Beep beep. Beep beep. Beep beep.

"Mmm?" Jack opened his eyes.

THUMP THUMP THUMP.

His head hurt, like tiny little elves were inside his brain knocking it about with teeny tiny hammers. What had he had to drink?

Beep beep. Beep beep. Beep beep.

And what was that making that noise?

He mustered the strength to glance in the direction of the insistent beeping and caught sight of the alarm clock.

6.30AM.

The alarm clock was going off at 6.30AM. WHO SETS THEIR ALARM FOR 6.30AM? CAUSE JACK SURE AS HELL DIDN'T…

He leant over the bed and shut it off. There - peace and quiet. Apart from all those tiny little elves still at work in his head.

It took him a good few seconds to realise that the alarm clock wasn't his, and he definitely was not in his room, or even at his flat for that matter. He froze. Where the hell was he? He was 100% certain he had not been in this room before…which could only mean…oh no. Oh no, no no no no no….he didn't…did he?

He looked down at himself and found he was only in his boxers. Well, at least he still had them on, and he slept like this at his own flat, so it didn't necessarily mean…

Where was he? And who had he been in bed with?

He searched under the covers beside him to double check. Nope, nobody there. So he was alone? Ok then.

He got up and scanned the room for his clothes. WHERE WERE HIS CLOTHES? He had a brief moment of panic before he found a pile of clothes on the floor.

He rummaged through and found his jeans, and hopped about trying to get them on quickly. He found his shirt and was half way through getting it over his head when he spotted something.

Flung over a chair in the corner of the otherwise spotless bedroom was a small brown leather handbag. But it wasn't just any old small brown leather handbag with one long strap and a series of engraved patterns on the front. No. He knew exactly whom that handbag belonged to. He saw her with it every single day.

Nikki.

Jack was suddenly aware of everything in the room. He spotted the phone lying on the bedside table, the several jackets hanging on a hook behind the door...the smell of her. It was all hers. And he'd woken up in Nikki's bed in just his boxers.

He didn't know what he was angrier about – the fact that he'd probably slept with Nikki, or that he couldn't remember it.

This was bad. This was very, very bad. And where the hell was she anyway?

He finally managed to pull the shirt down over his head, realizing he'd been stood there with a shirt half on for a good few minutes.

Nikki had moved home after somebody had shot through the door of her last place, and then well, tried to kill her after framing her for murder hadn't quite worked. They'd not anticipated Jack, Clarissa and Tom being set on proving her innocence. And they certainly had not been prepared for Jack to be so angry about it. Nikki hadn't felt entirely comfortable going back to that place after that, even when the case was over. Jack had offered to come in with her after he dropped her off that night but Nikki had been so god damn stubborn (she always was) and tried to put up a front that Jack had let her go. Just as he was about to leave he saw Scott arrive. He sat outside and waited…just to see if she was ok, well that's what he'd told himself anyway. He lived in denial that he'd really waited just to make sure Scott didn't stay. 10 minutes later Scott had left. Jack smiled.

Good, he thought.

Thanks Jack, Nikki had text him. He remembers leaving quickly, uncertain if she'd seen him waiting there from her window, or if she was saying thanks for his help throughout that particular case. Either way he was paranoid she knew something, and left in a hurry.

Jack hadn't been inside Nikki's new place before, and he certainly hadn't been in her bedroom before…well, until now. He'd picked her up for work when her car had been at the garage for a service but that was all.

BANG.

Jack jumped. What the hell was that?

In hindsight it hadn't really been that loud. But Jack had a hangover and was particularly on edge about the whole situation. He finally opened the bedroom door and cautiously peered round. Should he call out for her? He settled for stepping out of the room and going in search of her instead. The first door he came to was obviously the bathroom. He could smell her shampoo radiating from the room, and the humidity levels around him rising. He wasn't entirely sure what the scent of the shampoo was (he'd been trying to work it out for a few months now. Its scent had become somewhat addicting, and in the end he'd put Nikki down to a L'Oreal kind of girl). She'd obviously got up to have a shower, but the light wasn't on, so she wasn't still in there.

Jack had found his way into the kitchen to find Nikki with her back to him, trying to clear up a mess of spilt tea on the side. She'd obviously been creeping around so she didn't wake him, and had tried a bit too hard to be sneaky that she'd knocked over her mug of tea. She was trying to mop it up with a tea towel when Jack cleared his throat.

