(LFN) Some Things You Lose (and Some Things You Just Give Away) (5/20)
Please see the Some Things You Lose (and Some Things You Just Give Away) Chapter Guide for story details including summary, warnings, disclaimers, etc.
Part Four: I Was Heading Into Danger, I Was Climbing Up the Walls
Some Things You Lose
(and Some Things You Just Give Away)
Part Five: My Dear, There's Been a Change of Plans
The next morning, the guards drop off new clothes with her breakfast. They're not her clothes, of course-her clothes were probably absorbed by The Closet years ago and used to outfit operatives for one mission or another, and they'd hardly have fit this body anyway. The new clothes aren't the sorts of things she'd pick for herself, but they're precisely what a young operative from Two would wear, and besides, they're better than traipsing around Section dressed in little more than pajamas. She changes without argument, picks at a piece of toast, and waits impatiently for the arrival of her briefing.
Once it arrives, the details don't take long to memorize. They're calling her Marie, which seems unoriginal enough to be believable, and despite her attempts to persuade Nikita otherwise, she's listed as a Level One. Her background has been left largely up to her, and she doesn't bother to fabricate one just yet; she'll shape Marie into whoever she needs to be as necessity dictates. Very little is included about the changes that have taken place within Section, but she'd expected that; it'll be easier to play the part of someone new if she doesn't recognize every face, after all. She peruses the file on the operatives listed as Marie's former department heads, and is just finished committing all of her access codes to memory when the door opens and Nikita appears.
They walk toward Comm in silence, Madeline using her cover to her advantage; she's never met an operative from Two that wasn't in a mild state of awe the first time they walked into Section One, and she takes the opportunity to look at everything at once, noting what areas have been moved or changed or restaffed.
She's surprised, she'll admit, at seeing Walter. He's been ever-present in Munitions for as long as she can remember, but she'd have expected Nikita to have sent him off to Retirement by now; he'd never made any secret of his desire to go back. Perhaps the shift in leadership changed his mind, she reasons. Still, a familiar face is not unwelcome right now, and she offers him a nod and a faint smile when he looks her way. He only stares back at her.
Interesting.
He knows, then. He must. She's never seen Walter greet any young, pretty operative with anything less than his usual grin. Her own smile twists into a smirk, and he frowns and looks away.
A quick scan of Comm shows that a lot has changed, but some things are still the same. There are quite a few faces she recognizes, and Birkoff's at a station at the far end of the Comm area, leaning over someone's desk. At least he's still here; Birkoff could always be counted on to do what was best for Section, if only because what was best for Section usually ended up being best for him, too. Oh, there'd been a few exceptions, but given time and the right opportunity….
And then he stands up, and she nearly stops short. She's known Birkoff nearly his entire life, and she'd be willing to bet that the man standing in Comm isn't Birkoff at all. Even if he weren't missing the glasses that he's always worn, he moves with a different sort of confidence-relaxed, in a way, unlike Birkoff's usual fast-paced, controlled certainty in an area that had been more home to him than his quarters-and smiles down at the operative he's talking to with an entirely different smile.
What in hell is Jason Crawford doing in her Section?
She doesn't have to wonder for long; when Nikita follows her line of sight, her eyes widen and she detours past Comm entirely, ducking into a hallway.
"That's not Birkoff," she says in a hushed tone.
"I'd noticed," Madeline replies, glancing back in the direction of Comm, to where Jason and another operative, some woman Madeline's never met before, are staring in her direction. "If Jason is here, then where is Birkoff?"
Nikita's frown wavers a bit, a hint of sadness in her voice as she answers, "He died a few months before you did." At Madeline's silent stare, she continues, "There was a problem with an AI program he was building. It tried to destroy Section. He managed to stop it, but was killed in the process."
Madeline's spent a lifetime perfecting a calm, placid expression in the face of complete disasters, and so appearing entirely unconcerned at this information isn't difficult. That doesn't make it any easier to hear. While she'd half-expected Paul to have died in the years she'd been away, she'd rarely entertained even the possibility of something happening to Birkoff. She'd known him since he was only a child, after all; he'd been as much of a permanent fixture in Comm as Walter was in Munitions, and his position had hardly been a dangerous one.
A wave of uncharacteristic, but genuine, sorrow washes over her, and she pushes it aside, her only outward reaction a curt nod and a, "Fine. Shall we?" as she turns back toward Comm.
