This story picks up directly after the end of 'Home', when Nikki walks away from Anton and enters the lift alone.

You had it all planned out. You were going to walk out of that hotel room, head held high, make this your dramatic exit from the building, the district, the country. You were going to get a taxi straight away, hide out in the airport for the next few hours or so and meet Harry and Leo there later, once they were ready to leave. You had planned to spend this last afternoon in Cape Town in their company, maybe bring Anton along to introduce him properly.

But now of course, that's not going to happen, you realize with a soft, hopeless sigh as the lift descends further and further down towards the first floor, your heart so low you almost consider the possibility it might just be down there already. Not just the taking Anton to meet Harry and Leo again, the going to meet Harry and Leo itself. Because you're not going; you can't face it, you just can't. You can't bear the thought of having to tell them that the man you've spent the past 6 weeks in love with, even contemplating a future with, has turned out to be a lying, manipulative, dishonest bastard, and you won't be seeing him again as long as you live. They'll be sympathetic, you know that, and of course you'll be grateful, even though their sympathy is really the last thing you want at this moment in time. They'll try to make you feel better, offer you some comfort, but deep down you know that they won't exactly be surprised. You know what Harry for one thinks of your relationships, your failures, and you're willing to bet that beneath Leo's carefully constructed façade of happiness for you each time you find yourself a new boyfriend, he feels exactly the same way. They don't approve of your boyfriends, never have, always think they're either too good to be true or a complete waste of space, sometimes even both. And every single time your boyfriends prove Harry and Leo right, every time without fail. Why, just for once, can't one of them break the pattern? Why couldn't you have a taste of happiness that lasted longer than a handful of weeks, just once?

No, you decide sadly as the lift reaches the first floor of the hotel, gathering your bags together and heading towards the reception desk to check yourself out for good, eyes just a little moister than normal. No, you can't face Harry and Leo, not just now, not when this horribly familiar pain is all too fresh. You can't face having to explain, to tell them, would much rather hide away in the airport these next few hours and get your head together, work out exactly what you are going to tell them. You're not sure if you have the strength just yet to go into too much detail, and yet at the same time, somehow you feel you owe them that much. You're always doing this, meeting someone, believing with all your heart that you've fallen in love, bringing them into Harry and Leo's lives to accept or to judge and then relying on their shoulders to cry on when inevitably it all goes horribly wrong and your heart is broken once more. And it's not fair on them at all, you can't keep falling to pieces like this whenever you become too attached to someone and it doesn't work out. They shouldn't have to deal with your hurt, your regret, your pining for someone you know full well in your heart that you're better off without but your head hasn't quite got the message, not just yet. Because you loved Anton Radebe, you loved his children, could see yourself spending the rest of your life out here as a family if it hadn't all gone so horribly wrong at the very last moment.

… couldn't you?

You hand over your room key to the woman on the desk, pay the bill, gather your cases, and you're halfway across the hotel lobby towards the door when you realize you can't go back to the airport, not just yet. You don't think you can face Harry and Leo, don't want to disturb Sara or Martha or any of your Cape Town 'family' just when they thought they'd gotten rid of you either. But you don't want to be alone, don't want to allow yourself to dwell on the events of this afternoon, the future you could have had but now never will. That leaves you with only one place to go, and even as the thought first begins to cross your mind the doubt is setting in; doubt that this is really a very good idea. There's a great possibility that this move is only going to make you feel a thousand times worse and don't you just know it, but somehow you can't quite stop yourself. The conflict within you is a tangled, messy one, to stay or to go, to play it safe or take a chance, hope that somehow this risk might make you feel just a little bit better.

You go for the risk. After all, you've got little left to lose.

Another deep, sad sigh escapes you as your taxi turns off the main road, edging closer and closer to your destination with each passing minute. You know the route like the back of your hand; you've been here so many times over the past 20 years or so that every turn, every landmark is etched into your brain, impossible to escape from, to forget. The place you're headed to now is one which you visit each and every time you come back to Cape Town, one you know you'll be coming back to time and time again as long as you live. You've been here so many times now that it's almost become a part of you; you can't bear to visit too often but you can't stand to be away for long, either. Stay away too long and the guilt kicks in, you start to worry that you're being neglectful, unfair, that you're beginning to forget the reason you come, the reason you remember, the reason you cling on to those vivid memories of childhood. You'll never forget, of course. How could you? You carry the scars of a life long-ago lost wherever you go, whatever you do, always have, always will.

