For the incredible Lizzi. Happy birthday, gorgeous.
The Drugs Don't Work
And in the shadows a burning light, it's getting deeper for the fight.
"So, drinks tonight?" Harry's hopeful proposition is greeted by nothing but silence as the blonde woman sitting across from him stares blankly at a research paper, quite clearly lost in thought. Scrunching up a sheet of paper, he easily throws it over the gap between their desks until it hits her on the top of the head. "Oi."
Startled, she glances at the paper ball in front of her and finally looks up at him, a kind of amused impatience on her face. "Childish," she chides.
"Drinks tonight?" he repeats, a lopsided grin on his face.
She pulls a face. "I'd rather not. I'm exhausted, Harry."
He can see that; the shadows under her eyes are dark and prominent, her delicate complexion paler than usual, her body slouched over her desk.
"Are you sure?" he persists, "After the week we've had, it might do you good to get out. Or, you know, I could pick up a bottle of red and come to you?"
She smiles genuinely, but the simultaneous head-shaking doesn't bode well. "I just want to go home and sleep. Some other time, yeah?"
He tries not to look too disheartened as he nods and smiles and says, "Of course. Sounds great."
And so they finish their paperwork, log off their computers and head to the car park arm-in-arm – before getting in separate cars and heading to their own homes. He won't pretend that a little part of him isn't disappointed. Friday nights are almost customary with the two of them, even if they have had a bad few days. Especially if they've had a bad few days. But at the same time he could tell how shattered she was, and he feels a little guilty for pushing her. Perhaps he'll drive over to hers in the morning and take her out for breakfast, after she's had a good night's sleep. Hell, he could do with a good night's sleep himself.
So when the shrill ring of his phone pierces the silent darkness a little before one in the morning, Harry is not happy. Grumbling as he reluctantly exposes an arm to the harsh world outside the duvet, he blindly grabs his phone from the bedside table and presses it to his ear.
"Harry Cunningham," he mumbles.
"Hi, Harry? It's George. From Lock and Key?" comes a hesitant reply.
Harry sits up a little. Lock and Key is the bar that he and Nikki like to frequent far too often, and George is the bartender who knows them so well that he often has their favourite drinks ready and waiting for them on a Friday night. His brow furrows in sleepy confusion.
"Er, hi."
"I'm so sorry to disturb you, but ... it's Nikki," George says apprehensively, as if unsure whether he is doing the right thing.
At this, Harry seems to wake up a little. He holds the phone away from his ear and winces as he squints at the bright display. Nikki's number. Rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand, he says, "What's happened?"
"She's here at the bar and she's drunk. Very drunk. I took her car keys away over an hour ago and have spent the time since making sure she doesn't decide to go home with someone else. The thing is, I want to close up soon and she's in no fit state to get in a taxi. Would you mind coming to pick her up?"
"Was she drinking alone?" Harry asks, but he's already getting out of bed and pulling on his jeans.
"Yes. I asked her if you or your boss was joining her, but she said that you were both working," George explains.
Telling the bartender that he would be there as soon as he could, Harry jogs from his apartment to the car and sits down heavily. Why the hell is Nikki at their bar on her own, when she had insisted that she just wanted to go home?
It doesn't take him long to get to Lock and Key; he (worryingly) knows the route off by heart. The bar is nearly deserted when he arrives, the soft music in the background so quiet he strains to hear it. The only people still sitting are a couple of men in suits, a large red-headed woman absent-mindedly stirring her cocktail with a straw, a young couple absorbed in each other in a corner, and Nikki, who is sitting at the bar having a loud and animated discussion with George, who looks immensely relieved to see Harry.
Walking over to them, Harry says, "Propping up the bar, I see."
With an audible gasp Nikki spins around on the stool, nearly sliding off in the process, and cries, "Harry! You made it!" while looping her arms around his neck.
Taking advantage of her complicity, Harry places an arm around her waist and tugs her to her feet, laughing. He takes her car keys from George, thanks the bartender for everything he has done, and slowly heads outside, half-carrying and half-dragging Nikki with him.
"But I haven't finished my drink!" Nikki protests as the door closes behind them and they emerge onto the street.
"I think you've had enough, don't you?" he smirks, leading her towards his car.
"No! I was telling George all about cranial skull reconstruction facial rebuilding - oh," she trails off, looking puzzled at her own words.
"Come on you," he says, fighting the desire to laugh, "Let's get you into bed."
She gasps again, a playful smile on her face. "What makes you think I'm so easy, Doctor Cunningham?"
"Um, the fact that I am essentially carrying you to my car might have something to do with it, Doctor Alexander."
But she doesn't even appear to be listening as she says excitedly, "Let's go clubbing! Dancing, Harry!" Her words are so slurred now it's a miracle she's still talking. "Will you dance with me?"
"You can barely stand, let alone dance. Besides, I'm nearly forty. I don't go 'clubbing'. And neither do you."
She pouts miserably as she collapses into his passenger seat. "Spoilsport."
"Some other time, yeah?" he says, echoing her earlier words. He thinks he sees a flicker of something in her eyes, shame or guilt, but when he sits in the driver's seat a moment later whatever was there has gone.
He was hoping she would fall asleep on the drive home, but instead she chats incessantly about absolute rubbish (he stops listening when she starts talking about shoes) for the entire journey, hardly stopping for breath.
