"Dr Alexander"

"Professor Wilson" Nikki smiled as she rubbed her hands with the hand sanitiser gel from the machine near the door, shaking the older man's hand and holding the door out for him, sneaking some more hand sanitiser on her way back in as did he "How is everything?"

"Busy" the man responded, looking around at the area they walked into, seeing the screens up at the various desks, and the bottles of sanitiser on various surfaces "How are you doing here?"

"It's been..different" Nikki chuckled, walking past the currently unoccupied desks, one of the lab techs at the other side of the room looking through the microscope but no-one else in the room "It's a good job we work in an environment where cleanliness and avoiding contamination is just a daily thing, I think the worst thing people are getting used to is having to distance from each other"

"And how are you doing? I don't think there could have been a worse time for you to become head of this department"

"Acting head" Nikki responded to him as they entered her office, still unchanged from when Thomas had been using it despite him being gone over five months, she still even had the picture of Thomas and Rosie on the bookcase spanning the wall behind her desk. She heard Professor Wilson hum and raised an eyebrow at him, she hated how she could barely read people behind their masks now "If this whole pandemic hadn't happened they would have appointed someone else by now, but as it is, it's me until this passes"

"You know as well as I do Dr Alexander that this thing isn't going away any time soon, however much people want to think it is" Professor Wilson responded with a roll of his eyes, sitting down on the sofa just next to the door and taking his mask off one ear when the other doctor was far enough away and sitting at her desk "How are your colleagues dealing with it?"

"Some are isolating because they have underlying health conditions or they have family members with one. The rest are testing every day, masks everywhere now that they weren't wearing them before like hallways, the break room unless they're eating" Nikki told him, waving her hand in a vague manner as she pulled her mask off as well and wiggled her mouse to wake up her computer screen, missing the smile that Professor Wilson gave her as she spoke "As you saw, screens between desks, hand sanitisers everywhere. It's pretty much what you would do when in autopsy or in the lab just...everywhere else"

"And how are you coping as a person, Nikki?"

Nikki sighed at that, resting her head on her hand and shrugging. Of course there was certain expectations put on her now, and the fact that she was now running an entire department for the first time in her career at the start of a pandemic that experts believed wouldn't end any time soon wasn't really how she had imagined her life ending up.

"I am grateful and thankful every day that I work with people that I do, they have all been amazing"

The professor didn't comment that she hadn't actually answered the question, but he had encountered Dr Alexander enough over the years to know that she was downplaying her own roll in all of this.

"I'm going to take a look around the place if that's okay, it's not a judgement, just to see how you are all doing and how the procedures are going"

"Of course" Nikki nodded, suddenly nervous that there was going to be something she had missed out.

"Oh and, people's bubbles?"

"Yes" she sighed, looking at her computer screen again and pulling up a colour coded document on the screen "I've managed to rota people in at generally the same times every week, so they're working with the same people all the time. I know our job isn't nine til five every day so I've obviously allowed some leeway with people coming in early or staying late for tests and results and that sort of thing. People who are happy to come in whenever they are needed if we are short staffed I've asked to test when they get in before they actually get into the lab and everyone is okay with that, and I do have some members of staff who are in the same bubble living together as well" she stopped talking, looking over to Professor Wilson, seeing the amused look on his face "What is it?"

"This is the fifth department I've visited in the last week to check on, and you are by the far the most on hand and organised"

"It helps that my staff are so good"

"Which reflects on you as a leader"

"I'm not their.." Nikki trailed off, looking at the screen again and shaking her head, technically she was for now "Just think, how good will it look on my CV that I managed a whole lab at the last minute in the middle of a pandemic"

"As though we're letting you ever leave this place after that"

Nikki just laughed, the professor putting his mask on before he stood up and left her office to go and have a wander. Her smile faded though when he left, clicking open the news on her second screen and sighing when she saw the new infection and death rates that had just been published. This really wasn't going away any time soon.

"Who's the posh man?"

"That is Professor John Wilson, he's here to check we are doing everything by the book and we're all set up properly" Nikki responded to Jack without looking up from where she was typing up her notes from the autopsy she had done the day before "He was one of my lecturers at Oxford"

"Ah, so he is a posh bastard"

Nikki looked up at Jack and saw his eyes crinkling over the top of his mask, rolling her eyes at him as he stayed standing in the doorway to her office. She had worried that living with him and working with him would be too much for them both, but there was just something about the two of them that seemed to work in that situation. They were adult enough that they could tell the other to bugger off if they were around them too much, and the other wouldn't get offended or annoyed.