You wish you could talk to her. You wish you could tell her about Anton, let off steam, vent of his betrayal of your trust and his lying and manipulating and withholding information until finally you felt free of him, ready to move on. She'd understand, you know she would. She was long gone by the time your first boyfriend came along, never got around to giving you the pep talk, the advice and compassion you always imagined being shared between mother and daughter on such matters. Maybe that's why each and every one of your relationships to date has ended in misery and disaster, because no one ever explained to you properly how to make them work, how to fall for the right guys and leave the no hopers by the wayside? Or maybe you're just making excuses for yourself, trying to explain away your uselessness when it comes to men, find some kind of reason it isn't your fault? It's the latter, you think. Damn it, Nikki, get over yourself. You can't blame a long-dead mother for your own failures; that's not fair. It's not fair at all, it's bloody ungrateful and you know it. Plenty of people grow up without a mother entirely and manage to form perfectly normal, long-lasting relationships, you know they do. Anton Radebe and the string of disasters that precede him are the fault of no one but yourself.

Trouble is, you sigh as the road ahead grows narrower and narrower, deep down you think you know the reason you can't hold a man down for more than 5 minutes at a time, and it's got absolutely nothing to do with a lack of a mother in your later teenage years, nothing at all. You are doing your best to makeexcuses for yourself, you know that, know you should really start to snap out of it sooner rather than later. There's no point trying, not when you know full well it isn't going to work. Each time you try, thoughts of one of the only men who haven't yet let you down enter your head, consuming your every thought, and suddenly denial simply isn't an option anymore. You know the real problem only too well. You can't hold down a relationship for the life of you because the only man you really want is a certain Harry Cunningham.

But just as you're finally beginning to admit to yourself the truth, the taxi shudders to a hold and your thoughts are interrupted; that painful confession you've been fighting so long and so hard to admit to yourself escaping from acceptance at the last possible moment as you tear yourself away to pay the fare, heave your case out of the back of the taxi van and head off down the pathway, dragging your suitcase behind you. This always happens. Whenever you try to admit the truth about your relationship failures to yourself even that goes wrong, something stops you, something gets in the way of your confession, your chance of maybe managing to get over a schoolgirl-like crush on your best friend once and for all. Typical. It's hopeless, it really is. Completely and utterly hopeless.

Harry… why is his name still on your mind, even now? He's your best friend and you'd be lost without him, you really would, but why is he still dominating your thoughts even now? It's almost obsessive, you ponder, slightly unnerving when you really think about it. It's still less than an hour since you broke up with Anton, for god's sake. That pain should still be horribly raw, you should be distraught, hurt, still in the initial stages of dealing with the breakdown of that latest relationship and your thoughts taken up completely by nothing but Anton Radebe. That and the person you're visiting now, of course, a mixture of both, pain at losing both of them in completely different ways. Your thoughts should be with them, the people you loved whom you no longer have, not someone you see almost every day, someone who won't be leaving you any time soon. At least you hope not. You hardly dare to admit it, but you honestly don't know how you'd cope without Harry. Over the years he's become such a huge part of your life that you can't imagine how…

There you go again.

You must have been making your way along the pathway ahead all the while you were lost in thought, you know that, but still it comes as a shock when you find yourself stood at the headstone once more, the one you've been a regular at now more than half of your lifetime. God, that makes you sound old. You're still not quite sure how or when you got so old, not when you can remember your childhood so vividly, those long-ago days when you were happy, felt loved. You don't feel grown up, not really, you sigh as you drop to your knees, glance at the harshness of the grey against the dried up, moisture-starved grass and wish you thought to bring a bunch of flowers. You're not sure you've ever felt properly grown up. It's as if a part of you froze in time that day all those years ago when you lost your mother, remained a child no matter how much older you became, how much you changed. A part of you remains the girl who lost her mother, the teenager without a hand to guide her, left in a world with only a parent she despised for comfort and reassurance. Every move you make she's there, clinging to you, refuses to let go and be laid to rest along with her long dead mother. She doesn't want you to grow up, you realize as your right hand skims delicately across the letters on the gravestone, the other wiping furiously at your cheeks. She doesn't want you to grow up because she's scared you'll forget, terrified you'll move on with your life, with Anton or Ryan the paramedic or some other no-hoper, and you won't remember her at all.

Although which 'her' you're referring to in this messed up analogy, you really don't know.

