Massively Insignificant
"We search for someone else to blame
But sometimes things can't stay the same"
15th July 2010, Harry's crime scene.
"Doctor Cunningham, Home Office Pathologist." Harry says, as he approaches the familiar 'crime scene' tape, scrubbed in, and wielding his ID badge. The police officer nods, and lets him pass, but he refuses to let Emily in without ID. "She's a work experience student." Harry explains.
"Name?" the police officer asks.
"Emily Alexander-Donnelly." The girl smiles, reaching into her rucksack and pulling out a purse containing a student card. The police officer nods, and holds the tape up for her to pass under too. Nervously, Emily follows Harry. She was hoping she wouldn't have to tell him her name; she knows he'll figure it out soon enough. She looks so much like her mother, after all.
They cross the concrete expanse together, Emily marvelling at the feel of scrubs, and Harry clenching and unclenching his fists and his jaw as he tries to work out how to ask what he wants to ask. He's not stupid, Emily knows, but he's not going to accept her, either. He's going to go through every other available option, first, just to be sure, and because, she guesses from what her mother's told her and from what she's deduced, he's not going to want to accept that her mother ever loved anyone else enough to, well, procreate successfully with them.
He's also not going to want to accept that he wasn't ever told about her… but that's her mother's problem. She'll work it out in time.
Eventually, just as the body they've come to investigate comes into view, Harry manages to say what it is he's been building up to: "you know, Emily, you look uncannily like someone I work with."
"Doctor Alexander?" she asks, absently. She tries to keep any semblance of emotion from her voice, but she struggles. She's wanted to meet Harry for so long – ever since she worked out that her mother was head over heels in love with him – and she wants him to know who she is, so that the whole process can be sped up slightly. But, she also wants her mother to have the chance to explain, for herself. From the photos she's seen, and stories she's heard, in her mother's emails and letters and on the few brief occasions she's seen her recently, Emily has worked out that they are both infatuated. But, she also knows that they haven't… and she doesn't want to cause an argument.
"Mmm." Harry nods. "Doctor Alexander."
"My name." Emily adds. It's not a question, it's a statement. It's a fact, and she's telling him it. She doesn't explain the relationship between her name and his colleague's, though. She wants to be there to see her mother's face when he confronts her.
As she realises this, she also realises how sadistic it sounds. She doesn't mean it like that; she doesn't want to see her mother hurt. She loves Nicola Alexander very, very much, despite the complexity of their relationship, and she's so glad to finally be allowed back into her mother's life that she doesn't want for one moment to jeopardise that. She just knows from a recent conversation with Professor Dalton that arguments between Doctors Cunningham and Alexander are often sights to behold, because of the passion and force, and the fact that they are both so evidently battling no to break and lean across and kiss each other.
Her mother, she knows, is probably more like a teenage girl that she is – but, then, she stole her mother's teenage years, and so she supposes it's allowed. Maybe.
"So," Harry says, as he bends down to place his bag on the floor and pull on his latex gloves, "is she your Aunt, or something?"
"Something like that, yes." She agrees, although she knows full-well that he knows full-well that her mother doesn't have any siblings – and therefore can have no nieces or nephews.
She decides that changing the subject is probably in everyone's best interests, and so she brings her notebook and pen from her bag, and starts to walk around the body, taking notes.
After a few minutes, she notices that Harry is watching her, a look of utter bemusement on his face. Clearly, he's not used to work experience students with knowledge as detailed as hers.
She points to a complicated injury on the corpse before them, and names it, questioningly. Harry nods, the bemusement growing in parallel with the suspicion: she can only be Nikki's daughter, but she cannot possibly be Nikki's daughter, either. He's Nikki's best friend. He'd know, wouldn't he?
Wouldn't he?
He makes some calculations in his head, rapidly. Nikki is thirty-six. Emily is eighteen. So… Nikki would have been seventeen, maybe a little over. He knows that Nikki and men (in general) didn't mix well when combined with alcohol, but the Nikki he knew would never have had an illegitimate child at seventeen… and if she had, she'd not have kept it, or stayed in touch, as she must have, for this veritable mini-Nikki to be standing here, today, bold as brass.
The likeness, though… the likeness is uncanny. And only Nikki's daughter would have been able to walk right in to a crime scene, with no previous experience, to go on to identify the cause of death within five minutes.
It's just so unbelievable, though… It's so irrational, and so ridiculous. How had Nikki raised a child without him knowing? How?
"Doctor Cunningham?" Emily asks, dragging Harry out of his thoughts. "Doctor Cunningham?"
"Call me Harry." He says, rolling his eyes to the sky, in despair. Assuming he's right – which he must be, because, after all, he's Harry – he's going to get to know this girl pretty well, soon, so she might as well start calling him Harry.
"Fine." She smiles, "Harry, then."
He nods; "what was it?"
"This." She says, pointing to a scar on the back of the victim's neck – a scar which he, himself, had missed, and which was undoubtedly massively significant.
Yes, he thought, as he crossed to where the Nikki-alike stood, and began to examine the cut she pointed at, this could only have been Nikki's daughter. Only Nikki's daughter would be able to put him on the spot like this…