Birkoff’s scream woke Declan. Thank God he was the one who found him. He was standing over Emmy’s cradle, completely naked except for a blindingly white pair of shorts. The little girl stood unsteadily, her sturdy little arms reaching out to her father.

Declan almost tripped, trying to put on his jeans while moving through the hall at hyperspeed. But soon enough, he was standing behind Birkoff, totally out of breath. "What’s wrong?"

He glanced around the room, noting nothing in particular out of place. "What happened? From the sound of your scream, I thought someone got murdered," Declan commented dryly.

Birkoff shook his head silently, tears tracing their way down both cheeks. "Sey, you’re scaring the hell out of me. Talk to me. Please." Declan grabbed Birkoff’s arm, and Birkoff stared at him, as if he had only just realized Declan was there.

Blinking back more tears, Birkoff tried to explain, somehow choking on the words, which Declan struggled to decipher. "She...sh--"

"She? Emmy? Something’s wrong with Emmy? What? For Christ’s sake, Sey!"

Birkoff put a finger to his lips, silencing the rest of Declan’s planned tirade. "Emmy has something she wants to say."

"She does?" Declan looked at Birkoff, then at Emmy, then back at Birkoff, this time with a little bit of awe. "She does, Sey?"

Birkoff nodded slowly. "Tell Da what you just told me, sweetie. Go ahead, Em," he encouraged.

Emerant glanced from one father to the other and back again. What was the big deal? She was a late bloomer, that was all. One minute, she said her first word. Da. The next couple of months, she was seemingly struck dumb. Emerant pursed her tiny lips, as if she were considering giving an entire speech. She just didn’t have anything else important enough to say. Till now.

Birkoff willed Emerant to repeat what she said to him. Please. Please tell your Da. I won’t ask for another freaking favor from God this year. Please.

Emerant’s silvery eyes glowed as she looked at Birkoff. "Up! Daddy, hold Emmy?"

Declan almost fell over. From Da to four new words. Wait, wait, not just any four words either. Her own name was one of them. And...Christ! "Sey, she called you Daddy!"

Birkoff turned to face Declan again, his dark eyes swimming in tears. "I know, Dec. Why the hell do you think I yelled?"

Declan enfolded his lover in his arms, burying his face in Birkoff’s thick dark hair. "Oh, acushla..."

Birkoff wept all over Declan’s bare chest as Declan repeatedly kissed his hair. He couldn’t say another word if God Himself demanded one.

Emerant regarded her parents with quizzical eyes, a thumb absently poking through her bright red hair. Grown-ups could get so emotional. Over the littlest things.

Nikita felt a small hand in the middle of her back. It felt familiar. Yet she knew it was not her husband’s hand. One blue eye opened cautiously, perusing the immediate area.

Yep, I’m still in the living room. Yikes, I’m still in the living room! Suddenly realizing that she was lying on her stomach, naked, on the living room carpet was enough to bring her fully awake within seconds. Leaning on her hand, she stared blearily at her husband. As his image gradually came into focus, she saw that, like her, he too was still naked. Thankfully, he was lying on his stomach as well. Which was a damn good thing for both of them.

Cause the hand in question belonged to their son Chris. Nikita sighed with relief. She had no intention of playing twenty questions about the birds and the bees before breakfast. Just the thought made her pray that Chris remained celibate until he was at least 21. Oh, well...she could dream...

"Mommmm...." Chris said urgently.

Nikita couldn’t roll over. She couldn’t hide. All she could do was lie there and hope that her naturally curious son stayed right where he was and went no further. "What, honey?" she asked nonchalantly, as if she always entertained visitors in the living room. In the nude.

"Fee went over the wall."

"What wall, sweetie?" she said more or less absently, not making the connection.

"Mommm..." Chris said in his most exasperated tone, clearly thinking he should have addressed his father, who possessed lightning-quick reflexes even before coffee.

Michael reached out with one hand and trapped Chris where he crouched behind his mother’s back. "Chris, how long ago did Fee go over the wall?"

