In the pre-dawn lightening of the sky, he sees the hot steam rising in puffs before his eyes. His breath is coming more harshly now, and there's just a hint of disturbance in his chest as he inhales - a sharpness, a slight pain, that he prays is no more than the shock of breathing in icy air. He tries to even out his breathing, to reduce the strain on his lungs – an energy-preserving technique from his boxing days.

The one positive is that now he can at least see where he's going… a major negative is that he hardly possesses the remaining strength to get there. He grits his teeth, forcing his leaden limbs onwards. His boots slip uselessly on the sodden grass and his knees give way… the shock and the sudden pain of the fall shocks him fully awake again, and he staggers to his feet once more…

Stupid, stupid, stupid! In the first place, it had been idiotic to tear out into that storm after Amrita. It had been madder to stay out once he'd seen her caravan taken by the flood. Stumbling about in the pitch dark (naturally his torch battery failed within the first twenty minutes), in an unfamiliar area, with no notion of how high the flood water would go… frankly, it was a miracle he hadn't suffered the same fate. Having set off in the direction that the caravan had drifted, with some vague notion that he might be able to rescue her if it foundered somewhere downstream, he'd very soon found that he was ankle deep in fast-flowing water. The roar of the river was so deafening it wasn't easy to tell which way led to safety.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, willing his heartbeat to slow down. His emotions kept getting the better of him. Nikki wasn't here to help, and he had no way of getting to her either, so he needed to forget her and focus on the here and now. He still had his phone, even though there wasn't any reception in his current location and the battery was getting a little low. He risked turning on the light for a few minutes and looked around him, noting the river's location. The beam wasn't powerful enough to show him where the care home was. He had a vague idea of the direction, but he must have travelled some distance already, and he couldn't see any obvious route back.

By careful means, he retreated from the flood water's edge and made his way up a steep slippery slope towards some darkly silhouetted trees. It probably wasn't sensible to try to navigate his way back; in any case, he would have to pass close to the river again, and he wasn't sure how safe that would be. The rain hadn't let up for hours and he was pretty sure the water was higher than it had been even half an hour ago. He wouldn't be any help to Amrita if he ended up following her downriver in that fierce surge. There was still a hope – a faint one, admittedly – that the caravan would founder, and he might be able to get to her as soon as it was light.

He pushed his knuckles into the rough bark of a tree trunk, trying to decide what to do. The touch reminded him of Nikki's body pressed against him in the park. It was the probably the closest they had ever been, physically, and he could still remember the warmth of her body… he pushed the image away, ruthlessly. It couldn't help him right now.

He rested his forehead against the truck for a moment, closing his eyes and willing the frantic thud of his heartbeat to subside. Breathing deeply through his nose, he began to calm down, to switch into survival mode.

The storm had passed over, so he had no fear of being struck by lightning, but the rain continued to pour down on his head. He pushed further into the copse, seeking better shelter. Unfortunately, the oak trees weren't tightly packed, but he managed to find a spot where two leaned together, with a thick, sturdy-looking branch bridging the gap. He crouched under this to give his head a break from the incessant rain.

He felt like a complete fool. He wasn't a survival freak by any means, but he understood the basic principles – it helped to be sensible in potentially hazardous working situations and anyway, in his line of work, he'd too often seen the consequences of acting without thinking. He'd broken all the rules, was under-equipped and with no clear plan. He should have organized a proper search party instead; he should have called the emergency services, got the rescue helicopter sent in. If Amrita was in that caravan, then he had probably ruined whatever small chance of survival she had. And he'd left Simone and Beattie potentially in the vicinity of a murderer – they were his responsibility and he'd let them down.

He crouched on his haunches, trying to figure out what to do. In the end, as he could see no better shelter or any point in trying to find it, he sat down on the roots of the oak tree, angling himself underneath the branch as much as possible. He pulled piles of fallen leaves around his body – they were wet through, but then so was he, and they might at least protect him a little from the wind. He hunched his body over his knees, trying to create a core of warmth, but of course it was hopeless.

