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It had been a long week. She worked a lot most weeks, but it had been even more busy with everyone and everything recovering from the Purge. Businesses needed to be cleaned up, people had to go to hospital, and generally everything had to reset after a natural disaster -- or an unnatural disaster, in this case. She'd spent most of the first few days running on caffeine and meals on the go. It had reminded her of some of the more busy periods in her Section training, and she hadn't missed that.

In the back of her mind was that she probably needed to check on Daisy, but she hadn't done it yet. They had texted sporadically over the past week, mostly to confirm that the other person had made it through and was still making it through, but they hadn't seen each other. Daisy must have been busy as well. When Daisy suggested that she bring a bottle of wine to Nikita's place instead of them meeting at a bar or for some sparring, Nikita had agreed and said she'd order in some sushi from the sushi place they both liked.

They'd both had a few glasses of wine and there was no more sushi, so Nikita was feeling more relaxed than usual. Microwave had settled between the two of them and was purring loudly. She rubbed his little ears with the hand that wasn't holding a wine glass.

"Good idea," she told Daisy lazily.

Do you want to look at plants with me today?

When the text arrived in the middle of a lunch rush, Nikita couldn't take the time to decipher it, so she just put her mobile back in her pocket. Daisy did like to send random texts, generally suggesting a drink, a fight, a lay, or all three, so that wasn't the issue. She wasn't much for euphemisms, though. She and Nikita understood what this was and what this wasn't, and both of them preferred to say what they meant when it wasn't a risk to do so.

An hour later, when the rush was over and Nikita was free to look at her phone, she pulled up the messaging app and considered the words again. Daisy had a lot more plants in her flat than Nikita ever would. Plants reminded Nikita of Carla and her offering of a rubber tree, which was both a good and a bad memory. She had one or two, but only the kind that thrived on neglect. Nikita understood plants that thrived on neglect.

Actual plants? You don't have enough of those already?

She still didn't know exactly what was going on here, but it might be fun to find out.

She'd given Jim her number when they'd happened to meet in the bar, but she hadn't actually expected him to use it. He admitted he was mostly taking her number because his kid gave him grief about not having a life. Having the number was the important thing, not calling it.

But he had used it, and they'd met for drinks a few times since then. Nothing fancy, no pressure, just mostly sitting around and talking about their jobs or movies or music -- unimportant things. Neither of them had been inclined to start talking about religion, politics, or their respective pasts. From that, she'd drawn two conclusions: Jim Hopper had a drinking problem and Jim Hopper was a good man.

Not a nice one, and not necessarily because of the drinking problem. But he was a good one, she liked him, and she wondered what it said about her that she kept realizing she usually only really liked demonstrably imperfect people. If a person was too perfect, too handsome, or too nice, she was suspicious of what they were hiding. Madeline would have been all over this, if she'd been here, and would have added a few pages to the psych profile for Nikita. Next thing Nikita knew, they'd have her targeting whatever equivalent of Jim Hopper they could find for a Valentine Op.

Fortunately for her (and Jim's future survival), Madeline wasn't here, and Nikita was. She'd invited Jim for drinks, just like usual, but tonight she wasn't planning to leave the bar alone. She didn't know what would happen after she didn't leave the bar alone, but she'd figure that out when she got there.

This was probably a stupid idea that was going to get her killed. But then she'd had several of those in her life, and none of them were stupid enough to stop her from doing whatever it was she'd decided to do. And also, she hadn't been killed yet. She could hope it stayed that way.

Honestly, she thought she and Riley had reached an understanding of each other. They wouldn't kill the other person unless they absolutely had no choice. At that point, they would, and they wouldn't take it personally that they were having to do it or having to have it done. It was a cynical way to live, but it was the way that had kept her alive. And when she'd suggested having a drink and not talking about what they might or might not have done, she thought maybe he might find it to be a little nice to be able to not pretend quite as much. She did, sometimes.

So she'd reserved Phil's Booth in the corner and put some booze and a couple of glasses on it. Her waitresses knew if she claimed that booth, they were not to seat anyone in earshot of it.

Now she just needed to see if he'd show up.

