I'm so sorry this has taken so long; I wish I had a good reason but I'm afraid I've just been pretty busy, and I stupidly started publishing this before I had enough of it written to compensate not being able to write anything new for a while. So blame me, I'm sorry.

This was going to be the last chapter, but it turned out REALLY long and I haven't quite finished it off, so I've split it in half because I wanted to get this to you now. And the epilogue will be up as soon as possible (and I mean that this time!) Thank you so much to everyone who's reviewed so far, thank you for being so patient, and your feedback for this chapter would be amazing :) And Dinabar, the last paragraph's for you- I reread your review as I was writing this and just couldn't resist :)

Promise to update soon (if you all review :)

Love Flossie xxx

Sheila goes out with her mate Stella,

Gets poured all over her fella,

Because she says that he ain't no better,

Than the next man kicking up fuss,

Drunk, she stumbles down by a river,

Screams calling 'London',

But none of us heard her coming,

Guess the carpet weren't rolled out.

Under normal circumstances, you don't let anyone look after you like Harry's doing now. You don't allow people to see a weaker, more vulnerable side of you; you stay strong and composed, no matter how bad you're feeling inside. But it's the early hours of the morning now, you're cold, colder than you can ever remember being before in your life, you're tired, you're emotionally drained, and truth be told, you can't be bothered with it all. And so, just this once, you let Harry wrap you tightly in a blanket, let him squeeze the water out of your hair and pull you back against his chest, as if trying to transfer some of his body heat onto you. You ignore the strange butterfly feeling in your stomach as his hands brush over your hips, telling yourself that he's looking after you because he's your best friend and he's concerned about you, nothing more. Even though sometimes, just sometimes, you wish he thinks of you as more than a friend. But only sometimes.

"Nikki, you're frozen," Harry is sighing now, running his fingers through your hair. For a moment you wonder if he does feel something else for you after all, but then he begins to speak again.

"And why is your hair full of… metal stuff?" He's not showing affection, he's trying to pull your hairpins out, without even knowing what they are. You're no expert, but you're pretty sure most men wouldn't do that for their best friend. God, you're lucky to have him.

"They're just hairpins, Harry," you tell him, trying to stop your teeth from chattering in between the words. "Leave them; I'll sort them out later." You start to wriggle off his lap, preparing to stand. "Thank you for… for coming. I'm sorry, we should probably get going, I don't want to keep you out here any longer than…"

But before you can finish, Harry is pulling you back down onto his lap firmly, one hand pressed to your forehead. "You're not going anywhere," he murmurs, reaching over to your left and picking up another blanket, wrapping it around you tightly on top of the first.

"Only you could fall into a river in the middle of the night on the coldest day of the year," he teases you gently, but you're not in the mood for jokes. He seems to pick up on that and goes quiet for a few moments, moving his hand away from your forehead and holding you a little tighter as a particularly violent wave of shivers passes over you.

"You're still very cold," he says worriedly, resting his chin on the crown of your head for a moment before shifting you in his arms, one arm sliding under your legs as he begins to lift you off the ground. "Come on, we need to get you warmed up."

"Harry, I'm… p-perfectly capable… of… walking…myself," you manage, your teeth chattering, but you lean into him all the same, wrapping your arms around his neck in a gesture of huge contradiction.

"I know," he replies, bending down to pick up your handbag before proceeding through the darkness; how he knows where to go is anyone's guess. "I know Nikki, but please, just this once, let me look after you. You're shivering like crazy, you've just been head-under in a filthy river in the middle of November, so please, just let me carry you the odd 200m back to the car, OK?"

You're not happy, but you don't have the energy to argue with him. And besides, although you'd never admit it, you're rather enjoying this, feeling so close to him. It makes you feel safe somehow, protected, cared for. Maybe you're still drunk.

Your eyes are beginning to close as he opens the passenger door and sits you down inside, fastening your seatbelt before walking round to the other side of the car. You want to curl up on the seat and sleep until he pulls up outside your apartment block, but your face twists into a frown as you realize there's something you can't quite make sense of.

"You haven't asked me what happened," you tell him, not quite sure if you're accusing him or asking him why.

"No," Harry agrees, turning to glance at you as he pulls out onto the road. "I was a bit preoccupied before with pulling you out of the Thames." He turns to look at you again now, a look of questioning and sympathy in his eyes. "Besides, it's not every day you phone me in a panic like that in the middle of the night, especially on a night which I happen to know you've been out on a date. So I figured I'd let you tell me what happened in my own time."

How did you get so lucky as to have such a kind, understanding, deeply caring person as your best friend? You don't know. But you don't deserve him, you know that much. You can't think what you've done in your life to earn someone as special as Harry as a best friend, but in times like these you're eternally grateful that you found each other, that you gate-crashed the Lyell Centre and became a part of his life. Whether you mean the same to him as he does to you, you don't know, but somehow that isn't important. All that matters is now is that he's come to your rescue, that you're not alone and vulnerable anymore. Harry has saved you, and not for the first time.