You never talk about her. Your mother, you mean, not your 15 year old self still clinging to you like a parasite, refusing to let you go. You wouldn't want to talk about her. No, your mother, you never talk about your mother, only when you have to mention her, and even then you move on quickly, hastily, don't linger on the topic for any longer than necessary. Why do you do that? It's not like you're ashamed of her. You loved her with all your heart, never felt anything less, not even towards the end when she wasn't really the mother you remembered from the happy, childhood times. Maybe the shame isn't on your part, maybe it's on hers? Maybe you're scared that you're a disappointment to her, that she's looking down on you right this very moment and sighing in despair. You're fast approaching middle age now, after all, no husband, no family, no one to live for, dedicate your life to the way she dedicated hers to you. All you have to show for the last 20 years of life alone is your job- your job, a string of failed attempts of a relationship and a best friend you wish was something more but don't have the courage to strive for. Would she be ashamed of you? Perhaps. It's been so long since you've seen her that you can't really remember enough be sure either way.

Maybe you should talk about her. Harry talks about his father, not all the time, but every now and then he slips him into conversation, shares with you an insight into the Cunningham family that helps you to understand him a little better. Maybe that's the problem. He tells you his darkest secrets, pours his heart out to you on occasion, but still you never give him the chance to share your past, your pain, your anguish and outrage that the world could be so cruel. You don't give him a chance to love you the way that you love him, you know you don't. You've only got yourself to blame. And Anton… even he opened up to you in a way that you never did to him… it's your fault, isn't it? Oh god, it really is. It's all your own damn fault that you're so lost and alone in the world; you've done it too yourself. You've spent too much energy trying to drown out the lost child within you begging not to let her go and not enough focusing on the present, on reality, so much so that even the one person you care about most in the whole world gets pushed away.

And with that realization you finally break down completely, loud, hopeless tears of despair at all you've lost, all that could have been and all you've prevented.

But suddenly there's a hand on your shoulder. You think it's your imagination at first. You think you've become so lost in the past that you can no longer distinguish it from the present, stuck in some half-reality held by grief and pain. That is, until the hand squeezes your shoulder- just a little, enough to assure you this isn't your imagination playing tricks on you. And then comes the arm around your back, the second snaking its way around your waist as someone sinks to the ground behind you, holds you so tight that your shaking seems to subside. You know exactly who it is without needing to turn around; there's only one person who can make you feel so safe and protected and cared for all at once.

He's pressing a tissue into your hands now, pulling you in even closer, so close now you swear you can hear his heartbeat.

"Oh Nikki… he sighs, his voice calming, not quite enough to take away the pain completely but a damn sight better than it was before. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. He doesn't deserve you, he really doesn't. You're better than him, Nikki. You really are."

You turn around now to face him properly, blinking in confusion. "H-h-how…?" Your voice is cracking, the words won't come out the way you want them to no matter how hard you try. "How d-do you know? And…" another thought occurs to you now, one ever-so-slightly more troubling than the first. "H-how d-d-did you know where I was?"

"Ah, that." Harry flushes now, avoiding your gaze momentarily, pausing. "I was at the hotel," he admits at last, embarrassed, seemingly concerned of your reaction to this particular piece snippet of information. "I was at the hotel, I came looking for you, thought you might want to come with me for a drink before we leave. And then I saw Anton on the way up the stairs to your room and he said…"

"What did he say?"

"Nikki, it's fine, he didn't really say anything," Harry insists gently, clearly sensing what's troubling you. "He just said that he'd made a terrible mistake, and that he'd do anything he could to make it up to you but he was scared it was already too late. So I left him and came after you, but by the time I caught up with you, you were already getting into a taxi…"

"So you followed me?" You manage a smile despite it all, smirking at him just a little. "Stalker."

"I know, I know." He rolls his eyes at you. "But I was worried," he confesses, one hand moving to stroke your hair. "I was worried. I guessed you'd be upset, but I didn't know if you'd just want to be alone or…"

You shake your head violently at that, half afraid that if you don't make yourself clear on this one he might get up and leave out of fear he's making it all worse. "No. No, I… I don't want to be alone," you manage, aware that you sound completely pathetic but well beyond the point of caring.

