Nikita didn't ask for Michael's help. She loved him, and she needed him. But she didn't ask for his help.

It seemed that one of the side effects of the reversal of the Gelman Process was her discovery that she was indeed capable of functioning at a level that, even if it did not surpass Michael, came close. She might have been an emotionless automaton, but her skills had never been better. She had become autonomous in a way that neither she nor Michael could have anticipated. For the first time since she could remember, she was truly self-reliant. And she was glad.

She wanted to be with Michael as an equal, as a peer. She liked the way he protected her, and she would gladly watch his back the same way. But she didn't want him to be dependent on her any more than she wanted to be dependent on him. Only problem was, she feared it was already too late.

Was this what Michael meant when he warned that he couldn't allow her to become his weakness? When he admitted that he could not live without her, it was as if a wall between them came crumbling down. Neither one of them wanted to put that wall back up. But it would take some getting used to, this feeling that he was hers to command, in a way that he had never allowed himself to be subject to before.

So it came down to this. She didn't ask for Michael's help. But he knew she could use a hand in trying to resolve the relationship between herself and Helmut. Somehow he knew. And he came.

"Michael," she said softly.

His face showed no change of expression, save for his eyes. Eyes were the window to the soul. She knew it was true. Every time she looked into Michael's changeable grey-green eyes. They reflected his thoughts and feelings in ways mere words could never express.

His eyes darkened to jade, his mouth softening as he looked at her in response to her calling his name. "Kita," he acknowledged. But he made no attempt to move any closer to her or touch her in any way.

"You know about Helmut." That was a statement of fact. "I want to get him out of this. Safely."

"You care about him." Again, it wasn't a question. Michael's voice was cool, even terse, betraying no emotion whatsoever.

"Of course," she replied. "I'm married to him," she added by way of clarification.

Michael's heart objected vehemently, causing him to say almost irritably, "No, you're not. Anna is. And you're not Anna."

Nikita's eyes sparked, flashing sapphire blue fire at Michael. "I feel everything she would feel."

"No, you don't." Michael did move closer then, grabbing her wrists. As if he were suddenly aware of just how tight his grip was, he abruptly released her. She rubbed each wrist. His eyes became dull, the life drained from them all at once.

She raised an eyebrow questioningly at his reaction. He averted his eyes, unable to make eye contact at all.

"Michael, you can't be jealous."

"No," he agreed. He wore the blank stare like a mask that preserved both his identity and his dignity.

"You're not my husband, Michael."

"Neither is he," he snapped back, reacting without thinking.

"Michael!" she exclaimed.

Michael visibly winced, his pained look impossible to ignore. "You want me to help you get him out?" he asked, unable to even mention Helmut's name.

"I did. But now I'm not so sure." Nikita stared into the fathomless depths that were Michael's eyes and willed him to let her in.

"What did you have in mind?" Michael continued without a break, as if he had not interrupted his own train of thought a few moments ago.

"I don't think I should tell you. I don't want Section involved. They'll sacrifice Helmut. Willingly."

Michael nodded slowly. "What makes you think they won't anyway?"

Nikita looked bleak. "You. You've fought hard to maintain that tiny piece of humanity you've still got hidden away inside, Michael."

"You think I'll stop Section to save Helmut?" Michael sounded incredulous.

"No…to save me."

"Save you?"

"Yes."

"You love him?" Michael asked dispiritedly. "You want to go with him?" Michael felt something tearing at his insides and thought, I've survived all these years, finally to find my heart and soul again, only to lose them yet once more.

If she left with Helmut, she would take all the light with her, leaving him in utter darkness again. But then…if he could find a way for her to be free of Section, how could he justify holding her back, just because his life depended on her being part of it?

How can you ask me that? Nikita cried silently. I came back for you. Time and time again. It's always been you. Only you. In the end, there is no one else who matters. Only you.

"Michael…" she said, her eyes filling with tears at the thought that even now, he could not see how valuable he was to her. "How can you, the only man who has ever come close to understanding me, not understand why I need to do this?"

