Bourne Identity: "The State of Nature" (Pam/Nikki)

[alixtii]

Title: The State of Nature
Fandom: Bourne Identity
Pairing: Pamela Landy/Nicolette Parsons
Timeline: About a year after The Bourne Ultimatum.
Summary: "Without a legitimate authority of, by, and for the people, we are in the state of nature: alone, able to trust no one."
A/N: A Yuletide treat. The original Yuletide version, with corresponding comments, is here.

The State of Nature

The Georgetown lecture hall is filled with undergraduates. Outside, a poster hangs on the wall: "PAMELA LANDY -- Former Deputy Director of the CIA -- LIFE AND POLITICS AFTER BLACKBRIAR -- 7:30 P.M. -- Book Signing and Reception to Follow."

A red-haired young woman in a Hoyas t-shirt enters, stands in the back and listens. Her presence is noticed by few. The speaker, one who has become used to taking close account of her surroundings, is one of the few.

"--predicated on the concept of legitimate authority--a government of, by, and for the people. Without this, we are in what Thomas Hobbes calls the state of nature: a brutish life of trying to assert one's dominance onto one another. This is the state of Jason Bourne: always on the run, alone, able to trust no one."

During the question and answer period, someone asks, "What makes you sure Jason Bourne is still alive?"

"Because he is Jason Bourne," Landy answers, simply. "Next question?"

During the reception, someone slips a cell phone into Landy's coat pocket.

. . .

"Nikki?" Landy asks when the cell phone rings, when she's in her car and halfway to the beltway.

"Hello, Pam," Nikki answers.

"Have you seen Jason?" Landy asks.

"Not since--" Nikki breaks off. "No. I haven't."

"You know the CIA still have their eyes on me--I know the signs. You're potentially putting yourself in danger just by contacting me."

"I know," Nikki says. "I don't care. I need . . . I need someone who understands."

Landy does understand. There are few people who have knowingly looked into the eyes of Jason Bourne and still live. It is a heady experience, and its own type of burden. "I know."

"Can you lose your watchers?" Nikki asks. "I need to see you."

Automatically, Landy makes a hard right into a back street, not quite guaranteed to throw off anyone who might be following, but a good start. "Okay," she says. "Where are you?"

"It's programmed into the phone."

. . .

The hotel room door swings open the moment Landy's fist comes into contact with it, and before she can say anything Nikki is dragging her into the room. "Thank God you're here," Nikki says as soon the door is shut, and Landy can see the desperate need and lonely hunger in the girl's eyes, need and hunger born of the necessity of being anonymous in every crowd, without even the possibility of a sanctuary.

Landy pulls Nikki into an embrace, feels the girl tense and then relax just at the initiation of that physical contact. "Hush," Landy whispers. "I'm here. I understand."

Nikki just holds Landy tight, breathes deeply.

Landy kisses Nikki's forehead. "Relax," she tells her gently, but letting just enough of her Commanding Officer voice seep in for Nikki to comply, and pries the girl off of herself. She sits Nikki down on the bed, sits down next to her. She places her hand on Nikki's knee and gives it a squeeze, and Nikki seems reassured by the simple gesture, but when she looks back at Landy with a shy smile her eyes are still filled with longing.

Landy leans over, and Nikki travels the other half of the small distance between them, bringing their lips together, her tongue forcing its way into Landy's mouth. They fall back onto the bed, and soon Nikki is ripping off Landy's clothes as quickly as she can, all of her need and wanting channeled into the simple physical act of getting Landy naked.

Landy hasn't had sex with a woman since college, but then again, she hasn't had sex with anyone since Bourne entered her life and changed her world forever. It is too hard to open up to someone after finding out that everything she thought she knew had been a lie, that the people she had trusted for orders, to protect her country, had been no better than the thugs and thieves in the Congress to which they had answered.

Love is simply impossible in such an environment.

Nikki's already gotten Landy's blouse off, her fingers scrambling from button to button, and is unfastening her bra. Landy works more deliberately, her movements slower, as she pulls Nikki's t-shirt above her head. Still it isn't long until both women

Nikki's movements are awkward, uncertain, but what she misses in skill she more than makes up in enthusiasm. "Slower," Landy gasps, and Nikki complies, but Landy's already gone too far to go back, and it's only a matter of moments before she climaxes.

"Faster," Nikki begs, as if it were the destination and not the journey that was the whole point of it, as if all the ways their lives have been turned upside down and inside out could be cured with a simple orgasm, but Landy goes faster, giving Nikki what she wants even though she knows Nikki will never be satisfied.

Soon the two women collapse into each other's arms.

. . .

"During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man." -- Thomas Hobbes