A HALF OF THE WHOLE
H/N, obviously. Very decidedly AU, in which Harry and Nikki are together before he goes away, and manage to make it work.
Imagine, in this universe, they were together from just before the beginning of series 15.
Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me, but this might just be my new canon at the moment.
Spoilers: Some big ones, and I will get to the happening of Greater Love eventually.
Thanks again for all your feedback, hope you enjoy the next chapter. Although there's a bit of an angst overload at the beginning, things should be starting to look brighter…
You say that it's hard standing still
She doesn't know how she's supposed to cope with this, because he's only been here a week and Harry's leaving again, and he's not leaving the same place and the same person, it seems, as he left once before. Because Leo died, and the whole world came crashing around her, but Harry was here, from the moment she got back in her flat – he's essentially been holding her up. And now he has to go back, because New York's his home, he doesn't stay here long, not anymore, and she doesn't think she's ever been as alone as she's about to be.
The atmosphere at the airport seems more sombre than it was the last time, even. Harry's loathe to leave Nikki like this, she's white as a sheet, and this time she isn't crying, but somehow that's worse. He thinks maybe, with everything that's happened in the last weeks, she's run out of tears to cry.
She's waiting with him by the hand luggage scanners, and any minute now he's going to have go on through, any minute now there aren't going to be any minutes left. They don't say anything, and that seems more hopeless than if they had a thousand heart-breaking things to say, because they're in their last minutes on the same continent in God knows how long, and you'd think they'd have a thousand things to fill the silence. You think they'd have a thousand words to say. But the silence seems to echo between them, loaded with the large gaping hole Leo's death seems to have made in both their lives, and the unspoken inevitability, as it seems in that hopeless moment, that this can't go on forever.
In the end, as time ticks forward, unwanted, into that last minute, he only presses his lips roughly against hers and whispers I love you before turning away and walking through, not even giving her a chance to reply.
Everything that's happened has taken its toll on both of them, and it's beginning to show. Not just in themselves, either, but the shaky foundations this relationship is still standing on seem to be crumbling.
She sits in her car, afterwards, and almost wills the tears to roll down her cheeks – but they don't seem to want to come out. She feels almost hollow, like she's disappearing inside, and she can't make her whole body respond all this as much as it should.
In the end, she sighs and starts the engine.
She doesn't go home, not yet. She's gotten so used to, despite the terrible situation, having Harry between those four walls again, she's not sure she can stomach her empty flat quite yet. She goes, instead, to the Lyell, and sits in Leo's office, in Leo's chair, turning the chair side to side aimlessly and wondering, both in anger and depression, when they'll be changing his office, getting someone new in. Because things will change then. Right now Leo's in every corner, in the old chair she's twisting on, in the pictures stacked up on the windowsill, of Theresa and Cassie, of Leo and Theresa, of her, Leo and Harry, of her, Leo, Jack and Clarissa, and just of her and Harry.
She stops then, for a moment, looking at the photo of her and Harry. Leo'd always had an eye for the pair of them, from long before either of them could ever see it, and that's more obvious in this photo than it would have been in most. They're looking at each other, there's a laugh on Nikki's lips, and there's something close to adoration in Harry's eyes.
She realises with a jolt that that photo was taken before Budapest, before everything imploded.
It had always been there, and somehow she hadn't seen it.
And then, with increasing nausea, she thinks about where they are now. Because maybe they need to stop pretending. They can't be the two of them – not even those people, in that photograph, blissfully unaware of their feelings for one another – on separate sides of the world. And maybe they need to realise that.
Harry sinks into his sofa when he finally gets back into his apartment, hours later. He just drops his bags by the door and sinks into the black leather, leaning slightly on one of his hands.
Everything seems so much more finite, now. Everything has a time limit, a shelf life, and the scary part of it is that no one knows how long it'll take to reach.
The words in Nikki's eulogy are suddenly crashing around his ears. Because he always helped people, because we needed him, because he loved, and was loved.
He wonders, and then doubts, ever so quickly, if he'd be remembered and missed like Leo. He's sure he wouldn't be, within seconds, he can't imagine touching that many lives, touching that many hearts.
In the back of his mind, as if it's a truth reluctant to reveal itself, forms the thought that he doesn't need to touch as many hearts, he's got the heart of the woman he's always loved.
And then there's the dawning realisation that maybe the woman he's always loved, the love of his life, could slip away with ease. She's so far away, he's been asking so much of her for almost a year now, really, would anyone blame her if she couldn't do it anymore? Would anyone judge her for having to step away? Maybe the truth of the matter is that he can never have any hope of touching that many lives, touching that many hearts, if he's not where he's loved, and not really where he's needed.
Maybe he ought to give himself some sort of ultimatum. Maybe he ought to realise that life's finite, no one's going to live forever, maybe you need to be wherever's best for you.
Maybe he needs to go home.
He hands in his notice to Kendall in HR the following day. She looks up, slightly bemused, as if she never actually expected anything like this to happen, as if the job she'd signed up for was to sit behind a HR desk, smile sweetly at everyone walking past, and never actually deal with anything.
"You been offered something better, Prof?" she asks him in her slight twang, the remnants of an accent from a childhood in Queens.
He shakes his head, giving her a small, bemused smile, as if laughing at himself. "No. Nothing, actually. I'm relocating."
"New York not for you?" she's chamming on gum, "Some people think it's too busy, better off somewhere out of the lights…"
"No, I think it could have been for me. And this job… I just… I need to go home…"
She opens her mouth and then closes it, as if she'd bitten back her reply, as if she hadn't found anything to say in the end.
He heads out, a slight smile creeping onto his mouth, and, he muses as he gets on the Subway, it's possibly the first real smile in weeks.
The following weeks he has to work out, due the terms of his contract, are hard. They start talking on the phone every other day, but conversation topics are becoming more and more distant, and neither of them can seem to force any happiness into their voice.
He doesn't want to tell her he's coming home, he wants to surprise her, he wants to see that real smile back on her face, not just imagine it. But with every few days, every near-forced conversation, he begins to wonder whether he should tell her. He starts to fear he's losing her, and to lose her in the final weeks before he gets home would be a new level of cruel.
Phone-calls peter out a little further, down to a couple of times a week, and they both feel like their whole relationship is balancing on a knife edge, ready to fall and crumble at the slightest motion. But they don't say anything, neither of them come up with anything to say. The teeter on the knife edge, like a tightrope, in silence.
Finally, he works his last day. He'll be sad not to have a teaching position anymore, he's settled well into being the English Professor at the front of the lecture theatre, answering questions and giving reading lists. The other members of staff gather around his office as he gathers his last things, giving him cards, hugs, and even a few tears (he never thought he'd see the day Kendall cried). He walks out that night, head held high, almost feeling a new lease of life. He gathers his suitcases in his apartment; he's only due to pay another one month's rent, and he can spare that; he turns out the lights and drops the key through the landlord's letter box.
He heads to JFK, boards a plane and starts flying home.
Hope this chapter worked, I didn't want it to feel too rushed, but I wanted Harry to have the realisation that he couldn't stay in New York almost from the moment he gets back. I hope I manage to somewhat maintain the atmosphere of the relationship beginning to crumble, but not beyond repair. Let me know what you think, constructive criticism welcome!
