There had been whispers about the illness for weeks, especially amongst the circles that Nikki and Jack worked in. Doctors and professionals who knew what they were talking about were worried, and every time Nikki saw something else about it her worry grew. If the professionals on the media were worried about this spreading illness, of course she was going to be as well. She had started wearing a mask weeks before, as had many in the Lyell, and when she met up with Jack and Conor outside of work she noted that Jack had encouraged his dad to wear one as well when they were out. Yes they got looks, but Nikki thought that it was better than catching some illness that according to whispers she had heard amongst her colleagues who knew people, death wasn't the worst thing that could happen if you caught it. As acting head of the Lyell, a position that the board had insisted that she take in the wake of Thomas' death despite her arguing that they should get someone else in, she had started to prepare the best she could for the eventuality that this thing got worse. She spent half her time looking a budgets in her first month as acting head, but their position was good enough that she had upped the PPE orders, as well as keeping in close contact with an epidemiologist friend she had from her uni days.

Mid March however had been a flurry of activity and she was half tempted to go to Thomas' grave and give him a piece of her mind for dying like that on her and leaving her acting head of the Lyell during a pandemic. She had muttered about 'the audacity of that man dying on me like that' one day while reading through some more budget reports from her higher-ups for pandemic measures, and got an odd look from once of the passing lab technicians. The news breaking that there was going to be a national lockdown though had thrown things into even more chaos for her. Of course their work was essential so they couldn't all just go into lockdown, but the orders from her higher ups had stated that people needed to stay in bubbles when they were at home, any breach of that was a dismissal from work, and people had to have the same shift patterns every week so they knew who was in and out at what times. Nikki had tried to argue that their job wasn't as simple as nine till five, but it had been like talking to a brick wall so she had just agreed and would do the best she could with that. The added fact that many of the people who worked there had children who were now home schooling was something that she had really tried to ignore for a while until someone had asked to speak to her about that.

"You look like shit"

"Thanks" Nikki responded without taking her hands away from her face, hearing Jack chuckle and she knew without looking that he was leaning against the doorway to her office. That always sounded weird, to be sitting where Leo and Thomas had sat for so long. "I thought you were doing a house thing today"

"Yeah, about that" Jack sighed, running his fingers through his hair and moving to sit on one of the sofas in the room, watching as Nikki moved her hands away from her face to look at him too "Apparently moving during a global pandemic isn't as easy as it sounds"

"You were moving before all of this"

"And now it's all fallen through" Jack responded, shrugging and leaning back on the couch, laying his arm across the back "And I have to find a place for me and da to stay because our places have been sold"

"How did that..." Nikki trailed off, she didn't even want to get into it, she had enough to think about "You could move in with me for a bit"

"With you?"

"What?"

"You want me and my old man to move in with you?"

"Well yes, where else will you go? And you both need to keep yourselves safe from this thing" Nikki told Jack with a pointed look, in reality, the thought of them both going without a proper place to stay was awful to her, even more so when this whole thing was going on "Anyway, you'll both need to shield so at least you'll be living with someone who works with PPE all day"

"Shield?"

"Yes, you'll get your letter soon"

"I don't need to shield. Da will"

"Jack, believe it or not I am a doctor" Nikki responded, looking back down at the sheets of paper in front of her on the desk and shaking her head "You are still recovering from something that could have..." she trailed off, she didn't want to think about it "Your lungs are still recovering, and this is a respiratory disease that can harm even the fittest of people"

"I'm fine"

"Jack, I cannot bury another..." Nikki trailed off again, biting her lip and turning her head away from him, blinking away tears, shaking her head. She heard Jack stand up, swallowing the lump in her throat and looking back down at the budgets in front of her, picking up her pen and ignoring him when Jack moved to lean next to her against the desk, crossing his arms over his chest. "Just move in with me, I have two spare rooms"

"Check you out Dr Alexander"

"Shut up" she couldn't help but smirk, shaking her head and looking up at him, seeing a smirk on his face as well as he looked down at her, mask dangling from one ear where he had taken it off when he had come in "You just have to fight through the lines at the supermarket for toilet roll"

"I thought I was meant to be shielding"

"Shut up" she laughed, nudging his leg with her hand and pointing to her bag that was hanging on the peg behind her "My keys are in there, take the house one and sort yourselves out"

"I'm not going through your bag"

"Just go through my bag and get the keys"

Jack moved and picked up Nikki's handbag, putting it on the table in front of her and grinning when she rolled her eyes at him. He watched though as she dug through her bag, pulled out her keys and took one off it, handing it to him with a smile. Moving in with Nikki, sure he had thought about it, had it been in the context of a global pandemic that he and his dad were particularly susceptible to? Absolutely not.

"Go on. I'll be home later this evening once I've sorted out all these numbers"

"You should go for a Professorship" Jack commented to her as he walked towards the door to leave, putting his mask back into place but she could still see his smile over it in the way his eyes crinkled. She smiled back and shook her head, waving him away.

"Go on, I'll see you later"