"He wasn't serious about me Harry, not really," you whisper, leaning back against the seat and squeezing your eyes shut as the brightness of the streetlights hits you harshly. "He just wanted me for sex; he as good as admitted it to my face."

"Oh Nikki," he sighs, reaching out to place his hand over your own; a simple gesture which offers you an abundance of comfort. "So you decided to wander off into London by yourself in the middle of the night, just because Andrew turned out to be another womanizer? Come on Nikki, I know you, there's more to it than that."

"I moved on to a bar a few doors down from the restaurant," you tell him numbly, realizing as you recount the incident that you're only just beginning to process what happened. But he came into the bar, asked for another chance, for me to come back with him- I knew what he wanted, I said no. So I left, but he… he followed me out," you sigh, refusing to look at Harry, refusing to see the 'I told you so' look in eyes that always appears there when yet another of your boyfriends turns out to be a hopeless case.

"At first I thought he was just getting a taxi home, like me, but then… I don't know, there was just something intimidating about the whole thing, like he was up to no good. So I carried out past the taxi point, thinking he'd stop there, that I'd feel safer if I knew he wasn't following me…"

"And he didn't stop, he carried on behind you," Harry finishes for you, sighing heavily and squeezing your hand in his own, offering you another taste of comfort. "Oh Nikki, what are we going to do with you, hey? You do pick some rotters."

He's not trying to upset you, you know that, he's just trying to joke with you, lighten the mood a little. But you're not in the mood for jokes, not after the nightmare of an evening you've had. You can feel your eyes beginning to water and wipe them frantically, cursing your emotions, your hormones; whatever's causing you to react like this to such an innocent, light-hearted comment, but Harry must have caught sight of the tear trails running down you face before you managed to wipe them away, because now his expression is softening, and even in the darkness you can see the guilt in his eyes at having upset you.

"Oh Nikki, I didn't mean it," he sighs, his thumb stroking the back of your hand. "I'm sorry, you're tired and you've had the evening from hell, to say the least, the last thing you need is my stupid, thoughtless attempts at lightening the mood." He pauses for a moment, glancing across to meet your gaze for a brief moment, then reverts his eyes back to the road, his left hand still on yours.

"So what happened next?" he presses gently. "You ran, he followed, and by the time you'd managed to shake him off you'd worked yourself up into such a panic that you couldn't find your way back?"

You just nod mutely, unable to understand how he can possibly know you so well, to know not only exactly what had happened to get you into that situation, but also how your reaction had led to the ultimate outcome: to you phoning him constantly like some obsessed teenager, working yourself into a panic and stumbling into a freezing river at some godforsaken hour of the morning on a cold November day.

"I'm sorry," you say quietly, your voice a mere whisper. "I'm sorry I called you out here."

"Don't you dare apologise, Dr Alexander," Harry warns you firmly. "You've got nothing to apologise for, OK? Nothing. It's not your fault Andrew turned out to be a self-centred, sex-obsessed creep, is it?"

"But it is my fault that you've been dragged out of bed and back into London in the middle of the night to rescue your weak, feeble, hopeless best friend because she's got terrible taste in men and managed to get herself into a stupidly blind panic…"

"No Nikki, no!" Harry insists, his voice firm and leaving you no room to argue. "You're not weak Nikki, you're not feeble, you're not hopeless and you're certainly not stupid. Although I can't deny that you do have terrible taste in men," he grins, and you find yourself breaking into a smile, in spite of everything.

"You're my best friend," he tells you softly. "And I very much hope that I'm yours. And what kind of best friend would I be if I didn't come to your rescue in your hour of need, hey? I've no doubt you'd do the same for me. You have done the same for me on many occasions. And I was already awake when I finally picked up your calls; it wasn't you who woke me up, Nikki. And even if it was, I'd still come and pick you up. With your track record, there's no way I'd let you stay out there by yourself for any long than I could help it."

You don't know what to say when you hear that. There's an attempt of humour at the end of his short speech, as if he's aware that this conversation is turning out to be rather deep and meaningful, and wants to lift the mood a little, to stop this becoming slightly awkward between you. And yet at the same time, even the light-hearted humour which is so distinctly Harry can't hide the caring and concern in his voice, to an extent you're pretty certain can't be found in most best friends. You've already thought that about a thousand times, you realize now; your brain's running in circles. God, you really did drink too much.

"Thank you," you whisper simply, looking across to meet Harry's eyes, just to be sure he's understood the multitude of meaning behind those two simple words. Satisfied by the calm recognition you see there, you turn your gaze back out of the window, suddenly aware that whilst you've been lost in your thoughts, Harry has progressed much further along the road than you had thought; much further than your flat, much further than his own, now approaching the very outskirts of London, and suddenly you feel afraid. Why, you don't know. Despite your encounter with Andrew, you know full well that Harry isn't going to hurt you; your faith in men hasn't been damaged to that extent. Maybe it's just the alcohol still poisoning your system that's filling you with a strange sense of fear regarding the person you trust the most in the world? You don't know. But you do know that this is stupid, this blind and idiotic panicking. Why don't you just ask him for an explanation?

