ms_legendary | [For Lilo] Over Water

My name is Nikita. Eight years ago, I was a ex-junkie cop-killer on Death Row. As far as the world knows, I was executed September 3, 2004 by lethal injection. My death was faked by Division, a rogue unit of the U.S. government that forced me to be an assassin, and I've been a ghost ever since. Now I'm trapped on a tropical island that's part paradise, part purgatory, every day a reminder of the life I never had and the death I've been living for almost eight years. I'm lost...and it's up to me to find me.

Today, when she wakes up, it hurts too much to breathe. She was dreaming of Michael again. Terrible nightmare dreams, where Brandt closes her fingers around a trigger and makes her kill him. Softer, sweeter dreams in golden light where waking up only means warm skin and the perfect, always right scent of Michael around her. Everything in her, from head to soul aches with the knowledge of loss.

Michael's gone and she's dead without him. She's a ghost so many times over, she's as insubstantial as smoke over water. Only Jason, Annie, Cassandra, and Wolf can even see her, but her stubborn heart keeps beating. Trapped between life and death, hope and hell, the knife beneath her pillow won't let her give up.

Nikita knows, like the shark she is, she needs to keep moving or die (again), and so she swims, every day, against the current. She runs until she spills an ocean of sweat. Every day. Soon, she'll have to find a partner in this permanent paradox to spar, but today, it's enough to drag herself out of bed, into the plain black tanksuit the box finally gave her, and walk down to the beach. When she dives into the water, she goes down and stays down until she has to breathe or die. Survival instinct forces her back up, and she inhales until it hurts.

Then she swims.

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Moments later another head streaming with glossy black hair breaks the surface. The little girl who owns it looks unhappy with the company and she splashes backward out of the way with a little yell. Her dark eyes are red-rimmed and her brown face puffy with more than baby fat. She's been crying and seems willing to take out the mood on anyone who comes near.

"What are you doing here?"

The sound of a yell brings Nikita around, swift flip turn off the sand in the direction of the sound. She's prepared to save a child. She's not prepared for a tiny mirror, clearly competent in the water, and it stabs her in the already bleeding heart.

What are you doing here? Being tortured with a tropical island, house near the beach, her and him, the bronze-skinned dark-haired children they'll never have.

"The same thing you are," Nikita offers instead.

Lilo narrows her eyes, studying the lady with a critical wisdom that sits strangely on her childish features. "You're running away too?" She's intrigued so she swims closer. "How come?"

Lilo's running away from Kate who is mean and doesn't want her to have any fun at all and isn't really her family. She really misses her ohana today and that's why she ran away after her fight with Kate.

"Maybe not running away," Nikita concedes, not willing to lie to a child when there's no need. "Running in place. There's nowhere to go, but this isn't where I want to be."

She gives the little girl a gentle smile that's kind and soft around the edges. "Why are you running away?" Her eyes are angry, not scared, and she's not hurt from how strongly she's swimming, but Nikita wants to be sure.

"Because Kate is mean and she doesn't let me do anything or go anywhere and she promised that we could paint the new walls but we still haven't." It all comes out in a rush and ends on a wail as Lilo remembers all over again how unfair everything is. Her hands hit the water hard and it splashes up around her.

She sniffles. "So I don't want to be here either. I want to go home and see my ohana."

Nikita ducks her head a little to stifle a laugh at the outburst. While she's sure to the girl that it all seems horrible and terribly unfair, it sounds pretty standard to Nikita. It's possible this Kate is really mean, but there's something in how she strings the words together that makes the last part seem like the real problem.

"Ohana." Nikita listens to the word when she repeats and then smiles, thoughtful. "That's the Hawaiian word for family, isn't it?" She's not ignoring the sniffles, or the more important fact this little girl is apparently alone, she's just taking her lead on what's important. "What's your name?"

"I'm Lilo. I'm from Hawaii. Like ohana." Lilo studies the woman for another few seconds then asks with some skepticism and some hope. "Are you from Hawaii too?"

"Hello, Lilo." Nikita's smile and voice are warm, but she can't help wishing Michael were here (again). He'd know better how to talk to her, this little girl from Hawaii. Hayley would be too old now to be Lilo's friend, but Max is only a few years younger. Hayley might have babysit the two of them for money to buy shave ice and cell phone minutes.

