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hyperesthesias · 19 days ago

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Nikto x Female Character

summary: nikto is being framed for a murder he didn’t commit. he turns to the only person he can trust -- the woman he planned to marry while in university, who is now an investigative journalist. but not all of nikto's alters want his name cleared.

author's note: this piece combines nikto's call of duty: modern warfare reboot lore, with his call of duty: mobile lore. i have included elements from both, and i have omitted elements from both as well. another half baked idea from yours truly.

content: canon compliant; canon typical violence; dissociative identity disorder; light stalking; terrorism; cheating; mentions of torture; mentions of child abuse and domestic violence.

words: 10,597

music: andre – pieces by sum 41 // sascha – away from the sun by three doors down // olev – daybreak by robin carolan // samantha – dangerous by sleep token.

AO3 LINK.

October 2022 ----

Nikto has landed in Russia with the rest of his KorTac unit. He is familiar with the area, but he hasn't been to his homeland in many years. He did not leave under positive circumstances, and he doubts he will ever be able to resolve what he left behind there. He has bigger, more current, issues to worry about. His two alters have been mostly behaving themselves, He's been able to keep them at bay enough for him to blend into his role the way he needs to -- he's an excellent liar, but he doubts he fooled the field psychiatrist and his superiors well enough for them to think nothing is bothering him at all. Eventually they'll find out, eventually he'll be diagnosed, and the ruse will be over -- his life will be over. Everything he's known and known how to do will be taken from him. He'll be deemed too unstable for the field, and he'll be discarded without so much as a second thought, or good enough benefits for him to survive on long term. He starts to spiral at the thought, and he can feel one of the other men in his head scratching at the wall he's put between himself and them. They've been more active, they've made themselves known more frequently since he heard that his unit would be returning to Eastern Europe. They're in Russia to capture a man named Petrov, whose dossier is longer than a novel. He was a lieutenant under Zakhaev, and while Andre has never encountered him, there's a stirring discomfort within him at the thought. There's a whole other life he left behind in Russia, a whole other lifetime ago, and he doesn't have the time, patience, or desire to sift through it all to get the voices in his head to settle down. All he can hope is that his unit is in and out of there quicker than he can spit, and that all three parts of him get back to headquarters without incident.

But he should've known that was too much to ask.

The job goes bad -- his team made a plan, the plan went wrong, so he made a new plan, and then he threw that one out the window, as he was actually being thrown out a window. He hesitated at the sight of Petrov, despite having him in his scope, and his teammates are ready to tear him to pieces. Everything is FUBAR, and he is barely able to catch his breath as his unit regroups at base. The plan changes for a third time: he and the rest of the men will lay low, and restrike before their target is scheduled to make his next move.

The rest of the men stay at the base, unfamiliar with the territory, but Nikto knows this area well. Things stay the same, as equally as they change -- signs change names, and carts and kiosks appear and disappear, and yet he can follow the streets and alleys with ease. His history as an undercover operative allows him to blend in anywhere, even when he stands out. There's a marketplace not far from the safehouse, and in weakness, he searches for a soft candy he used to find at its stalls when he was a child.

He doesn't remember anything after that.

He comes back into awareness as he's standing on a high bridge. There's a body on the ground beneath him – it’s Petrov, dead. A crowd is starting to gather. Even if he wasn't guilty, he certainly looks menacing enough for the blame to fall on him -- the balaclava, his backpack, and the .45mm on his hip are enough for the court of the people to convict him, whether he did something or not. But he can't remember.

He runs, not knowing where to go. There's enough heat on his team already, if he bolts back to the safehouse, he might lead people right to it. He's not sure he didn't kill Petrov anyway, and he has no way to explain that lapse of memory to his superiors -- no way to explain it and still keep his position at KorTac. Then again, disappearing altogether would only cement his guilt. He has no one.

Except for one person, someone he left behind a lifetime ago.

It's been sixteen hours after the incident at the bridge, and Nikto has tracked down a woman he once knew before he joined the military. She was a writer, an exchange student at the university he attended. At first, she wrote stories, and small pieces for the university's newspaper, but as time went on, as the world began to deteriorate, she developed a desire to pursue investigative journalism. He discouraged her from it at the time, but now her skills might be the only thing that can clear -- or convict -- his name. He wants the truth, regardless of what it is. He needs to know if he's unstable and volatile enough to black out and kill a man without knowing.

He seeks her out, and finds where she lives. The fact that she's alive at all is surprising, but Nikto has kept tabs on her since his time with the FSB and special forces. Occasionally he heard her name pass through the dossiers compiled by his superiors, and every time he saw her name and photograph, he hoped he'd never have to see her through the scope of his rifle.

He's using a scope now, to look at her through her bedroom window. She's as beautiful as the day they met. He suddenly has the crushing weight of realization that she won't recognize him. Certainly not in the balaclava, but even without it. He's different now -- in appearance, and in mannerism. To her, he would be a stranger. A sinking feeling hits his stomach, and he debates whether he should leave altogether, and take his chances back at the safehouse. But with each ticking second, he looks guiltier and guiltier, and his alibi gets thinner and thinner.

She starts to undress, and he knows he should look away, but a part of him wants to relish the sight of her before he disappears -- before he faces her and she screams. He remembers the feeling of her pressed flush against him, of her legs wrapped around him. He's never forgotten her, never moved on from her. The day he left Russia, time froze, and to him, she's still the love within him -- kept secret, stowed deep down where no one, and nothing can touch her. Not even himself.

He doesn't have the courage to knock on her door that early morning, nor the next. But he sits and watches her, follows her, hoping to get the willpower to shatter the fragile idea of the past he has with her. He learns about her -- her Russian has improved; she still smiles at the market vendors, and they still hate it; she has a tattoo now, even though she said she'd never get one, it's on the lower side of her left hip; she has a cat, who she loves, and he still thinks she would make an excellent mother. Thoughts come to the surface of his mind that he hasn't acknowledged since his life with her, and he debates on whether he should just fall on his sword and leave her be.

