Don't own the characters, thanks to the BBC for letting me borrow them. Thanks to the amazing Charlotte, without your youtube video's this would not be possible. And thanks too, to x-MJ-x story At Last and Lydia Bower, both their works inspiring this story.
Rule of Three
Friday Night April 16th
Harry sat staring at the screen, spinning a pen through his fingers. As long as he kept spinning the pen he couldn't press the send button. It was a great job. A brilliant opportunity. It was in Sydney. It would be sunny all year. He stopped spinning the pen and hovered over the mouse. Australia, would it look like he was running away?
Three and half months it had been. This latest 'boyfriend'. They had met at some conference in Switzerland , it was just before Christmas and it had been going on ever since. Three days or three dates was the most her usual brand of men got. Were there any unlucky enough only to make three hours? Harry shivered. Three days of hell for him, but he could dig his heels in and know that in sixty two hours it would all be done and he'd be there to make some joke about it all and everything would go back to normal.
A few had made it to three weeks, there had been that Ryan, now he was an objectionable piece of humanity. And more recently Anton, another lying monster. He hated them all with a passion. But he could bide his time and she always came back. It was the rule of three.
But this one. Henry. He'd broken the rule of three, it was three and a half months now and still going strong. Which brought Harry back to his computer screen and his job application in Australia. Harry had a strong stomach for enduring suffering and pain, he was a forensic pathologist after all but watching her fall in love, marry and raise children with someone else. No, not even the great Harry Cunningham could stomach that.
He checked back through his diary to confirm the dates again. Harry liked numbers, they didn't make emotional demands on you. You knew where you were with numbers and he had all sorts of details recorded in his diary in his own shorthand. He knew it would be in there as he'd picked her up from Heathrow when she returned. He'd known the minute he saw her she'd met someone. And when she'd blushed scarlet in response to his half arsed joke about 'holiday romances', he knew it was true.
Holiday romances..that was it! Henry spent half his working week in Switzerland and the rest based in London. Nikki often only ever saw him on a Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. If you took that into account then the romance had only been going about two months. He calculated he had about another 9 weeks before the serious job hunting began. So he promptly logged out of his email without sending his application and picked up the beer he'd been promising himself as soon as he'd had the guts to finish.
His phone rang just as he had the can to his lips.
"Harry"
Harry groaned inwardly. It was Nikki's weekend on call and he'd been looking forward to a wonderfully boring evening, doing the things boring people did, like reading a crime novel and going to bed before midnight.
"I know you, and you only want me for my body," he purposely slurred into the phone.
"Harry are you drunk?" came Nikki's bad tempered response. " And no, I want you for your own body."
"humph" was all Harry could manage.
"Leo's already on his way in and you'd better not be drunk because with all of us we'll still have a body each, it's carnage here Harry. I need you!"
"There's three? I'm on my way, where are you?" Harry sighed replacing the full can on his way to grab his coat.
