Trip the light fantastic

Dear Yuletide Santa

2013-10-19T03:18:03Z

Dearest Yuletide Santa!

First of all, thank you loads and heaps and wonders for signing up and writing me what I already anticipate to be a fantastic wonderful fic :)

I'm sorry I didn't provide details on the original request. It was done in the five minutes I scraped together in between the rest of my life, and I wanted to get the request in before the deadline.

Okay, some general things I love: interesting, complex, fun and completely not fun sibling relationships. Partnerships in relationships, particularly where equality and respect are the focus and goal of both individuals. I love female centred stories, or ones where the female character is the one who drives the plot, and they are given significant things to do rather than simply be the moral support or guide or eye candy for the dude. Chicks are fun and interesting!

General things I'm ambivalent about: schmoopy fluff, unnecessary whump (I'm gonna be honest, I love hurt/comfort, but it needs to be to the benefit of character development)

Things I really don't want to see: non-con. incest. Rape. overly violent sexual encounters. kid fic.

1. Mindy Project - Drs Mindy Lahiri & Danny Castellano

I love this show! It grew on me so quickly, especially since the first few eps were so... underwhelming. I love Mindy's unabashed love of all things pop culture, and Danny's stuffy taste and male posturing. What I want to see more of a professionally slanted fic-- for a show all about baby doctors there is not much babystuff in the show. Not that I want kid fic, but I want both of them to have their time to shine, to be supportive of each other professionally, to have professional disagreements. I want to see how they earned their stethoscopes. And more bonding in the Doctor's lounge over Real Housewives episodes.

2. Sleepy Hollow - Ichabod Crane & Abbie Mills & Jennifer Mills

So remember before how I said stuff about loving ladies and loving complex sibling relationships? It is like the writers of this show took my brain and put it on television, because I also LOVE British period dramas. I want to see more of the developing/healing relationship between the Mills sisters, but I also want to see Ichabod adapting astoundingly well to the modern world. Romance is not necessary, but would be a nice bonus.

3. The Mummy - Evy Carnahan & Rick O'Connell

So if ever I had an OTP, these dudes are it. I love their chemistry in the first two movies, and we are going to pretend that third one JUST NEVER HAPPENED, OKAY?? Okay. I love that they turned from an sort of odd-couple cliche in the first movie to a functioning, reciprocal marriage in the second. I would love an adventure type deal with these two, preferably sometime during their engagement, or early on in their marriage. I would love to see people underestimate Evy and live to regret it. Or for Rick to show that he's actually a lot more intelligent and calculating than to be just the Beefy Backup. And I know I did not put him on the request, but any Jonathan you feel like including would be wonderful <3

4. Bourne Legacy - Aaron Cross & Marta Shearing

I enjoyed this movie, but it was one of those ones where the pacing was weird and the ending felt crazy off and unresolved by the end of it. I know there are Aaron-And-Marta-Surviving-Under-The-Radar fics aplenty for this fandom, but can one more hurt? Anything that deals with Aaron's potentially crippling paranoia about getting out of the program, or Marta's guilt at being involved in it in the first place-- or if that is not something you want to address -- her search for a new career or way to be useful now she can no longer go back to the way things used to be. Also both Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz are crazy bangable.

Hopefully this gives you something to work with. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them here anonymously or harass me through zenni.

Once again, thank you very much, and I hope you have a wonderful silly season

♥ ♥ ♥
Kathy

Dear Yuletide Santa!

2012-11-02T21:39:33Z

Placeholder for a letter that I will write and post after I get back from work later this evening :)

<3 Kathy

I need a birkhoff icon. ALSO: Fic!

2012-04-29T11:57:40Z

Title: Offline
Fandom: Nikita
Rating: G
Characters: Birkhoff, Percy, Roan, Michael, Nikita
Summary: Pre-series. Nikita’s tracking signal goes offline during a vital moment in a mission. Birkhoff is left with a difficult decision.

Written as a mini prezzie for my bff zenni who requested Nikita suddenly going MIA on a mission pre-show. Also fills a spot on my angst bingo card: 'moral quandry'.

---

It’s just one of those things. He blinks, and the signal is gone. Just like that. As though she was never even there.

“What just happened?” Percy barks from right beside him, and Birkhoff shoots the quickest of looks up at him, gauging the reaction as best he can, but he seems as genuinely shocked as Birkhoff is.

“I don’t know, sir.” He says, and starts tapping frantic commands into the tracking program he’s running. “We’ve lost Nikki’s signal.” Text alerts pop up in the corner of his screen, advising him the quick diagnostic he ran is clean, the problem isn’t technical, it isn’t on their end. On a normal op she’d be micced or wired into the comm feed and he’d just call to check-in, but their target was notoriously paranoid and she’d been dark the entire mission.

He presses the comm down and speaks calmly into the microphone: “Anyone got eyes on Nikki?”

Roan is the first to respond. “Negative.”

“No.” Michael responds next. “Why?”

“Her tracker has gone offline.” Birkhoff says, maintaining a cool facade of professionalism. “It could be a glitch, we can’t be sure unless we get a look at her whether it’s going to be a problem or not.”

“She’s been with Kulchenko for a few hours now. Maybe he’s taken her downstairs?” Michael offers, and Birkhoff can hear the concern there, but with Percy standing just beside him he can’t offer much in the way of comfort. All he can do is his job, and keep the sassy remarks to a minimum.

He quickly pulls up the schematics of Kulchenko’s mansion, it’s sprawling place, very ergonomic and low set, and given the climate there in Georgia, the architect didn’t seem to have felt the need to include a basement. “No basement, cellar, or anything else built underground as far as I can tell.” Birkhoff reports back. “And the latest soil survey for the area indicates it’s mostly bedrock up there-- he wouldn’t be able to put in anything like that without causing a lot of fuss.”

“Michael.” Percy says finally, eyes darting between the display screens in the command centre. “Did she give you the detonator before you separated?”

“Yes,” The man replies, though there is hesitation there.

Percy slips his hands into his pockets and continues on: “And Roan, you can confirm she entered the premises?”

Roan replies, “Yes sir.”

“Then blow it.” Percy says. “This is our chance, we can’t wait any longer.”

“But sir--” Michael says,

“Blow it.” Percy insists, and slams his hand down on the comm unit and Birkhoff flinches, but their connection to the two remaining operatives is offline once more.

Percy turns to him now, and Birkhoff pales.

“Can you activate that trigger remotely?” He asks, and Birkhoff blinks at the question, and the question that Percy is actually asking him: Would you activate that trigger remotely?.

Birkhoff breaks gaze, and turns back to the computer in front of him. “I can try.” He stammers, thinking to himself that Percy is right, Michael won’t be able to do it until he knows Nikki is clear. And maybe Birkhoff could hack the signal from this distance and get remote access. It’s his tech, he designed the trigger and the protocols, and while he designed them to be complex, he knows the ins and outs.

“Do it.” Percy demands, and Birkhoff begins typing, reluctantly, knowing that if he were to disobey this order it would not end well for him, but he doesn’t have much of a choice. Percy can be ruthless, and doesn’t take insubordination lightly. But Birkhoff knows he’s valuable to the man, and none of the other techies would have a hope in hell trying to do what’s been asked of him, so he has that in his corner, at least.

But could he really do that? Could he kill Nikki? He has made calls like this before, he should be able to compartmentalise this decision, get the work done, do the job, collect the paycheck at the end of the day, understanding that he’s doing good work, and that sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

Nerd. She calls him that over the comms, but unlike every other jerk who’s called him that (or worse) over the years, she says it with a hint of fondness. Like he’s the little brother she’s always wanted in her life, even though he’s older than her by a good five years.

He extracts the transmission signal of the trigger from the buzz of static in the area and isolates it on his screen. It’s a cake walk from here on out, really. Once he matches the frequency he can override the manual action and regain control here in central command. But he glances up at the map screen, and sees the two little blips of Roan and Michael, both at opposite ends of the screen, providing their cover on site, and he hesitates, and Percy looks down at him...

Then the reserve comm channel comes alive, scaring the crap out of him, and he jumps a little in his seat.

“Trinity here, Alice is down the rabbit hole.” Nikita says, voice gravelly and tired. “Heading to the extraction point.”

Birkhoff can’t help the smile on his face. “Acknowledged.” He reports into the comm, and he is oddly light-headed, heart pounding hard in his chest. Birkhoff reactivates the main comm line and links the two together. “White Rabbit has made contact.” He announces to Roan and Michael. “Mad Hatter’s tea party is a go.”

“Acknowledged.” Michael says, and Roan echoes it a moment later.

“Good to see you back, White Rabbit.” Birkhoff says, “You went darker than we wanted. You had me thinking you’d gone rogue.”

The joke feels stiff and stilted, but inappropriate jokes are his norm, and there is something comforting in the dry laugh that echoes back at him.

“Not today, Birkhoff.” She says. “Not today.”

angst bingo table

2012-04-26T11:05:52Z

nervous breakdown	abandoned	guilt	using others or being used	sleeping arrangements
exhaustion	moral quandary	discovered	waking up in bed alone	holidays
isolation	unexpected consequences	WILD CARD	memories	septicimia / inflicted wounds
consequences	poisoning	failure	tight spaces	shutting down
illness	stranded	diaries and journals	scandal	burns

cuts both ways 5/5

2012-04-19T10:48:19Z

Title: Cuts Both Ways 5/5
Fandom: Nikita
Characters: Michael, Nikita, Alex, Amanda, Percy, Birkhoff, Owen.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: "He leaves Division in the dead of night. He says no goodbyes, he lets no one know that anything might be amiss." -- Michael discovers the truth about his family's death first and goes rogue well before Nikita meets Daniel.
Author's note:

Looking for Heaven, for the devil in me. Well what the hell, I’m gonna let it happen to me.

… … …

Since Nikita is the most senior agent assigned to the Zoman mission, she is the one who is given the order, directly from Percy no less.

“We finally have the advantage, NIkita.” He says to her, a zealous happiness reflecting openly in his body language. It chills her to her core. “You’ll have the surprise you need to take him out.”

“We need to keep it from Alex.” She says immediately and as business-like as possible. “She’s nervous enough about the mission, finding out that Michael knows about the hit will just distract her.”

“You’re in charge of the details,” Percy says with a dismissive wave. “I have complete faith in your abilities. You’ll get him this time.”

She plans it by herself, and though she knows it could be easier if she involved Birkhoff, it’s too dangerous as it is, and the more people who know about this, and Alex, and everything, the more precarious the situation becomes. As she promised Alex, she is there with the support team on the ground that day, and the support team is sworn to complete secrecy about their secondary mission: Find Michael, disable Michael, detain Michael, Do Not Kill Michael. She makes it clear that she is the one who will have that honour.

No one questions her on it.

After that it’s a lot harder to plan in detail. If she could get in contact with Michael, to warn him somehow, she would. But they decided it would be too risky to communicate, even with Birkhoff’s help, so she has no way of getting a reliable message through to him. She’ll just have to trust in Michael’s survival skills, and she’s always been good at thinking on the fly.

Hopefully she won’t get them all killed.

… … ...

The Zoman estate sprawls out each way for miles and is crawling with all sorts of heavily-armed security, but Michael slips easily past it all, finding a great little hiding spot on the roof where he can stay until the real action begins later. He watches as Alex totters around the party, ostensibly as one of the assistance helping to keep the wedding party in line, and he easily picks out the Division operatives who’re spread out amongst the catering staff. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why they’ve picked this man for assassination. His arms-dealing business is extremely profitable, and would create an invaluable source of cash-flow for Percy and Division if it were led by someone more amenable to Division’s world-view.

But it doesn’t really matter right now, he’s not looking to prevent this mission from taking place-- He’ll do it himself so Alex doesn’t have to. He’s killed before, for good reasons and not so good reasons. Another death on his conscience won’t make that much of a difference. But putting Alex in this position was never part of his plan. She won’t kill anyone if he has anything to do with it.

Michael checks his watch, it’s almost 5:30, and it’s time for him to move. He stands carefully and lightly makes his way across the roof until he reaches the balcony of the master bedroom. If all is going to plan downstairs, Alex will be guiding the man upstairs where she’ll take him out with a syringe full of poison. He grasps the edge of the roof and rolls over the edge, dangling above the balcony for a few seconds before dropping down and slipping quickly into the room. They’re not here yet, but that’s fine. He goes and stands behind the door where he can easily disable anyone who comes into the room.

He doesn’t have to wait long. Alex steps into the room wearing the fluffy electric blue number that he’s sure Amanda picked out and her bluetooth headset and leads Zoman.

The older man is dressed in an expensive black suit, and asks immediately to see his daughter. Alex begins to make her excuses, and Michael makes his move. He steps up behind the man and wraps a strong arm around his neck, placing forceful pressure onto the blood vessel in the man’s neck for one, two, three seconds then he is out like a light. Alex quickly shuts the door and disables her comm.

“What are you doing here?” She hisses, and gestures to the unconscious man on the ground. “I told you I could do this.”

Michael doesn’t have time to argue the point with her. “You might be able to, but I don’t want you doing that.” He says bluntly and holds his palm flat out. “Give me the poison.”

She glares at him for a second, but dutifully reaches a hand into the folds of her dress and pulls out the syringe. He snatches it and pops the cap off, squirting the tiniest bit of the clear liquid from the tip before leaning down to shove the thing into the man’s neck and end it all right here and now.

But of course it doesn’t go like that. The door opens and someone whispers “Alex,” and Thom, one of the other recruits steps inside. Michael reacts instinctively, whipping up to pull Alex into a choke-hold well before Thom has a chance to pull his gun.

“Drop the weapon.” Michael demands, and tightens his grip around Alex’s throat. “Or I kill her.”

Thom doesn’t lower the gun. “Michael is here.” he says into his comm, and Michael shoves Alex forward the few feet to the doorway. She has no balance in her stiletto heels and crashes into Thom who barely catches her, and Michael uses the opportunity to launch himself back out onto the balcony. This time he vaults over the edge and catches the branch of a nearby tree to shimmy himself down.

A branch next to his head explodes in a flurry of sap and wood chips, and he instinctively flinches away from the volley of bullets that is pointed at him.

Fuck. He thinks to himself and curls up as small as he can near the base of the tree, and waits for a break in the gunfire, for when whoever it is will reload, and then he will just have to make a run for it.

When it comes, he bolts, sprinting as hard and as fast as he’s ever done, as though his life depends on it. His destination is the small pool house behind the back steps, he’ll be cornered but he’ll be away from the main house and he can hopefully draw the operatives away from the crowds and minimise any collateral damage.

It is then that he becomes aware of someone following closely behind him-- he hears the panting of breath, the steady thump of someone running, and whizz!-- a bullet flies past his ear. He glances back for a second only and sees Alex in hot pursuit about twenty feet behind him. That’s something at least.

He ducks into the pool house and a couple of seconds later Alex slips inside as well. “They must’ve known you’d be here.” She chokes out immediately, and Michael nods, knowing they probably only have a few minutes to form some sort of plan before the rest of Division will be on him.

“They must’ve found the shell program.” Michael says and runs a hand through his hair. He needs to put that aside for now and think. How are they going to get out of this, should he take Alex with him? Is she compromised? Shit.

Suddenly there is a loud scuffle just outside the hut, a man grunts, and there is a loud gunshot that reverberates through the room. Both Alex and Michael train their guns on the door, resolutely ready for whatever comes, but both are equally surprised by the voice that calls through.

“Don’t shoot me.” Nikita says, “I’m coming in.”

Michael immediately lowers his gun and immediately opens the door to let the other woman in. Alex, however, keeps her gun raised and the confusion about the situation is writ clear across her face. It only intensifies with Michael pulls Nikita into a tight embrace, and Nikita doesn’t resist in the slightest.

“We have about two minutes,” Nikita says, ignoring the gun pointed at her, addressing Michael solely. “They have evidence against Alex, Michael, she can’t stay in Division.”

Alex sputters, “What?” and it is only then that her pointed gun wavers, it drifts a little to one side.

“They know about the shell program, someone has made an accusation about you to me.” Nikita says bluntly. “You’re not safe there anymore. It’s only a matter of time before they connect the dots.”

Michael nods, “She can come with me then, we’ll overpower you and get out.

“There is a Division surveillance truck about 2 miles through the forest to the west.” Nikita points in the right direction. “Only manned by one at the moment. The tracker is underneath the passenger seat.”

“Right.” Michael nods, and checks the ammo in his gun, and that he still has his spare clips. “Come on Alex, let’s go.” He says.

But Alex doesn’t move. Instead she points the gun at Nikita. “I’m not going. I’m staying in.” She says fiercely, and Michael steps between them and holds up his hands.

“No, Alex. This isn’t the time--”

“There is another way.” Alex insists. “We frame Jaden for it all. I have leverage against her.”

Nikita shakes her head, “It won’t be enough, they won’t believe it of her.”

“I am not just going to step aside like this, I knew what I was getting into when I got myself recruited. I don’t need either of you sheltering me any longer.” Alex says fiercely, gesticulating her point with the barrel of her gun.

Michael wants to scream in frustration, they don’t have time to argue with the teen about this, they are all about to be cornered. He is this close to whacking her over the head with something heavy and blunt just so he can carry the girl out of here (it wouldn’t be the first time he knocked her unconscious, after all) but to his surprise, Nikita nods. “Fine,” She says, “There is one other option. We give them something more important than Alex.”

Michael snaps his head around to look at her.

“We give them me.” She says. “Pin it all on me. The shell program, all the sabotaged missions, everything. Alex, you can be the hero who catches me just as I’ve let him go.”

“No.” Michael says, and it takes almost everything he has not to scream at them both for how dumb they’re being, making these reckless decisions with no regard to their safety. “Nikki, they’ll kill you.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But if it means that one of you kills Percy down the line, well... so be it.”

Alex nods, and it is a reverent nod, almost a promise in the form of a simple gesture. “Go, Michael.” Alex commands. “We can do this. I can help get her out when we’re there. Nikita, there is a way out of Division, a crawlspace in a vent on the recruit level. It leads to a silo you climb up to get out.”

He glares at them both, feeling mutinous at the way they ganged up on him so fast, frustrated that they have him cornered, that they’ve decided how everything will go already, and most of all he feels dread, that he’s sending one or both of them to their deaths. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to live with that on his conscience.

But it’s their decision, and he knows them both well enough to know that now they’ve made their minds up, he won’t be able to change it that easily. At least not with the time he has today.

So he does the one thing he can do. He grabs Nikita by the shoulders and pulls her into a rough kiss, not caring that Alex is there standing behind them and their time is almost up. He focuses all his energy on the kiss, the way his lips smash together with hers, the rough clash of teeth, but also the sweet taste of her breath and the way she kisses him back just as passionately. He feeds everything he can into the kiss, his frustration, his passion, his love, his regrets, everything. It’s been so long since they did this, and he doesn’t have the time to tell her everything he wants and needs to tell her. Most of all he doesn’t want this to be their last time together. But saying all that would take too long; the kiss will have to get the message across instead.

They pull apart, reluctantly, and Michael whispers to her fiercely: “Don’t. Die. Don’t let them get you too. Please. Don’t die.”

She nods obediently, and then says quietly, gripping his hand tightly in her own. “I don’t want to be safe, remember Michael?” She says and he lets her go. I want this to end he finishes for himself.

He ducks out the door without looking back, but hears the distinct sound of Alex using the butt of her gun to hit Nikita in the jaw.

All he can do now is pray and get himself to that surveillance truck before anyone has a chance to catch him, lest it all come crashing down about their ears.

… … ...

Nikita wakes up in chains, and she knows that their deception must’ve worked.

She is suspended by the arms from the ceiling, with the tips of her toes barely touching the ground, but not enough to take her weight. She blinks her eyes to make them work properly, and recognises Amanda’s torture chamber almost instantly. From the pain in her shoulders she can tell she’s been suspended here for ten minutes at least. She’s still in her clothes from earlier, black pants, sensible runners, and a tailored blazer over the top of a plain black singlet. Factoring in travel time, she’s probably been out for an hour, two at the most.

Amanda herself is standing in front of her, with a curious expression on her face.

“Hi Amanda.” Nikita says, suppressing a groan as she tries to stretch her limbs a little.

“You know, Nikita,” Amanda begins lightly. “When they told me they’d caught the mole, I knew it was you.”

“Is that so?” Nikita replies, and she shrugs her head to the side. “Well... Good job catching me. Oh. Wait, you didn’t.”

Amanda doesn’t seem affected by Nikita’s careless reply. “Yes,” She says, with a vindictive smile on her face. “A recruit had that honour. Bit of an underwhelming finale for you though, Nikita, being caught by someone who can barely shoot straight.”

“She got lucky, and you got played. Doesn’t matter how you spin it, really.” Nikita says. “We’ll both know the truth.”

Amanda arcs a single eyebrow, but turns her back on Nikita, to her tray of menacing tools of torture, hands hovering over a hammer, some pliers, a thick metal chain, but the heavy iron door at the far end of the room opens before the woman has a chance to choose, and Percy and the young recruit Alex walk into the room.

“I thought we should give Alex the opportunity to really grasp exactly what she’s done for us here today,” Percy says to Amanda, who nods and steps aside.

“Congratulations, Alex. You took down Nikita.” Percy says, “A cancerous blight that will be purged from our system.”

“She’s not so tough.” Alex says lightly, and Nikita doesn’t bother to hold back the laugh that bubbles up from within.

“Oh honey. You have no idea what you’ve done, do you?” She says condescendingly. “Well, take your fifteen minutes of fame and run with them as fast as you can. They won’t do you any good in the real world. You’ll get eaten alive.”

Alex doesn’t drop her gaze. “You’ve always underestimated me.” She says, and Nikita rolls her eyes.

“Fine. Twenty minutes of fame. But it still won’t help you.” Michael at least passed one useful bit of code to his protege before putting her on the inside. She’ll only have to tolerate fifteen to twenty minutes of Percy and Amanda’s interrogation before Alex can organise some sort of distraction. That gives her fifteen or so minutes to figure out how she’ll get out of these chains, then she just has to get to the crawlspace that leads to the silo and she’ll be free.

“At least I’m not the one hanging in chains right now.”

Or maybe she won’t have to-- Alex doesn’t drop her gaze, but Nikita won’t bank on it.

Nikita spits at the girl. She misses, for the most part, but she takes great pleasure in seeing a little globule of spittle darken the fabric of Amanda’s skirt. At least she got someone.

“That will be all for now, Alex.” Percy says, eyes darkening, and Amanda selects the cattle prod from her tray of menacing things, and both take a step forward once Alex has shut the door behind her.

“Do you want the honours or shall I?” Amanda asks Percy, holding out the prod to the man.

“Oh no, be my guest.” Percy says, and Amanda wastes no more time. She thrusts the prod into Nikita’s side and it burns and sends a sharp, violent, painful shock right through her body. Nikita gasps a little, but does her best to hold it together. Either way it’ll be over soon, and mind-over-matter is a skill that Amanda of all people taught her. It seems fitting that she use that to her advantage right now.

“So when did he turn you then?” Percy asks. “How long has it been?”

She grits her teeth and forces air through her nose to keep calm. “Not long enough, Percy.” She says, and braces herself for Amanda’s inevitable shock, but it doesn’t come as predicted.

Percy seems to concede that point easily enough. Division’s pragmatism stems from him, after all. “You’re a lot better actress than I gave you credit for.”

“Why thank you, Percy.” She shoots a sarcastic grin in his direction. “Since we’re in a sharing mood, I should probably mention that you should get a better video editor to photoshop your lies. The devil is in the details, Amanda taught me that. Perhaps she can give you some tips.”

Neither of them seems to see the humour. Nikita doesn’t really mind, she shifts a little in her chains, attempting to relieve a little of the pressure from her wrists, but the small hint of relief she gets is snatched away when Amanda buries the prongs of the prod next to her belly button and the charge vibrates painfully through her again, and she arches her back involuntarily and cries out in pain.

“I don’t think she really grasps the gravity of the situation,” Amanda says conversationally, holding the end of the prod close to her face so she can pick at the peeling paint on the side, before letting it drop back at her side.

Nikita rolls her eyes and pants a little. “You’re going to kill me and you’re going to take your time. What more is there to grasp?”

“She still hasn’t answered my question.” Percy notes, and Amanda replaces the prod on her tray, and selects a clean looking syringe and a tiny vial of a clearish liquid. Nikita can’t be sure, but it’s most likely sodium thiopental, the fabled ‘truth serum’. It doesn’t so much compel you to tell the truth, but reduce your brain’s capacity to filter things, so often keeping the truth a secret becomes a lot more difficult. She’s never been under its influence before, so if that’s what it is she’ll have a hard time fighting it.

Of course, it could just be poison. She is making some pretty wild assumptions here.

Amanda prepares the needle with the quick precision of someone who does it often, and Nikita does not waste her energy struggling away from the point when Amanda injects the liquid into her neck. Instead, she focuses on trying to remain as clear-headed as possible, knowing that it will not take long to effect her, whatever the effect will be, and that her only way of really fighting it off is to divert her energy elsewhere.

Sure enough, within a few seconds her eyes become harder to focus, and the strangest taste of garlic fills her mouth. She blinks hard against the sensation and heliotropic spots appear in her vision, but it is the overwhelming feeling of relaxation that is most pressing. It isn’t quite sleepiness, but instead she feels almost giddy with resignation, that whatever comes will come, and she no longer has to stop it. She sags a little into her restraints, but thankfully the pain in her wrists remains, along with the jittery feeling the shocks sent through her. It is something, at least, to focus on, and to use to keep coherency.

“Oh this is the good stuff, Amanda.” She says, a little more slowly than she wanted, but at least her mouth still works. “Thanks.”

Amanda turns away and Percy steps forward.

“How long have you been working with Michael?” Percy asks again, insistent and forceful.

Nikita forces herself to look at him. “A few months, since I tracked him down in Uzbekistan.” She says. “Then you will know the truth and truth will set you free, Percy. You build a house of lies and it’s bound to come toppling down around you like a house of cards.”

Apparently sodium thiopental makes her speak in idioms and mixed metaphors. That’s something to remember for next time. Next time, heh. Yeah, Nikita, stay positive. That's the spirit.

"What have you told him about Division?" asks Percy.

"The truth." Nikita says, and bites down on her tongue to keep from spilling any more. She takes a deep breath in through the nose, and lets it out slowly, pushing the urge to speak down while she focuses on the distracting pain in her arms. "My arms hurt," She says, when she finally has to let something out. It is a relief it's such a mundane revelation.

The answer doesn't seem to impress Percy much, who turns to Amanda. "I'll leave you two alone. I trust you can get everything we need out of her then get rid of her."

"Of course." Amanda says with a deferential nod, and Percy leaves the two of them alone.

"Girl-talk time then?" Nikita asks, and then she smiles, "Neato."

"You can try to hold out as long as you like Nikita, but it won't work forever and eventually you’ll tell me what I need to know.” Amanda says, casually, then leans forward a little, bridging the gap between them til they are only a few feet apart. “And the sooner I know what I need to know, the sooner all this can be over for you. We can save you from the long, drawn out process that this could be and make this easy. Maybe even pain free.”

It all sounds very convincing, and if Nikita hadn’t worked so closely with the woman for so many years and seen her manipulations up close and worked on others, she may have even believed it.

“I don’t want to see you hurt any more,” Amanda says, and it is like the straw that breaks the camel’s back. And in her unrestrained, almost carefree state, Nikita laughs.

“You don’t want to see me get hurt, you don’t want to see me suffer?” She says between mighty chuckles. “That’s rich, Amanda. Sadist isn’t a strong enough word for what you are.”

Amanda doesn’t seem phased by the skepticism. “Believe what you want to believe, but of the two of us I am the loyal one and you are the traitor.”

“Traitor to what? A system that has done nothing but manipulate and hurt me? This is just as much a survival thing as it is a revenge thing.”

“So it is about revenge with you then, is it? Revenge over Daniel, I suppose.”

“You killed the man I loved.”

“Really? Are you sure that was love? Because as far as I can see, everything you’ve done for us, and against us, has been all about Michael.”

Nikita narrows her eyes a little. “And what would you know about love, Amanda?” She asks, “You weren’t made that way.”

Amanda inches forward again, but an enormous explosion rocks the room and knocks Amanda off her feet. Nikita feels a shift in her shackles and looks up. The concrete around the fixtures has cracked, and she knows this is her opportunity. She twists her hands to grasp the chain, and then with a grunt she tenses and lifts her legs and jerks as hard as she can. Sure enough, the concrete gives way, and she drops to the ground, chains crashing against the floor with a deafening clang.

She scrambles to her feet and pulls the chains with her. They are heavy, and her arms are tired, but she has enough adrenaline coursing through her now for none of it to matter-- She has a chance to be free, it’s enough. She twists her wrists and twirls the chains into her fists and while Amanda has done the smart thing and run from the room as quick as her heels let her, the two guards that charge her way don’t stand much of a chance.

She twirls in a circle, dragging the chains with her until they whip around and catch the first guard across the side of the head and he drops to the floor like a stone. The second guard dodges the first attack, but she is lighter and more nimble, and though he throws a solid punch she easily ducks it and knees him in the groin, and when he cowers over to protect the sensitive area from any further abuse, she brings the heavy chains down hard, knocking him out too.

Nikita doesn’t stop to check if they’re alright. One of them will have keys to the manacles around her wrist, and sure enough she finds them buried deep in the pocket of the first guard. Within a few short moments she’s free, and knows she only has a few moments to get out of this place alive and to Alex’s crawl space and freedom.

She takes a few deep breaths, and uses the time to refocus and plan her escape route. Then she picks up the cattle prod and runs out the front door.

Her way to the elevator is unimpeded, but that doesn’t surprise her much. The level she’s on doesn’t usually have many extraneous personnel hanging about, and she imagines that Amanda has already made her escape to the floors above. Nikita needs to get three floors up before she reaches the recruit level where Alex’s escape route is. She gets into the elevator and presses the button for the top level and punches in her security code, knowing that Percy and co will see her in here and will probably stop the elevator before she has a chance to get to the surface, and sure enough, the elevator comes to a grinding halt on the exact level she’d been aiming for.

The doors open, and everyone in the room turns to stare, recruits, guards, and at the far end of the room behind their tinted glass, Percy, Amanda, and all the rest of the central control unit. Clearly the recruits don’t know how to react, most of them stare at her wide eyed, but there are a cocky few (they most volatile, the ones most prone to overreacting) step towards her.

She doesn’t waste any time, but she doesn’t pull her punches either. These children are dangerous, she trained them that way. But she is worse and she isn’t going to take pity on them. She uses the cattle prod on the first two, leaving them disabled and twitching on the ground, and she tries for the third but he dodges her and snaps it out of her hands. Nikita responds by hitting him sharply in the face with the palm of her hand, crushing the cartilage in his nose, following it with a swift elbow to the solar plexus.

Other recruits have their try at her, but she takes them all out one-by-one, and soon enough a few guards make it into the fray, with their automatic weapons, but because she is surrounded by the recruits, the guards don’t fire at her.

Big mistake.

She takes the two out and acquires herself a gun, spraying the tinted glass of the control room with bullets, one even gets the fuse box for the room, and she takes the opportunity. She springs from the ground and vaults up the stairs and into one of the recruit corridors, and runs head-long into Birkhoff.

“Nikki.” He says, and shoves two things into her hands. One is oddly heavy for its size, the other feels familiar. “Take this and go.”

She looks down. She’s holding one of his signal jammers in her left hand-- it’ll block her tracker long enough for her to get it out. In her right hand is one of the Black Boxes, and there is a yellow post-it affixed to one side.

She opens her mouth to ask, but stops her before she has a chance. “Decrypted just for you. Now knock me out or something, and go.”

There are not enough words to describe her gratitude, to declare everything she feels for this wonderful man, this kind man, this best of friends in the tiny amount of time they’ve been given. So she presses a swift kiss to his cheek, says “Thank you.” with as much feeling as she can pack into those two short little words, and punches him hard in the gut.

He doubles over in pain, but she knows he will appreciate being able to avoid another trip to the dentist. She leaves him there in the corridor, but safely tucks his gifts into her jacket pocket.

… … …

He hears nothing from anyone for hours. Nothing from Alex, nothing from Birkhoff.

Nothing from Nikita.

He stalks a nervous path from one end of the loft to the other, and runs his hands through his hair so frequently that it’s a miracle he doesn’t end up with a bald patch.

Then he gets a message through the shell program. N escaped. Don’t use this program ever again - B.

He breathes a little easier. Then he deletes the Shell program completely from his system. He’ll do a proper wipe of the hard-drive later.

An hour or so later, he gets a call.

“Come get me?” Nikita says, and he’s out the door and heading towards his car before she even has a chance to tell him where to go. He thinks that this lightness in his chest is the closest he’s come to a religious experience.

The first thing she says to him, when he picks her up from the truck stop is: “London.” and then she leans across and gives him a hug.

He frowns taking her in: she looks tired, her eyes are bloodshot and oddly dilated. There are dark bruises blooming across the side of her face and near her collar bone. He’s sure there are more he can’t see, but they don’t seem to be bothering her. In fact, she smiles.

“Rio De Janeiro.” She says, and gives him a kiss to the cheek that lingers.

“Are these where...?” He begins, not daring to hope that she could’ve wheedled that information out of someone before she left, but she nods.

He puts the car into gear, and she slips a hand to his thigh as he pulls out onto the main road. “Melbourne.” She says, and she tilts her head to the side; a little smile pokes at the corner of his lips.

It isn’t until they’ve booked a room at a dodgy looking motel that she slips her hand in his and tells him the next place: “Kuala Lumpur.”

“We’re going to be very well travelled. ” He notes, unable to keep the grin from his face. This is more than he ever could’ve asked for. When she’d taken the hit for Alex he’d assumed that was the last they’d ever see of each other.

“Prague.” She says simply, once he’s unlocked the door.

He drops his duffel bag on the only bed and turns to her. “So we know where they all are? All the black boxes?”

“What? No.” Nikita says, and her face is so shocked, and so genuine that Michael starts backtracking in his mind, tracing the assumption back, stammering a quick apology.

But then Nikita’s face splits into the widest grin he’s ever seen. “These are the places you’re taking me on holiday. I deserve it.” And she pulls a black box from her back pocket. “Fully decrypted. Courtesy of Birkhoff.” She says, and flips the box over to reveal a post-it stuck to the side, written in Birkhoff’s chicken-scratch scrawl: London, Rio, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, NJ, Prague.

… … …

There is one last thing to do.

“This is the last time I’ll hurt you,” Michael says, promise gleaming in his eyes, light glinting off the scalpel in his hand.

“I trust you.” She says and leans back into the pillows. He is as fast as he said, and it doesn’t hurt as much as she expects it to. Maybe that’s a sign that she’s become desensitised, after all the abuse she’s been through the past few years. Or maybe it’s just a sign that Michael is a better surgeon than he thinks.

She hears a little tinkle of metal hitting glass, and knows it’s almost over. He just has to patch her up, and then her connection to Division will be gone forever.

“This’ll sting a little,” He warns, setting down the scalpel and picking up the little tube of medical glue and a wad of gauze.

If anything, the sharp stinging pain is worse than the surgery, but it's still nothing she can't handle, and before she knows it he's efficiently taping a small bandage back over the wound and cleaning up everything he used.

Nikita reaches out and slips her hand underneath the hem of his shirt, her fingers finding his scar easily. He collects the scalpel and other utensils together in the towel that he'd slipped a little underneath her to protect the bedsheets from the blood, and tosses the soaked gauze pads and the little bloody silver tracker into the rubbish.

"We'll match." She says with a small smile, and he covers her hand with his own.

He arches an eyebrow and looks down at her. "We could just get matching tattoos, like any normal couple."

She laughs, and it is a joyful, soft laugh. She twists her wrist and hooks her fingers into the waistband of his pants and tugs him sharply forward. He over-balances and she twists out from under him, using his momentum to flip them over. He doesn't resist, and she straddles his hips and leans over him. "Normal couple?" She asks.

"Well, as normal as we want to be." Michael and leans up, sliding a hand around the back of her neck, pulling her gently closer.

"I don't want to be normal." She says quietly, and presses herself further against him. She whispers into his ear: "I just want you."

Then she kisses him, and it is such a relief, and such an amazing feeling, to know that she is free and here, and that no matter what happens now, he'll be here, and she'll be with him. She's spent so many years feeling lost, and directionless, but now she knows the way, and it is a path she'll walk with Michael. Together they will find the black boxes, and they will destroy them. Together they will take down Division. Together they will right the wrongs and bring justice to those who deserve it.

Together they can bring down Division, with Alex and Birkhoff on their side.

Together.

… … …

Authors Note: Annnd we’re done :) I couldn’t’ve done this without the encouragement and beta skills of my two ladies J & R, and thank you so much to everyone who’s read along!

A significant amount of credit should go to the 90s action soundtracks, Placebo and Florence + the Machine that helped me get into the right mood to write all this. I do have a few other plot bunnies hopping around, but I’m about to start a prac placement that’ll go for the next 7 weeks and I don’t think I’ll have a lot of time for recreational writing. We’ll see how it goes! I do like to procrastiwrite.

fic; cuts both ways - pg

2012-04-10T11:21:03Z

Title: Cuts Both Ways 4/5
Fandom: Nikita
Characters: Michael, Nikita, Alex, Amanda, Percy, Birkhoff, Owen.
Rating: PG-13 for this part. May increase in future chapters.
Wordcount: 8800
Summary: "He leaves Division in the dead of night. He says no goodbyes, he lets no one know that anything might be amiss." -- Michael discovers the truth about his family's death first and goes rogue well before Nikita meets Daniel.
Author's note: The next part is ABSOLUTELY the last part. I split the last bit into two because it was getting super long and wouldn't fit into one single post on LJ. Expect part 5 in a day or so.

Disturbing silence darkens your sight, we’ll cast some light you’ll be alright

… … …

Nikita wakes up slowly, feeling warm and comfortable, though more than a little disoriented, and... hungry? She pushes herself up from the pillows and surveys the room, and as she does she remembers she is in Tashkent, and that this is Michael’s hotel room, and she remembers her breakdown the previous night. What she doesn’t remember is falling asleep. Or taking off her shoes and pants (though her underwear is still firmly in place). Despite all this, she doesn’t feel violated.

She feels safe.

Through the bathroom door she hears water flowing, a flushing toilet, then a few seconds later the pipes grind as the tap is turned on and off.

She slowly sits up in the bed, pushing against the pillows until she’s upright. Michael emerges from the bathroom seconds later. He notices her immediately.

“You’re awake.” He says, with a tiny smile, “You want breakfast?” and he gestures to the desk, where a room service platter is set out with coffee pots, fresh toast, jam, butter and fruit. Her tummy grumbles again, and she nods, and pushes the blankets away.

“No no!” Michael says, putting a hand up. “You stay there, I’ll get it for you.”

“Breakfast in bed?” She asks, and wipes her eyes with the balls of her hands, trying to freshen herself up. “This really is a 5 star establishment.”

Michael fills a mug with the freshly brewed coffee, and half a teaspoon of sugar. He slips two slices of toast onto a plate along with a dollop of jam and butter and he delivers it to her in bed. He sits down on the edge of the bed, careful to avoid sitting on her. “We all deserve a little luxury every now and then.”

She takes a sip of the coffee, and it is good coffee, not bitter or burnt, and it warms her to the core. “Thank you, for last night.” She says, setting the coffee down on the bedside table. “I didn’t mean to...”

He cuts her off before she finishes her apology. “No, no, no, Nikki, no.” He says emphatically, and grasps her hand. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I never wanted you to go through that, to go through what I’ve gone through.”

And just like that, she remembers why they’re both here in the first place. “Kasim Tariq is here.” She says suddenly, and Michael sighs.

“I know.” He says, and shifts a little to the side. “I was going to start tracking him last night, but then we got sidetracked. The trail is probably cold now.”

“No.” Nikita says firmly, and pushes herself out of bed, handing the plate and untouched toast back to him. “We have to get him.”

Michael moves a little to the side and frowns. “We?”

She shoots a little glare over her shoulder, and retrieves her netbook from the table and holds it up for him to see. “We have Birkhoff to help us.”

“Birkhoff isn’t here.” Michael says, and Nikita ignores it.

“He’s been helping me find you.” Nikita reveals flatly, “And I would’ve never figured out your innocence if not for him either. Plus, I’m much friendlier than you and it comes with some rewards.” She sits back down next to Michael on the bed and opens the netbook. The Shadownet program takes a few minutes to launch, but the soon enough the interface is there and ready for them to use. She launches Kasim Tariq’s intelligence profile and immediately brings up his known Uzbek contacts, but Michael is tense beside her, still holding the toast in his hands. “Welcome to Shadownet 2.0, the portable version.”

“Nikita.” He says cautiously, fingering the keyboard with the edge of his nail. “I’m fine working with you, but Birkoff is still back in Division, and last I saw he was firmly under Percy’s thumb.”

Nikita quirks an eyebrow. “Well, he wasn’t very happy about your foray into dentistry, that’s for sure. But you don’t have to worry about him, I promise.”

“You trust him?”

She hesitates a moment, then decides to go with the truth. “I trust him with my life, Michael. I’m trusting him right now, he knows where I am and is hiding me from Percy.”

Nikita watches the way he tenses, though it’s almost imperceptible, and she knows that his wariness comes from years of necessary paranoia. She knows that if the positions were reversed, she’d have trouble trusting too. But then he says something that warms her better than the coffee ever could: “He’s not the only one anymore. I promise.”

She’s not sure what to say to that, how she should respond, and she knows that Michael understands that-- the blush on her cheeks probably gives it away. She wants to cherish this feeling though, that much she knows, because she knows it’s only a matter of time until this bubble they’re in is popped, and everything will go back to being the same brand of nasty and vicious she’s been coping with her entire life.

Instead, she decides to control where she goes from here, instead of letting her life control her. She is going to make decisions for herself from now on. And her first is this: She will help Michael kill Kasim.

She types a few simple commands into ShadowNet and Kasim’s list of known contacts is cross-referenced against the hotel records she’d hacked the night before, looking for any common pseudonyms and aliases. “Here.” She says, and pushes the computer into Michael’s hands. “This should make our lives easier.”

Sure enough, Shadownet has found the common denominator between the two, and spits out the name of their most likely target. Against all odds he’s even staying at the same hotel. Nikita can barely believe their luck, and if Michael’s eyebrows are any indication, he is also suitably impressed.

