Prologue

"Witness" by Sarah McLachlan, Surfacing.

Make me a witness.
Take me out...
out of darkness,
out of doubt.
I won't weigh you down
with good intentions.
Won't make fire out of clay,
brother inventions.
Will we burn...
in heaven
like we do...
down here?
Will the change come
while we're waiting?
Everyone is waiting.
And when we're done
soul-searching,
and we carry the weight
and die for a cause,
is misery made beautiful
right before our eyes?
Mercy will be revealed
or blind us where we stand.
Will be burn...
in heaven
like we do...
down here?
Will the change come...
while we're waiting?
Everyone is waiting.
Will we burn...
in heaven
Like we do...
down here?
Will the change come...
while we're waiting?
Everyone is waiting.

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

Everyone was waiting.

Operations and Madeline stood rigid as the pronouncement was passed down by Oversight. Birkoff's Adam's apple worked in a silent sob. Walter blinked and shuffled back to munitions. There was nothing to say.

Michael stood, rooted, for a moment. Curiously, he could feel the blood draining from his face to pool in his gut. A second later, he pivoted and began stalking out of Section One. Madeline's liquid brown eyes darted after his retreating figure.

For once, she let him go.

She swung her gaze back to Operations' stubborn profile. His mouth was set in a hard line, pale eyes settling upon her features.

"I'm sorry, Madeline," Operations said.

Madeline closed her eyes and smiled gently in response. "I'm sorry, too, Paul."

Michael's eyes were blazing a peculiar shade of green as he punched in his code. He tapped his foot in the elevator on the ride up, sweeping through the doors as they parted. He drove methodically to Nikita's apartment, taking a single shrilling call on his cellular phone. He did everything the same as he climbed the stairs in her building, avoiding the appreciative gaze of her downstairs neighbor. Stepping around the creaky portion of the stair that hadn't been properly nailed down. Rapping on her door three times.

A golden-haired angel answered the door, and Michael nearly lost it.

Her blue eyes widened with concern as she saw him struggling with the mask, eyes blinking rapidly, sculpted mouth trembling ever-so-slightly. They stood there for the space of a heart beat, a delicious eternity to Michael's heightened senses.

"Michael?" she breathed, swinging the door inward and plucking at his black sleeve. "Come in."

Michael allowed her to draw him inside, allowed her to take his coat. His sense of disorientation grew as he paced through her familiar apartment, hardly hearing the music that perpetually played in the background. Nikita leaned against a wall and watched his desperate perusal, huddling her arms around her middle. A new picture of a sunrise hung over her left shoulder, matching her pale yellow T-shirt.

"What's wrong?" she asked softly. The last time he had approached her this distraught, he had been about to betray his best friend, a man who had raised Michael's young sister in his stead. Nikita bit her lip, wondering what new revelation about Michael she was going to learn tonight.

For the longest time, Michael didn't answer, his body paused to stare out her balcony doors. He seemed to be looking at the stars.

"Oversight is rolling up Section," he replied, his accent softening the words until he swung his eyes around to meet her gaze.

"What?" Nikita's eyelids fluttered.

Michael made a soft sound of indecision, taking a step toward her. Nikita shrank back unconsciously. "Ni-ki-ta?"

"What are you talking about, Michael?" Nikita snapped, straightening her back as if she could physically steel herself against a manipulation.

"You know what it means, Nikita," his accent grew thicker, voice deepening. "No one gets out."

Nikita sank back against the pale wall, her arms dropping in dejection. She stared at her bare feet, at the toes she had just painted a rosy pink. "When's it going to happen, Michael?"

"Now."

Her head snapped up, blue eyes connecting with deadly accuracy to his pale green. Nikita's full lips parted with a soft inhale. "Are you -"

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

Michael moved forward slowly as she broke off, consumed with the need to touch. His eyes were half-lidded, audibly inhaling as he stopped within inches of her. His right arm swung idly in indecision, finally reaching out to brush his knuckles along her tense bicep.

"Do you believe that?" he asked ruefully, raising his eyes from her lips to stare her down.

Nikita's chin went up and she flattened her palms against the cool wall. There was no blank mask. Michael's changeable eyes were a well of sadness, curiosity, pain, apprehension, hope...fear. Every human emotion she had suspected he never possessed raged around his dark pupils, caged within lashes nearly longer than her own.

"No," she breathed, her lips curving in a sardonic smile.

A faint expression of relief flickered through the muscles of Michael's face, subtle enough to miss had he not been standing inches away. Staring the truth at her.