Honestly, she loved being an EMT. It let her use some of the skills Section had taught her but in a way that actually helped people instead of hurting them. And yeah, she didn't mind the adrenaline rush she got from working to stabilize someone who'd fallen off a building or gotten bit by a vampire or hit by a car. It was a good use of an adrenaline rush, not a bad one.

She also loved being a restaurant owner, though, and she was working hard to balance the two. It helped that she had a good new waitress in Debora. That girl knew how to handle customers, good and bad. It meant Nikita didn't worry too much about what would happen when she was working a shift at the hospital or recovering from it.

Today was the day after a recovery day, and so she was at the restaurant checking on things and hopefully doing a little paperwork. She glanced up when the front door opened only to see Tony Stark in front of her looking pitiful and injured.

Oh, this was going to be a good story. She could tell already.

Something was wrong. She'd gotten used to the chatter in her earbud, and she'd always been good at spotting patterns and problems. It had kept her alive before, during, and after Section. And she knew something was wrong. Coulson wasn't updating them on the security team statuses, on any prisoner status, on anything. He'd gone radio silent, and that was not like him. She'd heard the confidence in his voice, the calm certainty that everyone was getting out, including his two teams.

She split off from Team One with a quick word that she had one more thing to do. No one argued, although Tris did silently question whether Nikita was going to want backup. She shook her head, then went back inside and started looking for the main security office.

It took a few corridors full of goons to find it, and some of those goons were never waking up again, but she found it eventually. The door was open, and that was something else that was wrong. Phil wouldn't have left the door open if he was in there, and if he wasn't, he would have been talking.

She stepped over the body of the last goon and into the office, then stopped in what was pretty close to horror for her. She'd seen a hell of a lot of injuries over the years, but god. She wasn't sure even Medical could patch that up, and they were damned good at patching up operatives. Her little first aid kit wasn't going to do much at all.

"Phil," she said urgently, kneeling down by him. "Coulson, wake up. You're going to be really embarrassed if I tell you I carried you out of here."

It was a risk to go to the gun range. She knew it. One of these days someone was going to recognize her and ask interesting questions about why the restaurant owner was extremely proficient with firearms. On the other hand, not keeping up her skills was stupid, especially considering she was armed nearly every minute of every day. She didn't carry at the gym, obviously, and if she was working the floor at the restaurant she tended not to, but other than that, always.

She tried to reduce the risk at the gun range by always going at different days and times so no pattern could be established, by using different routes to get there, and of course by always renting a gun and choosing different lanes. Not the same gun, either. Just some gun, whatever her eye landed on first. Her shooting glasses were slightly darker than normal, too, although they didn't impede her vision.

She'd done all that today too, and now she was getting ready to leave. She'd had a good day - her targets had been well-clustered, and because the range had been almost empty, she'd let herself be a little better than usual. Normally she didn't work to her full capacity because that would raise questions too, but sometimes it was satisfying to cluster the shots so tightly. She was sure that said something about her psychology since she'd given up that life and yet maintained her skills, but Madeline wasn't here to ask her about it.

It was a really slow afternoon, slow enough that she'd sent her one afternoon shift waitress home already to study for an exam at Barton University. She herself was sitting behind the register, which had the dual benefit of giving her a look over the whole place and being near the money in case someone got a stupid idea. It hadn't happened yet, but she was prepared if it did. There was a baseball bat behind the counter. Low-tech, maybe, but no one had to register baseball bats.

The sticky notes for delayed coffees and pastries had been getting a bit ruffled as people ran their hands over them, so she was taking this opportunity to transfer some into the notebook she used to keep them organized. Some of them she left out because they were decorated or had a nice message on them, but a lot of them she could just grab off the page when it was time to redeem them.

The bell over the door dinged and she glanced up with a customer smile on her face.

She'd had a nice time with Napoleon (who still had a ridiculous name), but it seemed she wasn't done. Her half-joking conversation with Chuck had been the catalyst, but she'd been thinking about it since she talked to Jax.

She needed a motorcycle. Getting to Bondurant's quickly when there was a crisis had always been a pain because she'd either have to wait for a cab or wait for a bus. Having her own transportation made everything easier. And yeah, it was maybe not a particularly intelligent, rational choice in light of the photo and prison record that had appeared, but it at least had a useful reason. She could let herself believe she was really making a wise, convenient choice rather than reacting to something in ways that allowed her to have adrenaline rushes.