"Helmut is a part of me—"

Michael closed his ears as well as his eyes. He heard nothing else beyond that first sentence. She was the other half of him, the part that completed him, the part that made him whole again. How could she be part of anyone else?

His heart could not be broken any further. He had suffered pain beyond human endurance, until he was finally convinced that he *was* no longer human. She had changed that. She had made him feel again. Love again. Only to steal it back with heartless words.

He, who had vowed to fight forever, would fight no longer. Not to keep something that was not his.

Nikita abruptly stopped talking. "You haven't heard a word I said, have you?"

"No," he admitted. He didn't want to hear anymore. She couldn't force him to listen.

"Don't you want to know why I have to help Helmut, Michael?"

God, no, Michael thought. It's bad enough I'm actually contemplating helping you, for no other reason than because I love you.

"Helmut's a good man, Michael."

And I'm not. End of discussion. "Of course," he said tersely. "And you choose him."

"There was no choice for me to make here, Michael."

"I see."

"No, you don't see, Michael. I can tell you don't." She grew exasperated at having to explain something as obvious as her feelings for Michael.

"You didn't choose me."

"No, I didn't. Because there was no choice to make. There never has been."

Nikita slid her fingers under Michael's chin, gently forcing him to make eye contact. "It's a shame you don't think I'm feeling everything Anna would feel, Michael—"

"Why? I told you, you're not her."

"But I am," she insisted. "I am Anna, who was forced to trap herself in a marriage of convenience, due to circumstances beyond her control."

Michael shook his head. "You see parallels where there are none, Kita."

"I see Anna because she may have given her body to Helmut, but her heart stayed with Freddy. Anna can't love Helmut, and she's sorry for that because he is a good man, and he deserves her love."

"I don't want to hear this." Michael tried to turn away, but Nikita refused to let him escape her loving grip.

"You have to. Anna can't love Helmut…because she still loves Freddy."

"Why are you telling me this?" Michael asked, the anguished tone of his voice the sole indication of his labile emotional state.

"Because you're Freddy."

His green eyes locked onto Nikita's crystalline blue gaze with an almost audible click. "What?"

Nikita looked wistfully at the man she loved. "You couldn't save yourself, Michael. And no one, including you, can save me. What we've lost…we can never get back. What we've lost…is gone forever."

She stood stock still, tears shimmering like watery diamonds amid a sapphire sea. "We have to save Helmut, Michael. He's me…and you…and anyone else who's ever been a good person in a bad place. If we can't save ourselves…the least we can do is to set Helmut free."

"What do you want me to do?" Michael asked in a low voice. He knew he would help her. He'd always known he would.

They belonged together, Michael and Nikita, even if only because they were the last two surviving souls in an otherwise irredeemably evil world. They had lost too much. But they had each other.

As Helmut railed against the fate that made his chosen work a joke too pathetic to contemplate for long, Nikita listened empathetically, like the dutiful wife she was pretending to be. As soon as he paused for breath, however, she moved in to convince him that there was no sense in risking his life for a cause long ago lost.

He struggled, like she knew he would. Like she would have done once. The resemblance was as frightening as it was striking. Was she not really saving herself? The piece of her that she saw so clearly reflected in Helmut's face and eyes?

She exhorted him to let it go, to no avail. Helmut didn't care that he was one man powerless against the big machinery of agencies like Interpol or Section. He didn't even care if he needed to sacrifice his life to assert his beliefs. He was willing to die for a moral issue.

She wasn't.

Not anymore.

She didn't know which scared her more: the thought of Helmut dying in vain or the thought of Helmut turning into someone like her and Michael.

Yes, she did. She'd made her choice, to survive, to live, to love. With Michael. She couldn't convince Helmut his choice was the wrong one. It wasn't. It was what anyone who afforded themselves the luxury of living on a higher plane would choose.

She no longer had that luxury. Nor did Michael. And now…sad as it might be, neither did Helmut.

She couldn't tell him why he could not go to the Peace Building. Only that he couldn't. That did not lend power nor credibility to her argument. She could not reveal that she was working undercover for Section. There had to be another way. And that was where Michael came in.

Or rather, Freddy.