But her instincts are better than he gives her credit for, and as he follows her that afternoon, she makes him. He lets her.

Suddenly he has the barrel of a Beretta in his back, and he's being led to a blind, quiet alley around the back of her apartment building.

"Who sent you?" she asks.

He has his hands raised, and that pit in his stomach gets deeper as the moment becomes more real. She presses the barrel harder into his spine as he delays, and he grunts at the pain; his back is still sore from being defenestrated.

"Samantha..." he says, still trying to fight through his own thoughts enough to speak. "I'm not -- I am not here to hurt you. I was sent by no one." He feels the pistol fall, and there's a distinct, weighted silence that falls with it. He turns around, his hands still raised, and when he finally faces her, her eyes are starting to water. He feels like a boy again, standing in front of a girl who's crying. He doesn't know what to do.

"Andre?" she breathes. Instantly, she recognizes his voice.

They're back inside her apartment, sitting in the living room with a cup of chaya. It smells incredible, but he won't take off the balaclava, he won't even dare to risk lifting the edge. He is afraid of the look in her eyes -- that she'll see the scars, the missing pieces of his face, and that the love in her eyes will turn to horror. He wouldn't be able to live anymore. He prefers if she remembers him as that handsome, younger man from university.

"I heard about that," she says about the incident on the bridge. "The police are looking for a masked man, but they don't have many leads at the moment. They're still waiting for the lab to identify a blood sample they found at the scene."

"My blood?"

"You tell me. You said you don't remember anything about what happened, but do you have any unexplained injuries?"

"Unexplained? No. All of them are explained."

She almost chuckles. He always had a way of making her laugh, even without trying. "Are you hurt?"

"Yes," he says. "But not from the bridge. It was before that."

"Do you need a doctor?"

"No -- no. I don't need...anything."

Another silence settles between them. Neither one of them knows what to say, what to ask, where to start.

He sees movement from the corner of his eye, and he goes stiff -- ready to pull his weapon.

"It's okay -- It's okay. It's just Mishka, my cat." Samantha clicks her tongue, and the black cat comes running to her; she picks her up and puts her in her lap. "She was a stray, I found her in the alley out back."

"The last time you took in a stray cat, you were almost expelled."

She weakly smiles, but she doesn't look at him. "You remember that?"

His eyes are fixed on her, he studies her, like a pane of stained glass in a chapel. "I remember everything."

Her eyes are starting to water again, and Mishka jumps from her lap. "Why did you leave?"

"I don't want to talk about that."

"I've gone over it, in my head, for years--"

"I only want to talk about now."

"You don't think I deserve at least half an answer?"

"I said no!" he yells at her, he's on his feet, his breath his harder through his mask, and he sees that fear in her eyes -- the kind he dreaded seeing. He turns away from her, with his head in his hand. The scratching at that wall inside his mind is getting more intense, and he can feel it starting to give way.

"I will help you, Andre," Samantha says, and he can hear her pushing down the tears that threatened her before.

He's trying to keep the wall in his mind upright, he's trying to hold whoever is behind it at bay. "Samantha -- I am different...now," his voice wavers at the confession of weakness. He doesn't have time to explain everything to her -- he doesn't want to explain what Zakhaev did to him. But he knows he should at least warn her before he switches, and someone else comes to the forefront. The only thing he can think to do is leave.

He always leaves.

He's starting for the door -- everything goes black.

Samantha watches her former lover wrestle with something inside of him, watches as he keeps his head in his hands, and watches as he puts his hand on the doorknob to leave, then suddenly stop. He looks up at the door, looks around the foyer, and the living room, he looks at his hands, and then turns around to look at her.

There's a blank confusion in his bright blue eyes. He's staring at her. Trying to put pieces together.

"...Andre?"

The name gets a response from him, but it isn't the one she expects.

"Andre brought us here?" His voice is lighter than before, unlike the voice she remembers.

A coldness runs through her, and his warning to her begins to make sense. She nods, cautiously. "Yes, Andre came to me, to ask for my help."

"Who are you?" he's pointing at her, that confusion still churning in his eyes as he starts to approach her.

"My name is Samantha," she stands, with her hands plainly visible on the kitchen table.

He snaps his gloved fingers. "Ah! Yes, Samantha! I knew you looked familiar."

"Do you...remember me? Do you remember how we met, at the university?"

"No, no," he says, and brings his backpack around to reach for something inside of it. He sees her put her hands up, and flinch. "No -- No, no. Samantha, no. You are from the photograph." He takes out a worn and feathered photograph and hands it to her. "See? He keeps it here, with us."

"'Us'..." She takes the photo -- it's her official portrait from when she received her first award for journalism. "You and Andre?"

"And Olev. I don't think there is anyone else."

Samantha takes a deep breath, and returns the photograph. "Okay. Well, who are you? Let's start there," she invites him to sit.

He does as she instructs, and briefly lifts the balaclava to take a sip of chaya, it's still warm. "I am Sascha."

She can see the discoloration of scars as he lifts the mask, and she pretends she doesn't notice as he replaces it. "Do you know why Andre came to me, Sascha?"

He frowns and looks around again. "No -- I don't know anything about this place. I only know you from the photograph."

"Are you aware of the incident on the bridge?"

"The bridge!" he snaps again. "I remember the bridge. I was in the market, Andre brought us there. It took me some time to understand where I was, I got...confused, lost. But I saw our teammate, he found me. He said he would take me back to the safehouse, so I walked with him. But..." he pauses and shakes his head, "something did not feel right. I told him I wanted to go back to the market, and then he attacked me."

"Your teammate?"

Sascha grows quiet, mulling over what happened, still trying to put pieces together with half the puzzle.

"Does he know you have alternate identities?"