She chooses to ignore Nikita's muttered, "You really don't care if any of us live or die, do you?" entirely.
When they approach Comm, Jason catches Nikita's eye and heads their way, offered Madeline a nod in greeting.
"Jason, this is Marie. She's-"
"Right, right, from Section Two. You're picking up some of the profiling, right?" he asks, extending his hand toward her. She shakes it, studying his expression the entire time. There's a hint of something in his eyes-wariness, maybe-that makes her think that he knows exactly who she really is, but she can't be certain. Not yet. But then, there'll be time for figuring that out later.
"You'll be working over here," Jason continues, pointing to a station nearby. "If you need anything, I'm usually around, or Quinn-she's always here too." He points to a woman sitting to his left, who nods distractedly in their direction before returning her attention to her computer, her fingers flying over the keys.
Madeline settles herself at the new station, painfully aware of the guard stationed at the far end of Comm, pretending to work, his eyes following her every move. Nikita watches her for a moment, then walks away. Jason and Quinn continue with their work, and feeling slightly disconcerted, Madeline turns to her own computer, the first inklings of doubt starting to set in.
In her original body, she incited compliance through fear. Her reputation, coupled with the common knowledge of her virtually unchecked power over life and death, had allowed her to bend things to her advantage time and again. But she didn’t get to that place by herself, and she knows that better than anyone.
Madeline’s strengths lie in her ability to read and manipulate the people around her; to piece together plans out of nothing and make them succeed; to do whatever is required, no matter how terrible, to receive the necessary end result. And of course, she has many strengths even beyond those… but one does not take over an organization like Section One through fear. To do that, one needs loyal supporters and backers, and inspiring long-term loyalty has never been Madeline's strong point. It was Paul’s. That was largely why they'd made such an effective team.
Now, under constant observation and with everyone around her either believing her to be little more than a child or, worse, remembering her for only the things they despised about her, her opportunities are limited at best. For the first time, she begins to worry that the goal she’s set for herself may not be attainable at all.
What she needs, she reasons, is a figurehead. Taking power for herself won't work; it never has. Pushing someone else into power, though-the right ally, someone who will speed her rise to the top along with their own, and enable her to gain the access and clearance to make the sort of decisions that will result in a resurrected, if different-bodied, Paul and a return to the way things were when Section was at its best-that she can do.
Of course, that first requires an ally-one that she won't mind pushing aside later.
Relaxing back into her seat, she begins work on the latest profile. She won’t draw attention to herself. She’ll avoid notice as much as she can-eventually the guards will grow lax in their duties, if she never does anything remotely interesting or suspicious.
And she’ll watch. Watch everyone, everything. Section wouldn’t be Section if there weren’t some young, ambitious operatives somewhere attempting to manipulate their way into power. All she has to do now, she decides, is find them.
~
Finding them ends up being easier planned than actually done. She's rarely allowed anywhere other than her cell and Comm, and even when at her work station, Jason (who, as it turns out, doesn't have any clue who she is) and Quinn (who, conversely, does), are seemingly always nearby. The guards hover in the background constantly, and Walter's eyes follow her any time she so much as moves from her desk. Madeline nearly begins to wonder if she's perhaps more dangerous than even she'd realized, what with all the attention she's garnering.
Still, she's nothing if not subtle, and she watches the goings-on around her surreptitiously, waiting for the right moment to act and the right person to approach. Everything, really, hinges on that; nothing will be accomplished if there's no one there to enact the plan.
Five weeks pass by in monotony, and she's seriously considering other plans entirely (when she's being logical, the plans involve attempting to take over Section herself despite her misgivings; when she's frustrated enough to allow herself a brief moment of entirely pointless fantasy, they generally involve shooting Nikita between the eyes and dealing with the consequences later), when one day she glances up at the Perch and sees him.
She's not sure who he is; she's never met him before, or even seen him walking through Section. He's young but not too young-close to Nikita's age, actually, if Madeline had to guess-and handsome, in a way, which will only work to her advantage if he turns out to be a suitable candidate for her plans. And most importantly, he doesn't seem to have an issue with standing up to those in power; he's leaning over the desk Nikita has moved into the Perch, yelling about something.