He feared going off to sleep in case he grew too cold. When he felt his head starting to droop, he got up and paced up and down, trying to get some feeling back into his hands and feet. Blessedly, the rain had finally stopped, but it was still pitch dark and viciously cold. He continued to pace as the night passed, only sitting when he was too tired to carry on. He may have actually dropped off to sleep a couple of times, but every time he was aware of the dangers, he would scramble to his feet once more. He felt nauseous with cold and fatigue. He coughed and retched into the undergrowth without bringing much up apart from fluid; he hadn't eaten and had had little to drink during the evening, so that was hardly surprising.

He tried to keep his numbed brain awake, thinking over the evidence from the current case, but his thoughts became increasingly jumbled. He turned his mind to previous cases, reminding himself of the successes he had had – of the occasions where he'd been able to lead his colleagues towards a solution. Jack took pride in his work, and particularly relished the occasions where a sudden leap in logic led him towards a new forensic technique. He didn't consider himself a scholar, but he was still very much the scientist, taking comfort in order and method. At some time or another, each of his colleagues had suggested that he might like to publish a paper – Thomas in particular had been very keen for the publicity – but he had never considered himself to have the attributes of an academic. Nikki was a different matter – she had the skills, the intelligence, the erudition, the natural ability to teach and inspire. With a start, he realized that she could have gone down a very different career path - potentially a far less dangerous one - but he couldn't be more grateful that she hadn't.

He smiled as he paced and rubbed his hands; his thoughts turning to specific moments with each of them: Leo, Thomas, Clarissa, Nikki, Adam, Simone - even Harry now. Leo and Thomas…he missed them both with an ache that never entirely left him. Clarissa was still, and always would be, his dearest friend. He remembered Adam with an awkward mixture of appreciation and guilt. Simone was enthusiastic and fun to be with, and sufficiently different from Adam for him to appreciate her in a different way. Harry was…well, just Harry – clever, humorous, with a wide range of both intellectual and popular interests, definitely never dull. Despite the current tensions between the two of them, Jack couldn't regret getting to know him.

Nikki was…something else altogether. When his thoughts turned to her during those cold hours, he tried relentlessly to focus on the happy moments and push his current confusions to the back of his mind. It was important to stay positive… and he realized that it was easy to do so too. There were enough happy memories in his life, both professionally and personally, to keep him focused.

From his colleagues, his mind passed to other people that he'd met over the years and who had put their imprint on his life. Lovely, vibrant Naomi Silva, who he could never regret loving for a while – she was still up in Manchester and happily engaged. Sarah Parks - her little daughter Lucy had survived her cancer treatment and had sent Jack a beautiful hand-made Christmas card a couple of years ago. Roly Henderson, who'd always been so grateful that Nikki and Jack had cleared him of his wife's murder, and his daughter Emma who was growing into a remarkable young woman. Poor Kate Warren, who would have made a brilliant detective inspector if only her father had let her. Even Chrissy Reed… he would never know for certain whether she'd betrayed him, but they'd been happy once and he found he no longer resented her rise up the ranks.

As their faces came fleetingly to his mind, one after another, he wondered why it was that he so often became emotionally involved with the people he met in his job – police officers, victims, suspects. Take Beattie. They'd met only that morning, but she already felt as real and as important to him as Simone. He was scared for Derek too – how long before someone took pity on him and used the morphine?

Maybe it was foolish to care so much. He knew that he tended to step over professional boundaries and get too involved – but then, they all did, didn't they? Clarissa going under-cover at the respite care home, Leo in Afghanistan, Nikki in Mexico, Thomas not being prepared to wait for Porton Down to finish their testing of the tabun sample, knowing that Jack wouldn't survive that long. They'd all cared too much for each other and for the people they encountered, and they'd all paid the price… And yet, even in his current situation – fatigued and freezing cold - he couldn't regret it.

And he could never regret loving Nikki, whatever happened now or in the future.

His mind cast uneasily over that moment between Nikki and Harry in the changing room, standing close together and looking as if they would kiss. He couldn't understand what was happening - what had been happening for a few weeks now, he realised - and it made him nervous. If he thought Nikki was seriously interested in Harry, it would almost be less confusing.

