Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all; that was a mere one of a thousand varied thoughts which ran through Nikki Alexander's head as her heels clicked soporifically against the dull paving slabs of 76th Street. She was only too aware of her rather spectacular failure to fully contemplate the potential consequences of these particular actions; a part of her wondered if perhaps she had acted on instinct without even being fully aware of it when she had departed from her hotel not half an hour earlier. It was as if some celestial power had overcome her upon her landing in the city, and had made it its mission right from the very moment it overcame her to draw her in towards something- or someone, as it happened. This mysterious force of nature had rendered her completely incapable of asserting her own free will in relation to this certain movement, a superstitious part of her soul firmly believed. Maybe, just maybe, fate had decided from the very moment she booked her flight that it would bring her to this very spot eventually, someway, somehow. Perhaps she had never had anything of a choice in the matter at all.
Nikki had decided on the walk over from her hotel that this was the explanation of her actions thus far this morning that she would prefer to believe. That way, she couldn't possibly hold herself fully accountable for whatever happened later, consequently. She would prefer it that way. A small, prophesying voice within her had been fighting for her attention all morning, urgently needing to beg her not to go, that this was bound to go horrifically wrong.
But that timid voice of reason was unfortunately outnumbered by the stronger emotions of love and need and desperation which burned within her brighter. It was never going to triumph over those, it didn't stand a chance. Fate would have its way and to hell with the aftermath.
It was no good. She had spent the last few months fighting desperately with the longing of her heart to get over her childish crush on her best friend, to accept that he had moved on to better things and let the past go along with him, but nothing worked.
The tearful reaction thoughts of the best friend in question provoked within her when she was hopelessly alone was like a full-on rainstorm, blowing over the fragile house of cards that was her heart in a matter of seconds.
She should turn around, right now this very moment, and run as fast as she could in the opposite direction up 76th Street. That was the advice a ferocious survival instinct somewhere deep within her conscious was practically forcing upon her with every step she took. A part of Nikki knew the most sensible plan would be to listen to it, to obey, to give in to its frantic pleas. She thought back to the emotional wreck the mere thought of Harry Cunningham had the ability to reduce her to, and the more her mind lingered on those memories of sobbing all alone in a darkened apartment, the more and more afraid she became.
She was only just beginning to pull herself out of the other side of that horrific trench of despair. To do something to risk throwing herself right back in to where she had started would be capricious at best, preposterous at worst.
But when she at last summoned up the courage to attempt to force herself to turn around and run as fast as her legs could carry her back towards the relative safety of her hotel, Nikki Alexander found herself utterly incapable of willing herself to proceed.
All her mind could focus upon was Harry Cunningham's gaze; the soft, ameliorating depths of his hazel eyes. How she longed to be able to throw herself into his arms, to lose herself in his warm embrace the way she had once been able to whenever she was unhappy, in a lifetime when she understood now in hindsight she had taken him for granted. What she would give to be able to do that now, to have him take away this overwhelming pain for her simply by taking her into his arms. She shivered a little at the mere thought of having him with her once more; if she concentrated with all her might she could almost recall the smell of his aftershave, as prominent as it had been all of the times before he had pulled her into a hug and made everything right with the world again, just for those brief moments he held her in his arms. All she wanted was to have him back, to work his magic for her again now and make it all better. She wanted him to take away the pain the way he did so effortlessly, as though it were his very purpose.
The only trouble with that fantasy was that it was something of a paradox.
When the elaborate, poetic wording of her desire was stripped away to expose the raw essence of it all, it was clear that what she wanted so badly was for Harry Cunningham to free her of all the pain he had caused her himself by disappearing off to another continent entirely to live out the American Dream.
It wasn't just a paradox. It was a spectacular one.
Nikki knew full well what the sensible option would be. She knew what to do for the best, for the both of them, but knew at the same time that she would never succeed in following through with the appropriate course of action. She wouldn't have made it this far across Manhattan if she wasn't determined to see her best friend again.
There had been no contact between the two of them since Harry's departure for New York.
A part of Nikki knew she was still in denial about it all. The lack of contact- no texts, no phone calls, no emails, nothing- was hardly down to a lack of effort on her part; sometimes when she pondered on it, allowed her mind to linger for too long, she worried that perhaps she had driven him away by clinging too tightly when all Harry had wanted was to start afresh. Maybe there was some truth in that interpretation, Nikki didn't know. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know.
