Chapter Four: Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill
"I know this!" Nikki cried, her hands in her hair as she desperately tried to think.
"Clearly you don't," Harry grinned from where he was sitting cross-legged on the sofa.
Nikki resisted the urge to look at the revision cards on the coffee table in front of where she was kneeling on the rug. "Yes I do! Just give me a minute!"
"Thirty seconds left," Harry warned.
"Ah! Oh!" Her eyes were wide. "Oh! It's… it's… Stenosis! Hardening of the valves; stenosis!" She grinned triumphantly.
Harry laughed and threw her a chocolate in a brightly coloured wrapper. "My turn."
Nikki plucked a revision card from the table. "Okay. The superior and inferior vena cava flow into the - what?"
"Oh, that's so easy!" Harry scoffed. "The right atrium!"
"Correct," Nikki grudgingly admitted as Harry helped himself to a chocolate. "That's not actually fair, the heart is your thing, not mine."
"Stop trying to make excuses," he winked. "All right then, let's move on from cardiac. Level out the playing field."
All day they'd been revising their medicine in preparation for their new 'jobs' the next morning. It was now reasonably late in the evening, and although Nikki was feeling fairly confident, she couldn't help being slightly nervous at the prospect of using her knowledge on live patients.
As if Harry could tell what she was thinking, he said, "It'll be all right, you know. We're going into a care home, not a hospital."
"I know. It's just a bit nerve-racking."
"Well let's keep practicing then," he smiled. Uncrossing his legs, he stretched across the table to pick up a book, groaning in pain as he did so.
"Your back?" she frowned.
"It was sleeping on the sofa last night," he shrugged. "It's all right, just a bit stiff."
Nikki felt instantly bad, noticing that the sofa was probably a good foot shorter than Harry was, despite his protests that he was okay.
"You can sleep in the bed tonight," she suggested quietly.
He smiled. "Thanks, but I'm not letting you have the sofa."
She blushed. "No, I meant… With me. The sofa will kill your back if you spend much longer on it."
"Are you sure?"
"Well, we've shared everything else in the past, why not a bed? Platonically, of course."
He quirked an eyebrow at her, so she added, "What, scared you won't be able to resist temptation?"
He snorted. "No, I'm scared you won't."
"You don't have to worry about me," she smirked. "Now are we revising or not?"
He grinned and flicked through the book he had picked up until he stopped on a page, which he studied intently for a moment. "Okay then… This is a bit more applicable to where we're going: what gene location is responsible for dementias?"
Nikki screwed up her eyes and her nose wrinkled in concentration for a moment before she said, "APOE," and looked up again. Harry was watching her, a small smile on his face.
"What?" she asked, suddenly self-conscious.
"Nothing," he laughed. "Just, you're cute when you're thinking."
"Oh shut up," she scoffed, although there was a smile playing on her lips. "Was I right or not?"
"Yes, you were," he said, throwing her a chocolate. "But you get a bonus sweet if you can tell me what it stands for."
"Apolioprotein E," she said automatically, "I knew it, I just didn't want to show off."
"Ha, if you say so," he mocked, but picked her out another chocolate. "God, this is bringing back painful memories of my med school days."
"Blimey, I'm surprised you can remember that far back," she teased, earning herself a withering glare.
"You're one to talk."
She ignored this and sighed as she got to her feet. "I'm going to bed," she told him. "We've pretty much covered everything and I'm exhausted. Are you – are you coming?"
"Yeah, in a minute. I'll just put this away."
Once in the bedroom, Nikki suddenly felt inexplicably nervous. Which was stupid. Her and Harry were best friends, they shouldn't feel awkward about sleeping in the same bed. It was no different to the many times that they'd sat curled up on the sofa together, or she'd cried in his arms. Except it was.
She quickly got changed into her pyjamas, then realised that they probably weren't the most sensible pair she could have brought. The long bottoms were all right, it was the thin vest top that caused problems. Besides it being rather chilly, it also didn't leave very much to the imagination. But she hadn't thought about that when she'd packed it, as she'd assumed that she and Harry wouldn't even be sharing a bedroom, let alone a bed. Nevertheless, there wasn't much that she could do about it. She had a rummage through the wardrobe to see if she'd packed a spare t-shirt – attempting to ignore how normal it felt to have Harry's clothes hanging besides hers – but she hadn't. So she brushed her teeth and climbed into bed, trying not to shiver too much.
Wrapping the duvet tightly around herself, it wasn't long until she heard the door creak open.
"Are you still awake?" Harry whispered into the darkness.
"Yeah," she replied, and he switched on the lamp.
"Good," he smiled. "Do you mind if I leave that on while I go and use the bathroom?"
She shook her head and he disappeared, re-emerging a few minutes later wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of navy jogging bottoms. She sat up slightly against the headboard. "Is that what you sleep in?"
"I could ask you the same thing," he retorted. "You do realise that it's minus a hundred degrees outside."
"Don't I know it, I'm freezing; I've got goosebumps. But I didn't bring anything else," she confessed.