“We can work with this.” He says, and nods, and she pushes herself out of bed to help lay out their plan of attack.

It doesn’t take them long to decide what to do. It’s easier with two people, Nikita will play the honey trap angle, distracting the client for a while, and hopefully lifting his phone to copy the sim, while Michael sticks to good old fashioned espionage, sifting through the man’s hotel room to see if there is any worthwhile intel in there. They figure between the two they’ll be able to find the meeting place and time, hopefully with enough time to spare to scout out the final destination, or worst case scenario and they don’t find the info they need, they can plant a tracker in amongst the man’s things, and follow him at a discrete distance.

Their initial plan works as well as they could hope, with Nikita flirting her way through a casual lunch encounter. She distracts the man from his oysters and his vodka with her charming laugh and a low cut dress. Michael is able to get in and out of the man’s rather messy bedroom with more than enough detail about the meet for them to plan a mission around it, though they will be running rather short on time; the meet is scheduled for 4pm, and by the time Nikita gets away from the drunk Russian man it’s 1pm already.

They pile all the gear they’ll need into a hire car, and speed off as quickly as they can manage without attracting unwanted attention. On the drive there, while Nikita surveys the topographical maps for their best vantage spot, and Nikita marvels to herself just how seamlessly they have returned to working in unison, anticipating the other’s actions, speaking in shorthand-- it’s the quickest mission she’s planned in years, but she knows it’s probably one of the most flawless in its simplicity.

“I have a mole in Division.” Michael says bluntly, and it is surprising enough to distract Nikita from the map she has spread across the dash and her reflective thoughts of the tenacity of their working relationship.

She blinks at him, owlishly. “Huh?”

He looks a little sheepish and apologetic, but doesn’t hold back his explanation. “That’s how I’ve been keeping ahead of you these past few months. I have someone on the inside who feeds me info, and I use it to sabotage Division ops. Sometimes she helps too.”

“You turned a Division operative?” She asks, putting the map to the side to stare at him some more. How had she not noticed? Now he’s told her, of course it makes sense, his sudden reappearance. She puts herself in his shoes: if she had been on the run, it would be nigh impossible to anticipate Division’s next move unless you had insider info. She just can’t think who it could possibly be-- he’d never been that close to anyone within Division that she’d seen-- well, other than her, of course.

“No, I didn’t turn anyone.” Michael says, “I got one recruited.”

That is even more astounding to her, and she can’t believe he’d gone to such an enormous risk. “Who?” She asks.

“Alex.” Michael says. “I found her on the streets, I recognised her from an op from years ago, we killed her family. She was meant to have been killed as well, but the operative must’ve spared her.”

And then it hits her like a freight train, all the niggling little details, “Alex.” She mutters, testing the name out in her head, and then anger bubbles up in her, barely controllable. “I can’t believe you would let her do that! Do you know how close we’ve come to cancelling her? Do you know how much I risked to get her out that night?” She hits Michael hard in the arm, and he grimaces but he doesn’t retaliate.

“It wasn’t my original plan. When I found her, she was so spun out on drugs I was just focused on getting her clean, and by the time that happened she’d figured out a bit about my work, what I was trying to do. ” Michael says defensively. “She is so smart, Nikita. She knows the implications, but she’s doing it anyway.”

Nikita is not convinced, but it is an argument for another time, as they arrive at their destination and unpack their gear in silence. They still have quite a fair trek through the woods til they’ll be at the right vantage position. “I don’t think you understand how much Division has changed since you left.” She mutters as she hefts the sniper case out of the trunk of the car and hands it to Michael.

“It’s not just me and her anymore, Nikki.” He says, slipping his sig into the back of his pants, careful to make sure the safety is on. “We have Owen, one of the guardians on our side. And we have one of Percy’s black boxes.”

It’s not exactly new information to her, but she tries her best to consider how those two things improve the situation. From what she has learned of him through Division’s records, Owen is a formidable enough ally, but like Michael he hasn’t been within the fold of central Division in years, she doubts he has much to contribute in that way. And while having a black box is definitely leverage, there are still 5 others out there they’d need before they could do anything and without someone of Birkhoff’s calibre helping them they wouldn’t be able to get past the encryption to get any usable data.

“Well I’ll be sure to look out for her when I go back.” Nikita says firmly, and forcefully shuts the trunk of the car. Perhaps you could say she slams it. Either way it gets Michael’s attention.

He stops in his trek up the incline. “You can’t stay there in Division, it’s too poisonous.” He says to her bluntly.

Nikita takes a deep breath and holds off on rolling her eyes at his overprotectiveness. “I’m better help to you in Division than I am out, Michael.” She begins ticking things off on her fingers one by one: “I have higher level access than Alex, I’m better trained, better equipped, I have better connections and allies and I’m much better at the politics. Most importantly we can cement my loyalty to Percy right now.”

Michael frowns again, not following, and she grasps his hand firmly and tugs him up the hill. If they don’t keep moving they’ll never get Kasim. They begin walking in step together. “You can betray me here. Frame me for Kasim’s death. Leave me for dead, double cross me. I’ll go back to Percy hating you more than ever, with any doubts I had before eradicated for good. He’ll believe my trust and faith in him and his cause has grown.” She explains passionately, acutely aware of Michael’s reluctance. She pulls out the big guns.

“Alex hasn’t covered all her tracks, Michael. I think Amanda has suspected a mole for a while now, and in retrospect it makes a whole lot of things make sense. But if I’m in there too I can protect her. If I’m not, it’ll only be a matter of time before she slips up and is caught, and you can’t protect her from outside. If I’m there, I can.”

“But then you’ll both be in there, and I won’t be able to protect either of you.”

“I’ve dealt pretty well these past five years without your protection.” She says, and pointedly presses her free hand to the scar on her shoulder. He grimaces and reaches out to grasp her other hand. She squeezes it tightly. “I’ll be fine.”

… … …

Michael is still uncertain about Nikita's plan, but she is so adamant in wanting to help and even he can see that there is merit in it. Giving Alex a little bit more protection within Division certainly is appealing. He swings wildly between hating the idea and grudging acceptance of it, but he does his best to put it to the side while they go after Kasim at the mansion, figuring that they can argue more about it later, after their first mission is behind them.

But of course it doesn't work like that, and Kasim gets away, and Nikita is captured and dragged away by the man who ruined his life so many years ago.

It takes him hours to track her down, and it's only when he goes against his better judgement and uses Shadownet 2.0 to contact the only other person he thinks would be able to help.

Luckily it connects, and Birkhoff is at his computer. "Didn't expect you on the other end of the line," Is the first thing he says, and Michael can't help but notice the way his old friend has aged in the months since he last grabbed him; the suspicious look on the man’s face doesn’t help much.

"Kasim has Nikki." He says, cutting the small-talk off before it begins. "She told me you've been blocking her tracking signal. I need you to stop so I can find her."

"I don't know if that's a good idea." Birkhoff says, "Percy will see."

"Don't worry about that right now." He says. "We'll figure that out later."

Birkhoff still seems reluctant, but he still types a few commands and in the bottom corner of the netbook screen a little map appears, but no signal appears to be online in the area. "Looks like her tracker signal is out of range, she's probably underground."

“Dammit.” Michael kicks the side of the bed in frustration, and runs a hand through his hair. "Can we enhance it, anything?"

He watches Birkhoff frantically type, and then a little red dot appears on the map. Michael’s heart jumps, but Birkhoff is quick to clarify: "This is the last movements it recorded."

“If we find out where we lost the signal it’ll at least narrow it down.”

“Is she alright, Mikey?” Birkhoff asks quietly, as they both watch the progress of the signal travel through the heart of Tashkent, before cutting out in a nearby industrial area.

“I hope so.” He says, and starts collecting his things, his gun, his spare, a few extra rounds, a communicator-- his knife is still in his boot.

“Is there anything I can do?” The technician asks, and Michael returns his attention back to the computer.

“From what I hear you’ve already done a lot for me.” He says calmly. “I should thank you for that.”

“Go get her back, Mikey. That’s all I want.” Michael tries to think of a reply that conveys the gratitude he feels, but swallows his words. There is nothing he can say right now that could cover it, especially over a tenuous internet connection. So he nods quickly at his old friend, and maybe ally, and shuts the netbook computer.

Michael doesn’t waste another moment. With the GPS coordinates programmed into his phone, and a liberated Suzuki hatchback, he speeds as quickly as he can to the place Birkhoff indicated, and sure enough, parked just outside an old, decrepit warehouse is the car that Kasim and his men escaped in with Nikita unconscious in the back seat. He pulls up behind the car and the engine is barely off when he opens the door and jumps out.

A warehouse like this probably has a basement, which is probably where they’re holding Nikita. He doesn’t have time to plan the extraction too carefully, so instead of doing a full perimeter search like he would prefer, he decides to take a leap from Nikita’s audacious playbook and use the front door.

It’s unlocked, pushes easily open, and no one starts shooting at him. He opens it further and steps inside. It is an open-plan factory floor, and it is completely empty. From the old stains on the concrete and the air of long-dead things, he figures this used to be an abattoir of some description, and there are drains built into the floor in a fairly regular pattern that support that theory. Downstairs would’ve been the freezers, though they’re most-likely out of action at the moment, given there is no power running to the building-- the only light is ambient and comes streaming through the high-set windows. There is only one other door, directly across from him, and he heads straight towards it, moving as stealthily as possible and he presses an ear to the door once he gets there.

He hears someone breathing on the other side.

It’s now or never.

Michael flings the door open, and sure enough he sees one of Kasim’s bodyguards standing directly opposite. He fires a shot between the man’s eyes before he even has a chance to raise his own gun, but Michael doesn’t savour the moment. Anyone else in the building would’ve heard that shot, and he doesn’t have the element of surprise any longer. He has to move fast.

He strips the man of his gun-- an automatic hand-gun and turns it down the stairs, where he can hear the heavy footfalls of two people ascending. He takes cover behind a desk, and when the two men round the corner he fires off a volley of bullets, spraying the wall and the men equally. They slump to the floor, and Michael launches over the desk, past them and down the stairs.

He finds himself standing at the beginning of a long corridor, with a few doors leading off on either side, and at the end, a door with a large, unlit EXIT sign above. That door swings wildly on its hinges, as though someone had only recently kicked it open, and for a second Michael is torn. Kasim probably just left through that door, and Michael has an automatic weapon in his hands. It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel, he’ll finally have his revenge.

But he’s here for Nikita.

He ducks into the closest open room, and she is there, tied to a plastic exam table, drenched from head to toe. She looks pale, her lip is split, and her left eye is swollen and bruised, but her chest steadily rises and falls, and she groans and twists her head to look at him. “Michael?”

Michael drops his gun, pulls his knife from his boot and begins hacking away at her restraints, first her feet, then her hands, and gently helps her sit up.

“He’s getting away.” She says with a cough. “We need to get him, Michael.” She insists, and points at the door.

But he shakes his head. “No,” and tries to get her to stop squirming so he can assess how bad the injury to her eye is.

“This is our opportunity.” She insists, and pushes his hand away. “He’s going to the airport. I can go after him and kill him there. The Uzbek police will catch me, Percy will have to extract me. I’ll blame it all on you, I’ll tell him you set me up, you lied to me. I thought you’d made a mistake with Daniel, but you only said that to get me on your side to feed me to the wolves. ”

Michael grimaces, every bone in his body screams this is a bad idea, that there are so many ways this plan could go wrong. All he wants right now is to get her back to the hotel room and clean her up, he wants to tuck her into bed, and shield her from harm, and all she wants to do is to throw herself directly in its path. “Nikki, I don’t need you to do that.” He insists. “You can get out now. It’s safer that way, for everyone.”

“I don’t want to be safe, Michael.” She hisses. “I want this to end. And if you let me work with you we can end this forever.”

She takes his hand in hers and uses it as leverage to stand. She wobbles a bit, and he immediately begins to worry about a concussion or something, but when she lets go of his hand, she seems as steady as ever, standing straight and tall and exuding the confidence he’d always admired so much.

He stands. “Alright.” He says. “Let’s go.”

… … …

Michael reluctantly drops her at the arrivals drop-off point, with his own jacket draped around her shoulders, and instead of torturously extending their goodbyes out, she takes his hand and drops a simple but heartfelt kiss between his knuckles. “I’ll do this for you” she says, “and all this will be over.”

He squeezes her hand and lingers, for a moment, between pulling her closer and letting her go. For a split second she wonders if he is going to kiss her, his eyes definitely dart to her lips and back, but all he says is “Good luck.” and once she’s out on the curb, he drives off without looking back.

Her plan to get Kasim in the airport works perfectly. She buys her ticket for Syria using Division’s credit card. Birkhoff won’t be able to hide that, but they don’t want him to. Declaring her subterfuge to Percy will mask the bigger one hiding beneath. She gets through immigration and security quickly, though the bruises and split lip get her some odd looks. She explains in intentionally broken Russian to one of the guards that she’d “had accident. car no see me,” and it’s enough to see her through.

She gets all the materials she needs from the Duty Free, a vodka bottle, a wide purple cashmere scarf to use as a makeshift hijab, and a ‘Welcome to Uzbekistan’ magnet she’ll give to Birkhoff later. The scarf she puts on in the bathroom, and when she’s alone in the woman’s bathroom, she smashes the bottle and sifts through the glass shards for the best one to use as a shiv.

Nikita pulls the sleeves of Michael’s jacket further down to cover her hands, and slips the best shard inside, careful not to cut her wrists. The rest she tosses away, or washes down the sink as best she can, and then heads towards the gate. If she’s calculated right they’ll be boarding any minute, and hopefully she’ll be able to use the element of surprise to her advantage.

Sure enough, she reaches the gate just as they open the gates. It mustn't be a packed flight, as when she gets to the end of the line, she is only three or four people behind Kasim, who hasn't noticed her yet. She hands her passport and ticket to the flight attendant who checks her in, and Nikita carelessly shoves the documents back into the pockets of Michael's jacket.

Now is her chance to make her move, while they exit the terminal and walk along the tarmac to the plane. She pushes past the other passengers, and slips the large shard of glass from her sleeve, gripping it tightly in her fist. He is just ahead of her, two people away, one.

She reaches out and when they are only a few meters from the adjustable stairs that lead to the jet, she grasps Kasim's shoulder firmly, and shoves the shard of glass hard between his ribs, burying it deep in his side.

Someone grabs her roughly and pulls her off, and Kasim lets out a sick gurgling noise, but she knows the damage is done. People around her are yelling in Uzbek and Russian and someone hits her hard in the side of the head and it all goes black.

The next day or so goes exactly how she anticipates. First there is the rough interrogation by the Uzbek officials. Then there is the solitary confinement in a squalid jail cell, complete with overflowing toilet and lice-ridden mattress. But predictably enough, within twenty four hours, the cell door opens, and perfectly polished Italian loafers step into the room.

"You're in quite a lot of trouble." Percy says, stopping in the middle of the room to look down upon her, where she is curled on the floor as far away from the toilet as possible

She lets out a deep breath and looks up at the man. It is not difficult for her to act convincingly; Tariq hadn’t been gentle with her and the Uzbek police were not exactly restrained in their methods of interrogation, and she knows she looks bad. She can’t see out of her left eye and the taste of blood has been in her mouth for several hours now.

"I'm sorry." She croaks. "I made a huge mistake, Percy. I'm sorry."

The man sighs, and leans down to pick her up from the ground. The cry of pain she lets out is genuine when she tries to put weight on her right knee. She grasps Percy’s forearm for support. Percy says, and he guides her forward a few steps towards the cell door. “This extraction wasn’t easy.”

“I know. He tricked me.” She says, and a tear rolls down her face. “I thought it was an accident. That he hadn’t known about Daniel, but... He knew. He’s crazy, he’s lost it.”

Percy nods. “And now Kasim Tariq is dead, Michael got what he wanted all along.”

She limps a few steps slowly forward, and he doesn’t rush her.

“Let’s get you home, Nikita.” He says.

… … …

When he arrives home to the penthouse, the first thing he finds is an email in his inbox confirming the death of Kasim Tariq. Then there are the redacted news reports about the woman the Uzbek officials captured in connection to the murder, and the destroyed official records detailing Nikita’s arrest and release.

The second thing is a series of messages from Alex, asking where he is, reporting Nikita’s walk of shame, the rumours about his double-crossing her, her injuries, the bounce in Percy’s step.

He shoots a quick message back to Alex, seeing she is still online: Am home. Mission didn’t go as planned.

She replies almost instantly: What happened with Nikita? They told us you did it to her. She looked horrible.

Michael is torn. He is not sure how much to tell her, on one hand he wants to keep Alex as in-the-loop as possible, the more she knows, the better she can protect herself, but on the other hand it is just another thing she’d have to lie about if she were caught and plausible deniability can go a long way, especially with Amanda and her lie-detectors. He decides to put his faith in Nikita. Alex will just have to understand. I did what I had to do to keep her safe. he sends, before quickly claiming jet-lag and logging off, not wanting to field any more questions for now. For now he needs to sleep.

Or at least he needs to try.

… … …

“I don’t want to talk about it, Nerd.” Nikita says, but there is no affection there, she is tired, and she is cranky, and she is in pain, and most of all, she can’t tell Birkhoff this secret, no matter how much she wants to.

Seymour unlocks her door for her and takes her bags inside. “I want the full story, Nikki.” He hisses as she maneuvers her crutches through the door, careful not to knock her busted knee against anything as she closes it behind her.

Nikita glares and brings a hand up to her lips in a Shhh gesture.

Birkhoff rolls his eyes, but takes her bags into her room. Nikita knows that he is on his last nerve with all this and his patience with her will not last much longer.

She sets that aside for now and surveys the apartment. It feels like she’s been gone for weeks, though in reality she was eating breakfast in her underwear here four days ago. It’s like her whole world has been tilted off its axis, and nothing quite feels normal anymore.

That being said, she doesn’t put it past Percy or Amanda or the like to have not visited during her short time away. She’s even going to consider telling Birkhoff so much as the quality of the airline food until she has pulled this place apart for bugs and cameras, and that won’t be happening ‘til the ligament in her knee starts pulling its weight again. She’s booked in for keyhole surgery later in the week anyway, so even if she could pull the place apart today, she’d have to do it again in another week or so.

Birkhoff comes back into the hall. “I’ve put a load of washing on, and I’ll get you some milk from the store in a bit so you won’t have to go out later and you can just rest up, and for god’s sake just tell me what happened.” He snaps, and she is taken aback. Nikita knows that Birkhoff has more sense than this.

Birkhoff pulls a black remote with a solid antenna from his pocket and points an angry finger at it. “Signal jammer made by a signals expert. Nothing is getting in or out of here.” He says fiercely, and Nikita has the good sense to feel a little guilty. She should’ve known he’d take precautions, and that he could protect them both from the sort of paranoia she’s been living with on a daily basis. She wishes she had asked for one earlier. “Now spill, Nikki. You’re not the only one taking heat about this.”

She limps over to stool on the other side of her kitchen bench and settles herself gingerly into it. She props the set of crutches against the bench and gestures for Birkhoff to take the one opposite. She is tired, and she figures this conversation is going to take a little while, and she honestly cannot keep standing much longer, not without some more of those painkillers the doctor gave her.

“I can’t tell you everything.” She says bluntly, “And it’s not because I don’t trust you, I do. I just want you to have plausible deniability if anything goes wrong.”

For a moment, Birkhoff looks like he wants to argue the point, and Nikita can see the internal struggle cross his face before he takes a seat on the stool and resentfully says: “Fine.”

“Firstly. You were right about him. He didn’t kill Daniel.” She says calmly. “I think we can safely assume we know who ordered that.”

“Percy.” Birkhoff supplies. Nikita nods.

“Or Amanda, but he knew either way. Michael and I have a plan. He didn’t double-cross me in Uzbekistan, or set me up. It was my idea to go in there, take Tariq out at the airport.”

Birkhoff flinches, and it is a strange comfort for her to believe that someone in her life values her well-being as much as he does. “What you did was practically suicide,” He says, and she shrugs. “It’s amazing they didn’t kill you on the spot.”

“I knew it was a gamble, but it worked.” She said. “It helped me cement my loyalty with Percy. I’ve told him I coerced you into covering for me, and then that Michael manipulated me into killing Kasim by convincing me he had nothing to do with Daniel’s death. He told me he had a way to kill Kasim but he needed my help, that he’d be covering my six the entire time, and that he’d extract me when the job was done, but when I killed him he left me there to take the fall with the Uzbek officials. I told Percy that he’d changed, that this fight has turned him, he’s gone mad.” Her lip quivers a bit, and her voice wavers as she gets caught up in the emotion of her fake excuse to Percy.

Birkhoff smirks a little, and Nikita blinks away the crocodile tears.

“The story fits with what Percy knows, and Michael is going to release some information from the Black Box in the next week or so. Old Michael wouldn’t put that info out there, it’s too dangerous and too many innocent people could get hurt, but it’ll sell the story we need: That he’s mad, that I’m more loyal than ever and completely on Percy’s side. Percy, meanwhile, thinks he’s got the upper-hand in the fight, when we hold all the cards.”

There is silence for a moment or two. Birkhoff nods, and seems to be taking the time to process all this, and Nikita is happy to let him. Better he thinks it through now, than second-guesses himself later. Then Birkhoff says something that surprises her: “You know, Nikki. I could decrypt that Black Box for you.”

“What?” She blinks, dumbly.

“After the first one was stolen, Percy had me upgrade the remaining hardware to remove a flaw in the system.” He swallows and avoids eye contact for a moment, and Nikita is sure that there is a part to the story he is not sharing. She doesn’t push the matter though. “And I know where the remaining six boxes are.”

There is a few moments of silence, as Nikita processes the enormity of just what Birkhoff is offering her. Them. “Are you sure?” She asks quietly. “This is such a precarious thing, Seymour. The last thing I want is for you to get caught up and get hurt.”

His eyes flick to her knee, in its brace, and the dark bruises that mottle her face. But to his credit, he looks her in the eye and says without hesitation: “I’m on your side, Nikki.” He says fiercely. “Whatever side you’re on, that’s my side.”

Nikita pulls him into a strong hug straight away and ignores her protesting knee. Friendship like this is worth the pain.

… … …
It doesn’t take much to convince Owen to release a file or two from the update drive. Michael barely suggests the plan to him and the Guardian arrives on his doorstep looking (and smelling) like someone who lost a fight with a dumpster. Before Michael has a chance to say hello, how’s things, he’s already whipping the thing out from a pocket (he was just carrying it around with him? Is he crazy?) and anonymously emailing incendiary evidence off to all the major news outlets.

“Should I ask what changed your mind?” Owen asks, and Michael isn’t sure what to make of the maniacal glint in the man’s eye. He certainly doesn’t find it comforting. The smell isn’t endearing either.

“I turned another Division operative.” Michael says. “We have a plan, that was part of sealing the cover story.”

Owen raises an eyebrow. “Who, you mean Nikita?”

Michael flinches, and Owen rolls his eyes and pulls his thumb drive out of the USB slot and slips it back into his pocket. “Please, I’m not an idiot. I can connect the dots.”

Michael knows that Owen is baiting him, but he doesn’t really have the patience for mind games right now. If Owen saw through their subterfuge, maybe Percy will too-- Maybe Nikita isn’t as safe and as thorough as they thought. “What dots?” He demands.

Owen, to his credit, seems to sense the change in tone fairly easily and reacts accordingly, raising his hands to calm him. “Relax. I figured once I told you about Daniel and all it’d only be a matter of time until you flipped her.”

Tension still thrums beneath his skin, but the dull ache of dread that filled something low in his stomach fades a little. His heart is still thumping hard against his ribs though, and not for the first time Michael wonders were in hell Owen gets off scaring the shit out of him like this. “That’s it? Nothing else?”

“Not that I’ve seen, no.” Owen shakes his head and stands, hands buried deep in his pockets. “But I promise if I get wind of anything, you’ll be the first one I call.”

Michael nods, and forces himself to relax a little. There are other things he can focus on right now, things that will distract him from the panic attack he just narrowly avoided. Having all these new allies in his fight against Percy and Division should be making his life easier. Instead he feels like he now has a posse of people in his care and he can’t protect all of them. Something’s gonna give one day and he won’t be able to forgive himself if anything happens.

He takes a deep, calming breath and reminds himself that every one of his allies can protect themselves, in some capacity or another. They all volunteered to help him, they all knew the risks. He may feel responsible for them, but they can be responsible for themselves as well, and not one of them would just let him shoulder all this by himself.

“Hey,” Owen says loudly, cutting into his reverie. “Can I use your shower?”

… … …

Her surgery goes well, apparently the damage to her ligament was not as extensive as the doctors thought, and within a few weeks she’s up and walking without a brace or crutches. It’s not steady enough to jog or run on yet, but she studiously keeps up her exercises and every day the limb feels stronger.

The bruises fade as well, and her wounds scar and fade under the guidance of specialist doctors and with the application of many topical creams and several helpful makeup tips from Amanda.

The rehabilitation time is not time idly spent though, and she finds herself thrust straight back into recruitment training, which is just where she’d prefer to be right now anyway. She looks forward to the day that she can actively interfere with Percy’s plans and bring the asshole to his knees, but for now she remains the perfect soldier, shaping the new generation to be just like her.

Not to mention the fact that it gives her a chance to keep a closer eye on her fellow mole. Now that she knows who has been the cause of Division’s worries of late, she knows what to look for, what to hide, and what to reveal, and when to come down hard on Alex to stop her from doing something hideously stupid. The girl is incredibly nosy, and while the other trainers and Amanda see it as a misguided form of ingenuity, Nikita sees it for what it is: sloppy, impulsive, unnecessary decisions, all made in service of Michael, one of the most careful, precise men Nikita has ever worked with. She can’t help but feel that if Michael was here on the inside, he’d probably have some concerns.

So she comes down hard on the girl, dishing out punishments for the slightest behavioural infractions and though she makes an effort to be equally as harsh to the other recruits, she knows her prejudice does not go unnoticed, though thankfully Amanda deems her motives to be a projection, fuelled by a deep-seated mix of rage and depression that was brought on by Michael’s betrayal. Nikita plays into the assumption by destroying one of Amanda’s china tea-sets and storming out of her office in a teary, violent tirade. She takes refuge in Birkhoff’s den.

“Don’t you think that was a bit over the top?” He asks, pushing a mug of steaming black coffee into her hands.

She glares at him, but takes the coffee, and the next day is business as usual.

Some of the older recruits make agent status, Thom, Robbie, and soon enough, despite Nikita’s campaign of punishment, Alex becomes a candidate for promotion. The mark has been picked, the hit planned and arranged. Amanda begins the task of grooming the girl, physically and psychologically, for the task at hand, but it is up to Nikita to give Alex the details.

She carries the mission brief in a simple manilla folder when she is called down to Amanda’s office to begin the briefing. She walks carefully, her knee is still a little unsteady, having only upgraded to a low heel the day before. Alex is twirling disinterestedly in a maroon dress, shifting awkwardly from one foot to another, and the girl sends a glare in her direction when she steps in.

Amanda doesn’t miss a thing, but does not comment. “Nikita. What do we think?” She asks instead, and gestures to the ensemble, then the two alternate outfits that hang on a rack nearby.

Nikita turns a critical eye on Alex, then steps over to examine the other outfits. There is a very similar blue one on the rack that has pockets. “She looks fine in that, she’ll blend in well. But this one has pockets-- easier to conceal the weapon. And you won’t want this one strapped to your leg or hidden in your cleavage.”

“Weapon?” Alex asks, perking up.

“We haven’t discussed the mission yet, Nikita.” Amanda says lightly, and Nikita nods, since it is her job to officially turn these children into murderers, of course the honour is left to her.

“I imagine Alex is smart enough to have made the leap though,” Nikita replies, but keeps her gaze on Alex rather than Amanda. “She’s been here long enough to know how these things work.”

“I have to kill someone to become an agent.” Alex says, and there is something in her tone that rings of an oft-repeated mantra, something the girl says at night in order to come to terms with a difficult truth.

"Yes," Nikita says with a nod, and hands the manilla folder over to the recruit for her to peruse at her leisure. "The target's name is Zoman, head of one of the crime syndicates that sells weapons to terrorists."

She and Amanda give the girl a few moments to peruse the mission documents in silence, both women understanding how important it is for her to grasp the essential details, and to process what they're ordering her to do. But Nikita also sees the way that the recruit’s hands tremble ever so slightly, and the way that the blood drains from her face. It is not good.

But as much as she would like to, Nikita has her own role to play, and this is not the time to be nurturing. "This man is not a good man." She adds lightly, once Alex has finished reading.

"And of course, you'll have support on the ground."

Nikita nods, "I'll be there to monitor everything on the day, and we have Thom and a few other junior agents placed within the catering staff for support. All the details have been sorted, it's just up to you to carry it out for us."

"See, we don't just send you into these sorts of things alone, Alex." Amanda says warmly, and to see the way that she mothers this girl repulses Nikita a little. To her credit, Alex doesn’t seem much comforted either.

"Speaking of, I'll need you down in the training area later and we'll go through the finer details of what you'll need to do." Nikita says briskly, covering up her reaction with the same business-like detachment she has relied upon for so long. "Amanda, I trust you'll go through the finer details with her in the meantime?"

Amanda acquiesces with a smile, and Nikita leaves the room knowing two things. One: That Alex will not be able to kill that man and two: that she should not have to.

The problem is, of course, that if the girl doesn't do it, she'll either blow her cover or be cancelled before the day is out. Not for the first time, Nikita marvels that Michael let this girl volunteer for such an awful mission, one that would no doubt change her completely. You can't go back, once you've killed someone, and not everyone can cope with it. Division is remarkably pragmatic about that, cancellations are performed when the agent is no longer useful to the organisation and those agents who crack under the weight of their sins are just simply not useful.

She ponders the problem all the way back from Amanda’s office, cutting through the training area to return to her own office space on the opposite side of the complex, but before she gets there, two things get in her way.

“Hey Nikita, can I speak with you?” A recruit says to her, as she crosses the training room floor. It’s Jaden, the smart-ass recruit that Alex made an enemy of months ago, and Nikita is still the recruits’ first point of call with any issues they might be having.

“What is it, Jaden?’ She asks, but her tone makes it clear that she doesn’t appreciate the interruption. Jaden either doesn’t pick up on the nuance or doesn’t care.

“Somewhere private?” The girl insists, and Nikita is sure to keep her frustration bottled away inside. She nods politely, and with a commanding twitch of her fingers she gestures for the young girl to follow her back to her office.

The room allocated to her is not one that she spends a lot of time in, she’s generally more mobile than either Birkhoff or Amanda and so hasn’t seen fit to personalise the space much. She does have a closet in the corner with a spare change of clothes for pretty much every occasion (it is necessary, in her line of work) but she has no comfortable couches or love-seats, and her desk is utilitarian and clear of clutter. She takes a seat and gestures for Jaden to sit opposite.

“What’s the problem?” She asks, and she watches as Jaden’s eyes sparkle a little-- like she has achieved some sort of personal victory.

“I’ve found a mole in Division.” She says quickly, and Nikita’s heart begins to thump so hard in her chest she feels sure that everyone in the building can hear it.

“What?” She says, letting some irritation colour her tone so it comes off as concern mixed with something akin to anger.

Jaden leans to the side a little so she can pull something from the pocket of her blue sweatpants, then she places it on the desk between them. It makes a little clink against the clear pyrex surface. Nikita picks it up. It’s the casing from one of their standard issue reading lights, but it has been removed and there is a bit of sticky tape affixed to one side. She reaches over and switches on her own desk lamp to hold the thing up to the light. Sure enough, she sees a fingerprint trapped there. An ingenious little MacGuyvered fingerprint scanner.

“I found it in Alex’s room.” Jaden reveals, and Nikita glances up at the recruit. No wonder that little glint of victory had been there. Those two girls had never gotten along, their personality clashes had been one of her more persistent behaviour management issues over the past year. She should’ve seen this coming. Alex hadn’t hidden her tracks perfectly, and Nikita had told Michael that it was only a matter of time until someone figured it out. Granted, she figured it would be Amanda, but of course Jaden’s paranoia and persistence would come through in the end.

“How long have you had this?” Nikita demands.

“About a week or two.” Jaden says.

“Have you told anyone else about this?” She asks.

And to her great relief, Jaden shakes her head. “I figured you were the only one safe to tell.” She says. “You’re the only one she doesn’t have wrapped around her little fingers.”

Nikita nods slowly, then slips the plastic casing into one of the pockets in her jacket. She stands and circles around the desk, coming to a stop right next to Jaden’s chair. “Thank you for telling me.” She says quietly. “Leave this with me.”

“Are you gonna tell Percy?” Jaden asks looking up, and that sparkle in her eye is back again.

Nikita lashes out, grabbing the girl roughly by the throat, tightly enough to shock the girl out of her revenge fantasy and back into reality, but not so tight that she’ll do any visible damage. “Do not tell anyone else about this.” She commands, “This stays between you and me. Do not snoop into this any more, do not approach Alex, Percy, anyone. And above all, do not look into this any further. I’ll do it from now on. Do you understand?”

She shakes the girl a little, and with more than a little fear in her eyes, Jaden nods. “Yes.” She squeaks.

Nikita lets go of her throat and pointedly rests her hand on her hip. “This sort of thing is delicate, and if you’re not careful it could all come back down on you.” She says in a much softer, more calming voice. She points at the door. “Now go back to your room. I don’t want to see you for the rest of the day.”

To give the girl credit, she does as she’s told without question, and she leaves the room quick smart.

Shit, she thinks to herself. She securely locks the door to give herself a few moments of privacy to collect her thoughts and to figure out some sort of plan to deal with this without raising any further suspicion. The most obvious answer is to frame Jaden for it all, it wouldn’t be hard from her position, and Birkhoff would help (he’s never liked the girl much) but it would mean killing an innocent girl (albeit a completely irritating one) to protect their lie. And that isn’t why she’s doing this. She’s doing this to protect those who can’t protect themselves, to get revenge for those people that Division has wronged and manipulated and hurt.

So no, she’ll need to figure out some other way to keep Jaden’s discovery from coming to light. Somehow, she’ll have to do it.

Later that afternoon, the second, and more pressing complication blindsides her. One of Birkhoff’s techies finds Alex’s shell program during a routine server clean up and takes it directly to Percy. Birkhoff and Nikita stand over Percy’s shoulder and watch stone-faced as he sends IM after IM through to Michael, who responds almost instantaneously, ignorant of the trap into which he’s falling.

Things just got messy.

… … …

fic, nikita, stains, pg

2012-03-24T11:50:46Z

Title: Stains
Fandom: Nikita
Rating: PG
Characters: Ryan, Michael, Nikita, Alex, Sean, Birkhoff
Words: ~2000
Summary: It all comes apart at the seams, and they deal with the aftermath in different ways. An immediate tag to 2.16 - Double Cross. Spoiler heavy.

The first thing he does after months of captivity is bury a body.

It wasn’t really on his bucket list of things to do (if) when he got out, first from jail, and then from Division, but if there is one thing he’s learned in this past year it’s that things rarely ever go the way you expect them to.

He and Michael wrap the body up in white plastic sheeting and spend the afternoon digging a hole big enough for it. When the sun sets and darkness falls upon the safe house, they carry Carla out together and all four of them give their final respects to the woman who betrayed them.

Birkhoff is the first to leave, kicking up sand as he hightails it back to the beach house and Nikita follows quickly behind him. Michael hesitates, as though it pains him to watch them go, but continues to shovel sand and dirt back over the body.

“I’ve got this.” Ryan says quietly. “You go inside.”

“It’ll take you too long.” Michael says, and shakes his head.

Ryan shrugs. “More time for me to relish the fresh air. They need more help than I do right now.”

“Thanks man.” Michael thrusts his shovel down into the sand, where it sticks up in place, and claps Ryan on the back. “I appreciate it.”

“No problem.” He says, and watches Michael walk away, towards the people who’ll need him more.

… … …

Birkhoff puts up a good front and tries to not let it show how much he’s affected by the events of the night, but Nikita sees straight through it and sends him to bed with sleeping pills. He takes them without a fuss, which is good, because she doesn’t really want to lace his red bull with them but she will if she has to.

Once he’s down for the night, she returns to the living space and surveys the damage. The computer bays are destroyed, glass and chipped marble everywhere. Then there is the blood stain in the corner.

She tries not to look at that.

Nikita starts at the beginning. She finds the broom and sweeps up the glass and marble. When the floors are tidy she hefts the destroyed computers out to the garage, though she’s careful to extract the hard drives before she tosses the rest-- maybe when Birkhoff is awake and up to it he’ll be able to retrieve some of the data. Michael returns from outside as she’s unscrewing the last of the drives from its casing, but before he has a chance to help her finish up (she’d been desperately hoping he’d volunteer to mop up the blood) his phone rings and he excuses himself to take a call from the Boy Scout; he and Alex are returning home sooner than expected. They have news.

Soon enough the living room is clean of debris, and there is only the blood in the corner left to go. Nikita fills a bucket with hot water and bleach, and fetches a fresh pair of rubber gloves and a scouring brush from beneath the sink. She stands above the stain with the bucket and the scouring brush held in each hand and ponders the stain.

She sees the stain, and she sees the bloody mess she’d left on the floor of Carla’s apartment when she’d killed that cop. She sees the stain, and she sees the vomit and the mess she’d made after one of her benders, and how carefully and kindly Carla had cared for her afterwards.

She hears the screen door open and close, and she glances up to see Ryan shuffling in from inside. Their eyes meet for a brief second, his are red rimmed, and it is like a jolt to her system. She kneels down on the rough stone floor, dips her brush into the hot, bleachy water then begins scrubbing viciously at the drying blood pools, the messy hand-prints, the smears, the memories and her heartbreak at being betrayed again.

When will she catch a break? Who will be next?

… … …

They leave Russia earlier than expected, leaving the camera crew and Ari Taserov and Sergei Semak and her mother and Zetrov, and everything behind, for now.

They have the Gulfstream to themselves since it belongs to Sean’s family anyway. Alex suspects the camera crew will be a little miffed at being left in the mansion without a wide-eyed, eager Alexandra Udinov to follow around, but she can’t find it in her heart to care too much. Instead she stares at the photograph of Cassandra and her mind spins out trying to connect all the dots in their tangled web. Cassandra and Michael have a child, but Michael and Nikita love each other and have done for years. Nikita saved her and helped her become a powerful, strong, independent woman again, but she was the one who killed her beloved father. But Semak was the real culprit, who is protected he is protected by Taserov. Taserov who is working with Amanda, the woman who is helping Alex reclaim her rightful place. But Alex doesn’t believe for a second that Amanda is ignorant of Cassandra, and the power she holds over Michael and Nikita...

“Stop it.” Sean’s soft voice commands from the seat opposite. She looks up at him, reclining in his seat with his eyes closed. If he hadn’t just spoken, she could easily believe he was asleep. “Stop thinking about it.”

“I can’t.” Alex insists, gesturing to the glowing laptop screen with its glaring truths. “How did we not see this?”

“We can’t see everything.” Sean insists. “We can’t know everything. But you know what I do know? We’re on the better side, Michael, Nikita, Birkhoff, You-- you’re all the best at what you do, you’ll figure out a way to get past this and come out stronger on the other side.”

But Alex can’t see it. All she can see is how this will drive another wedge into their little family. She’s not sure how much longer they can weather it before they break apart for good.

… … …

He doesn’t take the pills Nikki forced on him.

He drinks, instead.

He finds most of a bottle of tequila in a cabinet in his room, one he squirrelled away while he recovered from surgery. Nikki didn’t want him drinking then, and he knows she doesn’t want him drinking now, but he trusts the numbness alcohol brings more than the dull void of a sleeping pill. He knows it’s not healthy, he knows he shouldn’t. His mother used to drink like this too, and he’s smart enough and educated enough to have read all the stats, about alcoholism and genetics.

But frankly right now he doesn’t care. He knocks back half the bottle in less than half an hour, and the warmth that spreads through his chest and down to his fingers and toes, and he thinks to himself how he can’t feel the pain in his hand anymore. Instead it’s an almost tingly, pleasant feeling. It went away so easily.

He takes another swig from the bottle and stares at his hand. It’s speckled with healing scars, and one of the knuckles is swollen, and he thinks it’s amazing that he was able to hold a gun steady with this hand anyway. Hehehe, maybe all the pins he has in there it means he’s just that much more badass and with badassness comes sweet ass gun skillz.

He chuckles to himself out loud. Sweet gun skillz. Yeah, watch out Terminator. He’ll be back.

He leans back on the bed, embracing the dizzy spell that rolls over him from one side to the other and stares at the sloped ceiling. This is the master bedroom and he is the master. He should’ve known he’d ascend to this level of badassery sooner rather than later, he is the ShadowWalker after all. It’s in his blood. He takes his once broken hand and makes a gun with his fingers and takes aim at a crack in the ceiling.

But he falters. There is blood on his hands still, drying brown stuff caked beneath his fingernails. He rolls out of bed and stumbles back into his ensuite to scrub his hands again, but his fingers falter with the faucet, he twists it hard, but no water comes out the nozzle until it occurs to him dumbly that he’s been twisting twists the other way, and that he’s only made it harder for himself.

He pauses, and glances up at himself in the mirror, and is shocked and surprised to see the tears there on his face again. When had he started crying? Or hadn’t he ever stopped? He furiously rubs them away from his eyes, but it only makes him feel worse. All he is is tears and blood and tequila and nothing will ever be right again.

Nothing.

… … …

Michael is on his way to his room when he hears sobbing coming from Birkhoff’s room. Ryan is still outside, burying Carla, and Nikita is downstairs furiously cleaning, so he knows it is up to him to pick up the pieces here.

He finds the man sitting on the floor, reeking of too much tequila, and Michael mentally kicks himself for not keeping a closer eye on the man. They’ve known each other for years, and if he knows anything about Birkhoff its that he has very little regard for his own personal well-being in the stressful times.

But now is not the time to berate. He hoists the broken man up by the armpits, and goads him back to bed. When Birkhoff is safely tucked in, and when Michael has forced a big glass of water down his gullet, he shuts off the lights, takes the empty bottle of tequila with him as he leaves and bumps into Nikita as he turns down the hall.

