Life (Worth Dying For)
by misscam

Rating: Teen. Implied adult activities.

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

Author's Note: Spoilers for 1x21. Set after 1x22, but no real spoilers for it, just guessing how it may turn out. May be made AU – we'll see!

II

Alive. They're both alive. After all this, they're both alive, Nikita and Michael.

For the longest time, Michael merely holds her, as if he doesn't trust himself to remain in control if he does anything else. Anyone looking might think him calm, but Nikita knows him not to be. For all he tries not to show it on his face, it's the struggle to keep it off that always tells her how much he's really feeling.

"I thought you were dead," he says hoarsely, his voice not quite cracking.

She says nothing, merely tilts her head so he rest his head against her neck and feel her pulse. He can well see she is alive, but she knows he needs to feel it too. Like she does, and she puts a hand against his chest to feel his heartbeats.

He is alive. He is alive and with her and everything else around might have fallen apart, but that's enough to rebuild. Must be enough.

"I thought you were dead," he says again. "I found out you weren't later, but before... I thought you were dead. I can't..."

"You were in just as much danger as me," she points out mildly, keeping her own anger at that out of her voice. She has no real right to feel angry, she knows. Not really. He is worth living for, as he thinks she is, but there is also what they're both willing to die for. Almost did, this time.

"I can't do this twice," he says intently. "I lost my family and was dead for so many years. I can't... Not again."

The implication – that she is his family now – is not lost on her. In fact, it seems to make something in her hurt and feel good at the same time. For a while, she let herself think about what might come after they had taken Percy down. Even bring him to think about it, and now they both know there won't be an after for a long time.

So much to make right now. So much wrong and only one thing left right any more. Him.
"Yes, you can," she tells him intently. He can. He is that strong. She knows he is.

When he opens his mouth to protest, she kisses him a little clumsily, more intent than direction and thus more the side of his mouth than his lips. But he turns his head and his lips slide across hers before settling, a little too restrained at first.

She won't have that. Not now, not when this is what she has to live for, by her own words. Not now, when he's just made the choice to live with her rather than die for his revenge. Not now, not when Alex has... No, she will not think of that. Not now.

She puts down arms around his neck, pressing him closer, the air between them feeling too much like space. Her lips tug at his bottom lip impatiently, until he's lifting her up and kissing her, really kissing her with no restraint.

This is the desperation he felt, his roaming hands tell her. This is how afraid he was for her, his body pressing against hers speak loudly of. This is how he can't let her go, she can tell from how he won't let her back on the ground. This is how he loves her, his kisses repeat, again and again.

This is how they both reassure themselves the other is still alive, she thinks, and feels Michael carry her and lower her onto something soft. Not a bed – not her bed, now lost – but it will do. Her fingers are already fumbling with his buckle and his are inside her top, brushing against the undersides of her breasts.

Alive. He is and she is, and he is yanking her top off as she pulls his pants downwards, managing to cup a feel as she does. The sound he makes is a little muffled against her mouth, but he doesn't break the kiss. She lifts her hips a little as both of them fumble with her rather tight pants, and she isn't sure who is the most impatient and needy.

In the end, it is a tie.

II

Nikita's hair fall around him she leans over him, like a curtain hiding the rest of the world from view. Just them, her back arching and his hands tracing the curve and his thrusts matched by her fingers digging into his shoulder.

Nikita, he thinks, clinging to her name like his skin clings to her. Nikita.

Nikita and Michael, alive.

II

Afterwards, they both lie still in the silence, Michael resting his forehead against hers. Her lips feel heavy, her heart feels heavy and her heart feels heaviest of all, and she closes her eyes and thinks of birds.

To fly. To cheat gravity, to be free of all. To stay off the ground and thus don't care if all of it turned to ash. To take off with Michael somewhere and never look back, making a life for them in the space of the sky.

"Nikita," Michael says, half a plea and half a caress. "What do you want to do now?"

No.

She is much too fond of gravity for a bird's life.

"Fight," she says, opening her eyes to look at him. They're dark, the pain in them more restrained now, but still there. As hers is. They could stay alive and ignore what they both want to right, but it wouldn't be a life for them. Not truly. Not yet.

"Fight," he agrees after a heartbeat, kissing her gently and almost like absolution. One day, maybe it will be. When Division is gone, when wrongs have been made right, when she forgives herself, when it's just Michael and Nikita and nothing left to die for.

Just everything to live for.

FIN