Part II

Leo Dalton wasn't normally one for deliberately avoiding passing on a message, least of all for his own selfish purposes. Well, not unless the person who asked him to pass on the message was one he particularly didn't like, and although he had only met Sara Laurence a handful of times almost 2 years ago now and wasn't sure he would class her as a friend, he didn't have any feelings of great resentment towards her. Aside for wanted to steal away his daut- Nikki- for 12 months, that was, but he could forgive her for that, knew it was nothing personal. He wasn't withholding her message, her request for him to ask Harry to give Nikki the envelope containing the job offer from Africa over the weekend, out of resentment towards her. Not in the slightest.

No. Leo's decision to neglect to give Harry the envelope to give to Nikki was more out of experience. He couldn't guarantee that Nikki wouldn't open it there and then right in front of Harry, and after the explosion of emotions and tempers which had ensured almost 5 years ago now when Nikki had found out about Harry's job offer from Boston university, not to mention her quiet yet saddened, hurt reaction to the news that Harry was considering leaving just months previously, he dreaded to even think what Harry's reaction would be now that the roles were reversed. All the anger and explosiveness of that argument over America 5 years ago coupled with Nikki's hurt and fear at losing her best friend of late turned to even more anger, Leo was willing to bet. And apart from anything, if there was going to be an explosion of wills then Leo would much rather it occurred at the Lyell Centre, where he would be on hand to intervene as things hit breaking point.

And so he didn't tell Harry about the letter when he arrived back from his crime scene that afternoon, didn't tell him when he locked up for the weekend, told his friend he'd see him on Monday. He just left the letter on Nikki's desk, closed the door and did his best to forget about it over the weekend, telling himself that if Sara called to check up on it all he could pretend that Harry never had any plans to see Nikki over the weekend after all, that dropping it round to hers would be out of his way. She might believe him on the out of his way to take it round front, but if she was half as observant as she seemed then there was no way in hell that Sara Laurence would fall for 'Harry and Nikki have no plans to see each other this weekend, despite the fact they have gone without each other's company for almost a week.' Now he thought about it, he wasn't sure even someone who had known Harry and Nikki for all of 5 minutes would believe that one for a second.

It wasn't until Sunday night that Janet finally extracted the truth from him.

A part of him was a little put-out when she gently asked him what was wrong because something had clearly been bothering him all weekend, not because he didn't want to confide in her but because he'd been doing his best to put on a brave front and act normal and thought he'd been doing a fairly convincing job. Although clearly not convincing enough to fool someone who saw through people's cover-ups and lies for a living.

"I think Nikki might be leaving us," he sighed at last, watching Janet's face intently as he struggled to gage her reaction. To most people it might seem a little ridiculous to be upset over the idea of a colleague leaving, Leo knew that, knew that the closeness of his team of pathologists was something of a rare occurrence. Most people looking in on this situation, on his worry that Nikki might just decide she was sick of cold, rainy London and accept this new job offer, would laugh, tell him to stick an advert in a medical journal and find a temp, end of. But, he hoped, not Janet. Janet was no stranger to the way things worked within his tight-knit team at the Lyell Centre, knew how close he was to Harry and Nikki, had her own close friendship with each of them. And of course she was aware of just how much Harry and Nikki meant to each other, of the seemingly unbreakable bond between them, the tenderness, the…, the sure signs that they were destined to be so much more than best friends which seemed to be blindingly obvious to the entire world but them. But if Nikki were to leave…

Truth be told, nowadays Leo couldn't quite understand why he had been reluctant to take Nikki on, even on locum, when she had first gate-crashed the Lyell Centre 7 years ago. He had still been coming to terms with the loss of Sam Ryan, he supposed, couldn't imagine taking on someone new the conventional way, let alone someone he'd first met after coming into work one morning to find them brushing their teeth over the cutting room sink. In all honesty, when he had made her that locum offer he hadn't expected it work out, not really. But somewhere along the line Nikki Alexander had slotted perfectly into their team, changed it, adapted it, until the boundaries between colleagues and friends and maybe even family had become so blurred that sometimes it was difficult to even work out where they had once been. At some point over the last 7 years she had become something of a daughter to him, the daughter he should have had but no longer did. No… that sounded harsh, that made it sound as if he only thought of Nikki as a daughter now because he no longer had Cassie, as a replacement, someone to transfer the paternal feelings in him onto. And that wasn't the way it was at all. He thought of Nikki as a daughter because she was her, not because she was a replacement in some way, not because he felt for her for having a pathetic excuse of a father, a real father. And the idea of her leaving, heading back to Africa where he would have to pick up the phone and call whenever he wanted to speak to her; that feeling, he imagined, was similar to the way he would have felt had he been given the chance to wave Cassie off to university. Which was absurd, of course. Nikki wasn't his 13 year old little girl, she was a grown woman, she could take care of herself, had done the whole moving out and becoming independent thing almost two decades ago. If she wanted to move back to South Africa, for the year or permanently, then it was none of his business. None of his business at all, it really wasn't. He was just going to have to keep his nose out and allow Nikki to make her own mind up, ensure she knew that he would support her, whatever she decided. Harry, though… Harry was another matter altogether. Leo dreaded to even think what Harry's reaction might be when he found out about Nikki's job offer.