Harry tutted at her before crossing to the chest of drawers. He pulled something out of them and threw it to Nikki. "Here, wear this," he instructed.
She held it up and saw a grey sweatshirt with a sporty motif on the front.
"It will stop you dying of hypothermia," he added, climbing into bed beside her. Nikki pulled the jumper over her head, instantly feeling warmer.
"Thank you," she smiled, although he had already turned off the lamp and had his back to her anyway.
"You're welcome," he muttered sleepily.
Snuggling down under the covers, Nikki couldn't help but keep smiling. It was such a big bed that she and Harry were hardly close enough for it to be awkward, and instead she realised it was actually nice not to feel so alone. It was never pleasant, sleeping in a bed other than your own, and having someone as familiar as Harry there made it all a little easier.
The first thing Nikki noticed the next morning was that she was so no longer cold. The second thing she realised was that the fact that she was no longer cold was probably due to the very warm, very solid, body that she was pressed against. She cracked open an eye and saw Harry's chest right in front of her. One of her arms was slung across his stomach and she was pretty sure that his were around her waist. Carefully, she slowly lifted her head to look up at him. He was wide awake.
"Crap," she said, because it was the first thing that came into her head. Now she couldn't escape.
He chuckled, the vibrations of which Nikki felt in the pit of her stomach.
"Good morning to you, too," he smiled.
"See, this is why I made you sleep on the sofa," she grumbled, but neither of them were making any effort to move. "What time is it?"
"Just gone six," he whispered. "We should be getting up."
Nikki groaned. She rolled off of Harry and buried her head under her pillow. "I don't want to go to our stupid new job," she complained, her voice muffled.
Squeezing her shoulder reassuringly, Harry said, "I'll go and get us some breakfast. Come down in five minutes."
He left the bedroom and Nikki emerged from under the pillow. She rolled onto her back and bit her lip as she stared up at the dark ceiling. The bed felt oddly cold now that Harry wasn't in it. With a sigh, she swung her legs over until her toes touched the carpet and then stood up. Every particle of her body screamed at the lack of duvet, but she continued on downstairs.
The smell of coffee instantly hit her as Nikki entered the kitchen, and she realise just how handy it was having Harry around to do things like that for her, as selfish as that may be.
Harry turned as she entered, stopping in his quest to find where she'd unpacked the serials, and just stared at her for a moment.
"What?" she asked, glancing down at his jumper that she was still wearing, the sleeves pulled up slightly. It was far too big, and hardly the most beautiful thing in the world. Added to her messy bed hair, she couldn't understand what he'd be staring at.
"Nothing," he smiled, disappearing behind the fridge.
"You have to stop doing that," she scolded, but there was a smile playing on her lips.
"What do you want for breakfast?" Harry asked, and she didn't miss the subtle change of topic.
"Whatever. I'm too nervous to eat," she told him.
"You need to eat something. We've got a busy day. I'll make you some toast and butter."
She smiled a thank you, reaching for one of the two mugs of coffee perched on the side and taking it through to the dining room table. Only a few minutes later Harry appeared, balancing two plates of toast and his own mug of coffee.
"Stems from my teenage years spent waiting on people in a local restaurant," he informed her with a smile, placing her toast in front of her.
"Thank you."
She ate in silence but could feel Harry's eyes on her, waiting for her to say something. Eventually she said slowly, "What if people guess that we're not married?"
"They won't. We'll just have to put on a very good show."
"All right then, what if someone asks us a question that we haven't prepared for?" she countered.
"You're worrying over nothing," he told her. "There's nothing anyone can ask us that we don't know about each other, you know there isn't."
He placed his hand over hers on the table, and the glint of the rings on her finger caught her eye.
"Okay," she said, forcing a smile onto her face.
An hour later and Nikki was feeling a lot more nervous.
"I don't want to get out," she grumbled as Harry swiftly pulled the car into a parking spot at the care home and killed the engine. "It's warm in here. There are no old people to kill with my rusty medical knowledge."
"How many times, we're not going to be performing procedures," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "Come on."
They climbed out into the bitterly cold air. Once again, Nikki gazed up at the imposing building. As they slowly crossed the car park, Harry held out his hand to her. "Don't forget we're married," he pointed out.
From the grip he had on her hand, and the reassurance that she found clinging onto his, something told her that the small act of comfort wasn't entirely for show.
They crossed the threshold of the heavy oak doors and stepped into the bustling foyer, a lot busier than the last time Nikki had been here. On the other side of the hall, Henry Jordan emerged from a door.
"Mr and Mrs Toulson!" he cried, his arms outstretched. His voice was full of false friendliness, yet he didn't give anything away about who they really were. Harry and Nikki glanced at each other nervously as Jordan approached. He gave them a cold smile. "Welcome to Lakeview!"
I promise we'll get back to the case in the next chapter! Less of the clichéd Harry/Nikki stuff. ;)
Thank you so much for all your lovely reviews! xxxx