Chapter 25: World Spins Madly On

The hustle and bustle of the lab; people doing their jobs as if it were a day like any other, answering consistently ringing phones and causing large computers to beep as they relayed their results; was somewhat comforting to Nikki. She instantly calmed as she walked over to her desk, dumping her handbag in her chair. So they were broken up. These things happen to couples all the time. She'd been naïve to think that Harry would be her one and only for the rest of her life – the law of probabilities could have told her that, had she been bothered to consult them. Which she hadn't, because she'd been too caught up in this whirlwind of emotional turmoil.

Harry. It always boiled down to Harry. Sometimes, it was enough to make Nikki half-heartedly wish that she had never accepted Leo's job offer all those years ago. But here she was, and yes, things hadn't quite gone to plan, but she was still fighting on. 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger', isn't that how the saying goes?

Deciding to let Leo know that she was back, she walked over to his office, softly knocked once on the door and then entered. Leo was talking to a man who was sat opposite him, a man who was wearing a suit and smiling broadly.

"Err... Leo, could I have a word?" she asked, when she realised that both men were staring at her.

"Of course," Leo smiled. "I'll be right back," he added to his visitor.

Once outside the office, making sure the door was firmly shut, Nikki said, "Who was that?"

"I'm thinking of hiring him as Harry's replacement," Leo told her.

"Oh." Nikki didn't really know how to react to this particular piece of news. A minute of silence passed, and then Leo said, "What did you want to talk to me about, Nikki?"

"I think I'm ready to come back to work," she said defiantly.

Leo crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. "You haven't been off work."

"Yes I have," she said knowingly. "For the last week you have been depriving me of proper cases, just making me do paperwork and then go home early. But now, I am telling you, that I'm ready to come back."

"Why now? Why so suddenly?" he queried. Nikki shrugged nonchalantly and he sighed and added, "What happened?"

"Harry finished with me," she told him casually.

Leo looked aghast. "Nikki-" he began, but she interrupted him.

"Look, it's okay, Leo. He only did it to make himself feel all noble and good, and seeing as I'm not paying any attention to him it doesn't really matter," she said quickly.

Looking entirely perplexed, Leo opened his mouth to say something but was immediately cut off by a wave of Nikki's hand.

"I'll explain properly later. My point is, can I please come back to work?"

Clearly debating Nikki's mental state, Leo just looked at her for a while with his eyes narrowed. Nikki waited patiently and eventually he sighed and said, "Fine. There's a suspected suicide down in the morgue waiting for a PM, you can get to work on that."

A smile erupted on Nikki's face. "Thanks, Leo."

Leo rolled his eyes and returned to his office, while Nikki made her way in the opposite direction and towards the cutting room. Work was good for her, it always had been. Choosing to throw herself into a case or spend all night doing paperwork had often provided a welcome distraction from whatever had been going on her life. This was going to be no different.

The locker room was exactly the same as always. Not that Nikki had expected it to be any different, just that she felt something should be, when her own life had been turned upside down. It was almost wrong that everything else should be so normal.

And then her eyes fell on Harry's locker, and it hit her that nothing else was normal, and probably wouldn't be for a long time. Swallowing hard, she placed her palm on the cold metal of Harry's locker door, until she finally plucked up the courage and opened it. Once again, it all looked so average. There was nothing missing, nothing new; it could have been that Harry was going to walk in and take out his lab coat any minute.

Tentatively, she reached in and took one of the jumpers that he had in there. It still smelled of him. She held it closer to her, burying her face in it, savouring the familiarity. Who was she kidding? She was far from 'fine'.

Feeling her eyes prickling, she pulled herself together, took a deep breath and shoved the jumper back into the locker, slamming it closed afterwards. She then pressed her back against her own locker and ran a hand through her hair. This was ridiculous. He wasn't dead, yet here she was acting as if he was.

Clearing her throat and blinking away the tears, she released a lungful of air and opened her locker, pulling out some white scrubs and getting changed. In just fifteen minutes she was fully scrubbed-in and about to start the post-mortem.

"Adrian Walsh," she read aloud from the file to the dictaphone recording the PM. "Twenty-three years old, not married, no children. Next-of-kin is his widowed Mother. He was suffering from depression, and was being prescribed Amitriptyline by his GP, Dr. Matthews. He hanged himself from the pipes in his bathroom."

