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Date Posted: 09:51:27 06/18/09 Thu
Author: Odelle
Author Host/IP: CPE0013f7f24246-CM0013f7f24242.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com / 99.234.121.213
Subject: When A Time Comes (Chapter 38)
In reply to: Odelle 's message, "When A Time Comes" on 11:23:04 04/14/09 Tue


Michael stood in the kitchen, staring absently at the breakfast sizzling in the frying pan he was holding, totally lost to his thoughts.

Nikita had slept hard and heavy for twelve hours. Then they had awoken, talked until Nikita had closed him out again, and then Michael had got her a glass of water. They had curled back in bed, and slept for another five solid hours. It was more than either of them had ever had – even on their vacations together where it seemed they never ventured from the bed; albeit that was because of more than just sleep.

Feeling her stomach growl against his hand, Michael had reluctantly left their bed and gone to draw her a bath in the large ensuite. When it was hot and brimming with bubbles, Michael had returned to find Nikita dazedly awake, staring at him like a lost child from the middle of the rumpled sheets. Evidently lost to find herself awake and alone in the bed. Michael had plucked her from her daze, and brought her to the little haven he had created. To his grin, she had come back to herself enough to vehemently shoo him out in refusal his quiet, teasing offers to help her into the bath.

Instead, he had headed downstairs in the darkened house to forage for some sustenance for them both. He tried to hit all the major food groups as he compiled the feast; Nikita was likely lacking in nutrition as it was – and another day of semi-comatose activity could be damaging without some serious nourishment.

Thinking about caring for her also stopped him from thinking about what had transpired between them. Michael doubted he had ever felt the wind leave his being the same way as when he learned what had happened when he was gone. It stole the life from him to think of her so abused and violated. And when he wasn’t here to save her, no less. If he wasn’t already deeply guilty from the sheer abandonment he had inflicted upon her, knowing that she was kidnapped, raped, and tortured in his absence would likely kill him.

He didn’t know what he was expecting, really. It was supposed to be a reality of their job. Her job. It had been in the past – and he had accepted it. So had she. They had talked about what they both knew to be true: that either of them could be taken, tortured, killed; without the other. And sometimes it happened, to lesser degrees. But always he had been able to fight and claw his way to her and bring her home again, whole.

It was a hollow feeling of emptiness as he realized his own impotence. The events of her recent abuse were years in the past, but only now did the powerless desperation seize him. He felt like he couldn’t breathe; a weight sitting heavily on his chest. The sadness of it tore at him, and he wished he could do anything to make it better for her – to make it up to her that he hadn’t been there.

Their gentle repartee the first time they had awoken had been like heaven. She had let him in, and had healed some of the gaping, bleeding wounds within him because of it. It had felt like a soothing balm to his soul when he had glimpsed within her, and seen the calm, steady assurance of her trust and faith. Still, he sensed a steep climb ahead of him. The time they had spent together in the warmth and openness of the bed was wonderful – but brief. Admittedly, Michael had no confidence in his ability to bring her back to the surface again. He could wish for it, and even found himself praying for help. But he felt entirely on the mercy of the Being that watched over them both. “Hoping” for something was not his forte. In his marrow, he wasn’t a man of much hope.

Nikita had always been that for him.

“Should I be concerned about her virtue?” a sarcastic voice barged into Michael’s thoughts.

Michael’s eyes snapped up, and in the direction of Liam. The younger man was propped arrogantly in the doorway, one foot crossed over the other, his arms folded.

“Or ask you your intentions?” he continued with the same little grin as Michael’s blank stare persisted.

Michael snapped himself out of his own feelings. He wanted to connect with this chance to spend time with Liam – who had been elusive until now. “Non,” he managed a small smile in return, “I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

Liam snorted, and shuffled into the room, “I doubt that.” He wandered over to the island where Michael was cooking, and sniffed at the food. “Enough for three?”

“Seven probably,” Michael replied with humour thickening his voice, “Nikita’s hungry.”

The younger man looked at him like he’d gone crazy. Evidently none of the people in Nikita’s life knew about her notorious appetite pre-Centre. Liam perched himself on a stool and regarded Michael with a raised brow, “Either you don’t know her at all...or else you know something that we don’t know, my friend.”

“I know her well,” Michael replied softly, and lost himself again to his thoughts. He did know her well. Better than he ever knew who he was himself – he had left that monumental search up to her. And she had done a thorough job. Michael felt like he had lost himself to her, lost his entire identity to what she held him to be. And now he had learned that he had failed her enormously. He had abandoned her to the worst possible circumstances. His identity was woven deeply in her perception of who he was, and he could only imagine that she saw him as the totally absent deserter that he was.

He couldn’t bring himself to feel encouraged by their time upstairs where she had let him so deeply within herself. Even as he poured her bath, he immediately doubted himself, and worried about what her true perception of him was. How did she actually feel about him? Michael doubted it was good. He didn’t know where this total lack of confidence came from, but it filled him and conquered all his evidences to the contrary.

“Michael?”

Liam was talking to him – evidently ignored, and disturbed by Michael’s taciturn frozenness.

Michael literally shook himself out of his thoughts and looked up at the young man. “Sorry,” he whispered, a touch contritely.

Liam looked at him sideways and plucked an apple from the bed of fruit on the island. “No problem, I guess. Are you okay?”

Michael thought for a long moment how to answer him. And decided to be honest. “I’m...worried about us.” Never, ever one to let someone within his own struggle, Michael found that the best approach to Liam would be to include him.

“Oh,” Liam breathed, and straightened himself in his chair. “Well, she isn’t easy.” He flashed a grin and chuckled, “What I mean is – she’s complicated.”

Michael arched a sardonic brow and smiled a small grin, “I know.” He flipped their meal out of the pans, and began to assemble them on three plates. “She’s always been complicated.”

“Yeah – I get the feeling you’re the easy one to understand.” When Michael met his gaze, Liam’s eyes were searching. Likely Liam had become the home’s protector after Guillaume’s betrayal, and saw this as an opportunity to size Michael up.

Michael waited a moment and then shrugged softly, offering honesty again, “Nikita wouldn’t say so.”

“Mm. Honest.” Liam’s eyes flicked from the meal to Michael as he received his plate from the darker man. “Are you going to hurt her?”

Michael held his eyes, “Not more than I already have.” And in case that bluntness would scare the younger man, Michael added truthfully, “Never again.”

Liam watched him for an infinite time, then stood. “Good.” He turned with his plate to the door, “We should talk more, sometime,” and added with a chuckle: “when and if you two ever emerge from that bedroom.”

Michael smiled softly at that, and Liam left.

Michael picked up his and Nikita’s plate and stared at them. He focused fully on the clamouring fear that seemed to grip him whenever he was out of her presence, and banished it. Nikita had let him in. She had confidently let him within herself, for that small moment of heaven. Admittedly, Michael was probably far from her ideal. Even his own ideal for her. But he wasn’t going anywhere. Fear or no fear, he had made a promise to her all those years ago in the train station. And it was a promise he had re-affirmed time and again to her since he had returned. So, regardless – of her past, of his inadequacy – of how damaged they both were: they would simply have to make it work.

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

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