“Sorry.” He mutters, but NIkita doesn’t seem to care. Her eyes are on the empty bottle in his hands.

“Is he alright?” She asks quietly, and she reaches out a hand to finger the rim of the bottle lightly.

Michael shrugs, “Not yet.” He says, and hands the bottle to her. “I think he decided to self-medicate.”

“Oh, Birkhoff.” She says, and he can hear the heartbreak in her tone, the concern, the guilt. She steps forward to open his door, but Michael puts himself in between, gently grabbing her hand.

“He’s sleeping. He’ll be fine for now.” He says.

“But...”

He shakes his head, “Just give him time. We can be there for him tomorrow.”

He watches anguish flit across her face, and he wants nothing more than to reach out and pull her to him in a crushing embrace, to hold her and never let go, to protect her from the heartbreak he knows she’s feeling now, over the death of her mother, over Birkhoff’s pain, but he knows he can’t right now, not when they haven’t worked through their own problems.

So he changes the topic. “Alex has news for us. We should get some sleep, she said she’d call in the morning, when they’ve landed.”

“Did she say what it was about?”

“No.” He admits, “But I didn’t ask. Whatever it is, we can deal with it tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” She says, and sighs. “Tomorrow.”

fic, nikita, cuts both ways 3/4

2012-03-15T21:35:35Z

Title: Cuts Both Ways 3/4
Fandom: Nikita
Characters: Michael, Nikita, Alex, Amanda, Percy, Birkhoff, Owen.
Rating: PG-13 for this part. May increase in future chapters.
Summary: "He leaves Division in the dead of night. He says no goodbyes, he lets no one know that anything might be amiss." -- Michael discovers the truth about his family's death first and goes rogue well before Nikita meets Daniel.
Author's note: I thought this would be the last part but it got long. Next part is definitely the last part.

Love, like a blow to the head has knocked me down and I’m bleeding

… … …

“Percy is sure Michael is dead.” Nikita says to Birkhoff, late one night, a few weeks after the debacle in Montreal.

“You don’t think so?” Birkhoff asks quietly, and he finishes typing another line of code into whatever new program he’s writing, then turns to face her. Nikita shrugs and settles herself down onto his couch, pushing the empty bags of potato chips and red bull cans off the edge and onto the floor, and fluffing up the cushions beside her.

“I don’t really know.” She confesses, and she wishes that Birkhoff was blasting his deafening techno music so that there is something to fill the deep silence that seems to stretch between them. “It just doesn’t feel right. Maybe he’s just hiding again, maybe he’s hiding that Owen fellow. He had one of the black boxes, maybe they’re figuring out how to use that information.”

“They won’t be able to. Not easily.” Birkhoff says, and he has a certain look on his face that makes her think maybe he shouldn’t be sharing that with her so freely. Nikita knows that she doesn’t know everything that goes on here, Birkhoff knows things she doesn’t, but it goes the other way as well. No matter how omnipresent Birkhoff claims to be, there are black spots in his intel.

But honestly it’s not important. “I don’t have any evidence. Just a weird feeling about it. I don’t feel settled, nothing feels complete.”

“Well, I guess we’ll see soon enough whether your gut is right.” Birkhoff says, and returns back to his coding.

Nikita leans back on his couch against the fluffed cushions and just breathes. The last few weeks have been hard, they’ve felt harder and more stressful than the last few years, somehow, and every time she thinks about why, her stomach rolls and rebels against her. She finds herself hiding from Percy more often, as though he can somehow read her thoughts and knows that she has been doubting everything.

Michael is dead, supposedly. He’s the one who killed her fiance. She should be elated. Percy certainly is, though he isn’t showing it in the regular, normal way that most human beings do-- he’s walking around Division with more confidence and more zeal than ever. But she isn’t. She wanted a chance to speak with Michael again. She wanted to ask him about Daniel, about why he killed him, why Daniel was ever a target. And then, she wanted to be the one to kill him herself. Or she wanted to be the one to forgive him. Or she wanted to do both at once. She’s never been able to decide exactly what she’d do if she saw him again, because she knows that there is more to the story than she’s been given.

Nikita watches Birkhoff type frantically away at his work station, surrounded by his mega computers, with their flashing lights, hypnotically red, yellow, blue, green, flashing away. He seems so absorbed in whatever Percy has told him to do today, she thinks it’s hacking the CIA, but she hasn’t been watching too closely. She thinks to herself that this mess of a man right here is probably her only friend, which is something she never would’ve predicted when she was recruited to Division nine years ago, and the man on whom she’s come to rely so heavily.

She pushes herself up from the couch and begins rifling through one of Birkhoff’s other workstations, pushing aside the rest of his food scraps and spare computer parts until she extracts a laptop from the pile, and she takes it back with her to the couch.

A few weeks back Birkhoff partitioned a section of the server off for their own private use (what Percy doesn’t know about won’t kill him) and she uses it to access the security footage of Daniel’s death. She’s watched these ten minutes of footage countless times, so many times that she knows exactly how the wrinkles in Daniel’s shirt sit across his shoulder, and she could replicate the exact splatter of blood that is spread across Michael’s cheek. She can list exactly what each man is wearing. Daniel is in his pink shirt (real men wear pink) and neatly pressed navy suit pants. The jacket he’d been wearing all day is hung in the crook of his elbow, and the same hand is holding his briefcase while he rifles in his pocket with his other for the keys to his apartment. She watches every time how his watch (the one he inherited from his Grandfather, that he had to manually wind every day so that it kept perfect time) catches on the lip of his pocket before he pulls out the keys then disappears into the security camera’s blind spot just outside the apartment door.

She watches the next 7 minutes, as nothing happens in the halls. The security footage has no sound, so she has no way of knowing if a microphone would’ve picked up anything that happened within the walls of Daniel’s apartment. If they had yelled at each other, if you could hear the struggle. The walls of the apartment complex were thin, she and Daniel had been able to hear the neighbours above them cook dinner to salsa music, and the neighbours to the side make passionate, noisy love after they’d finished watching Grey’s Anatomy.

Then Michael emerges suddenly from the same corner Daniel had disappeared into. Unlike Daniel, who was casually returning home, Michael sprints down the corridor, dressed all in black, though the soles of his shoes have a small section of red rubber inset into them, most likely the brand, and instead of waiting for the elevator he slams through the emergency exit door and into the stairwell to make a speedy exit. Only once during his escape does he look behind him, and that is as he opens the emergency door, when he glances back down the corridor with a stoic expression on his face. Nikita freezes the footage on that one frame, and tries to read the lines of his face. What was he thinking, as he ran away? Was that regret? Was it anger? Was it success?

She couldn’t say.

Frustrated, she pushes the laptop to her side, and returns her attentions to Birkhoff, who is still studiously working amidst his detritus. She waits until he seems to have paused for reflection, and she interrupts him quietly.

"We're going about finding him the wrong way." Nikita says, and rubs her tired eyes with the balls of her hands. "He's too good at hiding where he is, if we haven't had any luck for the past five years, we're certainly not going to find him now, and if we assume that if Owen is with him now, Michael will be keeping him out of sight as well. Or at least teaching him how to hide from us in the same way."

Birkhoff turns to look at her but doesn't reply, instead he reaches for the luke-warm coffee resting beside his elbow and takes a sip.

"We need to start thinking like him.” Nikita goes on, “What's the one thing we know he wants."

"To take down Division." Birkhoff says immediately. "He hasn't exactly been quiet about that."

Nikita shakes her head. "No. Well. Yes, but what I mean is we don't know how he's going to do that. Maybe he'll use the black box somehow, now he has access to one, but he wants something more than that."

"What?" Birkhoff asks, frowning a little.

"He wants revenge. He wants to kill the man who killed his family." Nikita says bluntly, because that is what she wants as well, and they both know it.

"Kasim Tariq."

"Yes." Nikita nods, and snatches up the laptop once again. She quickly launches ShadowNet and searches the terrorist's name, and in an instant a summary of information they have on the ex-Division agent is in front of her. "I assume we have an intelligence trace on him." She asks, and Birkhoff is already typing away at his own computer, and tracking down any new information of his own.

"Yep, though it's been pretty quiet these last few months from what I can see. There's a note here saying he has ties to Gogol, which is probably why."

"Gogol." Nikita repeats, and files that away to process later. "Send me everything you can find on Tariq." She says perfunctorily, knowing that for her, Birkhoff would do it anyway. They have worked closely enough these past few years for him to be able to safely anticipate her every whim, and vice versa.

"Done." And sure enough, her computer lets off a little ping notification to confirm.

"Thank you." She says, and opens the secured file. "Can you restrict access to you and me only, please? And if anything new pops up, or we get a confirmation of his current whereabouts. Let me know straight away."

Birkhoff pauses for a moment, and Nikita panics for a second, wondering if she’s asked too much of him. If this need for secrecy is too much for Birkhoff to handle. But then Birkhoff answers: "Sure thing, Nikki." in an almost cheerful tone, and she knows that he is her best friend.

… … ...

Looking after Owen is nothing like looking after Alex. In fact, on the whole, Michael finds that living with a recovering drug addict far easier than living with this acerbic, barely tolerable man. At first Michael writes Owen’s attitude off as grief, mixed in with physical pain-- the bullet wound to the man’s leg took a while to heal, and Michael’s skills as a surgeon left much to be desired.

But then he heals, and the relationship does not improve very much, though at least they coexist as reluctant allies. They have enough in common to know they’re on the same side, but that’s about all they agree on. Owen refuses to give up the location of his Black Box, insisting that it is safer if only he knows it, and Michael refuses to give Owen details about Alex, though he couldn’t keep the fact that he had a man on the inside at Division secret for very long.

Not to mention, Owen still holds a grudge about Michael shooting him. Michael may have neglected to apologise for that. But the guy was a dick. He'll get over it one day.

In the meantime, they spend their days skirting around each other, like skittish, territorial cats. Michael reluctantly shows Owen the ropes, hands over some of his contacts (though not all of them, Michael's not stupid) so that he can get his own cash, ID, weapons, anything he needs really, while staying off Division's radar. They establish a method of communicating with each other so that when they separate (which will be as soon as freaking possible, as far as Michael is concerned) they'll still be able to keep in touch all while being far, far away from each other.

He finishes up a brief instant message with Alex, who's been keeping him updated on the fallout of his "death" in Division, when he realises Owen snuck in at some-point. Michael slams the laptop shut quickly, and glares at the Guardian. "I thought we agreed you'd stop sneaking around." He says lowly and gets up from his spot, ostensibly to take his now empty coffee cup back to the kitchen to wash up, but really it's to put him on even footing with Owen.

"I wasn't sneaking." Owen says, and the impatience that Michael finds so dangerous is there, hovering behind his words.

"Well you weren't going out of your way to make yourself known." Michael says, unable to keep the grouchiness from his voice. He snatches up the empty coffee cup and the plate on which his lunch had sat. "What do you want?"

Owen doesn't answer. Instead he steps over and opens the laptop, where the last few lines of text from Alex are still hovering on the screen: Percy is the only one who thinks you're really dead. Everyone else, though...

"Do you have a way of getting her out?" Owen asks evenly, "Because they'll find her eventually. They know everything."

"Don't you worry about that." Michael says dismissively. "I've got it under control."

"Really?" Owen says, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "Because we've been here for weeks, and I'm starting to get the idea you don't know as much as we always thought you did."

"We?"

"Well, maybe you know more now you have your little mole in there, but you've just been flying by the seat of your pants these past few years, haven't you?"

Michael lets out a wry, dry chuckle. "You're trying that tack are you?" He asks, knowingly. "You're trying to get me to doubt myself, so that I'll let you use the information off the black box."

"It's not like I have to ask for permission, do I?" Owen spits. "I'm the one who knows it's location, not you. I'm the one with the power."

"Yeah, And I'm the one who saved your life." Michael stabs a finger at the man's chest, hitting his sternum.

"Funny. I see you as the guy who shot me twice." Owen says.

Michael rolls his eyes. This conversation is going exactly the same way it always does, around in circles, with both of them arcing up, resisting the authority and expertise and opinions of the other. Frankly, Michael is getting tired of it.

"Using the black box isn't an option, until we have all of them, and you know it." Michael says. "If you're done creeping around for the day, we can keep debriefing each other, see if we can remember anything else we might be able to use against Percy."

Owen begrudgingly accedes the point and a few minutes later they're settling down across the table from one another with a pen and pad each.

"It's your turn to start." Owen says, twisting the ball point pen in his fingers. "Let me have em."

Michael quickly skims his notes, they've spent the last few sessions covering Owen's role as a Guardian, what it entailed, whether he knew of the other Guardians, where they were assigned, protocol, contingency plans to see if there was any way that the position could be exploited. Owen in turn had questions about Michael's time away from Division-- what he's spent his time doing. He spent more than his fair share of time picking at Michael to reveal his mole, but Michael had drawn a line in the sand on that one, til he completely trusted the other man. He wasn't even sure that day would ever come, to be quite frank.

Today he decides that he should probably be a little less intense in his questioning, maybe focus on their common ground.

"Tell me about Daniel Munroe." He says simply, putting his pen to paper. "He was my first real lead after I got out of Division, I was keeping tabs on him for weeks, but I could never figure out what they wanted with him. And you were there."

But what he thought would be a simple answer clearly is not as clear-cut as he thinks. Owen shoots a suspicious glare in his direction, and Michael wonders what possible nerve he's hit this time, Owen is so damn sensitive about every damn thing...

"What?" Owen finally asks, and stops twisting his pen between his fingers.

"Daniel Munroe. What was Division's interest in him?" Michael repeats, but this time he is a little less certain, because Owen now looks genuinely dumbfounded, and more than a little bit uncomfortable.

"You mean you don't know?" Owen asks, tentatively.

"No, that's why I'm asking. I know Division was interested, and it was all but confirmed when I ran into you, but..."

"I killed him that night." Owen says bluntly, cutting him off. "You weren't meant to be there, but we figured afterwards that you knew I was coming and had tried to intercept me. You didn't try very hard, but..."

It is Michael's turn to be confused. He tries to process this new information, to slot it in with what he already knows to be true: Owen was a Cleaner before he became a Guardian, and he was one of the best. Daniel had been in close contact with a Division operative in the months before his death. It must've been because he had some intel, or some connection that was a threat to 'national security' or whatever bullshit excuse Percy had given it.

"Alright." Michael says with a nod. "So after I got away, you killed him. That explains why no one followed me. I know I shot you, but I figured you had backup nearby, it always bothered me I got away so clean."

"No. There wasn't any backup, just me, and I had strict orders to carry out my mission at any cost." Owen explained. "He arrived home about twenty minutes after you and I fought. I killed him with your gun, set it up to look like a house invasion gone wrong."

Michael nods. This he all knew, from news articles and police reports. "Why was he a target?"

Owen's brow ruffles again. "He was engaged to a Division agent in deep cover, he was a civilian. Percy gave me the order to take him out himself."

This aligns so well with everything he knows about Division policies that he’s honestly kicking himself he hadn’t thought of it before now. The man had no real intelligence value, no connections to anything of importance. It’s really the only thing that makes sense. "Which one?"

Owen pauses for a long moment, "Nikita." He says finally, and Michael feels his heart drop out of his chest.

Nikita.

And everything just falls into place in front of his eyes. All those little things make sense, the hit on Daniel of course, but mostly Nikita, her reactions towards him and Birkhoff's animosity towards him. And then other things that Alex has mentioned, about the restructuring of Division, Nikita's rise within the ranks, and the strange fierce loyalty that Percy had fostered in her in the years he'd been away.

"They framed me for it, didn't they." Michael says, not really needing Owen to answer, because he already knows.

"Yeah. They had footage of you coming into the building, they spliced it together. With that and your gun and prints at the scene..." Owen trails off, "It was pretty convincing."

"It always is." Michael says with a sigh, and gets up from the table. "We'll do this later. I need some time to think."

"Take your time, man. Whatever you need."

… … …

At first she worried that she wouldn't be able to keep her little investigation away from others. The guilt weighed on her for a while as she wondered whether she was right to doubt what she knew, whether it was fair, whether it was just. She has always liked finding things out for herself, having the evidence laid out in front, clear and plain as day, without needing to doubt its integrity, but she knows that that is a luxury born of self reliance. Trust is something given and earned, and these people have trusted in her all these years and yet here she is, repaying them with...

With what?

But when she pulls on her tailored suit, with its slim-line, neatly pressed pants, and the corseted jacket, and she pulls her hair into a practical yet stylish pony-tail, it is as though she is pulling on armor. No, not armor, a costume: she is playing a character. Nikita, the faithful, trustworthy, loyal agent. The one who has never doubted anything, who believes the system she is working for is right and just and good.

The suit protects her from the suspicious looks, and it helps her bristle at Percy's subtle insinuations about her relationship with Michael, and helps her wave away Amanda's continued attempts to pry into her subconscious.

The suit keeps her safe, and it keeps her on guard.

She stands straight and tall beside a seated Amanda, carefully watching Alex conduct her first interrogation. It isn't going particularly well, and Amanda begins to bark orders through the intercom. "Positive incentives aren't working, Alex, maybe it's time to try a negative one?"

Nikita notes, and knows that Amanda does as well, that Alex is extremely reluctant to administer the shock-- the recruit eyes the little controller she has in her hand with skepticism and a little fear. Nikita knows that feeling, but knows that she is going to have to get over that fear sooner rather than later.

"She's a little green for this sort of interrogation." Nikita murmurs quietly, and she hears Percy come in quietly and stand behind her. She glances back at the man, who though she's wearing heels still somehow manages to loom above her. "You don't normally sit in on recruit training."

Percy quirks a single eyebrow at her, but doesn’t seem angry when he says: “Well you were the one who told me she was special. I wanted to see for myself.”

Nikita nods, and returns her attention to the monitors. She watches Alex goad the man -- turning the offer to let him see his family into a barely veiled threat is clever, but no one expects the reaction they get when the man launches himself from the chair, ripping apart the plastic cuffs, and slams Alex into the wall.

Amanda immediately calls the guards for backup, and Nikita turns on her heel, runs out the door and down the hall to the interrogation room. By the time she is there the guards are hauling the terrorist away and Alex is cowering on the floor, clutching at her throat and gasping for air.

“Alex.” She says, and pulls the girl’s hands away so she can inspect the damage, but Alex resists and slaps them away.

“Alex.” She says more forcefully, and grabs her by the jaw, forcing her to make eye contact. “I need to know if you’re hurt.”

The girl is frightened, but drops her hands, and Nikita gently caresses the bruised skin, checking for abraisions, any signs that the wind-pipe had been crushed, anything that could lead to permanent damage...

“It’s just bruised.” Nikita murmurs, and gently pushes a lock of hair away from Alex’s face. “You’ll be fine.”

“He was crazy, why wasn’t he properly cuffed?” Alex yells, though the timbre of her voice is not quite up to it after the abuse it had just received.

Nikita sees the beginning of a panic attack starting, and she knows that she needs to nip this in the bud before it gets out of hand. “Think, Alex. He couldn’t have metal restraints, not with the electric shock.” And picks up the small remote control that had been dropped in the fracas and returns it to Alex.

“I could’ve been killed.” Alex hisses, and seems to be on the verge of tears. Nikita shushes her automatically.

“Hey hey hey.” She says, making firm eye contact with her. “I won’t let that happen to you.” she promises, then lifts the girl to her feet. “Let’s get you to the medical bay.”

She stays with Alex through the exam with the doctor, and when that is done and pain pills are prescribed, she escorts her back to her room to rest.

“She’ll be fine for the op tomorrow.” She tells Amanda when they reconvene later that evening. “She’s a little shaken, but she’s dealt with worse.”

Amanda nods and adds a brief note to a file on her iPad. “You did a very good job of keeping her calm.” She says lightly, setting aside the tablet to reach for her tea. “Would you like some?”

“Sure.” Nikita says, and settles down in the seat across from the older woman. “She was going to hurt herself more if we weren’t careful.”

“True.” Amanda says, and pours the green tea into the two little ceramic cups, setting the pot back onto its tray. “You’ve grown into a more nurturing figure than I expected you would.”

Nikita isn’t sure how to respond to that, and she honestly hasn’t noticed the change herself. She accepts the little cup when it’s passed with an: “Oh?”

“Yes.” Amanda says firmly. “Ever since Michael left and you were promoted to help manage the recruits.”

“Well it’s what the role requires, isn’t it.” She reasons, and takes a sip of the tea. It is the perfect temperature, warm enough to fill her chest with heat but not so hot to burn her tongue.

“It’s certainly the way that Michael handled the recruits.” Amanda says, and though her tone is light, and her words are innocent, Nikita knows that there is nothing light and innocent in what Amanda is insinuating and she is suddenly angry she is being questioned and probed and judged in such a manner.

“Oh, well.” Nikita shrugs, calm and composed. “It’s an effective method for building trust, which is more than I can say for thinly veiled interrogations.”

Perhaps it is too far, she thinks, and watches Amanda’s face keenly for even the slightest facial tick or glimpse of emotion that would incriminate her forever.

But Amanda’s poise wins out in the long run, and betrays nothing. Nikita has to satisfy herself with Amanda’s words instead: “I suppose you’re right. Though look where your trust in Michael got you.”

Nikita sets her cup very deliberately back down on the table to keep from throwing it in the other woman’s face.

Amanda gives her the softest of smiles. “He betrayed us all, in the end.”

She doesn’t stay long with Amanda after that, but she doesn’t manage to leave the complex til late in the evening. The single strand of hair she’d wound around the lock on her apartment door is still in place-- she’s had no unwanted visitors today, so when she steps inside and closes the door behind her she finally relaxes.

Slowly, piece by piece, she removes her costume, her armour. She releases her hair from the tight ponytail. The shoes, tall heels for authority, are kicked off into the hall closet. The corseted jacket, now a little wrinkled from wear, is hung across the hamper in the bathroom, and is quickly followed by her blouse and pencil skirt.

She stands for a moment in her underwear in front of her bathroom mirror and surveys the damage for the day: bags under her eyes betray her exhaustion, knots in her stomach have banished any hunger she should feel, chipped polish from a vigorous session at the firing range...

There is still a small pink blemish of a scar on her left shoulder, just below her clavicle. She presses it with a firm finger, and deep inside the sinew and muscle of the joint she feels the ache that has been there for months, no, for years. For longer than Daniel, even. It’s been there since Michael left, really, and no matter how hard she tries to find him, to help him, to get her revenge, to kill him, to replace him, none of it has come close to healing her of the pain because it all boils down to one thing:

She misses him.

That’s what the costume is really for.

The suit protects her from the suspicious looks, and it helps her bristle at Percy's subtle insinuations about her relationship with Michael, and helps her wave away Amanda's continued attempts to pry into her subconscious.

The suit keeps her safe. It keeps her on guard.

They run the second part of the interrogation simulation the next day, and when it all goes pear-shaped, and Alex kills her interrogator-- the Division agent playing the part-- it is the pressed suit she wears that reminds her of her role. It helps her bring Alex back into the fold when the hysterical girl is panicking at the gas station and hell-bent on running away forever. It helps her recognise she’s being tested when Percy demands she ‘deal’ with the girl, permanently. And while it doesn’t come to that in the end, the pressed suit helps her cope when she sees that the trust she’s spent so long building with Alex is torn asunder so easily.

It keeps her alive.
… … …

It’s an innocuous little phone call that changes everything. Owen’s gone, out of the picture for now, tracking down other guardians and other black boxes, and Michael for his part is relishing his return to privacy and solitude. He gets himself back on track, foiling Percy’s foul plans where he can.

He is planning for his next mission, thanks to some info Alex managed to get out to him earlier, when his cell phone buzzes across the table. The display says 'Private Number'.

"Yes?" He says guardedly.

"Hey Mikey. It's Bobby. You told me to give you a call if I heard anything about Kasim Tariq. He's in Uzbekistan."

He moves quickly after that, in less than twenty-four hours he's checked into a hotel in Tashkent, and peeking through the curtains and the hustle and bustle of the street below. He never would've thought this morning that he'd be here, in this place, about to do what he's been planning to do for years. He knows Alex is worried, and rightly so. If things don't go right here, she'll be left without a safety net... But he can't focus on that right now. He sent her a message while he was on the plane, letting her know he'll be off the radar for at least a few days. That'll have to do for now. She's a smart girl, she can lay low for a while without him.

Michael hears a strange noise behind him, and he reacts instantly, unholstering the gun from his hip and whipping around, but the barrel of a silencer is already pointed at his head.

Nikita.

... ... ...

She gets an email with the intel update. Kasim Tariq sighted in Tashkent. Expected to make trade with Russian mob by the end of the week.

There is a P.S. note at the end from Birkhoff: Nikki. I've fudged your GPS tracker data and I'll cover for you for a few days. Do what you've got to do.

She doesn't waste any time. She hitches a ride on a military transport to Afghanistan and gets a transfer to Uzbekistan within an hour of landing in Kabul. She makes the assumption that Michael would have his own feelers out for intelligence and would've got the same info as her around the same time, but he would be restricted to commercial flights, and so she feels pretty safe in her assumption that she got here first. When she lands she pulls out the netbook Birkhoff furnished her with a while ago, and using the modified version of Shadownet he installed she hacks the local hotels (keeping it to 4 stars and above-- she knows Michael likes a certain level of comfort when he travels) and she finds a booking fitting her description: American. Made less than twelve hours ago. For one night. Cash.

A cab ride later, and after slipping past laughably lax hotel security, she's inside his room. Shadownet tells her the flight he most likely would've taken landed about half an hour ago, and factoring in immigration time, the taxi ride here, she expects she has another twenty minutes or so until Michael gets here himself.

She sits down on the bed, and sets her gun and computer down beside her, ready to wait.

Then her phone rings. It's Birkhoff.

"Yeah?" She asks, quietly.

"Nikki." He says urgently, and instantly she begins to fret, thinking Percy has caught them in their subterfuge, but it is much worse. "Load up the Daniel footage, I think I found something."

"Hold on." She says and wedges her phone between her ear and her shoulder, grabs the netbook and loads the footage as promised. As she does this, a revolution boils in her tummy, tumbling and bubbling and it takes all her self control to push it back down and focus on the task he's given her.

"It's up. What am I looking for?" It begins to play, looking ever the same as usual. Daniel walking casually down the hallway, timestamp ticking over in the corner.

"Pause it at 20:17 at around the 35 second mark." He says, and Nikita navigates to the exact spot and pauses as instructed. Daniel is walking, left hand flexed outwards, his Grandfather's watch peeking out from beneath the sleeve of his pink (real men wear pink) shirt.

"Done. What am I looking at?" She asks. "I don't have much time."

"Yeah, yeah." Birkhoff says quickly. "Zoom in on his watch."

It's a little difficult for her to do with the phone still wedged between her ear and shoulder, but she taps the right command into the program and it blows the image up. At first it is too blurry to see detail, the original footage is not of the highest quality, but the program Birkhoff insists they work with automatically begins cleaning up the image, sharpening the details until she can read the exact time on the watch. 8:31.

"It might be nothing." Birkhoff says quickly, "But the time on the watch says it's a bit after 8:30, which doesn't match the time stamp of the footage."

She can tell Birkhoff thinks he's just grasping at straws but she knows it's the smoking gun they've been looking for. Daniel dutifully wound that watch every day when he got out of the shower. It kept perfect time, in the way that only old, well crafted time pieces could, and he treated it like the treasured possession it was. If it was only a few minutes different to the time stamp she could've waved it away as a subtle discrepancy, but fourteen minutes is telling.

"It's not nothing." She says quietly, and then her ear pricks as she hears the soft bell of the elevator ring at the end of the hall. It will be Michael. “It’s everything.”

“Nikki,” He says, but she knows she won’t have time to hash out her feelings with him on this right now. She hasn’t got the time.

"I've gotta go, Birkhoff. Thanks."

She hangs up the phone, slips it into her pocket and stashes the netbook in the bathroom, where she hides behind the door and waits. Sure enough, less than a minute later she hears the electronic click of the main door unlock and she can hear the heavy footsteps and measured breathing of a man.

Her mind is whirling with information. The footage had been doctored. She’s suspected it for a little while, but now she has the proof. Michael didn’t kill Daniel. He’s just on the other side of this door, and she has the proof that he didn’t kill the man she loved. He’s here in a foreign country to kill the man who killed his family, and she is here because she knew he would be.

So she steps out of the bathroom, and points her gun at him. He’s on high alert, naturally, and as soon as he hears her move out into the main room, he has a gun trained at her heart, and she can’t help but smile as it’s goddamn deja vu all over again.

"How did you..." He begins.

"Hello Michael." She interrupts, quietly, then lowers the gun.. He darts a glance at the door, then the window, clearly looking for his escape route, and she sighs. “I’m here alone. No one knows where I am.”

It’s a lie, but it’s as true as he needs it to be. No one who wants to hurt him knows where she is.

She watches closely, and sees the tiny little wrinkles form between his eyes. He is puzzled, confused, and then in one, enormous moment he relaxes and lowers the weapon in his hands. “Hello Nikita.” He says, and there is a touch of his old warmth there, just enough to quell the hurricane in her stomach a little.

Nikita nods and allows herself to relax a little in return. “We should talk.” She says.

… … …

They sit on opposite sides of the room, he at the desk, and her on the edge of the bed. She is right, there is so much they need to talk about, but neither of them seems to know just where to start. There is a veritable mountain of complexity before them and there are so many things they could begin with.

Michael opens his mouth to tell her what he learned from Owen, that he had been framed, that he didn’t kill Daniel, that he would never hurt her like that, he would never inflict this pain on someone else. But she speaks before he gets the chance.

“Did you kill Daniel?” She asks, and it is so straight forward and devoid of emotion that he is at first a little surprised.

“No.” He says unequivocally. “No. I didn’t kill him.”

“Were you there that night to kill him?” She asks.

“No.”

“What were you doing there?”

He pauses for a moment to remember. Then he explains: “I had evidence of an undercover division agent who had a connection to him and wanted to know why. I thought he was your target, that he had some intelligence or connection Division wanted to exploit.”

Nikita is quiet for a moment, and he can see that she is slotting this new information into her understanding of everything. He can see the toll this life has had on her, the bags beneath her eyes, she looks skinnier than she’s ever been, and it’s as though there is a heavy burden weighing on her shoulders. She looks much older than her twenty seven years, and it kills him to know he was inadvertently the cause of such toxic stress.

“He was just a graphic designer.” Nikita says finally, and he can hear a tremble in her voice.

“I know.” He says, and leans forward. “It didn’t make any sense to me at the time. When I was there in the apartment I found some Division bugs, but there wasn’t any reason. He had no security connections, no terrorist connections. No access to money or information. I was in the middle of my search when the Cleaner turned up. We fought and I shot him in the shoulder and I managed to get away before Daniel got home. I assumed the Cleaner was there for me, until I read he died in the paper.”

He wants nothing more than to reach out to her and comfort her, she’s not crying, but she is clearly upset and it pains him to know that he has been the root of so much of the sadness in her life. Even if it was all a lie.

“I was out of town that night, I was part of a smash and grab team in New York. It was simple work, but when you left they promoted me to recruit supervision so I was leading the raid. I got home so early in the morning, I didn’t have any time to sleep, but I went over to Daniel’s place anyway because I knew I could get breakfast there and he’d let me sleep on his couch all day and watch reruns of Friends and then when he got home from work that evening he’d watch it with me.

Instead I got to his place and the door was closed but it wasn’t locked. Furniture was everywhere, and then I got to the living room and he was dead on the floor next to the coffee table.” He sees a tiny tear roll down her cheek, and she doesn't wipe it away. "The first person I called was Percy, can you believe that? He was number one on my speed dial. I call him and I tell him what happened, and I don't remember much after that until I woke up in Birkhoff's office on his couch and they show me this footage of Daniel coming home, and then you running down the same corridor five minutes later with a blood splatter across your cheek. And then there is DNA evidence proving you were in his apartment... And they tell me you killed him and I believed them because what else could I do? I hated you so much, Michael. They played me and I believed them and I hated you."

She buries her face in her hands, and Michael can't stand it any longer. He is by her side immediately, pulling her hands away from her face and pulling her into a hug. She puts up little resistance, and soon enough she is sobbing into his shirt, and he can't help but think to himself that this is all his fault. He left and left her behind with no one to protect her. She was played because she had no one in her corner looking out for her interests, and ultimately she was hurt because she dared to love somebody. He softly shushes her, and she clings more tightly to him than even Haylee ever did.

"I'm sorry, Nikki." He says. "I left you to them, I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry."

fic, nikita, cuts both ways 2/3

2012-02-10T04:53:11Z

Title: Cuts Both Ways 2/3
Fandom: Nikita
Characters: Michael, Nikita, Alex, Amanda, Percy, Birkhoff, Owen.
Rating: PG-13 for this part. May increase in future chapters.
Summary: "He leaves Division in the dead of night. He says no goodbyes, he lets no one know that anything might be amiss." -- Michael discovers the truth about his family's death first and goes rogue well before Nikita meets Daniel.

Revenge is a kiss and this time I won’t miss

He spends months tracking her down and finally finds her on the streets. She’s strung out on heroin and barely conscious when he roughly grabs her, knocks her out and shoves her into the back of his car. She is dangerously underweight, he feels it when he picks her up and carries her into his safe house, but by the time she’s come down from the high and woken up, you’d be hard pressed to believe that she’s only barely this side of 90 pounds, what with the way she’s pounding on the doors of his sauna.

“Let me out, you sicko!” She cries, hammering her fists on the doors so hard he’s genuinely concerned she’ll break a bone in her hand.

“Calm down.” He says sharply. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

“You’re BOILING ME ALIVE!” She yells, and he can hear her hyperventilating through the glass and the door. He presses a hand to the door, willing her to be calm, and to bring her breathing back to normal.

“I’m not.” He shakes his head so that she can see. “This is a detox. We need to get the drugs out of your system.”

“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?” She screams at him, and spittle flecks hit the window.

“My name is Michael. And you need to stay calm or you’ll hurt yourself. This will be over soon, I promise.” And he walks away, back to his work station. The girl is young, and she’s been through a lot, only some of which he’s been able to discover.

Little Alexandra Udinov has fallen so low, but she’s still alive, and that is more than she should be. She should have died in a mansion in Russia three years ago. She had died in a mansion in Russia three years ago, and yet here she is, in his sauna, out of her mind on drugs, but alive.

At the time he’d suspected something wasn’t right, Nikita had been cagey after the mission, and at the time he’d written it off as post-mission nerves, and there were certain discrepancies at the scene afterwards that he’d brushed off as coincidence, but now here he has his answer. Nikita had saved this girl, who’d somehow survived the next few years, and had made it to America.

He can’t help but see it as a small sign of hope, that someone else had their doubts about Division. Nikita had always been an exemplary agent, following orders to the letter. Or at least that’s how it seemed to him, from his position as her handler. Sure, sometimes her methods were a little unpredictable, but it was always to her (and the mission’s) favour. So for her to have done this? It’s important.

So he is happy enough persisting with the rehabilitation of this poor, lost girl. He checks back up on her a few hours later and finds her sleeping (more likely passed out) in the corner. She smells atrocious, sickly sweet and covered in sticky sweat, but he lifts her out of the box with ease and cradles her small, frail body to himself. He lays her gently down on the bed he set up for her in the corner and covers her with a sheet. He checks the bowl is still next to the bed, and a fresh glass of water is ready on the beside table for when she wakes.

… … …

Amanda calls it tunnel vision. Birkhoff calls it her obsession. Percy doesn’t call it anything, as long as she remains an exemplary agent, he’s happy for her to access any resource Division has to get Michael.

And she does. The manhunt is bigger and more focused this time, and its leader more zealous than ever to achieve her goal. She leaves no stone unturned in her quest for revenge, but no matter how many phones she taps, or satellites she retasks, she’s ultimately no more successful the second time around. The best she can surmise is that he’s back in deep cover again, probably out in the wilderness, detached from all society and technology, and arms deep in another plot to enact his revenge.

Why did you do it? she wails to him when he appears in her dreams. She’s a recruit again, curled up in her simple cot, with no embellishments or presents decorating her cell. And it is that-- a cell. He stands in front of the door, dark and handsome, arms crossed loosely across his chest, and he does nothing but watch her closely, an unreadable expression on his face.

I loved him! She cries again, and buries her head in her pillow. This is the only place she allows herself to break down, because despite everything, despite all that’s happened, Michael was always the one she confided in. He was always the one who understood her. He was the one who listened without judgement. He was the one who was her friend, who she cared for and was cared for by in return.

Each time the dream comes, she tries a different tact. Sometimes she cries, sometimes she rages. In other dreams, she calmly asks him all she wants to know. He never reacts, and continues to watch her like she’s a unique, interesting animal on display in a zoo. Once, she just stares back at him, neither of them speaking a word until her alarm jerks her into wakefulness.

“Percy wants you to collect the new recruit.” Birkhoff tells her one morning when she walks into the communications centre, steaming cup of coffee in hand.

“That’s not my job.” She says, shrugging him off.

Birkhoff gives her a look that she can only classify as his ‘Are you really giving me this shit right now?’ look, (he has some quite specific looks) and he hands her a dossier and begins to explain.

“Our op for Triton Pharmaceuticals went south last night. Just as our strike team was readying to take down the target, two meth-heads robbed the place and shot him in the process. We managed to capture one of them before they escaped, she’s in custody now. Alexandra Mason, she says her name is, but that name hasn’t popped in any records. Amanda suspects she’s an illegal, probably a sex-slave brought over from Russia or the Balkans. Either way, she’s got potential, and we’re looking for another girl to fill our quota. We had two cancellations last month.”

“This isn’t my job.” She repeats, pointedly not opening the folder.

“Look, Nikki--” Birkhoff starts, but Nikita interrupts angrily.

“Where is Percy?” She says.

“I’m right here.” The man says, breezing into the room with the same impeccable timing that had always intimidated her. It made him feel omnipresent and omniscient to her, and she was no longer naive enough to believe he wasn’t.

“Sir,” She nods curtly, aware of her insolence. It’s one thing to speak that way to Birkhoff-- He expects it, but also knows that her anger is usually not directed at him, just a byproduct of her frustrations. Percy, however, doesn’t know her temper as well to know when she is serious and when she is just letting off steam.

“Nikita, I’ve given you a task, and while I appreciate your priorities, we are understaffed and I feel that you have a unique background that will help you empathise a little better with this particular recruit.” Percy says plainly.

“Yes, sir.” She says, feeling scolded and embarrassed. This is the man doing everything he can to help her get her revenge, and here she is acting like a spoilt child. She owes him so much, she is in his debt, and she’s not sure she can ever repay him. One day she will confront Michael for all the pain he’s caused her, and Percy will be the one who gets her there.

She opens Birkhoff’s dossier on ‘Alexandra Mason’ and begins to read.

… … …

He doesn’t anticipate Alex’s motivations. How could he? Until about four months ago he had thought she was dead, and the little broken girl he’d nursed back to health had been his priority, not the strong, independent woman that had grown in her place.

“I want to help you take them down.” She says bluntly.

“No.” He says straight away. “Impossible.”

“I can help you, Michael. You said yourself these people were the ones who killed my family. They killed yours too. We both have that. Please, just let me do something. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“I want you to get out of here and go make a life for yourself.” Michael gestures vaguely to the door. “That’s why I helped you, not to drag you into all this.”

“But that’s just it.” She says. “I’m already in this, and if I was on the inside, I could help you.”

Michael stares at her, astounded at what she’s just said, unsure if she is offering what he thinks she’s offering. “You want to become a recruit?” He asks, skeptically.

“Yes.”

“No, it’s too dangerous.”

“I’d rather be in danger and doing something good, than living a safe life knowing that those evil people are out there destroying families and I had the chance to stop them.”

Michael finds it hard to argue with that, even though he wants to. So he reluctantly begins to teach her what she needs to know. He teaches her self defence, and how to hide that she can protect herself. He teaches her how to read body language, and how to use it to her advantage. He teaches her to pick locks (though she turns out to already be pretty good at that) and he makes her learn the code for a simple computer program that she can install on the server as soon as she’s on the inside. Something tiny and unobtrusive enough that they’ll be able to talk without Birkhoff or any of the other numerous techie nerds noticing. That’s the most important part of this whole endeavour-- it hinges on her ability to recall that code in her sleep, so after she’s memorised it, he tests her night and day to make sure that he’s truly driven the point home.

“I get it!” She cries, one day in frustration. “I know the code. I know it off by heart. I can recite it backwards. In Russian!”

Michael stares at her a moment or two, then sets aside his blueprints. “Alex. This is important.”

“I know that, Michael. I know.” Alex says, and sighs deeply. “I’m sorry... I’m just tired.”

He considers her a moment, noting the bags under her eyes, and the digital clock behind her that is flashing 2:14am. He can’t remember the last time they took a break. “Maybe we should call it a night. You need to rest.”

“No. No I’m fine. Let’s just focus on something else for a while. Tell me about the people again. Start with Amanda.”

… … …

Alexandra Mason is just as tiny, strung out, and achingly young as she was when she was first recruited. Sure, the circumstances are a little different-- Heroin versus Ketamine. Sex slave versus homeless child, but the results are the same. Here is a girl who has no one. Here is a girl the world has abandoned, left for dead, or to the vultures. And yet here she is. Alive.

They let her stay in prison for the first few weeks, partly to let her sweat out the drugs on her own-- whether she’s physically strong enough to handle going cold turkey is an extremely strong indicator of future physical stamina, tenacity of spirit, and a range of other things. She’s under surveillance the entire time, and Nikita reviews the footage with a critical eye before having her extracted from the prison and deposited in one of Division’s holding cells.

The girl is completely unconscious for several hours, and while they’re monitoring the room from central command, Nikita chooses to wait inside the cell until she wakes. She knows this is not at all standard practice amongst handlers, many others feeling that it can weaken the teacher-student relationship straight off the bat, but Nikita feels differently. When she woke up in this place, her handler was sitting with back straight and alert in this very seat. And while he was a stranger to her, at first, he had known just what to say to calm her down, with just the right amount of confidence, competence and compassion to ease her into complacency so that he could give her the hard sell.

God, she was soft back then, thinking Michael was her friend. Thinking that he could be...

No. Today is not about that.

Alexandra shifts a little in sleep, and Nikita is watchful for other signs of wakefulness. The shallowness of her breathing, the gentle fluttering of her eyelids and the ruffle of hair as she groans and buries her head in the pillow to hide from the violently bright light from above.