She handed the file back to a lab technician then pulled on some gloves and bent over the body.

"Petechial haemorrhages around the eyes certainly suggest asphyxiation as the cause of death, which is consistent with a hanging," she muttered, using her magnifying glass to examine the blank, staring eyes of Adrian Walsh. "The ligature and bruising around his neck does extend upwards to behind which ears, suggesting that it was self-inflicted. If it had been murder then-"

However, she was cut off by loud voices and the doors being flung open. It was the arrival of Leo and the man who'd been sat in his office earlier.

"And this is the cutting room," Leo was saying happily. "As you can see, we're more than prepared for anything, with all the latest technology and equipment."

"Yes, it's great," the man said. "Much nicer than where I last worked."

At this point, Leo led the way over to where Nikki was working. "This is Dr. Nikki Alexander," he introduced with a smile. "Nikki, this Joseph Cooper, I've just offered him a job."

"Joe, please," the man said, extending his hand, "It's nice to meet you, Dr. Alexander."

Snapping off a glove, Nikki accepted his handshake and gave him a small smile. "Call me Nikki," she told him.

"All right then," he grinned. Nikki looked him up and down. His short hair was light brown, verging on dark blonde, and stuck up at odd angles; his eyes were a vivid blue, set against his high cheekbones and tanned face; he was wearing a thin, navy jumper over a white shirt with smart, black trousers. Nikki couldn't deny it; he was the definition of handsome. Yet part of her knew that he was fully aware of this fact. His whole demeanour reeked of cocky charm and casualness.

"Nikki, I was wondering if you'd let Joe work with you this afternoon?" Leo asked, pulling Nikki back into the present. "Show him the ropes, so to speak."

"Yes, of course," she said politely, although secretly she just wanted a few hours of peace and quiet.

"Great," said Joe. "I'll go and scrub in."

As soon as he was gone, Leo turned to Nikki and said, "So? What do you think?"

"I think he's not Harry," she said simply.

A sigh escaped Leo's lips. "I know," he said. "But he's very well qualified and comes with excellent references. He's good at his job. Just give him a chance."

"Of course I'll give him a chance," she said, slightly offended that Leo would think that she wouldn't.

"Good," he smiled. "By the way, dinner is at mine and Janet's tonight."

Nikki tried hard not to groan. "Leo, I'm tired. I've had a long day, I'd rather just-"

"So would I," Leo interrupted, "believe me. But it's on Janet's orders."

Nikki recognised defeat when she saw it, so agreed to come on the premise that no one was to talk about Harry.

It was quite a while after Leo had departed that Joe finally returned. He smiled at Nikki as he approached, now wearing some white scrubs and wellington boots.

"I bumped into a lab tech," he explained, by way of an apology. "Charlie, I think she said her name was. Anyway, she seemed quite keen to introduce herself."

He was grinning as if they'd been friends all their life, now sharing some private guy joke over how Charlie thought he was 'fit' or whatever.

"Look," Nikki said, never once looking up from Adrian Walsh's body in front of her. "I don't like you, and I'm probably not going to like you, because you've come in as the replacement for the one man whom I did like. Now don't talk to me as if we're best friends because we're not, we're colleagues."

Joe didn't appear to be deterred, however. "Can't colleagues become friends?" he asked.

"No," Nikki said bluntly, thinking of her earlier visit with Harry. "Because then things get complicated," she muttered, more to herself than Joe, "and you fall for each other, and everything's perfect for a little while, except when it isn't and when he's up for bloody murder and finishing with you!"

She took a deep breath, leaning against the cold slab to steady herself.

"Okay..." Joe said slowly. "Clearly, something is upsetting you and normally you wouldn't actually be the neurotic disagreeable woman that you're coming across as now."

Nikki glared at him. "Please, say what you're thinking," she said sarcastically.

"I do," he told her truthfully. "It's why you'll end up liking me."

"No, I won't."

"Yeah you will."

Frowning, she said, "You're very sure of yourself, aren't you?"

He grinned, "I know you will, because everybody does, whether I want them to or not. But I do want you to, Dr. Alexander. Because I like you already, and I think you might need a breath of fresh air in your life."