"I'm not from Hawaii but someone I love very much always wanted to be."

"Oh." Lilo gets pushed back by a wave and has to paddle closer to the lady again. "Where are you from?"

It's such a simple question, and Nikita should have an answer. What she has is a hole in her chest where her heart should be and an underground black ops compound where other people have an address, a city, somewhere that's called 'home'.

"Nowhere," Nikita says quietly, and reaches out a hand across the water to Lilo, an anchor to stabilize her if she wants to stay. "I move around a lot."

Lilo grips the lady's hand without fear and pulls herself in even closer so she can hold onto her arm instead. She doesn't think that the lady's answer makes much sense. Everyone has a home. "What about your ohana? Where are they? That's where home is."

Michael. The pain's fast and sharp, unusually intense for dark eyes peering up at her, unafraid and curious and sure of herself the way smart kids always are. Nikita leans back into the water and swims them a little closer toward the shore where she can put her feet down, because she can't find breath to answer.

"I don't know," when her lungs unlock seems like the safest and the truest bet. "He was with me when I came here, but he didn't." Neither did Birkhoff or Ryan or Owen or Sean. And Alex doesn't know her anymore. "But they--" Not he now, not just Michael. "Moved around a lot too."

The lady is sad and Lilo squeezes her hand reassuringly, the way her dance teacher did sometimes when she was having a bad day. "Kate says that people come here. When you're here, your ohana comes too. But not right away. Later." How much later, Lilo isn't sure. That's why she's been waiting with Kate.

Until Kate was mean.

"Kate sounds like a smart person." Nikita can't look too closely at the possibility that any of them could come. Lilo makes it even less likely that this place is Division- or Gogol-run, doesn't tip the scales either way on this being Amanda's private playground for the canceled or disappeared. Whatever this place is, she doesn't want them here.

Except she does, so desperately, even the tiniest scrap of hope is like staring at the sun. She's stretching again, thinning out into mist, caught between hope of finding a way out and hope of seeing them again even if she doesn't.

"I hope she's right," Nikita finally says and squeezes Lilo's fingers back. "I bet she's worried about you." It's a sensible thing, a practical thing. "If she cares enough to tell you not to give up hope on your ohana."

"Nuh uh," Lilo is quick to retort. "She hates me. She wishes I was a rabbit or a sloth because they're quieter." But then Lilo's lip wobbles, because it reminds her of Nani and she misses Nani so much sometimes that it hurts all the way up to her eyes. "Ohana means nobody gets left behind or forgotten. But they forgot me!"

"Lilo..." Nikita's heart goes out to this little girl, ripped from her home and stuck - what? in the foster system? this whole island is one. She can only hope that Kate is nothing like her foster parents.

She has no maternal instincts. She told Michael she couldn't possibly be a mother. But Lilo's dark brown eyes and golden skin, sleek dark hair... She draws her close and up into her arms.

"They didn't forget you, little one. I'm sure of it." And if Kate would prefer a sloth or a rabbit, then Nikita will make sure she's left with one.

The warm water slips around her as she's pulled into a warmer yet embrace. She curls into it automatically, her small chubby arms going around the lady's neck. "I miss my home. And I try to be patient and good but what if they don't come for me? And what if Kate decides that she really does want a sloth instead of a little girl?"

$ms_legendary: artsy broken (fractured and fragmented)$

Lilo never seems to question for a moment that Nikita means well, that she won't hurt her, that holding onto her like this is safe, and Nikita wants to yell at her, to scare her. It's so dangerous, so terribly dangerous for anyone to think she has an interest in this child.

But she's so alone and even tiny arms still pudgy with baby fat wrapped around her are a comfort. She hugs Lilo back, swallows back the threat of tears, and tells her, "If Kate won't take care of you--"

Abruptly they're interrupted by a furiously barking still puppyish Irish Setter who has burst onto the beach and is dashing into the water. Nikita's grateful for the distraction, grateful for the chance to find a safer way to help this little girl than loving her herself.

"Bonny!" Lilo exclaims, brightening up immediately. She flops out of the lady's grip and back into the water with a splash then starts swimming for the shore. "Come on, come on. You have to meet Bonny!"