Nikki and Harry…to any outsider, they seemed perfect together. They had looked like a couple in those old photos that he'd found, and when Harry had moved in with her during the lockdown, they'd seemed just as happily domestic. They matched – both almost ridiculously attractive, intelligent, charismatic. Both leaders in the field of forensic pathology but now moving in different paths, so they weren't even professional rivals anymore. They should have been married for years by now, and busy with the job of bringing up young Alexander-Cunninghams to make their own mark on the world.

But Jack knew the picture was fundamentally wrong… because he knew, deep in his bones, that Nikki did not love Harry. She might still be just a little attracted to him, and maybe he reminded her of happier times when she was a young pathologist with the world ahead of her, a handsome colleague to flirt with, and a surrogate father in Leo.

That wasn't love, though – it couldn't be. Not while she was in love with someone else…

Deep beneath his current insecurities, Jack knew it was true. Clarissa saw it too – and she was no fool. Thomas had at least suspected it. Nikki had been playing around with her own feelings for too long now. She'd more-or-less admitted to Jack once that there might have been something between them…but first Mexico and then Matt got in the way – and, OK, maybe she'd been in love with Matt for a while, but she certainly wasn't now. He might have thought that their chance had passed due to the awkward timing, but since his tabun poisoning and perhaps even before it, there had been something between them…some spark, some awareness. Nikki might try to deny her feelings, but she couldn't disguise them completely – not from him.

He had continued to pace throughout the dark hours, rubbing his hands and stamping the feeling back into his feet, trying to focus on happy memories to keep his spirit up. By the time a slight glimmer of light appeared in the east, he was exhausted, sick, and colder than he ever remembered being in his entire life.

As the features of the landscape began to emerge, he was able to orientate himself. He slithered down the steep knoll towards the river and began to tramp downstream, hoping to catch sight of the caravan. After ten minutes or so, he realized the futility of this and turned back towards the care home. An early morning sun emerged, burning the mist off the river – it was clearly going to be a calm day after the storm – and he could see that the flood surge was already beginning to retreat. Even so, he found himself struggling through sodden grass, the water covering his boots. His feet, still wet from the previous night, rubbed painfully as he limped along.

The journey back was further than he remembered. For a brief period, he began to panic, thinking he'd forgotten which side the river had been on when he set off. Then he remembered that he'd been walking for around forty or forty-five minutes from the care home before giving up – at least half an hour after he'd seen the caravan go. In his pain and exhaustion, it was hardly surprising that it took him a good hour to make the return journey.

The heaviness in his chest was beginning to bother him, and his legs felt leaden. Once or twice, he fell to his knees; each time, it was more of a struggle to regain his feet. As the care home driveway came into view, he blinked in surprise to see a couple of high-sided heavy vehicles parked near his car. There was some activity going on down near the submerged road – presumably attempts to make it drivable – although he could see that the floodwater was already subsiding quite quickly.

He stumbled into the entrance, past various police officers and bustling nursing staff – if they were confused by his appearance, they were also too busy to try to stop him – and tackled the stairs, seeking anxiously for Simone and Beattie… and Nikki. Because, surely, she was there too. She must be…

As he stumbled into the sitting room, for just a moment she was the only person who he could see clearly, her red jacket vibrant, her blonde hair gleaming in the morning sun… and then other figures began to appear. He blinked again, staring at her wonderingly. When she turned towards him, he realized from the look of horror on her face how bad he must look.

"Jack!" She rushed over. "Oh my God, get this off…!"

He submitted weakly, as Nikki and Simone pulled his sodden coat off and swathed him in blankets. In fact, his wet clothes were the least of his worries now – they'd dried on him to some degree during the night – but he was almost drunk with fatigue and could hardly move his mouth to get out the necessary words: "Caravan… washed away."

"Was Amrita inside?"

He made another effort. "Dunno… there was a light."

"Let's hope not."

The voices faded from his hearing; his vision swam as cold sweat prickled the back of his neck. Nikki's fingers, slipping onto the bare skin of his shoulder as she adjusted the blanket, felt feverishly hot. They rubbed his jaw in mute comfort; the touch grounded him a little and the dizziness faded. Her fingers tensed suddenly, and she rose to her feet.

