Prologue

'Didn't see it coming,

No kind of warning,

I can't work out what I've done wrong.'

Suitcase, Emeli Sandé

She cried the night he told her.

She's a little ashamed to admit to it, if truth be told; she wouldn't ever confess to it, not to anyone and especially never to him. How could she possibly even begin to admit the true extent to which he had torn her world apart, shaken her very foundations? How could she possibly expose just how badly his departure had affected her, a change within her which had seemed to occur, irreversibly, the night he first informed her of his plans? She couldn't, she just couldn't, no question about it. No one would ever be permitted to know, she would make certain of that by any means necessary.

The truth of it is that it scares her a little, even now, in the aftermath. It scared her then and it scares her now to think of just how dependent upon him she's become over the past eight years, because now that he's gone, to admit to that dependence would be to admit to the fact that there is now a large, empty hole in her life where he used to be.

The problem was this: she simply didn't have the faintest idea as to how to go about filling that hole. But that wasn't really an issue, she had long-since first concluded, because she didn't want to try and fill it, not now, not ever. This new void in her life where he had once been but no longer was would remain a void forever, and she didn't care if it destroyed her very soul before too long. She knew enough about life and enough about human nature and enough about love after so many years to know that even attempting to replace him would be pointless.

At what point over the past eight years had he become her everything; the only person who truly knew her very soul inside out? She had allowed him into her life in the capacity of best friend a long time ago, but the difference there was that it had been a perfectly conscious decision she had made. But she couldn't, however, remember ever allowing herself to think of him as something more, giving her heart permission to fall so hopelessly in love with him. Maybe because deep down she had known all along that it would end like this? That they could never possibly last, the two of them, that they would almost certainly fizzle out and fade into nothingness before they had even begun, both becoming just a little broken hearted in the process? Maybe it had been some form of subconscious defence mechanism; her denial, that was, her denial even to herself of having fallen in love with her best friend? Maybe a part of her had known all along that their love was doomed to failure. Maybe.

But could it even be referred to as love? That was the question which haunted her now, in the aftermath of it all. She knew that she had loved him with all of her heart, of course, but had he ever truly loved her back?

For years she had thought he did, hoped he did, even if she never dared admit it. It was more of a subconscious thing, something which she had only come to realise now, once it was all over, now that she was well and truly alone. She had loved him so desperately that perhaps she had not been able to see things clearly, true, but there must have been at least the essence of something there to fuel her fantasies, lead her on... mustn't there? Surely she hadn't desired him so very badly that she had seen something in his actions which had never really been there at all, not even a little?

She didn't think that was the case. She didn't think she had been that desperate, that naive. She would have known if she had been, that was what she kept telling herself, now he was gone.

But that was just it. If there really had been something there between them, even the faintest beginnings of love in his heart for her, then why had he left her? She didn't buy his excuses of being sick of the mundane nature of London, his claims of wanting something vibrant and new to brighten up his days, not in the slightest. He had loved London, she knew he had. Up until that night he had never mentioned even contemplating moving on, not even to a new job still in or close to the city. He had certainly never mentioned a desire to travel, not unless his suggesting in passing that they went on holiday together the following summer, just the two of them. Not unless that could be considered to count.

No, there had been nothing. Nothing to suggest he might have been planning this, nothing at all. And that only made her all the more convinced that the reason behind his sudden departure from her life, from England altogether, was the events of that night.

She had tried so hard to forget all about that night, put it to rest. She had tried so, so desperately hard, she really had, but she had failed so miserably almost at once that she very quickly gave up for good. It was the one thing in her life she so badly wanted, needed, to be able to forget all about and yet the only thing she seemed completely incapable of pushing out of her mind.

Only he could do this to her. Only he could wrap himself around her very soul and proceed to stubbornly refuse to release his hold upon her, even after he was gone and she was all alone once more.

She wanted to hate him for it. She should hate him for it, she knew that; if anyone else had even dared attempt to hurt her in the way he had, she would have hated them for it.

But she couldn't hate him.

She simply didn't have it in her.

Because no matter what he had done, no matter how much hurt and upset he had left in his wake, one simple fact remained.

She loved him.

Unconditionally, she loved him.

And that made hating him next to impossible.

She didn't know what to do now. Her inability to even resent him just a little for what he had done to her, or to move on and forget all about him had pinned her into a corner, and she knew it only too well.

There was no chance of future happiness, of finding someone to settle down with, she knew that. People could waste their energy telling her that her Mr Right was out there somewhere waiting to make her happy and content forever all they liked, but she knew better than to believe them.

Maybe some of them realised, maybe they didn't. But she had already found her Mr Right, the only man who could make her happy and content forever. She had met him a long time ago, spent the last eight years as his best friend, hoping and wishing and praying that one day, one day soon, he would see what had been right under his nose the entire time and want to make a go of things with her. But he never had.

It wasn't as if he didn't want a family, someone to settle down with. If that was the case, even merely a possibility, then perhaps this rejection in love would have been a little easier to cope with, to accept, just a little. But it wasn't a possibility, not at all. She was only too aware of that.

She knew he wanted to find someone to settle down and grow old with because he had told her as much. 'There's so much I want out of life but half the time I just don't know how to get it', that was what he had said. He did want to settle down, that was what those words implied to her at the time, still did now.

He wanted to settle down.

He just had no particular desire to do it with her.

That was the part of it all which hurt the most.

She would survive, she knew that much. She would survive, broken, rejected and unwanted for the rest of her life, but she would survive all the same.

But she would never stop thinking about him. Even if she wanted to she would never succeed in making herself stop. Each and every night before she slept she would paint her wishes on a starlit sky, pray to whoever was up there to bring him back to her, give her back the happiness she so desperately desired.

At first, after he had gone, it had comforted her a little to tell herself that he was looking up at the very same sky as her, that however far apart they were, at least they were still under the same sky.

Then one night, roughly a week after he had left her for good, she had remembered that thanks to the time difference, they would never be under the same starlit sky again.

And from that moment on, she was completely and utterly inconsolable.

He was gone from her, most likely forever.

And nothing she did could ever bring him back.

So I've finally reached the point at which I'm happy to start uploading this: this is the multichapter I mentioned months ago- I know, I know, it's been a while! I'm a decent way into it now so hopefully I'll be able to update regularly, though updates will be dependent on reviews ;)

I'll upload the first proper chapter if I get a few reviews for this :) Credit is due to Emeli Sande, whose album 'Our Version Of Events' gave me an idea as to why Harry might leave Nikki behind for America and what it might take to ressolve the situation. Also I huge thank you is due to all the wonderful people who reviewed my first three oneshots and gave me the confidence to begin uploading this: Ela plume-en-sucre, wordsunleashed, emmaj1996, cariad1987, catty, tigpop, socialitegirl, Lizziginne, Weshclaire, Scarletpoppy, xlaramiex, mari27990, greylostwho, charlotte88, Issy, KiwiSWfan, Nikki Cunningham (extra bonus points to you because I think you picked up on every single Sparks Fly lyric in Reconciliation :) ) tigersbride, Freya82 and Dinabar- I honestly can't tell you all how much I appreciate it.

Hope you all enjoy this, especially given we'll soon be facing a lack of both Harry AND Silent Witness on our screens :( please do leave a review, even if it's just a couple of words, and I'll continue uploading if people seem to be enjoying it :)

Emxx