"What do you mean, Freddy's back in your life, Anna?" Helmut demanded of his wife.

"I-I thought the money would be enough. To forget about the feelings I had for Freddy. But I can't…" Tears appeared, convincingly enough, dancing in her blue eyes.

"I love him." The truth shone brightly in Nikita's forthright gaze. Helmut could say many things about his erstwhile bride, but he didn't doubt her love for the man he knew as Freddy.

"You do," he agreed.

As if mentioning his name had conjured up that very person, Helmut saw Michael, or rather Freddy, materialize in his home.

"I came to take back what's mine," Michael swore.

To what seemed to be Michael's great disappointment, Helmut gave in gracefully. Giving Michael one more reason to hate the man. He was innocent. His only crime so far was having the good taste to enjoy making love to the woman Interpol deemed necessary for him to marry.

"Take her, she's yours, Freddy," Helmut stated, giving Nikita a gentle nudge in Michael's direction.

Nikita glanced over her shoulder at Helmut. This wasn't going exactly as planned. Helmut was supposed to be angry and off-balance.

Then Michael would pretend to shoot him, and Helmut would be out of the picture. For good. Instead, like a dutiful Boy Scout, Helmut relinquished the damsel in distress readily enough to the villain she loved.

Or so it seemed.

A moment later, Helmut surprised the hell out of both of them. He drew his gun on Michael, aiming carefully at his chest. Nikita reached for the gun without thinking, shouting, "Helmut, what are you doing?"

Helmut's eyes narrowed. "It's not much consolation, grabbing a single drug dealer, but I'll take what I can get."

Michael glanced at Nikita quickly. They couldn't allow Helmut to interfere with what was supposed to happen at the Peace Building. Michael's team would be there soon. To ensure that Section's agenda was served. As always. If Michael didn't cut himself loose soon, he would be off-profile, certain to be caught. Then all of their careful planning would be for naught.

"I'm trying to help you, Helmut," Nikita wailed in frustration.

"And I'm trying to help you, Anna. You don't need to live that kind of life any longer."

"You don't understand," she protested.

"No, you don't understand, Anna," Helmut replied. His gun no longer pointed at Michael, he swung the barrel gently around to aim at Nikita.

Michael could see that Nikita was on the verge of blurting out their real identities, and he knew he had to act quickly. Drawing his own gun with one smooth movement, Michael covered Helmut. "Drop it. Now."

Helmut smiled broadly. "Perhaps I should applaud your performance. You're not who you say you are, are you, Freddy?"

"Why do you say that?"

Helmut sneered. "Why do you think? You're not the only one who has something to hide…Michael."

Michael's expression never altered. His eyes didn't so much as blink. He knew that to falter now would mean his and Nikita's deaths.

"You're Section," Michael concluded.

"Ah, the light dawns," Helmut said sarcastically.

"A mole? Planted in Interpol?" Michael guessed.

"Right again." Helmut's grin faded, leaving him looking strangely dangerous. "Too bad you didn't figure it out sooner."

Michael continued to train his gun on Helmut. As long as Helmut held Nikita hostage, there was little he could do. Unless he could get closer. Much closer.

"Why? Aren't we on the same side?"

"I'm on nobody's side but my own, Michael. Neither are you. Despite all your eloquent protests to the contrary."

Michael regarded him imperturbably. "We were prepared to let you go, Helmut. Why don't you just take a walk, and we'll forget we saw you?"

"Tsk, tsk, Michael. Think of the paperwork." Helmut cocked his gun again, re-aligning the sight with Michael as the target. "I just came into a lot of money. With my brother conveniently eliminated by Section, I have nothing to worry about. For a long, long time."

"Except for Red Cell."

"Yes, well…I was rather hoping to use you to get out of that one, Michael."

"I don't think so," Michael said softly.

Nikita's eyes met Michael's. Disillusioned yet again, she wondered why she continued to look for logic in an insane world. She had trusted Helmut. Seen something in him. Something of herself. She had dreamed of setting him free. Instead, he would gladly trade both their lives for something more tangible than morality.

"All this time, I thought you cared, Helmut," she said sadly, hoping to distract him.