"Why, Michael?"

His eyes darted from her face and his sculpted lips parted in a soft inhalation. "George found proof of Gemstone...Adrian...there were cutbacks planned, but..."

Nikita blinked rapidly as she processed the information. Her face felt heavy trying to maintain a rational expression, and so she let the muscles mold themselves into panic. "Michael, what about Birkoff? Walter?" She attempted to move around him, clearly intending to grab her coat and gun and go to the rescue.

Michael's bare arms caged her and he stepped closer. "No, Nikita."

Nikita thumped back against the wall, eyelids trembling to keep the moisture at bay. "Why?" she gritted out, jaw clenched in despair.

"It's too late."

"No," Nikita denied thickly, shaking her head and attempting to evade Michael again. He caught her by the arms, crossing them and shoved her back against the wall. He held her there a moment, their foreheads touching, trembling together.

"It happened thirty minutes ago. They took out all the on-site staff and are starting on the remote operatives." Michael recited all the information vaguely, disjointed.

"How'd you get out?" Nikita rasped, lower lip trembling as she raised her face.

"They let me."

"Why?"

"They knew where I was going," Michael murmured, his fingers rising from her arm to brush over her eyebrow. Nikita's eyes closed, her head turning into his hand, seeking comfort. "They knew I'd go to you."

Nikita's hand crept up and covered Michael's hand pressed along her cheek. Her eyes opened slightly, glittering with suppressed emotion.

"Can we run?"

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

Michael's thumb rubbed away a tear that slipped down her cheek. He released her from her hold slowly, as if he'd forgotten himself, and eased his hard body away a slight distance.

"Ni-ki-ta," he said hesitantly, thumb still rubbing over her skin. "'Kita, you have a clock."

Nikita nodded jerkily, lips twitching as she acknowledged the information with a stifled sob. "What about you, Michael? You could make it. Do you have a tracker?"

"No."

Nikita clutched at his shoulders. "What are you doing here?" she shouted, fear and rage flaring into her pain. "Run, Michael! Get a head start!"

"No," Michael repeated, giving a small shake of his head.

Nikita clenched her fist and pounded once on his shoulder. "Damnit...why?" Her voice cracked on the last word, dwindling away into a whisper.

His brows furrowed above his ascetic nose. "Nikita," he murmured. "Would you run without me?"

Nikita closed her eyes and swallowed. Warring emotions ravaged her throat, her nose red from crying. She sucked in a noisy breath and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "Yes. I would."

Michael's eyes closed at her answer and he sagged against her. Nikita's arms went around his lean waist, pulling him close. She didn't know what he was feeling, couldn't see his face with his cheek pressed into her temple, nose buried in her hair. His hot breath bathed her ear and Nikita felt him swallow.

"Good." His statement sent a shudder through Nikita's body and she clutched Michael's muscled length closer. "Good," he repeated, his voice a soft murmur.

"What about you?" Nikita sighed, voice cracking again. She needed to hear it. Michael's body tensed under her hands. He pulled out of her arms, sliding his palms along her cheeks. His thumbs brushed her cheekbones, middle fingers caressed her ears, pinkies teasing the skin under her jaw.

"I won't run without you," he murmured. Nikita could see herself reflected in the green of his eyes, could see the small pores in his skin. The faint stubble along his cheeks...

"Tell me why, Michael. I need to know why."

His eyes flared so that Nikita could no longer focus on herself. Michael molded their hips together, speaking in a low, distracted voice. "I wish I could take you out of this...the darkness...the killing. You never belonged there, 'Kita..."

He sighed. "You were so beautiful," he said reverently, his fingers rubbing along her skin. Nikita blinked rapidly at his use of past tense. He knew...and was resigned to the fact that they were going to die...

"I wish I could have sent you away, 'Kita. I was weak...I needed you too much."

"Mi-chael," she choked, hands pressing themselves on his hard chest of their own volition.

"Shh," he whispered, moving his thumb to cover her lips. A slight smile curved his lips as his eyes searched her face. "The only part of me...that lives...is what you've touched. The only part of me...that loves...is where you've changed me."

"It's enough, Michael," Nikita whispered at his pause. Michael smiled at her, the brilliance of his face driving Nikita into a rapt silence.

"No, it's not. You need to hear it, Nikita. All of it."

Nikita nodded sharply, snuffling back her tears. This was not how she imagined it, her face splotchy, nose running, hair askew. Michael looked angelic as ever, cinnamon hair curling just above the collar of his black T-shirt, her guardian to the last...