Chris shrugged. He couldn’t tell time. The best he could do was to differentiate between things that happened in the now and things that didn’t.

Michael shook the sleep from his head and scanned the room for his pants. "Chris, get Daddy his pants," he commanded, noting the distant corner they managed to land in.

Nikita gave Michael a quizzical look. "Wait a minute, Michael. We left all the children with Mom last night. How did Chris get back here?"

"I brought ‘em, Sugar." That gravelly voice. Walter. Evidently, privacy was a thing of the past. She must have spoken aloud, for Walter quickly answered, "It is, if you play in the living room."

Chris dumped his father’s pants in front of him, and Michael thanked his son, realizing that he still could not get dressed. Not with the current audience. There were definitely too many people in the room for comfort.

Walter grinned at Michael, noting his discomfiture. "Hell, Michael, it ain’t like you got anything I haven’t seen before."

Michael’s green eyes glared at his wife’s adoptive father. "Why does that not reassure me, Walter?"

"Besides, Fee is long gone." Walter tucked an errant strand of thinning hair into his bandana.

Nikita forgot she was naked, immediately rising to a sitting position. Walter whistled and turned his back. "Jeez, Sugar! It’s a good thing I’m feeling fatherly or this would be too weird!"

She ignored him, taking the shirt Michael offered her and draping it casually over her upper body. It came to her upper thigh. Good enough. Michael helped her up off the floor, sensing that she was growing concerned about Faith. They looked like two halves of the same jigsaw puzzle. She dressed only in Michael’s shirt. He dressed only in pants.

"Define long gone, Walter," Michael demanded, his voice chilly.

"Well, I brought the twins back around 2 am. When me and Honey came back to the house. Skye is still over there."

"And?" Nikita felt her nerves beginning to fray.

"We put them to bed upstairs." He shrugged. "They were perfectly quiet till a little while ago."

Nikita looked like she was going to scream. "Perfectly quiet? Faith has never been perfectly quiet in her entire life! In fact, she’s never been perfectly anything! Dad!"

Michael grabbed Nikita’s arm, silently warning her with his eyes that Chris was avidly listening to everything.

"I know, Michael," she agreed, sighing heavily. Wrapping her arms around her husband, she buried her face against his chest. Her voice muffled, she said, "Why couldn’t she be more like Skye?"

Michael’s eyes met Walter’s over Nikita’s head. "I dunno, Sugar," said Walter with an insouciant grin. "Skye’s too quiet. Gotta watch out for those quiet ones."

Nikita gazed at Walter in alarm. "You mean Skye could turn out to be a hellraiser like her sister?"

Walter shifted uncomfortably under Nikita’s scrutiny. "I hate to mention this, Sugar, but Fee is..."

"Fee is what? What, Dad? She’s what?"

Walter laughed softly. "Very much like you."

Michael was sure that was true, but it wasn’t helping him locate his daughter. "So Fee left the house when?"

"Maybe five minutes ago, no more than that. Chris saw her go. He told me first, then I told him to get the two of you."

Walter couldn’t resist another bark of laughter. Nikita smacked her father lightly on the arm. "Dad! You sent him in here, knowing we were completely undressed!"

"Hey, he’s your kid. Besides, what’s the big deal about a little naked butt?"

"Let’s get even later, Kita. We need to find Fee," Michael said, casting a curious look in Walter’s direction.

Walter rocked back on his bootheels, a considering look in his bright blue eyes. Nikita stopped Michael from leaving the room, and they both turned to face Walter.

Suddenly Nikita laughed out loud. "You know where Fee is! You knew all along! You--"

"Ah, ah, ah! Not in front of you know who, Sugar!" Walter said, glancing at Chris.

"Where is she?" Michael demanded.

Walter pretended to ponder long and hard, but he couldn’t sustain the look of concentration. He was too tickled by Fee’s continuing adventures. "It’s kinda obvious, if you give it a little thought."

Michael frowned. "Obvious?"

