SHE'S DANCING WITH ANOTHER MAN
Angsty H/N oneshot. Potentially part of a series of oneshots, but consider this stand-alone as well. The inspiration trigger came from Bruno Mars' When I Was Your Man. Spoilers for everything that's aired, though other than the major Harry departure, nothing that really jumps out.
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.
So this is set about four years after where they've left us.
She rings him, in the end, because she can't think of another way to tell him.
It still makes his heart do some sort of strange little flip, when her name comes up as the caller ID. It's been years, he's only seen her at big events, and he'd thought they'd have grown further apart; that would have been easier for him, he's nursing a shattered heart more than 3,000 miles away. Somehow, however, they've remained close. Somehow, they talk on the phone most weeks, and despite the fact that she's with Aidan, the Irish lawyer, and she's been with him for 2 years now, and he's had possibly more girlfriends than is healthy, they're still an essential part of one another's life. You can look at it in different ways, he guesses, and he supposes he sees it as part of the reason he could never seem to hold onto a girlfriend for longer than a few months, but he's sure she sees it differently. She sees their friendship as far more just that. A friendship.
"Hey, Niks."
"I'm getting married." She blurts out, as if it's something she can't contain. He doesn't respond for a moment, it's like the words won't translate into a truth in his brain, he can't understand it.
"Congratulations." He manages after at least 30 seconds, and it doesn't sound quite as enthusiastic, quite as authentic as it ought to.
He's not sure he takes in much of the rest of what she has to say. He's still reeling.
It's only a couple of months before the wedding that he's got to psych himself up for, this time, and it's in the early hours of the morning New York time, so he's knows something's got to be wrong, for her to not be thinking about the time difference.
She's in tears, and he can barely translate what she's saying.
"Leo… Leo was going to give me away, Harry… I always wanted that…"
He takes a deep breath, because he guesses that's why she phoned him, in the end, Aidan never knew Leo. She needs someone that understands what she lost. He can never help hoping that maybe oneday she'll ring like this, and everything'll change. For some reason the wedding won't be happening anymore and all of a sudden she'll feel exactly as he feels and-
"I didn't let myself think about who was going to do it, Harry… I guess I was shutting it out…"
He doesn't know really why he says what he says next, he could claim it as a result of the heat of the moment, he supposes.
"I'll do it."
"What?"
"I'll give you away. You can pretend I'm Leo, just for a few minutes. You shouldn't walk down that aisle on your own, Nikki."
They don't talk about it any much else, not until he's in London for the week before her wedding, and she brings it up again.
"You sure you're alright to take me down the aisle, Harry? It's… it's…" she trails off, unsure what exactly it is.
He gives her that smile she's never been able to read completely, the one she's never been able to translate, in all the years she's known him.
"I am giving you away, in a sense, Nikki…"
There's silence for a moment, as if there's a time delay on making sense of what he's saying. In the end, she just shakes her head. "What?"
He sighs, giving her a small, resigned smile. "There were a lot of things I've wished every day since I moved out to New York that I'd done differently with you, there were so many things I should have done…"
Silence again, because this is not the time he should be saying this, she's getting married in four days, she hasn't been letting herself think about the what ifs of her and Harry for years now.
"But you didn't." she half-whispers.
He shakes his head, the pain in his eyes suddenly very apparent. "But I didn't."
She calls Clarissa that night, not because they normally have conversations like this – hell, she doesn't have anyone she usually has conversations like this with – but because it's something that needs to be discussed straight away.
"I need you to tell me I don't have cold feet."
She hears a dry chuckle, "This is… different…"
"Sorry, Clarissa, I… I needed to have this discussion with someone…"
"And Jack doesn't seem like the type?"
It's Nikki's turn to laugh now. "Jack doesn't seem like the type…"
"So, what evidence are you giving me to make me tell you you don't have cold feet?"
She sighs, almost at herself. "It's not really anything… I talked to Harry… and he said something about wishing things had been different between us, and I just can't stop thinking that's that what I wanted too… and is it still what I wished happened?"
"Nikki, take a breath." Clarissa orders firmly. She sighs, then, because she was never here when this Harry was, although his reputation precedes him, and she learnt when she joined the effect his sudden departure had had on both Nikki and Leo, God rest his soul.
"Just… Things are different since I spoke to Harry… I always… I thought we'd have time… I thought he was going to be-"
"Don't even say it. He ups and leaves without warning, he never looks back… he's no good for you, you're happy… you were so excited until you spoke to this Harry…"
She sighs, "I know."
But she doesn't, not really.
Before they know it, she's walking down the aisle on his arm, and suddenly it seems like everything's caught up with them too quickly, they felt like they were waiting for the wedding forever, but once it's there they can't help but wish they had a little bit longer to prepare for it.
Harry's got his teeth gritted, and he's forcing a smile on his face, because this is all about Nikki, and everything he's ever thought or felt doesn't matter right now; Nikki's nervously trying to pretend she doesn't feel more apprehensive than she thinks she should. And then they're at the altar and he's passing her to Aidan, and it's meaning so much more to him than it looks like, he's choking up, and suddenly all he can rely on is the Leo thing. He tell himself he's choking up because Leo should be here right now, and he leans and whispers in her ear before he walks away completely: "He would have been so proud of you."
And then he steps back, and you would have thought that would have been it.
