Silent Witness belongs to BBC.
Goodbye, for now
It might be strange that inevitable approaching isn't your friend yet. Because longer than anything else, you knew it. Death. You lived aware of it and by it side, but it never became your friend. You remember the time when it was something you almost looked forward to. When it was the only thing giving you hope for an eventual rest… and peace.
But in the moment you found her, really found her, this woman that is sleeping peacefully in your arms right now, when you learnt that the biggest place in her heart was yours, death has become your enemy and your worst nightmare. For the first time you had something to lose.
Everything to lose.
It's been six months now that she… that she hasn't been herself, they say. But there could never be any form of her, which you wouldn't recognize. And love. Because whatever was on surface, whatever was on her face, whatever was that she recognized, or didn't, whatever she would say, or do, however she looked… She was your Nikki.
And you've been married to her for the last thirty – five years.
You could always understand her. Even when you knew her only a couple of days, even when she was too ashamed to talk about something, even when she would say she was fine, you would know, you would understand.
Even when she started forgetting her keys, even when your home was nearly burned because she forgot to turn off the oven, even when her scream woke you up because she was afraid of you, the man whom she couldn't recognize and was sleeping in her bed.
As the time passed you learnt that she won't fall asleep if not in your arms, but when she wakes up she'll be terrified to find you there.
So you watch her breathing carefully to know when to go away. You don't want to scare her.
In the middle of this nightmare that your life has become, sometimes she lets you in, or, you are not sure yet, maybe she is the one that manages to fight her way up to you.
"Tell me a story" she then says.
And you talk and the images run in front of your eyes. In front of her eyes, too.
The two of you playing hockey in the morgue, air show, evenings in the pub with Leo, numerous situations when you wanted to declare your feelings to each other, how you finally did one summer in South Africa, your wedding two days later, weekend in Paris when you learnt you are going to become parents, look on Leo's face when he found out he'll be grandfather, moment when you first felt your son move, when you first held him, when he had his first tooth, when he got a little sister three years later, Robert's tenth birthday, your daughter being diagnosed with leukaemia, your son hitting puberty, Emily getting better after two years of fighting and going back to normal life, her first date (God how much you hated that boy), your son getting in medical school, Emily graduating college and getting married (too early you were certain), and then, the biggest joy of holding child of your child in your arms.
While you talk suddenly you'll feel that the woman whose hand you've been holding through all of this, has fallen asleep. Disease got the better of her once more, but you keep talking, in a delusional attempt to live it again, to bring those memories back to life.
Not for a moment you forget a fact that the end is close. That she won't be here much longer.
An old friend of yours told you once that you had to learn how to be thankful. He is not here anymore.
You remember how before Nikki, you thought that death was simply a part of being alive. How hard it is to accept it now…
The thing is, you were never good with finished concepts. You had to come to your own conclusions, to establish your own beliefs. And Nikki taught you to believe, or better said, made you see, gave you proofs that made you absolutely certain. Into the uncertain. She showed you why you should believe. And you do. Because even a scientist in you can't make a peace with a theory that this bond you share, this synchronicity you've managed to catch and hold, this family you formed and nurtured can be destroyed with a shallow, meaningless, physical end.
Still it can't lessen the pain of knowing that soon you'll have to let her go.
You exhale deeply and open your eyes, two hot tears slipping down your cheeks as you do so. But you have no time to react as you are faced with a pair of chocolate eyes staring at you. In a moment you panic trying to find the words to calm her but… her eyes are not afraid, she is looking at you and there is the same understanding, the same care, the same love that she had in her eyes when she told you that you were her first person to call if she was ever in trouble, if she was ever afraid.
So you smile. Because you and Nikki did the impossible once more. Against all odds, you are sharing the same reality. The same moment of clarity. Right now.
"What's wrong?" she asks like many times before.
"I'm crying because you have to go and I can't go with you" you hear yourself saying. You can't lie to her, you never could.
It's beyond reason how in this single moment of clarity she can be wiser than you could ever be.
"Don't cry, Harry. No matter where I go, we'll always find each other".
You try to focus all of your strength to form a reassuring smile, but even in this moment Nikki is the one comforting you. You feel another wave of tears coming and her lips on your cheeks washing them away.
"Everything will be fine, my love" she says, gently rubbing her nose on yours, and once again you feel just how physically weak she is as her head almost falls down on your chest. She doesn't give up though.
"Tell me about Australia" she says.
And you talk again, for who knows which time, about your favourite memory. Your family, including Leo and Janet spent summer in Australia. You swallow tears every time you hear Nikki's quiet giggles, as you remember five year old Emily's face when giraffe nearly bit off your fingers while you were trying to feed it, or Leo pretending he couldn't swim and Emily and Robert showing him how even though 8 and 5 year old couldn't swim themselves.
Then she'll say: "Tell me about Leo". And you'll both laugh and cry remembering your friend.
"Thank you for letting me have your desk" she'll say suddenly and you'll know it means so much more. It means: "Thank you for letting me have your heart".
You won't know it at that moment, but it will be the last thing you'll hear from her.
The voice that led you through better or worse, the heart that was beating alongside yours in sickness and in health will become silent. She'll shiver and you'll hold her tighter than ever before. And you'll be crushed. Never to be put together again.
But you'll also be thankful.
Most of all you'll be thankful. For living a dream so much bigger than anything you could have ever dreamt for yourself.
For knowing and loving Nikki Alexander.
THE END