Harry

Nikki jumped in her seat as the door buzzed, indicating a visitor. Clarissa and Jack were busy analysing the clothing of their latest corpse to come in and Thomas was on the phone to their SIO informing him that he needed to come in for an update. She was reviewing some of the crime scene photos so really, she was the only one able to answer the door. Standing up, she moved over to the door, her hand on the entry button before she fully registered just who was stood there, grinning at her. Dark hair peppered with grey here and there, jeans and a button-down shirt, more lines and wrinkles than she remembered. But still him, definitely still him.

Quickly, she hit the entry button and pulled open the door, barely allowing him to step inside the lab before she threw her arms round his neck, hugging him to her tightly. His arms moved firmly round her waist, pulling her to him and helping her stay upright. She buried her face in his neck as he did the same with her hair, clinging to each other like drowning people to a life raft. "Harry," she mumbled into his neck, her lips barely making a sound though she knew he heard her.

"Nikki." Harry returned in much the same tone. He lifted his eyes from the top of her head to glance round at the lab, so different from the one he left and yet surprisingly familiar at the same time. "When did the Lyell become a spaceship?" He joked weakly, still amazed Nikki was there, in his arms and not yelling at him. He'd expected yelling, or a slap, not flinging herself at him for a hug. Not that he was complaining. He'd missed his Nikki hugs.

"When we got odd equipment that I still don't know the function of." Nikki replied quickly, pulling back just enough to look up at him. "What are you doing here?" She knew it sounded a little rude, just as she also knew Harry understood her and knew she wasn't being rude, just curious. He offered her a smile.

"Honestly? A whole bunch of things."

Nikki led him into the main office, both still firmly embraced, and directed him to her office chair, where he obligingly sat whilst she pilfered Jack's, adjusting the height without even a shred of guilt. Jack did the same to her all the time. She wheeled the other chair round to her desk, sitting down as close to Harry as possible. "Like what?"

"Mum was ill, so I came back to see her, look after her. She's fine now." He added at her worried look. "Then I got notification they weren't renewing my contract at NYU, and not an hour later I got a job offer for a professorship at one of the London colleges. I went over to accept the job offer an hour ago and thought I'd come see if you still worked here on my way back to mum's. It's good to see you, Nikki."

"It's good to see you too, Harry," Nikki replied softly, smiling at him. Sure, when he'd left, she'd been incredibly angry with him, incredibly hurt, something that only increased with Leo's untimely death. However, over time, she'd found that hurt and anger slowly fading away, still there but not quite as all consuming as before, which had made room for other emotions to come to the fore, such as just how much she missed him. Throwing herself into his arms had been instinctual. She hadn't even been aware of just how much she was in need of a Harry hug until his arms had wrapped round her waist in a familiar fashion. "So… you're back?"

"I'm back." Harry confirmed with a nod. "Well, I'll have to fly back and pack my things, sort out the contract on my flat and that in New York, but other than that, I'm back Nikki."

"Good." Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but Harry still heard it, offering her a brilliant smile in return.

"Nikki, do you have the tox report for our Jane Doe?" Both Harry and Nikki looked up in surprise as Thomas exited his office, focused solely on the case file in his hands. "The SIO will be here in half an hour."

"Hang on, it's here somewhere." Nikki leant over Harry to rifle through the papers on her desk, not bothering to ask him to move or gain his permission for entering his personal space. It was natural, even so many years later to just invade his space. She felt his hands move to rest on her back and waist to steady her whilst she searched. Finally, she found the results document she was looking for, pulling it out of the pile. "Got it. Nothing obvious in her blood, traces of painkillers well within normal levels, that's about it."

Nikki twisted, still leant over Harry, to hand the sheet to Thomas just as the older man looked up from his file and his mouth fell open at finding his pathologist practically draped over a stranger sat at her desk. Harry lifted one of his hands from Nikki's torso to wave awkwardly in Thomas' direction. "Hi."

"Hello." Thomas took the paper from Nikki with stunned features, adding it to his file swiftly. "Thomas Chamberlain." He introduced himself awkwardly.

"Harry Cunningham." Harry introduced himself in return as Nikki practically fell back into Jack's desk chair, his hands falling from her body back to his lap.

Thomas' jaw dropped open involuntarily as he turned to Nikki, stunned. "That's Harry?" He checked.

Nikki nodded, feeling the heat seep into her cheeks. "Yes, that's Harry." She confirmed for her boss, glancing at Harry and smacking him on the arm when she found him silently laughing at her. "You're so mean!"

Harry clutched at his arm dramatically where she'd lightly slapped him. "Oh, I'm wounded Niks, truly. You make it sound like I'm famous round here."

"You are," Thomas replied before Nikki had the chance to shoot a witty comeback in her former colleague's direction. "Well, when it comes to being blamed for things anyway. It's something of a catchphrase now."

"Thomas I am not that bad." Nikki complained lightly.

"Oh really?" Thomas deliberately moved over to the entrance to the lab area, waiting for the automatic doors to open. "Blame…"

"Harry!" Came the immediate response from Jack and Clarissa, neither of whom bothered to look up from their work.

