When examining a body Nikki is exposed to a dangerous disease. Hariki. Similar to that episode when Nikki was exposed to a contagious disease, but a little bit more dramatic. Ok I've been doing the research and I know that technically this is probably impossible, but frankly I don't care, it's possible for my story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Silent Witness, all the BBC. If I did, you would know.

Losing You

Chapter 1: Anything and Everything

The body that lay on the table, before Nikki Alexandra, was that of a 2-year-old Nigerian toddler. She was severely malnourished, and had been suffering from Scurvy due to a lack of vitamin C in her diet, it probably had something to do with the fact that Nikki suspected the baby on her table was an illegal immigrant who had arrived on a cargo ship. Nikki reported all of this into her Dictaphone; she paused to examine the face, the skin of which had been eaten away by rats. This particular body had been found in the sewers so it was to be expected. She had yet to cut into the body which looked so frail as it lay on her table. There was still one eye the socket, Nikki frowned as she looked closer at this eye, there was evidence of a Uveal melanoma, (cancer of the eye) its most common cause was over exposure to Ultraviolet light, Nikki noted this before moving over to the table that held the scalpels and instruments for her to begin the autopsy, with the first incision she cut began from the bottom of the ribs, and she moved all the way up to the collar bone, the stench from the body was stronger now. Nikki pulled back the flaps of skin to reveal the lungs beneath the rib cage, Nikki grimaced from beneath the mask she had on, the lungs looked decomposed, but it was not in keeping with the state of the rest of the body, something had deteriorated the babies' lungs. Harry Cunningham watched from the gallery above, he'd just arrived, he smiled as he watched Nikki work, unaware of his presence.

"The child's lungs appear to have been disintegrated, the level of which suggests that it began pre-mortem." She paused and leaned closer towards the body, "Interesting." She mused to herself.

"What is?" came a second voice from above; it didn't belong to Harry who had jumped not knowing that Leo, their boss, was in the gallery with him.

Nikki looked up startled to find out that she had an audience; "The decomposition in the lungs isn't in keeping with that of the rest of the body." Leo nodded in agreement, something was clearly not right.

"Nikki, can you finish up with this? We've got 3 more bodies coming in this morning and I'll need both of you." Nikki nodded as her gaze drifted away from Leo to Harry who was bowing obediently, Nikki smiled at him. He really could be quite childish sometimes. Nikki looked back down at the body and completed the autopsy, she found nothing, all that out of the ordinary apart from the decomposition of the lungs. She removed her gloves, after she had closed up the chest cavity, Nikki sighed heavily, she'd instructed one of the orderlies to clean up, unfortunately they hadn't, so she was left to do it alone. Nikki placed a second pair of gloves on and began to clean up, the smell of disinfectant irritating her nose as she did so.

"Nikki, have you finished?" Leo had poked his head in through the door, Nikki nodded as she hosed down the table one last time; "Great, the first of the bodies has arrived, you can go wait in the office with Harry, I've got this one covered." Nikki smiled relieved that she was able to take a break, even if it was only a short one. She walked slowly towards the office, her clothes felt itchy and tight against her skin, rubbing her arms slightly Nikki looked up to see Harry watching her.

"You ok?" he asked, she smiled at him, his concern was unwarranted in her opinion, but it was nice to know he cared.

"I'm fine Harry, I just had the most awful case, a baby, she was only about 2, she had anything and everything wrong with her, poor child." She sighed again taking a seat across from Harry. Harry would have commented that he had seen, but Nikki seemed a little preoccupied.

Harry watched as she rubbed her eyes tiredly; "Don't get too comfortable we've got two more bodies coming in any minute," Harry said getting to his feet; "the bodies were all found in a flat, Leo said that the police report said they'd all been garrotted." Nikki nodded, though she wasn't really listening to him. Harry noticed the blank expression on her face and sighed; "You sure you're ok?" they were interrupted by the buzz of the door, announcing the arrival of the other two bodies. Nikki smiled and headed towards the door, Harry was left slightly confused as he watched Nikki's retreating form. Harry ran a hand through his hair as he followed her, something was certainly off.