"No, I don't think so. We are careful. No one can know. If they find out, we are going to be discharged. Andre is careful, and so am I. The only one who might have compromised us is...Olev. But I don't -- I don't think so. He knows the consequences."

"May I speak with Olev?"

"No," he replies emphatically. "No, you do not want to speak to Olev. He is...not nice. He does not like to talk. Olev talks with his fists."

She takes another deep breath, and agrees. "Alright. The man at the bottom of the bridge, the man who died, was it your teammate?"

He points again, and a light of recognition flicks on in his eyes. "No -- he killed that man! He tried to kill me, but we took the gun from him. We fought. Petrov was there -- the target from our mission. I think, I think maybe I was following him. Or maybe Andre was. I don't remember. The mission was to capture him, but our teammate, he killed him. I tried to stop him, but he made it look like I was the one who pushed him. People started to come around. What people saw, was not what happened."

"This teammate of yours, have you had conflicts with him in the past?"

"I...don't know," he says, somewhat defeated. "I cannot remember what Andre sees. But from what I have witnessed, I thought we were on good terms. I don't know why...Why? Why did he betray me?"

Samantha keeps him at her apartment as she goes to the scene of the crime, as well as the lab to get an update on the sample results, hopefully before the police receive them. Sascha does not protest, a part of his mind feels safe with her -- as if he knows her from a dream he once had. He stays on the couch, and spends most of the day trying to coax Mishka out of the dark hallway.

She has a connection in the crime lab, a man she's been seeing for the past two and a half months. His name is Nikolai. He's sweet, a little naive. He's a scientist, not an officer, he's never been exposed to the field like she has. His innocence is refreshing. It's also the reason she can get him to tell her about the bridge case. The irony isn't lost on her that she's asking the man she's currently seeing to help her lover from a lifetime ago. But he doesn't have to know that.

Nikolai tells her that the blood sample returned a match earlier that day. It triggered a military file for a man named Andre Volkov, however the file itself was sealed. He asks her to dinner this weekend.

She tells him she'll check her schedule.

While she is gone, Andre returns to the forefront. The apartment is empty, and the cat is running away from him again. He finds a note on the side table: 'Samantha went out, she will be back. She is helping us.' It's written in Sascha's handwriting, and Andre once more considers leaving without a trace. Samantha didn't ask for this. But then again, neither did he.

Before he can make up his mind, Samantha comes through the front door. He stands, unsure what to do with himself, what to say.

She can immediately tell his body language is different. She stops.

"It's me," he says. "Andre." He awkwardly pauses again, with the paper still in his hand. "Sascha -- he left me a note. Did you find anything?"

She tells him Sascha's experience on the bridge, and that the lab results have confirmed his blood was at the scene.

"I don't even have a scratch from the fight Sascha had with him. I don't understand how my blood was found there."

"If Sascha was fronting at the time of the attack on the bridge, how do you know for sure that you were uninjured?"

He squirms nervously, already anticipating her next idea. "I checked."

"You need to check again," she tells him, softly persuading him.

He disrobes, piece by piece. He feels more vulnerable than he ever has in his life, naked in more ways than one in front of her. He's down to only his underwear and his balaclava, which he still hasn't removed. She helped him take off the jacket, and the shirt. He's sore, he says, his back hurts. It's covered in blue bruises, while older white scars lie beneath, they look like whippings. Feathered scars map the entirety of his body, from knife wounds, to healed bullet holes. Some scars she knows and remembers from when he was younger: burn marks made by cigarettes, left on his skin by his father. She touches him gently, running her hand along the newer impressions she doesn't recognize.

"Don't look at me like that," he says.

She doesn't say anything.

"Like with pity," he growls.

But she's as stubborn as he is, and she looks him right in the eye.

He backs down.

Slowly, she reaches up to remove the balaclava. He watches her do it, he waits for it. He grabs her hands before they touch the fabric, and he attempts to push her away. She pushes back, and keeps willing her way to his face. They both know he could overpower her easily, he could snap her wrists in half if he wanted. But he doesn't. He lets her struggle, makes her work for it, waiting for her to change her mind -- that he's not worth the effort, he's not worth the fight. Their eyes haven't left one another's, and she keeps her hands strong and steady, until eventually...

He lets go.

He braces for the impact of her scream of horror -- of her turning the color of nausea at the sight of him.

She lifts the balaclava, and it falls to the floor.

His face is bare in front of her, and he keeps his eyes on her -- present, but not.

She doesn't scream, she doesn't turn away from him. Her eyes take in the sight of his injuries -- pieces of his face are missing, as if they were shorn purposefully. Half of his nose is gone, a portion of his upper lip is gone, the entire left side of his cheek has been cut, as if peeled by a knife, leaving only the thin lower dermis to heal. A 'Z' is carved into his flesh from the top of his brow, to the bottom of his jaw.

The static feeling of shock resonates at the top of her skin, but she keeps her face still. She can't prevent the water at the edges of her eyes, but she keeps it from falling. Her breathing is heavier, and the shock gives way to the heat of rage.

It's a long, long time before either one of them speaks.

"Who did this to you?" she finally pushes the words out of her mouth.

"Zakhaev."

She knows exactly who he is. "I will kill him, myself."

The vengeful sentiment snaps him out of his dissociation, and he swallows, finally breaking eye contact. "You always surprise me, solnyshko."

She takes his face in her hands, and kisses him. He leans into her, he doesn't fight back; his hands cup her head, his fingers in her hair. Every moment he imagined in secret, every night he longed to be beside her, it suddenly becomes a reality. He pulls away only to take a breath, and to look her in the eye, to make sure she's really there, to make sure he isn't dreaming -- that he hasn't lost touch with reality completely.