"Morning, Jack." As Nikki moved away, he was distracted by Beattie, learning forward, concern in her eyes. He could only look at her, still feeling too queasy to reply, and her mouth crooked in wry sympathy. "You look how I feel."

"Steve, Simone…" There was something dark in Nikki's tone that turned his stomach to ice. "This man's dead."

"What?" He looked over at her in disbelief as she crouched by Derek. "No!... How?"

"There's some bruising on his face… and a puncture mark on his hand… Could he have done it to himself?"

The grief hit him like a physical blow. He crumpled in on himself, under the pain of it. "No." He gestured weakly, trying to form the words. "Arthritis. Left-handed…"

Poor old Derek. Another victim of his stupidity. If only he'd been here… The voices around him faded once more, and he felt a roaring in his ears as another wave of nausea swept over him. He retched, bringing up nothing but bile; what little fluid had been in his body had already been expelled overnight.

"Jack…" Instantly, she was there again, lifting his head, wiping his face with a towel. He was aware of some talk going on behind him, but he could no longer focus. All he could see was Nikki, her brown eyes warm, tender - an expression of… of something that he had never seen before. He opened his mouth obediently to eat the sugary porridge, unable to look away from her. He was vaguely aware of Simone, of Beattie, but they had faded into the background.

He felt he knew Nikki's face almost as well as his own. He'd seen it change and age subtly over the years – so subtly in fact that he'd hardly noticed, but quite suddenly he saw her in a different light. He saw the pressures of a life lived on the edge for so long – the long shifts, the stressful crime scenes, the suffering, loss, and pain – both physical and emotional… He saw, more fully than ever before, the 'young head on old shoulders' that sharp-eyed Clarissa had noted not long after their meeting – the girl forced to grow up far too early, the woman who had slipped in and out of relationships without ever being able to settle down. He remembered Harry's question – why are we all so bad at relationships? – and, looking at Nikki now, despite his fatigue and nausea, he felt he finally saw her plain for perhaps the first time in their long association. He saw the sadness, the sheer loneliness, hidden beneath the beautiful, confident face she presented to the world at large. And he saw that it wasn't that she hadn't wanted to settle down, get married, have kids – it was simply that life had passed her by; that she'd been cursed by the age-old cliches of wrong man, wrong time, wrong place for her entire adult life… and she was stuck. In limbo. She, quite simply, didn't know how to move on in her life anymore.

He didn't fully understand why he saw her differently – or why here and now. Maybe it was because there was something vulnerable, something honest and unhidden in her brown eyes as they gazed into his. It took him a moment to recognize it as fear - fear for him… for Nikki had surely known that he might have been in danger last night. He saw the weariness in those beloved features – and he knew that she too had been up all night, thinking of him, worrying about him, unable to rest without seeing him… loving him, while scarcely even realizing that she did.

His face must have conveyed something of this fresh understanding to her for, all at once, her eyes widened as they met his. There was shock in her eyes – a mixture of confusion and love and fear, even, perhaps, desire… but also reluctance. Only a few seconds could have passed before her gaze turned professional, even impersonal, once more.

"I think we should get you to hospital."

The idea shocked him out of his stupor; he shook his head. "I'm fine… Hot bath and I'll be fine. I need to go home."

She nodded, fumbling for her phone. "I'll call a taxi."

The sight reminded him. "I…called you…"

"Yes." Her eyes shot towards him almost guiltily. "Sorry I missed your call. I tried calling you back. I was out."

"Five times." He almost whispered the words. He didn't really know why he'd uttered them; he certainly hadn't meant to make her guilty. It was more to himself, with a sense of wonderment at the memory… Since the aftermath of Mexico, they had never ignored each other's calls for so long – it was an unspoken pact that they'd always be there for one another. Even Matt hadn't changed that… Again, there was the glance, the eyes darting towards his without quite meeting them this time.