"Shit, you two were the best field ops in Section One! Now look at you, you can’t figure out where your own daughter went?"

Nikita did a slow take, her eyes lighting on Michael’s face with new comprehension. He nodded imperceptibly.

"Connor."

It was no use trying to explain to Faith what she did wrong. She would do it again. As soon as possible. She wanted to see Connor, and she didn’t understand why she couldn’t do this anytime she felt like it.

Michael actually understood. He knew how powerful the compulsion to see Nikita could grow, and he knew there was probably no one alive who could prevent him from getting to her. It was Nikita who was frustrated by her daughter’s continued defiance.

"Faith, don’t you understand how Mommy worries when you take off without telling anyone?" Nikita was definitely struggling now. She was more afraid than angry. For all of her precocious behavior and hell-for-leather attitude, Faith was still and all a little girl. She was only 3. Even though it sometimes seemed as though she were going on 13.

"Mommm..." Faith rolled her eyes.

Nikita looked helplessly at her husband. "You talk to her, Michael. She hangs on your every word."

Michael saw the genuine heartbreak in Nikita’s eyes and he knew this was more serious than he’d thought. "Ki-ta...she doesn’t pay any more attention to what I say."

Tears sparkling in her blue eyes, Nikita chewed her lower lip anxiously. "Dad said she’s so much like me, Michael. Was I that hard to cope with when I first came to Section?"

He stifled the urge to say "worse". "No, doucette," he said quietly, knowing God would forgive the lie.

She trembled as she tried to hold back the tears that threatened. With a startling flash of insight, she looked deeply into Michael’s soft green eyes. "Michael? Did it hurt this much when I did this to you?"

He closed his eyes briefly. Trust Nikita to ask the hard questions. How many times had he tried to protect her, only to have her blithely go her own way and nearly get canceled for her efforts? Perhaps it was best to simply answer a question with another question.

"Does it matter now?"

Nikita took a half-step closer to him, her lower lip quivering. Michael couldn’t stand it.

"I forgave you, Kita."

"But I wish I’d known, Michael. I never meant to hurt you."

"I never wanted to hurt you either, Kita, but I had to, again and again. And you forgave me." He gazed at her, so solemnly, his green eyes suddenly more grey now with the pain of remembrance.

"What are you trying to tell me, Michael?"

"To forgive Faith and go on from there. She doesn’t mean to hurt us, doucette, but she will. It’s human nature."

Nikita hugged Michael, clasping her hands on either side of his neck. "I did forgive you, Michael. Cause I love you."

He lowered his mouth to hers, claiming her possessively. "That’s why I forgave you, Kita."

Faith looked from one parent to the other, her changeable grey-green eyes sad. "I sorry, Mommy. Don’t cry," she said, tugging hard on Nikita’s leg.

Nikita bent down and studied her daughter’s change in demeanor. As impulsive as she could be, as inadvertently thoughtless as she could be, Faith had a great capacity for love and compassion tucked away in her tiny body. If Nikita was guilty of passing on the former, she also needed to take the credit for the latter. How could she not forgive her? She loved her.

Someday she would learn to forgive herself completely, and when she did...she would know she had learned to love herself completely.

Madeline smiled as Michael and Nikita came through the door of her office, their errant daughter in tow. "Ah," she said, "you’ve come to collect your children."

"Children? Plural?" Nikita asked in surprise.

"Well...Skye is asleep upstairs, but she’s such a...good...child." The way Madeline emphasized the word ‘good’ didn’t sit well with Nikita, but she wasn’t about to say so. She didn’t want Faith to feel any different from the others. She knew, from experience, what it was like to be the odd man out. She never wanted any of her children to go through what she did.

She wanted Faith to know that she valued her as an individual. She didn’t want to change her into someone else. She wanted Faith to be Faith. There was a lot to be said for being interesting. For not conforming to whatever illogical and arbitrary standard society set. There was a flame that burned bright in both Nikita and Faith, and Nikita never wanted to see that flame extinguished. Especially not in the name of ‘good’ behavior.