His thumbs caress her cheeks, and when he convinces himself she's real -- when he convinces himself it wouldn't matter even if she wasn't -- he nudges her lips again. And again, and again. He wants to make love to her, right then, right there. He wants to make every fantasy that's put him to sleep for the last decade come true. But he doesn't. He stops. Again, he thinks about leaving.

She doesn't push him.

There's a knock at the door.

Andre grabs his clothes, and retreats to the hallway, away from the door's line of sight.

"Get rid of them," he tells her.

She shoos him, and regathers her composure. She looks through the peephole -- it's Nikolai.

"Nikolai --" she opens the door, blocking his path inside. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes -- I am alright, but I am...confused," he says. "That case you asked me about today, the one with the sealed military file, someone just came to my office and took all of the evidence. The blood, the fibers, all of it. Whatever you are investigating, I think someone does not want you to."

"Well, this certainly isn't the first time someone has wanted to stop an investigation of mine. It's part of my job, Nikolai," she smiles in an effort to put him at ease. "It will be alright."

"Be careful, milaya. I worry about you, you know.” He takes her hands and kisses them. “I was sent home early because of this mess. Why don't we have some tea together."

She touches his face, and pulls away. "I wish I could, but I am very busy right now. The harder they work to put me off the case, the harder I have to work to stay on it. You understand."

He sighs and nods. "Promise me you will be careful. You still owe me dinner."

She laughs and agrees.

Andre is in a million pieces in the hallway, half dressed. He hates himself, he hates himself for wanting her -- he hates himself for thinking it might have even been an option, if even for a brief moment. She has her own life. She has men falling at their feet for her, ready to provide for her, of course she would. She moved on. It was him who was the fool. She closes the door, and his head lands on the wall behind him with a dejected breath.

"KorTac is going to burn me," Andre tells Samantha later that night. "They will move the investigation in-house, and then bury me."

"Then we need to move fast."

He shakes his head and stops her, as he begins to collect his things. "It was a mistake to come here."

"I need to know more about this teammate of yours. What your encounters have been with him, Sascha said --"

"No."

"I won't let them accuse you of something you haven't done. I'm looking into this with or without you."

"Then it will be without," he says, and lifts the backpack onto his shoulders. "You will not get far." He once more starts for the door.

"Then you don't know me as well as I thought you did."

He stops, grinding his teeth -- he knows she's baiting him. Trying to get him to stay by way of conflict. She's done it once before, the night he left all those years ago. "I know you, Samantha," he says. "And I know that you have, in front of you, better than me. Whatever we had, when we were young..." he glances behind him and shakes his head, "it was only a dream."

He leaves, and disappears. He doesn't return to his unit, knowing that he will be caught and crucified by the very people he was supposed to trust. It was better to restart somewhere else entirely, to blend in, and create a new version of himself somewhere else. He plans on leaving the country within the week, but it will take time to find someone who can forge documents.

That weekend, Nikolai picks up Samantha for their dinner date. She is distracted, but he does what he can to alleviate her mental burden. He knows her job is difficult, she has told him briefly of the horrors she has seen, but she never shares much. He figures the past is haunting her, he can see it on her face. They finish their dinner with little conversation. He drives her home.

"I wanted to tell you something," he says while they are travelling. "I did not want to share it around all those people."

Samantha braces herself for an ill-timed confession of love.

"That case you were working on..."

She braces once more, this time for his improbable discovery of her past with Andre.

"...Before those agents came and took all of my work, I put in a requisition for any files relating to the sample from before the man, Andre, joined the military. I got a hit yesterday. It was not digitized, it was a paper file, that is why it took so long to find. I brought it for you, it's in the glove box."

Confusion, trepidation, and relief all at once smother her, and she cautiously opens the glove compartment without a word. A manilla folder sits right on top, with the name 'Volkov, Andre' on its tab. She opens it, and staring back at her is a photograph of the man she once knew: that beautiful boy, with bright blue eyes and soft skin, sharp features, unmarred by evil. A pain tightens in her throat, and she begins to read the file. The photo isn't a mugshot, it's an identification photograph from the foster care system, taken a few months before he became an adult — from two years before she met him.

The file details the brutal murder of Andre's father. Something she did not know about. He was killed right before Andre left her, before he joined the military. It was a particularly vicious crime, and investigators noted that there was a distinct presence of anger in the act. There were no suspects, but Andre was the person of interest. It was no secret his father had abused him and his mother for years, and investigators assumed Andre finally snapped and killed his father in an act of revenge. His mother had been missing for a week, and Andre filed a missing person report earlier that day. She was never found. However, Andre's blood was recovered from his father's knuckles. This did not immediately make him a suspect, as the investigators at the time found separate DNA beneath his fingernails, which was not a match to Andre. The leading theory was that his father's gambling habit caught up with him, and a warning from his bookie went wrong.

She spends the rest of the car ride reading in silence.

"Milaya, I need the file back," Nikolai tells her softly.

She finally looks up to see they've been parked in front of her apartment for some time. "I'm sorry, of course."

"Or, perhaps, you could take it inside, and you can read it while I make you tea. You need to relax, you need time to rest, too."

She smiles weakly, and hands him back the file. Guilt starts to gnaw at her that she wishes the man beside her was Andre instead. "Thank you. You are right. I think I will go to bed early."

"Another time then. I will make you tea, eventually."

"Sometime soon."

Samantha goes upstairs, and enters her apartment. There's a draught coming from the bedroom window, she hears a noise coming from the master bathroom. She reaches for a gun taped beneath the entryway table, and cautiously makes her way to her bedroom. She hears panting, shaking breaths, and quiet cursing coming from the bathroom.

She rounds the corner, and faces the open bathroom door with the barrel pointed directly at Andre.

He's covered in blood, there's panic in his eyes. He's shakily trying to patch a knife wound in his side.

She holsters the weapon, and immediately puts pressure on the wound. "What happened?"

"I don't know," he groans, trying to catch his breath. "I woke up like this. I don't know what happened." He stifles a yell as she starts packing the wound with gauze from his med kit.