Nikki finished her call to the taxi company and stood up. "They might not be able to get through the flood just yet – it was pretty bad when we arrived… They were draining it, I think - I'll go and see. We'll need to get Derek's body removed too… Where did Steve go?"

She left the room quickly. Jack blinked in confusion, unable to work out why her manner had changed so abruptly. He shook his head, trying to clear the wooziness; his eye caught sight of Derek's body, now decently covered with a sheet.

He wanted to ask Beattie about that – surely she'd have seen something, unless she'd fallen asleep in her chair? – but when he looked in her direction, she was no longer there. Fresh nursing assistants had been transported in by the fire service, to take over from the night shift, and they must have taken her to the bathroom or something.

"Hey, how're you doing now?" It was Simone, laden with a jug of water and a glass. She pulled a low table over and perched in front of him.

"Better." He took the glass, gulped the water down and then refilled it. Beginning to feel more hungry than sick, he picked up the bowl of porridge again. "What happened to you last night? I take it you didn't see anything…?" He nodded towards Derek.

She shrugged and sighed. She was looking weary and rumpled, but still oddly energized in the manner of the average twenty-something – she might just as well have spent the night in a bar as in a care home. "Well - once it became obvious that Amrita wasn't anywhere inside, I just assumed she'd gone back to her caravan. To be honest, I had no idea that it'd be washed away – I might have been more concerned otherwise. I wouldn't have been able to locate her anyway, so there didn't seem much point in getting wet over it…unlike some people." She gave Jack a meaningful look.

He winced. "You don't need to tell me how stupid I was."

"Yeah, well, you worried me! I had no idea where you were. I thought maybe you were sheltering with her somewhere or something – maybe you were at the caravan, and it was too dangerous to leave. Or that's what I hoped, anyway. I couldn't leave Beattie alone for long – I had to go back and help her with the pump again. Eventually, one of the care assistants came in and took over. I did have a walk around the home after that, but you didn't seem to be anywhere… and I was knackered. In the end, I found a sofa in a quiet spot, grabbed a blanket, and settled down for a bit. Didn't sleep very well, though, and I got up early to help the staff with breakfast… and then, first Nikki and then you walked in…" She glanced at Derek and shook her head. "So, no, I didn't see a thing. Sorry…"

"It's OK." He finished the porridge and laid the bowl to one side, with a sigh. His clothes had dried on him, and the sugar was already beginning to work on his energy levels, but he still felt leaden.

Nikki returned, holding a folded foil blanket. "It's OK, the flood has almost disappeared. Something to do with opening the sluices upstream. There's a cab on the way."

"Yeah – real shame they didn't open those gates last night," Simone muttered as she put Jack's bowl on a tray.

Nikki glanced at her. "You OK? You were here all night too."

The younger woman waved her concern away. "I can cope with the odd all-nighter. I might stay here a bit longer, try to give them a hand, if that's OK with you?" She glanced around. "They're in a right mess at the moment. They've got to relocate the residents of the lodge for a start – that building's not going to be habitable for a while."

Nikki nodded absently, her eyes on Jack. "Let's get you home."

"I'm fine, I don't need it," he protested as she put the foil blanket around his shoulders.

"Don't argue." Her voice was low and confiding as she led him down the stairs. "It was the only way I could convince that paramedic that he didn't need to cart you off to hospital. They called the ambulance for Beattie -."

His feet stuttered, and she grabbed his arm to steady him. "She's OK?"

"Yes, she seems to have stabilized – and she refused to go. I think he's hoping to take someone with him. Anyway, he gave me the blanket, so keep it on until you get in the cab. Seriously, Jack, they're quite worried about you…"

In truth, he was still feeling shivery and weaker than he liked to admit. Perhaps she sensed that, because once he'd got into the cab, she climbed over his feet and sat next to him, fussing over the blankets. His heart lifted for a moment, thinking she might be coming home with him…but then he remembered that she had a body to get to the Lyell.

Her hands stilled and she looked at him, meeting his gaze once more, studying his face… With a sudden sharp intake of breath, she leaned over and hugged him tightly. His shaking hands came up to hold her waist lightly, as she buried her face in his neck. A warm shuddering breath grazed his skin, her hands trembled then clutched his shoulders tightly before she pulled back, not very far, to rest her forehead against his.