Barely keeping up the pretense of doing her work, Madeline watches him curiously. He seems almost too comfortable arguing with the acting Operations, and she is close to giving up the idea entirely, almost certain that he's not a Section operative, but rather someone from Oversight or Center… and then he storms away from the desk, walks to the far side of the room, and turns and retraces his steps, his hands shoved in his pockets, frustration etched onto his face.
For just a second, Madeline's breath catches in her throat.
It can't be, she insists to herself quickly because the last thing she needs is to begin crafting plans based on unconfirmed intel, but still…
The man paces back across the office, his expression changing from frustration to impatience, and the tense set of his jaw, the way he stands… it's all so familiar that she almost laughs out loud.
He throws up his hands in exasperation a moment later, stalking out of the office and down the steps. Madeline watches over the top of her monitor as two men follow him at a distance-of course, because simply slipping past her own guards would be too easy.
As he passes by Comm, she catches his eye, and almost without thinking, she raises her hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, tapping out a short pattern against the side of her head with her fingers. If it's him, she reasons, he'll recognize it; once upon a time, when surveillance equipment seemed to be developing faster than the ways to override or circumvent it, just such a signal had been used on more than a few missions. Then, it had meant, 'We're being watched,' or, on a few occasions, 'It's about time you showed up.’
No one else seems to notice-none of them would even know what to look for, except perhaps Walter-but the man from the Perch slows for a second, his eyes widening before his expression reverts back to its prior anger. He keeps walking, but as he turns the corner, he twitches his hand just so, and she forces back a grin. The returning signal is one she knows well-usually meant for saying, 'I understand,' , but often simply used to mean, 'I got here before they killed you, didn't I?' She doesn't quite know which usage is intended right now, but she supposes either will fit the current situation, and it doesn't really matter anyway. After all, the importance isn't in the message, but that the signal was returned in the first place.
It seems, she thinks with a satisfied smirk, turning back to her monitor, that I won't need to work resurrecting Paul into my plans after all….
Part Six: Paint a Heart Repeating, Beating, Don't Give Up
Author's Note: Comparison pic for Madeline and Paul originals and mind-clones can be found here, if you're the sort that likes to have a face to put to the name. (If you'd prefer to dream up your own mind-clone faces, feel free to not click). I'm lame; I totally spent more time finding, cropping, and editing pictures than writing this chapter. Also, this chapter ended up twice as long as any of the others, but I'm giving up on keeping these things under 1500 words or we'll be here for a year...
Part Four: I Was Heading Into Danger, I Was Climbing Up the Walls
Some Things You Lose
(and Some Things You Just Give Away)
Part Five: My Dear, There's Been a Change of Plans
The next morning, the guards drop off new clothes with her breakfast. They're not her clothes, of course-her clothes were probably absorbed by The Closet years ago and used to outfit operatives for one mission or another, and they'd hardly have fit this body anyway. The new clothes aren't the sorts of things she'd pick for herself, but they're precisely what a young operative from Two would wear, and besides, they're better than traipsing around Section dressed in little more than pajamas. She changes without argument, picks at a piece of toast, and waits impatiently for the arrival of her briefing.
Once it arrives, the details don't take long to memorize. They're calling her Marie, which seems unoriginal enough to be believable, and despite her attempts to persuade Nikita otherwise, she's listed as a Level One. Her background has been left largely up to her, and she doesn't bother to fabricate one just yet; she'll shape Marie into whoever she needs to be as necessity dictates. Very little is included about the changes that have taken place within Section, but she'd expected that; it'll be easier to play the part of someone new if she doesn't recognize every face, after all. She peruses the file on the operatives listed as Marie's former department heads, and is just finished committing all of her access codes to memory when the door opens and Nikita appears.
They walk toward Comm in silence, Madeline using her cover to her advantage; she's never met an operative from Two that wasn't in a mild state of awe the first time they walked into Section One, and she takes the opportunity to look at everything at once, noting what areas have been moved or changed or restaffed.
She's surprised, she'll admit, at seeing Walter. He's been ever-present in Munitions for as long as she can remember, but she'd have expected Nikita to have sent him off to Retirement by now; he'd never made any secret of his desire to go back. Perhaps the shift in leadership changed his mind, she reasons. Still, a familiar face is not unwelcome right now, and she offers him a nod and a faint smile when he looks her way. He only stares back at her.
Interesting.
He knows, then. He must. She's never seen Walter greet any young, pretty operative with anything less than his usual grin. Her own smile twists into a smirk, and he frowns and looks away.
