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Date Posted: 16:18:09 06/05/08 Thu
Author: Mary
Author Host/IP: 66.162.52.3.gen.fullservice.net / 66.162.52.3
Subject: Good and Evil - Chapter 14 and Chapter 15
In reply to: Mary 's message, "Good and Evil - Chapter 12+" on 13:22:50 05/26/08 Mon

Chapter 14

An anguished Michael awoke lying next to his small son. Sometime during the night Adam had cried out and Michael had awakened from his uncomfortable slumber in the chair that he had fallen asleep in earlier in the night. He had gone quickly to Adam to attempt to comfort the small boy. Michael had held Adam close to his heart and gently rocked him back and forth in the soothing manner that Elana had done when the boy was a baby. Adam had eventually calmed from the night terror and returned to sleep. But the dawn was just coming up and Michael was unable to sleep again.

When Gabriella arrived she was not surprised to see Michael doing his early morning workout in the courtyard and she went into the house without disturbing him in order to start breakfast. She began a fresh pot of coffee and put croissants in the oven to warm. Then she began to clean the fresh fruit that she brought with her. She heard Michael come back into the house moments later and enter the kitchen. “Good Morning Michael.”

Tired eyes and a drawn face greeted her on this morning and the emptiness of his eyes once again pierced at her young heart. She poured the strong black coffee in a mug and handed it to him.

He could do nothing less but be polite to her, “Thank you.”

She went back to cutting fruit and watched as Michael sank uncharacteristically onto one of the kitchen chairs. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He paused for just moment, almost confused by her question and his own scattered thoughts this morning, “There’s nothing to talk about.”

She sighed and looked at the heavens to give her strength with this dark man today, “Yes there is and I don’t mean just Adam. He is all you ever talk about. I realize that whatever you have done in the past is very dangerous Michael. But you can’t hold all that in. It’s not human. And I know that you consider it a weakness, but you are human. You need to talk to someone.”

He looked at her with those piercing green eyes and she felt a shudder go down her spine. But she didn’t look away like she normally would have. She was very concerned about him. He didn’t sleep much as far as she could tell. He barely ate, and he was loosing weight. He worried about Adam and his safety all the time. And there was something else, she didn’t know what it was but something hung over him like a dark black shadow that cloaked the ability for him to feel anything. It was such emptiness and it emanated from him, and she knew that Adam could feel it too.

“You don’t scare me Michael. I know you try but you don’t.”

Very softly he replied with deep regret in his tone, “I should.”

She was not going to let him get away with that, “So you think. Are you so horrible Michael? You forget, I’ve seen the other side of you, the side that took care of my mother and I although you had no reason to do that. I’ve seen how loving you can be with Adam and the tenderness in you when you are with him. If I have seen it then I know others have too.”

A flash of silken blonde hair went through Michael’s mind at a speed so fast it pulled the air out of his lungs and he literally gasped spilling just a small amount of the hot coffee he held in his hand. Gabriella quickly came around the counter and towel in hand cleaned the spill, “Are you all right?”

For once he had to be honest, she was so open, so close and he just wanted to tell someone else so badly, “No.”

“What can I do?” she asked softly while sitting next to him.

“I’m not sure.”

“Well there has to be something. You can’t go on like this. I can’t stand watching it, and neither can Adam.”

He sighed at the name of his son coming from her, “Adam. What have I done?”

“I don’t understand. Talk to me Michael.”

“I can’t. It would place you in terrible danger. You don’t understand the people that I work for. If it would be detected that I am here they will not allow any vulnerability points to remain.”

“Then don’t tell me about them. Tell me what really haunts you. The nightmares. Michael, who is Nikita?”

Her name. Just her name send a wave of desire washing over him as thoughts of the last time they made love danced in his consciousness. He closed that mental door very quickly; he couldn’t stand to feel that. “A colleague.”

“Please. Don’t insult me Michael. I’m a woman. I’ve heard you whisper her name in your sleep, I can see it written in your eyes.”

