It would seem I now have the bug, even though I should be working on a research proposal! I'm not sure whether this is a one-shot or complete. I don't have the time at the moment but if the writing bug seizes me at 1am again instead of analysing through thousands of pages of articles, I may continue.

Moving on

Chapter 1: The three musketeers no more.

"We agreed to move on."

We did"

"So move on."

"I am."

"Not fast enough."

Move on. That's what you'd agreed once he'd gone. The three musketeers no more.

So you were moving on.

His stuff was gone, his number deleted from your phone and his desk filled by someone else.

Luckily, not a pathologist. And oh so very different from him.

He had been passionate and hot-tempered but never angry in this way. The new boy was different. Barely the same species.

You settled into an easy-going working relationship. Not the same. Never the same. But eventually the sparring was there. Sparring as you the elder colleague tried to steady him. He rebelling against your steadying, mature influence.

He commented on your desire to control. You wondered if that had driven him away. Had he simply had enough?

So, you were trying to move on but meeting people outside of work was difficult. It always had been. Your work was your life.

A date with a Science Minister but he just didn't match up.

You wondered afterwards. A bit taller than you, brown hair, charming. You should have realised what you were doing. But anyway, the comparisons stopped there. Or they should have done. But even more so than before you compared everybody to him.

So you threw yourself into a new social life even more and kept busy, oh so busy, so that after a 12-hour day at work and a night socialising, you were too exhausted to lie awake and think. Never matter that you were sleeping 3-4 hours a night.

You thought you were doing well until Leo cornered you one day.

"Nikki, when we agreed to move on…"

"Yes…?" Your tone should have been warning enough.

"Well, ah, I don't know how to say this but are you sure you're ready to move on… romantically?"

You've always had a temper. It was the reason you and he had such intense rows. Leo, however, has rarely suffered its effects. Until now.

"Romantically? I don't quite see what you mean." Your tone is icy. Leo visibly flinches but continues.

"Drinks, dinner, dates?" Isn't it a bit soon to be moving on?"

"Moving on from what? A relationship that never existed. That's a bit difficult, don't you think?"

Leo sighs. He's been building up to this. "Whether you acknowledge it or not, you were in a relationship for ten years and you have not once stopped to grieve. I don't know what happened between you before he left but I'm damn sure he didn't want it to end like this. You won't hear his name, every trace of him is going from your life, from my life, from here. You've filled your life by being busy. And, sometime, sometime, you're going to have to stop…"

"HOW DARE YOU…" You glare and almost stop. Leo doesn't deserve this. But something's driving you on.

"This is me filling my life now, now…" You falter.

Leo comes closer and holds you protectively as you cry. "Shhh. I didn't mean to upset you. I'm just concerned."

You stay there for a while, crying while Leo holds you. You don't see Clarissa roll past or see her stop Jack from coming in.

You sob your heart out to Leo. "I can't do this anymore. Far from removing him from my life, I see him everywhere I go. I feel his absence in every facet of my life."

Leo listens and eventually you stop.

"I'm taking you home, you need sleep. You're run down."

He takes you home, grabbing a Chinese on the way through. Chinese. Your favourite Friday night takeaway. Not that he was to know.

He looks at you an hour later as you shoo him out the door.

"Nikki. You need to move on. And that won't happen until you sort out your feelings. And that won't happen until you talk to him. Do you even know this was the end?"

Leo's final words echo round your mind for hours after he left. It's just as you eventually retire to bed (with a strong shot of vodka) that you remember what he said earlier: "I don't know what happened between you before he left but I'm damn sure he didn't want it to end like this."

All sense of sleep is gone.