| Subject: In the Shadow of Simone 1 |
Author:
Rox
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Date Posted: 23:41:04 12/17/01 Mon
In reply to:
Rox
's message, "In the Shadow of Simone - Sequel to Redemption" on 23:28:26 12/17/01 Mon
“All done?” Nikita asked, wrapping the thin, medical dressing gown tighter against her body.
“Looks that way.” The woman doctor made a few more notes.
“See, I told you. Just a few cuts and bruises.” Nikita yawned, and started to scoot off the exam table.
“When was your last menstrual cycle?” Came another question.
“My last what?” The question caught Nikita off guard.
“Your last period.”
Nikita stopped to think about it, and flushed red. She couldn’t remember. “I--I’m not sure,” she stammered. “My periods are never regular--I can go home and look on my calendar.”
“Is there any chance you might be pregnant?” The woman asked calmly.
“Pregnant?” Every drop of blood suddenly pooled in Nikita’s feet. She swayed to one side and the doctor grabbed her by the arm and made her sit back on the exam table.
“You feeling faint?”
“I--I--can’t be pregnant!” Nikita said with growing horror.
“Well, you have all the signs. I’ve ordered a pregnancy test to be sure.”
Nikita looked at the Section doctor with one question on her mind and lips, “And if I am?”
The woman looked sympathetic, “I don’t make the decisions around here.” She said quietly, pocketing her stethoscope, as if to leave.
“Wait! Please wait. Look, . . . could you not say anything to anyone. . . “
”You know I can’t do that. . .”
“Just. . . just for a day. Just until tomorrow.” Nikita pleaded.
The woman sighed. “All right. I can delay my report until tomorrow afternoon, but I don’t see how that will change anything for you.”
“I just need time to think--t-to deal with it.”
“Do you know who the father is? By guessing, I’d say you’re at least two months, probably closer to three.”
‘Michael.’ Nikita nodded slowly. “Can I get dressed now?”
“Sure.” The woman reached over to open the door,
then turned and said, “I’m so sorry.”
Nikita nodded, her eyes filling with tears.
She sat, stunned at the revelation for several minutes, trying to regain control over the tears that rolled steadily down her face. She slipped off the exam table and went into the adjoining bathroom to get dressed. She caught her reflection in the mirror and studied herself for a moment. “Well, at least now you know why you’ve been so weepy lately, Nikita” She told herself ironically, before bursting into sobs.
A full hour later, Nikita slipped out of the exam room. Stone-faced she headed for the recovery area to see Michael.
“He’s still unconscious,” commented a medic as Nikita entered Michael’s room. She nodded, and went over to his bed.
She still wasn’t used to the short hair, Nikita told herself as she gazed down at him. Maybe that’s why he looked so thin and so ill. There were dark smudges under both eyes, to go along with his two-day growth of beard.
“How’s he doing?” She asked aloud.
“Well. . . we don’t know yet.” The medic stepped over and adjusted the drip on an IV line, before hanging another bag of whole blood and starting that dripping as well. “He had a lot of internal bleeding and trauma. We think we’ve got the bleeding stopped, but he’s just not coming along as well as we expected him to, by this time.”
“Will he live?” Nikita asked in a small voice.
The medic smiled, “Hey, this is Michael. I’ve seen him much worse than this, and he pulled through. He’s strong. Tough. I wouldn’t worry. Ninety-nine percent of getting better is the will to live and Michael has the strongest will I’ve ever seen.” Finished with his duties, the medic left the room.
“Michael? Can you hear me?” Nikita slipped her hand over his as it lay so still on the bed. It felt cold and she absently stroked it back and forth as if to bring it some warmth.
“Please Michael---wake up. Wake up and tell me what to do--” Her voice broke and she covered her mouth with her other hand to cover the sound of it.
‘Lost. . . lost . . .’ Michael searched for her. He could hear her voice but couldn’t call out. He looked through all the rooms, all dark and sad, following the sound of her voice like a silver thread, pulling him desperately through the fabric of the night.
He was so tired. So very tired, but he continued the search. What did anything mean, if he couldn’t find her. . . have her. . .?
‘Nikita. . . wait for me’ He could see her face! Close enough to touch but he couldn’t move. He felt like ice--first frozen, then melting away. She looked at him but couldn’t see him and he was powerless to speak or move or plead.