"You want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"OK." He doesn't press you, just accepts, perhaps knowing that you'll tell him eventually. He turns toward the gravestone instead, smiles sympathetically, sighs a little. "Your mum?" You know he can't read the words engraved there- they're written in a language from your childhood, something he won't understand, though the name and date you know he'll understand; clearly it's enough for him to work it out. You suppose it doesn't take much, not really. You didn't know Anton long enough to get this upset over the inevitable breakup.

You just nod slowly, numbly. "I…" You need to talk about this, you've already established that. But knowing where to start without making a fool of yourself seems an impossible task. "I d-d-don't…"

"It's alright," Harry reassures you gently, the affection in his voice a thousand times more prominent than it was in Anton's. "It's OK. I'm listening, I promise. As long as you need, I'm listening."

"I don't want to let her go." There. There, you've finally done it, finally confessed. Because this isn't really about Anton anymore- although that pain is still there it seems more and more like a distant memory with each passing second. You don't want him back, you've established that. You want someone else. But your emotions are so conflicted, your heart shattered by a long-ago pain, to the point at which you're not sure if anyone in their right minds would risk coming near you.

"And you never will," Harry promises you. "You never, ever will. She'll always be with you Nikki, I promise. You never have to let her go." He frowns, concerned. "This isn't about Anton, is it?"

You shake your head. "I… I don't think I loved him. I thought I did. I really thought… that finally I had someone, that finally I could give her something to be proud of…"

"Nikki, she's already proud of you…"

"But there's nothing to be proud of!" you sigh sadly. "All this time I've been thinking I could cope without her, but I can't, can I? I'm never going to find someone, Harry, no one worth having, and you want to know why? Because the only person I want is someone I can't have…"

Oh god.

You realize what you've almost said just in time, fight back the urge to stuff your hand over your mouth to prevent anything else near-catastrophic spilling out. Damn. How could you have been so stupid? How could you have let your guard down like that, nearly scared him off completely? The one person you can count on, the one person who can hold you together no matter how bad things get and you so nearly went and…

"Who says you can't have him?" Harry asks softly, and suddenly you're aware that his lips are just inches from yours, your heart beginning to race.

"I'm messed up, Harry," you whisper, shaking your head sadly as he tries to lean in. "You don't want to…"

"Yes, I do." He sounds determined now, gentle but determined. "You're not messed up, Nikki, no more than I am, no more than any of us. You haven't got to let her go, I promise. You've… you've just got to lay it all to rest. She's proud of you already, Nikki, your mum, if she could only see you now she'd be so proud. She wouldn't want you to be in a state like this." And then he grins, eyes teasing with you. "I don't think she would have approved of Anton, though."

And with that established Harry Cunningham reaches over to your hand, leading you away, out of the crematorium and up onto the quiet country road outside, pulls you away out of sight into the trees, separated from the grief of the other side of the road, surrounded by hope and new life instead. Then he leans over and presses his lips to yours, hands on either side of your face as he deepens the kiss, holding you passionately yet gently all at once. It's a completely different experience to kissing Anton, any of the string of boyfriends that came before him. It's gentler than that, less full of lust, something else there instead which melts your heart, allows you to relax into his embrace and kiss him back, 7 years of hidden-away feelings and passion channeled into this one perfect moment between you, a moment in which Anton Radebe doesn't matter. It this perfect moment you and Harry are all that could possibly matter.

As you look deep into his eyes, all the answers to every question you could possibly ask right there to reassure you, that lost, frozen-in-time part of yourself rises to the surface at last, no longer afraid, clinging to a world in which she still could depend upon the comfort of her mother. In that moment you finally break away after 20 long years, though not to forget, of course, you'll never forget. Just to be free, to be happy, content and loved once more, even if in an entirely different way. And finally, for the first time in as long as you can remember, at last you feel entirely at peace.

For Amy (Tigpop), because she's amazing and it's her birthday today :) Hope you enjoyed this and you have the most fantastic birthday ever, thank you for all your amazing reviews and sharing your wonderful writing :) And for putting up with my drivel!

Some of the inspiration for this came from a lyrical/contemporary duet my dance teacher found on youtube, credit is due to Jade Chynoweth and Allie Sherman for their 2010 duet 'No Longer a Child', to the Fray for the music and Nicole Campbell Feilding for the choreography. I'll post a link on my profile page if you want to watch it, or alternatively you can just put 'no longer a child jade and allie' into youtube. But you by no means have to! :)

As ever, reviews would be amazing :) Thank you so much every one of you who does, you guys have no idea how amazing you are. Honestly :)

Love Flossie xxx