I do not like writing about myself.

Something about leaving a paper trail makes me nervous. With the life I have led, it should.

But after several sessions, informal ones of course, Madeline is convinced that I must do this to move on after the death of my son.

Maybe she is right, I’m not sure. All I know is that I’m willing to try it, try anything to get over Steven’s death, at least as much as a parent can get over the death of a child.

After these words are finished, I will burn this journal. Then, after it is finished burning, I will gather the journal’s ashes together from the fireplace and burn them again. The paper is not what is important. It is me getting all these thoughts and memories and feelings out, reviewing them, assessing their place in my life, deciding what is important and what should be let go, and then moving on.

I do not like to think about how I am getting along in years. Most of the time I don’t even allow myself to think on it. I learned long ago that concentrating on what you cannot change is a waste of energy, energy that should be directed to where it can do some good. If nothing else, though, I need to consider it for the continued working of Section’s operational status. If something happens to me, Section still needs to go on.

As I start thinking about my mortality, thoughts other then operational status come to me. About my choices, about what life has given me, and what I have made with that life.

Now that my son is dead, I have no one to come after me. My memory can not be saved because of the kind of man my son was. When people think of me, only my accomplishments will be considered.

Do I regret how I became head of Section? I promised myself long ago that if I survived that POW camp, I would never, not for one moment, regret anything that I did in my life following it. I would celebrate every second I received from that moment on.

That was the main reason I decided to become involved with Section, those early days of its infancy. It was to celebrate my living. It was to reaffirm that I was still alive because of something important ahead, something only I could do.

I gave up my son for that reaffirmation. Was it worth it?

I believe, as I have always believed, in the importance of Section 1. Nikita would never be convinced if I admitted this aloud, but even I do not like everything that we have to do here. To beat our enemies, we have to almost become them, think like them, treat each other in such a way that we always stay prepared. Adrian only understood that up to a certain point, after which she failed. I had to take over, or Section would have crumbled.

Section is one of the few hopes left for this world. Any evils we commit pale before the evils we prevent, and whatever bending of rules we do here to ensure the safety of the world should not be condemned. I almost believe that they instead should be celebrated. Without these minor points of difference, Section would be as helpless as any other agency, and this world would have gone to hell by now.

I am here to ensure that utter chaos never happens, and whatever means it takes to accomplish that objective, I willingly do.

No, by no means do I regret choosing Section. If I do have any regrets, it is that I was never able to bring Steven in, maybe making him my successor. I thought long and hard over varied ideas, but I never was able to come up with a viable solution. Then, after Steven became the terrorist he was in these last few years, I knew I had lost that chance forever. The most I could hope to do then was protect him at a distance, and make sure that his connection to me was never known.

As much as Steven’s death hurts me, I still am in command of Section, and my life must now be dedicated to entirely to the good of Section. Even as much as I would have like Steven to be my heir, I still have an almost son to take over my position: Michael.

He was always exceptional, from the first moment. Madeline also saw his potential right from the start, and in her own way also started grooming him from day one.

Madeline understands the needs of Section as almost no other person here does. Yes, she will have her position, and she has more than earned it, but she also knows that nothing is forever, and she must prepare the next generation to take over for her.

My Madeline. That is how I will always think of her, no matter what happens. I do believe her, agree with her, that things truly never can be again what they were. In some ways, I would not want them to be. Love and duty do not go together well. A house divided cannot stand, and in the world we inhabit, anything that takes our attention away from the mission makes us useless.

That does not change my heart towards her.

Michael would understand that. Michael is in so similar a position at this moment. Madeline would never believe me if I told her, but I understand Michael very well indeed. Even better than she knows him in some ways. She and Michael are very much alike, layers and layers of strategy going on behind an impenetrable mask. It is because of that similarity, though, that she does not know him as well as she imagines, and I know him better than she thinks.

In some things, although they do not like the thought, both are very easy to read.

Michael is the type of man who loves deeply, but he can truly love only once. I have always known this about him. That is why I bent the rules and permitted the marriage to Simone, thoroughly confusing Madeline in the process. She thought that it would kill Michael if he ever lost Simone, but I knew better.

Did Michael love Simone? Yes, he did love her. What Madeline did not realize at the time, what she does not realize even now, was that Michael’s love was not for Simone herself, but for what Simone represented. Freedom, caring, companionship. Simply put, Michael needed to love someone, or he would have never have made it through those beginning years, and Simone was the one he chose.

He did love her, but not enough that it would kill him to lose her. All losing her would do would be to make him more efficient. So I let them marry, I caused rifts in the relationship by the Vachek mission; I let them drift apart somewhat. Then I let her be taken hostage. Letting him think she was dead.

My plan would have worked perfectly. Michael had become the perfect operative. He would have become the perfect successor to me. Then Nikita appeared, and all my plans have, if not been quite ruined, taken unexpected courses.

