Chapter 20: Sun Comes Up (II)
"We're just going to walk?" she asked, as the pair of them, hand in hand, made their way along the steadily darkening streets.
"Yep," Harry said simply.
Nikki frowned. "Okay..." she said slowly.
Silence fell as they ambled along, both perfectly content with each other's company. It wasn't until Harry led them left along a narrow lane that Nikki realised they were heading towards the small council-maintained gardens near the park. Smiling, she knew that the gardens were one of the most romantic places in the area, with a lot of couples frequenting them often, especially during the day.
As they approached this time, however, Nikki could see that it was nearly deserted, with only one or two other couple milling about. Harry and Nikki walked along the small gravel trail bordered with bright flower displays and small, green trees. It was dark now, but solar-powered torches lit the path, with other small yellow lights scattered strategically between branches in the trees. They reached the large fountain in the middle, which also had lights around the edge under the water, casting a magical, purple glow in the rippling water.
The pair sat, and Nikki couldn't help but relish the peace and tranquillity of the place. The gentle trickling of the water and rustle of the breeze in amongst the leaves was soothing; bliss after the stressful week that she had been having.
"How come we've never been here before? Together, I mean?" she asked as she entwined her hand with Harry's on his lap.
"Well, we've not exactly had a lot of spare time to take trips to gardens," he told her.
Nikki remained silent, just watching the stream of water. However, as darkness fell even fuller, the shiver that crept up her spine was an inevitability.
"You're cold," Harry noticed immediately, and she could see him eyeing the thin, long-sleeved top that she had on with her jeans.
"I'm fine," she assured him.
"No, you're not," he insisted, and proceeded to pull his jumper over his head.
"What are you doing?" Nikki sighed. "You're going to freeze in just a t-shirt."
"I'm fine." He mimicked her words from a few seconds earlier with a small smile.
Despite glaring at him, Nikki permitted him to put the jumper on her. The grey material swamped her tiny frame, but she wrapped it around herself and could quickly feel the benefits. Pulling her legs up onto the bench, she leant against Harry's torso and wrapped an arm around his stomach. Placing one of his own around her shoulder, Harry kissed her hair.
No words were needed; the silence that had been so prominent that evening was neither awkward nor unwanted. Choosing to shift her gaze from the fountain up to the stars in the deep-navy sky, Nikki couldn't think of anywhere else in the world she'd rather be.
"I was going to ask you something earlier," Harry said suddenly, breaking the silence.
"I know you were."
"But I changed my mind."
"I know you did."
Looking down at her with his brow furrowed, Harry asked, "Do you know what I was going to ask you?"
"I can guess," she admitted, "but no, I don't know for certain what you were going to ask me."
"That's good," he replied, nodding. "Because I'm not going to ask you it anymore. Not yet, anyway."
"When then?" she whispered, a flutter of anticipation in her stomach.
"When the time is right," he told her, and when Nikki glanced up at him she could see the smile gracing his lips. Also smiling, she laid her head on his chest once more.
"We can get through this, Harry," she told him firmly. "We can come out the other side in one piece."
"Can we?" he asked uncertainly.
"Yes. Cameron told me that we just have to wade our way through the mess, and then things will get better."
"They might get better," he said. "But will they ever be the same?"
"Of course they won't be the same," she whispered sadly. "Nothing will ever be the same again after this. It's going to change us, of course it will. But change isn't always a bad thing. Change can be good. Just because things are going to be different, doesn't mean that we can't be happy."
"When did you become such an optimist?" Harry asked jokingly.
"When it became necessary to have optimism. Negativity can tear you apart," she muttered honestly.
"I really love you, Nicola Alexander," he smiled.
"I love you too," she grinned. "But not when you call me Nicola."
Laughing, Harry's arms tightened around her as he pulled her closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
"My dad used to tell me that I'd never have any of this," Nikki confessed quietly a minute later. Harry didn't say anything, so she chose to continue. "'Plain', he used to call me. He'd say that I was lacking anything special. I remember one time, it was GCSE results day, and there I was with my A stars and As, and the only thing he could say to me was, 'Well, Niks, thank God you got brains, because you're gonna need to get an 'alf-decent job. No man is ever gonna support you.' I don't think he really meant it maliciously, but of course, I believed him. I never thought that I was going to have any of this."
Blinking away the tears, she felt Harry's fingers stroking her hair. "Nikki," he said softly. "Believe me when I tell you: you are anything but plain."
Giggling slightly, she looked up at him just in time for Harry to capture her lips in a gentle kiss, rather than the top of her head like he'd been intending.
"Come on," she muttered against his mouth, pulling away. "Let's go home. I can feel you shivering."
An hour later and the pair were back in bed, this time with their pyjamas on and the duvet wrapped tightly around themselves.
"I don't want to sleep," Nikki muttered. "I want every moment we have left with you; I don't want to waste them sleeping."