She was considering this a last chance, an ultimatum of sorts. An ultimatum with herself, that was; she knew she would never be able to pluck up the courage to deliver anything of the sort to Harry himself. She would be far too afraid to do anything of the sort, terrified to the very core of being rejected, pushed away forever by the one man she was more than a little afraid she lacked the ability to live without.
Although now Nikki thought about it, step by step becoming closer to her destination, perhaps she had nothing left to lose after all. Hadn't she already been rejected by Harry Cunningham? Couldn't his failure to respond to the hundreds and hundreds of messages she must have left him since that awful day he went away be considered the very epitome of a rejection? Most likely.
But even that new realisation wasn't enough to convince Nikki Alexander to turn around and head back to her hotel, before even the perfect image of Harry Cunningham she now treasured in her heart to compensate for his absence in her life was shattered into a thousand tiny pieces, well and truly unsalvageable.
She was going through with this, right here and right now, and she would deal with the consequences later.
She had to try one last time. In just a few short minutes she would be right outside his new office; if he still refused to acknowledge her when she had come so far, made it so easy for him to speak to her. It was easier face to face, that was what Nikki had been telling herself as a means of justifying this whole expedition. Of course it was easier face to face.
If he still kept his distance and left her out in the cold today, she would try her very hardest to let go and move on. That was the promise Nikki had made with herself earlier this morning, and she had vowed to do her very best to follow this plan through. Because she knew she hadn't exactly been trying up until now, not really. She could have tried an awful lot harder had she really wanted to, but the aching within her heart simply hadn't been ready to let Harry Cunningham go.
But this was it, this really was. One last chance to allow herself to be captivated without him even trying to enforce a hold on her, one last chance to experiment, to see if the fireworks of a nervous, supressed passion she remembered there being between them not so long ago could possibly be rekindled.
It was beginning to rain as Nikki reached her destination, stormy clouds of irritancy and anger dominating a once-clear Manhattan sky. Pathetic fallacy, perhaps, she thought bitterly.
If sparks could still fly in these bitter conditions, she would truly believe there might be hope for them yet.
She pulled her phone from her pocket as the rain turned to downpour at startling speed, ducking undercover and seeking refuge under the canopy at the front of Harry Cunningham's new pathology lab. She couldn't quite bring herself to take in any of its distinguishing features, blocking them out instead, adamant that she would not be observing enough of it in depth to begin to associate it with Harry, her Harry, in her mind. While she didn't know where he worked, he still belonged with her at the Lyell Centre, and this whole New York arrangement was merely temporary. The moment she did, it would become harder and harder to continue living in a fantasy world. Maybe near-impossible, and that simply wasn't a risk she could bring herself to take.
Her heart began to pound, echoing disconcertingly in her ears as she made the call. Just for a moment Nikki allowed herself to consider the possibility that this time maybe, just maybe, he might decide to pick up and take her call, but with each ominous beep of the dialling tone, a little of that hope died lamentably within her soul.
Of course he wouldn't pick up, she should have realised that. Nothing had changed as far as Harry Cunningham was concerned; he wasn't aware that she was even in New York, let alone standing outside his new work building at that very moment. Besides, what was it that had made her so sure earlier that he would answer even if he had known? She hadn't seen or heard from him in months; after all, perhaps the Harry Cunningham who existed now was a mere shell of the man she had known a lifetime ago, in a time of happiness which now seemed at times like a mere figment of her imagination. Maybe.
Answerphone. Nikki's heart sank all over again.
She should have ended the call then and there. She should have hung up and walked away, considered it a lost cause, gone back to her hotel room through the rain and done as she had promised herself, resolved not to waste another thought on a man who evidently didn't love her back.
But desperation overcame her, and before Nikki was able to regain some self-control, she was shouting down the phone.
"Harry? Harry, please, I know you're avoiding me! And I don't know why, I don't know what I did to upset you, I don't even know if I did anything at all but… but I just want… I mean…"
She couldn't hold herself together, no matter how hard she tried. She hadn't tried leaving Harry a voicemail message in months and it was as if everything she had wanted to say to him for so long was attempting to pour out of her soul at once, resulting in a disarray of thoughts and pleas and confessions and emotions all tangled into one incomprehensible confusion.
