Disclaimer: Uh...USA? WB? Joel Surnow? Definitely not me.
Summary: I write, perhaps, one LFN fic a year and this is this year's offering. I think it is safe to say that's it falls into 'Weird' even for ME, lol. The future of Section as seen through the eyes of those who loved and hated it best.
There are ghosts in the Tower.
She hears them whisper behind the doors and she leaves them to their private moments...the clinking of wine glasses, the faded echo of Ravel's "Bolero", the stop-rustle of silk sheets.
She had the area sealed off. No one else has clearance to even press their cheek against the wall and absorb the memory of people and hypocrisy-love and crackling betrayals long gone.
And, of course, the spirits don't while away *all* their hours in romantic seclusion.
Sometimes, one walks with her along the grooves he wore into the floor of the observation deck years ago...the Perch, people on the floor still call it. Although, she is far from bird of prey...from the sharp-eyed hawk her predecessor was.
Sometimes, she feels the muddy weight of a hand on her shoulder...or the speculative admiration of another's crystal eyes on her face.
They approve.
She knows that.
What she had never quite achieved in her youth, in the past, when they breathed and lived and loved and spat...she has conquered now.
Power is hers.
And so is freedom.
***
He plays poker with Paul once a week.
The Level Ones give his station wide berth on those days...throw furtive glances in his direction and he snaps "I'm old, not blind!" as he slides a few chips across the empty workbench with his arthritic fingers.
He's old, not blind. Not delusional.
Paul always laughs when he mutters that, dark cerulean humor glinting in his eyes. "Are you sure, Walter?"
"Fuck you," he says, cheerfully, slapping down a Royal Flush.
Madeline doesn't walk. She glides. And her scowl of disapproval is crisp and loud as she waits for the game to be over and his language to improve.
She'll be waiting a long time.
He knows that.
What he denied, in his misspent, wisecrack-violent, youth is clear and technicolor and obvious to him...he has accepted the inevitable now.
His soul will always belong to Section.
The Five Percent Club holds meetings between the walls and in the crawl spaces after death.
And they're waiting for him.
***
When the halls are empty at 0100 hours, the essences of canceled Section agents come out to dance.
They nod, politely, at each other...bow to their partner, bow to their corner ...and then spin around the floor like dervishes...touching screens and leaving fingerprints that will puzzle Jason in the morning...giving Quinn's seat a whirl and sending it crashing into a row of micro-computers.
They do not venture near the Tower. It is off limits to them as well ...sacred ground that houses those who once decided their collective Fate. But they do play tag in the White Room and inhale the invisible stains of their own dried blood.
Nikita simply smiles at them. Waves. And shuts off the lights.
Soon...very soon...Section One will belong only to the dead.
They know that.
What they were never given, never allowed, when rules were stringent and secrecy was broken-key and humanity mattered last, is almost within their fragile grasp...they have earned their place now.
Section is theirs.
And life belongs to the living.
--end--