Nikki couldn't help but laugh. "How many girls actually fall for that line?"

"A very select few, I have to admit," he countered, with mock thoughtfulness, but then added, "No, seriously though. Just give me a chance, that's all I'm asking."

Unsure whether to be annoyed or amused by this newcomer, Nikki placed her hands on her hips and said reluctantly, "I've already promised Leo I'll give you a chance, so don't think your corny little speech there had anything to do with this, but yes, all right then."

"Aww, come on! You loved the corny little speech! Don't tell me that you didn't!" He winked at her, causing Nikki's frown to deepen.

"Are you this optimistic all of the time?" she asked shrewdly.

"Yep," he replied, grinning. "Why focus on the negative? It's just depressing. I mean, look at this poor sod." He gestured to the guy on the slab in front of them.

Nikki narrowed her eyes at him in a disapproving way, but did have trouble preventing a smile from gracing her lips. Instead, she said, "Just pass me a scalpel, will you?"

. . .
. .

"Nikki! Hi, how are you? Thanks for coming!" Janet's greetings were cheerful as Nikki stepped into the living room of Leo's house later that evening.

"I'm not too bad, how are you?" Nikki smiled, enveloping the older woman in a hug. There was something about Janet; her tranquil, soothing voice, her casual and relaxed manner, the genuine kindness and concern in every syllable; that made Nikki feel comfortable and calm.

They sat and ate Janet's lasagne happily enough, and Nikki was pleased to observe that Leo had heeded her words and stayed off of the topic of Harry. Unfortunately, this ruled out most subjects, and by the time they had sunk onto the sofas with glasses of wine in their hands, conversation had begun to run a little thin. It was a comfortable silence that Nikki was perfectly happy to sit in, yet Leo obviously felt the need to break it.

"I'm going to be late in tomorrow, Nikki," he said. "You and young Dr. Cooper shall have to cope on your own for a while."

"I'm sure we'll manage," she smiled. "Coroner got you going to another meeting, has she?"

Leo looked slightly awkward for a moment. "Something like that, yes."

Nikki knew Leo well enough to know when he was keeping something from her, and in this case she knew exactly what that something was. "You're going to see Harry." It wasn't a question, and Leo didn't deny it.

"Yes. Do you want me to tell him anything from you?"

"Oh, I could think of plenty of things you can tell him," she muttered bitterly, but then saw the older couple's concerned looks and sighed. "No, there's nothing," she said.

"Nikki, are you all right?" Janet asked, knowing full well that she wasn't.

"Fine," she said shortly, running her fingers through her hair wearily.

She turned her head away, but didn't miss the obvious look that Janet gave Leo that clearly told him to leave.

"Err ... I'll go get us another bottle of wine, shall I?" he said, getting up and leaving the room. Janet also stood up, but only so that she could move and sit next to Nikki.

"Leo told me that Harry broke up with you," she said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too," Nikki mumbled.

"What happened?" Janet probed. "Leo didn't say much..."

Nikki conceded defeat, knowing that Janet wasn't going to give up. "He said that it's because he doesn't want to see me hurting while he's in jail. His exact words were that he can't 'sit by and watch me fall apart'. It's not entirely that though. The real reason he's doing it is so that I will stop doing my own investigating into Jones' murder."

"Oh. Well, I guess you can say that his motives were honourable then," she said meekly.

Nikki snorted derisively. "Annoyingly so. But it's okay. I'm okay. Everything is okay."

The pair sat in silence for a minute, and it didn't take long for the combination of wine and exhaustion and self-pity to creep up on Nikki. A silent tear slid down her cheek, a tear which did not go unnoticed by Janet. Sighing, she slipped her arm around Nikki's shoulder.

"It's not okay, is it?" the older woman asked gently.

"No, it's not," Nikki muttered.

You'll be seeing a lot more of Dr. Joseph Cooper in the next few chapter, so prepare yourselves! He might cause some trouble. I'm actually having quite a lot of fun writing him at the moment, it's because he's so different. Although, saying that, it's hard not to write him as a Harry doppleganger. ;)

Thank you all so much for your continued support and reviewing! I'll update again as soon as I can, I promise. :)

Tons of hugs,

Charlotte
xxxx

P.S. Review? :)