Part One by N507

Michael walked down the hallway as the music caused the walls to vibrate the walls of the hallway. Michael looked at Mick the Snitch as he passed his apartment. Michael had been working on the report of the mission that he and Nikita had just completed. It was taking longer than normal, as Section One ended up killing a dozen innocent children. Mick had called to tell Michael that Nikita was having a party. When Michael was exiting Section One, he saw George having a heated discussion with Madeline and Operations in the Observation Deck.

Michael knew it had been a difficult day for Nikita, as no one found killing innocent children easy to deal with. Yet, when Nikita had left five hours prior to the phone call, she seemed to have adjusted to the events that had occurred. Now, the pounding music gave Michael a deeper insight to the fact that Nikita was learning to cover her pain better from him.

Michael pounded on the door, but Michael knew that it the knock only blended in with the music. He was content to wait for the song to end, as it usually was best with Nikita. That was what he had intended on doing until his nose smelt something that he had been trained to notice and that every nerve of his body responded to in a rage and a panic. It was the one smell that could destroy a person in Section One, and one that Michael was sure that he would never have to worry about with Nikita.

Michael pushed the door open to find Nikita, sprawled out on the wood floor, smoking a fat joint. Michael slammed Nikita's door and crossed the apartment to the French doors to start some ventilation. Michael flicked the music off and glared at Nikita.

"Why?" Michael growled as he tried to keep his anger from spilling over into physical violence. Nikita pulled her body up and moved to Michael. She blew some of the smoke towards his mouth, and then lifted the joint to Michael's lips.

"Try it Michael. You'd like." Nikita said happily with a lazy smile on her face. Michael snapped the joint out of her hand and smashed the burning end into his palm in front of Nikita's face. Nikita started to spin around the room.

"Twinkle… Twinkle.. . little star…" Nikita sang until Michael grabbed her shoulders firmly in order to look into her eyes. He needed to gain control of the situation that was already out of hand.

"You have been clean since you got to Section, Nikita. WHY?" Michael questioned as he looked at Nikita. Nikita tilted her head to the side and softly laughed.

"How much have you had, Nikita? How long have you been doing this again?" Michael questioned when suddenly Nikita jumped from his grasp.

"LOOK! PINK AND BLUE BUNNIES!" Nikita exclaimed as she fell to the floor and started to crawl along the floor on her hands and knees. "BUNNIES! COME BACK! LOOK! A DUCK! QUACK! QUACK!" Nikita screamed out as Michael felt a cold sweat coat is forehead. The images that Nikita were having might not mean anything, but it could indicate something that Michael did not want to think about.

Michael turned to the kitchen and stared at a line up of various empty alcohol bottles. Michael hesitated as he thought of the deadly combination that Nikita was playing with, and then on top of all that, Nikita was chasing imaginary pink and blue bunnies around her apartment.

"NIKITA! STAND UP! WE'RE LEAVING!" Michael announced only to turn and find Nikita's hand down her bra. Happily, she pulled out another joint, this one fatter than the first. Michael knocked the joint away and grabbed Nikita by her hair. He needed to get Nikita out of her apartment in order to clean her up.

"DAMN YOU MICHAEL! Walter told me to chill! Maybe you should try!" Nikita screamed and Michael opened the apartment door and stopped in thought.

He had enough to worry about with the joints, the alcohol, and the little pink and blue bunnies that Nikita was seeing. Now, he was almost sure that someone inside Section One gave Nikita the joint, and he was willing to bet it was Walter. Michael slammed the door shut when Nikita pulled away from him.

"LOOK! THERE ARE THE BUNNIES!" Nikita cried out as she chased down the hallway after the bunnies that she saw. Michael blinked his eyes and followed behind her.

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Part 2 by Aly

Walter emerged from the bathroom and stopped to pass his hand wearily over his face. He could not believe he had let Nikita talk him and Birkoff into this little... party. He knew how upset she was after the mission and he was only trying to help her though her grief, the only way he knew how.

After rubbing his tired and glazed eyes, he smiled as he saw Birkoff on Nikita's bed, out cold. He wanted to be with his friends, no matter what, but the young man just couldn't hold his liquor. He didn't touch the pot and Walter smiled as he thought back to what Birkoff had said about it, "This is your brain...." And he cracked an egg into a frying pan for them as they laughed. "And this is your brain on Drugs!!" The egg started to fry in the grease and Walter and Nikita finally gave in to him and quit teasing.