He took his eyes off Michael for a mere fraction of a second. It was all Michael needed. But what he did stunned both Helmut and Nikita.

Firing at Helmut's leg, he rendered the man disabled without killing him. "This must be your lucky day, Helmut. I missed my shot." Michael's dark green eyes bored holes into Helmut's face.

Helmut stared at Michael. "If you don't kill me, you'll never know if you're free of me, Michael."

Michael raised the barrel of his gun. There would be no more shooting. And he wasn't going to kill Helmut in cold blood.

"I'll take my chances."

Nikita looked at Michael, aghast. What had she done? Michael had never hesitated to kill before. Was he doing this because of her? Helmut wasn't the man she thought he was.

And suddenly, she realized, neither was Michael.

"The way I see it, Helmut, you have a choice to make. You can call Interpol…or you can call Section."

"I can make a lot of trouble for you, Michael. You're not exactly Operations' fair-haired boy."

"Neither are you. If there's one thing Operations doesn't like, it's failure." Michael paced slowly towards Helmut, his gun drawn but lying against his thigh. "The way things are, you can still walk out of here. Keep the money. Disappear."

"Why would you want to do that for me?"

Michael faced him squarely, his green eyes hardening into chips of ice. "I'm not doing it for you."

"Ha! I can imagine," Helmut laughed harshly, his handsome features assuming a masklike quality, as if he were no longer quite real. "No, you're doing it for yourself. Just like I would."

Michael's expression was unreadable. To anyone but Nikita. Unless she were greatly mistaken, Michael was deciding whether or not to shoot Helmut again. This time, dead. The clock on the mission at the Peace Building was running down. Fast. And Michael knew exactly how much time he had.

He glanced at Nikita, as if to say, I tried it your way, it just isn't working. She blinked, then gave Michael an imperceptible nod. His long dark eyelashes swept down to cover his vivid green eyes once, very slowly, as if acknowledging her.

"Helmut? You have five minutes."

"For what?"

"To play dead…or be dead."

Helmut was nothing if not a survivor. He wasn't willing to take his chances with Operations, no matter how certain he was that he could bring down Michael. As for the woman he called Anna…well…there would be other women. A man with enough money and his looks would never have a problem finding women.

He bent his head to kiss Nikita on the cheek, but she drew her head back so sharply, he missed. "Am I that repugnant to you, darling?"

Nikita quelled the visible shudders that ran through her body. "You have no idea."

There was no time for discussion enroute to the Peace Building. They were cutting it almost impossibly fine. Nikita saw the Section team move into the basement. Whipping her head around, she said to Michael, "Michael! They've already started moving to first marks! Someone else must be leading the team! They must know you're off-profile!"

Clasping his gun between his hands, Michael stared at Nikita implacably, his dark glasses effectively hiding his eyes. "Maybe," he said.

Tense moments passed. Unfamiliar with the mission profile, Nikita was more or less in the dark. But she assumed that Michael knew. Exactly. "Michael? If we don't get out of—" she began, trying in some way to make amends for her misjudgment.

"Ssh," he said, his gloved finger to his mouth.

"But you need to know that I still—" she protested.

This time he placed a gloved finger to her mouth. His face so close, she could feel the light stubble of his beard, she knew this wasn't the right time. But what if there never was another time? What if this was it, for them?

They both heard footsteps coming. Closer. Closer. Almost to their position. Suddenly the footsteps stopped. "Michael!" a voice hissed.

Unable to immediately identify the voice, Nikita worried in silence. Friend or foe? Michael's gloved hand touched her arm, gripping her tightly for a second, then releasing her. All at once, she realized that Michael was no longer at her side.

"Michael?" she whispered into the corridor.

There was no reply.

Nikita felt her way along the wall of the corridor, hoping against hope that when Michael disappeared, it was voluntary. Suddenly a pair of muscular arms shot out and grabbed her, pulling into a small recess in the wall. "Wh—?"

"Oh, hell, Sugar! You scared the crap out of me! I thought you were Red Cell!"

Nikita blinked, her eyes adjusting to the low light. "Walter?"