Nikita. I should have cancelled her when the training period was up. Every instinct told me to do it, and yet I did not.

I did not stop her cancellation because of Michael’s advice, or Madeline’s, or Birkoff’s or Walter’s or any other of her many fans in section. I did not cancel her because a part of me that lives beyond my survival instincts told me not to.

My problem was, my problem still is, that I like her. To a certain extent, in a certain way, I like her.

Maybe because she is like me in many ways. I admire her as a survivor, her tenacity, her fighting against all odds, her independence.

These, however, are the very traits that make her so dangerous to Section, and so detrimental to the good of the whole.

I told her once that she was becoming one of us. That, unfortunately, will never be entirely the case. There have been changes, but they do not go far enough. She still puts other considerations above the good of Section and the mission.

The problem is, however, that those very weaknesses are also her strengths, and even if we could break her and mold her as Section operatives should be, to do that would be to take away the very qualities that make her so exceptional an agent.

She is both the person I would most want to be on a mission with me, and the one I would least want.

The situation I am facing now between her and Michael is my own fault. I tell myself if I had known that she would become the love of Michael’s life, nothing would have stopped me from canceling her. That is true. What is also truth is that I did know, or at least suspected, that she would. As I have said, I know Michael in some ways very well. I should have anticipated his reaction to this girl, this innocent.

Yet, I let Madeline convince me that we should give her to Michael as material.

Even with writing this, I am still not sure of my motives for agreeing. Maybe I hoped that I was wrong, and that Michael would be the one to break her as he has broken so many before, to make her one of our deadliest, most lethal operatives. Maybe I was hoping for absolute proof that he was dead inside, emotionless.

Whatever my motives, they have backfired on me. Nikita is still as headstrong as ever, only now, she is cleverer at hiding her deceptions. As for her and Michael, their love strengthens every day. With my schemes, I have succeeded in wounding them, making them defensive and suspicious of each other, but I have never succeeded in separating them. They have a link that will not be broken.

Now, I am faced with a very delicate situation. I must separate Nikita from Michael without destroying him. I will figure out a way. I am Operations, and that is what I do.

Michael will still me my successor. My plans still include that. In some ways, Nikita has helped make him an even better choice than before. Before, he was straightforward, he did his job, he finished them perfectly, he did not disobey. All these qualities are good for a second in command, but there has to be that something more from the head of Section.

In these last years, though, I have seen many changes for the positive in him. He is more ruthless, determined to get whatever he needs however he needs it. He will challenge, he will fight. Secrecy and guile are traits he regularly displays now. All are needed for the next Operations. Nikita is the one who has put these qualities in him.

What will I do with the relationship between he and Nikita now? I know that to some degree, Madeline thinks that I should let it be. Probably Nikita will die on a mission, and if she does not, I know that Madeline feels that a relationship between them will grow like ours has grown, both of them partners doing the work of Section.

I almost wish I could believe that. I almost wish I could let them have their relationship and leave them alone. I can never do that.

Michael is a combination of traits between Madeline and I. In Michael is housed almost all of our combined strengths and very few of our weaknesses.

He does, however, share a negative trait with me. That is he will put the one he loves first before anything. He will put Nikita first, as I put Madeline first, and though I will be the first to admit it is a terrible weakness, this is one trait that neither of us will ever be able to overcome.

Between the women in our lives, though, there is a world of difference, and in this difference lay the future of Section 1.

Madeline is Section, like I am Section, and all of her decisions are for the betterment of Section. She complements me, making me more committed with every breath to this daily struggle in which we exist. She does not let regret or humanity get in the way of Section’s success.

Nikita is like neither of us. To her, this world is black and white. Nikita wants clarity, and Section can only exist in gloom. Because Section does evil, she feels that it is evil, and she must change it, making it like every other impotent agency.

She will never put Section first, and unless Section comes first, it will fall, and all of the good that it must do will be squandered.

A house divided will always fall.

THE END

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Authors Note:

The usual notice - these characters (for the most part) don’t belong to me, they belong to the powers that be in charge of the television production LA FEMME NIKITA. No harm is intended, no money is being made, I’m simply writing this because I love and appreciate the show, but as a writer, my mind tends to wander beyond the scripted episodes, and I can’t help but wondering what ifs and hows abouts.

Love or hate the story, please feel free to contact me and share your feelings at Bathory

I appreciate constructive criticism, or just a short note on how the story made you feel, so please, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Spoilers: In all the fan fiction that I have read, I have yet to see one written strictly from Operations point of view. So, being me, I decided that I would write one.

After the revelations made about his son Steven in the episode Under The Influence, Operations puts pen to paper and writes about - among other things - why he feels Section 1 is so important, his hopes for the future, his regrets over the past, and his very ambivalent feelings concerning Nikita.