Chapter Four

It was Monday.

The first day back at the Lyell Centre since Harry and Nikki had agreed to it.

It wasn't awkward.

There wasn't tension.

It was work as usual.

Leo watched the pair from his office.

Something must have happened, Leo thought. Things haven't been like this since before Hungary.

Although it wasn't his business to pry into their complex, and mostly confusing, relationship as boss, but as a friend…

The previous week, he had thought (once again) about locking the two in a supplies closet after they had begun to bicker over their cases. Although Leo knew it was one of the ways they dealt with emotionally difficult cases, being privy to Nikki's feelings, he wanted them to sort themselves out. To get to the heart of their feelings for each other, which was plain to anyone who knew them.

Leo wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know what had happened to bring about the current calm at the lab. His greatest fear was that they had done something reckless and foolish, without real thought on the impact it would have on not only their relationship, but also their emotional well being. He was afraid that this was just a temporary fix, to be undone at the next big crisis or battle.

If only they could understand the looks they gave each other, loaded with feelings and hope, and could see that it wasn't really impossible for them to be together.

If only they could open that last part of themselves to each other.

Shaking his head, Leo continued on with the paperwork set out in front of him. He may not enjoy admin work, but at least it wasn't fraught with feelings and emotions and matters of the heart.


Although things had been, on the whole, better at work, there was still much left unsaid between the two that needed to be clarified.

There was a mutual fear of rejection, not being good enough for the other.

For all his cockiness and confidence, Nikki knew that Harry felt deeply and prone to emotional extremes that he didn't quite know how to handle.

Nikki knew that the next eighteen months would be difficult for her. Internally she was warring between emotion and pragmatism. Thoughts of what-ifs and if-only's plagued her mind when she was by herself. What should she feel if Harry went out on a date with one his twenty-five year olds and slept with them? How should she conduct herself around him to show she didn't mind or care?

It would be easier for everyone to deny, if only temporarily, her feelings, as she had been doing before Hungary.


Harry wasn't sure quite what to do.

Since making this pact, the idea of marrying Nikki was growing on him a lot more than he cared to admit.

For a long time, he regretted not pursuing her after the whole Penny incident. Nikki had accepted him in spite of his selfishness when he had been young. No other women would have been so forgiving.

Nikki really deserved to marry for love, not out of obligation to an agreement made when drunk.

Although he did not want to, he suspected the next eighteen months, for him in any case, would be spent on perpetual tenterhooks, afraid that Nikki would find The One, or discover something about him that would make it impossible for her to marry him (not that he could think of anything worse than what she already knew of him.)

The thought of Nikki going on dates with Unsuitables was discomforting, and he groaned at the thought of picking up girls at bars, blind dates and meaningless sex.

At that thought, he was astonished that he sounded so jaded, as though he was having a mid life crisis. At thirty-eight.

Perhaps he should somehow begin subtly courting Nikki, make her fall in love with him in the next eighteen months.

With an idea about a course of action, Harry settled back to his current case- the rather dull but straightforward vehicle collision from the weekend.


It had been a quiet day at the lab, and promptly at 6, Leo left the lab, reminding Nikki and Harry that they on call that evening as Leo had planned an evening out with Janet.

Nikki and Harry rolled their eyes and chuckled as Leo realised he was missing something, patting at the pockets of his coat, and then checking his trouser pockets.

"Top drawer at your desk" Nikki said drolly. "You've been banging on about the concert tonight for the past three months, it's not likely we could have forgotten."

Having retrieved the tickets, Leo promptly left, mumbling something about traffic in London.

"Do you ever wonder why Leo and Janet haven't married?" Nikki asked out of curiosity. "I mean, they love each other, they live together, they're planning to start a family together."

"I suppose it's because Leo's been married before, and it ended so tragically. Anyway, times are different; one doesn't need to be married to be in a committed, loving relationship."

"I suppose," Nikki sighed. "But I always imagined that when you're madly in love with someone, and they're madly in love with you, that the natural next step would be to get married."

"You romantic sop, you've been reading too many of your Mills and Boon novels."

"Oh shut up, Mr. Romantic."

"I think I'm more pragmatic than romantic. I mean, we agreed to marry each other, and unless we're both secretly in love with the other, I would be crushing every romantic notion you have ever had about the institution."

How could he have been so stupid to suggest being secretly in love to her, he wondered.

"I know that. I didn't say that every marriage was made on the basis of love. In fact, anthropologically speaking…"

Nikki was interrupted from her mini lecture when phone rang.

Their conversation would have to continue later.

There was a body washed up in a near by a river.