"Hell, yeah. Who else did you think could pull this off?" Walter's gravelly purr caressed her ears.

"So you were Michael's fallback?"

The older man nodded. "We already made the switch."

"That's why he vanished."

"Yeah." Walter pointed a finger in Nikita's face, wagging it vehemently. "And not for nothing, but I'll tell you what I told him. This is positively the last goddamn time I ever, and I mean ever, do you two this kind of favor!"

Nikita hugged the man she sometimes fantasized was her father. "Thanks, Walter. You're the best!"

He beamed despite himself, adding, "And don't you think you can take advantage of me again. Even cats run out of lives, y'know."

His pale blue eyes swept the hallway back and forth for intruders. It remained deserted. "Looks good to go, Sugar. Let's blow this popsicle stand."

"Walter, you must have been the Michael of your day," Nikita said admiringly.

Walter gave her an enigmatic look, his eyes suddenly filled with complexities she could swear she had never noticed before. "Maybe I'm the Michael of your day."

And on that note, he dragged a suddenly speechless Nikita behind him.

Nikita poured a glass of champagne for herself. Sipping delicately at the fluted glass, she studied the man sitting across from her. "It feels strange to be back home."

"Is it?" he asked.

"Is it what? Strange?"

"No. Is it home?"

Nikita hid a smile as she took another sip of champagne. Michael was asking her something entirely different. She put down her glass and reached for his hand. Caressing the back of his hand with her fingertips at first, she replaced her fingers with her lips, pressing a tiny kiss there.

She felt his eyes upon her. Waiting. Expectant. Just when she thought the tension had stretched to the breaking point, she spoke. "Whenever you're with me, wherever we are…that's home, Michael."

He reached for her, inadvertently knocking over the glass of champagne. With a soft exclamation, he bent to right the glass, but Nikita pulled his hand to her lips. "I don't need champagne to give me the courage to speak my feelings, Michael. I never doubted them. Even when I was with Helmut."

He didn't want to think about what she had to tell herself to get through Helmut's lovemaking, and he was certain he didn't want to know, even if she were willing to tell him. There were some things that were better left unknown.

He buried his face against her neck, murmuring to her in French. His arms wrapped themselves around her, almost involuntarily, his embrace snug but not uncomfortable. After all they had been through, there was a certain quality of desperation to Michael's touch, but she closed her eyes, grateful that they were still together.

She thought she was ready. Prepared. But when Michael kissed her, she came apart in his arms. He was gentle, so gentle, but she could not bear it. She needed to be one with him. Needed to erase the feel of Helmut's lips on hers, Helmut's hands on her body.

"Please."

Michael touched the side of her face, his roughened fingertips tracing restlessly through her pale hair. "Maybe we should slow down. Wait."

Tears sparkled in Nikita's light blue eyes. "You don't want me anymore?" Thinking this was somehow related to her being with Helmut, she almost broke down and sobbed.

Michael kissed each eyelid tenderly. He couldn't help it. "Kita, what you need right now is more than sex. You need to feel cherished again." He kissed her mouth, allowing his lips to linger for mere seconds before pulling away.

"You need softness. Not violence. There's been way too much violence in your life as it is, Kita. I won't add to it now."

She relaxed abruptly, laying her head on his shoulder. Her fingers wound through the long hair at the back of his neck. "But you will make love to me, won't you, Michael? Please. If you love me—"

"I do. I'll always love you, Kita." He kissed her temple, his breath soft on her skin. "Always."

The thought of God, or whatever higher power there might be, allowing him to hold onto his bright angel for even one more day, filled his heart so full, he wanted to cry. Slowly, he walked to the bed, taking her with him, step by step. Without even removing their clothes, they sat on the edge of the bed for long moments.

Michael finally slid his body backwards until his back rested against the wall. Cradling Nikita in his arms, he closed his eyes. She lay her cheek against his chest, over the spot where his heart beat, and took comfort that he was still there for her. "Oh, Michael, I love you," she cried huskily.

His hands in her hair, he kissed the top of her head. My bright angel.

Her fingers on his lips, she rubbed her cheek against his chest. My dark knight.

Always.

Forever.

End