He struggled for the words, “We were close.”

She smiled a knowing smile, “Lovers?”

His eyes seemed to go back in time, to another place and after a moment he whispered, “Much more than that.”

“Soulmates?”

“If such a thing exists. Then yes.”

“No wonder you are in such pain. To be ripped apart from your other half, from that which makes you whole. There is nothing worse.”

“Yes there is.”

“What? What could possibly be worse than that?”

“To have to choose.” He said with the slightest glimmer of tears in his eyes and then he turned away from her unable to bear the weight of his thoughts.

It took her barely a moment to put it together and when she did it tore at her heart to even think about it and the words burned in her throat as she tried not to let her own tears fall at his pain, “You had to choose between leaving with Adam and staying with Nikita?”

He just looked at her and he knew that she knew. He read the horror in her eyes and saw the way her face crumbled at the horrible person that he was. She would despise him soon also and it would not take long for her to begin to see the dark tainted stain that he placed on all that which he touched. God, and he had brought Adam into this terrible world with him thinking that he might be able to protect him. How incredibly stupid and arrogant of a father that he had turned out to be.

Gently she asked, “Is Nikita all right wherever she is?”

He ached to know the answer to that question. He didn’t know where she was or what was going on. Was she here in South America, somewhere close? Or was she just some twisted figment in his broken mind that produced her likeness at his malicious imagination’s choosing? “I don’t know.”

“You’re not in touch with her at all?”

“No. It’s not safe.”

“When will it be safe? When can you talk to her again?”

He took a deep breath and said the words that haunted his thoughts both day and night, “It may never be safe.”


Note: This next chapter (15) is for Jaybee. She has authored an amazing manifesto about Madeline and Operations and I admit to borrowing a bit of that theme and even a few of her very talented words and phrases which I can only hope she sees as a compliment of her abilities. I loved the Madeline that you saw Jaybee and your analysis is part of the inspiration for the Madeline that I am trying to portray here.

So thanks for the inspiration and I only hope I do you justice.

Love,

Mary


Chapter 15

After Jason left, Madeline found herself alone, Myra had to return to Section Three, and Madeline was finding it impossible to concentrate on work. She decided that a cup of tea might help and went to the kitchen to brew some. The day outside was grey and the winds were strong. Madeline stood at the window in the kitchen and watched the naked tree branches as they bent to the will of nature.

Fascinated by scene before her she was mesmerized as the small branches bent and struggled against the wind, but they did not break. They swayed and allowed the winds to whip around them. They were flexible enough to allow for the forces that naturally occurred to meander and possible change their course of growth. But they did not snap. Now of course as Madeline logically followed this train of thought, if the winds grew great enough then of course even the whole tree would snap just like a twig. But that action required quite an enormous event and the coming together of just the correct natural meteorological circumstances for that event to occur.

She was very contemplative today and seeing Jason, whom so closely resembled the late Birkoff had really disturbed her much more than she originally thought it might and pulled her back in time to thoughts she didn’t want to have. Section, God how she missed it. She yearned for the challenge of trying to balance so many variables and yet try to keep the equation balanced always in Section’s favor. She believed deeply in what Section One represented, a pure form of anti-terrorism that allowed the outside world to function in a ‘normal’ manner. Anything that threatened Section had to be eliminated, and she had removed so many threats over the years.

So many missions profiled and run under her guidance, and thousands of operatives indoctrinated into the methods that defined Section One – methods that she had designed and put in place. So many dangerous threats to society eliminated without anyone even knowing that they ever existed all because Section was able to deteect them first and eliminate the problem. The ends always justified the means in the world of Section One. Always. This was unequivicable. On many things she had bent just like the small tree branches but on some things she would not bend. And having the basic core principles under which Section operated put into question was just completely incomprehensible. The sacrifices that had to be made for the good of Section One were not ever to be questioned, or probed, nor were they to be analyzed. They just were. It was all part of the greater good, the bigger picture.