“Good morning, Alex.” Nikita says, doing her best to keep her voice calm and level, but it hardly matters. Alex jerks into wakefulness immediately. She sits up, paranoid eyes darting about the room for the exit, the one directly behind Nikita. Her movements are heavy, though, clearly the drugs they’d used to sedate her in transit have not completely worn off.

“It is Alex, right? Never Alexandra?” Nikita says, and stands from the hard metal chair, heels clicking lightly on the concrete floor.

“Who’re you?” Alex slurs, and then a few seconds later, she asks another question: “Where am I?

“You’re not in prison.” Nikita explains, and takes a step closer to the bed. “Nor are you in Michigan, but that’s not really important to you anymore.”

Alex seems confused, and Nikita remembers the feeling as though it were yesterday. She collects Alex’s dossier from the table at the side of the room, collecting her prison profile, death certificate and because Amanda believes in emotional power of visual aids, a photograph of the place Alexandra Mason’s ashes have been stored.

“You died on November 1st. Your death was ruled a suicide by the coroner, and being a ward of the state you were given a pauper’s funeral.” She places the dossier at the foot of the bed in front of Alex, and taps at the photograph of the cemetery memorial wall. “Your ashes are stored here.”

She pauses for a moment to let that news settle in and assess how well Alex is taking these new revelations. Nikita notes the dilated pupils and the laboured breathing-- the girl is well on her way to a panic attack, so Nikita tones it back.

“My name is Nikita, and I work for the government.” She says in her calmest tone, clasping her hands together in front of her belly, in a gesture reminiscent of a pregnant woman. If she can get this girl to see her as a motherly figure, or even as a big sister, she will be on the fast-track to trust and that is the most important characteristic of a successful handler-recruit relationship. “Alex, we’ve decided to give you a second chance.”

“Why? Why me?” The panic is still there, but is solidifying into anger. Nikita expected that.

“Because you’re a beautiful young girl, with no ties and no paper trail,” She says breezily, stepping away from the bed. “But what really caught our attention is how you killed a man we were about to take out.”

Alex bolts from the bed, adrenaline fuelling her flight response with great energy. But Nikita expected that too, and as the girl runs past she snaps her hand out and snatches Alex’s wrist, forcing her forward with a kick to the back of the knee. She holds the wrist tightly in such a way that if Alex struggles she’ll only hurt herself, “If you stand, I’ll break your wrist.” She says simply.

“I didn’t kill no one.”

“His name was Kyle, he was the head of a drug smuggling ring.”

“It was Ronnie that done it.”

“Ronnie was found dead of an overdose behind your apartment.” Nikita says, and pushes a little harder. Alex cries out in pain, but Nikita is certain she now has Alex’s full attention. “No one came to his funeral either.”

Nikita lets go of the girl’s wrist, and Alex quickly scrambles away from her, clearly upset and holds one hand cautiously with the other. Nikita suspects she’ll be sporting a bruise on her wrist for the next few days.

“Your life is over, Alex. I’m here to offer you a new one.” She says, and watches as a silent tear rolls down the girl’s cheek. “But you have to be willing to earn it.”

The silence lays heavy between them for a long moment, then Nikita hears the words they need from Alex: “What do I gotta do?”

And they have their newest recruit.

… … …

They agreed that the best thing for Michael to be doing while Alex was being recruited was for him to cause as much trouble as possible to keep eyes on him and away from her. Classic misdirection.

He visits his family’s graves for the first time since he defected, buried in a small family plot outside Boston, which kicks up enough dust into the wind that Birkhoff himself visits the site, making it all the easier for Michael to kidnap the techie and place the decoy bug. They exchange a few heated words (from Birkhoff’s disdain towards him, Michael can tell that Percy has crafted some slippery lie that gives him sinister motivations for leaving Division) before Birkhoff is knocked unconscious again and deposited back on the streets for Division’s retrieval.

To be honest, he hadn’t expected Birkhoff to be the responding agent in charge. He’d thought it would be Roan or Nikita, someone with tracking experience, but clearly times have changed. Maybe Birkhoff is a field agent now too, it has been more than four years. The bug on Birkhoff gives him enough warning to finagle himself an invitation to the Gala Percy will be attending the following night. It’s a perfect opportunity to stick his head above water and cause a scene.

He also gets confirmation that Alex has made it through the first stage of recruitment with Nikita as her handler. Michael is hopeful that she’ll have installed the shell program by tomorrow, and they’ll be able to talk directly once again. For all his planning and for all Alex’s confidence in their plan, he still worries about her and wants to make sure she is as safe as possible. So to hear she is adjusting to the mess hall diet (as atrocious as the macaroni can be) is a comfort.

The gala is a carbon copy of any of the other numerous galas he’d attended as Percy’s personal body man. The uniform is black tie and cocktail dresses, and as is the case with these things, the the champagne flows freely while the delicious gourmet food remains largely untouched. At a casual glance he spots at least five senators, three on important defence subcommittees, and several big name representatives for military contractors. Over there, the Ambassador to France is holding a conversation with someone Michael is convinced is an escort hired by the Representative from Delaware.

He breezes past them all, making a bee-line towards the bar where he knows Percy will be with whoever he brought along to protect him tonight. The man always needed a scotch in his hand for these kinds of things, and always drank them too quickly to move very far away from the bartender serving them.

And sure enough, he spots the head of Division standing only a few steps away from the bar, and when he steps to the side a little to greet a Cabinet minister, he sees the body man he brought with him.

Nikita.

She doesn’t spot him straight away, and he takes the opportunity to study her, to see if she’s changed at all in the years since he saw her last. Her hair is longer, and lighter, as though she’s been spending a lot of time outside and the sun has gently faded it to a warmer hue; the tan she’s sporting supports that theory as well. The dress that hugs her curves is no doubt one of Amanda’s flattering choices, all metal and geometric patterns, the gold and silver sparkles drawing attention to her best assets, but he can see the subtle outline of a knife hidden at her thigh and he knows that she has a gun tucked away in her purse.

All of that he expected, but what he didn’t anticipate is the sadness he sees on her face. She’s covering it well, beneath expertly applied makeup and the dazzling smile of an escort, but she had always had a spirit that could only be seen in the sparkle of her eyes, and the tiniest quirk of a dimple-- It’s just not there anymore.

She notices him before Percy does, but she wastes no time in putting herself between him and the target, just like he’d taught her so many years ago. The way she clutches at her purse confirms the hidden weapon there, and Michael slips his hands casually into his pockets.

“Good evening.” He says, “Have you tried the hors d'oeuvres? They’re delicious.”

“Michael.” Percy says, from his place behind Nikita.

“Percy.” Michael nods politely, eyeing a passing senator. He quickly darts a hand out to grab the man’s elbow, pulling him into the conversation, effectively obtaining his own human shield. “Senator Kelly. We were just discussing the new defence budget. You’re on the subcommittee, am I right?”

“Er, yes.” The senator stammers, clearly confused, yet perceptive enough to know that he’s been dragged into quite an awkward conversation. Percy and Nikita exchange a silent look, she passes him her clutch and he gives her a glass of champagne in exchange.

“Fantastic!” Michael says, clapping the man on the back. “I’d like you to meet my friends. This is Percy and his date... I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Nikita.” She says, but Michael can’t read her voice, she has forced it into being neutral. Something has happened here, something is wrong. But what, he doesn’t know.

Nikita extends her hand to the Senator and Percy bumps into her from behind, upsetting the glass spilling champagne all down the senator’s front.

“Oh I’m so clumsy!” Nikita cries, and Percy says: “Quick, you should get some seltzer on that.”

“Here, I’ll help.” She says, and with a glance towards Michael that is as cold as ice, she guides the Senator away from the confrontation, leaving Percy with her weapon.

“Do you really think threatening Senator Kelly is going to scare me?” Percy asks.

“Please.” Michael scoffs. “Don’t mock me, Percy.”

“Then why are you here? You know you can’t kill me.” As if to emphasise his point, he knocks back the last of his scotch and slams it down on the bar beside him with a loud clunk. “You know I have insurance.”

“If I can get to you here, I can get to you anywhere. I can get to your funding and I can get to that insurance. I’ll rip it apart until eventually you’ll be the last thing left, and then I’ll kill you.” Michael promises. “You made a mistake, making an enemy of me.”

“You have it all planned out, don’t you. A mission plan to knock Division and I over one step at a time, like bowling pins.”

“And you think you can predict my every move.” Michael points out. “How’s that worked out for you?”

“You won’t make it out of here alive.” Percy promises, and Michael sees that Nikita has left the Senator to clean his own shirt and is stalking her way back over to the two of them. There is a fire in her eyes again, but it is not one that Michael is comfortable with. She seems determined, focused; it’s the look she has before she takes down a target, and she’s zeroing in on him.

“We’ll see.” Michael mutters, and draws a small cigarette lighter from his pocket. He flicks the lid and lights it, and the car bomb he set up outside the hotel explodes with a rocketing BOOM, shaking the building, and all the occupants of the bar, destabilising Percy and Nikita in her overly tall heels, giving Michael enough of an opportunity to bolt for his exit.

Michael vaults a toppled table and slips through the service entrance, sprinting as fast as he can down corridors and through the kitchen. He hears the tell-tale clack of a woman running in heels behind him, and he knows that Nikita is in hot pursuit, but doesn’t stop to check, pushing a kitchen hand out of his way and into a tray of plates which crash to the floor causing enough of a distraction for him to push out the back door and into the alleyway. He gets about five steps before the door slams open again and he hears her cry: “STOP, OR I’LL SHOOT.”

He stops running.

“Hands where I can see them.” She demands, and he hears the click of the safety on her gun being switched off. “Take your gun and toss it to the left. Safety on.”

He keeps his left arm raised, but slips his right hand into his jacket, pulling his own gun from the holster and throws it against the wall to the side as instructed.

“Turn around.”

He does so slowly, being careful not to make any sudden movements. “Nikita.” He says quietly, and though they are ten yards away from each other, and there are sirens and all sorts of loud noises coming from the other end of the alleyway, he knows that she can hear him perfectly.

“No.” She says bluntly, pointedly aiming her gun at his heart. “You don’t get to do that.”

His confusion rises. Something has happened to her, that’s clear enough, and that look in her eye (he recognises it now) means she blames him for something. But what?

“Do what, Nikki?” He asks, as calmly as he can.

“You don’t get to placate me.” She spits. “You don’t get to calm me down.”

She is almost vibrating in her anger, and he can see the effort she is taking to hold her gun steady. He wants nothing more than to make it right, whatever it is, but honestly has no idea.

“All right,” He says, and lowers his hands a little. “What do you want me to do?” He asks.

She hesitates a moment, and the gun drifts to the side, and that’s all he needs. He slips his hand to the holster at the small of his back and pulls out his backup and fires. He hits her in the shoulder, and her whole body whips back, overbalancing and toppling to the ground.

He is by her side immediately, stripping her of her weapon, but he gently lifts her up from the bitumen to check the shot hasn’t done too much damage. Dark blood is dripping down her chest, staining her designer dress. “It’s a clean wound.” He says, as she gasps in pain. “Through and through. You’ll be fine.”

“Screw you.” She says weakly, overwhelmed by the pain.

He frowns, still so confused. “Nikita. Whatever they said I did. I promise I didn’t.” He says honestly, because he cannot think of a single thing he could’ve done to hurt her this badly.

She glares, and he hears a commotion coming from the kitchen. He doesn’t have any more time to explain and hash it out with her. All he can hope for is another opportunity for clarity, and now that Alex is on the inside, maybe it’ll be sooner rather than later.

He stands up, careful to lower her gently back to the ground, and then he runs.

… … …

Her arm is still stiff, but the pain is mostly gone and she’s finally rid of the annoying sling. The physical therapist puts her through a few exercises, gripping balls, lifting weights, and though he insists that she not exert herself too much, that this is just for diagnosis, she can’t help but lift through the pain and push herself. It has always been her way.

Sweat trickles down her brow, and she grunts a little and almost drops the weight on her foot, but Liam is there and taking it from her immediately, “Nikita.” He chastises, and she eases herself back down onto the mat. “You’ll do more damage with that attitude towards your recovery.”

“I know.” She says, resigned, and tentatively flexes her hand.

“If you push yourself too hard you won’t do yourself any favours.”

“I know.” She glares up at him, and puts a hand to her shoulder, which feels like it’s glowing red hot. “I’m done for today.”

“All right.” Liam says, and holds out a hand to help her up from the mat which she refuses, pushing herself back to her feet using her good hand.

Liam hands her her towel. “Remember to do your exercises.”

“Yes.”

She wipes her face with the towel and leaves as quickly as she can, deciding that what her shoulder could really do with is a few Tylenol, an ice-pack and an early night. Instead of heading directly back to the locker room she detours via the medical bay, knowing that it’s the quickest place to get the painkillers she needs without having to wait, and at this time of day there won’t be any doctors or nurses hanging around to ask questions.

Nikita is searching through pill bottles in the medicine cabinet within minutes, casting aside the aspirin and the Valium to find the little ibuprofen bottle at the back. She twists the cap with her better hand, but a sharp pain shoots through her shoulder when she tries, and she can’t help the grimace that crosses her face.

“Want some help with that?” A slurred voice asks from behind, startling her.

She turns around. “...Birkhoff.” She says.

The side of his face is still puffy from his earlier dental surgery, and the bags under his eyes rival the ones under her own, but he has the smallest of smiles on his face. He steps forward and takes the little pill bottle from her and twists the cap off with ease. He taps four pills out into his palm and hands two over to her.

“Here,” He says, then returns the cap to the bottle and replaces it in the cabinet. “The Novocain is wearing off, and I don’t deal well with pain.”

“I’d noticed.” She says wryly, and turns around to fill two glasses from the filtered water dispenser just to the side of the medicine cabinet, and hands the spare to the nerd.

“Cheers.” He says, and knocks the edge of his glass to hers.

The pills goes down easily, but she closes her eyes as she swallows, disliking the feel of it as they slide down her throat.

“You all right, Nikki?” Birkhoff asks, and she knows he’s genuinely concerned. His voice is quiet, and he hasn’t used her nickname in a while. Mostly because she’s been avoiding him. Him and pretty much every one else of importance in Division. It’s just been her, and physical therapists and recruits for weeks.

“I’m fine.” She says, and it sounds stiff, even to her.

Birkhoff doesn’t let it slide. “Don’t do that.” He says bluntly. “You can lie to Amanda about how you’re coping all you like, and you can tell Percy you’re fine. Whatever. But don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not, Birkhoff.” She says, and sighs. “I’m just tired. And sore... I’m just going to go home.”

“No, you’re gonna stay here and we’re going to have this conversation.”

He shoots a glance behind him to the open medical bay door, and moves more quickly than usual to shut it and give them some privacy. If it comes to it, she knows that she can get past him if she needs to, whether by force or not, even with her injury. But the confrontation wouldn’t be worth it in the long run.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” He asks. The small smile is gone.

She places her glass on the counter behind her and uses the time to gather her thoughts, assess the situation and figure out what to do next.

She decides to go with the truth. Or at least what she knows of it. “I don’t know if I can trust you anymore.” She says, and it’s so quiet that she’s a little uncertain Birkhoff will be able to hear her.

He seems to hear her fine though. “What do you mean, you can’t trust me?”

His gaze burns just as warm as the healing wound in her shoulder, and it is just as uncomfortable to endure. She looks away.

“It’s just something Michael said.” She confesses finally. “Or rather what he didn’t say. In the alleyway. Just after he shot me.”

“And you’re trusting him over me?” Birkoff asks, and she can tell he’s offended. “After what he did to you?”

She ignores the accusation and continues on. “He didn’t seem to know what he’d done. He knew I was... angry with him. And he knew that I blamed him for something. But he genuinely didn’t know what was wrong.”

“So he’s lying to you. You saw the footage.”

“But what does that actually show?” Nikita asks, and the emotional stability she’s been aiming for throughout this conversation falters. “Nothing, not really. It’s just a video, we doctor videos all the time. You doctor videos all the time.”

“You think...?” Birkhoff asks. “Me? No. Nikki, I’d never do that to you.”

“But you do it to so many people every day. And then we found that bug on you!” Nikita cries and runs a hand through her hair, frustrated. “Can you see why I might not believe you? Can you see why that might bring up some trust issues, Birkhoff? This is messing with my head.”

Silence stretches between them, but now Birkhoff is glaring at her, but it’s not his worst glare, it’s more his ‘you’re an idiot’ glare. “Well. I didn’t.” He says with certainty. “I promise. And there are ways of verifying his claim, ways without involving Amanda and Percy. But guess what, Nikki? Those ways involve trusting me.”

“What ways?”

He scoffs. “Please. There’s always something. No matter how tiny, if it’s been faked we’ll be able to find it. If we can’t find anything, you’ll have just confirmed everything we already knew.”

“And you’d help me with that?”

“Nikki.” He says, and his lips touch into a smile again. “You just need to ask.”

… … …

Alex was right. Her being on the inside makes sabotaging Division’s ops that much easier. He worries, a little, now that Birkhoff’s implant has been discovered, that she’s more exposed, but clearly he didn’t give her enough credit. She takes initiative, and seems to know the best ways to get the most useful information out to him without arousing suspicion. Using the information she provides, they prevent assassinations, foil crimes, and generally throw a rather large spanner into Division’s works. Michael knows he has Percy’s attention now.

So when Alex sends him a brief message that Percy is bugging out to Montreal, alone, he knows he has to follow. Percy never went anywhere alone when Michael was his right hand man. At least not that he knew of. There were always protection details and bodyguards. Half the time Michael was on them, or leading them, so Michael packs his things and heads north straight away to Canada.

Alex wasn’t able to give him a reason for Percy’s quick escape, so Michael has to figure that much out for himself. He figures he can use a few contacts, do a little digging to find out the man’s mission, but is genuinely surprised when a simple Google News search gives him the most likely answer.

It’s a news report covering the attempted robbery of a bank in central Montreal earlier in the morning that went awry when one of the hostages fought back, killing all three of the robbers before escaping on foot. It’s remarkable enough on its own, but the security footage showing a close-up shot of the hostage, who police have been unable to identify is what convinces him.

It’s Owen, the man he fought in Daniel Monroe’s apartment. His hair is a little longer, and he looks a little chubbier in the face; it’s the same look most Division agents get when embedded in long-term undercover ops, and it’s just the break Michael needs.

He isn’t sure how far behind Percy he is when he’s rifling through Owen’s mail trying to get an idea of what kind of op the man is running, but he meets the nice, albeit cagey neighbour and gets a lead on tracking him down. Michael isn’t completely sure what Owen is here to do, he can’t find any of the usual signs of reconnaissance, or espionage. It just seems like he’s here working part time at some landscaping business, and is clearly in a new relationship with the neighbour.

He does get Owen’s cell phone number from a phone bill and uses one of his contacts to get a trace on the cell’s GPS, which takes him to an old abandoned middle school about twenty minutes away.

The classroom he finds Owen in is clearly an old biology lab, and the agent sustained some wounds in the crossfire this morning. Michael sees sterile strips, bandages, rubbing alcohol and a needle and twine. Owen’s preoccupation at administering his makeshift field-dressing gives Michael the opportunity he needs to get the one-up this time.

“Owen Elliot. Long time no see.” He says, gun pointed at the man.

“Michael.” Owen says, and turns around slowly, in such a way that Michael knows the man’s wounds are probably more serious than needing just field dressings.

Owen’s eyes flicker down for a split second, down at the counter, Michael follows his gaze and that’s when he sees it. He’s seen one before, in Percy’s office on his desk. It’s one of his Black Boxes. The insurance. And then everything falls into place.

“So you’re his body man for this Black Box, then?” Michael says, connecting the dots as he speaks. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of those.”

Owen looks at the box again, and then leans over and picks it up. “Yeah? See for yourself.” He says, then throws it in Michael’s face, and he catches it an inch before it hits him square on the nose, but Owen’s distraction works. The blond man tackles him to the floor, knocking the gun and black box out of his hands. Michael kicks out and rolls away from under him. He manages to pull himself up into a crouch as Owen rights himself, but the man is on him again, throwing punches so hard and so fast Michael can barely keep up. The man is strong, and he’s fast, much stronger and faster than the last time they met, and Michael realises that he has badly misjudged this situation. He’d thought the extra puff to Owen’s face had been baby-fat, gained from a life of sedentary repetitiveness that extended cover brings, but now he sees the bulk to Owen’s muscles, and the way that his skin is straining across muscle and bone, and he knows for sure he’s on steroids.

He blocks another hard blow to the face but takes a quick jab to the ribs which knocks the air from his lungs. He brings his hands up instinctively to block his face, but no blow comes, instead, the other man seems to have stalled, and shoves a hand roughly inside Michael’s now slightly torn jacket and pulls out the letters he’d taken earlier.

“You went by my house.” He says, accusingly.

Michael coughs, and steps away. “Yeah, I met your neighbour. Lovely girl. Nice little butterfly things.” And he points to the butterfly drawings on the wall.

It’s the wrong thing to say. Owen charges him again, this time bouncing himself off one of the counters to kick Michael in the face. He reels from the blow and manages to block a few hits before he finds himself over-powered and over-played, twisted into a strangling head lock.

“What did you do to her?” Owen demands, shouting into his ear. Michael struggles against the hold, pushing at the stronger man’s arms, but they don’t budge. He can’t suck any air in, and he feels his wind-pipe being crushed.

“She wasn’t involved!” Owen yells again.

Michael finally manages to croak out “Nothing. She’s fine.” But his voice is weak and raspy, and he feels dangerously light-headed.

Owen’s grip slackens just the slightest bit giving Michael enough room to jab his elbow hard into the other man’s groin. Owen doubles over in pain, and Michael runs, leaving his gun and the black box behind.

He spends the next few hours nursing his wounds and decides another confrontation isn’t a possibility, Owen is too strong, too fast, and too much for him to take. Either he's slipping, in his time away from Division, or Owen is taking something, and Michael knows he can't afford another close-contact encounter with that man.

He continues to track the man's phone, and watches from afar when the man finally makes a move from the school, presumably to take the black box to Percy. But the man heads back to the apartment instead. As far as Michael knows it's still surrounded by cops, and if Alex hadn't insisted that Percy was here alone Michael would assume there are Division agents sitting on it as well.

When he gets back home though, something feels wrong. The police are gone from outside, and even though it's dusk there are no lights on in the building. It's like no one is home. He watches Owen slip in the side of the building through the fire escape into the nice neighbour's apartment.

And that's when he sees the strike team surround the building. He instinctively sinks down deep into the car seat, just in case anyone looks his way. From what he can tell it's a standard 6 man team, two on guard, two on point, two taking up the rear. No one is guarding the window Owen entered though, and Michael assumes there is a sniper positioned somewhere near by with a clear shot.

He knows he just has to make a go of it if he wants to get those two out of the way. He slips out of the car and sprints across the road, taking the same route Owen does and launches himself off the same dumpster to reach the fire escape. He catches the rung of the ladder and climbs up onto the platform, pulls his gun from the holster and slips through the open window.

Owen's gun is on him straight away, pushing Emily the neighbour protectively behind him. But Michael ignores that and instead shoots the first division operative that bursts through the door, landing a shot straight between the eyes.

He shoots at the other, but they duck back behind the doorway and out of sight. Owen spins around, keeping the girl protectively behind him at all times, and trains his gun in the same direction as Michael, managing to pick off another of the operatives, who slumps lifelessly to the ground, partially blocking the doorway.

There is a sharp whizzing noise, and Emily falls awkwardly to the side. Michael notices before Owen does, but the blonde man doesn’t miss it for long when she falls into him. He turns around and sees her there, with the sniper shot right between the eyes, and Michael knows from the look on the man’s face he’ll need to get him out of here as quickly as possible. He knows that look, that apoplectic rage.

He grabs Owen by the shoulder and forces him to look at him. “Owen.” Michael says forcefully. “We need to go. Now.”

“No!” The man cries, brandishing his gun at the door, and he fires a few more shots. “I’ll kill them all.”

“Percy will kill us both if we don’t go now.” Michael insists, pulling the man back towards the fire escape. “Now.”

Owen shrugs off Michael’s hand and takes a step forward, and the torrent of gunfire returns. Michael ducks instinctively behind a desk, but Owen isn’t quick enough and gets winged in the thigh. Michael fires a few more shots at the door for cover and leaps forward and grabs the other man again. The bullet seems to have knocked sense into him-- he’s pliable this time and lets himself be pulled back down the fire escape.

They leave Emily where she is, dead on the floor.

fic, nikita, cuts both ways 1/?

2012-01-23T13:02:16Z

Title: Cuts Both Ways
Fandom: Nikita
Characters: Michael, Nikita, Amanda, Percy, Birkhoff, Owen, more to come in future chapters.
Rating: PG-13 for this part. May increase in future chapters.
Summary: "He leaves Division in the dead of night. He says no goodbyes, he lets no one know that anything might be amiss." -- Michael discovers the truth about his family's death first and goes rogue well before Nikita meets Daniel.

My only faith is in the blood and bruises I display.

He leaves Division in the dead of night. He says no goodbyes, he lets no one know that anything might be amiss. He knows it won’t last long, but any advantage is worth its weight in gold when dealing with his former employer, especially when you know how to exploit it like he does.

Michael takes the first flight to Hawaii, travelling under an alias, with impeccable fake identification and a new haircut to match the photos. Again, it won’t fool them for long, once they realise he’s missing. But it’ll stall them for a bit. Most likely they’ll assume he’s gone to ground somewhere on the mainland.

And all right-- He should’ve. Air travel is risky. Ever since 9/11, there are too many cameras around, too much security, he can’t hide from all of it, and it’ll be harder to escape under the nose of all these guards and police and, shit, the military guards who’re no doubt hiding behind the scenes.

But he arrives at the house. It’s not the same one that he picked out all those years ago; he finds out later that that one was demolished and replaced with some timeshare condos. It doesn’t really matter though. The salty sea-breeze that whistles through the two bedroom hut he hires for cash is enough. He sees his daughter sleeping soundly in the smaller of the rooms. He sees his wife curled up in the rocking chair on the small wooden deck.

He sees the future he could’ve had. He sees the future that Kasim and Percy and Division took away from him.

He knows what he has to do.

He has to take down Division.

… … …

Nikita doesn’t think she’s ever seen Division this disorganised. Michael is gone. It took them two days to realise he has dropped off the face of the earth and disappeared. Birkhoff can’t find him. Amanda doesn’t know anything and is on a rampage because Percy clearly does know something, but isn’t letting the rest of them in on whatever it is. Instead, he has just barked short commands to find Michael “yesterday” and retreats to his locked office to scheme or plot or whatever it is he does.

Nikita is lost.

She flits between the departments, helping where she can. Birkhoff is tracking the past, where Michael went, what Michael did, but he’s good at disappearing. They know he spent a day in Hawaii, but went off the grid shortly after, with a good chunk of cash in his pocket.

Amanda has mocked up a psych profile and is trying to predict where he’ll go next. Theories are produced and she speculates on his motivations, but they are lacking in any solid answers for the same reason Birkhoff’s traces go nowhere... they don’t know why Michael ran.

On day three, Percy calls a meeting. High level management only, but Nikita finds herself invited along as well.

Percy stands at the front of the room and explains everything: “Six years ago, we had a Division agent in deep cover with Al Qaida defect, his name is Kasim Tariq. He cemented his position within the group by targeting a naval base in Yemen. Michael was assigned there before he joined us and his wife and daughter were killed in the car bomb that Tariq set off.”

Percy pauses in his story to display a recent picture of Tariq on the electronic display behind him, along with the standard bio specs Division provids for any target.

“Division disavowed any ties to Kasim immediately, and soon after Michael was recruited into our ranks, though considering his psychological state at the time and the, uh, embarrassing nature of Kasim’s defection, we decided to keep Kasimm’s previous Division ties from Michael in order to keep the peace.

“It seems that Michael has discovered this fact and has misconstrued events. I believe he’s under the impression that Division was behind the death of his family, thus his rather hasty exodus from us. It’s imperative we find him and debrief him as soon as possible. Nikita, I am putting you in charge of the manhunt. Birkhoff and Amanda will assist you from communications, but you will be the leader on the ground.”

“Yes sir.” Nikita nods obediently.

“The sooner we find him, the better. Dismissed.”

… … …

He settles for a while in a hunting cabin in North Dakota. Off the grid in every way, no internet connection, no telephone line. He needs to travel along unsealed roads 30 miles to the south before he gets to the closest town and a single bar of cell phone reception.

The cabin itself is bare bones, and clearly hasn’t been used in a few decades before Michael moved in. He spends the first few weeks performing necessary repairs as quickly as possible so that he’ll be able to live here throughout the coming winter. It’s hard work, but he relishes it. Patching the roof and floors, repairing the cracked plumbing pipes and the ancient gas-powered water heater; every night he collapses into bed exhausted from the work, so exhausted he doesn’t even dream.

So it takes a few months, well into the hard winter before the nightmares come, and by that stage he’s snowed in, and trapped with nothing but his bitter memories to torment him and the ghost of his family to haunt him.

He hears Hayley’s infectious laugh in the next room, smells Elizabeth’s perfume on his pillow when he wakes in the morning. He goes entire days without being able to shake the feeling that they’re just behind him, watching him, judging him, hating him, for not discovering the truth sooner, for not doing anything about it now he knows. It takes everything he can to keep from storming back into Division, guns a-blazing, fully prepared to take down every single person who gets in between him and killing Percy. But he knows that he has to wait. Taking down Percy is a bigger task than simply killing the man-- if he goes, someone else, some other unknown potentially worse entity will fill the void, and more innocent people will die.

No. This is the long-haul.

So when Hayley whispers in his ear asking him to read her a bedtime story, he drowns her out by picking at the holes in Division’s armour, and when Elizabeth caresses his cheek after he shaves, he takes comfort in imagining how he’ll push the knife between Division’s ribs.

When the snow begins to thaw, and the trees begin to show signs of life again, he packs up his cabin. He has a war to start.

… … …

When she reads the new assignment Percy gives her, she’s surprised to say the least. It’s a cushy one, a long-term undercover op, recon, no wet work, working at an IT company that has contracts with the defence department, and she’ll even have support for the technical stuff-- Birkhoff will be doing the bulk of the work once she hard-wires them into the system, but when he plugs the holes and uncovers the moles she’ll be the one that takes the credit.

It’s not exactly a job they give an operative who’s botched the only important mission she’s ever been in charge of.

She leaves her shiny new apartment, which has been styled perfectly by Division with that 'lived-in' look, with half-full bottles of toiletries and a moth trap in the closet (complete with long-deceased moths) to get a breath of fresh air and to give herself a bit of time to decompress away from Division's eye-- for all Amanda's talk about independence on this mission, Nikita knows the apartment will be tapped.

Nikita walks a few blocks, hands shoved deep into the pockets of her new persona's grey winter coat and when she sees a cozy looking cocktail bar she slips inside, partially to get out of the cold, but mostly because she needs a stiff drink. She hates the feeling of complete uselessness not finding Michael has left her with and although she knows that drinking away her sorrows is a bad idea, she needs to take the edge off before she cracks.

The bar is called Canvas and is dimly lit, and has a charming rustic aesthetic to it, but it doesn't seem to be a particularly busy night. A few couples are scattered at little tables and benches near the front, but Nikita chooses a seat at the bar.

She peruses the cocktail menu for a little bit, before settling on one simple glass of Merlot, which she lets mull for a moment before she takes a sip. It isn't ketamine, but it does warm her throat as it goes down-- better than nothing.

"Penny for your thoughts?" A man asks her kindly from his seat, a few bar stools down from her own.

"They're hardly worth that much." She says with a sad smile, sending a glance his way. He's handsome, dark hair, cleanly shaven, and has bright, happy eyes.

"Now, don't sell yourself short." He says, "I'm sure there's something in there worth a penny or two."

She takes another sip of her wine. “Well that’s nice of you to say,”

He smiles, picks up his beer and shifts across two seats until he’s on the bar stool directly next to her. “I hope you don’t mind, but can I ask you something?”

Nikita looks him up and down, but can’t bring herself to be suspicious. She’s so tired, and there is nothing about this man that is setting off any warnings, and even if she is wrong, she can look after herself. “Sure.” She says.

“Are you all right?” He asks, and it startles her. He must notice, because a tiny frown appears between his eyebrows, and he says: “I don’t mean anything by it. It’s just you look sad, or tired, but in that world-weary way. Sometimes it’s good to talk to someone about your problems who has no preconceptions about you... or your problems.”

“Are you offering to be my shrink for the night?” She laughs a little, because it is definitely not the pickup line she expected.

“Only if you want. I promise there’s no catch.” He holds his hands up in surrender. “But if you want to talk, I’ll pay for that drink, and we can talk about whatever you want.”

She swills her glass around and takes a sip. “What the hell, sure. Though to protect the innocent--” (the guilty) “-- I’ll just explain it hypothetically, is that fine?”

“Of course.”

“I’m starting a new job soon that I don’t think I’m qualified for. In fact, my last job ended badly, I wasn’t fired, but it led to a big loss for my company and instead of being fired they’ve transferred me... I’m just drowning my doubts in over-priced wine.” She holds up her glass.

The man nods, “It sounds like you’ve been given a second chance, though, with this new job.”

“It’s hard, though. I feel like my mistakes are hovering over me like a cloud I can’t escape from.”

“Yeah, it sucks. Self-doubt.” He gently nudges her shoulder, it’s innocent, with a tiny hint of flirty, but just enough to spark something warm and tingly in her belly that isn’t from the wine. “You need to figure out what your umbrella is, then, to help protect yourself from them.”

“I like how you ran with my metaphor there.”

He chuckles, “Yeah, I thought it was pretty clever.”

“So what’s my umbrella?” She asks.

“Well I don’t know you, so I can’t help you there, but I’m sure you have something on your side, or else you’d still be looking for work.”

“I’ll have to have a think about that.” Nikita says and glances at the thin watch on her wrist. The time has definitely gotten away from her, and she does have an early start tomorrow morning. She finishes off the last of the Merlot.

“I have to go, but you were right, it is good to get it off my chest.” She says, and holds her hand out, “Nice to meet you, I’m Nikita.”

He shakes it, it’s a nice firm grip, sold and reassuring. “I’m Daniel, and hey, if you ever want to talk about anything...”

He reaches across the bar and grabs a napkin from a neatly stacked pile, and with a pen from his shirt pocket he jots down a cell phone number.

“Give me a call.”

“I will.”

… … …

He is fighting a ghost, he realises that now, and it is hard not to be frustrated at his lack of progress. He uses his knowledge of procedures and protocol and the personnel to profile probable missions. News reports of innocuous deaths, some important, some not, become his bread and butter. He reads the obituaries and compares the details found there to the ones found in the official death reports, and then he investigates those. It’s a lot of dead ends for a lot of boring work, and by the time he finds a lead on something Division is doing, they are long gone, and the trail has gone cold.

Picking up patterns was never his strong suit, that was something better left to Birkhoff or NIkita, both of whom had more natural talent in that area. So after a few months, when his first idea of following the breadcrumbs that Division leaves behind fails, he decides to try a different tack.

He starts picking out potential Division targets, particularly the ones that Percy was becoming more and more fond of-- the work for hire jobs. They vary in their flavour, sometimes it’s straight-forward assassination work, sometimes it’s corporate espionage. The only thing they have in common is that Percy has had great success lining his pockets with the spoils of their work.

Michael sets up his base camp in an abandoned building, mansion, really, right in the centre of Manhattan. It has at least five escape routes, it's private, and after greasing the palms of a few out-of-work techies he found milling around the local Apple store, it has a solid optic fibre security system and triple-firewalled internet connection that would at least make Birkhoff pause for a few seconds before plowing on through.

It doesn't really matter though, he sets up a few programs to run searches daily looking for any new story or article or anything that fits the parameters he sets up. If anything blips, he can follow the trail from there. He knows he'll still miss more than he hits, but it feels good to have something logical on his side, something impartial and mathematical.

The rest of the time he spends cultivating his contacts-- stocking up on weapons, acquiring his funds, setting up aliases and other safe houses so that if Division catches up to him (He isn't naive enough to think they would've stopped looking for him unless they had his body on a slab in the morgue, so he's taking no chances) he'll have somewhere to bug out to.

He has his arsenal at the ready and a few allies up his sleeve when he finally gets a viable lead-- a few suspicious leaks come from a big security contractor and one of them is noticed by his tracer programs. He packs his bags with the supplies he thinks he’ll need, and books a ticket to Washington DC, after months and months of waiting, it all happens so quickly, he doesn’t really have a chance to process anything until he’s in the car and on the road.

It’s an irrational feeling to have, but after months of dead ends and failed leads, something feels good about this one.

… … …

“Describe your feelings,” Amanda says, pouring out a fresh pot of green tea into her dainty china cups. “Being back here, it’s been two months.”

“Has it been that long?” Nikita asks, taking the cup with a smile. She takes a small sip from the side then places it back down on the table in front of her.

“Well, extended cover has been treating you well, you look lovely!”

Nikita blushes a little, still uncomfortable receiving comments on her appearance, especially from Amanda, who is always so well put together, “Thanks.” She says, sitting straight in her chair. “Can’t say I miss the pyjamas though,”

There is a long pause as Amanda smiles at the joke and takes a sip of her own tea. Suddenly Nikita feels nervous, though she is careful not to let it show on her face. She knows this evaluation is a tricky one, that she’ll be asked about her relationship with Daniel, which has begun to blossom from a friendship into a tentative romance. It’s the first time in a long while she’s had something to herself, outside of Division, and she wants to keep it that way as much as she can.

“Tell me about him.” Amanda says, but Nikita is prepared.

“He’s nobody, he’s just a guy.” She says, a little dismissively.

“What’s his name?”

“Daniel. Daniel Munroe.”

“And he’s your lover?” Amanda says it with such a straight face that Nikita cannot help the smile that creeps upon her. It’s such a perfunctory, ridiculous phrase, especially coming from Amanda.

“My lover? Is this the 30s?”

Amanda smiles as well, and amends her phrasing: “Your boyfriend?”

“Amanda, he’s... “ She pauses a little, and searches for a way to explain it in a way that will be acceptable to Division. It’s not as if she’s doing anything wrong by forming a relationship with an outsider, but she doesn’t want to give them an excuse to pry any further. “Look, I know what you’re getting at, boyfriend, or whatever you want to call it. It’s just part of the cover. Nobody would believe the girl we created is single, and what you need to understand is that everything I do is in service to Division.”

She can see from the look on Amanda’s face that she’s said the right thing, and that she has satisfied the older woman with her explanation, so she takes another sip of her tea. The bitter liquid rolls down the back of her throat and warms her on the way down.

"Well, it seems you have everything under control there, Nikita." Amanda says, "You know that if you ever have any need to talk about anything, I'm here and our chats are completely confidential."

Nikita nods.

"So let's talk about Michael."

The cup wobbles a little in her hand at the sudden shift in topics, but Nikita does her best to cover it by bringing her other hand up to hold the other side, as though trying to warm her fingers against the ceramic. She has spent so long pushing Michael and that failure to the back of her mind, that it completely slipped her mind that Amanda would probably bring it up in this evaluation. Nikita mentally berates herself, but maintains a neutral face and does drop eye contact with Amanda.

"What about him?" Nikita asks evenly.

"Well, it's been over a year since he left us, and our efforts to find him notwithstanding, you two were quite close. I'm sure you have some unresolved feelings on the issue."

"No, not really." She lies, and knows immediately by the skeptical expression on Amanda's face that it was not convincing enough.

"Nikita," Amanda says quietly. "I'm not here to pass judgement, you know that."

Nikita doesn't believe that for a second, but knows that she will need to give more ground, now that she has been caught out. "I feel angry at myself, that I couldn't find him." Nikita says, and it is the truth, even if her reasons for being angry are less at failing Percy's orders and more about failing her friend when he no doubt needed one.

"Go on," Amanda says.

"I was... hurt, I suppose, that he didn't say goodbye before he left. I know why he didn't-- if I truly believed Division was responsible for killing my family, I wouldn't stick around to say goodbye either, but I trusted him so much, I thought it went both ways."

"You think you valued his friendship more than he valued yours?"

"No." She shakes her head. "No, more that I misjudged it. I've thought about it a lot. He was my mentor, my teacher. There was always going to be that space between us... And I think I want to help him more as a thank you for all the help he gave me."

"That's very noble of you. Though I think you do yourself an injustice. I've worked along side Michael for a long time, and I've never seen him take as much interest in a recruit as he did with you."

Nikita isn't sure what to make of that, so she finishes her tea instead of responding.

… … …

The security system in the apartment is easily bypassed and the locks picked with his skeleton key. He’s here purely for reconnaissance, he’s been watching this man for weeks now, convinced that Division has him under watch, though Michael still isn’t sure why. He’s a nobody, a moderately successful graphic designer named Daniel Munroe. His company has never done work for anyone who might have secrets to sell, instead they mostly work for non-profit charities, conquering cancer, homelessness, the like.

And yet despite all that, he finds a Division issued bug hidden under a Moroccan lamp in the living room. He’s not worried about Division finding him here-- he has a signal jammer in his pocket, but his curiosity is definitely piqued.

He rustles through the mail on the hallstand, looking for something, anything that’d clue him in on why this guy is of interest to Division, but all he finds are bills and a week old subscription issue of Newsweek. There is a box of tampons in the bathroom cupboard and some racy women’s underwear in a drawer in his closet, but no photos of the girl in question. There is a postcard of ducks swimming in the lake in central park affixed to the fridge which is signed with a heart and the letter 'N'. In his weeks watching over this guy he hasn’t seen the girlfriend once, though he overheard Daniel mentioning to a colleague that “Nic is out of town on business”, but he does find it strange that there isn’t more evidence of her here.

“What do they want with you?” He says to the man standing with his parents in a graduation gown, garishly blue in that 90s sort of way, as if asking it out loud will give him the answers he needs.

He's after leverage, and this guy seems like a bit of a dead end. Sure, he might be a target, but there is nothing here that makes Michael think 'Division', so he has to assume that this guy is a means to an end, or is under surveillance for another reason. Maybe they're setting him up to be a patsy for something and are readying to plant the evidence. Maybe he's an expert on something Division needs. Maybe he's in witness relocation and he was an arms dealer in a past life. Whatever it is, Michael has no idea.