She went around to a couple of the dealerships and found a late model Triumph Scrambler in great condition for a fantastic price. The price may have been helped by the amount of flirting she'd done with the salesman, but she knew he wouldn't have gone any lower than he could actually afford, so she didn't feel bad about flirting him down.

Once she picked up a couple of helmets and a bit of gear, she decided her first call needed to be to Chuck. She'd offered to take him for a ride and he'd accepted, and she was pretty sure he meant it. Turned out he did, and so she was waiting in front of his building, leaning against the bike casually. Theoretically, this was just a motorbike ride, but if he offered something else (or she did), that'd be fine too, she thought. She'd see how it went.

It'd been over two weeks since she received her little gift from the past. She'd been laying low most of that time, trying to stay out of Section's sight if they were here. She'd even worked in the back at Bondurant's and told her waitresses it was because there was some end of year paperwork coming up. She wasn't sure they believed her, but they hadn't pushed. They were all smart enough not to push the boss, and further not to push her.

And now half the people in the city seemed to be gone, including Porthos and Tris. At first, she'd thought that Section really had disappeared her few friends like she'd been worried they would, but there were too many people gone, and all of them were transplants, as far as she could tell. Section wouldn't be that obvious. So it was probably the city just being itself again. Maybe the photo was just the city being the city again, too. She'd started to consider that as a real possibility.

After people had been gone for a week or so, she'd transitioned from being worried that her life here was essentially over to deciding to just live it up if it was. Madeline would have said something about needlessly reckless behavior in response to a blah blah blah, and she probably wouldn't be wrong. Nikita didn't care. So here she was, sitting in a bar, wearing a short skirt, and sipping what looked like a vodka tonic. It had more tonic than vodka in it, but that was just prudence. She was needlessly reckless, not stupid.

She looked over and smiled nicely at the man who'd just slid onto the barstool next to her.

(Note: None of this is derived directly from canon. All is gained from casual references in the pilot and other episodes as well as research into Canadian Correctional Systems.)

Correctional Service of Canada / Service correctionnel du Canada - Kingston Penitentiary

Name: Wirth, Nikita
Prisoner Number: 92-426891
DOB: 11/18/1972

Sentence Type: Life in prison without possibility of Parole
Sentencing Date: 4/23/1992
Crime: Murder of a peace officer in the first degree

Date of Death: 11/3/1994
Cause of Death: Suicide

File Closed

She hadn't been sure about it when one of the shelters had asked her to teach a self-defense class. Well, actually, they'd started by asking if she knew anything about that, and she'd said that she did. She'd lived on the street, after all. Self-defense was required, even without Section training.   She'd told them she had never been formally trained in it, and that was true. She'd been trained in offense more than defense.

Still, they'd asked if she'd do it. She'd considered it for a while, then decided she could do it without revealing too many of her skills. She didn't want to do that both for her own safety and to avoid too many awkward questions. Having a murder conviction was a disqualifying detail for almost every shelter, which she understood fully.

Tonight had been the third class. They'd started the course with a discussion of personal safety and personal space, as well as being aware of environments and strategies to get help when you didn't look like someone anyone would want to help. She'd wanted to emphasize to them that there was a mental as well as a physical component to defending oneself. Now they were moving into basic countermeasures, balance shifts, and non-lethal disabling strikes.    Everyone, including her, had to be the victim and the attacker at least twice with three different people. She was, not surprisingly, the best at taking people down and at attacking them, even those larger than she was, though she had played her skills down considerably.

When it was over, she was tired, but happy. Her students thanked her as they left, and she hoped that they'd retain something, that they'd be able to defend themselves if needed.   Only time would tell, though, and she smiled a little as she flipped the switch to turn the lights in the gym area off.

The last couple of weeks had been possibly the worst she had experienced in Darrow. It wasn't anything to do with the job or her flat or anything like that, which was what it might have been before. It was almost always the job before.