"So we won't sleep," Harry replied, matter-of-factly. "Even though it's nearly midnight and I'm knackered."
Nikki tutted as he chuckled. "What, I've had a busy day!" he protested.
Rolling over so that she could see him clearly, Nikki looked at the purple bruise forming around his left eye.
"You were so stupid today, Harry," she muttered sadly.
"I know," he whispered.
"Did you even think of me? Of us? Of what would happen if you did what you did?"
Harry released a long, drawn-out sigh. "Is that what's been bothering you?"
"Of course that's what's been bothering me! Of course it is!" Tears sparkled in Nikki's eyes as she spoke. "We're in this together, Harry! But instead of you coming to me and telling me what was going on, you chose to handle it on your own and make a right mess of things, as usual!"
"I didn't want to get you involved..." he attempted meekly.
"Of course I'm involved! You're my boyfriend or whatever! If I hadn't gone home after we'd argued, then-" She stopped suddenly as she realised what she was going to say.
Harry physically moved away from her, glaring. "No, go on," he said coolly. "Finish your sentence."
She shook her head and refused to talk, a tear sliding down her cheek, so Harry said, "If you hadn't stormed off home, then I wouldn't have been left alone to go and kill Robert Jones. That was what you were going to say, wasn't it?"
Biting her lip, Nikki said, "It wasn't. I know you didn't kill him."
"Look me in the eye and tell me that," Harry muttered.
A sudden feeling of guilt mingled with fear struck Nikki like a bus when she realised that she couldn't do that. Her throat seemed to be blocked and left her incapable of forming words as she tried to express to Harry how sorry she was. He was getting out of bed now, looking clearly stung.
"Every time you've told me that you 'know it wasn't me', you haven't been able to look me in the eye. It might be what you want to believe, but deep-down I don't think you do. And I think it's so deep-down that even you aren't fully aware of it. But you have doubts, Nikki. I've been able to see it in your eyes since I came out of custody."
After giving her a disappointed look, he walked from the bedroom. Biting back a sob, Nikki jumped out of bed and ran after him, stopping once she discovered him in the lounge.
"No one can know for sure that you didn't do this, just like no one can know for sure that you did!" she said, trying to justify herself.
"But I'm your 'boyfriend or whatever'!" he yelled, mimicking her words from earlier. "You should have given me the benefit of the doubt!"
"I did! Isn't that what I've been doing this past week?" Nikki cried.
"No, you've been trying to convince yourself that you believe that I'm innocent, even though you don't really believe it yourself. You haven't even realised that you've been doing it!"
"You don't really help yourself though, do you, Harry?" she snapped. "Look at what you did today! It's like you were asking the police to arrest you again!"
"I was trying to get a confession-"
"You were trying too hard!" Nikki interrupted. "It's like you don't believe in the justice system; you don't think that the police would have done anything if you had told them your theory about Christopher Jones."
"I don't believe in the justice system!" he shouted. "I don't trust it, I don't have any faith in the police, I don't believe in it! Because, so far, all it and they have done is let me down!"
Silence fell; the only noise was the pair's heavy breathing from their outbursts. Rolling down Nikki's cheeks were big, fat tears, departing her skin at her chin and plopping to the carpet.
"I don't want you to go to jail," she whispered shakily.
With a sad sigh, Harry walked over to her and gathered her in his strong arms, holding her tightly against his torso as she sobbed into his t-shirt.
"I know," he muttered, pressing kisses into her hair. "Do you think I want to leave you here like this? Just when we've finally sorted things out and started this amazing thing ... You mean everything to me. I don't want to leave you here alone."
Letting out another sob, Nikki felt a rush of renewed affection and looked up at Harry. "I'm not alone," she told him, trying to reassure him. "I have Leo. And Janet. You're the one who's going to be alone."
"Alone? What are you talking about? I'll have a hundred nice criminals to keep me company."
A watery chuckle escaped her lips, and Nikki buried her face in his chest once more. "I'm sorry that I shouted at you. I'm ninety-nine percent certain that you're innocent."
"I'm sorry too. I can't expect you to believe me, not when everyone around you doesn't. Look, no more arguing, okay?"
"Okay." She smiled softly. "Let's go back to bed. Please? I just want you to hold me. I want to feel your arms around me one more time."
Tilting her chin up so that he could push his lips to hers for a second, Harry then took her hand and led Nikki back to the bedroom.
Sleep had taken Nikki eventually, when the darkness had begun to fade and the sky was gradually becoming a lighter shade of navy. She'd known that Harry hadn't slept though. Understandably, of course. She, herself, had awoken only a couple of hours later, when the steely grey light of an overcast morning had seeped through the curtains and hit her face. Seven o'clock, the clock told her. Leo would now be about to leave his house. He always arrived at work earlier than the others.
