have to be here. They were bridged together, her soul entwining with his. If she was dead, then so was he. The only difference was that he was still locked inside his body.

His world tilted then, and the crushing weight of his shattered self lessened. It would be so easy, he thought. So easy. All he would have to do would simply be . . . nothing. Almost a foreign concept, one he had used only a few times. Once with Lisa Fanning as she raised a gun to his betrayal and again when Rene Dion had done the same. Both times, Nikita had been there. Now, she was surely gone, flown from him, from Section. He could go with her. For the first time since he met her, they could be joined irrevocably. He wanted that, he realized, more than anything.

And yet . . . something held him back. Some indefinable thread tied him here. Was it possible that Nikita lived? That her spirit had fought and won the battle with death? Could it be? Michael shook his head, considering. She wasn't afraid of death, he knew. She didn't fear it but she didn't seek it either. He knew her, inside and out, every line and plane of her sweet face. She would struggle and fend and live, if there was any possible way for her. She couldn't help it: It was just in her to survive. Indomitable. Even as his heart was breaking, Michael smiled slightly. She was wild and free, no matter what. A jungle cat in a cage, fierce and terrible and beautiful to behold.

He made his way to the edge of the building and prepared his egress. He could find out, he knew. He could tap his com-link and ask Birkoff if she had made it. And if he said yes, then what? Would he paste his world back together and continue as before? Go back to the shadows and the dull gray of his ghostly life? Or was he changed, forever doomed to see the black and white, to see the color of the world? If the answer was no, he could just stay here and die. But would that honor her? Would that keep her spirit alive?

Michael realized for the first time that he carried Nikita inside of him. He understood now that she was part of him, no matter what. But here, perched on the edge of the building, hovering between life and death, he recognized that if Nikita was dead, the only part of her left would be within himself.

What he didn't know was if he had the strength, the sheer life-force, to carry that part of her forward. His world was broken, his two selves clinging to the rubble. He paused there, feet on the ledge, body suspended by rope, and the seconds on the charges ticked away. His team was retreating and still he hesitated, weighing in the facts, judging the pros and cons of life. He considered it all, as the seconds ticked slowly away. Sand through an hourglass, time in a bottle, life here or life there. He was uncertain and wavering, caught in limbo, suspended from life.

Note: The poem is "La Muerta" by Pablo Neruda

No, forgive me.
If you are not living,
if you, beloved, my love,
if you have died,
all the leaves will fall on my breast,
it will rain upon my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,
I shall walk with the cold and fire and death and snow,
my feet will want to march toward where you sleep,
but
I shall go on living,
because you wanted me to be, above all things,
untamable . . .

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