"Tell me what you remember," she demands.

He's trying to focus on something other than the pain and the looming darkness that's starting to encroach on his vision.

She smacks his masked face a few times. "Tell me what you remember," she says again.

"I went -- I went to get papers. To leave the country. But the forger, he was dead. I found his body. My teammate was there, but that's it -- that's all I remember." He leans on her a little more heavily, balancing himself on the counter.

"What happened after you woke up?"

"I woke up -- my teammate -- he was dead. I...stabbed him. I think. The knife, it was in my hands."

"Where's the knife?"

"It's here," he points to the sheath on his belt.

She continues packing the wound tightly, and putting pressure once it's packed. She once more reaches for his medical kit, and places the high pressure bandage around his wound.

"I...I had nowhere else to go," he apologizes without saying it.

Over the course of the night, Andre stabilizes, and he's keeping himself awake on the couch. Samantha makes him a cup of chaya again, this time he drinks it. There's nothing left to hide from her. Somehow, she always seems to see him at his lowest.

"It wasn't just a dream, you know," she tells him. "It was real. To me."

He doesn't say anything for a while, staring at the nothingness in the hallway in front of him. Two little green eyes stare back. He has no excuses to give her, but he could lie to her -- he could lie to himself. But lies matter as little as the truth does at this point. "I dream of you every night. You are a dream to me. Something I cannot have."

"You left. I thought you and I were going to get married, have a family. Then you were gone." She doesn't mean to guilt him, she can see the pain in his face. "I would have helped you," she says.

He looks at her, uncertain of her meaning.

"I know about your father."

He looks away again.

"You never told me."

"I did not want you to think differently of me."

"I don't. I never have."

He sighs, struggling to believe it. He shakes his head. "But you will. You do not now. But...you will. There are things I did. There are things...I don't remember. Things that were done to me. It will change you, as it changed me." He sighs again, squirming uncomfortably, and then wincing in pain as the knife wound stretches with his body. "I don't remember...what happened to my father. But I knew that if I stayed, they would make me guilty, no matter the truth. All I remember of that night, is seeing my mother for the first time in a week -- she and my father were in the kitchen, he was beating her. She fought back. But then, I remember nothing. I thought she killed him, and that she left. I thought the truth was too terrible to remember." His eyes become distant again, and the void of shadows in front of him starts to whisper at the back of his mind, as if something wants to be let out. "But...after what happened -- with Zakhaev -- after I started to lose time, after I realized there was someone else, in my head..." he trails off, he doesn't say anything for a while, unsure of what it is he's trying to convey exactly. "They said it was acute, temporary, that it was the way my mind processed what he did to me. That my mind created someone else to take the pain: Olev. They said it would go away. It did -- it did go away, the voices, the losing time. I was myself again. They cleared me, for the field. But then...it came back. And when it came back, I told no one. And then, I started to think that maybe...if it came back, maybe it was always there. Maybe...it was me who killed my father, all those years ago. Maybe it was...Olev."

"Do you think Olev killed your teammate?"

"He is capable of anything," he looks at her again, that pain twisting his face again, of a torment not physical. "It can only be a dream, you and I. It is safer there, it is better there -- in dreams."

"If we cannot be together as we once were, then let me only help you now -- let me help you leave the country."

"No," he shakes his head again, and once more turns away.

"Let me help you this time."

"No," he insists more heavily.

"Why? Why do you come here for my help, and then push me away all the same?"

"Because I am a coward! Samantha," his voice breaks, and he stands, ignoring the pain in his side. His fingers dig into his chest. "I am a coward! -- and a killer. Who cannot provide for you. Who cannot give you a home, and children. Who can give you nothing! I am a coward who takes! Who takes and takes! Because I am a man who loves you, and a man who has nothing to offer." He turns around, not wanting her to see the weakness in his face -- in many more ways than one.

"You have always been many things, Andre. But a coward has never been one of them."

A whisper once more slithers its way through his mind, and he tries his best to push it back. But the stress of his vulnerability with the woman he loves, and the conflict he endured earlier in the night, the pain from the wound in his side, it’s broken down his ability to hold it off. His consciousness slips into the abyss of his mind, and something else emerges.

"Andre was always a coward," he speaks.

But it is not Andre's voice.

"Olev..." Samantha takes a breath and stands, the gun is still in her waistband. She doesn't know if she has the courage to use it against him, if it comes to that.

"Ever since he was a boy. Too weak to face his father, too powerless to save our mother. Too afraid to show his face, to close his eyes at night — to see what I saw." He turns to her, a darkness in his eyes, a weight upon his shoulders, he watches her carefully. "Too afraid of losing you. You are his weakness. And so you are mine."

"You know who I am."

"I know...everything," he growls. He approaches her, unfazed by the blood that's leaking down his side. "I watch everything -- from the corners of his mind, I watch as he tries to hide, tries to run from himself, his past. From you. It makes me sick."

"What happened on the bridge?"

"I took care of us. As I always have."

"Did you kill your teammate?"

Olev scoffs and takes another step towards her, revelling in her confusion. "He always finds a way to shift the blame. Even onto people who were never there."

The rush of fear and adrenaline begins to course through her, and she keeps her hands at her sides, ready to pull her weapon. "What do you mean?"

"Andre and Sascha remember what they need to. And I let them. Even if it means they imagine things. Even if it means...we struggle against each other," he writhes and the wound at his side gushes.

“There was never a teammate. You...You framed Andre. You killed Petrov. You planted your own blood at the scene. You killed the forger."

"I promised Petrov that he would pay for what he did to us. I always keep my promises," his voice is dark, and he fixates on her.

"Why frame Andre? You could have killed Petrov quietly. No blood, no witnesses. We both know you could have gotten away with it."

"I had to make sure he could never go back to KorTac."

