Passing the Torch, by chibiness87
Rating: T. Language warning.
Spoilers; Oh yeah. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN 16.5!
A/N: I am currently in a state of shock. And of wtf. Seriously. wtF?! So. I give you my first offering of a SW fic. Because, seriously people, what in the name of fuck just happened?!
It is not a phone call which informs him. Nor even the news. Instead, it is a snippet of overheard conversation in the break room of his fancy new office at his fancy new gig. He doesn't even hear all of the conversation. Just phrases. But enough to send a chill down his spine. Leo Dalton. Suicide bomber. Afghanistan. Dead.
Leo Dalton, Professor Leo Dalton of the Lyell centre, is dead.
At first he thinks it's a sick joke.
Leo Dalton cannot be dead.
There is no way that Leo, his mentor, colleague, friend, went to Afghanistan and got blown up in a suicide bomb attack. Just not possible.
Except.
Except, this is Leo, and if he thought there was a cause of justice, he could have gone.
Of course he would have gone. As would have Nikki.
Oh god.
Nikki.
He's on the first plane to London he can find.
She is beautiful. Heartbroken, grief stricken, and still the most beautiful person he has ever seen. Harry doesn't take a front row pew in the packed church as Nikki gives her eulogy. It wouldn't be fair on her to randomly show up out of the blue like that. He knows this. Knows it, but still can't help but be slightly hurt that, even now, 2 weeks after that day, she still has yet to call him. He knows she hasn't. Has had all calls diverted to his mobile. None have been from her. Not that he blames her.
Not really.
He watches from the side line as two people, one young looking guy and a woman in a wheelchair, approach Nikki after the service. This, then, must be Jack and Clarissa. Leo mentioned them in one of the few emails he had received from his former boss in the previous 2 months. He's not stupid enough to be jealous of Jack though. He can tell by the way she doesn't quite collapse into his when she thinks no one else is looking that they are nothing more than friends.
If it were him... Well. If it were him he wouldn't be feeling quite like the pile of shit he is currently feeling like. The biggest fucking coward on the planet. If he had even half the balls she did, it would have been him out in that god forsaken desert with her. Except, no. He would (could) have convinced them to stay put in London. Would not have even been anywhere near that place. It would have just have been another story on the news. Removed. Non personal.
It was nothing but personal now.
Finally, he gathered up his nerve and approached. Her sharp sense of awareness, her spider sense, must have been tingling, because she was looking around before he had even crossed half the distance between the two of them before she caught sight of him.
At once he felt like an idiot. He should have called. Or emailed. Or in some way let her know that he was coming. Of course he was coming. Because the look on her face now, as she saw him approach her, was nothing short of disbelief, mixed with anger. It was sort of like the look he got from her when he reviled to her she was not dead in Budapest. Only worse. And he knew he deserved it.
When she greeted him, not with a hug or a smile, but with a closed fist to his chest, he took it. Truth be told, her was glad it was not his jaw. Experience told him she had a mean right hook when she needed one. Instead, he let her beat his chest, again and again, until finally her mean punches began fitful thwacks which became grasping hands as she launched herself into his chest and a heart wrenching sob broke loose.
His arms came up around her then, holding her to him, even as her tears soaked their way through his crisp shirt collar. He would gladly absorb her tears, her pain. Wished there was a way he could absolve her of her grief, but knowing he had given up that right when he had boarded the States bound plane 6 months prior.
It is many minutes later before her voice, small and fragile, greets his ears. A small, child like question, anguish obviously present. "He was the closest thing I ever had to a father. What am I supposed to do now?"
The answer that comes to him is devastatingly simple, yet so hard, while encompassing everything Leo stood for. He whispers it into her hair, before placing a small, simple kiss on her crown.
"Live."
End.