"He's a good man" Nikki told Jack pointedly, leaning back on her chair and shrugging "He hadn't even properly looked around the place and he said we were already the best out of the five labs he's already visited"

"See, that's down to you"

"That's down to everyone who works here"

"Which in case you forgot in your older age, is also you, and also down to you" Jack responded, grinning behind the mask at Nikki shot him an annoyed look "Anyway I heard him asking people questions about how they're feeling about this place"

"What? Fuck" Nikki sighed, resting her head in her hands and closing her eyes for a few seconds, looking up at Jack and shaking her head "Honestly, when I die and I see Thomas again I am giving him a piece of my mind for the next...eternity" she muttered, hearing Jack laugh as she put her head in her hands again "Which reminds me actually, Rosie has asked if we can help her with her science work at some point over the phone or Zoom or something. It must be extra hard for her not being in a stable school situation as well now"

"She's a good girl" Jack nodded, they'd gone out with Thomas' daughter a few times in the months since his death, her mother had told them how grateful she was that Rosie had people who could also talk about her dad with her.

"Yes she is"

"Dr Alexander, I...oh, sorry I didn't know you were in a meeting" Professor Wilson stopped as he walked into the office through the open door, Nikki shaking her head.

"It's not. Do you need anything? I don't know if you've met Jack Hodgson, he's the most senior forensic scientist at the Lyell, he oversees the department if Thom...I'm not here and he is" Nikki quickly corrected, sometime she still slipped up even after the past months since Thomas' death.

"I'd shake hands but under the circumstances" Jack chuckled as he stood up and nodded at the man who was his height "How is everything"

"Well I'm not here to inspect the work you all do here, but of course I can't not see how amazing your teams are"

"The people here are the best at what they do, and if they come here and then they're not, then we make them the best" Nikki commented from her seat at her desk, seeing Jack shoot her a smile even though he still had his mask on "The Lyell has had a reputation to uphold ever since Sam Ryan was the leader here"

"Indeed" Professor Wilson smiled at Nikki and nodded "I'm all finished here though, I'll send you my report by email in a day or two, but I can tell you that there is definitely nothing to be worried about and I'll be sending a report to the coroner highly praising the entire department and how it is being run and how it's coping"

Nikki nodded, she didn't know how much she had needed to hear that until the words had been spoken.

"Thank you"

"What are you cooking?" Jack asked Nikki as he walked into the kitchen from the hallway, he had been upstairs having a shower after work and he had come out to the vague smell of something very nice being cooked.

"Chicken curry, with rice, and naan bread" Nikki responded without looking away from the recipe on her tablet "A friend of mine lives in India, she sent me the recipe a few months ago and I never had reason to cook it"

"Is it spicy?"

"A bit I suppose" she glanced at him and chuckled, she could handle spicy food, really enjoyed it in fact, but she knew that Jack didn't "It's spicier than a Korma at least. Have a taste of the sauce" she told him, picking up a spoon and scooping some of the sauce up from the pan before she properly put it on to cook, holding it out to Jack. It struck her as very domestic, when he leaned forward to taste the sauce from the spoon, and she couldn't help it when her eyes dropped to his lips when he licked them. That shouldn't make her stomach feel like that "I can add something to cool it down"

"No, that's fine" Jack assured her with a nod, licking his lips again as he tasted it "It's lovely"

"It's nice to be able to cook for someone else, it's not really any fun when I just do it for me"

"And when Matt is here?"

Nikki didn't respond to that, she knew from Jack's tone that he meant what he said and he wasn't asking out of any malice.

"This is going to be hard on you, them closing the travel between here and America"

"As though I was going to travel during a pandemic even if they had the airports open" Nikki rolled her eyes, putting the saucepan on to simmer while she walked over to the fridge to pull the diced chicken out that she had been marinating since the day before. She paused, looking at Jack as she slowly closed the fridge door, raising an eyebrow at him as he stole a piece more of the simmering curry. "Did you just double dip that spoon?"

"No" he responded quickly, realising that he had been caught, giving her the most innocent look he could muster even as he had the spoon in his hand and was licking his lips.

"Jack"

"Okay it's just too good" Jack argued, smiling when Nikki walked over to him and nudged him away from the cooker.

"Go away"

"That's very rude"

"You should be used to it by now" Nikki giggled, putting the chicken in the frying pan that had been heating on the hob. She looked back at Jack though, her smile fading slightly "I broke it off with Matt"

"What? Why?" Jack asked quickly, he hadn't expected that to happen. Yes, he knew that this would have been difficult for them but it had only just started "I thought you were..."

"He asked me to move over there and stay with him during this whole thing" Nikki interrupted, poking the chicken angrily as she thought about it "Didn't even seem to care that I have a whole job and life here, people that are relying on me at work, friends here, people I love..." she trailed off, looking at Jack who had a look on his face that she couldn't quite work out "Selfish prick"

Jack wasn't really prepared to hear her talking about her partner, ex partner apparently, like that, but there was a little sick part of him that was happy that Matt was out of the picture. He hated the thought that he was happy that they had broken up, it made him feel dirty.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine with it, which is the part that is pissing me off the most" Nikki sighed, turning the chicken down and swirling it around the frying pan so it didn't stick "I thought I would be more upset"

"Perhaps it was just time"

"Perhaps" she nodded, shaking her head and sighing again "Go and get the table ready, we're not sitting eating curry on my sofa"

"Yes ma'am"

Nikki smiled at his back as he went to do as he was told.