They're at the reception, and on the surface everything's going swimmingly. Nikki's laughing and has maybe had a couple too many glasses of wine, and the smile doesn't seem to leave her face – to the outsider it would seem like he'd genuinely given her away at the altar, and somehow their ties had been severed.
But she won't look at him. She just won't let herself. Because if she looks at him, she needs to think about why she's finding this so difficult, why there's that tiny ounce of doubt in her mind.
So she just doesn't look at him.
Harry can't seem to get rid of an over-enthusiastic member of the groom's party… she's a young brunette, and smiling and clearly into him; she's exactly what Nikki would have joked was his type; back in the day, she would have been exactly the chance he would have taken.
The thought of getting lucky here, now, tonight turns his stomach, however.
He's standing, smiling, at the wedding of the only woman he's really loved in a long time, and no one knows.
That's the first time he wishes Leo was there, for his benefit, not Nikki's. Because Leo would have known how he felt, everything that was going through his mind, without any words being said, and there would have been some sort of unspoken pity.
Harry swallows. He could use a friend like Leo here, now.
In the end, it's not til the bride and groom's first dance that his eyes start stinging and the enormity of everything that's dissolved today comes upon him. They're dancing slowly, in each other's arms, and the worst thing that comes crashing down on him is that Nikki looks happy.
And it occurs to him then that Nikki looks, in that moment, as if she's in completely the right place.
It had never occurred to him that her right place might be somewhere completely different to his.
He excuses himself quietly, asking the groom's brother to congratulate 'the happy couple' as if he's no one significant to either of them. He leaves then, claiming he has a terrible headache, whilst Nikki's still dancing with her new husband, looking infuriatingly perfect in another life to the one he'd always imagined.
It doesn't occur to him that he doesn't have the right to disappear.
She's had a little too much to drink, and the whole day's been so confusing for her, but even she's surprised when she feels the lump rising in her throat when it's the father-daughter dance and the only person she can look for is Harry – after all, he gave her away – and he's nowhere to be seen. He doesn't have the right to do this to her on a day like this.
It only takes her a moment to realise he's gone.
She dances the number with Aidan's father in the end, the stout Irish man chuckling away to himself at how unconventional this is, but then she excuses herself, for a toilet break.
She doesn't think any other person could possibly be as angry with her as she is with herself when she finds herself in tears in a bathroom, alone, at her own wedding, all because Harry bloody Cunningham has disappeared without warning once again.
She grits her teeth then, dries her eyes and goes back out onto the dance floor, ready to forget.
She's still doing that in the morning, when for a moment she considers the possibility that she should speak to Harry, let him know how much he let her down again, but then it occurs to her that she needs to cut all her ties right now, and she's best just leaving it, letting it lie. She needs to step away from Harry completely.
About a year later, he gets a letter in the post. He's seen her once or twice since the wedding – he spent Christmas with his mother, she popped in then, and he saw her in late spring on another visit, but never alone, always with someone else watching, and neither of them have really said anything to each other. And then she was pregnant, and he had to take a further step back, because she's a completely new woman in a completely new life now.
Dear Harry
Last week, at 7:34 in the morning, I had a little girl after ten hours of labour! We're calling her Leanne Maeve O'Connor, Leanne for Leo, and Maeve's a family name that's been passed for generations in the women in Aidan's family.
There was a time, Harry, when in my dreams, when I one day had children, you and Leo were going to be the godparents.
Harry pauses for a moment, and swallows. It's ironic, because in those dreams he'd had, he'd been the father of those children.
I can't do that, obviously, anymore, for more than one reason, but with you it's I don't think it's fair to Leanne to give her a godfather so far away.
I'd like you to be something to her though; do you think you could be her Uncle Harry? She's one day going to boast to all the other kids at school about Uncle Harry in New York that she sometimes stays with, who treats her, and who she can always rely on. That's the other important thing. Don't you ever let my daughter down as much as you let me down, Harry.
I still miss you, I always will, and I can't wait for the next time you're over, for you to meet Leanne.
Yours,
Nikki
He stares at the letter for moments, wondering how on earth he's going to reply to that. In the end, he decides to ring.
"Dr O'Connor?"
"Congratulations, Nikki." It sounds slightly more sincere than his congratulations when she'd told him about her engagement, but not completely that his heart was in it.
"I can't wait for you to meet her, Harry… she's perfect…"
"I'll be her Uncle Harry, Niks, I'll spoil her rotten, she'll be able to brag about all the fun she's had in New York to all the other kids at school…"
He's sure he hears a sigh, and then her voice is colder, more clipped. "One day, another kid's going to ask her how come she's got an Uncle Harry so far away… and I'm not going to have the answer to that…"
He doesn't say anything, he's getting the impression she's got something else to say, and there's not anything he can say that'll change anything; what she's going to say, the way she's thinking, and everything that's gone on in the past.
"I came up with something, in the end… I'll tell her to say: he was once my mum's everything, and then without any warning, he went that far away, and he never came back. But he's still good enough to be my Uncle Harry… it's like his second chance…"
There's another long silence, across more than 3,000 miles.
I hope you enjoyed! I would love to hear your thoughts. I'm aware it's a bit bizarre, it's a completely different style to anything I've ever written before, but it was an idea that wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it!
All feedback's appreciated.