But he does hear the soft click of the front door opening, and shit, he thought Daniel was working late. He silently pushes back into the open closet, burying himself amongst the suits and polo shirts hanging neatly pressed. His mind whirls through his options at a rapid pace, he could fight the man, pretend to be a simple burglar who got caught in the act and panic, he could take the man out, and ruin Division's chances of using him for whatever evil purpose they intend. Or he could step out and under the protection of his signal jammer, explain everything to him, help him get out from Division's net, maybe get to him to his girlfriend and out of the country where they can have a better life together. Something that he never had the chance to do with Elizabeth...

Michael hears the man moving about the living room, switching on the light and the television, and he hears an episode of The Simpsons has just started. He's still hidden, but not for long, and if he's going to help this guy out he needs to step out now and reveal himself.

He steps out of the closet, gun out but safety on, ready to confront Daniel, but a tell-tale 'click' of a gun being cocked has his him reacting on pure instinct, jumping behind the bed just as a blond man dressed in black starts shooting.

The man definitely isn't Daniel Munroe, Michael recognises him as Owen, a Cleaner, and he flinches as the mattress beside him explodes in springs and fluff and feathers as another bullet barely misses his shoulder. Michael switches the safety off and fires a few shots back at the Cleaner, enough so that he has to duck out of the room and take cover behind the door-way, giving Michael a few more seconds to assess the situation.

He identifies his assets (he has his gun, and a spare clip, his cell phone, his signal jammer--though clearly it's faulty-- and a knife in his boot) and his exit points (through Owen to the front door, through the window in the bedroom, with a four floor drop to the ground, or the window in the living room out onto the fire exit), he chooses his route and acts before Owen has a chance to counter him.

Michael fires off two more shots, then vaults over the bed to the bedroom door. When Owen points his gun around the door frame Michael quickly disarms him, snatching the gun from Owen's grip with a twist of his wrist and once it’s in his hands he fires a quick two shots back at the cleaner, winging him in the shoulder.

The Cleaner barely flinches at the pain, but Michael now has both the guns and the upper hand, and he's only a few steps away from the front door. Owen aims a punch at his jaw with his good hand, but Michael blocks it smoothly before aiming a sharp jab to the wound on the cleaner's side, followed quickly by a kick to the solar plexus. Owen curls into himself, winded and in pain, and Michael takes his chance, pushing the Cleaner over the couch to their side, and bolting for the front door. He knows he should finish the cleaner off before he leaves-- but there is nothing right about this situation and he knows it's best to get out of here as quickly as possible.

He doesn't stop running until he's three blocks away and is sure no one is following him. He dumps the cell phone and the signal jammer into a dumpster, and pulls both the guns apart, dropping the individual pieces down storm-water drains, sewers, trash cans, before shoving his hands into his pockets before bugging out to one of his safe houses, well away from DC, Owen, Daniel Munroe and anything Division could use to track him down.

A few days later, another report appears in the paper: A local DC man has been found dead in his apartment, an alleged victim of a burglary gone wrong. Police report that Daniel Munroe, a graphic designer, was found by his fiance dead on Tuesday morning, of a gunshot wound to the head.

... ... ...

“Nikki.” Birkhoff says quietly, a gentle hand on her shoulder, pulling her back into reluctant wakefulness. “Nikki, wake up. We have news.”

She blinks a few times, and feels completely disoriented, and more than a little woozy. With each blink, the room becomes a little clearer, and the concerned expression on Seymour’s face swims into focus.

She tries to push herself back into a sitting position, but she sways a bit, and it’s only Seymour’s hand that grabs her shoulder and holds her steady. A scratchy wool blanket falls off her lap to the floor. How did she get like this? She pushes through the fog in her brain to remember.

And then it all comes back to her.

Daniel. Finding him dead. So much blood. Panicking. Someone had pushed a needle into her arm, and then it’d all gone dark.

“Why did you drug me?” She says accusingly, hating the all-too-familiar lethargy of sedatives, hating that these people, who tried so hard to get her off them had put them straight back in her system.

“You were having a panic attack.” Birkhoff says, almost whispering. They’re in his private study, and she’s on his couch. She’s napped here many a time, when she needed a few minutes shut eye and didn’t want to use an old recruit’s quarters. “Amanda did it for your own good.”

The woman in question appears behind him, though she hasn’t spoken a word, choosing simply to observe the two of them.

“We have some news.” Birkhoff repeats, “About Daniel.”

Nikita searches his eyes for what it is, and he passes her a tablet. “Percy told me to find the guy who did this, so I hacked the building’s security cameras, to see if we could track the guy down, maybe use facial recognition or something, and well...”

He touches the screen and grainy black and white security footage begins to play. The timestamp in the corner tells her it’s from about 10pm last night, and figure dressed in black walks down the first hallway and into the elevator, face hidden from the camera. The camera angle switches to the elevator footage, and the man glances up and gives her a good view of his face.

It’s Michael.

“What is this?” She asks dumbly, positive that she’s still confused and fighting off the drugs from her system.

“About 20 minutes later, Daniel comes home. And then ten minutes after that--” Birkhoff swipes at the screen with a finger, and the footage changes to Michael running through the hallway, gun clearly held in his hand, and an unmistakable splatter of blood on his cheek “-- we found this.”

“Our forensic unit also found his DNA at the scene.” Amanda adds.

“Are you saying Michael did this?” She asks.

“Yeah, Nikki.”

“Michael killed Daniel?”

Amanda nods, and Birkhoff looks grim. “Yes.”

She shoves the tablet back at Birkhoff and pushes herself unsteadily up on her feet. She wobbles, but bats his hand away when he reaches out to hold her.

“I’m going to be sick.”

Dear Yuletide Santa!

2011-11-22T06:36:02Z

This is just to let you know that I will be posting a more in depth Santa letter in a bit! I just need to have a shower because my personal trainer was a dick today and if I don't wash my hair today it won't happen at all for the next three because I don't think I'll be moving my arms tomorrow.

<33

Kathy

Alright. I've showered and fed and watered Santa, and there is some beer and cookies on the mantle over there if you want to munch on something while you read.

Firstly thank you so much for doing this, you're already my favourite for doing so! I love Yuletide, and this year's Christmas season is gonna be great for me cos I am going on holiday to the Philippines! Sun and Sand and Hopefully some hot guys to oogle.

Back to business though, a little about me and my fandom life this year: My work life has kind of sucked all year, and while I'm taking steps to get out of that I finally started channelling some creativity again and started writing fanfic, most of which you'll find herein these pages. I also got a bit obsessed with a few things. Fandoms? Nikita and Justified. People? Chris Evans. You may have deducted this already from my requests, but it can never hurt to spell it out.

I like Nikita and Justified for really similar reasons, actually, despite them being radically different shows. I love that they're about loners who have morals, and who have difficulty connecting with those around them, but are fiercely loyal to those who they have managed to form connections with. I love Nikita's fierce determination, and how she is awesome at kicking butt (I love action!) and I love Raylan's calm exterior when dealing with all the SHIT he has to deal with. Ship wise, I support Michael/Nikita, and Raylan/Winona, but I have and always will be a bigger fan of friendship and gen fics above all others. I find friendships more compelling than romantic relationships 9 times out of 10. And the most compelling romantic relationships are ones built on mutual trust and respect (friendship, maybe :D?)

Nikita and Push have a common enemy (Division!), which I have been tempted to exploit for myself, but probably won't have the time til next year, so won't. And I don't expect any fancy crossovers, I know they're not anyone's cup of tea and certainly not within Yuletide's purview.

I don't think Push is the best movie ever. Honestly, it's pretty flawed. I watched it originally cos of Chris Evans, thought it was a dodgy rip off of The X-Men, but found myself really drawn to the Cassie/Nick relationship that develops. Maybe it's a bit skeevy, but I can totally see them falling in love. But yeah, Cassie totes needs to be older for me to be completely alright with it, so if you go that route, 16 or up at least.

I work in a comic shop part time, and I've always been a Marvel girl over DC (poo poo on that Batman guy for realsies) so I've been following the Marvel Studio films with great interest, and this year's big hit was definitely Captain America. I was so heartbroken at the end of the film, and I cannot abide a tragedy. I want that little thing resolved. A promise is a promise, Steve. Keep it. Even if you're 60 years too late.

But seriously, Santa, go where the wind takes you. If you wish to stalk me more, my tumblr name is 'onetrackgirl' and my twitter name is 'ittykat', but as I mentioned before I'm going to be out of the country for a fair chunk of December, so there might not be much to stalk.

Once again, thank you soooo much, Santa! <3 Have a wonderful time, and I can't wait to read your fic on Christmas Day!

fic, nikita, in the details, pg

2011-11-03T12:27:23Z

NaDraWriMo Day 3

Title: In The Details
Fandom: Nikita
Characters: Amanda, Nikita/Michael
Rating: PG
Summary: Set before Nikita’s defection from division. The definition of a relationship through another’s eyes.

It’s just like the saying goes-- the devil is in the details.

It’s little things, here and there. Taken by themselves, that glance, that touch-- they don’t mean much. But when compiled together, it’s a veritable catalogue of courtship, vocabulary and grammar that forms the poetry of their love story.

It’ll all culminate in a tragic ending, of course, she thinks they all know that, deep down. She can see that too, in their hesitance to move their relationship forward. He’s held back by his own sad past, still unwilling to let his ghosts lie, and because she is getting tired of waiting, she’s attaching herself to another. This one is honest, and uncomplicated, and a mission, but she has begun to love him already.

Amanda watches from behind the glass, watching as Michael reviews Nikita’s mission footage with Daniel, and notes the tense muscle in his jaw spasm.

She sees the way that Nikita is constantly aware of Michael’s presence in any room, even when she is occupied and he is only passing through.

Amanda hears the stories, and notices how they’ve become something of a package deal, purely because of how compatible they are as a team. “Michael and Nikita arrived back from their mission in Belarus an hour ago.” “That’s a two man job-- Send Michael and Nikita.” “Michael and Nikita have been debriefed. They confirm each other’s stories.”

Michael and Nikita. Michael and Nikita. MichaelandNikita.

Amanda watches how Michael breaks when Nikita does, leaving Division in a fiery fury, dropping off their radar like no other recruit has ever managed. Michael is stoic and businesslike, and treats NIkita’s defection the same as any other runaway, and that is how Amanda knows that he is truly heartbroken. So she deters Percy from trying to use Michael too directly in the search, knowing that while he could probably find her faster than Birkhoff, Roan and any number of their best trackers could ever hope to find her, that he wouldn’t do it. Maybe not consciously, but Michael had always been just that little bit self-destructive, he wouldn’t be any good to them now.

But she knows that just because Nikita is not a character in this act, doesn’t mean she won’t appear again before the denouement. There is too much unresolved between them, too much history, too much feeling.

Too much.

It’s in the little details.

fic, rebirth, PG

2011-11-02T13:44:22Z

NaDraWriMo Day 2

Title: Rebirth
Fandom: Nikita
Word Count: 550
Rating: PG
Characters: Nikita and Amanda.
Summary: Set pre-series, pre Nikita leaving Division. Prompt: "It's a little... small" by zenni, and inspired by Nikita's 'bikini' from the pilot.

She holds the strip of red fabric up to the light, as though seeing it that way will make it any more substantial. “It’s a little... small.” She says nervously, then holds it against her chest.

“Misdirection comes in many forms, Nikita.” Amanda says lightly, and gestures for her to head behind the Japanese modesty screen in the corner to change.

“I know.”

“And I believe that Michael has been teaching you the value of using the situation to your advantage. Your body is just as much a tool for you to utilise as your gun.”

She steps out from behind the screen, the skimpy red swim-suit barely protecting her modesty. Her eyes are drawn to the tattoo on her hip, exposed except for a small section that is bisected by the string of the bikini. It had always surprised her, that with all the ‘improvements’ Division imposed on her (many against her will), they had let her keep her tattoos. The one on her hip she’d gotten when she was fourteen, an elaborate phoenix she’d gotten purely because she’d liked the look of it in the book and not for any symbolic purpose. Amanda looks her over, one finger pressed lightly against pursed lips. “You need heels.” She taps her finger once, twice, then turns towards her closet, examining the stilettos available. “And sunglasses, I think.”

“I’m not sure I can do this.” Nikita says, hunching her shoulders forward, bangs falling over her eyes.

“Nonsense. You look beautiful.”

“No, it’s not that.” Nikita says, and shakes her head. “You’re right, the suit does fit.” (Even if it is too small.) “I don’t think I can kill him with my bare hands.” She presents her palms to Amanda in a mimicry of surrender, before clenching them into fists again and burying them in her armpits. “Surely there is another agent better qualified.”

“No, Nikita.” Amanda chides gently, and extracts a strappy golden pair from the selection. “There are agents more experienced, but you have to remember, they’ve received the same training as you, they have the same knowledge as you. And the best way to gain the experiences they have, is to take responsibility for your actions, take charge of your fears and just do the job.”

Amanda holds the shoes out, hooked by two fingers.

Nikita swallows, but takes the shoes. Amanda smiles.

“You may be alone on the ground, but Michael will be there as usual, and Birkhoff will be monitoring the situation in case you need immediate extraction.” Amanda says quietly, and slips a dark pair of sunglasses into Nikita’s other hand.

“If this goes well, and I have no reason to believe it won’t, I think you’ll be interested to know we have an extended cover position coming up that you’re our best candidate for... It’ll mean less of these jobs for you, more steady work. His name is Daniel Monroe, he’s a security analyst, it’d be a protection detail!”

It’s a pretty transparent attempt at bribery, but NIkita doesn’t mind. She nods, and smiles a little. It does sound nice, being charged to protect instead of harm. “A change of pace will be nice” She agrees, slipping the sunglasses on and checking her reflection in the mirror. “Tell me more about it when I come back?”

“Of course.”

NaDraWriMo Day 1

2011-11-01T13:21:43Z

Instead of doing NaNoWriMo (because that is too intimidating for me) I am going to try and publish a drabble/fic a day for the month of November.

Title: Jericho
Fandom: Nikita
Characters: Nikita and Michael
Rating: PG-13, sexy times alluded to, but nothing graphic.
Summary: 7 snippets of a future with nothing but each other and a black box for company.
Author's Notes: This was originally part of a longer fic that got Jossed by the series return, and I can't see myself finishing it, as I like where the show took it anyway.

1.

They’ve been driving for hours now and the sun is peeking out from the east. The black box is between them in the console. Michael slips his hand into hers just after dawn and doesn’t let go til they can’t drive any longer.

2.

In a grey motel room in nowhere town Wisconsin, they patch each other up. They tally their bruises in silence. She caresses the angry purple marks the cuff left on his wrist, and gently kneads the stretched muscles in his shoulder back into place. In return, he holds her while she rests, propped up against his chest because her ribs can’t stand the stress of lying down.

When the sun sets, he strips his clothes off and lies naked on the bathroom floor. She takes his lucky knife, straddles his stomach backwards and digs the tracker from his hip.

It’s not the first time she’s hurt him, but this time she patches him up and seals it with a kiss.

“I think it will scar.” She says, regret in her voice.

He brushes a thumb against the thin scar on her hip. “I’ve had worse.”

3.

They plant the tracker on a trucker the next day. Neither of them really believes Division will follow up on it, but it feels good to know that one last tangible connection to them is on its way to Texas.

4.

There are things they need.

Money. Weapons. Transport.

Money is easy. Division taught them the art of the con and the beauty of misdirection so well that it took both of them too long to realise they were being conned themselves. But it serves their purposes now, and they are good at it. The people they steal from will never know they’ve been robbed.

Transport is more risky. Any sort of public transport is out-- too many opportunities for Birkhoff and Percy and whoever else to catch a glimpse of them, and while stealing a car is easy enough for the both of them, it does attract attention.

They sell Michael’s car for cash and buy another sedan that’s for sale on the side of the highway with the very same cheque. It’s smaller, smells like sauerkraut and the radio is stuck programmed to the local country and western channel. Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson are their companions to the state line until reception fades and the white noise takes over. Neither of them mind the silence for the rest of the way.

Weapons are... tricky, but they’ve both been in the business long enough to have made contacts, and neither of them would’ve survived this long without being able to improvise. What they acquire is not ideal, but it’ll be enough to tide them over until they figure out their game plan.

Most of all though, they need each other.

5.

They’re both plagued by their dreams. She dreams of the future, and of Alex, and of What Ifs. He dreams of his family, and of Percy and Amanda.

They learn to comfort each other, how to ease the other into wakefulness and soothe away the tendrils of fear, until they retreat back into the dark shadowy recesses of their minds, ready to attack again when night falls and sleep overcomes them once more.

But one morning, they wake tangled in the sheets and each other. Michael confesses in a whisper that he had once had a dream like this. There is a soft, private smile in the way the corners of his lips twitch.

Nikita runs her hand slowly up his side, counting his ribs with firm fingers until her hand comes to rest above his heart. It thumps reliably beneath her palm, and she wraps herself more tightly around him, never wanting to let him go.

“This is better than any dream.”

6.

Their honeymoon period doesn’t last forever.

It’s over the moment they plug the black box into a laptop and start sorting through fifty years of the government’s dirty laundry. Some of the cases they were involved in directly, some of them they recognise from news reports. The ones they find most terrible are the ones that neither of them had ever even gotten a hint of a wind about.

She knows she made the right decision with the other boxes-- if this ever made it out into the open, it could topple the government, crash economies, divide loyalties and sever truces. She is monumentally glad that Owen was never able to go through with his plan of releasing this information. She may want to end Division, but she wants the world recognisable by the time she’s done.

“Where do we start?” She says, nursing a strong black coffee. “There is so much that needs to be made right.”

Michael steals a fry from her plate and moves the screen a little to see it better. “We’ll just have to do this the same way we do everything else.” He says.

She quirks an eyebrow at him.

He feeds her a fry. “One at a time, until we win.”

7.

They start with a corrupt politician, and anonymously upload the photos of him cavorting with his younger, male assistant to Wikileaks. They do it to test the waters, to see what the retaliation from Division (or Oversight) will be. Birkhoff trained them well and they can both hide their tracks online, but they do using the free wireless from a Starbucks and leave town immediately after.

A week later, the Senator resigns amid reports of corruption, wife standing stoically supportive behind him.

“Why do these women just stand there?” Nikita asks, as they watch the footage together on their hotel room’s television. “It makes me sad, they have to put on the brave face, even though the person they thought they knew and loved has betrayed them all these years.”

Michael shrugs because he doesn’t have the answers, and he knows well enough that Nikita isn’t really asking about the repressed Senator’s wife on the television screen.

She grabs the remote and switches to another channel. They’d seen all they needed to see.

fic, blue is not your colour; pg 13

2011-10-26T11:59:55Z

Title: blue is not your colour
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Don’t own Glee!
Characters: Rachel, Puck, Brittany, Santana
Wordcount: 3900
Summary: A friend in need is a friend indeed.
Author’s note: Continued from here! Blind!Rachel AU. Thank you to Raisa for her legalese help and betaing.

“Take that, gleek.”

The ice is so cold.

That’s the first thing she notices as some of it slides down her cheeks and falls onto her clavicles. And it stings her eyes, and tears immediately spring free in a wild attempt to clear her eyeballs of the sickly sweet syrup that she can’t blink out. She drops her cane to the ground and wipes her face free of some of the ice, only to find her fingers get tangled in her now wet matted hair...

And the laughter is so cruel.

Then a strong, violent shiver courses down her spine, and it’s not because of the ice. She feels vulnerable and cold and alone because she can still hear the footballer laughing with his friends at the end of the corridor as everyone else who’s there has been spooked into silence. She doesn’t really expect any of them to come and help her, the best she’s ever been treated in this school is a sort of unaffected indifference, and she is fine with that. Normally, she’s fine with that.

Right now she wants someone, anyone, to help her. Because she doesn’t know what to do.

“Rachel?” A voice says from behind her, and she lets out a strange noise she never remembers ever making before. It’s somewhere between a gasp, a cry and a gurgle.

“Noah?" She asks.

“Yeah.” He says angrily, though she can tell it’s not directed her. “What happened? Who did this?”

Rachel can only assume that his first question is rhetorical as another clump of ice falls from her shoulder to the floor with a splat. The second question disturbs her more, and her lip begins to wobble. “I don’t know.” She says weakly.

“This is disgusting.” He says, and he gently grabs her elbow. She can feel him lean down and pick up her cane which he places back in her palm. “Here you go, hold onto that. We’ll get you cleaned off then figure out who did this.”

She can’t hear anyone else in the hallway, the culprits having long gone and while she hadn’t noticed where Puck had arrived from she could only assume that he’d turned up while she’d been distracted by the ice. She feels strangely lethargic right now, maybe the ice is numbing her emotions as well as her scalp, but her brain just isn’t really processing anything very well right now. Instead she focuses on the things that are simple enough for her to retain. The Ice. Puck. The click of his cell phone. The foamy grip of her cane, now sticky with syrup.

“Hey Britt,” Puck says abruptly, surprising her a little. “I need you to come to the Spanish hallway right away, it’s an emergency... No the Spanish hallway is the one with the trophy cabinet... Can you bring a change of clothes?... Who is that in the background?... Don't bring her... Lie or something..." the anger in his voice hasn't dissipated, it's just been replaced with an odd, business-like determination.

He ends the call without saying goodbye to Brittany and returns his full attentions to her. She feels less exposed with him here, but is no less mortified by the situation.

"Who would do this?" she asks, feeling oddly dumb.

There is an awkward pause before he says: "I only saw you." he says, and there is something in his tone that she can't identify... It's too calm, like he is forcing it for appearance's sake.

A door squeaks open and closed at the end of the hall and light footsteps signal to Rachel the approach of others. She tightens her grip on Puck's bicep.

“Oh!” Brittney says. “Blue is not your colour.”

"It's just Brittany and Santana," he murmurs quietly in her ear, then says to the new arrivals: "I told you not to let her come."

"Fuck off, Puckerman, you are not my keeper," the abrasive cheerleader says, and Rachel beneath the almost overwhelming scent of blueberry syrup Rachel notes the distinctive smell of hairspray, antiperspirant and cayenne pepper that follows the Cheerios everywhere. "Who slushied Berry?” Santana asks bluntly.

Rachel shivers again and Puck bites out a snappy: “We don’t know. But you and I are going to find out. Britt, can you---” and Rachel feels her elbow being passed along to the taller girl who wastes no time guiding her into the nearest bathroom, leaving Santana and Noah in the hallway. Normally, she’d be cranky at being passed between them like that, but right now she appreciates the contact, that these three people who last year wouldn't have given her the time of day are now shepherding her between them to somewhere she can be safe.

In fact, as soon as she’s alone with Brittany in the bathroom, and the cheerleader is using a few wet paper towels to sponge the ice from her face, the tears start to flow, and she doesn’t even bother trying to stop them.

Brittany, to her credit, doesn’t seem phased and is very understanding, handing her another paper towel to blot away the tears before helping her out of her now ruined cardigan. She then guides her down onto a hard plastic chair that is apparently stored in this bathroom for occasions such as this so that she can wash out Rachel’s hair in the sink.

For the most part Brittany works in silence, and Rachel is kind of grateful for it. She’s doing her best to get her tears under control and way that Brittany is massaging her scalp to rid it of the icy clumps is soothing.

“This was really mean.” Brittany says when she finally turns the faucet off. “You didn’t see, but Puck was really angry. I haven’t seen him that angry ever, not even when he loses at football.”

Rachel sniffs deeply to clear her head. “I heard.” She nods and then Brittany is gently squeezing her hair of the excess moisture. Rachel hears the water circling down the drain. “--In his voice.” She clarifies.

“I’m sorry.”

Rachel considers telling Brittany that she doesn’t need to apologise, but before she can say anything the door to the bathroom squeaks open. “You decent in there?” Noah asks, and Rachel can hear the anger isn’t quite gone.

“Yes.” Rachel says and sits up, and two sets of footsteps enter into the bathroom. Someone sits a bag down on the bench beside her and she hears the whir of a zip and the gentle rustling of clothes before someone presses a dry towel into her hands. “There,” Santana says. “We found you a spare set of clothes too so now you can toss that creepy cat sweater away. It’s ruined anyway.”

“Thanks.” She says, and presses the towel to her face and hair, trying to pat the moisture away.

“We couldn’t find them.” Noah reports, sounding disappointed. Rachel’s stomach rolls nervously, but she’s glad that she can hide her face in the towel. She feels dangerously close to tears again. “Could you recognise their voice, smell, anything distinctive?”

"I bet it was that asshole, Karofsky." Santana adds. “His panties have been in a twist since Carrie Davies didn’t fuck him at the after party last week.”

His questioning is rather predatory, and Santana’s comments make her uncomfortable, and honestly while Rachel appreciates the sentiment, she just wants to get home. She shakes her head. “No. I’m sorry.”

“Did anyone else see?” Noah asks.

“I don’t know...” She says, “I could hear there were other people in the hallway, but...” Her voice wavers again, and she feels another tear slip down her face. She presses the towel back against her useless eyes and hides again. She’d brought this on herself. If she could see, she might’ve been able to avoid this whole situation altogether, or at least would’ve been able to identify the culprit. But she can’t, and she’s overwhelmed with an almost suffocating sense of uselessness and self-loathing.

Rachel feels someone gently take her by the elbow again, this time helping her to stand and corralling her into one of the stalls. “I’ll help you change and Puck will drive you home.” Brittany says kindly.

The clothes she changes into are clean at least, though they’re not her size. From the smell of the laundry detergent, she thinks they belong to Santana, and she wonders if she’s been put into a spare Cheerios outfit, but doesn’t really feel like asking. Brittany natters quietly as she helps her out of her sodden blouse, filling the silence with little compliments about Glee, and random observations about the bathroom stall and her day, but whether it’s designed to distract her or just because it’s something to say, Rachel isn’t sure. She’s not really listening anyway. She does, however, catch snatches of the conversation that Noah and Santana have from the other side of the door, even though they’re whispering quietly between themselves:

“I’ll figure out who did it.” Santana says, “Slushying her is a dick move. Even if you are at the bottom of the food chain, this school has standards.”

“Let me know as soon as you do.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

***

They don’t say much to each other on the drive home. Rachel because she still feels acutely vulnerable and Noah because he doesn’t know what to say. He takes a different route home to her place than the one that her fathers usually drive, and his truck is bigger and less comfortable than her Daddy’s hybrid. The silence gives her time alone with her thoughts though, and in the time between leaving school and getting home, she’s started forming a plan of action for herself to deal with Kurt and his accusation, and the slushy, and everything to do with the problems she’s having with Jesse. She isn’t going to just stand by and take it anymore. Maybe she has the Cheerios uniform to thank for this new drive and determination. Maybe she’s just sick of being humiliated. She’s going to take back her control, just like Miss Pillsbury said to do.

She’s so caught up in her planning, that when Noah turns into her street and pulls his truck into the driveway she barely even notices until he scares her out of her reverie with a question.

“Where are your dads?” He asks, as soon as he’s switched the motor off.

“How do you know they’re not home?” She counters.

He unclicks his belt. “No cars in the garage. I have a couple of clients in your street, I pass by here pretty often.”

She didn’t know that. She wonders if the rumours about him and the lonely housewives of Lima are true, and if they’re true in the case of the lonely Mrs Clarkson down the street.

“They’re out tonight. Thursday night is date night.” She explains, and unclicks her own belt, then feels around the door to let herself out. Puck reaches over and unlocks the door for her, pushing it open.

“Are you gonna be alright by yourself?” He asks, hesitantly.

She is about to answer ‘Yes’, when it occurs to her that she could probably use his help, at least for now. “Can you come inside? I need a favour.”

“Sure.” Noah says, and they head inside together. She locks the door behind him, and feels across the wall for the light-switch to illuminate the hall for his benefit, then leads him into the kitchen where she deposits her school things and wet clothes to be dealt with later.

“I’m thirsty. Would you like a drink?” She offers, remembering her manners.

“Sure.” He says with a shrug, and she can tell that he is watching her closely. It’s the first time she’s ever had anyone other than Tina or Artie or Finn over her house, and she should be attempting to be a better hostess, showing him around but she doesn’t imagine he really cares what the layout of her parents house is. Besides, that’s not why she invited him here.

“I’ve never seen you move around this quickly before.” Noah says quietly, as she deftly moves about the kitchen, fetching two clean glasses from the cupboard and the filtered water from the fridge to pour them both a glass. She pushes his glass across the counter in his direction, and sips from her own as she puts the water jug back into the fridge.

“Don’t you move around with more confidence in your house?” She asks.

“I suppose.”

“I know where everything is here. No one moves things around on me to mess with me, or deliberately tries to make my life more difficult.”

It’s then that she realises that perhaps she needs to take the opportunity to calm down a little, and stop directing her anger at Noah, who’d been the one who’d found her, and taken care of her, despite the way he may have acted towards her in the past. She takes a big gulp of water and lets out a deep breath.

“I’m sorry.” She says awkwardly.

“No.” Noah says sharply, and he sets his glass down on the table. “Don’t be, you’ve got every right to be pissed.”

“But not at you.”

He makes a dismissive noise, and she takes it as a sign to move past it. “What did you need me to do for you?” He asks.

“I need to find something in my father’s study.” She says, running through the steps of her plan of attack in her mind. “I need to find my adoption papers.”

If he’s at all phased by the left-field request, he doesn’t voice his opinion, and is instead happily led from the kitchen to the study and directed to the filing cabinets in the corner.

“I’d find the files myself,” She explains, as he opens the first drawer. “But it would take me a lot longer than if you get them out for me.”

“What am I looking for?” Noah asks, and she hears the rustling of paper and clinking of metal as he pushes files back and forth within the filing cabinet.

Rachel hesitates a little. “I’m not sure what their filing system is like, is there anything labelled ‘Adoption papers’?”

Noah makes a little negative noise in the back of his throat. “Nothing like that, it’s all dates. ‘Fall 2000’, ‘Spring 2007’, that sort of thing.”

“Well I was born in winter of 1994, so maybe Spring or Summer of the same year.” She says, and she hears him flicking through to find those folders.

After a few quiet moments, filled with more clinking and paper rustling he says: “I’ve got them.” and pushes the cabinet drawer closed with his foot once he’s pulled out the files they need.

“My parents would have copies of the contracts they signed with my birth mother in there somewhere. Probably medical certificates... Something should have her name on it.”

She hears more rustling of papers as Noah begins to skim through them quickly, then he pauses. “Rachel, this kind of makes me uncomfortable. This is private stuff...”

“But it’s about me... And I give you permission.”

“I thought you were open with your parents, why can’t you just ask them?”

“I... I just need to do this for myself... You’ve done the hard part now though, I’ll go get my reader from my bedroom, I can look through it all myself.”

“Nah, it’ll be quicker if I help.” He says. “And this way you owe me.”

The flippant way he says the last bit belies that he is joking with her, and it makes her smile a little. “Why does that make me think that being in debt to Noah Puckerman is something I may end up regretting?”

He laughs a little, but doesn’t reply. Instead he continues flicking through the files until... “Hey, I think this might be it. It’s definitely a contract, signatures and everything. You want me to wait while you get your reader?”

“No. Just read it out, it’ll be quicker.”

“There are a lot of big words on here...” He says, hesitantly, but begins to read anyway.

DECLARATION OF INTENT

I, Shelby Amanda Corcoran hereby acknowledge that I have agreed to carry and give birth to a child conceived via in vitro fertilization through the union of my ovum/ova and Hiram Jackson Berry’s sperm, so that Hiram Jackson Berry may have a child genetically related to them. I waive any and all physical or legal custody or any parental rights or any duties whatsoever with respect to any child born of this gestational surrogacy process. It is my intention that the genetic and intended parents, Hiram Jackson Berry and Leroy James Berry, shall exclusively have such custody and all parental rights and duties.

I further acknowledge that it is in the best interests of any child born of this gestational surrogacy process for Hiram Jackson Berry and Leroy James Berry to have sole custody of the said child. I therefore agree to cooperate fully in allowing them to bond with and take custody of said child from the moment of its birth.

“--And then it’s just signatures and stuff, both that Shelby woman and both your dads. And the lawyers, and witnesses.” Noah explains.

Shelby Amanda Corcoran. That’s her mother’s name. Why does it sound so familiar?

“Does that name sound familiar to you?” She asks out loud, not really expecting Noah to know, it just twinges something in the back of her mind.

“No.” And after a pause, and more shuffling of paper. “There is a photo in here of her though...” and he lets a soft whistle out between his lips.

“What is it? Do you recognise her?” She asks eagerly, leaning forward to be closer to him and this proof of her mother’s existence as a person. “What does she look like?”

“No.” Noah says. “No I don’t recognise her. But she looks just like you. It’s weird. Same hair, same nose... Same eyes. She’s beautiful.”

She feels a pang in her chest, something deep and powerful, and oddly painful, and she doesn’t quite know what to do with the feeling.

“Um.” She says, and clears her throat a little, “What else does it say in there?”

“Um.” Noah mumbles, and there is more rustling of paper. “Your birth certificate is in here-- You were 5 pounds, 2 ounces at birth... Wow. You were small.” He says, and to her there is something odd in the tone of his voice when he says that that she can’t just let slide past her without comment.

“How do you know what a small baby weighs?” She asks, a little offended.

“My mom is a nurse.” He says, but he sounds guilty, like he’s intentionally only telling half the story.

“But I thought she worked at the nursing home.”

“She does. But nurses talk about those things. And my sister was small too. I remember that. Not as small as you, though. There’s also a few letters from some fertility clinic in Cleveland.”

Rachel nods, still not sure he’s telling her everything, but she decides it’s not important. Instead she returns to her mother, wracking her brain to try and remember where she’s heard the name ‘Shelby Corcoran’ before. Maybe her parents had mentioned her in passing as an old family friend, though it doesn’t seem likely. They’ve always been open with her about everything, except her maternity, which has honestly never been an issue before for them. She’s sure that if she’d ever asked them outright about her mother they would’ve produced the very same file that Noah is now flicking through and answered all of her questions and more.

Part of her feels a little guilty about doing this behind her fathers’ back, but another part of her likes the feeling of independence it gives her, knowing that she has discovered this information for herself at her own behest-- even if she’s used someone else to do so.

No, her mother’s name doesn’t really feel contextualised by her fathers. But it does slot somewhere else in her life. Maybe she heard her name on the news? No. Somewhere else...

“Rachel.” Noah says gently, distracting her from her train of thought and bringing her back into the present. “Why do you need to know all this now?” He asks, and he sets a gentle hand on her shoulder, twisting her to face in his direction.
Again, she hesitates, not sure what she wants to tell him and what she wants to keep to herself, and she spends a few moments flip-flopping between her options before deciding that after his help this afternoon, both at school and now here at home, she should probably return the favour, and trust him a little in return.

“I’ve recently been made aware of a treatment option that might help me get some of my vision back.” She explains quietly, acutely aware that she’d told him only a few months ago that treatment wasn’t an option for her.

“And your mother can help you with that? Some sort of donor deal?” He asks.

“Sort of. I’d need stem cells from a compatible source for the process, and I know my parents have other embryos in cryogenic storage at a clinic they haven’t used... But I’d need her permission to use them. I think. There’s probably a contract somewhere in there that details it all.”

She reaches out to him, reaching for the folder he holds in his hands, and he passes it to her. “Well. If you need any more help or whatever. You’ve got my number.”

“You’ve been more than helpful enough, thank you Noah.” She says with a smile, because she is genuinely grateful for his help. “And thank you for driving me home, and for helping me at school.”

“Don’t mention it.” He says gruffly, and he brushes his hand against her elbow, taking her hand and fitting it around his arm. “It won’t happen again, though.” He promises.

She doesn’t know what to say to that, and she doesn’t really want him to elaborate just at this moment. Instead she changes tact. “Did we have a glee meeting this afternoon? Kurt mentioned something about it.”

“No.” Noah says, and she hears his frown. “I thought that was Tuesdays.”

“It is. He said it was a special one they called because of my relationship with Jesse St James.” She explains.

“What, that Vocal Adrenaline guy?”

“Yes.” She nods. “Apparently they’re concerned that since I’m dating the competition, I’m a threat to the group.”

“Who the fuck cares who you’re dating? As long as he’s not being a dick to you, I don’t care.”

She instantly feels a little better, knowing that Kurt was exaggerating his claims, and that there is still one person who hasn’t turned on her.

fic, glee, do you have a dollar? PG

2011-09-25T12:58:48Z

Title: Do you have a dollar?
Rating: PG for language
Pairing: Puck/Rachel
Summary: A/U strangers in a laundromat. Filling a prompt by roncha78 in the puckrachel drabble meme!

He sees her for the first time on a rainy Monday night at the beginning of July, a week after he’s finally settled into his new apartment. His building doesn’t have a laundry so he asked his neighbour for the address of the closest laundromat, started a collection of quarters in a little plaster bowl his sister gave him as a house-warming gift and walked the block and a half with his clothes hamper slung across his back and Fruit Ninja installed on his iPhone to keep him busy while he waits.

She’s the only other one in there, sitting in a red plastic chair up against the side wall, engrossed in a paperback and whatever she has playing on her iPod. She’s got shiny brown hair and pale olive skin and she only briefly glances up when he steps inside the brightly lit room and sets about filling two free machines with his dirty clothes.

So their first ‘meeting’ isn’t particularly spectacular.

She’s there the next Monday, and the Monday after, and each time walks in with his hamper slung across his shoulder, she spares him a glance before returning her attention to whatever she’s brought to read-- One week it’s a magazine, and the next it’s another paperback. He keeps to himself and goes about his washing without getting in her way.

The forth week is a bit different. He’s nursing a second-day hangover after a big night out on Saturday night that seem to be morphing into the flu and wants nothing more than to be passed out on his couch with baseball on the TV and something greasy digesting in his stomach, but he needs a change of clothes for tomorrow and so he can’t just shirk his responsibilities like he wants.

He resolves to just get everything out of the way quickly and maybe he can figure out a way to get comfortable enough in these red plastic chairs to squeeze out another nap before he has to drag his hamper home. But when he’s shoved his clothes into his two regular machines and sticks his hand into his pocket for his quarters, he realises that he forgot to grab them on the way out.

He can’t, he can’t walk all the way back to his apartment right now. He’d had to fight every instinct to pull himself off the couch to come down here in the first place. He just doesn’t have it in him to do the trip all over again. He leans his head up against the green-painted laundry machine and groans a little in frustration.

“Are you alright?” A light voice calls from the other corner of the room. He twists his head a little to see the brunette laundry girl sitting in her regular chair. Damn. He’d been so hungover he hadn’t even noticed her there.

“Yeah.” He croaks, and if she didn’t think he was pathetic before she’s sure to think it now. “Bad day, s’all.” He grumbles.

She slips a bookmark between the pages of her novel and sets it aside. “You don’t look well.” She says, eyes darting to focus on his bloodshot eyes, his sickly complexion and the vein throbbing in his temple.

“I’m hungover.”

“That’ll do it.” She murmurs in agreement, nodding a little.

He closes his eyes and breathes in the lemony fresh, humid air of the room and then lets it out slowly, hoping that the zesty smell of the detergent and fabric softener would be enough to give him the energy to keep going... It’s not.

“I wouldn’t normally ask, but have you got any spare change?” He turns and asks, figuring the worst she can say is ‘No’.

“Sure.” She says cheerfully, standing up and pulling a small beaded coin purse from a hidden pocket in her dress. It tinkles brightly with change.

Finally. Something going right today. “You are a fucking angel.” He says and lets out a long breath of relief. She laughs lightly and he gives her a gracious smile as she counts out enough change into his hand for his two machines and enough for him to use the dryer afterwards as well.

“I’m hardly an angel.” She says with a wave. “But I do believe in paying it forward... Just do something nice for someone else this week and we’ll call it even.”

They feed the coins into his machines together and soon enough his laundry is rhythmically spinning around in front of him, making him all the more nauseous, but he’s still stupidly happy he doesn’t have to make another trip back to his apartment.

“Thanks...?” He trails off, hoping she’ll give him her name as well as the spare coins for the dryer.

“Rachel.” She says. “Rachel Berry.”

“I’m Puck.” He says, and she laughs again.

“Is that really your name?”

“It’s a nickname... Everyone calls me it. Even my teachers did.” She watches him for another moment or two, and lets the silence hang precariously between them for a few moments before he concedes: “Noah Puckerman”

“Well it’s nice to meet you, Noah.” She holds out her hand and he shakes it gratefully. She points a dainty finger at the red plastic chairs. “If you can get comfy on one of those chairs you can try and get a little bit of sleep. I’ll watch your things.”

He decides then that yeah, no matter what she says, she’s definitely a gift from the hangover gods.

The next week he brings her a hot chocolate as a thank you. He even knows to get it with soy milk, and it’s not completely creepy how he knows that without asking. It’s just that he’s noticed that sometimes she has a Starbucks coffee cup sitting on the ground next to her feet, and after years of working as a barista in college reading the scribbles on coffee cups is now just a bad habit he can’t shake.

“You didn’t have to do that!” She says, but takes the warm cup from him anyway and holds it close enough to her nose to smell the sweet milky goodness.

“But I wanted to. And I did what you said, Haley Joel Osment style.” He says, and sets his hamper next to his feet. “My neighbour bought some stuff from Ikea and needed help putting it together.”

She smiles again, and takes a sip of the warm hot chocolate.

They start talking more, after that. He learns she’s an actress working on an off-Broadway play and does her laundry on Monday nights because that’s the only night she’s not performing on a stage for hundreds of people to enjoy. He learns they’re the same age and both from Ohio, though not from the same part obviously. He learns she’s Jewish too, by birth at least, but that she was raised by a gay couple and is understandably a little ambivalent towards organised religion in general.

He tells her things about himself as well. He tells her about how he only just moved to the city, and how he’s working a crappy job riding a desk at a temp agency, but what he really wants to do is make it as a rockstar, and unlike his mother (and pretty much everyone else he tells that to) she doesn’t laugh at him and tell him how futile his dream is. Instead she asks if she can hear something he’s written, and he lets her listen to a couple of his songs on his phone. He tells her about his mother, and his little sister, and she introduces him to the wonder that is fabric softener, swearing that it will blow his mind.