It's not until he gets her into her apartment that she becomes quieter, her body limp in his arms. He deposits her in her bedroom, ordering her to get her pyjamas on and brush her teeth, which she goes off to do after a giggle and mock-salute.
While she's doing that, he walks around her apartment and closes curtains, dims lights, and tidies up the kitchen a bit. Then he pours a glass of water, presses out two paracetamol tablets for the morning, and fetches a bucket from the cupboard under the sink.
Mercifully, she's in bed when he goes back in to see her. Her pyjamas are on (although he has the feeling that the top is back to front) and it's clear that she brushed her teeth when he realises she no longer smells like a brewery.
He places the glass of water on the bedside table along with the tablets and then waves the bucket as he puts it on the floor in front of her. "Just in case." He switches her lamp off so the only light in the room is that filtering through the cracks in the door from the hallway outside.
A wide grin settles across her face. "What would I do without you?"
"Drink," he says pointedly.
"No no no, that's something I do with you," she giggles.
"Not tonight you didn't," he rebukes bluntly. "Want to tell me why?"
The smile vanishes and she submerges herself in a tangle of sheets until only a tiny portion of her face is still visible.
"Fine," he sighs. "I'll ring you in the morning, make sure you're okay."
He makes to leave, but a hand grabs his wrist just as he turns away. For someone so inebriated, her grip is awfully strong.
"Don't be angry with me," she murmurs, having emerged from her cocoon.
"I'm not," he assures her. "I'm worried."
"You don't have to be."
He lets out a sharp, bitter laugh. "I always worry about you."
She doesn't say anything, merely looks at him with an almost sad expression on her face that he can't quite read.
"Why did you run?" she says, throwing him completely.
After a solid thirty seconds of incomprehension, he says, "What are you talking about?"
"In Budapest last year. After Anna. Why did you run?" she repeats in an undertone.
He swallows hard, exhales sharply and shakes his head.
"It's a perfectly fair question, isn't it?" she continues, her voice ten times steadier than before, propping herself up on one elbow in bed, her right hand not leaving his arm, holding him in place. "Why did you run?"
He's beginning to wish he'd never answered his phone now. These are the sort of questions that he can't handle very well, the sort that dredge up painful nightmares. The sort that make his heart ache.
"Because that's what I do, don't I?" he snaps acidly. "I run. From everything and anyone that tests me, that scares me, that I think I can't handle."
"Does it help?" she breathes, and he realises then that she's not accusing him of anything, not interrogating or chiding him, but telling him, in her own roundabout way, that she's doing the same. "Running?"
"Not if the place you're running to is the bottom of a bottle," he tells her truthfully. He slides his wrist from her iron-like grip, replacing it with his hand instead. She grasps tightly at his fingers, gazing up at him beseechingly. For a moment, he really properly looks at her. She's even paler than she was that afternoon at work, the circles under her eyes darker than ever. Her hair is tousled and out of place, her mascara smudged. But there's a terrible pain in her eyes, in the slight tremble of her chin that – if he's honest – scares the hell out of him.
"I'm running," she whispers.
"From what?"
Suddenly, it occurs to him that these are the sort of questions that belong to two a.m., enveloped in darkness and tinged with an edge of unconsciousness, where inhibitions are lowered and defences let down.
Her answer snatches all the air from his lungs. "My dad's dead."
A sigh escapes his lips. "Oh, Nikki..." He watches the solitary tear crawl from the corner of her eye to the pillow under her head. Stepping out of his shoes, he lets go of her hand and walks around to the other side of the bed, climbing on top of the covers beside her. She rolls over so that they're facing each other.
"I wish I could make everything better for you," he says softly.
She nods. "I know."
"I'm not going anywhere," he adds. "I'm staying right here until you stop needing me."
A slight smile graces her features. "Forever, then."
"Fine by me."
Still smiling, she rolls onto her back and he echoes her movements. An arm emerges from under the duvet and her fingers find his once again on the sheets between them. There's nothing but silence for a long while and he thinks that she has finally fallen asleep, but then she clasps his hand a little tighter and says, "You don't run."
"What?"
"For as long as I've known you, you don't run when you're scared. Perhaps you hide for a while, but you don't run. What happened with Anna was ... horrific. Anyone would have run from it. But you came back. You dealt with it in the only way you knew how. And I will never stop being amazed by your strength. If there is one person in my life that I can depend on to be there, it's you. Only you. It's why I love you."
He finds that his throat has constricted and it's a little difficult to talk. Clearing it, he swallows hard and then says, "Blimey, how much have you had?"
She clicks her tongue impatiently. "That's another way you deal with things. Abrasive humour."
He grins. "Sorry. Thank you."
"You're welcome." She inhales deeply, settling into the multitude of blankets and pillows surrounding her.
His hold on her hand is unyielding as he says, "I love you too, you know."
Her voice is quiet when she replies, laced with exhaustion and sentiment – and, if he's not much mistaken, a few hundred tequila shots.
"I know."
I know this is the second 'my dad's dead' thing I've done recently, but it just seemed to fit in the context of this one-shot. I hope you all like it, I really do.
You guys are fab by the way, you actually are. Your reviews genuinely make my day, thank you so much. :)