The morning sun shone through the window, casting a fiery ray that turned her hair to gold and added a dusky sheen to her features, making her seem to glow from within. Their faces were so close that he could make out the little line of freckles on her nose, the faint lines under her eyes. Her hand had slipped from his shoulder down to his chest; he wondered whether she could feel how fast his heart was beating.

She leaned forward again, her lips seeking his cheek… His mind went back to that other occasion in her house, when her mouth had hovered so close to his and he had imagined kissing her… And then, quite suddenly, her lips met his.

Afterwards, he tried to remember – had he turned his head, or had she? He would never be certain – all he would ever be able to recall, for the rest of his days, was the feel of her lips on his. Dry, chapped from the storm, moving gently, a little uncertainly. Her head jerked, moved slightly, and suddenly the angle was perfect...

His eyelids fluttered closed…but already, their mouths were parting, and he opened his eyes again to stare at her in equal bewilderment. Before he could react, she was stepping from the car, her hand sliding gently across his chest, the tips of her fingers lingering reluctantly before letting go.

He turned his head to look at her as the taxi door was slammed shut. Her face was impassive, but her eyes held his as the taxi moved away slowly, and he could sense the confusion in them.

He let out a shuddering breath as she disappeared from view. He was shaking slightly, but no longer from cold. Another shaft of sunlight entered the taxi, dazzling him; when he lifted his hand to his eyes, it came away wet, although he had no awareness of shedding tears. He swallowed and leaned back, the sensation of her lips still tingling on his.

On the many – many! – occasions he'd dreamt of their first kiss, he never envisaged this.

He'd imagined candle-lit dinners, slow dances, romantic walks at the park, hand-in-hand. He'd even entertained heated fantasies about an argument being interrupted by him pressing her against a locker or a desk in the Lyell…or even, quite simply, a single moment on his sofa one evening, when the stars would finally align right, and she would look at him and finally see what was meant to be. But not this – not a brief, awkwardly-choreographed kiss in the back of a cab, shattered from a lack of sleep and grubby in rain-drenched hair and half-dried clothes…

And yet… it felt right.

He felt his lips curving into a foolish grin that he couldn't control. His pulse was still thudding fast as he gazed out at the storm-damaged scenery, unable to see it clearly.

She had been thinking of him - all the time he was out there in the storm, pacing up and down, trying to survive by thinking of her. She'd probably been with Steve at the emergency centre all night, trying to reach him, but unable to make it through the flood. He could see it in the lines of weariness in her face, in the fear and love and tenderness in her eyes… He relived that expression over and over and his smile grew. Nikki Alexander loved him – Jack Hodgson!

He didn't dare consider phrases such as 'in love', not yet, but she had cared, even though she'd missed his calls. She must have been somewhere with no reception; she would have called back otherwise. And anyway, she'd left a message – hadn't she?

He fumbled in his jeans for his phone, dialing the answerphone with impatient fingers. Sure enough, there was a message, and it was from his Nikki, his – well, whatever she was now; he'd have to think about that. They needed to talk about Matt, of course, and then –

The tone sounded and then he heard her voice:

"Hi Jack, it's me… I was just wondering if you're OK – where you are."

He couldn't help smiling at her voice. No message had ever sounded so beautiful.

"Your Dad's just phoned; he's worried about you… I'm worried about you…"

Her voice paused at this point. She sounded almost surprised, as if she had only just realized how much he meant to her. When her voice came again, it sounded fainter, and there was a noise in the background – a door opening maybe?

"I hope you're alright. Can you call as soon as you get this -?"

Her voice broke off abruptly, interrupted by a male voice, faint but distinctively crisp.

"Are you coming back to bed?"

Her reply was indistinct before the call cut off.

Jack stared at his screen. He felt as if he'd had a bucket of icy water tipped over him without warning.

He knew that voice. He'd heard it enough times over the past two years. Smooth, well-enunciated vowels. Brisk, incisive. Confident, even slightly arrogant.

Harry Cunningham.