Somehow Monday nights become the highlight of his week. Between the mediocrity of his working day and the disappointments that his nights can bring, she becomes somewhat of a bright spot of sunlight he can relax into one night a week. He becomes conscious of it when he catches himself thinking of things to tell her when he sees her next, and soon seeing her one day a week isn’t enough because he has too many things to talk about and their one hour of shared time once a week just isn’t cutting it any more.

So he buys a ticket to her show and watches from the balcony as she blows the entire theatre away. It’s not a serious show, all about a high school glee club and their David Vs. Goliath battle to win a national show choir competition. She’s not the lead, but she’s definitely the most compelling character as far as he’s concerned, and when she sings her solo he’s stunned into silence like the rest of the theatre at just how amazing she is.

He waits at the stage door after, nervous and with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket. He’s not the only one out here, young women and a few excited gay men are clutching playbills and hovering as well, and as various actors and actresses exit one after another the crowd squeals and autographs are given, and photos taken and Puck wonders if it’s like this every night, if this amazing Laundromat girl he’s only known for a few months is actually A Big Deal, and he just never knew. Well. He’s been starting to think she’s a Big Deal, but definitely not in the way that this pulsating group of fanboys and girls seems to think.

Finally, she steps out, dressed in a little blue dress he’s seen her fold a dozen times by now. It must be a favourite of hers, and it definitely looks good on her. She gives all her attention to the crowd around, posing happily for photographs and signing autographs, so it’s a little while til she pushes through the crowd and sees him standing up against the side wall.

His stomach does a weird flip when the first thing she does upon seeing him is grin.

“Hey!” She says cheerfully. “You should’ve told me you were coming!”

He shrugs, “It was a spontaneous thing, figured I should see you in your natural habitat.” He nods towards the fans who’re now cloying around the male lead of the show. “I didn’t expect all that.”

“Oh.” She blushes, and clutches at the arm of her bag nervously. “It’s all still quite weird for me.”

“You were amazing up there.” He says, changing the topic, and they turn together to walk to the Subway station. They share a stop after all, living a block away from each other.

“Thank you!” She says with a grin “We had a great audience tonight and that can make all the difference. Did you enjoy it?”

“Sure.” He says, finding her nervousness oddly endearing. Maybe it’s a little strange, seeing her outside of the fluorescent light of the laundromat, walking together down the street, but at the same time it feels normal, and natural. After all, they’ve each seen each other’s dirty laundry and they’ve been chatting together once a week for months now... It’s about time he asks her out.

“Do you want to grab a drink?” He asks, looking down on her. “My treat.”

“Sure!”

Six months later, he’s finally getting some buzz and is in some pretty serious talks with some important people about a record deal. He also moves in with his girlfriend, and he loves that no matter how busy they are getting, now she’s in workshops for a new musical (this one is actually on Broadway) and he’s actually kind of in demand, they still go to the laundromat every Monday night. Together.

http://puckrachel.livejournal.com/430970.html?thread=11142266#t11142266

fic, glee. your moves are so raw; pg-13

2011-08-18T12:08:50Z

Title: Your Moves Are So Raw
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don’t own Glee!
Characters: Rachel, Jesse, Tina, Emma, Kurt, Rachel/Jesse
Wordcount: 3600
Summary: How do you know when you’re ready, and how do you know a friend from a frenemy?
Author’s note: Continued from here! Blind!Rachel AU.

Please review!

Kissing is new for her. She’d been kissed a lot, from the uncomfortably wet kisses her grandmother pressed against her cheeks in greeting to the gentle feathering of her father’s lips against her temple at night before she went to bed as a child. But kissing, on the lips, by someone who’s not a relative-- that’s new.

She didn’t know what to expect, really. Lips weren’t something she’d ever put much thought into, they were there to help produce sounds, and to help her eat, and got mighty chapped in the cold winter air but the kissing thing had never really made any sense to her when she read about it in stories, or heard it described in songs. Surely teeth would knock and halitosis was a rampant problem amongst the teenagers at her school (care and personal hygiene in general really).

So she was pleasantly surprised at just how... well... pleasant, it was.

Jesse’s soft hands hold her gently in place, one just above her hip and the other threads through her hair at the back of her head. She’s not sure where she should place her own hands, but they seem to naturally find a home pressing against his chest, gripping the fabric of his silky dress shirt tightly before she relaxes a little and dares to slide her hand around his rib cage to his back where it rests comfortably beneath his shoulder blade.

After a few minutes he pulls back a little, and brushes the hair away from her face, then he places a series of soft, moist kisses beneath her left ear, and it shouldn’t feel as nice as it does, but it tickles a little, and the sensation tingles all the way from her ear down her spine and she gasps, then feels Jesse’s lips twitch and smile against her skin.

“You’re so adorable.” He murmurs quietly and kisses her on the lips again, and his hand slides along her waist, just skimming her breast a little then back again, and her breath hitches, and the tingling sensation ripples across her body again.

“Jesse.” She says, after a little while of this, and moves her hand to what feels like a more decorous position on his hip.

“Mmm?” Jesse hums quietly, sliding the collar of her top aside so he can place a kiss on the point where her neck meets her shoulder.

“Can you slow down a little?” She asks, but her voice is breathy and insubstantial, and maybe a little squeaky in her nervousness.

“Just relax!” Jesse says, and kisses her on the lips again.

“Mmrph.” She says, and pushes her head back into the pillows in an effort to escape his lips, but he follows her and puts a little more of his own weight on her. “Please, Jesse.” She says.

He stills above her, then lets out a heavy, dramatic breath. “All right.” He says, and pulls away. “I thought you were into it.” His hand brushes the side of her breast as he sits back up. Rachel can’t tell if it was intentional or not.

“I was... I am.” She says quickly, and she runs her fingers along the front of her blouse, checking all of her buttons are still in place. Only the top one has come undone, but she doesn’t re-button it just yet. “I’ve just never... You’re the first one I’ve done anything like this with before...” She feels embarrassed, like she could easily let her duvet and blankets and multitudes of pillows swallow her up so she doesn’t have to continue this conversation.

“Right.” Jesse says, and to her his voice sounds a little strained.

“I really liked it.” She says. “It’s just too much, too fast.”

Jesse doesn’t say anything, but she feels his weight leave the bed as he stands. “I’m sorry, Rachel.” He says. “You’re right, we should take it more slowly. And honestly it’s probably about time I left if I want to be back at Carmel for practice before Coach Corcoran starts dividing my solos amongst the other tenors.”

Rachel smiles and stands as well, reaching out for his hand, which he places in her palm. “Of course. We can’t have that.” She says, and means it. She knows the value of a solo and how quickly they can be parcelled away from you if you’re not vigilant in your dedication. And even then sometimes it’s not enough. “I really enjoyed tonight. Dinner was lovely. Thank you for the date.”

“Any time.” He says warmly, and cups her face with his other hand and kisses her gently on the lips one last time before he collects his things and leaves.

After he’s gone, she sets about tidying her room a little before her parents get home from their date and she is subjected to the Berry Family Twenty Questions. She doesn’t mind the questions much, her parents have always encouraged open conversation amongst the family, and she is happy to oblige them if they ask her directly (and it isn’t as mortifying as it could be, given that the questions are never asked in order to be judgemental) but that isn’t to say she needs to leave out clues and markers that tell them all they need to know.

So she tucks her sheets back in and smooths out the wrinkled duvet she and Jesse had been rolling about on top of, and once her pillows are fluffed and set back into ordered position on her bed she starts getting ready for her nightly shower.

She shucks her clothes and deposits them into the hamper behind her bathroom door and turns the shower taps on to run for a few seconds before she steps underneath the spray. For a moment or two she relaxes and simply enjoys the wonderful sensation of water moistening her hair and flowing down the curve of her spine, massaging her shoulders and chest and thawing the tips of her fingers.

There are pump bottles attached to wall on her right, all Braille labelled-- shampoo, conditioner, face wash and sorbolene cream -- and she quickly pumps the shampoo bottle twice and rubs it quickly into a lather in her hair, then rinses it out just as quickly.

Her nightly shower, like everything else in her life, is based around routine and organisation, with everything in its place, but of all her routines she likes her shower best. It’s partly the hot steamy water, and the way the air in her bathroom becomes humid and clogged with steam and it fills her nostrils and her lungs and opens her pores (she always feels fresh and clean after). But it’s also the solitude, the ten minutes she has to herself every night to just decompress and work out the kinks of the day, whether they be muscular, psychological or emotional. Sometimes it even feels like by working it out in here, she washes away some of her problems. Not all of them, of course, that would be silly, but it is definitely more than just hygiene for her.

She applies the conditioner to her hair and squirts a generous amount of sorbolene cream onto her palm which she begins to rub into her skin. First her armpits, then across her shoulders, down her arms, across her breasts and down to her stomach, hips and between her legs. She does it slowly, feeling the curves of her body in an almost clinical fashion.

From what she reads in books and magazines, she knows that women are considered more beautiful if they’re big breasted, if they have wider hips. There are other things too, like blonde hair, and fair skin, neither of which she has. She has brown hair, and skin that tans easily in the sun, and a line of freckles run across her nose-- all of this her Dads have described to her. Not that she understands why it matters. But she cups her breasts for a moment or two, considering their size, and the way her nipples are a little more sensitive than the skin around them, before washing away the cream. She’d never realised how sensitive they were until Jesse’s hand brushed across them and that nice tingling sensation had rippled across her skin.

They hadn’t taught that in health class. Lessons on that particular part of her anatomy had extended to ‘girls begin to develop them at age 11 and are usually completely developed by age 15’ and ‘pregnancy induces lactation’, and not much beyond. It makes her realise exactly how little she knows about sex in general, besides the very basic biological requirements and “don’t do it, you’ll get pregnant”.

It occurs to her now that there is clearly more to it than that. Of course she knows this, she does read after all, and quite a fair bit more widely than her class mates from what she can gather, who seem limited to Twilight, Harry Potter and their Facebook feeds, but there are still questions that can’t be answered by the scant details the few paragraphs of erotica that her books provide.

She knows it can be pleasurable and that it can be fun. She hears adjectives like ‘sexy’ and ‘hot’ thrown around, and she knows that it’s the primary activity at most of the big boozy parties the Cheerios throw every weekend. She wants to explore that. Not the parties, those she’s pretty sure she can do without. But the feelings, those urges... That tingling sensation that rippled across her skin was only the tip of the iceberg, and she knows she wants to feel it again. And more. And she wants to make Jesse feel them too. But she also knows that there is a lot she doesn’t know about sex, like how to keep it safe, how to know when you’re ready. It’s another thing that she doesn’t want to ask her parents about just yet, besides, it’s something she feels she might be more comfortable discussing with another woman, and the only one in her family who would be remotely suitable for that discussion is her Aunt Carol... Which... No.

Rachel decides, as she shuts off the water and grasps her fluffy warm towel from the hook beside the shower, that this is probably the perfect opportunity to ask people her own age. They’re going through the same kind of exploration that she is, and they’re her peers... She thinks she’d feel less embarrassed if she’s talking about it with Tina, than Aunt Carol. She thinks she’d even prefer Miss Pillsbury, and that is not so far out of her job description, after all...

Once she’s dry, she wraps the towel around her torso and knots it between her breasts, squeezing the last bit of moisture from her hair over her sink. She resolves to think about it a little more tomorrow, and keep her ears perked for any opportunity to bring the topic up with... someone.

***

Of course it doesn’t work out like she plans

The topic doesn’t exactly come up naturally when she’s talking with Tina-- the girl is painfully shy, though usually not so much around Rachel, but when Rachel asks how far she and Artie had progressed with their relationship on a physical level, Tina’s stutter becomes so bad that Rachel can barely understand every second word.

Perhaps she had been a little too blunt. She resolves to try a more subtle approach next time.

She finds Miss Pillsbury in her office during lunch the next day, and the smell of personal hand-sanitiser is so strong once she opens the door that it hits her like an almost physical wall. Rachel steels herself and takes a long breath of the relatively fresh hall-way air (which honestly smells like feet, what with all the teenagers present) and settles herself in her usual seat across from the guidance counselor and explains her situation.

“Oh... Rachel.” The older woman says, and Rachel hears the distinctive pump of the hand sanitiser bottle and the sound of slightly wet hands rubbing together. “I’m not sure I’m the best person to talk about this with.”

“But you’re the school’s guidance counselor.” Rachel says, a little confused. She expected this sort of reaction from Tina, not Emma. This is her job.

“Yes.” Emma says. “But this is normally something people talk with their parents about... Your mother...”

“I can’t do that. You know that.” Rachel frowns, wishing she didn’t sound so snappy. She doesn’t mean to, sometimes her frustration just comes out in her voice.

“Yes... Of course. But didn’t you learn that sort of thing in Health Class?”

“Coach Tanaka didn’t go into specifics a lot.” Rachel says with a shrug. “To be frank he sounded about as embarrassed at having to deliver the lecture as my classmates were at having to listen to it.”

She doesn’t mention that Noah Puckerman had corrected the physical education teacher on more than one point. It had seemed needlessly disruptive at the time, but about now Rachel is wondering if Noah is really the person she should be asking these things of--

No. Rachel nips that thought trail in the bud before it has the chance to grow any larger and into something that begins to resemble a good idea, because she knows that it isn’t. She continues on explaining her problem to Miss Pillsbury: “Besides, it was a mostly visual presentation, which is of no use to me.”

“What about another female relative you’re comfortable with?” Emma suggests.

This of course frustrates Rachel a little more, and she lets out a little huff of air to emphasise it, which Emma cannot miss.

“No.” Rachel says finally, and gathers her messenger bag and cane in hand. “I’ll figure something out.” She mutters as she stands and leaves the guidance office, for the first time without a satisfying plan she can implement to tackle her issue.

Maybe she’s going about this the wrong way. Maybe it isn’t something she can talk out or solve by herself. Maybe this is something she’ll need to just... learn as she goes. From what she gathers, it’s probably how the rest of her school friends figure it out, by just diving right into all sorts of experiences, whether or not they may be healthy, and dealing with the consequences later. Even if those consequences are not so easily overcome.

She takes a left as she leaves the office, figuring that now she has the rest of her lunch break free she can collect the books for her next class and get a little ahead on her history reading in the library and also avoid the end-of-lunch crowds near the lockers. The hallway isn’t completely empty of course, with other students milling about switching out books, collecting packed lunches, gossiping as they leave and enter the bathrooms at either end of the hall but Rachel is able to avoid them all with ease. She finds her locker with no trouble and collects her own lunch, packed for her that morning by her father before he dropped her off. He’d handed it to her with his customary kiss to her cheek before ushering her into her other father’s car, just like he does every morning. Maybe their morning routine is rather corny, but she loves it and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

She spends the rest of the day running through her options and has almost resigned herself to asking her Aunt Carol the next time she visits from Missouri until she gets a surprise in her last class of the day.

“Rachel.” Kurt says, sitting down in the seat next to her in the library. Her things are, as usual, already spread out across the desk so she can make the most of her study period.

“Kurt.” She acknowledges, and turns her head so she is facing in his direction. To be quite frank, other than one of the Cheerios, Kurt Hummel is one of the last people she would’ve expected to seek her out willingly, and she is a little confused as to why he would be starting a conversation with her. Perhaps he is here to ask for some Glee related assistance. He may have an angelic voice but he could definitely use some help with his upper register and she is more than happy to provide advice if he wants it.

But that isn’t what he wants.

“I heard you talking to Tina this morning.” He says bluntly. “And I’m going to try and keep this as free of awkwardness as possible, for both our sakes, and since I know that tact is not your forte, I’ll be as straight with you as possible.”

She swallows, not sure where this is going at all. “We know you’re dating Jesse St. James, and that he’s the lead singer of Vocal Adrenaline. And we think that he’s using you.”

“What?”

“They will do anything to win, Rachel. I heard they got the lead singer of Dalton Academy placed on academic probation for plagiarism and ineligible for extracurricular activities because they hacked his computer and published his essays online to make it look as though he’d bought them, and we all know Dalton Academy haven’t made it past Regionals in years.”

“Who is this we?” She asks, suspiciously.

“The Glee Club. We had a meeting at lunch time.”

This makes her angry.

“I know who he is and where he’s from.” Rachel says, stiffening in her seat. “And who I date is my choice, not something to be dictated by my friends.”

Kurt snorts dismissively. “I’m not saying this as your friend, Rachel. If I was saying this as your friend I’d be a lot more sensitive, and then I’d be there with a tub of Ben and Jerry’s and a box of tissues when he inevitably breaks your heart. No. I’m doing this because we were betrayed at Sectionals by our team and the last thing we need is the same to happen at Regionals as well. Least of all by you.”

“I’m not betraying the team by dating Jesse!” She says, and she honestly can’t believe she’s having this conversation. No one has ever talked to her like this before, so rude, so condescending, and so unwelcome.

“Really?” Kurt asks. “Then why do I see Finn walking around the halls staring at you like you broke his heart? How is that good for team unity, having our male lead look like you killed his puppy?”

Rachel’s stomach drops. Had she really hurt his feelings that badly? Finn had seemed so understanding, last time they’d talked. And she had been doing her best to keep her new relationship on the down low, so as to avoid any possible tension between them. She values his friendship, after all, and with the Quinn/Puck debacle from before sectionals, she knows he valued her support as well.

How has she missed all that?

“Exactly.” Kurt says primly, not letting her form a reply. “Do everyone a favour, Rachel, and break up with St. James. It’ll only end badly anyway, so just save yourself the heartbreak, and save us from your inevitably over-done rendition of Eric Carmen’s ‘All By Myself’ that you’ll share with us in order to vent your feelings on the issue. Your voice is much more suited to Broadway.”

The final bell goes and she hears the students around her begin packing up, Kurt included.
“I’ll see you tomorrow in Glee.” He says, once all his things are packed away into his own bag, and he leaves her there alone to gather her things and with... well... everything.

She feels betrayed, though she knows that perhaps that is taking things to the extreme. But to find that the people who she thought were starting to like her, and who she was beginning to count as her friends had discussed her behind her back makes her angry. She wants to know for sure whether Tina or Artie were there, Kurt had implied as much, but she wants confirmation. They’d been her only real friends her entire time at McKinley High; she would even call them her best friends. And Finn! She hadn’t known he felt that way about her.

She shuts her notebook and slots it into her bag, and for the first time ever she doesn’t take her library books back up to Mrs Henderson to put away, nor does she pack up the document reader. She just leaves, wanting to grab her things from her locker and get out of the school as quickly as possible.

Once she’s out in the hallway, she hears the heavy step of one of the school’s many footballers (they have a certain gait that singles them out from their classmates), but she takes a few seconds to sort herself out, securing bag safely across her shoulder before she unfolds her cane and sets it on the ground.

There is little warning but for the faint, yet sickly sweet smell of artificially flavoured syrup before the cold ice hits her face and the cruel laugh echoes in her ears.

She’s been slushied.

ittykat @ 2011-07-23T09:18:00

2011-07-22T23:18:39Z

Title: We Should’ve Taken The Stairs
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Don’t own Glee!
Characters: Puck, Rachel, Lauren, Artie. Subtle Puckleberry
Wordcount: 5086
Summary: 4 members of New Directions get stuck in an elevator for 16 hours.

Author’s note: this was a very simple idea that wouldn’t leave me alone, and it got way longer than I ever thought it would be. Still not sure if I accomplished anything, but it was a fun way to mix together some prompts! Speaking of, I’m open to any suggestions or scenarios that people might be interested in seeing. I’m working on the next part of Dance in the Dark, I just have to do a bit more research and hammer out this one scene that’s giving me grief, but hopefully it won’t be too long away.

Please review!

Hour 1.

The power goes out and the elevator jerks to a halt. Someone shrieks. Someone else laughs nervously. Then there is an awkward silence.

Of course Rachel is the first to break it. “Everybody relax. I’m sure the power will be back soon.”

Lauren shifts and knocks into the side of Artie’s wheel-chair. “Sorry, Hot-Rod.” She says, mumbling.

Puck pulls out his cell phone and presses a button on the side. The plasma screen lights up, filling the cramped room with meager bluish light, but it is enough to break the pitch-black darkness and give them a sense of space.

There isn’t a lot of space.

“Are we all cool?” He says to the other three in the elevator.

“I saw a horror movie like this once. The elevator wires snapped and it crashed down to the bottom floor and killed everyone inside.” Artie says, and Lauren pushes her glasses up her nose. Puck frowns. Artie frowns too.

“We can survive a drop like that if everyone jumps up in the air just before impact.” Lauren says cavalierly.

“Actually, they debunked that on Mythbusters. We’d all die... Even if I could jump.” Artie does not seem comfortable.

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Lauren doesn’t look sorry. But perhaps it’s just the bad light.

“Noah, can you shine your light on the panel over here, please?” Rachel says, not wishing to partake in the morbid talk that the others are participating in. She does not like to think of the worst case scenarios, as she does not wish to face the possibility of anything less than fame, success and stardom. Dying in a freak elevator accident would completely ruin all of her plans.

Puck does as she asks, and directs the light from his phone in the direction she gestures. With the panel illuminated, Rachel punches the emergency assistance button, which does nothing. She wedges her fingernails into the metal grill that hides the elevator’s phone and pries it open. But when she puts the receiver to her ear: “There’s no dial tone.”

“Must be the whole building.” Puck says, then looks directly at the screen of his phone. “I’ve got no reception.”

As if it were choreographed, the other three glee-club members reach for their phones in unison.

“Me neither.” Lauren says, first to get her phone.

“Nada.” Artie says a moment later.

“I have one bar.” Rachel says cheerfully. She presses a few buttons quickly, then holds the phone to her ear. “It’s ringing!”

“Hello, Daddy? It’s Bunny...”

“You called your dad?” Lauren is not pleased and addresses Puck directly. “Who calls their parents before they call 911 in this situation?”

“... Have you met Rachel?”

Rachel sends a whithering glance at the two of them from her corner of the elevator. “We’re stuck in the hotel elevator and the emergency button isn’t working... What?... Everywhere?... Why?...”

The phone call drops out. There are no longer any bars on Rachel’s phone.

“So we’re stuck here for a while then, are we?” Puck asks. They’ve all heard enough in the silence of the elevator to know it is going to be a while before anyone gets to them.

Rachel nods grimly. Lauren swallows. Artie sighs. “Woah, boy.”

Hour 2.

“Love in an elevator! Living it up while we’re going down. Love in an elevator! Loving it up ‘til we hit the ground.”

“Is that really appropriate right now, Noah?”

“Diva, I don’t think there is a more appropriate time than now.” Artie says with his requisite attitude.

“It’s better than ‘The Girl From Ipanema’,” Lauren shrugs.

“Aw hell, why’d you have to bring that song up?” Puck grumbles. “Now I’m gonna have it in my head all day!”

Rachel smiles her brilliant happy smile in the darkness. “I love that song!”
She begins to sing it lightly, in deference to their confined space Rachel doesn’t project to her full capacity and can’t see the other three glaring at her. The other three realise soon enough that she’s going to finish the song whether they like it or not, and Puck figures ‘why not?’ and joins her song with a harmony.

It’s something to do.

Hour 3.

Artie checks his phone and groans. Again. “Three hours?” He whines. “What is happening out there?”

“It is an excessive wait.” Rachel agrees.

“I thought that was one of the first things they did in black-outs.” Lauren says dryly. “They check the elevators, ever since that dude in New York got stuck in one by himself for forty hours.”

“So why hasn’t anyone checked up on us?”

“Exactly, Puckerman.”

“And what is that supposed to mean, Zizes?”

“I’m just saying... Maybe they have other, more important things to worry about. Like Zombies. Or nuclear war. Or maybe Justin Bieber died.” She sounds eerily hopeful when she suggests the last one.

“My dads know we’re here. “ Rachel says with confidence. “They’ll be doing their best to get us out, you can count on that.”

“But maybe they can’t get here, Berry.” Lauren says conspiratorially. “Maybe they’ll be attacked by hoards of grieving tweens on their way to rescue their precious daughter and her friends from a hotel elevator in Cleveland.”

“Last year you were all up on this when we were in The Bieber Experience, why the sudden hate?” Puck asks.

“He dumped Selena. He deserves to die.” There is true hatred in Lauren’s tone. It is chilling to hear.

Everyone can practically hear Puck blink in confusion. “Who?”

Rachel gasps. “You don’t know who Selena Gomez is?”

Hour 4.

“Does anyone have any food?” Artie says, after everyone hears his stomach very loudly protest its emptiness.

The other three look up at him from the ground where they’d arranged themselves around his chair. Rachel reaches for her messenger bag and digs around through it, eventually producing a granola bar, an apple, a half-full bottle of water and some breath mints.

Puck digs into his pocket and finds his wallet from which he produces a stick of cinnamon flavoured gum, and a lighter.

Lauren adds a strawberry pop-tart to the pile then directs the light from her phone over the meagre pickings. “We should divvy it up evenly.” She says finally.

“But it’s mostly my food!” Rachel protests. “And my water!”

“And we three outnumber midget you, so we split it even, or you don’t get any, how’s that sound, Man Hands?”

Rachel frowns, and Puck shifts uncomfortably from his spot by one of Artie’s wheels.

“When we get out of here I’ll buy you another granola bar.” He offers, then he pulls out a set of keys that has a miniature Swiss Army knife key-ring attached, and he pinches out the blade.

“Wait.” Artie says, and Lauren directs her phone up at him so they can see him better as he speaks. “We should save some for later.”

“But I’m hungry now,” Puck says with a whine. His pocket knife glints dangerously in the cell phone’s light.

“I know. Me too. But if we’ve been here four hours already, clearly something is keeping them from getting us out. Who knows how long the wait is gonna be. And we don’t want to waste it all now and then feel even worse later.”

There is silence once again, until Puck lets out a breathy, sullen: “Fine.” and pushes the granola bar and the mints back at Rachel who dutifully returns them to her messenger bag.

Hour 5.

“Okay, who just did that?”

“Whoever smelt it dealt it, yo.”

“You are vile, Artie.”

Hour 6.

“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with--”

“Wheelchair.”

“How did you guess?”

“Because it’s the only thing in the room.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, this game isn’t working.”

“No. I guess I didn’t think this through before I suggested it.”

Hour 7.

“Why aren’t they coming for us?” Rachel says nervously, and Lauren is already annoyed at how her frantically tapping foot is constantly knocking against her thigh.

“Chill, Berry.” Puck says, sounding tired.

She pulls her phone from her pocket and her face is lit up as she checks the time. Everyone else blinks at the sudden blinding light that fills the room.

“No, we’ve been in here seven hours now. Maybe they’ve forgotten we’re here, and I still haven’t got any reception in here so we can’t know what’s happening. My dads have never not come through for me. What is happening out there? Maybe the world is coming to an end, or maybe there is a sale at Sears, or maybe...” She stops only because she is now taking odd gasping breaths.

“The air...” She chokes out, and everyone sees the whites of her eyes.

Puck and Artie share a glance, and Puck pushes himself up from his corner of the floor space. Lauren quickly scoots out of their way.

“Rachel.” Puck says, taking Rachel by the shoulder, forcing her to look up at him. “The air is fine.”

Rachel makes another choking noise, and tears start leaking out her eyes. Puck pushes at her shoulder more forcefully. “Look at me.” He commands, and she does. “You’re having a panic attack.” He says calmly, “There is nothing wrong with the air, we’re all fine here. So I need you to do what I say otherwise you’ll pass out. Do you understand?”

She nods. Puck nods back and gives her a small encouraging smile. The light on Rachel’s cell phone (which she has dropped to the floor in her distress) goes out, but both Artie and Lauren fish their own out and quickly restore the meagre bluish glow to the room.

“Okay, now breathe with me,” He pulls a strong, clear breath in through his nostrils and blows it out through his lips. “In through the nose--”

She pulls in a wavering lungful of air in, “-- and then out.” She blows air out as directed.

“All right, again.”

She sucks in another frantic lungful of air through her nose and her nostrils flare, but she is calmer now, as she releases the air again.

“Good, Rachel. Really good.” Puck says encouragingly, he carefully sits down at her side, and takes up her hand. “You’re right, we have been stuck in here a while, and it’s fucking stressful, but we have to look at the positives. You’re the optimist in here, how about we look at the good things.”

“I can’t...” She wheezes out, and squeezes his hand.

“Well it’s good we’re not alone!” Artie says and points to Lauren at his side. “But it’s also good it’s not the whole Glee Club in here, because it’s not too crowded this way.”

Puck looks pointedly at Lauren, who blinks behind her large glasses. “Um. Well we were able to contact your dads, right? Even if they’re held up, someone knows we’re in here.”

“And hey, I’ve met your dads before. They’re not going to let anything get in their way for long. They’ll get us out.”

“But why are they taking so long?”

“I don’t know.” Puck says in the soothing tone he seems to only ever use when Rachel is around. He rubs his thumb against the back of her palm. “But I’m sure they’re doing everything they can to get us out as soon as possible.”

“And maybe we can get ourselves out of here ourselves.” Lauren says. “We can try and wedge the doors open, or maybe get onto the roof...”

Hour 8.

“Just a little more.”

“I’ve got it.” Lauren says, and for the first time since the elevator first jolted to a halt they experience a flush of fresh air as the heavy metal doors are levered open by the wrestler and the footballer. Each of them is standing with their back pressing against one side of the door, keeping it open.

But there is nothing but a concrete wall on the other side. And perhaps it is rather ominous, but painted on the concrete is a large number ‘13’.

The good news is that with doors open, the light situation changes. It’s not not exactly sunlight. It’s not even as good as candle-light, but a very low pulsating grey light peeks into the corners of the box, breaking the pitch-dark but it is enough to release some of the pressure Rachel feels heavy on her chest. She feels like she can breathe again.

“Well that’s a disappointment.” Artie says flatly. Puck sends him a dirty look, but continues pushing back against the door. Lauren seems to be having an easier time keeping her side open.

“Can you see anything up the shaft? Or down?” Rachel asks meekly, and Lauren immediately tilts her head to the side and up, then down.

“There is some sort of flashing light at the bottom of the shaft.” She says, which explains the pulsating light that has filled the elevator shaft.

“It feels better with the door open at least.” Artie says, still trying to look on the bright side. “And at least we can see a little now, we can save our phone batteries.”

“Well we need to find something to wedge the door open.” Puck says, then grunts a little bit and the door jerks a few inches closed before he pushes at it once again.

Besides Rachel’s messenger bag, none of them had brought anything into the elevator with them... except-

Rachel, Puck and Lauren all turn at once to stare at Artie.

“Oh hell no.” He says and pushes a flat hand up at them all, in the universal ‘stop’ signal. “Not an option.”

Rachel swallows, and sighs. “You’re right.” She mutters, but Puck and Lauren do not share her qualms, and are not about to submit as easily.

“You can just as easily sit on the floor like the rest of us.” Lauren says bluntly. “And if it means some light, and fresh air...”

“And your chair is pretty sturdy, it’s not gonna break.” Puck adds.

“No! I need this chair for when we get out!”

“Look, it’s what, 2 am now right?” Lauren glances at her wrist-watch, finally readable in the dim light afforded by the shaft. “If we are gonna get any sleep we need to get your chair out of the way somehow, so that we can all lie down. Might as well put it to good use while we do.”

Artie glares at her. Lauren stares back.

“How about we just try, if it sounds like it’s not going to hold, we’ll pull it out and find some other way to keep it open.” Rachel offers, glancing between Puck and Lauren and Artie, though she doesn’t see how her messenger bag or anything inside it is going to be substantial enough to keep the door open like Artie’s chair would. “And I’m the only one who can lie down in here comfortably with your chair set up.” She adds reasonably.

“Fine.” Artie says finally, and Rachel stands up to help him out of the chair.

Hour 9.

“Oh my god, this carpet is disgusting.”

“Hold on, I’ll just grab the dust-buster out of the closet.” Lauren says sarcastically. “Just shut up and go to sleep, Berry.”

“Actually, she’s right. I can see people’s fingernails.”

Puck makes a gagging noise when Artie points out the offending human detritus that litters the grey-blue carpet. “Gross! Who cuts their fingernails in the elevator?”

“When we get out of here, I suggest we bring a class-action suit against the building’s management.”

“Sign me up now.”

“Word.”

Hour 10.

Puck snores, Rachel kicks in her sleep, and Artie’s back can’t stand lying for long on the hard floor, so he and Lauren sit side by side and doze against each other’s shoulders.

For a second, at about 4:50 in the morning, the power returns to the building for a split second and the elevator is lit once again with bright light, but it flickers and dies before any of the Glee students really wake enough to realise what happened.

Hour 11.

Rachel is an early riser, with her body clock as reliable as a metronome, so even though she probably only gets about two hours sleep, when she wakes up with Puck’s arm slung casually over her hip to the same thin grey light, she knows that she won’t be able to get back to sleep. It doesn’t take her long to realise she’s not the only one awake.

“Lauren.” She acknowledges.

“Berry.” Her companion replies.

Lauren Zizes is not a girl that Rachel often finds reason to converse with, so she doesn’t have any familiar conversation topics to fall back on to fill the awkward silence. So instead she decides that since they are locked in a box, she might as well use her time productively to foster a new friendship. “I never got the chance to thank you for putting Jacob Ben Israel in hospital for two weeks the year before last.”

“Wait, what?”

“You know. You attacked a Jacob to get Robert Pattinson’s attention.”

“I don’t remember that.” Lauren says flatly, then continues. “I don’t remember much from those few months, actually.”

“Why?”

“I took a blow to the head in a wrestling match with some dude from Carmel during the state finals. They didn’t diagnose it til later, but I was in a walking coma for a while.”

“That’s really a thing?”

“Sure.”

Puck moans and squeezes Rachel more tightly around the waist. Rachel doesn’t mind. He’s warm at least. “Can you guys shut up, I’m trying to sleep.” He grumbles into her shoulder blades.

“Preach.” Artie agrees groggily.

The two girls fall silent.

Hour 12.

Rachel is the only one still awake. Lauren drifted back off to sleep about fifteen minutes ago. She’s tried to rest more, and there is admittedly something calming listening to the sleeping noises her three companions are making, even if Noah’s snoring is rather loud in her ear, but it’s not enough to calm her nerves. She wants to be out of here, she’s so worried about her fathers. They’ve never not come through for her before, and she knows that something is very wrong, and even though she knows she can’t do anything from inside here, she can’t just forget about it all and sleep.

She sighs and rolls over onto her back, head still pillowed by Noah’s forearm (though she’s careful not to knock him and wake him from his own apparently deep sleep) and stares up at the panelled ceiling, looking for something she can do to kill time til the others wake up again.

She counts the panels. There are nine squares, all equal in size, three by three across the roof. The lights are embedded into the edges of the square so if they were working, they would project fluro white light onto the mirror panels on the walls. Each square is patterned in some sort of wood, herringbone design which matches the wood panels they’re surrounded by.

She stares for a few more moments as her brain lethargically processes each small bit of information she collects about the room, until finally something clicks and she remembers all those ridiculous action films that Finn made her watch when they were dating, where the hero of the movie would climb onto the roof of the elevator through a panel in the roof that was easily pushed away. As far as she can see, this elevator hasn’t got anything of the sort, unless the panels she can see are there for decoration only to hide the ugly maintenance side of the roof from the hotel’s guests.

Which sets her wondering, and she twitches a curious eye to Noah sleeping beside her. She’s too short to reach the roof, but he isn’t. He’s so tall he has to curl his legs into her to fit along the floor, and even if he can’t reach it by himself, he’s certainly strong enough to be able to boost her up there...

Hour 13.

“I thought it would take a lot more for me to get my hand up your skirt.” Noah says lecherously, and Rachel resists the very strong urge to kick him in the kidney. The only reason she doesn’t is that he’d probably drop her if she did, and while Lauren would be strong enough to boost her up in his place, she doesn’t have his height.

“The view is good from down here too.” Artie says with an equally sleazy leer, and Rachel tears her attention away from pushing at the now loosened middle panel to glare at Artie.

“Lauren.”

“Berry.”

“Hit him for me.”

“Just take your anger out on that panel.” Lauren says with a roll of her eyes. “It’s what I do when I’m in a bout.”

Rachel sends one last death stare at the two boy occupants and then returns her attention to the roof, where she is using Puck’s Swiss Army knife to remove the last screws that hold the panel in place. She presses one hand to the middle of the panel as she finally gets the last screw and it drops onto her hand. A cloud of dust and stale air puffs away and it gets up her nose and into her throat She only barely manages to pass the panel off to Lauren’s waiting hands before she jerks in a violent sneeze, and Puck barely keeps his hold on her so she doesn’t fall to the ground.

She sneezes again, and this time Puck has her more firmly, but she grabs at his shoulder and gestures for him to put her down. He obliges and sets her back on the floor. Rachel brushes the dust frantically off her face, and blinks her eyes widely while she coughs violently again, turning away from the three of them and into the corner so she isn’t coughing on them.

“Here.” Artie says to her, and holds up the water bottle with the last of the water. There isn’t much left, a mouthful or two, and she shakes her head at him ‘No’.

“For fuck’s sake.” Puck says, snatching the bottle from the boy sitting on the floor. He twists off the cap and thrusts it into her hand. “Drink it, Rachel.”

Lauren rounds on her other side. “If you don’t, we’ll hold you down and make you drink it.” She says, and Rachel takes the bottle and takes a minuscule sip from the bottle and concentrates on breathing through her mouth.

“Feel better?” Artie asks.

“I probably just breathed in Anthrax or SARS.” She says with a dramatic shudder. “Who knows when they last cleaned up there.”

Now they know Rachel is fine and can breathe, Lauren turns her attention to the roof again. There is a door with a latch there now the decorative panel is gone.

“Finish off the water then when you’re ready we’ll get you back up there and onto the roof, and hopefully you can escape, or one of our phones’ll get reception, and you can get us some help.” Puck says, repeating their plan in a voice that’s weirdly... peppy for him.

Rachel does appreciate the optimism, at least, so she nods and takes another small sip.

Hour 14.

“No signal.” Rachel says, and sighs staring at the four phones she has set up on the extremely dirty maintenance box that takes up most of the space on the top of the elevator. “Sorry.” She calls down the hall.

“How close is the nearest floor?” Noah calls up, and Rachel looks up. She sees a large 14 painted in the same colour as the 13 that is visible through the wedged elevator doors. Beyond that the elevator shaft gets too dark for her to see.

“Too far away.” She says, then turns to look around the rest of the shaft. The cables of the elevator are pulled taught, and she clings tightly to them as she dares to peek over the edge of the box. She can see another elevator suspended a few floors below. She wonders if there is anyone trapped in that one.

“HELLO!” She projects as loudly as she can, and it echoes around the shaft, fading as the sound bounces away from her then back again. She tilts an ear to the side and hushes the others in the box with a wave, listening carefully for any response.

There is nothing but air whistling gently, thrumming against the cables.

She huffs, annoyed. This was a disappointment, considering the effort and time it took to get up here, and it isn’t anywhere near as exciting as all the movies make it seem. There is no service-ladder affixed to the wall to climb to freedom, the hotel’s elevators are clearly split into two levels, that which service the highest floors, and don’t stop at floors below 16, and those on the other side of the building that service the lowest 15 floors.

She considers the thick metal cables and wraps her around the closest one. Her fingers aren’t long enough to wrap completely around, and she knows she doesn’t have the upper-arm strength to hoist herself more than a few feet. Lauren might, and Noah probably does, but neither of them are small enough to fit through the panel to get up here. Artie would be small enough, and he’d have the upper-arm strength, but it’s still not an option.

Resigned, she turns to the others and says down to them: “I think this was a bust, guys.”

She hears their various noises of disappointment and feels bad that she could not give them any good news. Instead she begins to pass the various cell phones back down to Lauren then carefully lowers her legs back down through the hole, being careful to make sure her skirt is positioned to protect her modesty, but she knows it’s fruitless when Noah’s hands squeeze her once, before he takes her firmly by the hips and pulls her back into the elevator.

Hour 15.

“Should we split the apple now?” Artie asks, and Lauren notices for the first time just how tired he is, with enormous bags beneath his eyes. She knows she’s probably not looking as fabulous as she normally is.

The apple in question sits in the middle of the floor on top of Rachel’s messenger bag so that it isn’t actually touching the floor (Rachel insisted and no one cared enough to fight her).

“Let’s make it fun.” Lauren says, “Truth or dare for a slice of apple.”

“How would that work?”

“Well, if you tell us a secret, or do a dare, then you get a slice. But we can be extra brutal and you can choose to pass.”

Rachel frowns. “I don’t know, Lauren. It’s awful enough in here, why would we make it worse by playing that contrived party game?”

“Because I’m bored.” Lauren says bluntly. “Look, I’ll go first, Puckerman. Do your worst.”

Puck stares at Lauren for a moment and adjusts his legs into a more comfortable position. “Alright I’ll bite.” He says, “Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

He rolls his eyes at her, then thinks for a moment before looking her straight in the eye. “How’d you get that scar behind your left knee?”

Lauren glances at the knee in question. “Had a fight with another contestant at the Little Miss Lima competition when I was 4.”

“You did Little Miss Lima too?” Rachel says, surprised. “What years?”

“1999 through 2002.” Lauren says. “Some girl’s tap solo went overtime into my scheduled time so I laid down the law.”

The look on Rachel’s face is nothing short of astonished.

“You’re kidding me.” Lauren says flatly. “You were the tap bitch?”

“You pushed me off the stage!” Rachel cries. “I could’ve DIED!”

“40 minutes is way too long for a tap solo when you’re six.”

“You had no right--”

“Shut up. God.” Puck interrupts, and pushes Rachel back down onto the floor, as she’d risen up in her anger to defend her childhood honour, and while Rachel and Lauren may have been a match when they were 6, it probably wouldn’t be so even these days. “Here.” He says to Lauren and thrusts a slice of apple at the girl, who takes it with a glare at Rachel and returns to her corner of the elevator.

“Artie.” She says, and turns to the other boy in the room while biting the slice of apple in half. “Truth or Dare?”

“Dare.” He says with a grin, thinking to himself that there is nothing truly embarrassing or ridiculous they can make him do when he’s stuck in a six by six box.

“Kiss Puckerman. If you do, you can both get some apple.”

Artie’s grin fades. Puck turns red.

“What? No!” Puck says. “That’s not fair.”

Rachel rolls her eyes. “Oh please, as if you wouldn’t make Santana and I kiss if she were here.”