"Harry?" you ask quietly, shocked at the noticeable wobble in your voice as you say his name. You make a mental note to yourself to never ever let yourself get this drunk again as long as you live; it's certainly not worth the hassle, the heartache, the upset, the irrationality that seems to come hand in hand with this level of intoxication. And never mind that: it's not fair on Harry.

"Niks?" It might still be dark, but you can see the concern written all over his face. God, are you really that obvious? Or does he just know you inside and out, to the point where he can read your emotions in the blink of an eye?

"What's wrong?" Harry asks you worriedly. "You're not still frozen, are you?" He presses his hand to your forehead, pulling it away after a few moments and turning up the heating.

"No I'm fine," you insist, tensing your whole body in an attempt to stop yourself from shivering and betraying yourself. "Harry… you do know you've got past my apartment building, don't you?"

"Ah… about that…" he begins awkwardly, a crimson glow spreading delicately across his cheeks as he flushes, and suddenly you're not nervous anymore; it's rather endearing.

"Now Nikki, don't be mad at me, but… I sort of woke my mum up on the way out to come and pick you up, and she asked where I was going and I, um… I might have accidently promised to bring you back with me to hers rather than dropping you home," he finishes quickly, watching your face for a moment to gage your reaction.

"You what?" you exclaim, now overcome with a new sense of embarrassment and dread. "Oh Harry, you didn't! I'm soaked through, I stink of rain and dirty river water, it's the middle of the night, and you want to take me to your mothers? I can't turn up on her doorstep like this! Harry, take me home, now!" you protest, but he just shakes his head firmly. And he calls you the stubborn one.

"Nikki, it'll be fine," he promises. "I'm sorry, it's my fault, I might have been… excessively worried about you… when you phoned, and I guess Mum picked up on that. But it's going to be fine. It's not much further now, she'll be asleep when we get there, and you can go and have a hot shower, clean yourself up a bit and get warm, and Hampshire's a good hour and a half away from Central London during the day, if not more, so it gives you a hell of an excuse for not bothering with work tomorrow morning."

"Oh, you've got this all planned out, haven't you?" you respond angrily. "Harry, I simply cannot turn up to your mother's looking like this; I haven't even got a change of clothes!"

"She's not going to see you Nikki, not until the morning, anyway. And I can lend you a t shirt and some trackie bottoms, they'll swamp you, but they'll do for one night. And I've got the morning off tomorrow, you we can sleep in, and then we can stop by your place for you to get changed on the way to work. It's fine, Nikki. And Mum loves you, why else do you think she insisted I bring you back to hers? She wouldn't do that for most of my friends, I assure you. She was worried you'd go into work as usual tomorrow morning despite having gotten no sleep whatsoever if you went home; this way you've got an excuse. Come on Nikki, please. She's not that scary."

Not scary, no- you agree with him on that one. But you want Mrs Cunningham- Anne, last time you met she insisted that you call her Anne- to like you; perhaps that stems from the feelings which come to you now and again involving her son. Last time Harry took you along with him to spend time with Anne you spent longer getting yourself ready than you ever do for meeting the parents of your boyfriends, wanting the mother of the best friend you've ever had, the person you depend on in a whole variety of ways, to approve of you. And now you're going to turn up at her house tear stained, soaking wet, still slightly heartbroken and smelling distinctly of river water. It doesn't matter to you that Anne isn't going to see you; that doesn't make you feel any more comfortable with Harry's proposal.

But at the same time, you can hear the decisiveness in the tone of his voice, and something tells you that there's no room for arguments here. You scared him, you know that, more than you've ever done before. You've phoned Harry a few times late at night before in the past 6 years of your friendship, and vice versa, but you know that neither of you has ever done so quite this late at night, never sounded quite so hysterical, and certainly never managed to fall into the Thames after a nasty encounter with a controlling date. He wants to make sure you're OK, to look after you, and in a way you suppose you understand that. You know you would want to do exactly the same for him were your roles reversed- not that Harry would ever be stupid enough to get himself into the situation you were in, just a few hours ago. And so you'll go along with it, just for tonight. Though you won't admit it, the idea of having someone look after you as you know Harry's mother will is rather appealing when you're this tired, both physically and emotionally.

"You're not going to give in on this one, are you?" you sigh, almost to convince yourself that it's OK to give in and go back to his mother's with him.

"No." His reply is firm yet somehow welcoming, telling you that he wants you to come back with him, that it's about wanting your company as much as to make sure you're alright. And then another question enters your mind, and suddenly you're curious, despite feeling so tired and drained of energy.

"Harry?"

"Hmm?"

"How did you find me? I wasn't exactly in the most obvious place to find."

"I installed your mobile GPS tracker into my phone after you were held at gunpoint last year; I knew it was only a matter of time before I'd need to come and rescue you again. Nikki, I'm joking; I walked around for a bit looking for you, and then I heard splashing and screaming coming from the alleyway, and only you could fall into a river at this time of night. Although I am seriously considering the GPS idea though. I think it'd make both of our lives a whole lot easier, don't you?"