-

The body in the body bag was that of a teenage male, Nikki watched as it was placed on the middle table, Harry had followed her into the mortuary; the corpse that he would be autopsying was on the table nearest the door. Each pathologist worked on their own body, 3 male victims, same cause of death for all, it looked like they killed each other.

"I think that they garrotted each other, the last one would have had to do it himself, was there a weapon at the scene?" Leo asked looking up at the Detective stood to his right.

"Looks like they used guitar strings. We don't have identities on the victims just yet, but we're working on it." Came the reply.

"You're thinking a suicide pact?" Nikki asked looking up from her body, she moved to his hands lifting them up, if he had indeed helped to murder one of the other two there would be marks on his hands; "Surely there are easier ways." Nikki muttered tracing the red marks on the palm of his hand.

Harry was also examining his bodies' hands; "I think my guy didn't sign this pact." He lifted up the hand to show Nikki and Leo that the fingers had been cut into, clearly a result of trying to fight back.

"There must have been a fourth person," Nikki surmised, the Detective didn't look convinced; "Well Leo's guy doesn't have marks on his hands, so, he was killed first, I'm guessing that my guy killed him...so there had to be someone else in the room to kill my guy and Harry's."

"You're assuming that your guy didn't kill them all though Nikki." Harry replied.

Nikki smiled, she'd already thought of that; "If 'my guy'," she actually did the air quotes, causing Harry to role his eyes; "had killed them, he would have deeper lacerations on his hands, the struggle would have left them more damaged than there is here." Harry nodded knowing that she was in fact correct. Once cause of death had been confirmed by all three pathologists, though there wasn't really much doubt as to how the men had died, the autopsies were finished and the bodies taken away.

-

Nikki was currently sat at her desk filling out paper work, it had been a whole 8 hours since she had done the autopsy of the toddler that morning and she was noting up what she had said to the Dictaphone, she was finding concentrating hard and her vision kept on blurring. She blinked, once, twice, and on the third time her vision cleared. She chalked it up to lack of sleep, and working too many hours. She hadn't noticed that Harry had sat down at his desk across from her and was watching her work.

"You look awful." He commented. Nikki jumped and clutched at her chest, Harry raised an eyebrow he hadn't exactly been silently sitting there; he'd expected her to notice him.

She glared; "You're so kind." She muttered, she looked down at the notes she had been making, but she couldn't understand a word of it; "I should be at home in bed." She muttered again, running a hand through her unruly blonde hair.

"Go home then." Harry told her, as if it were that simple.

She looked up at him, if only he knew how much she wanted to go home; "I have to finish this first." She said. Her tone left little room for argument.

But apparently he'd found some; "You," he paused and moved round the desk to help her up; "-can finish it off tomorrow, Leo won't mind." Nikki sighed, she knew that she wouldn't be able to argue with him when he looked at her like that. Nikki closed her eyes and resigned herself to the fact that she would in fact be going home without finishing her report. Nikki closed her eyes and smiled as Harry handed her coat to her. Harry still had to practically shove her out of the door in the end, he reassured her that Leo wouldn't be angry that she hadn't finished the report. Without another word Nikki was ushered out of the door by Harry, he led her out to the car park and to her car; "Will you be alright getting home?" Nikki gave him a glare as she put her key in the ignition, she didn't bother giving him a response, she put the car into reverse and drove away. Harry wondered briefly if should would indeed be ok, she had seemed extremely exhausted, but it wasn't like she would tell him that. She wouldn't want him to worry. He probably would anyway. Nikki arrived at her place without incident, despite the fact that she found it hard to keep her eyes open. She decided that sleep was most important to her in that moment. Sleep. Nikki found her eye lids drooping, sleep was inevitable. She managed to get into her pyjamas just before sleep took her. It was a heavy sleep, full of nightmares that shouldn't haunt a grown woman's mind.

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A/N: This is shorter than I would have liked. Oooer something's wrong with Nikki. You like? Review please, it'll make me happy. No flames thank you.