TITLE: The Tear Collector
AUTHOR: Copycat (Lizzy)
RATING: M
CLASSIFICATION: Nikki/Harry, Crime, Suspense, Romance, Angst
SPOILERS: Anything through series 12 is fair game.
SUMMARY: The bodies of two children turn up at the morgue, and the team must help the police in a race against time to save a third child. Rated for violence and sexual content.
DISCLAIMER: The BBC owns everything you recognise. And probably some things you don't.
I'm trying to find my dark and twisted place. I thought I might as well go all in and make this my first attempt at a multi-chapter fic as well. Updates are likely to be infrequent and irregular, but feel free to badger me. It might actually work.
Any kind of feedback is welcome – especially if I mess something up. Odds are I will.
I'm a bit scared to be honest.
* * *
PROLOGUE:
A November storm was howling, the wind throwing the branches of ancient oak trees to and fro, the rain pelting down, forcing faded leaves to the ground where they mixed with the mud.
Behind the row of trees, nearly hidden from the road, an old house stood its ground against the storm. Tiles had fallen off the roof over the years, and the garden, once kept up so meticulously, contained nothing but an assortment of weeds.
Anything of beauty had long since been extinguished.
A steady light shone from a single window on the first floor, belying the general air of abandonment surrounding the place.
Inside, in the corner of a dark room upstairs, a child was huddled up on the floor, shivering from the cold that seeped into the old house through the cracks around the grimy windows.
There was no furniture in the room, only a blanket and an old bedpan. Both lay undisturbed in the middle of the room where they had been left earlier in the day.
The stairs creaked, and the sound was loud enough to be heard, even over the noise of the storm outside.
The child sat up straighter, staring intently at the door. Waiting.
The creaking became louder and then stopped as a strip of light appeared under the door.
There was a knock.
The child sniffed but said nothing.
The knock was repeated, more insistently this time. Still the child did nothing.
"Evelyn?" A sing-song voice asked from the hallway. "Evelyn?"
"My name is Lucy!" The child shouted back angrily.
The door opened and a man appeared in the doorway, holding a flashlight in one hand and balancing a tray precariously in the other.
"Don't play games with me, Evelyn," the man said softly, kicking the door shut behind him as he walked into the room. "When I knock on your door, you answer. It's not good manners to keep people waiting, do you understand?"
"My name is Lucy," the girl hissed through gritted teeth.
The man ignored her, putting down the tray on the floor. "I've brought you something to eat. I thought you might be hungry."
The girl glared at him, refusing to look at the food.
"Thank you," the man prompted, walking over to the girl and crouching down in front of her. He reached out a hand and gently brushed filthy, greasy hair out of her face, tucking it neatly behind her ear.
The girl said nothing, looking at him with defiance and loathing shining in her blue eyes.
The man tut-tutted and shook his head in disappointment. With his thumb he brushed dirt from her cheek, licking his lips.
The girl's fists clenched, her whole body tensing up, but she didn't move.
The man smiled sadly. "We'll get there in the end," he told her with a confidence brought on by experience.
He pushed off from the floor with the flashlight, momentarily throwing the room into darkness. "Goodnight, Evelyn," he said to the girl and walked back to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow. Sleep well."
The girl watched as the door closed behind him and waited, listening to the sound of his retreating footsteps. Only when she was sure he had gone back downstairs did she move, throwing herself at the tray, and greedily wolfing down the stew and lumps of bread he had left for her. When she had finished, she licked the metallic plate, still hungry after a whole day of nothing to eat.
Then, still on her knees next to the tray, she banged her fists on the floor in frustration, cursing her own weakness. She picked up the plate and threw it at the door, pretending it was the man she hit and not just solid wood.
She knew he would come back in the morning and see that she had eaten. He would tell her what a good girl she was for eating it all.
For the first two days she had refused to eat anything he gave her, but then she became too hungry to resist, and now her only remaining act of defiance was refusing to let him see her eating the food he brought her.
He might know that she was weak, but she wouldn't let him see it.
The girl looked out the window at the storm and thought of her parents. If she had been at home right now, mummy would have made them all hot cocoa before bed and daddy would be checking that she had done all her homework, telling her how big she was getting and tousling up her hair.
She shook her head roughly and thought of school instead. Of her horrible maths teacher and stupid Brian Denham, who always tried to knock her off the swing during recess.
Whatever happened, she wouldn't cry.
* * *
The locker room was empty when Harry walked in. He yawned and stretched, working the kinks out of his back. Then he sat down on the bench and pulled off his autopsy wellies. His socks, too, fell to the floor, before he got up and took off his scrubs.
He walked naked to his locker and got out a clean towel and a bottle of shampoo and then made his way to the showers.
The water was somehow, miraculously, instantly warm and he stepped into the spray, letting the water pour down his body, washing off a long day in the cutting room.
Squeezing out a bit of shampoo in his hand he massaged his scalp roughly, until his fingers were buried in white foam, and then he shifted to wash the shampoo from his hair, closing his eyes and mouth to keep the soap out and rubbing his hands against his body to clean it as the white foam made its way down his torso and legs.
He was so absorbed in the pleasure of finally feeling clean again that it didn't quite register with him that the door to the shower room had opened and closed. Only when he heard the sound of footsteps did he realise that he was no longer alone.
He wiped the water out of his eyes and opened them, but there was no one there. "Leo?" He called out.
"No. It isn't Leo," a voice told him and he froze.
Nikki stepped out from behind the partition separating his shower from the next one. She was naked and she was smiling at him as if there was nothing odd about that at all.
"No, you're not," Harry agreed, trying not to stare and failing abysmally.
"I just wanted to see if your showers are any better," Nikki told him, staring back openly. "I hope you don't mind."
Harry smiled, well aware that she could very easily see just how little he minded. "Of course not," he assured her. "Are they any better, then?"
She grinned and licked her lips, taking a step closer to him. "Oh, yes. Loads better."
He took a step to the side, inviting her into his shower stall and she walked in, pressing herself against him under the stream of water cascading over them both.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned up to kiss him hungrily.
He kissed her back with a matching fervour, groaning as she rubbed herself against him, naked and wet and... Nikki.
"I want you, Harry," she told him with a sigh, biting his earlobe. "Now."
He pressed her up against the partition, and she pulled him closer, her nails digging into his buttocks.
He picked her up by the waist and she wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck, sighing contentedly when he entered her, her eyes boring into his. He closed his eyes from the intensity of her gaze.
Pressing her against the shower partition for support he moved inside her, slowly at first but then faster and faster as she moaned with pleasure.
Then, somehow, her moans became a ringing noise and he realised she wasn't moaning at all, she was making the exact same noise as his mobile.
He opened his eyes and the shower stall was replaced by his bedroom and he was alone. He groaned in frustration and reached out a fumbling hand for his mobile on the bedside table.
"Mwah?" He said, when he finally located it and managed to press the appropriate button.
"Harry, it's Leo," his boss told him on the other end of the line. "I'm sorry to wake you, but we have a case."
Shaking off the last remnants of his dream, Harry focused on what Leo was saying. "Okay. I'll be right there."
He sat up on the edge of the bed and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as Leo gave him the address of the scene and then ended the call briskly, needing to get back to work.
Harry looked at his alarm clock and realised that it was only just four in the morning. Sighing, he stood up and walked to the bathroom for a cold shower.
He had a feeling this was going to be a very long day.