A quick scan of Comm shows that a lot has changed, but some things are still the same. There are quite a few faces she recognizes, and Birkoff's at a station at the far end of the Comm area, leaning over someone's desk. At least he's still here; Birkoff could always be counted on to do what was best for Section, if only because what was best for Section usually ended up being best for him, too. Oh, there'd been a few exceptions, but given time and the right opportunity….
And then he stands up, and she nearly stops short. She's known Birkoff nearly his entire life, and she'd be willing to bet that the man standing in Comm isn't Birkoff at all. Even if he weren't missing the glasses that he's always worn, he moves with a different sort of confidence-relaxed, in a way, unlike Birkoff's usual fast-paced, controlled certainty in an area that had been more home to him than his quarters-and smiles down at the operative he's talking to with an entirely different smile.
What in hell is Jason Crawford doing in her Section?
She doesn't have to wonder for long; when Nikita follows her line of sight, her eyes widen and she detours past Comm entirely, ducking into a hallway.
"That's not Birkoff," she says in a hushed tone.
"I'd noticed," Madeline replies, glancing back in the direction of Comm, to where Jason and another operative, some woman Madeline's never met before, are staring in her direction. "If Jason is here, then where is Birkoff?"
Nikita's frown wavers a bit, a hint of sadness in her voice as she answers, "He died a few months before you did." At Madeline's silent stare, she continues, "There was a problem with an AI program he was building. It tried to destroy Section. He managed to stop it, but was killed in the process."
Madeline's spent a lifetime perfecting a calm, placid expression in the face of complete disasters, and so appearing entirely unconcerned at this information isn't difficult. That doesn't make it any easier to hear. While she'd half-expected Paul to have died in the years she'd been away, she'd rarely entertained even the possibility of something happening to Birkoff. She'd known him since he was only a child, after all; he'd been as much of a permanent fixture in Comm as Walter was in Munitions, and his position had hardly been a dangerous one.
A wave of uncharacteristic, but genuine, sorrow washes over her, and she pushes it aside, her only outward reaction a curt nod and a, "Fine. Shall we?" as she turns back toward Comm.
She chooses to ignore Nikita's muttered, "You really don't care if any of us live or die, do you?" entirely.
When they approach Comm, Jason catches Nikita's eye and heads their way, offered Madeline a nod in greeting.
"Jason, this is Marie. She's-"
"Right, right, from Section Two. You're picking up some of the profiling, right?" he asks, extending his hand toward her. She shakes it, studying his expression the entire time. There's a hint of something in his eyes-wariness, maybe-that makes her think that he knows exactly who she really is, but she can't be certain. Not yet. But then, there'll be time for figuring that out later.
"You'll be working over here," Jason continues, pointing to a station nearby. "If you need anything, I'm usually around, or Quinn-she's always here too." He points to a woman sitting to his left, who nods distractedly in their direction before returning her attention to her computer, her fingers flying over the keys.
Madeline settles herself at the new station, painfully aware of the guard stationed at the far end of Comm, pretending to work, his eyes following her every move. Nikita watches her for a moment, then walks away. Jason and Quinn continue with their work, and feeling slightly disconcerted, Madeline turns to her own computer, the first inklings of doubt starting to set in.
In her original body, she incited compliance through fear. Her reputation, coupled with the common knowledge of her virtually unchecked power over life and death, had allowed her to bend things to her advantage time and again. But she didn’t get to that place by herself, and she knows that better than anyone.
Madeline’s strengths lie in her ability to read and manipulate the people around her; to piece together plans out of nothing and make them succeed; to do whatever is required, no matter how terrible, to receive the necessary end result. And of course, she has many strengths even beyond those… but one does not take over an organization like Section One through fear. To do that, one needs loyal supporters and backers, and inspiring long-term loyalty has never been Madeline's strong point. It was Paul’s. That was largely why they'd made such an effective team.
Now, under constant observation and with everyone around her either believing her to be little more than a child or, worse, remembering her for only the things they despised about her, her opportunities are limited at best. For the first time, she begins to worry that the goal she’s set for herself may not be attainable at all.
What she needs, she reasons, is a figurehead. Taking power for herself won't work; it never has. Pushing someone else into power, though-the right ally, someone who will speed her rise to the top along with their own, and enable her to gain the access and clearance to make the sort of decisions that will result in a resurrected, if different-bodied, Paul and a return to the way things were when Section was at its best-that she can do.