Suddenly feeling as though she were her daughter’s staunchest champion, Nikita picked up the little girl. Surprisingly enough, Faith tolerated her mother’s embrace, seemingly content to stay there for a change. Smiling brightly into those glorious green eyes, Nikita said, "You want to see Connor, sweetie?"

Faith threw her arms around Nikita’s neck, giggling happily. "Thanks, Mom!"

"No matter what you do, Fee, Mommy will always love you. You’ll always be my good girl. D’you understand, sweetie?"

Faith nodded, then lay her head on her mother’s shoulder, staring curiously at Madeline. Perhaps she was thinking that her mother was a very special person. Perhaps she was thinking that Madeline’s definition of ‘good’ was not the same as her mother’s. Or perhaps she was just thinking how nice it would be to see Connor again. Faith was not a terribly complicated person, but she suspected that Madeline was.

She had no idea.

Madeline waved to the threesome as they left her office. Moments later, she picked up her cell phone and input a special code that unlocked it. Dialing a number she had carefully committed to memory long ago, she listened to it ring.

***

On the other end of the line... The cell phone rang shrilly in the silent office that once housed Section One’s most senior field op and head of Tactical Oversight. But while Michael Samuelle was no longer there, his successor was.

Davenport.

Davenport was in the midst of confirming a mission profile when his cell phone began to ring. He let it ring while he finished keying in a few last strokes on his computer. Pressing the send button on his phone, he picked it up. "Yes?"

He nodded several times during the brief phone call, answering with a terse, monosyllabic ‘yes’ every few moments. Putting the phone down, he smiled to himself. Hearing from Madeline never failed to cheer him.

Michael and Nikita were still alive. They had a family. It was a word he still held dear to his heart, but it was a word seldom, if ever, uttered within the confines of One. Nor would it ever cross his lips while he lived and worked there. He owed his life to Madeline and he would never betray her. Or the others he had sworn to protect.

His most senior Team Leader knocked on the door of his office. Indicating that she could join him, Davenport pointed to the seat opposite him, on the other side of what he still thought of as Michael’s desk. "Sit," he commanded.

The operative sat dutifully, observing Davenport from underneath luxurious dark brown lashes. She was a beautiful woman, well-used to the complimentary stares of appreciative men. In her mid to late twenties, she was the very picture of health, a veritable poster child for Section One recruitment. Her chestnut hair gleamed, its shoulder-length curls sitting atop the most piercing and intelligent pair of grey eyes Davenport had ever seen. Well, except for Michael, of course.

"What’s up?" the young woman asked quietly, an indefinable accent coloring her voice.

"Profile’s set, Cassidy." His dark eyes flicked over the team leader’s slender form admiringly.

"Good," she replied.

It soon became apparent there was a hidden agenda between the two, something perhaps not at all noticeable to most. Either they were speaking in a shorthand borne of long experience, working together, which was entirely possible, if not probable. Or they were communicating tersely to throw others off the scent of the other, more personal relationship between them.

Davenport hit a series of buttons on a device adjacent to his laptop, and a sequence of tones issued forth. As if by pre-arrangement, the tall, slim-hipped woman walked around to the other side of the desk. Casting an almost anxious glance at Davenport, she gently lowered herself onto his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Dav," she breathed. Right before she kissed him.

"Darlin’," he answered, pulling her even closer.

"When can we meet?"

"Right after the mission?" he asked hopefully. "If we don’t get killed, of course," he added dryly.

"Of course," she replied, just as dryly. "I like a good incentive, don’t you?"

Cassidy removed herself from Davenport’s lap just in time to escape the eyes of Section. Hillenger. Rap-rap-rapping at Davenport’s door.

Hillenger popped his head in, avidly studying the two senior field operatives. Davenport drawled, "Was there something you wanted, Greg?"

Hillenger got the oddest smile on his face, but he said nothing. He had been trying for weeks to get something on Davenport and his new Team Leader, but the couple was as crafty as Michael and Nikita when it came to eluding surveillance.