Anger sets in, and Samantha stops, she plants her feet on the floor, waiting for Olev to meet her — face to wretched face. "KorTac is all he has."

"But it is not all he can be." He's standing in front of her now, they are mere inches apart. She can feel his breath wash over her face, it's calm and even, yet hot as his eyes run over her features. "I have waited...so long...to meet you, tsaritsa." He coils a lock of her hair around his finger, and pushes it behind her ear.

Her blood is racing through her veins, she can feel her heartbeat in her throat. She keeps her eyes on his, barring away the fear within her. "What are you going to do?"

"I...am going to do what I have always done," his voice is barely above a hoarse breath, his hand still caressing her hair, her neck. "I will level the scale of justice. I will take power from the powerful, and protect those who are weak." He holds another lock of her hair between his fingers, and places it to his lips. "And I will not be a coward -- like him. I will not abandon you. Like he did."

She doesn't flinch, but she can't keep her nerves from trembling. "How many people will die? To balance the scales?"

"You know as well as I do, tsaritsa, the price of slavery is its weight in blood. And so it is with liberty."

She encroaches on him, closing what little space there is between them. "Give him back to me."

His eyes narrow, and his jaw tenses as a breath seethes from him.

"I know that you can."

"I will not." He lets go of her hair, putting it behind her shoulder. "I am jealous of his years with you. And I will not release him until I have shared with you those same number of years."

"I will not go with you."

"You do not need to. You are of better use to me here. Here, your work will provide me with valuable intelligence about those who mean to oppress the People."

"What makes you think I won't go underground?"

"You forget, tsaritsa, I know you as well as he does. I know that you cannot keep injustice quiet. And you know — that I will always find you."

-------------------------------------------------

TWO YEARS LATER ----

Samantha has kept tabs on Olev's actions — a bombing in Lisbon, a Nova gas attack on a gang of mobsters, the rumor that a pilot by the callsign Nikto took down members of Task Force 141. She knows that as carefully as she's kept an eye on him, he's done the same to her. He was right about her -- she has continued to pursue investigations into the corrupt and powerful. She lives with the knowledge that her intel has helped him kill a group of crooked financiers in Germany, and along with them, other innocent lives who happened to be in the wrong place when Olev exacted his justice.

He sends her letters with no return address. He writes her poetry, he sends her sketches of buildings and animals he has seen in his time away from her, he recounts memories she has with Andre, but from his own perspective. He tells her that he loves her. In one letter, he assumes she has not given over his writings to the authorities, as no one has followed their trail back to him. She hates that he's right. She hates that she can't bring herself to do it. If she condemns Olev to prison, she dooms Andre with him. More than that, she confesses only to herself, on a quiet winter night, that she is enamored with Olev. There is a clear part of him that loves her. To be loved so thoroughly by a person -- that every facet of him desires her -- it enthralls her. But it is as Andre told her the last night she saw him -- their love could only ever be kept safe in dreams.

A year after he vanished, Olev appears to Samantha. She moved to a different place, a house in the suburbs, and yet he and his letters still find her. He gives her a USB drive filled with the information of brokers who are fixing the market, proof of their treachery. She almost refuses his gift, but she can't deny that his brutality has been making an impact -- the scales are slowly shifting as the greedy are becoming scared. She's conflicted on whether she should endorse his actions.

He is a looming shadow over her and her work, over her heart and mind. And yet, his presence fills her with relief -- relief that he is alive, and relief at the sight of adoration that still lingers in his eyes whenever he looks at her. He kisses her hands as he gives her the drive, gently putting her knuckles to his mask. She is alone at home, Nikolai is at work, she doesn't hurry Olev to leave.

She tells him she should turn him in.

He tells her he knows she won't.

"How do you know that?" She's standing in front of him again, once more inches from him; his face is veiled, but she can hear his breath heavy and quickened beneath it.

"You are our fortress. Our shelter. Always." His gloved hand caresses her hair, and this time that sense of relief replaces the apprehension she once felt at his touch.

She reaches for his face, and delicately removes the buttons and belts that hold his mask together; she slides the balaclava off. He does nothing to stop her. He trusts her implicitly.

"I am a bird within your palm, tsaritsa. Have care."

Her heart softens, seeing not a villain, but a man. "You would have me love you."

"You do."

"You would have me forsake Andre."

"You can no more forsake him, as you could forsake me. I am not his murderer."

"You are his warden."

"I...am his protector. And I protect that which he loves. I protect...what I love." The rough fabric of his gloves smooths against the frame of her face. "...What you love. That you love him, you must also love me."

"And is this love a betrayal, of the man we both want to keep safe?"

"Zhizn moya, I told you -- you could never forsake any part of me."

Samantha rests her hands on his chest plate, as he continues to wander against her: her arms, her back, the dips of her waist. She falls into his embrace, wrestling with herself and her desires. Olev’s body aches for her as she steadies herself upon him, as she is nearly flush against him. He cradles her head within one palm, and makes the decision for her -- he takes her lips in his, and thus seals their fate.

"Andre is going to kill me," she breathes.

He smirks. "I know the feeling."

He is ravenous. Every fiber of his strength and energy is spent ensuring she remembers who he is, even when he is gone from her. That she feels him, even when they are parted. He leaves gentle imprints and bruises along her soft skin. Yet, when he is beneath her, he is as pliable as a doll -- to be used by her, to be fettered by her want, he is tamed and awakened by his love for her. Every moment he lingered, locked behind the wall inside Andre's mind, watching her, loving her from behind a pane of glass -- every moment he longed for her, pours out of him, as her satisfaction comes in waves around him.

She sleeps beside him. His dreams are quiet that night. There is only the black, and silence.

He leaves before dawn, she watches him ready himself, layer by layer. His underclothing, his flight suit, his armor, and every weight that is strapped against his waist and shoulders. Olev is a weapon. He's never known how to be anything else.