Nikita kissed him goodbye. She had a day to plan her life. She left the Section for the last time. Left Michael. Left all, for the life most precious to her now.
Her apartment was as she had left it days before. A lonely cup of tea sat unfinished on the counter; a mold floated in the center of the remaining liquid. ‘An island of life’--Nikita felt guilty when she up-ended it into the sink.
She began to pace the floor, wondering where she could go to be safe--at least until the baby was born. After that, she had no plans. After that, they could cancel her all they wanted!
She started thinking through the sequencing, as Michael had taught her. Where would Section expect her to go? On the streets? Nikita’d been there before and knew the ropes. They would first look there, she was sure. She had to find the least likely scenario--the last place in the world they would expect her to go to. She sat down on the ledge that led to the door to the balcony and stared out the window, then looked down at her hand. Brandon’s ring was still on her finger.
She twisted it around and around while she thought. Then suddenly, she got an idea.
She needed isolation--to be where no one would think to look, like a cabin in the woods of Colorado!
* * *
“Michael.”
Michael slowly opened his eyes. Madeline stood over him, her expression grim.
“Yes?” His voice was hoarse.
“Can you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
“Nikita’s gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean, gone?” Michael tried to lift his head but was still too weak.
“Gone as in, she’s escaped.”
“No. No she wouldn’t.”
“She has.”
“No! She wouldn’t--not without good reason.”
“Michael,” Madeline’s voice got softer, “Nikita’s pregnant.”
“Ohmygod. . . “ Michael barely breathed the words. “How?”
“How?” Madeline almost laughed. “Michael--the doctor said when Nikita was so ill, no one thought it important to give her birth control pills. She was off the pill for over a week.”
Still dazed by the information, Michael caught Madeline’s wrist, “How pregnant is she?”
“Three months.”
Michael’s eyes closed with despair; the baby was his. “Does Operations know yet?”
“No. Officially, Nikita’s on two weeks leave. He was so pleased with Nikita’s composure during this last mission that Ops approved it himself. But we have to locate her, and soon. If not, it will be out of my hands. Operations will have no choice but cancellation. So if you have any ideas where she may have gone, I suggest you tell me.”
“I don’t know.” Michael struggled, to sit up.
“Michael, you’re in no shape. . .”
“I’m fine.” He said, his voice shaky.
“Michael, you aren’t going anywhere. If you don’t stay still, I will have you sedated.”
“Why? Why tell me these things when you know I have to go find her?”
“Time for that tomorrow. For now, I’ll settle for any hunches.”
Michael felt the room spinning and knew Madeline was right. He’d be of no help in this condition.
“She,. . . “ He collapsed back on the pillow, “she knows the streets. . . but. . .”
“But?”
“She’d realize it would be the first place we would look.”
“My thoughts exactly, so?”
“I don’t know--do we have her mother’s address?”
“Her mother? She can be found, but would Nikita endanger her mother?”
“You’re right. Even if she wasn’t much of a mother, Nikita loves her. Then she’d go somewhere with few people. She’d have to find a job.”
“I’ve got Walter over at her apartment looking for clues.”
“Tell him to check the surveillance video.”
“I thought we no longer had Nikita under surveillance.”
“I put her back under, several months ago.” Michael said wearily.
“Why?”
“When we had the incident with Red Cell and the loss of the directory, I thought it would be safer to put her back under. There are three movement-tracking, micro-transmitters, one in the living room, one in the bedroom and one monitoring the balcony.”
“Fine. I’ll tell him to get on it.”
“Madeline?”
“Yes?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Why do I do anything, Michael? For the Section. You’re a good operative, perhaps the best that Operations has. We need your special talents. But I’ve come to realize that Nikita has value as well. She proved that in Colorado. She kept her head and she did the job. And she serves another purpose--she keeps you alive, Michael. That’s good for Section and for Operations. I can appreciate why she left--that surprises you?”
Michael was puzzled, “Yes, a little.”
Madeline shrugged, “Funny, it does me too. No matter. It will all be a moot point if we can’t locate her within the next two weeks.”
“And when we do. What about the baby?”
Madeline’s expression became inscrutable. “One crisis at a time, Michael. Let’s find Nikita first.”
* * *
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