She forced herself to stop, taking a deep breath in a determined effect to compose herself and get to the point, the only flicker of hope there might possibly be for reconciliation at long last.
"I'm here!" Nikki practically screamed into the phone, a part of her fully aware that Harry Cunningham would most likely delete her message before even taking the time to listen, though somehow that didn't particularly matter anymore. "I'm here! I'm here, I'm right outside your building, I… I just want to see you," she whispered hopelessly, all of the frenzy gone from her at once. "Please? And I… I know you might not want to see me, you've moved on, I understand, but… I just want to see you," she repeated, tear ducts about to hit overflow. "One last time, while I'm here? Please?"
She sounded pathetic, completely and utterly pathetic. She ended the call and threw her phone into her handbag in a tempestuous rage with herself for being so weak and hopelessly in love, running out from under the canopy at the front of the building and right out into the downpour, allowing the rainwater to soak her from head to foot, drenching her, yet still failing to cleanse a tormented soul of the source of all her anguish.
She wasn't sure exactly how long she stood there, arms held out to either side as though suffering some kind of epiphany, eyes closed, strangely soothed by the dull pounding of the raindrops against her face. She wanted to lose herself in it all forever, to forget all of the pain and the hurt and the rejection and be happy again, what she would give to be happy again…
"Nikki?"
She froze. Each and every muscle fibre in her body seemed to contract and paralyse all at once at the sound of a voice she had feared she might never hear again, her head turning almost violently towards the mellow tones calling her name. She needed it to be him, she needed it so badly; if this was merely a figment of her imagination she couldn't quite contemplate how she would save herself from breaking down there and then in the middle of 76th Street, trembling alone in a state of despair in the gutter…
"Nikki?" the voice repeated, a little softer this time.
Her eyes struggled to focus thanks to the rainwater and the tears, blinking furiously as the world became a vaguely clear image again and she saw him at last, stood there right in front of her like an angelic figure of hope in a sea of despair, close enough to touch.
"H-Harry?" She stammered, frozen hands scrambling as she stretched out towards his own, the whole world in suspended animation as life itself held its breath, anxious as to how these crucial next few moments might play out.
He had dropped everything in a moment to meet her in the pouring rain, after months of ignoring her messages, leaving her behind in his quest for the American Dream. Surely that had to mean there for hope for them yet?
He was reaching out for her too, his own hands shaking as his fingers brushed tentatively against hers, his movements slow and sluggish as though exploring a dream world.
It was only then that she broke down fully, sobbing on the verge of hysterics as she reached out to place her hands on his shoulders, partly as a pillar of support in a storm of emotions, partly to confirm to herself that this was no longer just one of her fantasies, that he was really here. She was on her guard to the rest of the world, but with him, she knew it was no good. Harry Cunningham could see through her every façade in an instant, to hide herself from him would be impossible.
And so instead, Nikki gave in, allowing Harry Cunningham to pull her into one of those hugs she remembered so well, resting her head on his chest and clinging on tightly, arms around his neck. Everything else ceased to matter; she would deal with it all when this moment was brought to an end at last. For now, she simply wanted to lose herself in the perfection of his arms.
"I'm here," Harry whispered into her hair tenderly, shivering a little in the cold rain. "I'm here."
In the harsh winter winds of a Manhattan rainstorm, sparks flew obstinately with each and every one of his smiles.
I'm not quite sure where this came from- originally it was a potential scene in the multichap I'm working on but it had to be eliminated in the planning stage, I felt it was ruining the story. So I kept it and suddenly had an urge to rework it into something freestanding today, and this is what I came up with. This is the sort of moment I'd love to think the BBC might give us one day, but somehow I doubt it :(
Please do let me know if you enjoyed it, reviews make me smile :) And I promise to get my multichap up soon, I need someone to read the beginning of it to reassure me it's alright first though. But soon, and especially so if you review :p
Exxx
PS. credit is due to Taylor Swift, as most of this was written while listening to one of her songs on repeat, I'm slightly obsessed with it at the moment. Bonus points to anyone who guesses which one, there are quite a few clues worked into the prose...