Subject:  Chapter 4 (getting a little warm...) |
Author:
Cynaera
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Date Posted: 09:57:06 01/18/02 Fri
In reply to:
Cynaera
's message, "Two Hearts Beat As One (Sequel to "From A Child's Eyes)" on 12:45:47 01/16/02 Wed
Chapter 4
Afterglow. Michael and Nikita had made it upstairs to the large bedroom in the loft, and after a passionate, breathless, athletic wrestling with clothing, quilts and sheets, they were finally able to relax in the way both had mutually agreed was the most effective. Now, Nikita was snuggled against Michael, curving against his side, his arm around her shoulders, his other hand idly caressing her skin in random places.
"Tell me what you and P.J. talked about the day you disappeared," she said. Her voice was calm and pensive, her body soft and pliable against his. In this new calm between them, Michael felt some of his Section-ingrained guardedness melt away.
P.J., Michael thought, amused. It always seems to be P.J. who opens the doors… Aloud, he said, "Nikita, I can't tell you everything."
"But you could tell him everything, right?" There was a note of indignation in her voice, almost of petulance.
Michael felt her tense up in his arms, and he sighed silently. When would he ever not have to explain every detail to her? "I can't tell you everything," he said patiently, "because P.J. swore me to secrecy about some things. I promised him I would never tell anyone, not even you." Then, so quietly, Nikita wasn't certain she'd heard correctly at first, Michael whispered, "I won't break my promise to him."
Nikita relaxed again. A promise. To a child now gone. Only Michael would be honorable enough to keep that kind of promise. She felt her heart swell with love, for both of them. She raised up in his arms and gazed down into his eyes, which widened a little at the blatant emotion he saw in her expression. Then she kissed him softly, her fingers at his temples. It wasn't a sexual kiss - it was one of deep love and complete
trust.
Michael felt strangely faint for a moment. The kiss ended, and he was a little surprised to realize that he was still in the same position he'd been in when the kiss had begun - he'd felt as if he'd been swept up in a whirlwind and dropped again. He found his voice and started to speak. "We talked at first about his mother…"
Nikita closed her eyes, listening to Michael's soft, pleasantly-accented voice as it wafted around her, telling her the story of P.J. "He was worried that Section would kill her. I told him I wouldn't let that happen. I promised him."
Another promise. Michael seemed to be making a great number of them recently - Nikita wondered how many of them he'd be forced to break in the course of his life with Section One. She wondered if there would be any way she could help Michael to keep from breaking them.
"He and I devised a way of cutting him loose with the least amount of pain to her. I took him to her, after we'd finished talking about all the other things."
"You mean, those things you can't tell me," Nikita said, and her voice held a note of gentle amusement.
"Yes."
"So - tell me what you can tell me."
"He asked about my life before Section One."
Nikita held her breath. It was a touchy subject for Michael - whenever she'd tried to broach it with him, he'd always been as prickly as a cougar with a thorn in its foot. He'd push her away, verbally if not physically, or he'd change the subject, or he'd give her the thousand-yard stare with a twist - gazing past her line of vision as if she were invisible. Now, Nikita waited to hear what, exactly, Michael had told P.J. in strict confidence.
"He wanted to know what kind of man I was. It was… difficult to answer."
"Why?"
A pregnant pause. "Because I honestly didn't remember who I was before Section One."
A dumbfounded silence. Nikita remembered to exhale. She had to remind herself to inhale again.
"I had to think about it," Michael went on, and for a crazy second, Nikita thought he'd been referring to her lack of respiratory coordination. Then, she realized sheepishly that he was still locked in his own personal revelation. "P.J. waited until I remembered."
Nikita didn't dare speak - Michael was being more open and communicative than he'd ever been in all the time she'd known him, and she wasn't about to interrupt his flow of words. She very carefully made herself comfortable against him, moving slowly so as not to startle him out of his reverie.
His voice came again, softer, more pensive, almost as if he were lost in the past. "I was full of ideas," Michael said, and he sounded childlike. Nikita was chilled and thrilled - this was a side of him she'd never seen - had never even dared to hope to see. "I had so many dreams in my head then. I remember when I was six or seven, I wanted to build the biggest tree-house in Marseilles - we had a tall tree in our backyard - I don't know what kind of tree it was, but it had the kind of large branches that made it perfect for climbing. I gathered the lumber from the woodshed in the back of the house. Grandfather used that shed for storage, and he'd always put pieces of scrap lumber in it, from things he'd take apart - benches, chairs, salvage from demolished buildings. He was a scavenger - he used to say that a person never knew when they'd need that wood to build a shelter." Michael let a soft laugh escape, and his fingers idly caressed Nikita's shoulder. She doubted that he was even aware he was doing it.
"I spent every spare moment building that tree house," he went on. "I'd made blueprints - or at least, a six year-old's version of them - and I knew exactly what I wanted it to look like. A couple of times, I hurt myself hammering nails into that tree, and maman would worry about me. But she and papa never stopped me from trying to make my dream come true."
Papa… Nikita swallowed more tears. There was a long silence, then Michael sighed. "I did it."
Nikita braved a prompt. "You built your tree-house?"
"Yes." Another long silence. Nikita whispered, "And - then what?" Like pulling hen's teeth, Nikita thought, her jaws clenched.
Michael finally responded, his voice almost drowsy-sounding. "I slept in it every night while the weather was warm. Alone. And I planned my future."
Careful, Nikita thought. Some people sound completely normal, just before they surrender their last brain cell to the god of vaporware… Her voice barely audible, she phrased the question as delicately as she could, sensing that Michael was more fragile now than she'd ever seen him before - she would not be the one to push him over the edge. "And - your future - what did you plan?" She held her breath as inconspicuously as possible, even though she'd never felt more afraid in her life. It was like holding a live grenade in her arms.
"I was going to be a knight," he said, very softly. "Well, when you're six, you don't think about conventional law-enforcement."
Nikita couldn't help it - she chuckled a little, and to her surprise, Michael did, too, and snuggled closer to her. His next words galvanized her. "I'm glad I'm telling this to you, Nikita. I've never liked having to keep secrets from you. You're the only one I trust."
Her world was completed then, and obliterated, and re-formed in the space of a gasp. Without stopping to think, she whispered, "Michael, I've loved you so long I can't remember what I was like without you." Even as she uttered the words, she was hoping this would not be the end of his confessional to her.
It wasn't. Michael squeezed her tightly in his arms - she couldn't see his face, but she could feel from his embrace that he was comfortable with things as they were at that moment. His voice confirmed it. "P.J. asked me, 'If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?'"
Nikita knew now that the spell would not be broken. The walls were down, and Michael was hers. "And what did you tell him?' she asked, a smile crossing her features and reflecting in the tone of her voice.
"I told him I'd change the events that led up to your cancellation."
Jeezus. "Michael, why that?" Nikita was astonished and chagrinned. "Wouldn't you change the events that led to your induction into Section One?"
"No," he replied slowly, thoughtfully. "If I changed those events, I wouldn't know you."
Nikita fell silent, her throat working in amazement, and the tears wouldn't stop, then. She clutched Michael to her and whispered, "Oh, God, Michael - I don't think I can ever let go of you now…"
His words murmured back to her sealed her fate. "I wouldn't let you…" He pressed his lips to her temple, her eyes, her mouth - his arms tightened around her until she almost couldn't breathe, and the flame between them flared into a bonfire…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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