[For Lilo] Over Water

[ms_legendary]

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.

Comments

[girlsolo]

"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.

[ikipelekai]

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.

[girlsolo]

"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."

[ikipelekai]

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!"

[girlsolo]

"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.

[ikipelekai]

"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."

[girlsolo]

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?

[ikipelekai]

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.

[girlsolo]

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."

[ikipelekai]

Lilo snuggles into Kate's arms and forgets about the ghost for now. "You aren't going to trade me for a sloth, are you?"

[girlsolo]

"No." Kate's apparently turned into one of those people because she kisses Lilo's nose before she grins and says, "Maybe a horse, though."