Oooh bit of a cliffhanger last time! But all will soon be revealed. Thank you, as always for the lovely reviews and I hope you all have a lovely christmas!

7 Hours Earlier…

She awoke in darkness, her head a little fuzzy, and didn't know why.

Looking around and listening, she couldn't see or hear anything that could have brought her so suddenly from her unconscious state, merely the sound of the sleeping city outside the window and the quiet hum of a passing car.

After a few moments of listening to nothing, Nikki decided to get up and find something to drink. Her mouth was dry and she could still taste the tang of the wine she had drunk with Harry only a few hours before. As she stepped from the plush carpet of her bedroom into the small en-suite, she shivered; the bathroom tiles were cold on her bare feet. The light hurt her eyes, blinding in the dim, dark night. She watched herself in the mirror, still feeling uneasy about being unexpectedly awakened, and critiqued her appearance as she drunk a glass of cool water, straight from the tap. Hair untidy and unbrushed, dark shadows under her eyes, skin that was slightly sallow in the harsh glow of the bathroom light. Her slight, nagging headache wasn't helping matters, of course. Could she be feeling the beginnings of a hangover? And that after less than a bottle of wine? She reached for the toothbrush and toothpaste, a little annoyed with herself that she had forgotten to clean her teeth when she had gotten home from the pub. Climbing into her bed was just too tempting after being outside in the chill of a night in November. Scrubbing furiously at her teeth, she felt a little better. A little more like herself.

The packet of paracetamol in the bathroom cabinet caught her eye. Might as well try and fend off the hangover as best I can, she thought, reaching for them and pushed two tablets from their little foil packet. If she was feeling this way, Harry would be feeling worse, and Leo would not be impressed if they were both hungover when they arrived at work. As she refilled the glass, a strange sound reached her ears. Almost indescribable, it was a kind of… whooshing sound? Or a cracking noise? She couldn't quite pinpoint it and turned to head out of the bathroom to investigate it. As she did so, a high pitched screech began to echo through the apartment, starting quite suddenly.

Nikki jumped in surprise, startled by the sudden noise, the glass slipping from her hands and smashing on the cold tiled floor.

"Bugger! What on Earth could that be?" she muttered, frustration mounting, the alarming shriek not helping her mood or her headache. She left the bathroom then, all of a sudden, she could smell the smoke, and was mentally dragged back to the crime scene she had attended earlier that day. Outside her bedroom, her flat was dark, apart from a glow coming from her kitchen. Panic rose within her as she saw the characteristic flickering of a flame. The fire was in her flat?

Her mind snapped into autopilot. All she could think was "get out". Immediately, she headed to the front door of her flat, throwing it open. As she did so, she was engulfed by thick smoke, and had to close the door straight away, coughing all the while. The smoke and the fear combined to make it so hard to breathe. With a pounding heart and sweat pouring unnoticed down her face, she quickly headed to her bedroom. Something in the back of her mind was telling her to cover her face with a wet cloth so she could run down the smoke-filled stairs and get out of the building. Her discarded shirt from the day before was the first thing to hand, so she threw it into the sink, furiously turning on the taps to thoroughly soak her shirt, coughing all the while. As soon as it was completely sodden, she ran through her flat readying herself to escape from the building. This time, she was ready for the smoke that was outside her front door, and took a deep breath of fresh air, before wrapping the wet shirt around her nose and mouth.

The acrid smoke in the stairwell was black and she struggled to see as she ran down the stairs, banging on her neighbour's door as she did so. She heard someone behind her, glad to not have to run up the stairs to check on the people who lived in the flat above her own. She stumbled, her ankle twisting beneath her and she fell a few steps, landing hard, her knee hitting the stone painfully. There was no time to lick her wounds, she knew this, and besides, the adrenaline pumping through her veins made her forget the injury instantly.

By the time she reached the ground floor, the damp shirt was not enough to keep the smoke from her lungs and she was struggling to breathe. Gasping in her terror, the cloth slipped from her face and she took in a lungful of fumes and began to cough and wheeze. She suddenly felt dizzy and weak, almost collapsing to the floor. The only thing that kept her upright was the person she had heard behind her; he had caught her up and was now half-dragging, half-carrying her the final few steps to the front door and to safety. The door was ajar, presumably from others in the building who had already managed to get out. Indeed, Nikki and her rescuer saw, as soon as they stepped into the cold night, a small gathering of people across the street from the burning building.

If Nikki were fully conscious and able to think as normal, she would be probably be wondering why there was a fire in her flat, as well as a fire that filled the stairwell with smoke. She might be looking up at what had been her home and asking how what had been a small fire in her kitchen had gone on to engulf most of the building in such a short time. She would definitely be thanking all her lucky stars (as well as her upstairs neighbour) that she had made it to safety. Maybe she would be checking the group of people that surrounded her, making sure they were okay.

As it was, however, she was slipping into blackness, sleepiness taking over her as her body struggled to get oxygen to her brain, and the last thing she was aware of, before losing consciousness, was the very welcome sound of sirens approaching.