He didn't have to tell Janet all this of course; she already knew. She'd always had a way of knowing exactly what he was thinking and feeling at any given moment, of predicting the pattern of thoughts crossing his mind right every time and therefore knowing exactly the right thing to say. She was a psychologist, after all, if she couldn't see how much his work colleague had come to mean to him after all these years then nobody could. If she couldn't see why Nikki potentially leaving to South Africa was going to tear her and Harry apart, then she might as well give up her job altogether.

"She won't wait for him forever, you know, Leo."

That was what Janet said to him late that night as the pair of them locked up and headed to bed; her voice sad, apologetic, and yet somewhat matter-of-fact. "It's been what, 7 years now since they first met? 7 years, 7 years of obvious attraction between them, of claiming to be only best friends but clearly caring about each other far more than best friends normally do." Far more than most married couples normally do, Leo thought to himself, though he didn't dare say it. Any discussion of Harry and Nikki's hugely complicated relationship was likely to be rather awkward and uncomfortable as it was.

Monday morning came all too soon. It seemed as if there were just mere minutes between his head hitting the pillow and the alarm blearing angrily the following morning, to Leo, at least. Most likely because he was dreading this Monday morning with every bone in his body and then some, Leo reasoned as he wasted time tidying the kitchen, changing the bed sheets, even reorganising his half of the shoe rack before with a gentle hand on his shoulder Janet reminded him that he really should be getting to work. And after that he knew he couldn't avoid it any longer. So with a sigh Leo did his level best to pull himself together and left for the Lyell Centre, it suddenly dawning on him as he drove into the car park that he was so late now that Nikki might well have gone through her post left behind from her week away already, might already know about the job offer, might have already made up her mind. She could have been on the phone to Sara Laurence whilst he was stuck in that tailback on the way into Central London, could have already accepted the offer of 12 months in wonderful sunny Cape Town and be trying to work out the best way to tell him right at this very moment. He could have lost her already and not even know it.

"Morning Leo!"

That was the cheery greeting she gave him when at last he made it through the Lyell Centre doors, looking up from her desk to greet him, eyes lighting up a little. It had been more than a week since Leo had last seen Nikki due to the conference in Bath she had been at, and as he looked at her now, studying her face for signs that she'd opened the letter, that she knew that she was in demand, so to speak. There was nothing in her eyes to suggest she was aware, none of the conflict or decisiveness or surprise that he would have expected there had she opened the envelope, had she known. And yet she looked different somehow… not older, that was no longer a compliment once a person hit their mid-20s, suggested that they were aging rapidly. No she didn't look older, as such, but… matured, wiser, somehow, if that could even show up in a person's face after just a week away. Or maybe this was all this mind playing tricks on him, maybe he'd become so overly attached to somebody else's grown up daughter that now he couldn't differentiate between her and his real, long-dead daughter. Probably.

"Morning!" Leo smiled in return, hoping she didn't pick up on the unfamiliar tone to his voice that even he couldn't quite place. "How was the conference, then? I take it you're now on track for a brilliant new UCL facial reconstruction record, then?"

She laughed a little at that, blushed a little, slightly embarrassed, he could tell by the soft pink glow to her cheeks that always became apparent when he praised her like that. And that was another reason for her going back to South Africa, Leo realized grimly, facial reconstructions. It was her forte, he knew it only too well, and although the technology might pale in comparison in Cape Town, she would certainly get many more opportunities to practise, put her newly learned skills to the test out there than she ever would here in London. Maybe sending Nikki on this bloody conference and all the advancements in reconstruction technique it had to offer was going to come back to haunt him, backfire hugely, convince her to leave. All because of one stupid conference and a letter postmarked Africa.

"Maybe! Anyway, so what's the news here?" she asked now, leaning back in her chair as Leo took Harry's empty seat (presumably he was running late again), gave her a summary of his and Harry's week. Well, not exactly quick; truth be told he was trying to spin it out as long as possible in order to avoid getting onto the subject of the impending pile of post. But then he realized that the longer he left it, the greater the chance of Harry walking in in the middle of proceedings, which was almost certainly a recipe for disaster. No, the best thing for everyone would be to get this over and done with now before Harry arrived, give Nikki some time to compose herself after what was almost certainly going to be a bit of a shock to the system, the last thing she would be expecting on her first morning back at work. The last thing she needed was Harry arriving just as the news was beginning to sink in, to have to deal with his reaction to the prospect of her going away to a different hemisphere for a whole year. Leo had a feeling that Harry's reaction was not exactly going to be calm and congratulating.

"Well, I'll leave you to get on, then," said Leo finally, getting up from Harry's chair and checking his watch as he headed towards to doorway; he had a horrible feeling that Harry would be arriving any minute. "Oh, by the way, there's a pile of post for you in your top drawer, you might want to have a sort through that when you've got a minute. Some of it's been here since this time last week, I'm not sure how urgent it is."

Leo only hoped that he'd played that one well enough to keep her from suspecting anything was amiss.

Very very very sorry for the delay, thought I was only going to be doing emergency dance teaching until Wednesday but looks like I'm going to be doing it for another couple of weeks. Hopelesslyhalfhearted if you're reading this then thank you so much for the music suggestions :) Thank you so much Amy, Lizzi, Dinabar, Deadfairies, Hopelesslyhalfhearted and Izzy for reviewing, so cheered me up. :) You guys are amazing. You really are. The good news is that my exams are finally over, so I should be updating Conclusions in Cape Town tomorrow :) And the other good news is that true to form, I've managed to turn this into a 5 parter in the editing process :P So you have that to look forward to!

Don't forget to review, will you? I will love you forever :)

Love Florencia xxx