The problem was the little stone balls that she couldn't seem to escape. The first time she'd touched one, she'd seen herself as Operations. She wasn't sure how she knew that from just a brief glimpse, but she did. She was standing in the Perch and she looked hard and cold. She looked like Operations. It was the very last thing she wanted to be, but yet she was.

The second time, she'd seen herself shooting Michael. She'd seen him die at her hands, and seen him mouth, "Je t'aime" as his eyes closed. She hadn't known how she killed him or why, but she had, and the betrayal on his face was terrible. His hair had been a different style and she'd had a different weapon, a newer one.

The third time, she'd seen herself in a hospital bed with tubes running everywhere. She seemed to be in a coma, although she couldn't see any physical damage. On the other hand, she'd been covered by a blanket, so who knew? The worst or possibly best part was her mother, bending over her to kiss her. She recognized Roberta, even though she hadn't seen her in at least ten years. Roberta looked much better. She might have actually gotten help. Why couldn't that have happened before Nikita apparently nearly died?

She'd heard from her colleagues at Bondurant's that this kind of thing had been happening. Lots of people had seen what might be their futures, but a lot of them said things about children and grandchildren and money and joy. Hers only showed pain and loss. It fit with her life, but she didn't like it. She wasn't sure if she could handle seeing another future. She'd got rid of the stone ball she bought, and she hoped that was enough, but she wasn't confident of that. She sank heavily onto her couch and put her head in her hands, closing her eyes in frustration and grief.

There wasn't really a sound or a feeling, but suddenly she knew she'd been moved. She was somewhere else, on a couch that felt different, and there was a warm body touching her from shoulder to knee. She didn't look up, though. At this point she almost didn't want to know where she was and what had happened now, although she also felt her instincts sharpen and adrenaline flow in case there was a fight.

Most of the time, the shifts at Bondurant's were fine. Today, though, it seemed like everyone was trying to annoy her. People insisted they hadn't ordered what they had (or had ordered what they hadn't), the other servers didn't finish their sidework, and she'd even spilled a cup of coffee. Fortunately, she hadn't actually spilled it on anyone, but she'd still had to clean it up and get another cup for the customer.

When she got home and checked her phone to be sure she wasn't being called back for a double, she saw Cole's voicemail again. He'd left it awhile ago, but they hadn't managed to find a time that worked for both of them. Part of it was being busy on both their parts. Part of it was, honestly, concern on her part that if they went for a beer, they wouldn't have anything to talk about. They didn't come from the same worlds in so many ways. Today, though, she thought it might be a good idea not to have a beer alone, and it was definitely a beer kind of day, so she called him and arranged to meet at a place she was starting to think of as her local.

She'd taken a shower to get rid of the coffee and grease smell, then changed into a nice jumper and what the shops called skinny jeans. She looked good but not stunning, mostly because she wasn't sure whether this was a date or just a beer between friends. After a lot of consideration, she left her gun at home, which was a huge leap for her in a lot of ways. She did have her knife in her boot as usual, but that was just prudence.

She got there ahead of him and settled at a table. If he didn't show, she'd just have a beer.

The city was still mostly empty, but it was probably just a glitch in the sim. Some poor tech group was being informed that they were all going to be cancelled one by one if the glitch continued much longer.

That wasn't what she was thinking about today though. She needed a job. Her sleazy landlord had stopped suggesting alternative ways to pay her rent fairly quickly, but that meant she needed to find another way to do that. The problem was that she didn't really have a resume or any skills that were worth putting on a job application. Not if she didn't want to work for one of the criminal organizations in town, anyway, and she didn't. Let Madeline see that she truly didn't ever want to be in Section or do Section's work, no matter how well Madeline thought she'd begun to "fit" within it.

She went to the library, which had always been a welcome source of warmth for her, and found a book on making resumes. Then she carefully used one of the computers to create one, listing a few odd jobs she'd had in the months and years before her arrest and transfer to Section. She'd have to hope that someone would take a chance on her, although she didn't really believe they would.

She dressed as nicely as she could from the thrift stores and started walking, hoping to pass out resumes at anywhere that said they were hiring. The first five said they weren't anymore now that the population was smaller, so she went on to the sixth. It was a little restaurant on the same street as her building and she pushed the door to the converted gas station open with her best friendly smile on her face.