"You will live your life however you please," he tells her as he departs, his voice is calm, and yet there is grief and anger within it. "But you will always be mine. You will always belong to us."

His letters become less frequent, he sends her blank postcards instead -- and yet the attacks on the wealthy are getting more coverage.

A year after Olev appeared to her, Samantha is engaged to Nikolai, and a week after their engagement party, she receives a blank card in the mail with no return address, congratulating her on her upcoming nuptials. She says nothing of it to Nikolai. As far as he knows, the case about Andre Volkov, the case about the man who was killed on the bridge, was a dead end. She never spoke about it again.

Her wedding is in a month, and Samantha is asked to report on the terrorist named Nikto. She can't give a coherent reason of refusal -- not without incriminating herself. She does what she can to fulfill her duty, and yet protect information that might be vital to his capture. She is informed by her editor that Nikto has agreed to a one-time interview. Many news outlets, both domestic and international, are being censored from showing his transmissions, and some outlets are censoring the videos without being instructed to do so. According to her editor, because of this, Nikto has chosen them to give the interview -- their outlet has circumvented censorship, and is broadcast in his mother tongue of Russian.

She knows more than well the reason he chose them is because of her. Samantha is tasked with the interview. It will be broadcast live on the internet.

Nikolai begs her not to do it. It's too dangerous, he tells her. They have their whole lives ahead of them, and she shouldn't tempt fate by putting herself in the lion's den. The man is a terrorist and a predator -- a perverse example of authority. She asks him to trust her -- even though, silently, she knows she does not deserve it.

Samantha is sitting across from Nikto, in a room that is empty, except for a camera and two chairs. It is an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere, a mutually agreed upon location, chosen by Nikto. Besides them, only her cameraman and two of his guards are present. The pair sit near a window for natural light. He makes no indication that he knows her -- and for a brief moment, she wonders if someone else is behind those eyes, if someone else is fronting. But then he speaks:

"Shall we begin, tsaritsa?"

Samantha introduces herself, as well as Nikto, to the camera and begins her questioning. Pretending she knows nothing of him is more difficult than she anticipated. She hides the desperation inside of her, the desire to reach out and touch him, to speak with him as she used to -- she draws on every ounce of professionalism within her, and keeps to her notecards.

"You and I want the same thing, Samantha. You with the pen, and I with the sword." They are at the halfway point of the interview. "And it is true, your work is more important than mine -- I could take down an empire, but if there is no one to witness the People's power, ignorance can only remain."

"Is that what you mean to do? To take down an empire?"

"I have said it."

"To take down Russia?"

"To take down the evil of the oppression -- the oppression that keeps the poor hungry, and the rich fat. Oligarchs rule my homeland, and yet my people have never suffered more. If they deny their greed, why are they afraid of me? If they are so righteous, why should they have anything to fear?"

"I think even the righteous fear death, wouldn't you agree?"

"I do not fear death," he says, his eyes piercing into her as he does. "I fear nothing."

"Not even capture? Or failure?"

"I cannot fail. Even if I am captured, I have already won. And if they kill me, still others will know that these men are not gods. They are cowards. Fat, hungry cowards. Who will take, and take, until nothing is left."

Samantha swallows, hearing Andre's voice buried beneath Olev’s. She briefly pauses, and takes a moment to regather her composure.

A flicker of light from beyond the window catches Olev's eye -- he can see the outline of a red laser sight, but when he follows its path, it's not trained on him, but on Samantha.

Without warning, he tackles her to the ground. An explosion of glass erupts from the window, and a bullet whizzes through the scene. The sound of its impact, along with a yell from Olev, resound in Samantha's ears. She's suddenly flat on the ground, and the weight of his body and his armor are crushing her. Something hot is leaking onto her chest, and pooling beneath her. More gunfire breaks out, as his guards return fire in the direction of the window.

With all of her strength, she pushes herself out from underneath him, and pulls him out of the line of fire. She shelters them with the cover of a partial wall, drawing her own weapon; her cameraman is filming the firefight from a corner on the opposite side of the room.

More sniper fire rains down on the building, until it briefly stops, and the room is hit with a smoke bomb. One man infiltrates from the broken window and takes out the cameraman, and one of the guards.

Olev is slumped against her, in her arm; he opens his eyes and takes in the blurry image of her returning fire as a cacophony grows on the other side of the wall. The bullet tore through the weak point of his armor as he dove onto Samantha, it went through his shoulder; he's losing blood fast, but his first instinct is to sit upright and reach for his pistol. He's about to fire off a shot into the smoke, when Samantha stops him. She slings his arm around her, and pulls him onto his feet. The attacker is following the blood trail from the initial point of contact to her hiding place, and she needs to find an exfil now.

They exit the rear of the building, where there's nothing but trees and plenty of places for cover. She drags him, his feet moving as fast as they can, until they reach the copse. There's quiet for only a moment before the gunfire starts again, and bullets fly by their heads. She pulls him behind a large pine out of the attacker’s eyeline.

"Fuck, I'm out of ammo," she checks her magazine.

He's leaning on the trunk, trying to put pressure on the wound, but the blood is draining too quickly. It seeps through his fingers like a waterfall. "Take it," he hands her his pistol. "Leave me. Go -- run."

"No," she says, and chances to peek round the tree to see where the gunman is. She can't see him.

"I'm too much weight. You'll...be faster -- on your own."

"Not an option."

He shoves her and growls. "Go."

She takes the push, and settles back beside him. The gunman is stalking them, he's starting in the wrong direction, but he crouches to see the droplets of blood left on the leaves. "I'm not letting you off the hook that easy." She looks at him and taps him on the face, bringing his eyes to hers. "Stay with me -- all of you. I have a plan that may get us out of this alive.”

Something deep inside of him breaks. He sinks to the bottom of the forest floor as she tells him what to do; his back leans against the pine tree as his body starts to give out. He’s placing the entirety of his trust in her.