No she would have had no place in a Section that didn’t operate under the same uncomprising ideology of personal sacrifice that had made Section into the powerful and efficient entity that it had become. She had known during ‘the evaluation’ that Paul would remain in Section, she had known for years the he was not Oversight material. Not that she found that that to be a bad thing. On the contrary, he was most efficient as a strategic thinker close to the tactical operations of Section. He and Section were a perfect fit, that she had recognized long ago.

There had been a time when she had believed that perhaps she had over-estimated Paul’s abilities as the Leader of Section One. Years earlier Charles Sand had been transferred from a sub-station where he had been doing long-term undercover work and she was immediately taken by his presence, intelligence and strategic thinking. She had decided to marry Charles as a way to get him close to the power that was growing at Section One. She had, incorrectly, assumed for a period of time that Charles and his ability to be somewhat ‘compassionate’ in certain situations was what was really needed at Section One. But she quickly found out that the resulting inefficiency was too high a price to pay for the assets that he brought to the equation. So Charles had been a mistake. She didn’t admit to those often, but this one was quickly self-evident and had to be removed from play. So she had eliminated him as a variable. Sent him to Goellner knowing that he would never return. Goellner had owed her a favor for letting him stay in ‘business’, Charles was her price of that exchange. She, of course, never expected to see Charles again, and most certainly could not bring him back to Section. Her anger when she had found out that Paul had been blocking his transmissions had been directed at Charles and his resourcefulness for staying alive all those years.

Combined Charles, Paul, and then falling in love with Leon had emotionally drained Madeline. Not to mention the chess game that she and Operations were playing with George and between themselves. But all of that could have been balanced, and she was balancing it until Mr. Jones. Her reasons for the suicide attempt, were very much like her, multi-faceted and complicated. Essentially she knew that she did not want to operate in a Section that had had it’s ideologies butchered by a naïve, inexperienced, nepotism-placed child. She knew that Paul would remain, but additionally she knew that Nikita would attempt at every turn to instigate her poisonous self-rightousness into the principles that made Section an optimal machine. Paul was too valuable to be eliminated, and he lived for the feeling of power that running Section One gave him. For her it was much more basic. For Madeline she lived for Section, itself.

It was sad to watch the deterioration of Paul after Myra had awakened her. She had ached at the pain he went through, and screamed internally at the ridiculous holographic affect that Quinn tried to use to imitate her. How dare that little girl think that she understood how Madeline thought or what the real feelings were between her and Paul? How incredibly contemptuous of Quinn, a fault that she would pay dearly for if Madeline had her way, and she usually did have her way.

She had loved Paul and had deeply respected his principles and leadership abilities. The two of them worked in tandem, complemented each other and they were fiercely protective of each other. But in the end they were individuals and they had different requirements that drove their actions. He thirsted for power, she was an apostle of the doctrine of Section One.

Nikita now had to be stopped from spreading a malignancy through Section One that could not be terminated before irreversible damage was done. Innocents needed to be protected from dangers that lurked at every corner of the world. The masses were so naive and Madeline wanted to make sure that they stayed that way and that meant that Section One had to be restored.

Her determination to do this was only matched by the waves of longing for her former superior, this would all be so much easier if she had Paul to work with. With Paul there was such a history of abiding trust. Yes they had both certainly had their moments over the years and had seemingly ‘turned on’ each other multiple times. But there was always good reason, always a logical explanation for their actions, no matter how extreme they might have seemed to those around them. At the end of each mission, each day, each week, they knew that they loved and respected one another for their individual strengths and unique talents. They were a magnificent team and she did miss that so very much.

Madeline needed time to learn to trust Myra. Trust was a precious asset in Madeline’s world. Yes Myra had pulled her back from the dead. Yes she had cared for her as she recovered. But Myra had her own ambitions and while Madeline did not mind ambition in and of itself, she needed to understand that ambition in Myra better before she could partner with her fully.

Her tea was cool and she turned from the window. It was time to get back to work. She would be in position soon.

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