Nikita finally asked, "So, Seymour. You don't want to risk killing off any of your brain cells huh?" She winked at Walter and he smiled and turned away. Birkoff flushed at the comment as Walter produced the rolled joint for Nikita to light up. As they started to smoke it, Birkoff could only shake his head.

"You two laugh it up! We'll see who is funniest in about an hour!" He poured himself some Jack and took a big gulp.

His eyes watered as the fiery liquid burned down his throat and into his belly. Gasping for breath, he filled his glass with water thinking it might put out the fire below. Not hardly!

Nikita and Walter were oblivious to Birkoff at this point as they sat on the floor smoking. Birkoff headed to the bathroom and after a while, Walter went to check on him and found him passed out. Sheesh!! ONE drink!!

Walter finally made his way back out into the living room only to find it cold and empty. Seeing the opened doors to the balcony, he started to worry about Nikita. Rushing over to them thinking she might be on the verge of jumping or something, he ran out onto the balcony.

"Nikita!!! NIKITA!?!?"

Only the wind answered his call. Moving slowly, ever so slowly, to the edge, he paused a moment before leaning over to look down at the street below. Closing his eyes briefly, he finally opened them and searched the street below.

Nothing.

With a huge sigh of relief, Walter turned back towards the apartment. "Now, I wonder just where Nikita got off to... especially in the state she was in..." Walter shuffled back inside and closed the doors behind him.

Meanwhile....

Michael had finally caught up with Nikita. Her eyes were glassy and un-focused. When she turned on him he gasped at the wild and crazed look in her eyes...

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Part 3 by Lauren

"I'm not going with you Michael!" Nikita screamed. "Like Hell you're not." Michael said. Nikita grew furious and went to attack Michael. In this state she was in, she was absolutely no match, but she tried anyway. Michael didn't want to hurt her, but she refused to give up, he was getting no where. Nikita went to kick him and Michael quickly grabbed her leg and pulled it up so she lost balance and landed hard on her back. Nikita lay a startled on the floor, Michael let her leg down. Unfortunately as soon as he did she raised her leg to kick him, he dodged the possibly painful blow, gave Nikita a look like 'You shouldn't have done that. He reached down and pulled her up by her shoulder. "I'm not playing here Nikita!" Michael warned.

Hearing all the commotion in the hall Walter made his way out the door. Seeing Michael pull Nikita up harshly by the shoulder's he yelled out "Are you nuts?"

Michael snapped around and gave Walter on of the coldest stares, which would have frozen hell itself. "I'll get to you later, count on it." Michael said almost demonically. Walter stood there frozen. Michael turned back to Nikita who had been feebly hitting him, and said "Enough."

Nikita looked at him and slugged him good in the face, Michael did a double take and Nikita went for one of his shins. Michael shook his head "Nikita stop." But she refused so when she went to kick him again he reached out and hit her in the kidneys. She sunk to the floor, and Michael reached down giving her a look of pity and then picked her up in his arms and walked down the hall.

Michael carefully placed Nikita in the seat of his car. He walked around and opened the drivers door and got in. he headed off to his apartment.

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Part 4 by Jade

Michael pulled the car in front of his apartment and glanced at Nikita's slumped form. She had been very, very high just minutes before, but now she was subdued. He pulled her carefully out of the car and helped her upstairs to his loft. Once they were inside, and the security engaged, Michael started to relax a bit. Now he could try to get to the bottom of things. What had Nikita taken in addition to the obvious pot? She had been hallucinating.

Pink and blue bunnies??? Did this have some tie-in to the mission they had just finished? Nikita was so caring, she would identify with those poor, lost innocents Section so callously called collateral. Expendable. Acceptable losses. Michael was having his own problems dealing with the deaths of a dozen civilian children. This report had to be one of the most difficult he had ever had to write.

Nikita sniffled. Michael woke from his reverie and studied her. "How are you feeling?" he asked, not unkindly.

"You hit me," she whimpered.

Michael stared at her, quite blankly, his eyes shuttered against the emotion that threatened to surface with her words.