Samantha emerges from behind her cover, and aims the barrel of her empty weapon at the gunman's head. "If you were aiming for Nikto, you got him. But you killed my cameraman, and you almost shot me."

"I was aiming for you," he says.

She takes several steps back, with her pistol still raised. "I've made a lot of enemies, forgive me if I don't remember how I've wronged you."

"You give that sick fuck a platform -- you listen to him as he spews his lies, and all the meanwhile, people suffer because of him. You're no better than him, to let him be seen in the daylight, instead of rotting in the ground where he belongs."

"And if I'm no better than him, then I deserve the same fate -- is that right?"

"We understand one another. I killed that terrorist, Nikto," he glances at the motionless body of Olev, slumped against the pine tree. "And now I will kill you."

Samantha lures him only two steps further --

Olev springs to life again, and fires three shots into the man's head. Blood and matter spray across the greenery, and his lifeless body falls to the ground with a quiet thud.

Samantha takes the man's weapon, and kneels at Olev's side, trying to put his arm around her, to get him to his feet again.

"Samantha..." he breathes, his voice filled with an uncertainty she's never heard within Olev before. His blue eyes look into hers again, searching them for something. His eyes are duller, dimmer -- greyer than they should be. "...I am not going to make it."

She starts to protest, but he stops her.

"Listen to me —” he pulls her close, his breath straining and wavering. “You must live your life, Samantha. Marry that idiot who loves you. Make children. Do all the things I cannot give you.” She starts to protest again, still trying to pull him to his feet, but he holds her still by the shoulder. “Do what you have always done: Listen, and speak. Others need you…to speak. Others need you…But do not forget me. Do not forget...any of us. All of us -- we have loved you." His hand moves from her arm and he touches her face, his glove leaving behind a thick trail of blood. "Zhizn moya...my life…I have given it for you." His hand falls from her, and his body falls entirely slack.

Her tears finally fall, staining and mixing with the blood on her face. She touches him, expecting him to brush away her hand, or to pull her close. But he does nothing. She is alone in the forest, the only sole survivor of the attack, and she knows the military will converge on her location soon. But in those brief moments of quiet before they come, she allows herself to break, to fall to pieces entirely.

Samantha leans on him, holding him and his shielded face to her body, placing a kiss on the metal of his helmet. It would be the last time she sees him, and she wants to keep the image of him, before the world mutilated him, intact within her mind.

She holds him as long as she can, until she notices a familiar feeling against her chest. He's breathing. His body is rising and falling against her. She digs two fingers past his gorget and past the fabric around his mask, until she can feel his pulse. It's thready, but it's there. Helicopters are approaching in the distance, and they'll search high and low through the brush to find him in the forest, once they see his body missing from the building. She packs his wound as quickly and tightly as she can to quell the bleeding, and then she pulls him through the copse.

-------------------------------------------------------

He's in a medical facility, but it doesn't look like a hospital. He's lying in a hospital bed, and there are IVs through both his arms. There is clear tarp all around him, and through it, he can see that he's in some kind of warehouse.

Andre remembers flashes of what happened, of their life throughout the past two years. The last thing he remembers is Olev saying goodbye to Samantha -- on behalf of all of them. Suddenly, his body reminds him that he‘s been shot. Nurses and a doctor swarm his makeshift hospital room at the sight of him being awake.

Hours go by, and Andre is still trying to piece together what happened. Olev is unsettlingly quiet within his mind -- not in anger, but with what feels like sadness. Sascha is relieved to be alive. So is he.

A nurse brings him broth and other liquids, he drinks them with the one arm that isn't in a sling. A familiar face emerges as the nurse exits. His breath stops, and his body goes numb.

"Samantha..."

She fixes on him with that distinct look -- of trying to figure out who's talking, exactly. "Olev?"

"Andre."

She sits on the corner of the bed. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel like the morphine is working."

She lets an amused breath. "How much do you remember?"

"Pieces. Like...a painting out of focus."

"You'll have to go into hiding."

"That much I guessed."

She doesn't say anything for a while.

"Did he hurt you?" he asks. "Olev?"

She shakes her head, finding she misses that facet of him, despite seeing the same face in front of her now. "No. The opposite, really."

Andre remembers a moment of passion between her and Olev, but he can't quite put together the whole memory.

"I called in a few favors," she says. "This is one of them," she looks around at the haphazard triage. "The other will fly you out of the country in two days. I've got you papers."

"You didn't have to do this."

"I did." She looks at him, the life has returned to his eyes, and the lighter presence of Andre now shapes his features. "I love you. Every one of you. Olev was right..."

He scoffs. "I wouldn’t recommend letting him in your head."

"But he was right.” She remembers the morning he left, after the night they spent together. She thought she’d never see him again, at the time she thought he meant to threaten her. But she realizes now it was never a threat. It was simply the truth. “I will always love you. And a part of me will always belong to you.” She can see him searching his mind, as if he can nearly recall what she means, but not entirely. “This is what I needed to do."

Andre falls quiet. "I am not worth the trouble, solnyshko."

Her sights settle on him. He's not looking at her, but at the folds in the sheets -- he's thinking, she can see it. His eyes are darting back and forth, as if his thoughts are quick. She wonders if all three of them are talking in that head of his. She wonders if they had known about the complexity of his mind when they were younger, if things would have been any different. If things might have turned out better for him. "You always have been."

He looks up at her, his lips parted in both uncertainty and surprise.

She caresses his face. "You always were." She stands to leave.

"Samantha..." he calls after. He watches as she faces him, and water lines his eyes. "I owe you my life. All of us."

"I love you, Andre."

"I love you. Dusha moya."

She disappears through the maze of vinyl, and he watches her until he can no longer see her figure.

He owes her everything, and he knows it. And he will work for the rest of his life to give it to her. To earn her. Even if he never sees her again.