So, chapter 2 :) I hope you'll like it.


Nikki

All the way from the bathroom, getting dress in my completely-inappropriate-for-the-middle-of-the-January red dress, to walking down and getting into my car, I can't stop smiling. As I drive I wonder if something might be wrong with me, something neurological. I don't remember any unusual headache or hallucinations, not since I've woken up, at least.

Instantly, I smile. Memory of the last night…

Or, could it be… something else pops to my annoyingly scientific brain, maybe it's that time of the month, I wonder, that probably ever women knows. When you'd do everything to have someone in your bed. When hormones cause you to become desperate for man's company. Product of evolution all for the purpose of production an offspring.

But no, I count; this isn't that that time of the month. And Harry is certainly not just any man. He is everything but. And my feelings for him are not something new. It's simply time to say what was always kept in the air, but never said .

Why now, after seven years? Probably because everything has its time, its final point, its one moment when it's now or never. I don't care why. Again I smile.

If I'd be honest I would have to admit that I know this Nikki. This I've-had-a-dream-of-Harry-and-it's-enough-to-make-me-very-happy Nikki.

I meet her regularly.

Every evening Harry and I spend together, curled up, either talking or just laying in each other's arms in silence.

That's when she's there, resting, laughing, enjoying, making me more… me than I usually am .

I see her every time when I look at him, over the room full of detectives and lab technicians, over the bunch of papers that have a yesterday's deadlines, over a decomposed dead body... That's when I'll see her, when my eyes meet Harry's and we close ourselves in our world.

In every possible situation, reflection of myself in him, in my best friend, in my soul mate, in Harry, makes me more Nikki, makes me better person, happier person.

So I smile this morning, too.

Because I don't care anymore.

I can't care because I can't wait. What if he says something I don't want to hear? What if for him nothing has changed? What if he's too afraid that we'll ruin what we already have? I know I am. But I won't let fear stop me. Not anymore. Because you never know how much time you have left.

Still, I can't know what will happen because I never knew how to act with men in my life. I would either fall crazily in love with a guy, or exaggerate in adoring him, or I would use him for sex. That simple.

But with Harry…

I learnt to respect him, to care for him, to adore his humour and his kind heart, to easily, naturally and spontaneously fall in love with him.


Harry

I am standing by the lake watching divers searching for another body. Soon I hear young woman in her late teens screaming as divers pull out her sister's death body.

I don't think about how she feels. So I go easy way. All four bodies are out. That's it. I could go now.

I've already called Nikki. She'll wait for me to start with the PM. But am I ready to face her?

Through the fog and the dark night, even though I'm surrounded by numerous police officers, annoying scavenger reporters, screams and sound of crane pulling out the car from the water and even though it's only 5 am all I can see is her face.

All I can hear are her words. Or lack of them.

She said nothing to justify… Couldn't she have laughed? So that we would both know that it was a joke.

But no. I know exactly what she meant. I always do.

She wants for something to change. She wants things to be said between us. Finally said.

I want it, too. I want it for years now.

I wanted it every time I flirted with another woman, every time I've kissed another woman, every time I've slept with another woman. I would say to myself, it can't be Nikki, so this woman is good, she's smart, she's kind, and she's beautiful. She is everything Nikki is.

So I would look for those women. Slightly disturbed, often hurt, with a bunch of problems needed to be solved, kind and loving, tender and full of compassion for others. I would convince myself that I love them for them. I would be with her for her, not because her sarcastic jokes reminded me of Nikki, not because she had the same empathy and passion for helping others.

I'd never go for blonde, though. That would drive me crazy. It would be too much.

Still none of "them" could keep me at ease, keep me certain that it's the right thing. I could never look in their eyes; lay in their beds and think of staying.

It felt like cheating. Of Nikki, of myself, of that woman.

None of them ever came in my mind, in my personal space, in my safe oasis. None of them ever knew a place where I have put everything that means anything so that it could never be lost. No matter how much they'd break my heart, no matter how hard they would hurt me, they could never crush me. Because what I really am, is there, in my safe place, hidden from the world.

But not from Nikki. Spontaneously, as it was the most natural thing, I've let her in. Completely. No deception there, I knew exactly what I was doing. And would do it again. Every time. But still…

Losing her, I could lose everything.

But maybe, just maybe, life could be fair to me this time. Life, God might choose to treat me better than before.

Maybe if I would let Nikki come and share my safe place, if I would let her stay with me there? It would be something I could finally call home, something to finally trust in.

Our family could be my goal, my point, my religion.


At Work

It's the middle of the January and the frozen rain is falling. One of those that make you wonder if sun will appear ever again.

Despite everything Nikki practically danced into the lab. She decided not to worry, how very strange of her, because this is Harry, nothing could ever be awkward between them. Nothing could ever separate them. It's going to be okay.

"Good morning, Zak" her cheerful voice almost scared a young man. "Isn't this one beautiful day?"

"Good morning, doctor Alexander."

Zak looks crashed, like he used the last atoms of his strength to get himself out of the bed this morning. Basically he looks appropriate for the one of the most depressing days of the year.

"Oh, what's with the sad face?" Nikki asked and had to force herself from pinching young man like he was a baby.

"We are expecting four dead bodies this morning" he responded almost shocked by her behaviour.

"Oh, please. We get dead bodies every day, several of them even. If we would let that affect our mood we'd be dead by now" she said and giggled.

"Alright, if you must know, my girlfriend left me last night" Zak said which caused Nikki to laugh even harder. Zak was definitely offended by her behaviour now.

"Oh, Zak, I am so sorry, I didn't even know you had a girlfriend. And here you are trying to convince me that you are depressed because of the dead bodies in the morgue" she said and laughed again.

"You've obviously had a good night, it seems."

"Oh, yes. I've definitely had a great night" she responded giggling, spinning in her chair.

"Did you?"

She froze as heard Harry saying that from the door smiling at her, rising his eyebrow, basically with most charming look on his face. One that would dazzle her instantly.

Of course, he knew that.

Nikki froze instantly as she watched him with her mouth opened in, she didn't know, shame or amazement, as he marched to the Leo's office.

"Ha!" Zak sighed, amusing look on his face. "That explains it!"

"What do you mean by that? And why is Harry in Leo's office?"

"Night must've been really good, Nikki, if it caused amnesia" Zak said playfully.

There was no way of stopping him now and certainly there was no trace of his depression. What he thought had happened between his two colleagues obviously amused him by no end.

"It's not Nikki to you it's doctor Alexander!" Nikki pretended to be angry and offended. "What are you talking about?"

"Well haven't you heard? In the accident famous football player, his wife and two friends were killed. It's high publicity. Phones won't stop ringing and as professor Dalton is away, Harry is a boss."

"Aha" Nikki responded, finally concentrated.

"But I guess you don't mind" Zak continued. Nikki just raised her eyebrow in confusing as he continued

"that doctor Cunningham is a boss" he accentuated the last two words, quickly running through the glass door and avoiding the pen that Nikki threw at him.


Review?