She spun round quicker than he'd expected and he took as step back, his arms coming up to the 'I'm innocent' stature.

"Oh god Jack, you scared me." The tension left her and she smiled before grimacing at the sight of him. "Are you ok? You look like death."

"Uh…yeah. I could use some paracetamol…" He murmured. It really was a lot brighter in here than it had been in her bedroom and the light made him squint a little.

Nikki fetched him some paracetamol and ibuprofen and poured him some water.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" She asked. She seemed so casual about the whole thing, which made Jack more uncomfortable.

"No." He swallowed the tablets in one go. "Alarm."

"Oh…sorry!"

"Who sets their alarm for 6.30AM?" He groaned, trying to inject some humour into the situation.

"Pathologists?" She offered in response. Jack raised his eyebrows at her. "Ok, maybe it's just me."

Nikki sipped her freshly made tea. She wasn't a coffee person in the mornings. She'd tried, but she had always been aware of the impacts that strong caffeine had on the body– and had smelt too much strong coffee in stomach contents before during autopsies before, that it really put her off first thing in the morning.

Jack watched her. She really was short without her shoes on. She stood in front of him in those jeans he loved her in (the ones with the stripe down the side), a white t-shirt with floral chiffon blouse over and black socks. Her hair fell in natural curls and waves around her shoulders, and her eyelashes were already coated with a thin layer of mascara.

Suddenly she seemed nervous.

"Um…Nikki?" He hesitated, "Did we…?"

Jack gestured to the bedroom.

"Sleep together? Yes."

He didn't know how to respond. He just stood there with wide eyes like a deer caught in the headlights (so to speak).

Nikki giggled.

"But if you meant sex, then no. That didn't happen."

Oh thank god. Not that he was entirely relieved, but it wasn't exactly the way he'd imagined things to go with her.

He sighed and smiled at her awkwardly, "So…how did I end up here then?"

She giggled again. She was mocking him, and enjoying it and he suddenly felt like the biggest idiot on the planet.

Nikki put her tea on the side and began making him some. With her back turned to him she started to explain, "You turned up here at about 1am, drunk out of your mind. I assumed you'd been fighting because your face…"

Jack reached up to his head…ohhh that's why his head hurt the way it did. He'd been cage fighting and split that weak spot just above his right eyebrow again. It'd been taped up with those little white strips.

"You lost?" She asked.

"Uh, yeah…I think so. I can't really remember." Embarrassment overcame him and he found himself leaning on her kitchen counter.

She turned to glance at him with a knowing look in her eyes and a smirk on her lips.

"Well you came here, stumbling and slurring and in a mess, so I patched you up." She gestured to his forehead, "And then you fell asleep on my sofa… and dribbled everywhere."

He glared at her. "Oh ha ha, funny."

"Did you know that you snore?"

"I do not snore."

"Hmm, sure, Jack." She placed his tea on the counter in front of him and made her way to her sofa. Jack followed, like a naughty schoolboy, and sat down beside her…but not too close.

"Nikki, how did I get from here on the sofa, into your bed, and almost naked?"

She leant back and crossed her leg over the other, cradling her tea in her lap with one hand and the other reached up to brush her unruly hair out of her face. Now she looked nervous…really, really nervous.

"I woke you up and made you sleep in my bed…you don't remember that bit?"

Jack shook his head.

"Well I made sure you were ok and I was going to come back out here to sleep and you kinda stopped me." She offered.

Memories came flooding back to him.

He remembers crashing onto her mattress and fighting to get his clothes off, and her stopping him when he'd tried to wriggle out of his boxers…because…oh god.

He remembers her hands stilling his and his eyes meeting hers through the darkness, her silent whisper of "not like this". But he'd begged her to stay with him, and wrapped his arms round her waist as she'd tried to leave and…she let him. And when he'd gripped her for dear life, scared that she'd disappear she'd let her fingers slide through his hair until he fell asleep.

Jack quickly got up, and was back in her bedroom collecting his belongings in seconds.

She followed him.

"Jack?"

He was rushing to put his socks and shoes on, and find his phone…Where the hell was his phone?

"I'm sorry Nikki, I-"

"It's OK Jack."

And then Nikki's phone was ringing.

"Thomas?" She answered.

Jack stopped, after finally finding his phone and watched her face as she spoke to their boss.

"Alright, can you send me the address? Thanks."

She hung up and looked up at him.

"Body."

And then Jack's phone started to ring.