“That’s different.” Puck protests.

“Yeah. Santana is hot. And a lesbian.” Artie adds.

“And you two are homophobic.”

“And sexist.” Lauren adds.

“And neither of you is getting any apple until you do it.” Rachel says stubbornly.

Artie looks at Puck.

Puck looks at Artie.

“What happens in the elevator, stays in the elevator?” Puck says.

“As if anyone would believe me if I told them anyway.” Artie says, sounding a little bit depressed

“Let the record show, that I’m doing this for food. It’s basically prostitution.” Puck shifts a little closer.

“Pucker up, Puckerman.” Lauren says, nudging them closer still with her foot.

At least the apple is good.

Hour 16.

“Tall and tan and young and lovely,” Puck sings quietly. “The girl from Ipanema goes walking, and when she passes each one she passes goes---”

“Ahh...” Artie croons in reply, and Rachel smiles from her corner then picks up the harmony herself this time:

“When she walks she’s like a samba, that sways so smooth and sways so gently...”

With a whirr and a thrum, bright white light fills the elevator for the first time in sixteen hours, and the four occupants immediately hide their eyes and they’re all stunned into submission for a moment, before they jump to action. Puck and Lauren dislodge Artie’s wheelchair from the doors which close and then the elevator descends, more quickly than any of them anticipate, and they all cling to the box and each other until it finally jolts to a stop on the ground floor.

And the doors open.

___

fic, stars have lost their glitter, pg

2011-07-08T13:15:19Z

Title: Stars Have Lost Their Glitter
Rating/Warnings: PG
Disclaimer: Don’t own the characters. Title taken from a Judy Garland song
Characters: Rachel, Emma, Finn, Jesse
Word Count: 3800
Summary: Blind!Rachel AU. Continuing the story started in Dance in the Dark, and the continued in Under the Milky Way.

The winter break ends too soon, and before she’s really had enough time to compose herself and figure out what Finn’s gift to her means, she’s back at school and has to face the possibility that she’ll need to talk to him about it sooner than she’s really ready. Rachel knows that he hadn’t compiled it with anything malicious in mind-- it’s only natural to want to try and find ways to help your friends, to point them in the direction of things that you know will interest them and to give them things you think they’ll like.

She has no doubt that that’s what Finn thought he was doing when he gave her the information. So she’s not really angry.

She’s nervous.

She visits her doctor twice a year, usually just for a perfunctory exam and she knows that her fathers keep a track of all the latest developments and clinical trials, but at her request none of them pass the information along to her anymore. There were just too many disappointments, and she couldn’t deal with that on top of the stress of starting high school. So it’s the first time in about three years she’s read any literature on the topic, and it’s very clear to her that there have been definite developments in the field in her years of self-imposed information black-out, and now she’s second guessing that resolution.

What ifs are now running through her mind on a constant loop, a nerve-wracking persistent internal soundtrack to her every day life, (What if I’d done this years ago? What if I have to take time off school to do it? What if I'm not a candidate anymore? What if my parents can’t afford it?) but the two biggest ones, the ones that she keeps coming back to are: “What if one of them works?” and “What if I try and it doesn’t?”

She mulls them over in her mind, savouring them. She wonders what it would be like to finally see, wonders what colours actually look like. She was so young when she lost her vision that she hasn’t any recollection she can take refuge in to feed her imagination, and colours are such an abstract idea in the first place...

But every time she comes around to that line of thought it inevitably leads her to the second ‘What if’, which just depresses her. It’s partly why she instigated the information embargo in the first place. She doesn’t like failure, even when it’s something out of her control. It’s why she plans and organises and sets herself targets and goals. She’s pulling straight As in all of her classes because she’s smart and she works hard for it because she knows that if she does that work and makes that effort it will get her the results she wants. None of the treatments available can give her those definitive odds, and the last thing she wants to do is set herself up for disappointment.

She wants to talk about it with someone, someone impartial, who won’t just tell her to ‘give it a shot’ because ‘what’s the harm’. There is no topic off limits with her parents, they have an open book policy in their house. She’s free to ask any question of them she wants, bring up any topic for conversation and they’ll impart no judgement but give her advice if she asks for it. But right now she doesn’t really know what to say to them, and try as hard as they want they can’t be impartial on this topic. They want to find a cure for her, they always have. It’s not to say they haven’t supported her decision to not try and find one-- they did, but she’s always suspected that they harbour some sort of deep-seated guilt about the way she became blind in the first place, not that it was at all their fault either, but they would move cross oceans and topple cities if it made her life easier.

So when she arrives at school on the first day back, early as usual, she seeks out the guidance councillor’s office first. Miss Pillsbury had been extremely helpful to her back when she was first getting herself established at the school. There are understandably issues that need to be addressed when the first blind student enrols at a public school, and Miss Pillsbury tackled all of them with ease, grace and extreme efficiency, something Rachel both admired and greatly appreciated. She still actively liaises with Rachel’s teachers to help smooth out any problems they or Rachel may run across and is someone that Rachel considers an invaluable acquaintance.

She’s basically the adult that Rachel trusts most, outside her own family. And she’s the only one Rachel knows who can be impartial, or at least will do her best to help her figure out her own feelings on the issue, which is exactly what she needs help with right now.

“Rachel!” The councillor says cheerfully, her sensible heels clicking quietly against the tiled floor of the corridor. “What a lovely surprise!”

“Good morning, Miss Pillsbury.” Rachel says, adjusting her grip on her cane. “Did you have a nice break?”

“It was lovely, thank you for asking.” Miss Pillsbury says, and Rachel hears the subtle grind of metal on metal as she fits her key into the office door to unlock it. “And how about yourself? Did your parents take you anywhere?”

“Just to visit family in Cleveland.”

“Well come on in and tell me all about it! I can put a pot of tea on if you’d like?”

“Oh. That would be nice. But I actually had something else to talk about, if that’s alright. I know it’s early and you probably have things to do.” She says, nervous.

If Miss Pillsbury is offended, her voice doesn’t show it. “Of course, my door is always open for you, Rachel.”

She follows the woman into the room, which is as neat and precisely set out as usual, Miss Pillsbury likes things in order, so Rachel never has any problem navigating about this office. It smells of faint lemony disinfectant and hand sanitiser, but tempered by the neat smell of pressed textbooks and it always reminds her of the library. Two steps into the office and she grasps the back of the chair she usually sits in, hard-backed yet strangely comfortable. She listens as Miss Pillsbury unlocks her desk drawer and deposits her handbag quickly, before plugging in the kettle in the corner of the room and pulling out tea cups form a cupboard.

“So, Rachel.” Miss Pillsbury says, finally sliding her own chair and sitting down on the other side of the desk. “What’s on your mind? If you don’t mind me saying, you do look a little preoccupied.”

Her cheeks flush a little, and she resists the urge to apologise and leave before she dumps all her problems on this poor, unsuspecting kind teacher. She steels her resolve by reminding herself that this is Miss Pillsbury’s job, to guide her and give her advice when she’s having problems.

So she explains everything from the start, from Finn finding out about Noah and Quinn’s betrayal and him growing closer to her after Sectionals. Then she tells her about the folder that he gave her, about the pages and pages of information about new developments and treatments, some of which could potentially be helpful to her in her situation, but that it also confuses her. She finds it difficult to explain in parts, but Miss Pillsbury to her credit doesn’t interrupt, and lets Rachel talk until the kettle boils in the corner of the room, and she is forced to stand up and finish making the tea.

“Did you talk to your parents about it?’ She asks and pours the hot water into the two cups. Almost instantly Rachel can smell the soft tang of brewing tea fill the air. There is a sharp zest of lemon and orange pekoe in the air, which smells refreshing and helps clear her mind a little.

“No.” Rachel says. “I wanted to talk to someone else first. I don’t know what to think.”

“What do you mean?”

Rachel hesitates, trying to corral her thoughts into something that she can find words to express. “I’m confused.” She says finally, fisting her hands around nothing in her lap, wishing she could hold her cane, so instead she separates them and holds onto the handles of the chair. The hardness of the handles steadies her a little, and she continues on. “I was blind-sided by it, to be honest. Before the holidays we’d won the sectionals competition, and more people were talking to me, inviting me to things, especially Finn. I think he likes me, and I don’t think he gave it to me to be mean, not like how some of the other students are... But as soon as I figured out what he’d given me I freaked out a little, because I had convinced myself that that wasn’t an option anymore, for me...”

She trails off, acutely aware of the guidance councillor’s silence, and feels it intruding upon her monologue.

The pause continues for another few more seconds, before Miss Pillsbury’s chair creaks as she leans forward and she says: “Can I make an observation, Rachel?”

“Yes.” Because this is exactly why she’d sought the teacher out. A third party, someone outside of the situation may be able to shed light on the situation, help her see the full picture as it were.

“I think you’re confused because this was unexpected. You’re like me, you like to be able to plan ahead for all possibilities, we may have our different reasons for doing it, but it means that our world can be upset quite easily by the things we don’t anticipate, haven’t planned for. This isn’t about Finn giving you the information, it’s about you realising the information is out there, and not knowing what to do about it.”

Rachel makes a small noise of agreement in her throat, then swallows. “So what do I do then?”

“Well,” Miss Pillsbury says in her prim cheerful all-business tone. “If I were in your situation, I’d want to get that control back.”

“Do you mean I should tell Finn that I don’t want him to give me any more information about possible treatments?”

“No...” Miss Pillsbury says cautiously. “Not unless you want to. Because I think you do want to know, which is adding to your confusion. No, sweetheart, I think that what you need to do is look into your options yourself. Go to the library, research it yourself.”

***

Finn finds her later, during the break between first and second period. “I was looking for you this morning.” He says quickly to her, pushing her locker door back so that it isn’t between them as they talk. “I waited here, by your locker, but you never came.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Finn.” She says and turns to face him because she’s been told its considered polite to be facing in the direction of someone talking with you. “I had to visit with Miss Pillsbury, I didn’t know you’d be here.”

She smiles a little at him, then turns back to her locker to continue switching out her books for her next class.

“No, that’s cool, I should’ve organised to meet you instead of assuming you’d just be here...” He pauses for a moment, then says “What were you seeing Miss Pillsbury about?”

Her fingers pause for a moment skimming along the edge of her math textbook, “It was just a general housekeeping sort of meeting.” She lies as evenly as she can and hopes that he can’t tell she’s being purposefully misleading. Non-verbal communication may not be an option for her, but she knows that body language and facial expressions can completely betray her if she’s not careful. So she tries to keep the muscles in her face as relaxed and, she assumes, as neutral looking as possible. “We usually meet early in the term in case there have been any changes to my schedule, or around the school that I’d need to know about in advance.”

“Oh, of course. I should’ve figured it was something like that.” She can hear a smile in his voice, so she assumes that he didn’t notice the lie. She smiles back, and closes her locker.

“Walk me to class?” She asks.

“Sure. I’d love to.” He says, and fits her hand back into the crook of his elbow then walks her to her math.

***

It takes about a week before she finds the time to act on Miss Pillsbury’s advice and regain the control of information. The school library isn’t particularly well stocked, and the books it does carry cater mostly to the sorts of topics that are covered by the classes offered, not to wider reading in general and definitely not for the sort of specialised topic that she’s interested in.

No, what she needs is databases and periodicals, which she knows from researching her history essays that the local county library has quite a sizable collection. It isn’t as extensive as the local college library, but as she’s not yet a college student, she can’t check anything out there yet.

The librarians at the local library have been helping her with her research for years, one of her fathers is friends with a member of the board, and they have been expanding their range of aids for the blind, there are document readers, even ones that help her read sheet music (and the library’s range of sheet music is also nothing to thumb one’s nose at) and the staff there have taken the time and effort to demarcate the stacks with braille signs to help guide her in the right direction.

Edith, one of the younger, newer librarians helped Rachel set up the library’s document reader on one of the more private tables near the piano, where she methodically searches through periodical index after periodical index, looking for studies and research into her particular form of blindness. Understandably there has been quite a few advances in the past decade, but she focuses first on things published in the last few years. Luckily the vocabulary and the super specific jargon that these medical journals are notorious for does not phase her as much as it would many others,

After a little while though she senses someone moving behind her, which is strange because the table Edith set her up at isn’t in the main thoroughfare. The only reason someone would be moving back there would be to start playing the piano...

A few seconds after this thought occurs to her, someone starts playing the upright piano behind her and her fingers pause on the indented Braille words of the Spring 2009 issue of Journey of Ophthalmology so she can listen. She can hear how deftly the fingers navigate the instrument, starting off with simple chromatic scales, moving to a major pentatonic scale, which tells Rachel the person sitting at the piano stool has had several years of professional training, before he launches into a familiar Lionel Richie ballad, the chords familiar and comforting, resonating happily in her mind.

The man’s voice when he finally begins to sing is beautiful, strangely familiar, and not just because this particular song has long been a favourite of hers. No, she’s heard the singer’s voice somewhere before, and she has to wrack her memory to pinpoint where she’s heard him before. He twists around in her seat to angle her ears better towards his voice, and when he finally reaches the chorus of the song she places it.

She’s heard his voice singing Amy Winehouse and Duffy songs, though for those songs it was blended in with the rest of the chorus of Vocal Adrenaline. More recently she heard a snippet of one of his solos on a news article covering the nearby county school of Carmel’s Nationals winning Glee Club making it once again to the Regional Show Choir competition. New Directions were not mentioned, but Rachel had taped the program just in case they had.

Jesse St. James. Here in the flesh, at her local library. It’s the closest she’s ever been to a celebrity (of sorts) and she feels a flush rising in her cheeks, what should she say? Should she say anything? He is a National Show Choir champion, perhaps he’ll be able to give her some advice if she strikes up conversation.

He reaches a piano solo and elaborates a little on the chords, improvising on the original notes, but in such a way that enhances the melody. “You’re Rachel Berry.” He says over his notes, and she reacts a little in shock. He had caught her listening? And he knew who she was?

She feels her cheeks heat up even more than they had before. “Yes.” She says, embarrassed.

“Do you know the song?” He asks, and she nods her head a little and smiles in his direction. “Sing with me.”

He launches into the next chorus, and she joins him in singing the words. They harmonise together magically, him singing a tone above her own voice and blending perfectly with her as he does. She loves Finn’s voice, but Jesse is most certainly a much better vocalist, and it’s only enhanced by the clear training and practice that he has put into developing his talent, just as she herself has done.

They finish the last note together, with the last notes of the piano resonating throughout the silent library, before applause erupts around them. It catches Rachel by surprise, the second time this afternoon, but it quells quickly, and she hears Jesse stand from the piano stool and take the seat by her side at the table.

“You’re a wonderful singer, I hope you know that.” He says, and she smiles.

“I know, but it’s always lovely to be told.” Rachel says. “You have a beautiful voice as well, I recognised it straight away. Jesse St. James”

“Please. Call me Jesse.” He takes her hand gently in his own. It isn’t dry like Finn’s, and it does not have the hard guitar callouses that Puck’s hand does. She can feel the same softness there of a man who knows the importance of moisturiser. Her fathers are both men like that; she finds it rather pleasant. “Rachel, I hope you don’t find this forward, considering this is our first real meeting face-to-face and we are each other’s competition, but I’d love to take you for coffee sometime. I want to get to know you, anyone with a voice as heavenly as your own is most certainly worth a chai latte and a scone.”

A date?

“Now?” She asks, and her free hand drifts across to the journals scattered across the table. It will take her a while to pack up, and she’d need help.

“Oh, no, I can see you’re busy here, and I wouldn’t want to interrupt what is clearly some very involved research.” He says elegantly. “But if you give me your number, I will call you later and we can find a time more convenient for the both of us to meet up.”

She feels the weight of his hand in hers, and hopes that she isn’t developing clammy palms like she sometimes can. “I’d like that.” She says finally, then rattles off her number after he pulls out his smart phone. Her own cell phone is not as fancy as the ones her friends use, with indented individual buttons rather than a touch screen, and it’s mostly controlled by voice commands. She programs his number in return, and he leaves her with nothing more than a gentle squeeze of the hand, promising to call her the following afternoon.

“It was lovely to meet you, Rachel.” He says, and he disappears as quickly as he arrived.

***

“So Rachel.” Finn says, in the middle of a conversation they’re having about song selections for regionals. “Did you look at that folder I gave you?”

She knew it was only a matter of time before he brought it up, and she’d figured if she just ignored it, or didn’t bring it up herself that maybe he would just forget it. He is pretty forgetful, after all, and maybe it was a little mean-spirited of her to bank on that particular character flaw, but something had to go her way, right?

“I read it.” She concedes eventually.

She can hear him start to say something, then he hesitates mid-syllable. It’s probably more of that non-verbal communication coming up again, her face doesn’t feel particularly relaxed, but then he caught her off guard.

“Did I do the wrong thing?” He asks, nervously. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked you about it, it’s just that being around you all the time made me curious, and I was thinking to myself what it would be like for you, and how difficult it could be, and I just wanted to see if I could find some way to make life easier for you, if I could...”

“Finn.” She interrupts, and reaches across the table, searching for his hand. She knows he isn’t very far away, but she miscalculates the distance and accidentally pokes him in the tummy before he grabs her hand and squeezes gently. “I know why you gave it to me. And... I appreciate the thought, but...”

“But you don’t want me to do that anymore?”

“No... That sort of thing, it’s something I want to do on my own, or with my Dads at least. ”

“All right... I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I was just trying to help.”

“I know. And I appreciate the thought--”

She is about to continue on with an attempt to steer the conversation back to Glee and a topic that she feels safer discussing, but her phone begins to vibrate across the desk, ringing loudly. It disturbs the both of them enough for Finn to drop her hand. The ring-tone trills with the Lionel Ritchie song she played at the library the week before. Hello, is it me you’re looking for?

Rachel stills the vibrating phone with the hand Finn dropped, snatching it up from the desk. “Excuse me, I have to answer this.” She says and pushes her chair back. She doesn’t hear Finn following behind, and answers with the slightest of smiles when she’s out of the room.

***

Author’s note: Thank you for all the reviews and alerts, they feed my muse so the more of them I get the more enthused I am to write :D

I’m already anticipating complaints of No Puck This Chapter, s’cool, I can take em. I can PROMISE that he will have a much more important role in parts to come, but that this story is definitely turning into The Rachel Show, with special guest stars, rather than The Puckeberry show, or The Finchel Show, or The St Berry show. I hope you’ll want to read it anyway!

I’m always open to any insights or criticism you may have, I’m doing my best to reply to anyone who leaves a comment!

fic, glee. under the milky way, pg

2011-06-29T08:12:54Z

Title: Under the Milky Way
Rating/Warnings: PG
Disclaimer: Don’t own the characters. Title taken from The Church song of the same name.
Characters: Rachel, Puck, Finn...
Word Count: 3800
Summary: AU Everyone in the school knows her. She’s Rachel Berry. The blind girl. . Continuing the story started in Dance in the Dark, with a view for at least two more parts, rewriting S1 of Glee as an AU. Probably best to read DitD first.

She knows it’s a cliche, but despite everything that’s happened to her, all the bad things, she knows she’s lucky. There are so many people out there just like her who don’t have parents with money, who can’t afford to live beyond their disadvantages, or whose situation is much more dire than her own.

But most people don’t see what she sees. All that matters to them is that she isn’t the same as them, isn’t what they like to call ‘normal’, but ordinary has never been something she wanted to be.

If Rachel Berry knows one thing about herself, it’s that she is extraordinary.

***

On the day of the competition she is overwhelmed with anger, disappointment, and above all determination to destroy those who thought they could bring down her and her choir with so little effort. Luckily, they can all perform Somebody To Love like a well oiled machine (and the stage directions for that performance do not require too much choreography-- an area where she sadly needs more guidance than others for obvious reasons) and it turns out that Finn and Mr Schue have been working on a fantastic arrangement of The Rolling Stones You Can’t Always Get What You Want that is so simple in its execution that they have it practically perfect on their first try, which only leaves the ballad to be decided. Mercedes had proved beyond a doubt that she was more than capable of guiding the choir to victory with her rousing rendition of And I’m Telling You, but it was pirated by those criminal girls from the Jane Addams Academy.

“Mercedes, do you have anything else in your repertoire?” She asks, doing her best to keep calm, because even though she can’t see their faces the vibe of the room suggests that they’ve all but given up.

“Yes.” The other girl says, “But it’s not as good as anything you’re gonna sing.”

“No, we agreed--”

“We agreed that I would sing ‘And I’m Telling You’, and that ain’t happening.” Rachel hears Mercedes get up and walk across the room to her so that they’re within arms distance. “Look Rachel, the truth is that you’re the best singer that we’ve got.”

“As much as it hurts me to admit it, and it does--” Kurt interjects from another corner of the room. “Mercedes is right. Rachel’s our star.”

Rachel feels her cheeks heat up, she very rarely hears praise from any of her fellow choir-mates, least of all Kurt, and part of her doesn’t know how to react.

“If any one’s going to go belt it on the fly, it should be her.” Kurt finishes, and Mercedes makes a noise of agreement in her throat.

She’s silent for a moment, and she fists at the handle of her cane a little nervously. “I do have something I’ve been working on since I was five.” She says cautiously. “Though I think that someone will have to help me-- I don’t know the stage well enough to choreograph something ‘on the fly’, but it won’t be a particularly compelling performance if I just stand in the middle of the stage and sing... We’ll need to be compelling.”

“We don’t have enough time to rehearse anything, Rachel.” Finn says mutely from the corner.

“I could help you.” Noah pipes up, from the other side of the room. She twists her head from side to side, sensing that the two of them are having some sort of silent stand-off related to the Quinn debacle (as she calls it in her head), and while she doesn’t pick up on the glares and non-verbal threats that she is sure are being tossed about, she can hear the tension in Noah’s voice when he says: “We’ve been practicing together. We should be able to improvise something.”

“Yes, I think so.” Rachel agrees, her mind now whirring with possibilities. No matter what interpersonal drama this group is dealing with at present, she really doesn’t have the time to humour it. She can trust Noah to keep her heading in the right direction and also to keep her from hurting herself. Together she’s sure they can find a way to at least make it look remotely organised, or at least not completely amateur.

“Good news, guys,” Mr Schuester says, finally entering the room. “I’ve managed to buy us about fifteen minutes more time to figure something out. Artie, I said you had a flat tyre and we needed to find a patch.”

“Good thinking, Mr Schue,” He says from his spot in the corner, and then with a dramatic (though honestly kind of cheeky) sigh, he continues on: “Those flats are always so dang inconvenient.”

“While you’ve been gone, Mr Schuester, we’ve figured out what we’re going to do, but it’s going to be quite roughly done.” Rachel says, stepping forward a little. “I will perform ‘Don’t Rain On My Parade’ with Noah’s assistance as our opening ballad” Rachel hears Kurt mutter a noise of general approval, which bolsters her a little. “Then together we’ll perform the arrangement of ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ that you and Finn were working on, and we’ll finish with ‘Somebody to Love’, because, as Quinn rightly says, it’s a true crowd pleaser, and we’ll need to finish on something we know we can do perfectly, to make up for the other two songs.”

They have enough time to run through everything twice, and block out some ‘rough’ choreography (Mike’s words) for the new group number, before they’re rushing to their marks about the auditorium. Noah leads her by the hand the entire way as they weave in and out of venue staff and patrons returning to their seats after the interval, smelling of popcorn and soda and the militant medicinal smell of dispenser soap from the restrooms.

“The song is about self-confidence and not letting people hold you back from being your best.” She explains as he guides her through the crowds. Occasionally people bump into her, but Noah’s hand remains tight around her own. “I think that it would probably be best if we did a to-and-fro sort of dance, and use that as a guise for you to show me what direction to go in.”

“Sounds good.” He says, finally corralling them into a quiet alcove that she figures must be quite close to the entrance way to the auditorium, as she can hear people not far from them, chattering as they walk past and into a more spacious echoey room.

“I’ll squeeze your hand if I want you to let go, and I’ll wiggle my fingers if I want you to come back.”

“So like a tango, then.”

“I’ve never danced a tango.”

“There’s a first time for everything, right?”

The ambient noise of the audience through the curtains in the main auditorium starts to dim, and she clenches her fingers a little tighter around Noah’s hand.

“You’ll be awesome.” He says in a whisper, mouth close enough to her ear for her to feel the small little hairs there flutter a little in his breath.

“I know.” She whispers back, and smiles at him, a wide, toothy grin. “Just don’t let me trip over the judges. I doubt that will go over well.”

“Don’t worry, Rachel. I got this.” He promises, and guides her hand to the heavy velvet curtains. “Three steps down, but they’re a little steep, so be careful.”

The orchestra launches into the opening of her song, and she plasters the happiest grin she knows on her face, exuding all the confidence she feels, and trusts that Noah will guide her.

They win Sectionals, despite the viciously under-handed tactics of their competition. Rachel doesn’t really care that someone on their own faculty handed over their set list to their direct rivals, she cares that those choirs (or at least their directors) believed so little in their charges that they would turn to cheating and actions that are tantamount to fraud in order to beat them.

If that isn’t a validation of their abilities as a show choir, she doesn’t know what is.

***

The high of winning sectionals lasts for at least a week, after which nothing gets Rachel down, and the final few weeks of school before winter break are some of the best she ever has. The Glee club rallies around her in support and acceptance in a way they never have before-- thanks to her wonderful solo performance. She isn’t the only one sharing in the glory either, with Puck getting a bit of credit for making sure she walked in the right direction. Finn still isn’t talking to him at all, or Quinn for that matter, but the rest of the club have at least returned to their grudging acceptance of his presence in the room, with Tina admitting to her privately that he looked very handsome, and the whole performance didn’t look at all like they were making it up on the fly.

She walks down the halls without fear of harassment now. Sometimes she even has company. Before it was only ever Tina or Artie (sometimes both) but now Mercedes and Kurt seem to have warmed to her slightly. Tuesday morning she is surprised to find Finn waiting next to her locker, “You look nice,” He says coyly, then offers to walk her to her next class, and takes her book bag from her before she really has time to say “Sure” in an embarrassingly squeaky voice.

“What are you doing for winter break?” He asks, taking her hand and fitting it into the crook of his arm.

“Well Hanukkah was a few weeks ago, but usually we go visit my grandmother in Cleveland.”

“That sounds nice.” He says, and she smiles up at him.

“Yes, she’s the only other person in my family who likes to bake. Her house always smells like cinnamon and vanilla.”

“You can cook?” He sounds surprised.

She laughs a little, and flexes her fingers around the muscles in his arm. “Of course I can cook. Can’t you?”

“Oh. I just thought, you know...”

“Because I’m blind, I can’t look after myself?” She asks, a little surprised.

“No!” He says quickly, stopping them in the middle of the hall. She can hear the students bustling around them in their hurry to get from classroom to classroom, a few of them even jostle them a little as they push through the crowd. “No, I didn’t mean it like that, I just thought...”

“Finn. Relax. I’m not angry.” She says, interrupting before he trips over his words anymore. It’s not the first time she’s butted up against the belief that she’s helpless in the world because she can’t see, and she can’t find it in her heart to be angry at Finn, not after the month he’s had, and so instead she chooses to use this as a chance for education. “My dads have always wanted me to be self-sufficient, to have as normal a life as possible, so that way when I eventually leave and go to College, I won’t be out of my depth. We’ve had to make a few modifications around the house to help out, of course.”

“Oh.” He says dumbly. “I suppose that makes sense.”

“If you like, you can come over sometime this weekend and I can show you what I mean! And then I could help you with that solo you’re working on for Mr Schuester.” She suggests, trying to remain confident despite the few evil misgivings that have set up camp in her belly.

“Sure. I’d love to. I can drive you home, if you want?”

“That’d be great!”

He drops her off at her math class and heads off down the hall for his own, and she knows that she has a stupid giddy smile on her face, but she doesn’t have the heart to wipe it off and keep her happiness to herself today. She’s been trying to get his attention for months, and though the whole drama with Quinn and Noah was regrettable in its timing, it’s at least been good for her. She takes her seat near the front of the class and sets her notebook computer up at her desk, ready to take notes from the admittedly boorish Mrs Lieberman, but the happiness that she feels right now can’t be brought down by anything.

It turns into a wonderful little routine. Finn walks her to class at least once a day (he tries to walk her to every class, but it is a little impractical when she has Politics and Government on the opposite side of the school to his English Communication class) and every couple of days he drives her home and they practice songs for Glee, and some songs for fun, and Rachel is hard-pressed to remember a time that she was this happy and content just spending time with a fellow student.

On the last day of school before they leave for winter break, he says he has something for her, and stops them off at his own locker when walking them from their only shared class (Spanish, with Mr Schuester, of course) towards the cafeteria for lunch. “I have something for you.” He says coyly.

“Is it a present?” She asks hopefully. She knows that she told him her family doesn’t celebrate Christmas, and that she didn’t expect anything for the festive season, but, well, it is the season, and she thinks that she’s been getting signals from him for weeks now that he likes her, and she likes him too, so maybe this is just the moment she’s been waiting for to admit her growing feelings towards him.

“Er. No. Not really. Well, kind of.” He says, and Rachel does her best not to let her face fall. She hears him twist the combination lock on his locker open and rifle around the books and paraphernalia that litters his locker. It smells a little unpleasant, like a mix of noxious deodorant, rotting fruit and textbooks, but it is still a far better smelling locker than belongs to most of the boys at school so she doesn’t comment.

“Well, you can’t blame me for getting excited.” She says, exited. “Everyone loves presents.”

“Yeah.” He smiles, and presses a folder of papers into her hands.

“I printed this out for you to read. “ He says, tapping the cardboard between her fingers gently. “You’ll need to use that document reader you showed me the other week, but I think you’ll like it.”

“Thank you.” She says sincerely, slipping the folder securely between her textbooks. “I’ll take a look at it when I get home.”

He takes her hand when she closes her locker and fits it into the crook of his elbow, like they have done so often these past few weeks. She flexes her fingers and adjusts her grip, hoping that he can’t feel how clammy and nervous her hands are through the fabric of his sweater. If he does, he doesn’t mention it, and walks her to class like normal.

***

Her first few days of winter break are busy-- busier than she wanted them to be, at least. She isn’t so unlike her fellow students, she loves to sleep in and relax and unwind from the stress of school just as much as the rest of her friends, so she is a little resentful when her parents shanghai her into all sorts of social events when they know that she’d much rather be at home doing very little.

She visits her Uncle and cousins a few towns across, and is forced to help host her parents wine and cheese night-- a regular event on their social calendar. And while the people who attend are all close family friends who love Rachel, and who she loves in return, she craves a little time to herself-- or at least for her time to be taken up by dates with her own friends, instead of her parents’.

She receives an email from Tina, inviting her to go carolling with her and her church’s youth group. Rachel replies happily with a ‘Yes!’, because while she is Jewish and proud, she never turns down an invitation to sing in public, and she does love Christmas carols. She’s always found them extremely comforting, but has never been able to quite put her finger on why. Perhaps it is the layers of beautiful harmony, perhaps it is that they are so well known and oddly infectious, that even the worst singer in a group, or sometimes even the shyest, can’t help but join in.

It’s no surprise then, that it takes her until about halfway through her break to actually look over the folder that Finn gave her. As soon as she finds it slotted in with the rest of the homework she’s been assigned over break, she feels guilty. What will he think? Her having taken so long to look at what he’d given her. A scenario blooms in her mind, him waiting for her call or her email to thank him for whatever is in the folder-- it’s probably some music for them to learn together, or maybe it’s a letter, though why he didn’t send it to her by email she can’t quite explain away.

She sets aside her homework-- her history essay had been mostly done before break anyway, it can wait another day-- and starts feeding sheets of printed paper into her document reader with enthusiasm, fingers eagerly skimming over the imprinted surface that emerges as the document reads and translates the words there into the braille she reads.

Researchers in Australia have come up with an outwardly simple but incredibly ingenious way of curing blindness caused by corneal damage: Take everyday contact lenses, already used by millions (including me), and infuse them with a patient's own stem cells. After wearing them for about 2 weeks, test subjects reported a seemingly miraculous restoration of sight. Is it that easy?

Something tightens in her chest and her fingers hesitate instead of moving to read the next paragraph. She lets out a tight breath, before tugging the sheet out from inside the document reader. Her fingers search purposefully through the folder at her side, extracting the next sheet then feeding it through the reader.

Scientists are getting closer towards being able to repair damaged optic nerves.

According to scientists at the Harvard Medical School, they have been able to regenerate the optic nerves of rats.

The braille bumps send strange a strange tingling sensation through her fingers which spreads up her arm and tightens further across her chest to the point that she feels her heart pumping in her chest. Why did Finn give her these? Was this a message to her? Is he trying to tell her something?

She inserts another sheet, this time from somewhere near the bottom of the pile, stoically thinking that perhaps there will be some music at the back like she originally thought.

That injection made Johnson the first person ever to undergo gene therapy for an eye condition, although it may take months to determine if the procedure worked. A second patient received the same treatment shortly after Johnson, and 10 more will soon follow suit — names and dates all undisclosed — as part of a trial led by …

This time, she pulls the paper out with such force that it tears a little, and the sound it makes as it rips makes her stop, take a deep breath, and forcibly calm herself down. She carefully removes the rest of the sheet, being more careful this time so it doesn’t tear any further, before neatly collating the papers, shutting down the reader, and packing it all away into one corner of her desk, where it can be easily ignored until she feels comfortable enough going through it again.

***

Wish I knew what you were looking for.
Wish I knew what you would find

***

Please review!

Next part you can look forward to Jesse St James, Shelby Corcoran and a difficult conversation.

Part 3: stars have lost their glitter

fic. patron of the arts; pg-13

2011-05-01T01:26:19Z

Title: Patron of the Arts
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Don’t own the characters.
Characters: Puck/Rachel, Kurt
Word Count: 2000
Summary: AU Puck is a Royal, Rachel is a commoner. Inspired by the Royal Wedding, requested by both cherry0506 and callmeeskimo within minutes of each other at the puckrachel drabble meme.

***

See, the thing is, he can pretty much have any girl he wants. He’s instantly recognisable, it’s one of the perks of being first-in-line to the throne, after all. Ever since his dad died when he was just a boy, he gets the big job when his Nanna dies. Even if by some freak occurrence some girl doesn’t know who he is, he can charm the pants off anyone-- an added consequence of all the diplomacy required by his position.

It helps he’s damn hot, too.

But he’s long been bored by the women who simply throw themselves in his way. He’s not dumb. He knows they want to be the next Queen of King and Country. He knows that by marrying him they’d be fulfilling every childhood fairy princess fantasy they ever had. It’s tedious now, and only very rarely are they talented enough in bed to make up for the very clear social-climbing he has to tolerate in order to actually have any fun.

“It’s getting totally lame when they throw themselves at me. I’m bored! ” He whines, after landing for yet another diplomatic visit to another country in their dominion.

“Well. Lady Quinn has always had a soft spot for you.” his younger sister Sarah says to him, as they descend the stairs of their private jet. “And she’s holding onto her hymen like ma holds onto grudges, so it’d at least be a challenge for you.” They wave politely to the crowd gathered excitedly behind specially erected barriers and heavily armed police guards there to keep everybody safe and in their place. As he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he turns around to help her safely to the ground--they both know she’s perfectly capable of ascending and descending stairs on her own, but the media (and their people) love the protective older-brother shtick he pulls on occasions like this, and it helps preserve Sarah’s innocent little Princess image that she covets so badly, so they both play along.

“Pity she’s a royal bitc--”

She smiles at him brightly and squeezes his hand to cut him off. There are foreign dignitaries approaching them now, and they pop their conversation on hold until later. “Mr President,” Sarah says warmly. “Thank you so much for meeting us here in person!”

“How was your flight, ma’am?” The president says politely, taking his sister’s hand daintily by the fingertips.

“Wonderful. A little long, though thankfully I had my brother to keep me company,” She turns and smiles warmly up at Puck, and he laughs joyfully on cue.

“She’s exaggerating how entertaining I am--” He grasps the President’s hand with a cheeky grin, knowing the cameras are catching every minute of this informal exchange, “I slept for most of the flight.”

“And I did not-- I think I shall need more time tonight to rest before tomorrow’s festivities... Noah, could you attend the gala tonight in my place? I will love you forever?” She blinks her eyes bashfully, and even has the nerve to stifle a yawn politely behind a dainty hand. He may be able to charm anyone he likes, but it is truly his sister who is the masterful manipulator. There is much that he could learn from her, because despite him knowing that she’s only trying to buy more time for her own private interlude with her male personal assistant (they both pretend he doesn’t know about it of course) she has a captive audience with the President standing right here and all their various staff milling around close enough to hear most of the conversation that passes-- reputations are built on rumours which are always most resilient when based on snippets of truth.

“Sure.” He says, and gives her a playful tug on the ear that is perhaps a little more aggressive than it looks (misdirection is key-- their smiles never waver an inch) He turns to the president and smiles. “You don’t mind my company for the evening instead, sir?”

“Not at all. I believe you’re the musician in the family anyway.”

“Well, I figure if I’m the patron of the arts, I should at least know a little about it myself.” Noah concedes, and they all are guided off together towards their awaiting armoured vehicles.

***

He is ushered from one monkey-suit into another for the gala-- a celebration of the great and varied fabric of musical theatre of both their countries and of course a chance to milk the very rich and very famous of all their money. He is sure to send Sarah a particularly nasty text message before he leaves their hotel for the theatre, which basically boiled down to (while peppered with several more creative vocabulary choices): You owe me, sis.”

Her reply buzzes in his pocket as he settles into the limo: Maybe you’ll find yourself a challenge there. Foreign girls are a different beast.

Not for the first time, he wonders how she is so extremely good at hiding the filthy dirty bitch she is from the general public when he’s carried the label of ‘playboy’ since he was in grammar school.

The gala itself is basically the same as every other benefit concert and charity gig he’s been to in about 5 years. A stout black girl takes the stage and belts out a spiritual show-stopper that is so powerful he can see the velvet curtains of his box seat vibrating a little. She’s followed by a young baby-faced young man singing a song that is traditionally a female part (to keep things interesting, and modern of course) though it’s quite surprising that he can sing it all in the female register and after them it’s a medley of classic rock songs sung by the national winners of a school glee-club competition.

It’s the performer who comes out just before interval that catches his attention though. She’s in a classy black dress that finishes just above her mid-thigh, with her dark brown hair pulled back in a cascading ponytail, she grips her sparkly microphone and brings the audience to a stunned silence when she sings a raw, stripped back version of Pure Imagination, with nothing but a simple piano glissando to accompany her. Noah is glad for the privacy of the special box that he has to himself-- The President and his family are in the one beside his, so he has every opportunity to stare unabashedly.

“Who was that?” He asks his page, when the curtains close, and the house lights return.

“Rachel Berry, Your Highness.” the page says politely.

“I’d love to meet her.”

The page bows subserviently, “I’ll arrange to have her brought to your box, sir.”

“No-- no need. I’ll visit her backstage, there is time before the next act.” He stands and smooths the lines of his dinner jacket with his palms.

“Of course, sir. If you’ll follow me.”

They take the service entrances in order to stay away from the gathering crowds, and the moment they enter the backstage area, the hustle and bustle of the cast and crew preparing for the next act does not pause to stop and stare, affording him one of his rare moments of anonymity. Or at least, he is ignored until someone glances at him and recognises the familiar set of his jaw.

“Your Highness...” The small baby-faced male soprano from before stops to stare, then falls into a deep bow. “What an honour!”

“I hope I’m not intruding, I came to share my congratulations on a wonderful first act with you all--” He says, eyes roving the dark, albeit crowded hallways for a glimpse of the small black dress or the woman wearing it. “It’s Mr Hummell, if I recall correctly?”

“You do, your grace!” The man blushes, and bows a little deeper.

“Mr Hummell, I’d love to meet Rachel Berry, her performance blew me away, and I’d love the chance to compliment her in person.”

“Of course, your excellency, if you’ll follow me right this way!” Hummell leads them down a side hall and around a corner til they reach a door with a huge gold star labelled ‘Rachel Berry’ plastered in the middle.

“Rachel,” Hummell calls through the door, rapping his knuckles smartly against the door.

“Kurt, go away,” a female voice snaps through the door. “We’ve been through this, don’t disturb me while I’m preparing for a performance.”

Kurt glances side-ways at him and Noah can see the blush rising up his neck. “You have a visitor, Rachel.”

“Kurt, I don’t care if it’s the King of England, I’m not to be disturbed.”

Kurt hesitates. “It’s not the King, exactly...”

“Kurt, your practical jokes just aren’t as funny as you believe them to be.” There are footsteps loud and angry behind the door before it is wrenched open. “Prince Noah does not want to visit me persona--”

She stops mid sentence when she sees him standing there next to Kurt. She’s changed into a white satin robe, her hair is down, and her face has been messily washed of its stage makeup. She seems to realise all this at once, makes an odd squeaky noise, then slams the door in both their faces.

“I get that reaction a lot,” He says to Kurt with a bit of a smirk. “It’s no fun when you tell them you’re coming.”

“She’s not the best with surprises,” Kurt says with a shrug.

“I can hear you both, you know,” her voice squeaks from the other side of the door. “And I don’t appreciate being talked about behind my back.”

“Well I’d love to talk to you in person if you open the door again,” Noah says with a laugh. “I don’t bite. Unless you want me to.”

The door swings open. Her bare cheeks are flushed with embarrassment, but she does look a little ticked off. He think he likes that look on her. “And I don’t fall for that ridiculous pick-up line when people give it to me at a bar, I’m certainly not going to lower myself to humour it simply because you’re a prince.”

“Well I’ll have to try a little harder then, won’t I?”

Rachel crosses her arms across her chest and scowls, “Why are you here?” She says, he sees Kurt’s mouth drop open in shock out of the corner of his eye.

“Rachel, he’s a Prince,” Kurt says reverently.
“Yes, and apparently quite a rude one.” She lifts her wrist up to her eye-level and inspects a delicate silver watch for the time. “I only have fifteen minutes til my next call. I won’t delay my performance for anyone, not even a Prince.”

“I just wanted to tell you how wonderful I thought your performance was. And to wish you all the best for the second act.” He says. “And I’d love if you and your friend Kurt would join my sister and I at a luncheon we’re having tomorrow.”