"I had to," he replied. "You were out of control, Kita."

Suddenly Nikita stared backs at him, her eyes wide, unshed tears hovering at the edge of her eyelashes. She reached out a hand and touched his cheek, which was already beginning to swell and discolor. "Did I do that?"

Michael grabbed her hand and removed it from his cheek. "Yes," he said in a sibilant whisper.

Nikita giggled inappropriately. "Oh, my...I bet you're really angry with me now," she drawled slowly.

Michael sighed. "I'm not...angry." He ran his fingers through his hair, tangling it into an unruly mess. "I brought you here to find out what happened."

Tiny flickers of the mission cycled rapidly through Nikita's mind, each one somehow reflected in her eyes and face. Nikita began to cry in earnest.

"Oh, God, Michael, those children...all dead...all dead..."

Michael put aside his own reaction to that, though he felt his gut instinctively tighten at the mention of dead children. He loomed over Nikita like a giant, in her mind's eye, and she cringed, crying as she struggled to back herself into a corner of the room. She pushed herself back with jerky movements, staring at Michael as if he were the very devil himself.

Michael reached out to Nikita, but she had backed herself against the wall. When she could go no further, she began to shudder. "You killed them!"

He closed his eyes against the spasm of grief that provoked. "Kita, no!" He knelt down on the floor beside her, and she continued to try to retreat, though retreat was quite impossible. He gathered her carefully into his arms and held her. Nikita sobbed heartbreakingly, and Michael felt her pain as if it were his own. He kissed the tears as they fell down her cheeks, gently caressing her face with one hand, smoothing the hair back from her face with the other.

He leaned his forehead against Nikita's, meeting her eyes evenly, which was unusual enough for even a drunk and drugged Nikita to notice. He nudged her lips apart with his mouth, but he did not kiss her. He simply froze in place, his lips touching hers, and then he felt her begin to tremble. His eyes slid shut and he took her mouth gently, breathing against her mouth finally, "You're safe now, Kita."

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Part 5 by LFN Fanatic

Nikita's eyes met his and then they were in a trance. He just stared back at her and they were glued on each other. Then she stood up and he went to her.

"Nikita what is wrong"

"I don't know Michael, something is telling me we shouldn't do this."

"But we have before what is the big deal now?"

"Things are different now."

"How are they?"

"Did you ever ask yourself why I got high?"

Michael just stood there looking at her.

"I did it because of you, because you always pushed me away. You never stopped to think what I was feeling. I know you might have thought to say something but..."

"Sssshhhhhhhh don't speak." And with that he moved closer and closer and then he kissed her and we are not talking a light little peck we are talking a deep passionate kiss and he decided to go exploring on her body first he...

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Part 6 by Northstar

"Michael, NO" she said as she pushed him away. Her mind was starting to clear a little and she didn't want him to regret anything.

"Now who is pushing away, Nikita?" he said confused.

"Michael, you're doing this for all the wrong reasons, and you know it. A kiss or whatever else you had in mind is not the answer to what is bothering me."

Michael backed away. "Yes, you are right." and with that he went to the couch and sat down, but kept his eyes on Nikita.

"Don't you have any feelings Michael for those children that were killed? How can you not have that affect you?" she cried.

"I never said it never bothered me Nikita, but if I show any emotion then that shows weakness as far as Section is concerned." He explained. "It is not that I don't have my moments."

"Arghhhh, Section, always Section where we perform like damn monkeys and do exactly what they say. Do this, do that, think this...."

"Nikita, you need to get a grip on things. Why now all of a sudden have you gone this way?" he pleaded with her. "If you show up like this at Section they will know something is happening and take action."

"You know what Michael, right now I don't care. I hate that all these innocents that get in the way are acceptable collateral. There has to be another way to get things done."

********

Back at Nikita's Apartment

"Birkoff, come on wake up man." Walter said loudly as he prodded and poked at the young man.

"Waahhh, leave me alone! I have a headache." Birkoff said swatting the hand away.

"Man, we have to get out of here. Michael was here and we need to skedaddle before he comes back. He said he was gonna deal with me and I don't want to be here when he decides to do that."

"Gimme a minute, would ya?"

"No, we need to get you up, clear up and clear outta here. NOW." He said yanking Birkoff up off the bed.