Title: As In Love With You As I Am
Fandom / Pairing: Nikita - Michael & Alex
For: Julia (Because really, every Malex story is for you :~)
Notes: This story is told about 90% out of order. But by the end, you should be able to piece together the general storyline.
Summary: "and the end comes to soon, like dreaming of angels and leaving without them." 21 drabbles set to 21 songs. A Michael (&) Alex shuffle challenge.

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as in love with you as i am

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01. Stars - The XX

Sometimes he wonders if they gave up too easily, if they should've fought a little longer or harder. Sometimes she thinks they worked too hard, they burned too bright for too long. The meet in the middle, decide what they need it is time.

They call it an impasse.

02. Monster - Paramore

"They're monsters, Alex. Percy, Amanda, everyone in this goddamn compound. And I'd burn every single one of them alive and dig you out of the ashes. Just to keep you safe."

03. How To Love - Demi Lovato (Alex)

Alex finally looks away, the tears building up in her eyes momentarily blinding her. When she speaks again her voice breaks. "I'm not Elizabeth. Or Nikita. You shouldn't love me." She sniffles, looking so young, so fragile. "I'm not the loving kind."

She says loving with so much disgust Michael finally realizes what it means to be broken.

04. Starships - Nicki Minaj

There are two reasons you should never get drunk in a karaoke bar. The first: Alex rapping Nicki Minaj.

The second? Michael singing back-up.

05. Shadows - Ryan Tedder

"You're everywhere, you know. I smell cologne and I think of you. I eat blueberry waffles and I remember all those mornings you tried to teach me how cook. Nikita pins me down during a sparring session and I remember you doing the exact same thing, how your body felt pressed against mine. You're ... everywhere Michael."

"You say it like it's a bad thing."

"I wish it was."

06. Whatever You Like - Anya Marina

"We could run, you know. Leave Division behind. Just ... run."

"Where would we go."

"Anywhere. Everywhere. Wherever you like."

07. Unbroken - Demi Lovato

"I like you like this," Michael murmurs between kisses. In the vibrant night club their words are drowned out by the blaring music, their bodies, hidden away in a corner, blocked by a mass of dancing, writhing bodies.

"Like what?" Alex asks, breathless.

" ... Unbroken."

08. Talk You Down - The Script

Michael is gone when she wakes up and this is the moment, the opportunity she's been waiting for. There's a duffel in the closet packed with fake IDs, passports and thousands in cash ... her back up plan. Her escape route. The taxi gets her to JFK in under 30 minutes and all of them are spent on Michael, spent on what she was giving up, running away from. Before she gets to the front of the line at the boarding gate she fumbles around in her pocket for the plane ticket.

She doesn't have it.

"Alex." And she knows that guttural voice anywhere. Michael is standing a few feet away carrying his own duffel, holding up her ticket. And an extra one. "If you go I go," is all he says.

09. Tightrope

Before it was Division that was responsible for dividing his life in half. Before and after. Good and bad. Now it's Alex who does this, and Michael doesn't know if this is a curse or a blessing.

10. Somewhere Only We Know - Keane

"I was in Russia to murder your family. Burn your childhood home to ashes. Only you would find that romantic, Alex."

"We met in Russia. You saved me in Russia. It's ... our place, and we'll always have it. It's ... somewhere only we know."

"Well, us and the strike team."

11. I Caught Myself - Paramore

"I love you," he murmurs, one night as they lie in bed, pressed against each other. The hand he was running through her hair stills. The patterns she lazily traced onto his stomach stopped. Michael closed his eyes, counts to ten. Waits.

She never says anything and he tries to chastise himself, tries to want to take those three words back.

But he doesn't regret it.

12. What Goes Around - Justin Timberlake

She sits by herself in a dirty pub in London wishing she were back in New York, wishing it was last year, wishing she hadn't left him behind at the airport. She orders another drink, hoping it'll erase all her problems.

But that's the thing.

Alex is the problem.

13. Radioactive - Imagine Dragons

"It won't kill you."

"It might kill me."

"Really Michael. It's just food."

"Made by a Russian."

"Honestly. You act like we're a breed of aliens."

"Food from Earth doesn't smell like this."

"It's cake."

"There's fish in it, Alex."

"...it's not the worst think I made for you."

14. Echo - Jason Walker

Before she left New York it felt so vibrant, so alive, so ethereal.

Now it felt like a city built for the dead.

15. Infinity - The XX

"You've been running for too long. You don't know how to stop."

"I could stop. For you I'd stop."

"You already left me behind once, Alex."

16. Feel - Marie Digby

Alex comes back from London three weeks later and Michael fucking loses it. He's angry, more upset than she's ever seen him and it scares her. He's calling her a coward, yelling, screaming at her questions she can't answer. All her things are packed and ready to be moved out of his apartment, out of his life. He finally calms down a bit when she crumbles, breaks down into tears.

When he speaks again his voice breaks and she finally realizes the weight of what she's done. "Change my mind. Before it's too late," is all he says.

17. Basic Space - The XX

The worst thing she could have said, but still, she said it. She cries and he does too, but just a little bit.

Michael asks her to leave after that.

18. So Cold - Ben Cocks

"Change my mind. Before it's too late."

"I don't know how."

19. Angels - The XX

All those months in New York, all the times they had and the memories they made ... they felt ethereal now. Like they weren't real and never had been. Like she was dreaming of something perfect, angelic. An angel, Michael was an angel. But now she was in London, and it's like waking without him.

20. Save Myself - Ryan Tedder

"That morning at JFK ... I wasn't running from Division. I was running from you."

"Why?"

"I had to save myself."

"From me?"

"Because I wanted you. Because I loved you so much. Too much."

"Oh."

Oh.

21. How To Love - Demi Lovato (Michael)

Michael watches her sleep, watches her chest rise and fall with even breaths, smiles at the placid expression on her face. "You were wrong," he murmurs, running a hand through her soft brown curls.

"You are the loving kind."

First story on my new account, thanks for reading!

Reviews? Comments? Criticism?