Of course, that first requires an ally-one that she won't mind pushing aside later.
Relaxing back into her seat, she begins work on the latest profile. She won’t draw attention to herself. She’ll avoid notice as much as she can-eventually the guards will grow lax in their duties, if she never does anything remotely interesting or suspicious.
And she’ll watch. Watch everyone, everything. Section wouldn’t be Section if there weren’t some young, ambitious operatives somewhere attempting to manipulate their way into power. All she has to do now, she decides, is find them.
~
Finding them ends up being easier planned than actually done. She's rarely allowed anywhere other than her cell and Comm, and even when at her work station, Jason (who, as it turns out, doesn't have any clue who she is) and Quinn (who, conversely, does), are seemingly always nearby. The guards hover in the background constantly, and Walter's eyes follow her any time she so much as moves from her desk. Madeline nearly begins to wonder if she's perhaps more dangerous than even she'd realized, what with all the attention she's garnering.
Still, she's nothing if not subtle, and she watches the goings-on around her surreptitiously, waiting for the right moment to act and the right person to approach. Everything, really, hinges on that; nothing will be accomplished if there's no one there to enact the plan.
Five weeks pass by in monotony, and she's seriously considering other plans entirely (when she's being logical, the plans involve attempting to take over Section herself despite her misgivings; when she's frustrated enough to allow herself a brief moment of entirely pointless fantasy, they generally involve shooting Nikita between the eyes and dealing with the consequences later), when one day she glances up at the Perch and sees him.
She's not sure who he is; she's never met him before, or even seen him walking through Section. He's young but not too young-close to Nikita's age, actually, if Madeline had to guess-and handsome, in a way, which will only work to her advantage if he turns out to be a suitable candidate for her plans. And most importantly, he doesn't seem to have an issue with standing up to those in power; he's leaning over the desk Nikita has moved into the Perch, yelling about something.
Barely keeping up the pretense of doing her work, Madeline watches him curiously. He seems almost too comfortable arguing with the acting Operations, and she is close to giving up the idea entirely, almost certain that he's not a Section operative, but rather someone from Oversight or Center… and then he storms away from the desk, walks to the far side of the room, and turns and retraces his steps, his hands shoved in his pockets, frustration etched onto his face.
For just a second, Madeline's breath catches in her throat.
It can't be, she insists to herself quickly because the last thing she needs is to begin crafting plans based on unconfirmed intel, but still…
The man paces back across the office, his expression changing from frustration to impatience, and the tense set of his jaw, the way he stands… it's all so familiar that she almost laughs out loud.
He throws up his hands in exasperation a moment later, stalking out of the office and down the steps. Madeline watches over the top of her monitor as two men follow him at a distance-of course, because simply slipping past her own guards would be too easy.
As he passes by Comm, she catches his eye, and almost without thinking, she raises her hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, tapping out a short pattern against the side of her head with her fingers. If it's him, she reasons, he'll recognize it; once upon a time, when surveillance equipment seemed to be developing faster than the ways to override or circumvent it, just such a signal had been used on more than a few missions. Then, it had meant, 'We're being watched,' or, on a few occasions, 'It's about time you showed up.’
No one else seems to notice-none of them would even know what to look for, except perhaps Walter-but the man from the Perch slows for a second, his eyes widening before his expression reverts back to its prior anger. He keeps walking, but as he turns the corner, he twitches his hand just so, and she forces back a grin. The returning signal is one she knows well-usually meant for saying, 'I understand,' , but often simply used to mean, 'I got here before they killed you, didn't I?' She doesn't quite know which usage is intended right now, but she supposes either will fit the current situation, and it doesn't really matter anyway. After all, the importance isn't in the message, but that the signal was returned in the first place.
It seems, she thinks with a satisfied smirk, turning back to her monitor, that I won't need to work resurrecting Paul into my plans after all….
Part Six: Paint a Heart Repeating, Beating, Don't Give Up
Author's Note: Comparison pic for Madeline and Paul originals and mind-clones can be found here, if you're the sort that likes to have a face to put to the name. (If you'd prefer to dream up your own mind-clone faces, feel free to not click). I'm lame; I totally spent more time finding, cropping, and editing pictures than writing this chapter. Also, this chapter ended up twice as long as any of the others, but I'm giving up on keeping these things under 1500 words or we'll be here for a year...