The puppy meets her halfway and dog and child reunite with a wet hug and slobbering kisses. Lilo turns and waves at the lady. "Come here! Bonny, this is my friend!" Then her eyes widen and she lowers her voice to a loud whisper. "What's your name?"

While Lilo is swimming for the dog, a woman breaks from the tree cover onto the beach. She's shouting, but over the splashing and barking and slobbering, there's nothing to hear.

The dog, Bonny, stops barking and pawing at Lilo to growl and snap at her as she comes closer. The woman's eyes accuse as she runs down the beach, kicking off her shoes without breaking stride. She's strong and fierce and dangerous, but the fury in her eyes is aimed at Nikita.

"Forget about me, Lilo. I'm a ghost," she says and starts to swim away. "Go back to Kate."

"Wait!" Lilo shouts but then the lady is gone and Kate's splashing into the water after Lilo and Lilo's sure she's about to be in big trouble.

"Lilo!" It's stupid to yell when she can see Lilo's right there. Fine. But her heart's pounding a hundred miles a minute and it has been since she came out of her room to find Lilo missing.

At first, she thinks the woman holding her might be Nani but there's no time to figure out how she feels before the woman swims away, sinking below the surface to disappear. Later, Kate's going to find her and rip her a new one, but first...

She grabs Lilo into her arms and hugs her hard. "Don't you ever do that again. Ever." Kate can't think of a time - even when Will was turning into a Psillobar - that she's been so scared.

Lilo squirms in Kate's arms, trying to keep looking for the ghost lady. "I didn't do anything! Stop it!" But secretly it feels good that Kate came looking for her and picked her up and hugged her. It feels like Nani, when she scolds her for scaring her because she's worried and she loves her.

"Yeah you did," Kate tells her, voice shaking and arms tightening around her. "You left without telling me. You didn't take Bonny. You didn't get a grownup to go with you. You went swimming alone. That's four rules you broke."

Right now, Kate couldn't give a fuck about the rules. Just Lilo. "You scared me. What if something happened to you? I'm supposed to take care of you. And you could've..." Her eyes sting, voice hitches, she couldn't give a fuck her jeans are soaked and crawling up her ass. She tucks her head down over Lilo's, braving those swinging arms and legs just to hold her. "Stop it, Lilo. Come on."

Lilo struggles for another moment and then turns on a dime and clings to Kate instead. "I'm sorry!" she wails, upset because Kate's upset and she doesn't want her to be upset anymore. "But I wasn't alone! There was a ghost!"

"You should be sorry," Kate snaps but it dissolves into some kind of soothing it's okay, it's okay nonsense that Kate's not even sure when she learned how to do. Maybe with Thad, maybe with Lilo, but it doesn't matter. The kid's stopped fighting and Kate hauls them both out of the water, hugging her like she's never letting go.

They're up on the beach when Kate finally latches on to what Lilo's saying. "Wait. What do you mean, a ghost? Was it someone you know?" Because if the island's fucking with Lilo like it is with Savannah, Kate's going to cut a bitch.

"No." She draws out the word. "She was pretty. Black hair, like me and you." Lilo reaches out and pats Kate's hair. "I never met her before. She knew ohana though."

Pretty. Black hair. The woman Kate saw swimming away. She hasn't seen Scott yet, so probably not a hallucination. Not Lilo's anyway. "Did you talk to her? What did she say?" Maybe she's Kate's hallucination, but that doesn't even make sense. Kate thought she was...

Nani. Oh Jesus. Kate's scared someone's going to take the kid away?

Lilo shrugs. "I dunno. She wants to go home and she misses her family. I told her that maybe her ohana would come here too." She also complained about Kate, but Lilo thinks that probably she shouldn't remind Kate about that.

Huh. Okay. Probably not Kate's fear either. Which doesn't help as much as it should, since her heart is slamming in her ears still and she hasn't put Lilo down yet. She decides, abruptly, that she doesn't give a fuck about the ghost.

"That was nice. Telling her that. Even if I'm still mad because you ran away, you're a good kid." Kate presses her cheek against the top of Lilo's head. "Don't do that again, Lilo. Please. You really scared me."