"What's Harry done this time?" Jack queried.

"You'll have to see for yourselves." Thomas moved back into the office area and offered Harry a smile. "Nikki assigns blame to you over the strangest things."

"Oh?" Harry asked, thoroughly amused. "Like what?"

"Those god awful yellow scrubs for a start." Nikki informed him mulishly.

Harry let out a snort of amusement. "I thought you'd have binned them the moment I walked out the door. You questioned my taste for buying them more than once."

"Yeah, well I had no choice but to wear them." Nikki rolled her eyes. "You deserve to be blamed for those eyesores."

"Then there was the ethanol bottle next to the wine bottle." Thomas added, the file closed and tucked firmly under his arm.

Harry chuckled at the halfhearted glare Nikki shot in his direction. "Ah, that was from a joke a long time ago. Leo used to have a bottle of wine in his desk and so did Nikki. I asked why I didn't, and this ever so delightful woman told me it was because I just quietly swigged ethanol from the specimen jars." He ignored Nikki's tiny giggle. "I put the ethanol in her drawer as a joke a week or so later and forgot all about it."

The automatic doors opened to allow Jack and Clarissa into the office area just as Nikki poked Harry in the arm. "They thought I'd gone mad when Jack found it, and no one believed me when I said it was your fault!"

"What's going on in here?" Clarissa asked as soon as she and Jack were close enough. Nikki felt the heat prickle at her cheeks again, knowing that her team would be incredibly interested in this part of her that they'd never met. She'd never been the way she was with Harry around anyone else, not really.

"This is Harry." Thomas introduced, gesturing at Harry, who had taken his opportunity to poke Nikki back in her side, grinning as she curled in on herself to try and stop him. His eyes widened as Nikki pinched Harry's side in retaliation and the dark-haired man caught her fingers before she could retreat.

"That's Harry?" Jack checked, disbelief tinging his tone as he and Clarissa moved further forward to see the visitor and Nikki clearly.

"Harry let go of my hand." Nikki tried to pull her fingers from Harry's grip, but he held firm.

"Not until I'm convinced you won't do it again boil face."

"Then you'll be waiting a long time." Nikki laughed. "You know as well as I do that we'll end up fighting again at some point."

"That was fighting?" Jack murmured not quite quietly enough to Clarissa. "Looked more like flirting."

Clarissa laughed before turning to Harry and adopting a false stern expression. Nikki nearly groaned aloud, knowing Clarissa was about to say something mischievous and she hadn't had the time to warn Harry about any of them yet. "Young, okay young-ish man." Everyone ignored Harry's splutter. "What do you have to say for yourself, swanning off to New York and leaving poor Nikki here to raise your child alone?"

Nikki bit the inside of her cheek to keep from bursting into giggles. Harry had paled dramatically, his eyes darting between the entire Lyell team as though someone was going to magically shed some light on the whole situation. "What?" He eventually croaked out. "Nikki?"

Nikki couldn't hold it in any longer and burst into giggles, twisting her hand that Harry still had hold of round until their fingers were entwined and giving them a squeeze. "Niall, Harry, they're talking about Niall."

"Oh, thank god for that." Harry let out a long breath. "I thought I'd completely lost the plot for a minute there. How is our child then?"

"Doing good. Third year medical student." Nikki told him proudly. "Still all set on becoming a pathologist."

"Following in his parents' footsteps. I'm so proud." Harry wiped a pretend tear from his eye. "What else have I been blamed for around here?"

"These." Nikki opened her middle drawer and took out the box of sugar sachets, smirking as Harry instantly recognised the object. "Thomas was more than a little confused."

"Ah, the sugar sachets." Harry took the box from her with a grin. "An office essential. Okay, an office essential when you work in this madhouse." He clarified at everyone's disbelieving looks. "Especially if you're as danger prone as Nikki here."

"I'm not that bad." Nikki said for a second time since Harry's arrival, gaining scoffs and laughter from everyone.

"Oh, come on Nikki." Harry shook his head wryly. "Really? Left for dead in a hospital basement after being whacked round the head, kidnapped by animal rights activists, strangled by a murderous lawyer, held hostage here in the lab after we'd just been faced with a gunman in the university, do I really need to go on?"

"Jesus Nikki, how many times do you need to get hit round the head by nutters?" Jack asked incredulously. "I mean I know the hospital is sick of seeing you but really?"

"You're one to talk. I'm the one that patches you up because the hospital threatened to call the police if you go in beaten and bruised one more time." Nikki shot back with an eye roll. "Despite my efforts to stop him, he cage fights on occasion." She informed Harry swiftly.

"Right. Well, at least he's got you to patch him up, Nikki. So, what else is my fault around here? So far, we've got my wonderful yellow scrubs," he ignored Nikki's scoff, "our child, ethanol, and sugar, I think."

"You taped a book shut on staircase falls." Nikki informed him with a narrow-eyed stare.