“Yes. We’ll come.” Kurt cuts in excitedly, stepping between the two of them with a brilliant smile. “And I’m sure when Rachel has calmed down she’ll thank you for the compliment, and she’d say something about enjoying the rest of the show.

“You don’t speak for me, Kurt.” she says hatefully.

“I do right now. Shut up, diva.”

Noah can’t help but laugh a little. They really are both the epitome of melodramatic theatre nuts, but he stuffs his hands in his pockets and says with a nod: “Nice meeting you both. I’ll have someone contact you tomorrow with the details.”

With that, he turns and heads back the way he was lead, pulling his phone from his pocket as he ducks back out into the service hallway where the page had been waiting dutifully for his return. You would’ve hated it. But thanks for manipulating me into this. he sends to his sister when he arrives back in his box.

Sister knows best. So what’s the special girl’s name, then?

Rachel Berry. You’ll meet her tomorrow.

You are kidding me, right? You’re gonna woo the biggest name in theatre right now?

I like a challenge.

***

Hope you like! Please review!

fic, glee. dance in the dark; pg-13

2011-04-16T12:59:20Z

Title: Dance in the Dark
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Don’t own the characters. Title taken from the Lady Gaga track of the same name.
Characters: Puck, Rachel, Quinn, Finn, and the other Gleeks all feature
Word Count: 8900
Summary: AU Everyone in the school knows her. She’s Rachel Berry. The blind girl. . Filling this prompt from the puckrachel drabble post by beckingham: “A blind Rachel. AU or not, after some accident or from birth. Don't care.” Hope you like it!

***

Everyone in the school knows her. She’s Rachel Berry. The blind girl. The Jewish girl with two gay dads who is super intense and has no friends. Everyone knows she’s only here because her parents sued the school district for discrimination. She’s the one who always looks like she got dressed in the dark.

“You’d think that the two gay dads thing would mean that she’d at least look good,” Santana says to him one day as they stand by her locker. “Aren’t gay dudes meant to be super into fashion and all that shit? And yet they let her leave the house like someone took the worst things from my grandma’s wardrobe and put them on a Raggedy Ann doll.”

“Yeah.” Puck says, watching intently as the Raggedy Ann in question bends over to pull something from that ridiculous pink trolley case and he thinks for a minute that he saw a glimpse of something yellow underneath that tiny plaid skirt, but then she stands up straight to file some books back in her locker. He lets out a disappointed hiss.

“Hey, asshole--” Santana punches him in the shoulder, hard, and he catches her fist with a frustrated grunt before she can hit him again. “I’m talking to you.”

“I was listening!”

“You were scamming on man-hands, I saw!” The cheerleader narrows her eyes and pushes his hand off and punches him again before stalking off in the direction of the girl’s bathroom.

“Yeah, fuck off.” He calls down the hallway, totally getting the last word in. You’d think that bicurious bitch would be all about appreciating a fine set of pins, no matter who they were attached to. Finn’d appreciate them if he were here. Where is that enormous klutz anyway? They were supposed to have a Mario Kart tournament the day before and he’d bailed, and these days he’s distant or some shit. Puck doesn’t know what that’s about, but he figures that it’s his duty as the best friend to knock him back to normal.

***

“My mom says that she was dropped on her head as a baby and her brain damage is proof that fags can’t raise children.”

***

God she’s annoying. She’s that girl in class who always knows the answer, always has been, and Jesus it gets on his nerves. It’s like she has no volume control, too, like, hello, did no one ever explain the indoor-outdoor voice definition? No need to freakin’ yell out to the entire class that the derivative of whatserthing is 43, no one cares anyway. It’s math. He was napping and her yelling woke him up.

So when the teacher’s not looking he leans forward and tugs sharply on her ponytail, making sure to snag the elastic as well to mess it up and make it sit awkward for the rest of the period.

***

Not only is he pissed at Finn for lying about his mom having and engorged prostate, but he’s pissed that he discovered the lie because he googled ‘engorged prostate’. You can’t unsee the shit you find on google images.

He follows his best friend to the auditorium and watches the five nerds prance around with his best friend, looking like they’re having the time of their life singing that old-ass Journey song. It’s disgusting... But...

Don’t tell anyone, but the first time he hears Berry sing, he’s kind of blown away. People in real life don’t sing like that, and their music doesn’t make his spine tingle and goosebumps erupt all over his skin.

***

“It was an act of God. No one that ugly should have to look at themselves in the mirror every day and see that so he took pity on her and poked out her eyes.”

***

He is holding a slushy in his hand, and she’s walking down the hallway, tapping that cane against the ground as she walks. He toys with the lid, getting his fingernail under the lip of it off so he can just toss it on her when she walks past. She’d never know it was him, it’d take her fucking ages to get the corn-syrup out of her moose sweater. Hey. Maybe it’d be an improvement, his inner Santana voice says bitchily.

But then, she glances his way. Well, doesn’t glance, because she can’t see shit, but her head twists and it feels as though she’s looking straight at him, and he realises that he was seriously considering slushying a blind chick. Who the fuck does that? He snaps the lid back on the drink and storms past her down the hall. And all he does is kick her damn cane out of the way of his ankle as he passes.

Later, in the locker room, he confronts Finn about the lie. “Chicks don’t have prostates, asshole. I googled it.” He spits, pushing his friend up against the equipment storage room door. Finn bats his hands away.

“Lay off, man.” Finn says. He punctuates his next words with a shove back: “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“You lied to me!”

“Well you’re being a dick.”

“You’re joining homo-explosion now? What the hell, you’re like, committing social suicide and for what? The chance to bang the blind chick? Quinn will give it up eventually, trust me, you ain’t got no reason to jump to the charity cases just yet.”

Finn stares at him, as though trying to figure out which part of Puck’s hissed little speech he should attack first. “It’s not like that, man.” He finally says and backs away. “I enjoy singing. Rachel is nice and all, but I’m not doing this to sleep with her.”

Puck runs a frustrated hand through his mohawk. Finn just doesn’t get it, the dumbass. “So sing in the shower, where no one can see you do it.”

“No. I’m not quitting glee.” Finn says firmly. “You’ll just need to get over it... and don’t pretend you don’t enjoy singing too. You could join too.”

“What the fuck ever, man. Your social suicide, don’t drag me into it.”

***

Quinn comes to him that weekend, crying about Finn and Glee and that blind girl and her jeans not fitting, and the only way he figures out how to shut her up is to ply her with his mom’s wine coolers. What happens after that is kind of a blur because she lets him finger her but gets freaked out and leaves when he tells her to return the favour.

The next day she’s coerced Santana and Brittany in joining homo explosion with her and although he doesn’t really know how it happens, (it’s probably because Glee’s black-hole power knows no bounds) but he joins the stupid club with a couple of the other footballers. Football and Beyonce are involved, and say what you will but that chick is hot. But maybe that’s just his excuse, the one he says out-loud. Maybe he does it because every time he looks at Quinn he feels this strange mix of guilt and burning want. Maybe he does it because Finn was right, and he actually does like singing. Maybe he does it because he knows that dudes who sing get more game than dudes who’s only achievement in life is owning their own pool-cleaning business in Ohio.

So there he is, listening to that Spanish teacher talk about scales and harmonies and accompaniments and he might as well just throw the slushy in his own face now.

***

“Her mom did it. That’s why she doesn’t have a mom, because she went crazy one day and mutilated her as a baby, now she’s in some facility up in Columbus and she’ll never see again.”

***

They’re both early to Glee one day, and don’t ask him why, but he decides to talk to her. Curiosity killed the cat or some shit. It’s one of McKinley’s great mysteries anyway: why is Berry blind? Everyone knows the story about Artie and the car crash, and that Becky chick’s deal is sort of obvious, but the rumour mill hasn’t cranked out anything credible about this particular conundrum. “So what happened?” He asks bluntly, unsnapping the latches on his guitar case to pull the instrument out. He wants to use it in a performance today and he decides to tune it before the others get here, save him the trouble of doing it later.

“What happened when? You’ll need to be more specific.” Rachel says from her seat in the front row. Her cane is folded up and on the chair beside her.

“Were you born blind, was there an accident, what?”

She turns her head sharply and says primly: “It’s personal. I’d rather not say.”

“Fine. Whatever.” He plucks his E string and twists the tuning peg a little until it sounds right then moves onto the A string.

“The E is still a little flat.” She interjects as he begins to pluck at the new string.

“How can you tell?” He frowns, and plucks the E string again. “It sounds fine to me.”

“I have perfect pitch.” Rachel says firmly, and angles her head so her ear is facing the guitar. It’s like watching a dog perk up when you blow a whistle. “It’s not very far off, just a little more.”

He twists the tuning peg another fraction tighter. “There?”

“Yes. That’s right.” She smiles and looks accomplished.

He moves back to the A string, plucking at it and slowly tightening the peg until she nods gently to signal it’s right. “Is that like a Daredevil thing?”

“I’m sorry.” She looks blank. “I don’t understand the reference.”

“He’s this blind super hero, but all his other senses are like, super awesome to compensate for it, and he kicks ass and takes names. They made a movie with Ben Affleck.”

“I only watch musicals.” She shrugs. “And while I suppose its a possibility that my hearing is superior to yours because of my ocular deficiency, I don’t see how it’s particularly beneficial, and I certainly can’t use it to capture the criminal element. I can’t even tell who keeps pulling my hair in math.”

He hopes she can’t hear how hollow his laugh is, as luckily the rest of the Glee club start filing into the choir room, Finn and Quinn walking in together hand-in-hand behind Mercedes and the gay kid.

Quinn spares a very brief glance in his direction, before narrowing her eyes at Rachel and pulling Finn to the chairs furthest away from where the brunette is sitting. Rachel, of course, sees none of this and instead stays in her chair impatiently tapping her toes against the vinyl flooring as Mr Schuester is now late.

Puck leans back in his chair and watches them all. Quinn had cornered him the other day, and in a fit of frustration had started bitching about the private singing lessons Rachel and Finn took together with Mr Schuester cutting into her make-out time with her boyfriend, and Puck could tell that her jealousy was starting to ramp up again. This time Puck plans on staying right away from that, because he still feels weirdly guilty about the last time and honestly, Puck doesn’t really know what she’s so worried about-- Finn might be dumb as a post, but he isn’t a cheater, and Berry hasn’t exactly got a rep for being a man-eater or anything. Quite the opposite, really, despite how short her skirts can be.

Mostly he doesn’t want to be used again, and he knows that’s what it was. She wanted to forget for a bit, and sure he was good at that, but there is no way it wont end badly if it happens again.

***

He sees Rachel at Temple sometimes, sitting between her dads. It’s the only time he’s ever seen her anywhere without that stupid cane, but that’s because her fathers are always holding her hands. They talk quietly amongst themselves and when the service is over and the congregation gathers in the community hall for refreshments they usually don’t stay for very long. Her black Dad gets the Rabbi’s attention at one point and her other father steps away to refill his coffee, leaving her alone in a chair against the wall.

He watches as one of the older ladies approaches her and has what looks like an extremely cheerful conversation for a few minutes before moving onto grab some apple tea cake from the food table.

For a moment, he considers going over and sitting beside her, because he’s bored, and she’s clearly alone-- why he cares that she’s alone, he has no freakin’ idea. It’s just that now that they’re both in Glee they kind of have something in common, even if she’s completely obsessed with it and he’s still not entirely sure why he joined in the first place. Sure, maybe he finds it kind of fun, and he likes being around people who actually enjoy singing and aren’t afraid to hide it.

But her Dads are back at her side within the minute, and soon enough they’re saying their goodbyes and taking their daughter home.

***

Have you ever tried choreographing a routine with a blind chick, a dude in a wheelchair and Finn? It’s a nightmare. He doesn’t know why Schue bothers trying to up the fancy level--there was some speech about ‘vibrant performances’ and ‘competitive choreography’ that Puck tuned out of. But here they are in the auditorium and the Glee instructor is demonstrating with Brittany the safest way to do a dip without throwing out your back or dropping your partner on the ground. Apparently their performance of Take Me Out needs that particular maneuver to really impress the judges at Sectionals.

Quinn’s attitude towards him has been icy cold this week (which suits him just fine) and is sticking to Finn like glue. Brittany is demonstrating with Schue and Santana is looking to bang Matt so is taking any excuse to get her hands all over him. The Asians partner off and Mercedes and Kurt have their little fag-hag thing going which leaves him with a very nervous looking Berry.

“Mr Schuester, I’m not comfortable doing this.” She says, hands folded in front of her. “Surely Artie and I could partner up during this song, and Brittany and Noah can work together instead.”

“No that won’t really work. Don’t worry Rachel, this is going to look amazing.” The choir teacher says with a dismissive wave. He has a stupid giddy smile on his face like he’s had the best idea since sliced bread or some shit. Puck thinks that this is gonna be a train-wreck and wishes he had his phone on him so he could film when Finn inevitably tripping up and dropping Quinn and the epic tantrum she’ll throw just after. He’d put that shit on YouTube-- serves Quinn right for being a total bitch to him just because she feels guilty or jealous some shit about what they did in his room that night.

“I’m sure it will, Mr Schuester, but...”

Schue shakes his head and gestures for the band to start playing the music at half-time so they can get a feel for the movement in time to the beat. “Just give it a try, Rachel.”

Puck reaches out and grabs her shoulder, and she jumps perceptively beneath his palm. “It’s me.” He says to her so she can hear. “I won’t drop you or anything. I’m not an asshole.”

Rachel doesn’t really relax at all, but she does turn to face him and nods dejectedly. “Teach me what to do.” She says and holds out her hands for him to take.

He places her hand on his shoulder and lets his own drift to her waist. He can feel her muscles tight beneath her argyle vest and even between the layers of fabric he can tell she’s quite fit. He wonders what she does for exercise. “My mom made me take dance lessons before my Bar Mitzvah.” He says casually, taking her other hand and leading her into a very slow back and forth that somewhat resembles a foxtrot. She moves with sudden jerks, resisting his lead. When he steps forward, she only reluctantly steps back when their pelvises bump together, and then he has to tug her with a little more force than necessary so she stumbles back into their original position.

“Geeze, Berry.” He says with a huff at her rigidity. “Relax, already.”

“Surely you understand why this is disconcerting for me.” She says snappishly, her cheeks flushing a deep red. He wonders if she knows she’s blushing, or is that something you only notice if you can see yourself doing it. Either way, he can read her face like a book: She isn’t in control and so she wants to bail.

“I already said I won’t drop you, what else do I need to do to get you to trust me on that?” He asks, leaning close so that the others dancing around them, dipping and swaying, can’t hear their conversation.

She frowns at him and her lips purse into a dangerously thin line. Even her nostrils flare a little. “I don’t know why I shouldn’t trust the person who kicks my cane when I’m walking down the hall and who threw gum in my hair last year. Maybe you can help me figure it out.”

He lets out a groan. Yeah. She’s blind. They all know. “That’s in the past, Berry. We’re in the now, now, and I won’t drop you and you need to loosen up.”

“I am loose.” She says, and he feels a muscle in her neck twitch. He laughs because shit, he’s never felt muscles this tense in his life, and yet she thinks that if she just says it it’ll be true. “I just keep hearing everyone moving around us, and when I step back I worry I’m going to walk into someone. Or that someone will walk into me.”

“That’s my job, to make sure we don’t. That’s why it’s called ‘taking the lead’.”

“I know that, but knowing that and being able to do it are two separate things.”

“It’s because you don’t trust me.”

“No. I don’t.” She lets go of his hand and steps back. “I can’t do this.”

He glances over at Mr Schuester, who has his hands full making sure Finn doesn’t drop Quinn on her head-- really, Rachel is in much better hands with him and here she is, freaking out about it. “Berry.” He says, frustration evident in his voice. “Chill out.”

“No. This is ridiculous, I want to stop. No one expected Stevie Wonder to dance about, they just appreciated his beautiful music.” She turns and takes a few tentative steps towards the piano where Brad is tinkling away. It’s where she left her cane when they spread out across the stage. She has her hands stretched out in front of her a little as she walks, to warn her of any wayward dancers. Puck follows behind her, exasperated, watching as she narrowly avoids Mercedes dipping Kurt to her left. She smooths her hand across the side of the piano, and reaches out across the top of the grand, tapping gently around until her pinky nudges the cane. She snatches it up and flips it open, and before anyone has the chance to stop her, she’s marching backstage and out of the auditorium.

***

“You know what’s supposed to make you blind? Touching yourself. You know... there. I bet that’s what happened. It’s not like she’s got other options or anything.”

***

Puck is in his bedroom, staring at the ceiling at the band posters and magazine spreads he’d stuck up there during the summer. Kim Kardashian is the shit. He closes his eyes. He can hear his sister in her room down the hall, and the Jonas brothers song she’s listening to on his old CD player. He hears the clink of glass knocking against metal, probably his mother downstairs doing the washing up. The space heater in the corner of his room is humming, and he can feel the way the warmth is distributed around the room by the glowing red elements.

He sits up and swings his legs around and off the bed but keeps his eyes closed. The carpet is rough against his toes, and he can feel something just beside his left foot. Maybe one of the shoes he discarded earlier? He stands and walks towards the door, eyes still closed. It’s only about three steps away. He stretches his hand out so that he can feel the door before he hits it. One, two, three, but he still hasn’t felt the door with his hand. He takes a fourth and runs into the closed door, though not hard enough to hurt. Maybe he doesn’t know his room as well as he thinks.

He ghosts his hand out and grasps the doorknob, then reaches with the other to grab the edge of the door at about the level of his face so that he can open it and not brain himself as he does it.

The light changes. It’s darker out here than in his room, he can feel it through his eyelids. The light in the hallway must be switched off, but the sound of the Jonas Brothers is louder now, no longer muffled by the door. It echos down the hallway, and when he breathes in deep he can smell that his mother has lit up a cigarette while she watches The Real Housewives of Atlanta and does the dishes. It’s probably sitting in the ashtray above the sink on the window sill.

He turns and walks towards the bathroom, trailing his hand along the wall so that he knows how far to walk. He passes the door to his mother’s room, fingers noting the ridge of the door frame, the inset door, and then the other side of the door frame about a step away. The Jonas Brothers is loudest now, as he passes his sister’s room on the right side of the hall. He can smell nail polish. So much for doing her English homework.

Then there is a sharp hard pain in his shin, and a crash, and his eyes snap open as he sees that stupid ugly umbrella stand with the sharp edges his mother found at some charity store last year in the hallway. He’d forgotten it was there. He looks down at his shin, there is an angry red line and a bead or two of blood there. Shit.

He stalks straight down the hallway and slams the bathroom door behind him before his mom and sister can check what caused the crash. He snatches a wad of toilet paper and holds it against his shin where it soaks up the blood. It’s red against his palm and stings like a mother fucker.

***

“Hey Berry.” He calls out across the hall as she arrives at her locker. It has an adhesive braille marker stuck to the metal and unlike the rest of the students she has a regular padlock with a key instead of a combination lock. It’s much easier to pick-- he used to break into it sometimes when she was in class and shift her books around. Dick move, he knows. He hasn’t done it in like, three months.

“Good morning, Noah.” She says primly, resting her cane between her hip and her pink roller suitcase as she inserts her key into the padlock. Again, he wonders if she realises how easy she is to read, her skin flushes red and he knows that she’s embarrassed about how she reacted in Glee yesterday. He wishes that she could see him, that she could just read his face and see his apology written in the lines of his mouth like everybody else can.

“Morning.” He says back, resting against the block of lockers to her side. “I’m sorry you got freaked out yesterday.” He says quickly, wanting to get the stupid thing out of his way. These feelings of guilt and second-hand embarrassment have been eating away at him, and he wants to clear the air or some shit. “And I’m sorry I’ve been a dick to you before, kicking your cane and shit.”

All this time she has been putting things in her locker, braille-labelled textbooks, a clunky looking net book, her lunch tote. The inside of her locker is rather bare, most girls have a mirror and a calendar, and usually a framed picture of Justin Beiber or whatever douche bag actor they’re in love with this week (Quinn has a picture of Jesus in hers) but hers has nothing. She doesn’t stop putting her things away, and she doesn’t turn to face him, but she does say: “Apology accepted.”

“Are we good, now?” He asks, watching her fingers skim the edges of her textbooks until she finds the right one. It’s a novel they’re studying in English, but she has the braille edition. His copy has a cover with a stupid weird abstract tree on the cover, hers is more like a photocopied binder. The only reason he knows it’s the same book is that it has ‘The Garden of Forking Paths - Jorge Luis Borges’ written in a very basic font on the front cover. The rest is just bumpy dots.

“We’re fine, Noah.” She says.

“See you in Glee this afternoon?” He asks and she shuts her locker and clicks the padlock tight again. The key to the lock is slipped into a pocket hidden in the folds of her polka-dot dress.

“I’ll be there.” She grips her cane and her pink trolley case and without so much as a goodbye, she’s off down the hall once more.

***

“And she looked in the mirror and said three times: Bloody Mary... Bloody Mary... Bloody Mary. They could hear her say it through the door. Then there was a scream, and Bloody Mary had plucked out her eyes... You know. Metaphorically or whatever.”

***

“Are you kidding me?” Quinn has pulled him aside after football practice one afternoon. They’re in the equipment shed and he can’t get past how it smells like Tanaka’s sweaty feet in here.

“What the fuck, Quinn?” He says grumpily. He just had an awful training session, he just ran something like 40 laps and all he wants is a hot shower, something from Burger King and a few hours wasting time playing Mario Kart before crawling into bed, but this blonde, hormonal teenage girl is getting in his way. She hasn’t turned on the lights, but he can tell that her face is twisted into that ugly expression that girls faces get when they’re being unreasonable bitches. It’s a look he sees on his mom all the time.

“What is it with you boys and... her?”

“What?” He hates vague questions with a passion.

“Rachel Berry. I saw you at her locker yesterday, what are you doing with her?”

Puck stares at her through the darkness. He will never ever understand girls. This one especially. First she ignores him. Then she’s all over him and cheating on her boyfriend with him, and then ignoring him again. Now she’s getting possessive of him? Fuck that.

“How the hell is it your business?” He says hatefully. He usually tries to keep his anger in check, but she has been treating him like shit for weeks. It’s taking more control than he likes not to lash out physically. “You made it pretty clear I wasn’t allowed to talk to you, let alone--”

She starts yapping angrily over the top of him. “You know how I feel about her and yet you go after her anyway. She is stealing my life and she’s getting away with it because she’s basically Helen Keller and can play the sympathy card and everyone is falling for it.”

“You are such a self-centered bitch, you know that? The world does not revolve around you.”

“Oh my gosh that is not even what I said.”

“So you expect me to just stand and wait on the sidelines until Finn finds that I finger-fucked you and breaks it off. I’m not the damn substitute teacher, Quinn, and who I spend my time with is none of your damn business.”

“I know what you’re doing. You’re doing this to make me jealous.”

Puck runs a hand across his mohawk, frustrated with just how stupid this girl is, and also at himself for letting himself get dragged into a storage shed by a 110 pound girl when he knew that this was the sort of shit she’d pull. “I’m not. I’m not doing anything to get back at you.”

“Then what are you doing hanging out with man-hands? Why string her along, or is this some sick thing where you seduce disabled kids now? I guess its your lucky day: Becky is pretty easy now that Coach Sylvester has let her on the squad.”

“Fuck you, Quinn. Oh wait. I basically already did.” He pushes her away from the door she’d been blocking and escapes the stinky equipment shed as quickly as he can. He quickly catches up with Azimo and Mike loudly enough so that Quinn can hear from behind the door. She won’t risk coming out now that there are witnesses around to start rumours and gossip, and Puck makes his escape. Sure, the chick is hot, but she’s got issues and he is so sick of the small-town high school drama that she thrives on to make her life feel important and meaningful.

But he can’t help but acknowledge that she hit a nerve, bringing up Rachel like that. He tries not to think about what that means.

***

It’s a few weeks later, when Sectionals is looming at the end of the month, that Puck decides that everyone involved in Glee needs to like, get a life, or get laid or something, because Jesus H, it’s fucking show choir not the end of the world as we know it.

Mr Schue is fretting over their performances after an impromptu “Scrimmage” he set up with the choirs they’d be competing against. The group were loud, and proud, and honestly a lot more impressive than everyone gave them credit for, and so Schue was on the prowl, looking for ways to get an edge on the competition.

Even Puck could admit that they’d surprised him. He’d heard things about those Jane Addams Academy girls and their vocal talents, but he’d always assumed that was a euphemism, not a statement of actual fact. They were juvie girls. But they’d certainly been impressive up there on stage, singing that Beyonce song.

“I’ve decided at Sectionals this year we’ll be doing the title song from Hair, the classic musical!” The Spanish teacher says with a cheerful grin.

“Wait-- if we’re going to do a song about hair, shouldn’t we, you know, have more hair?” Finn asks awkwardly, and Mr Schuester grins, like he was just waiting for someone to ask that.

And clearly he was, because he produces from behind his back a duffel bag filled to the brim with wigs, and begins to hand them out to everyone, exclaiming at how cheap he’d found them at a costume shop down on Wellington Av.

Despite the enthusiasm of their leader’s announcement and the generally noisy reaction he gets from the group, who’re now modelling the wigs for each other, no one misses the very loud noise of discontent that Rachel makes-- sort of like a choking noise.

“Are you serious?” She asks, a look of disgust written plainly across her face. She is holding her wig gingerly away from her, pinched between forefinger and thumb.

Everyone looks suitably confused at her reaction. Surely the Broadway lover would be all over the addition of a musical song for their competition repertoire. Mr Schue seems to decide that he misheard her and says: “Pardon, Rachel?”

She doesn’t falter. “Are you seriously changing our song-selection for Sectionals because of that performance we witnessed yesterday?”

“No!” Schue sputters and waves her off, “I think that it’s time we mix thing up a little to give ourselves the competitive edge!”

Rachel doesn’t look convinced. Instead, she turns to Tina who is sitting next to her, in the seat between her and Finn and Quinn. “Finn, could you please describe to me the performance you watched yesterday? Clearly I must have missed a vital element of their performance. Being blind often means I miss out on important details which most people take for granted.”

“Huh?”

“Were they good dancers? It must’ve been very intricately choreographed.” She presses on, then twists a little to get clarification from other members of the group, because even she knows that interrogating Finn about dance steps probably is a little silly. “Mike? Santana?”

“It wasn’t that complicated.” Mike pipes up.

Rachel nods, like she already knew this, but doesn’t let Mr Schue take back control of the conversation just yet. “Alright, so if it wasn’t the dancing, surely they were all extremely attractive girls. Perhaps their costuming was particularly scanty? Kurt, what did you think about their outfits? Puck? Were they attractive?”

Puck knows not to answer that question because there is no way it’s not a trap. Instead, he kicks the back of Kurt’s chair to force him to answer instead. Kurt looks taken aback, both at Rachel for the sudden intense questioning and at Puck for the violence against his seat and glances about the room for support. “Um...”

“You are always commenting on the things I wear, so I assume that you consider yourself fairly knowledgeable on the topic.” Rachel says lightly.

“Well, they weren’t the classiest outfits I’ve seen a show choir wear,” Kurt says slowly, “But honestly I was mostly distracted by their hair.”

“What did they do?”

“Lots of flipping it around everywhere.” Rachel nods smugly, with a strange glint in her eye, as though this was what she was waiting for.

“Mr Schuester,” She says calmly. “You were tricked. They weren’t very good vocally and they’re probably very aware that their strengths do not lie in their choral talents, but in their other assets, and I don’t wish to make a hasty accusation, but this is a school for delinquent girls, if there is anything they can do well, it is distract and seduce in order to pull your attention from the crimes they are committing, which in this case was one against my ears. Their lead singer was flat for a full verse!”

Rachel finishes with a theatrical shudder that wracks her whole frame, and the rest of the club simply stares, until Mr Schuester finally breaks the silence with one final attempt to save his assignment:

“But... It’s a Broadway classic!”

Rachel smiles back at him. “You are very right, it is a Broadway classic and a fantastic song and musical, but it is not right for us and I believe that it would be best if we focus our energy on the wonderful numbers we’re currently working on instead of introducing completely new material to the group so close to the competition.”

And so that’s how they get out of wearing those nasty-ass wigs.

***

They go on a field trip on a Saturday to the hall where Sectionals is going to be held. Except it’s not really a real field trip where they go on school time. Mr Schue just told everyone to head to the venue on Saturday and gave them a time to meet and stressed that everyone be as punctual as possible. A few months back, Puck would’ve complained about giving up his Saturday for this shit-- Saturdays are reserved for sleeping in til 2 in the afternoon and COD tournaments. But he knows they need to practice their routine a few times on this unfamiliar stage, and Artie needs to get a feel for the disabled access entrances to the theatre. So he set his alarm and drove two towns over to the venue. He’s finishing his morning slushy as he wanders around from the car-park at the side of the building, just in time to see Artie’s mum finish dropping off Tina, Artie and Rachel at the curb. They must’ve carpooled.

“P-puck!” Tina calls out to him from behind Artie’s chair and Puck knows that it’s just easier to come when hollered at, than to ignore them and mosey his way up to their agreed-upon meeting area.

“Yo.” He says, fist-bumping his bro Artie in greeting. “‘Sup?”

“Can you take Rachel in?” Artie asks, nodding to the brunette girl standing primly behind them, clutching her bright pink tote bag over one shoulder while holding her white-tipped cane in her other hand. “Tina needs to help me find the ramp and Rachel’s never been here before.”

Puck shrugs. “Sure, whatever.”

“Thank you, I do appreciate it.” Rachel says with a smile, and Tina and Artie head off in the opposite direction.

He takes her hand and guides it to his elbow where she takes a firm hold. She holds her cane straight and raised up from the ground in her other hand. “What do you need me to tell you?” He asks uncertainly.

“When we’re approaching stairs, if there is anything I should duck to avoid.”

“Uh huh.” He says, and begins walking towards the main entrance. Her grip tightens a little as he is walking at quite a brisk pace, mostly because they’re already a bit late, and Schue had made such a big deal about everyone being on time, and sticking together, and team unity, and while he’s been here before, he doesn’t want to risk missing up on meeting the group. Plus, he’s chaperoning the group’s main soloist, it’s a responsibility or some shit.

“Noah.” Rachel says, sounding rather strained. “Can you slow down a little?” And Puck realises that while her legs may be awesome to look at, they are pretty stumpy. Or rather, she’s pretty stumpy, and yeah, he probably was walking a bit on the fast side.

“Sorry.” He reels it back in and tries to match his steps to hers. She loosens her grip a little, but it’s still firm enough for him to be hyper-aware of it. “We have some steps coming up.” He says.

“Up or down?”

“Up.”

He slows down a little as they hit the stairs, and lets her dictate the pace they take them. “So how come you don’t have a guide dog?” He asks as step up one, two, three, four, and then the last step before it levels out once more. “Don’t they help blind people get around without help?”

“Yes they do.” She nods. “In the sense that they are trained to warn me of environmental features I can’t navigate myself, but they don’t come with on-board GPS, I’d still need to know the route for one to be useful.”

“So why don’t you use one at school?”

“Several reasons. It’s a familiar setting already, and consistent, each floor of the school has the same layout, bathrooms at the same position on every floor--”

“Steps up, soon.” He interrupts, and she nods.

“Then there is the fact that dogs are not so effective when surrounded by crowds of people, which is inevitable at a school.”

“They get distracted.” He says, catching on. He’d never had a dog as a pet, but he’d played with his neighbours dog a lot when he was younger. Dogs were fun, sure, but lost interest in stuff pretty quickly sometimes.

“No, not really. They’re highly trained to focus on their task. The issue lies with the fact that most people don’t realise that they are not pets to be fawned over, too many people at school would try and pet it, or encourage its attention elsewhere.”

“Oh.” They reach the stairs and take them without incident. Rachel adjusts her grip on his elbow a little, flexing and twitching her fingers around the muscles there.

“Also, I’m allergic to dogs.” She says flippantly.

He chuckles. “Bummer.”

“Yeah. It sucks.”

***

He asks his mom a few nights later, if she knows why Rachel is blind. She’s a nurse, but she works in that nursing home near Lincoln Park, and she has done since before he was born, so she wouldn’t know from first-hand knowledge or anything, but if there is one thing his mother is, it’s a gossip.

“Rachel Berry, the one with the two dads?” She asks, cigarette dangling from one hand while she prods their TV dinner with a fork in her other hand.

“Yeah, that’s her. She’s my age. You’ve seen her at temple.”

She shovels a pile of mashed potato onto her fork and scrunches her face up in consideration. “I remember when they adopted her, I was 6 months along with you, they brought her along to temple to show her off. She was this little runty thing, a bit sickly and she was always crying and interrupting Rabbi Greenberg so one of them was always taking her outside to calm her down.”

She draws on the cigarette a little, and gestures to him. “Then you were born. I was in hospital for about a week, and I think she got sick or something, they took her to some fancy kids hospital in Columbus.”

“How was she sick?” He hacks of a bit of his own chicken fillet and shovels it into his mouth.

“I don’t remember.” She snaps, flicking ash off the end of the cigarette into the ashtray beside her. “I had other things on my mind, you were a fucking nightmare child, crying all the time, I never got any sleep, I wasn’t thinking about other people’s babies. Why do you care anyway? You should leave that poor girl alone.”

He considers playing the offended card at her tone, but decides he can’t be bothered. His ma knows him and the shit he pulls, and honestly it’s not worth the effort to fight back sometimes... “She’s in glee club.” He says.

“That choir thing?”

“Yeah. She has a really good voice.”

She narrowed her eyes at him again. He’d told her about Glee before this, but he wasn’t completely sure she believed him. In fact, he was like 90% sure that she thought it was just him making up shit so that he could get out of picking his sister up from school twice a week. Which sure, was the sort of shit he pulled, but not this time. “If I find out you’ve done anything to that girl, so help me, I will...”

He tunes her out, and focuses back on Sister Wives and the nasty-ass dinner they’re eating. He’s heard this shit before, he could probably recite it himself.

***

“She has AIDS. That makes you blind. Doesn’t it?”

***

It was always going to happen. Secrets don’t stay secrets in Lima, least of all at McKinley High. He knows the cat is out of the bag-- that Quinn blabbed to someone, who told someone else, until finally Finn found out, when Finn storms straight into the choir room and sucker-punches him right in the jaw.

One of the girls screams in surprise, and the punch dazes him for long enough for Finn to get him twice more, once high up on the cheek, and then just after he finally gets it together enough to bring his hands up to protect his face, Finn hits him hard in the solar plexus before Mr Schuester, Matt and Mike finally pull Finn and his pummelling fists off him.

It all comes out then, Finn demands the truth, and though Puck stays stonily silent behind the wall of Gleeks standing in between him and his best friend, the look on Finn’s face makes him feel like the worst sort of dirt. Quinn starts crying, and it’s all a big fucking mess.

Everything is always such a fucking mess, with him, isn’t it.

***

The last rehearsal before sectionals, he stays in the choir room long after everyone else leaves, plugs his ipod into the stereo system and pulls out his guitar to figure out the chords of this song that’s been stuck in his head. Don’t ask him why, but he doesn’t really want to go home just yet, and this song has been bugging him for so long, if he just figures it out maybe the damn ear-worm will leave and he can get back to listening to more upbeat music and being generally less depressed.

But as he plays, all he thinks about is that he fucked everything up, and maybe he deserves to be a little depressed. Finn still isn’t speaking to him, and Quinn still looks like she’s on the edge of tears every time someone talks to her. By all rights their performance tomorrow will probably be a train wreck, with half the choir not speaking to the other half, but whatever. Mercedes still sounds kick-ass doing that song from Dreamgirls, and their performance of Don’t Stop Believing doesn’t rely on Finn having to have chemistry on stage with anyone other than Rachel, so they’ll still be fine with that.

He just wishes that none of this had happened. He didn’t like being that guy, the one that fucked over his best friend. Things had been starting to actually go well, since he joined Glee he and Finn had gotten closer, and Finn had been right all those months ago. He did like to sing, and fuck him but he even liked singing with these losers.

Puck plucks away at the strings of his guitar, picking out chords and matching them to the song, riffing a little in the bridge, plucking the strings quickly until a the melody resonates out. He barely hears the door open, but stops playing when he sees Rachel shuffle her way over to the piano.

“Don’t stop because of me.” She says. “It sounded beautiful, I shouldn't have interrupted.”

“Nah.” He shrugs. “I should be going home anyway.”

“What is this song?” She asks, talking over the stern piano chords that fill the otherwise empty choir room.

He chuckles a little, “Colorblind, by The Counting Crows.” He says, slipping his guitar back into its case. “I heard it in a movie once and thought maybe I could learn to play it on my guitar.”

“Which movie?”

“You wouldn’t know it.”

“I might!”

“Cruel Intentions.” He says evenly, and then laughs a little when she frowns a bit, clearly not recognising it. ”It isn’t a musical.”

“You remembered!”

“Yeah.” The song finishes, and begins again. He had it on repeat to memorise it quicker.

He closes the space between them and takes Rachel’s hand gently. She doesn’t start or jump away this time, though he’d forgotten to warn her he was coming. “Can I have this dance?” He asks quietly.

She nods. “Yes.” and holds her other hand out for him to take. He places it on his shoulder and settles his free hand lightly on her waist. He moves slower this time, the music necessitates it, and also he knows it makes her more comfortable.

“The last time I danced I was four and standing on my daddy’s shoes.” She says quietly. “I remember it felt like I was flying.”

“Well you can stand on my feet if you want,” He offers, pulling her towards him in a gentle spin. “You weigh, what, 100 pounds? I bench press more than that at the gym.”

Pull me out from inside, Adam Duritz croons to them from the stereo. I am ready, I am ready, I am fine.

“Can I ask you something?” He says quietly, as they sway gently from side to side.

“Sure.” She says and turns her head to face him more directly. Standing this close to her it’s all the more disorientating that her eyes are out of focus-- and yet he’s never had the chance to really see what a deep shade of brown they are. They’re really very pretty.

“Why keep it a secret?”

“Why keep what a secret?” Small wrinkles form on her forehead, and he has to admit that the question is a bit left of centre. He lifts their clasped hands and pushes gently at her hips, twirling her around once before catching her again, sweeping them gently away from the piano they’d drifted closer to.

“How you got this way. You know. Blind.”

“What does it matter to anyone?” She asks in return. He considers it for a moment. He knows he mostly wants to know out of his desire to sate his curiosity. The united powers of the gossip mill of McKinley, his Temple, and Lima in general haven’t been able to give him a solid, reliable answer, and he can’t for the life of him think why the source herself is so tight-lipped on the issue.

“It doesn’t...” He admits begrudgingly, after a moment, and shrugs.“And if you want it a secret, that’s fine, I ‘spose... I just don’t know why it has to be.”

“There’s no reason why everyone has to know, except to sate their curiosity. It isn’t something anyone could’ve prevented, it isn’t contagious, and it isn’t something that can be cured. I came to terms with that a few years ago, and I don’t want people to find out and pity me, or treat me any differently.”

“You do know that people still talk about it though, right? They say some pretty awful shit.”

“Oh, what, like ‘Rachel Berry is blind because god is punishing her dads for being sinful, faggot abominations’? Because that is so believable.” She says flippantly, and waves the hand at his shoulder dismissively.

Puck laughs, then says in a mock serious tone: “This is Ohio, Rachel. They have a direct line to God, here.”

She laughs as well, then shrugs. “The rumours will be there whether or not we tell everyone the truth. My family is private by nature, my fathers keep it that way for a reason. What matters to me is that they love me, and that I love them, and I would not be here if it weren’t for them and their love, and whether or not I’m blind, I know it doesn’t change that at all. The rumor-mongers in our community can pry all they like, but until they prove that they care about me and my family for more than simply new fodder for the fire, then I see no reason why I should tell anyone.”

“I suppose I get that.” He says, finally. “I wouldn’t tell anyone, you know.”

He lowers her into a dip, and pulls her back up to his chest

“That’s nice to know.” She says with a wan smile. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you.”

He smiles back, then tugs gently on her pony-tail. The song ends on a note that resonates throughout the room. I am ready, I am fine. “Come on.” He says. “I’ll drive you home. Big day tomorrow. ”

***

Please review!

Continued in Under the Milky Way

Strange neuroses

2011-04-16T09:17:11Z

Those of you following me on twitter and who see me on a regular basis know I'm attempting to quit biting my nails at the moment. I don't think I've bitten them in about 6 weeks, and they're getting quite long. Even the nailbeds have started to heal (and after 20 years of biting my nails, I'm quite surprised that they're healing this quickly)

My main method is to keep painting them every two or three days so that I don't feel the need to gnaw on them when I get nervous or bored. The brighter the better, and I got given lots of different colours for my birthday a month back so so far I haven't gotten bored of any.

But in the past few weeks I've been having strangely realistic, super disturbing dreams. I'm doing something normal, like having dinner with a friend, or stocking shelves at work or something when I glance down at my hand and notice that I've bitten all my nails back down to the quick, some of them to the point of bleeding. They're realistic enough for me to be worried when I wake up that I've bitten them off in my sleep. I haven't, but it makes me wonder if smokers have the same dreams when they're trying to quit.

Has anyone else ever had dreams like this before?

Oh so

2011-01-31T11:32:04Z

Also guys. I guess I have a tumblr now?

http://onetrackgirl.tumblr.com/

follow me or whatevs.

Free shit

2011-01-31T01:43:36Z

Doing a wardrobe clean out. These shirts will go to charity/whatever if no one here claims them. All women's medium (or thereabouts). The photos are just the designs I found on the internet. All have been worn by me, but I'm not homeless and I wash things, so they should be fine.

Free! Absolutely! Just claim them.

Claimed by cajun_chick411

(This one has a small hole in the collar, easily fixed though, I'm just lazy and never got around to doing it)

Claimed by flossums

Claimed by cajun_chick411

Colour is more blue than in the pic of that

Claimed by flossums

This one is also much older than all the others (it was my favourite for a while). Also bright red, not blue.

This one is smaller than the others. It's still a Medium, but it just doesn't give as much as the others do, for whatever reason.

I have more clothes I plan on getting rid of too. I just need to photograph them or whatever. Also flossums I have two dresses I'm giving you. They were given to me new and I've never worn them because the person who gave them to me was under the impression that my boobs were not as big as they are. I'm pretty sure the dresses would look great on you. Not that you don't have a great rack or anything ;) ;)