Fingers running up and down her arm told her that Harry, too, was aware of the situation. It was like they were sat waiting for the bomb to go off, knowing that there was nothing they could do to stop it detonating. A desperate unwillingness to remove her arm from Harry's stomach, her head from his chest, her feet from tangled between his, kept Nikki in bed until the very last minute, when Harry said, "Come on, we should get dressed."
They dressed in silence, the atmosphere heavy with the imminent loss, grief and despair that was approaching at an alarming rate.
Nikki was flustered, rushing around pointlessly straightening objects or smoothing the bedcovers. That was, until Harry grabbed her wrists and held her steady.
"Nikki, slow down," he told her softly. Nodding, she was about to reply when a loud buzz rent the air. It was her mobile phone, vibrating against her bedside table. Looking at Harry, he nodded his assent for her to read it.
"It's Leo," she told him as she opened the message. "He says he's just put the phone down."
They both knew what this message meant; Leo had told Kent. She would be here to re-arrest within ten minutes. Unable to face the impending gloom, Nikki walked from the bedroom without so much as glancing at Harry and started pacing the lounge. Harry, of course, followed her straight away.
"Nikki," he said quietly, standing directly in front of her so that she had no choice but to stand still.
"I can't do it, Harry," she said shakily. "I can't say goodbye to you."
"It isn't goodbye," he told her firmly, and she could see the tears filling his eyes. "I'm not leaving you."
"But you are," she said desperately, sounding like a child. "You're going to go to jail now and never be granted bail again, until your trial in which-"
"In which anything can happen," he cut across her.
The sound of several car doors being slammed shut from down in the car park drifted up through the window, causing Nikki to throw a panicked look at Harry.
"Nikki, listen to me," he said, not even attempting to hold back his tears now. He grabbed her by the shoulders, running his thumbs across the line of her jaw when she tilted her head towards his touch.
"We're not going to survive this, are we?" she asked him forlornly.
"Yes we are," he told her, sniffing loudly. "It's going to be hard, there's no point pretending otherwise, but we can survive this."
Releasing a sob, Nikki placed her hands either side of his face, resting her forehead against his. "I love you," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut tightly against the tears.
He kissed her roughly on the mouth; a kiss mingled with tears and broken by sobs. "I love you too," he told her, his hands now either side of her face also.
There was a loud knock on the door, causing the tears to fall from Nikki's eyes even harder and heavier than before.
"We can do this," Harry breathed one more time, before finally pulling away.
Nikki begged him not to open the door, she cried and screamed and grabbed his hands. But Harry, despite his tears and pain at watching her fall apart like that, prised himself away from her and walked over to the front door.
When the door was opened, and Kent was revealed on the doorstep with Sullivan at her side, the reality hit Nikki harder than a ton of bricks, and she knew in that moment that she did fully believe that he was innocent – and knew that she couldn't live without him.
"Ah, good morning, Dr. Cunningham," Kent was saying, "I didn't think we meet again so soon. Now, are you going to come willingly, or do I need to get to give Detective Sullivan here the chance to use those handcuffs that he looks after so diligently?"
"I'm coming," Harry said coldly. He looked about to leave, but hastily turned back to Nikki. Despite Kent's protests, he grabbed Nikki's hands, looked her straight in the eyes and said, "Call Leo. Get you to pick him up. Stay with him, or Janet. I don't want you to be alone when you're like this."
She nodded, reassuring him that she'd do as he said, then added, "Earlier, when we were arguing and I said I was ninety-nine percent certain? I was wrong."
"Oh?" Harry said uncertainly.
"I'm one hundred percent," she told him.
The smile of gratitude on Harry's face made Nikki's heart melt.
"Come on, Dr. Cunningham," Kent said for the tenth time.
Harry released Nikki's hands and walked away from her backwards, so that they never broke their gaze until Sullivan dragged him outside and Kent shut the door behind her.
Her heart burning, her lungs aching, the tears burning her cheeks, Nikki fell to her knees and sobbed.
Neither of you were under any illusion it would be easy.
You just didn't realise how hard it was going to be.
You've had your heart broken and you've broken a heart; you've nearly died, you've nearly killed someone; you've cried and screamed and shouted, you've laughed and smiled and kissed. You've betrayed him, but he's betrayed you; you've quit, on more things than one; and they've been the worst two months of your life.
Yet, somehow, you have survived.
Okay, I think I owe you all an explanation and an apology. That last chapter was horrifically bad, I am aware of that. In fact, I am not particularly pleased by either of these chapters. They're messy and complicated and boring.
I had this idea of how I wanted these two chapters, Harry's 'last night', to go, and they actually only fit without about 30% of what I wanted. I spent two and half weeks writing the last one because it wouldn't go right, or look right, or sound right; and two days doing this one.
So I am truly, very sorry. I just wanted them to be perfect, if not for my own peace of mind, then for your satisfaction as a reader.
As much love as my currently depressed self will permit,
Charlotte
xxx