Harry winced instinctively at her look. "Okay, look, Niks, I can explain that. It was just after the Flannery case, and Leo was just about to be cleared for work again and I just thought, 'I can't have another fight like that with Nikki, I just can't'. So, I taped the book together so we couldn't have another argument like the one we had in that case."

"Harry…" Nikki shook her head. "The argument wasn't so bad you had to tape an entire book shut."

"Nikki, I grabbed hold of you. If taping the bloody book shut meant I never touched you in anger again, then I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat."

"You're not violent Harry."

"I've got a temper."

"So have I." Nikki shook her head again, this time fondly. "You'd never hurt me, and I know that."

"Anyway." Thomas cleared his throat awkwardly, prompting Harry and Nikki to both blush when they realised they'd forgotten they weren't alone in the room. Hardly an uncommon phenomenon with them, but it had usually been with Leo before, and he'd been used to their ways and mostly left them to it. "If we're carrying on with what you're blamed for, then you're also apparently the reason Nikki isn't allowed to step foot in Budapest."

Thomas, Clarissa and Jack all noted how both Nikki and Harry instantly blanched at the reminder, white as sheets and nearly shaking. Nikki's hand instinctively found Harry's wrist, her fingers curling round to reassure herself of his pulse. His hand moved to cover hers softly, understanding her need to check he was still there. He'd done it a few times after her own brushes with danger. "Hey, I'm still here Nikki." Harry reassured her gently, despite his shaking limbs and terrified expression. "Still with you."

Nikki's free hand reached up to trace the faint scar in his eyebrow, barely visible after so long but still there if anyone was looking specifically for it. "Do you still get the nightmares too?"

"Sometimes." Harry admitted. "I don't think I could go back even if Budapest weren't still pissed off with us."

"Me either." Nikki shuddered. "Leo practically had to carry me round after he met me off the plane. You being dead was the longest two days ever."

"Wait, Harry was dead?" Jack checked incredulously.

"I faked my own death." Harry clarified after taking a deep breath. "I was on the run after being accused of killing my girlfriend and it was the only option I had left. I spent over a year trying to make it up to Nikki and Leo, mainly Nikki."

"Well, you're still here, which is what matters." Clarissa told him succinctly, trying to get a little colour back into their faces. It had obviously been a rather harrowing time for the pair if it garnered such a reaction even years later. Nikki's reaction at the time of proclaiming her ban being because of Harry also made a lot more sense. "You've also been blamed for Nikki's lack of underwear."

Clarissa's words had the intended effect of bringing colour to their faces as both blushed a deep red and began spluttering, prompting her, Jack and Thomas to bite their lips to hide their amusement. "Clarissa!" Nikki choked out, her entire face as red as a tomato, or the bra Clarissa was referencing.

"Since when is your lack of underwear my fault?" Harry asked faintly. "I'm sure I warned you about wearing clean knickers, not a lack of them." He ignored the way her eyes narrowed at him as everyone else stared at the duo in surprise.

"What?" Jack managed to query, his eyes darting between them both.

Nikki shook her head. "We had a murder disguised as suicide, only his hands were clean. I made a throwaway comment about how I'd make sure my hands were clean in that situation…"

"And I said, 'not your knickers?'." Harry finished with a light laugh. "So, if it's not about that, what is it about?"

"The bra." Nikki forced the words out between her teeth. "Back when I first started working here."

"Bra? What… oh, the red one?" Harry checked, nodding as Nikki confirmed it for him. "I don't see why that's my fault. You're the one who decided to strip in front of me."

"I didn't strip in front of you!" Nikki denied, feeling her cheeks heat up even further. "I thought you'd put it in the bin, like any sane person would, not that you'd chucked it in the back of a cupboard!"

"Who found it?" Harry's grin widened as Jack held a hand up sheepishly, flushing a little himself. "Then I take full blame for it. That's too funny."

Light chatter erupted between all five for several minutes, before Jack and Clarissa were drawn back to their analyses and Thomas had to answer his office phone. Harry turned to Nikki, his entire mien sombre as he tucked a stray curl behind her ear. "You know, Nikki, for all I've heard you blame me for today, there's something missing, something you're more than deserving of blaming me for."

"What?"

"Me leaving. You've blamed me for silly things, random things, but not something you had every right to hate me for."

"I did blame you Harry, for a long time." Nikki told him quietly, shrugging. "I hated you and blamed you and cursed you to the end of the world and back."

"No less than I deserve, I'm sure. What changed?"

"I realised that in holding onto that anger, that blame, all I was doing was poisoning the good times, you, me and Leo. Once I'd let go of the anger, I found I would have done the exact same thing in your situation. How could I blame you for something I'd do myself?" Nikki shrugged again, offering him a tiny smile full of forgiveness.

Harry nodded, a weight lifting from him he didn't even know he'd been carrying round with him for so many years. He took her hand carefully in his, making sure he had her full attention as he locked eyes with hers. "Nikki, you can blame me for anything, anytime, you know that, right?"

"I know, Harry, I know."