"I want you," he murmured, fingers kneading the tense muscles of her neck. "I think about you when I shouldn't. Every minute of the day. I need you. I need to keep you safe...no matter what...the cost."

"Why?" The whisper rustled past her lips, dry as autumn leaves. His hands flexed on her face.

"Because I love you...and I can't let you go."

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

The bittersweet moment stretched. Nikita felt her sense of time warping, her body and heart screaming that she had enough time...enough time to be loved by Michael and to love him back.

Michael stared at her, a soft expression in his eyes. He seemed somehow lighter now that the words had passed his lips. Less dark, less heavy, less...sad.

Nikita knew then that there would never be enough time to be loved by Michael. She would never have tired of it, never have gotten enough...

"What do we do now?" Nikita rasped, her fingers sliding up his arms, unable to keep her hands away. Not now. Not anymore.

Michael's pupils dilated and he cocked his head. "There's not much time, 'Kita." His hoarse voice sent shivers straight into her core, but what she saw in his eyes made her burn.

A ferocious desire for her blazed there, tamed by a enduring, gentle love. He wanted her. His nostrils flared to breathe in her scent. Fingers tangled in her silky hair. He needed to feel her, touch her. Devour her presence and burn it into his memory.

They were mirror images of each other.

Michael's head turned slightly, cocking his head towards her stereo.

"'Kita...dance with me?"

"Yeah," she breathed, allowing him to slide his palms down her arms and take her hands. Michael drew her out into her sparsely furnished living room, pulling her close and settling his hands firmly on her hips.

Make me a witness.
Take me out...
out of darkness,
out of doubt.

Nikita's hands smoothed over Michael's shoulders, down his back. Over his arms. She touched him everywhere she could reach without moving away from the heat of his body. She leaned in and breathed in the scent of his skin under his jaw, burying her nose in his rough-silk hair.

I won't weigh you down
with good intentions.
Won't make fire out of clay,
brother inventions.

Michael swayed with her, taking small, rhythmical steps and rocking her body against his. He lovingly halted her exploration and raised her hands. Their hips remained connected as he caressed her palms with his fingertips, re-learning the bumps of her knuckles. His fingernails scraped down her palms in imitation of a past betrayal, and Nikita knew he had meant it then, too.

Will we burn...
in heaven
like we do...
down here?
Will the change come
while we're waiting?

Nikita wrapped her arms tightly around Michael's shoulders and buried her face in his corded neck. She sighed when his strong arms hugged her back, hands splaying at the small of her back and between her shoulder blades. They burned and tingled with a timeless desire, with an overpowering need to somehow climb into the other and become one. Needing to know every inch of the other...forgiving everything in that need...

"Do you think I'll go to heaven, Michael?" she whispered, beyond tears. Beyond anything but him, his touch.

His warm breath fluttered his hair. "You are heaven."

And when we're done
soul-searching,
and we carry the weight
and die for a cause -

Their lips met and melded with the same fierce passion of their first kiss, lips ravenous for the other. Seeking and finding a searing connection. They pulled away and Nikita once more buried her face under his chin. Nikita smiled into his throat and arched her neck to whisper in his ear. "I've decided I'm going to heaven, Michael. And you're coming with me, because I don't exist without you."

Is misery made beautiful
right before our eyes?
Mercy will be revealed
or blind us where we stand.

Michael's arms tightened around her and he gave up the pretense of dancing. They stood there, in the center of the room, holding onto each other. Miserable. Beautiful. In love. Already burning together in their heaven.

Waiting.

Patiently. Impatiently. Blind but for the other.

Knowing there would be no mercy.

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

The metallic valise clicked open and a pair of black-gloved hands began assembling a high-powered sniper rifle. A few screws and clicks later, the rifle was swung to its owner's shoulder.

"Now?"

Another stood, watching the dancing couple in the dimly lit apartment. "Let the song finish."

The assassin shrugged and aligned his sight, half-listening to the audio surveillance.

Will we burn...
in heaven
like we do...
down here?

The other shifted slightly, uncomfortable with his display of compassion. Knowing he should just do the job and get out of there. But there was something about the couple, silent, holding each other at the center of the room. He knew, had to know, that the targets couldn't feel that deeply. They couldn't burn for each other like the dark one and the light one obviously did, standing there in rapt adoration. Together they seemed something more than human...

No, they couldn't be human. Humanity couldn't coexist with what they were...and if it did...

Will the change come
while we're waiting?

"Do it."

Everyone is waiting.

THE END

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