"Mission’s up in ten. Just thought you’d like to know. Be there or be square," Hillenger cracked, laughing at his own attempt at humor.

"Get out," Davenport commanded tersely.

Hillenger turned his unwelcome attentions upon Cassidy. Winking at the team leader, he quipped, "Hey, you and me, babe, under the bleachers for a little R’n’R. What do ya say?"

"Just what effect do the words ‘no freaking way’ have on you, Greggie?" Cassidy asked rhetorically, mentally gritting her teeth. She had no use for Hillenger at all.

Hillenger clutched at his chest, both hands over his heart, his face contorting like a rubber mask. "Ack, I’m wounded."

"You will be, if you don’t leave."

Hillenger made the mistake of hesitating. Bad idea. Cassidy didn’t play.

Cassidy grabbed Hillenger’s wrist in a come-along gesture that never failed to work. Twisting his arm behind his back, she shoved him up against the wall, his face slamming into concrete. "Ow, I think you broke my freaking nose."

"Maybe a broken nose would give you some character," she said, unable to resist tormenting the boy further.

Davenport came up behind her silently. Placing his hands lightly on Cassidy’s shoulders, he said, very quietly, "Let him go."

"The little worm needs to be taught a lesson," she protested.

"Maybe. But not now. And not here," he added warningly.

She nodded to Davenport, releasing Hillenger’s arm. His nose was a bit bloody, apparently from superficial abrasions, but it seemed intact. Hillenger rubbed his nose, then his arm, completely confused as to which area hurt more. He was not used to pain. Pain was something he avoided. Almost religiously.

Cassidy gave the boy a gentle push towards the door. "I’m going, I’m going." He looked at the blood on his fingertips and shrieked. "Damn! I’m gonna report you both!"

Davenport drew up his full height, which was considerable, and loomed over Hillenger, letting him know what would happen to him if he so much as talked in his sleep. "I don’t think so."

Hillenger blinked. And ran.

***

"That was dangerous, darlin’. Don’t do that again."

Cassidy studied the older man. They were not lovers. Yet. But they soon would be. She ran her hand lightly down Davenport’s well-muscled arm, feeling the telltale quiver he couldn’t control. Laughing softly, she trailed a finger over his wrist. "You want me."

"Yeah, right, me and a hundred other guys," Davenport lamented.

"But I...choose...you." She stared into his dark eyes, watching his carefully hidden sensuality unveil itself.

"Don’t play games with me, Cassidy," he declared heatedly, a soupcon of emotion creeping into his voice. He wanted her, all right. But he knew how complicated affairs could get. That was why until now, he had avoided relationships.

"I’m not," she replied, looking startled at her own answer. Cassidy was nothing if not aloof. Her skills as a field operative were already legendary, putting her in the league of people like Michael and Nikita. Her people skills, on the other hand, were notoriously lacking. Why? Because she just did not care.

Until now. She had a feeling she was embarking on a journey that might well change her life.

Davenport didn’t say anything. But he had the same damn feeling.

"C’mere," he whispered.

She glanced behind her, shutting the door the rest of the way. Leaning back against the door to prevent anyone else from intruding, she wrapped her arms around Davenport’s mighty chest.

Sliding his hands down her slender back to her hips, Davenport sighed. She felt too good. She was going to be trouble. He just knew it. This wasn’t going to be just any old affair.

He moved in, parting her lips gently with his tongue, kissing her softly at first, then more urgently. Her mouth opened under his, promising entrance to the rest of her treasure. When he broke away from her, at last, he looked just as startled as she had earlier.

"Shit." He didn’t want to fall in love.

"My sentiments exactly." Neither did she.

"We shouldn’t do this." He swallowed. Now he was seriously afraid. Cause he didn’t want to stop what was happening.

"I know." She would be no help. She couldn’t breathe for thinking about being with him.

"Maybe it’ll just be sex." He could always hope.

"Maybe." No way in Hell.