For Lilypad 1, who is the sweetest thing and has been getting a bit stressed. : )
Sorry everyone, after so many lovely reviews, I have rewritten and rewritten the end and now you have two of the longest chapters in the history of fanfic... I hope it takes you or them to where they need to go.
Saturday July 3rd
Harry hadn't slept well, it was important not to mess things up today. He decided on route to Nikki's flat that probably the safest policy was not to say anything, except in answer to her questions, and to certainly not start rambling and above all else for once try to tell the truth. He wouldn't press her on any of the previous weeks events until she were ready. Well that was his plan. The weather was bright and sunny but not scorching hot. Not as hot anyway as the little sundress that Nikki had put on. He caught a glimpse of her in his rearview mirror as she crossed the car park to his car. He sucked air through his teeth and told himself this was going to be a long day.
The morning had gone remarkably well, they had chatted easily about the view, and the difficulty and cost about finding a parking space in Brighton and a million other topics. As long as they talked on insignificant topics the ease between them was there. But it was only a matter of time, the air between them was pregnant with the conversation that had to inevitably come.
Harry had to entice her on to the pier, succeeding finally by offering to buy her fish and chips. The seagulls were performing their usual acrobatics and catching chips mid-flight. They stood together looking over the railings, watching the people on the beach below and listening to the waves as they crashed onto the pebbles and then made that exquisite sucking, rattling noise as they rolled back into the sea.
"I'm really sorry, Harry." Nikki began.
This was not the start that Harry was expecting and couldn't quite fathom what she was sorry about. His plan had been to answer her questions so figured the most prudent response was to apologise too.
"I'm sorry too, I shouldn't have said all that stuff, I don't know what I was thinking."
'Damn, rambling already' he said to himself and promptly shut up.
"You're not the one that needs to apologise Harry, you've been looking out for me and I've just been too selfish and self-absorbed.."
Harry quickly interrupted her "Nikki, you've been through a lot, you've always been there for me, I was just trying to help."
"Will you just stop for once and let me finish. I invited you here today, because I thought we needed to talk, I needed to talk, now are you going to let me?" she was beginning to sound exasperated and they hadn't even begun.
"You just said WE needed to talk, I have to be allowed to talk sometimes," he said and sneaked a sideways glance at her.
"Alright then," she challenged. "Why are you here?"
"What do you mean, you invited me out, and I said yes." that hadn't come out right, that made it sound like a date. If only he had a clue as to what she was talking about he felt he might be on more solid ground.
"I mean why are you here, with me?" she asked again.
"You just said it Nikki, we needed to talk, you've been through so much, you've been away for two weeks. I thought you wanted to come here to talk? Harry was beyond confused.
He looked at her, head cocked to the left, studying her face searching for what she wanted from him. The sundress left most of her neck and shoulders exposed and standing this close surrounded by her bare flesh was not helping his brain to work quickly at all.
"Why are you here?" she asked for the third time. "Why haven't you left me? Or lied to me? Or cheated on me? Or abandoned me? Or died and left me?" she was staring straight at the horizon as she asked the string of questions.
Harry inhaled sharply. So THAT was the question she was asking. He quickly followed her gaze out to sea. And then very slowly as if tasting every word he said,
"Are you asking me if I'm in love with you?" He didn't dare to look away from the tossing sea, it seemed to be keeping time with the racing of his heart.
"Is it a problem if I am?" she replied, echoing a previous conversation.
"Just as long as you're prepared to deal with the answer." Harry followed suit, using her words from that dreadful conversation.
"I'm not sure I need you to answer." she said. "You are my best friend, you can make me smile, you can make me play stupid games, you are always there when I need you, you go to awful sports bars that you hate, just because I ask you too, you care for me when I'm sick. You bring me flowers and get rewarded with overhearing..well never mind I figured it out. You make no mention of my mistakes. You cover for me at work, you take my on call weekends and I'm pretty sure you cleaned up my flat. Is it true?" she asked incredulously.
"What that I cleaned your flat, (which was disgusting by the way) or that I'm in love with you?" the second time he used the words they seemed to roll off the tongue more easily.
"Yes, Nikki," now that the time was here Harry found he almost sounded matter of fact. "I am very much in love with you, and have been for as long as I can remember and I have absolutely no intention of lying to you, cheating on you, abandoning you or dying, well not just yet anyway.
And then he added quickly, "the just yet only applied to the dying bit." He was however dying to look into her face to see how this revelation was going down, but she kept her eyes fixed on a point in the distance. It was customary to make some comment Harry thought, after disclosures like this but Nikki was silent. Had he got it so wrong? She had said he was her friend. Was that all she wanted?
But Nikki was somewhere else entirely.
"There is no baby." she said quietly.
"Oh, Nikki, I'm sorry."
'Was that the right thing to say?' he didn't know really how she had felt about that either, or if she had taken steps to make sure there was no baby. He was saved from trying to think of the right thing to say as she carried on.
"I never took the test. By the time I had finally plucked up the courage to think about taking it I had already started bleeding."
"But you know what you felt Nikki, is that why it was so hard to take the test?" Harry asked.
Maybe I was pregnant, maybe I wasn't, I will never know for sure. But I'm glad I don't have some stick mocking me with the evidence that someone else I could have loved didn't even live long enough to meet me." her voice began to break as she got to the end of her speech. Harry could cope no longer just standing by her side and pulled her into his arms. He couldn't stop himself from kissing her hair and telling her he was sorry all over again.
Harry felt Nikki's body begin to relax from the sobs that had racked it, and then heard her ask,
"Harry? Can I ask you another question?"
Could you reply to some of mine, his brain screamed but he'd already confessed to being in love with her , with no reply, how bad could it get?"
"Of course," he replied.
"Why was Henry so convinced that you were gay?" she looked up into his eyes.
"Now I never told him that!" Harry said in a mock shocked tone, but he elaborated.
"It was that night at the sports bar. Henry asked me why we had never got together, and I agreed with him that you were very beautiful and that I didn't want to jeopardise our friendship."
"I bet those are not the exact words you used," she smiled "is it still true?" she questioned.
"Well yes, you are still very beautiful." Harry said seriously, causing a blush to spread across Nikki's face.
"And I am terrified of jeopardising our friendship, these last few weeks without you have shown me just how much I need you in my life. I thought I had already blown it, but although I am terrified, I am more terrified of the fact that if I don't do anything now I will lose you to somebody else."
Harry was breathing heavily, he was sweating more now than after some of his longest runs.
"One more request?" Nikki pleaded.
"Alright," he said shakily.
"One more." he spoke as if speaking to a small child asking for sweets.
"Kiss me." she said simply.
"What?" Harry asked. He had been mentally preparing himself for Nikki to do the 'you're my friend Harry, but I just can't cope with any thing more at the moment' speech.
"That was the request." Nikki repeated. "Come on, I know you know how,"
"Really?" Harry asked, looking deep into her eyes, his face inches from hers in a pose they'd been in so many times before.
"Yes, Harry I would very much like you to kiss me, here now..." she didn't get to finish this time, now certain, he pressed his lips to hers and held her tight.
The kiss was gentle but passionate, hesitant but with the promise of more, thrilling but comfortably familiar. She hadn't verbalised any of her feelings for him, despite his open confessions of love for her. But as he looked into her eyes again after kissing her, he hoped it would only be a matter of time.
Emboldened by all that had gone before he said,
"Can I ask a question now?"
"Hmm," she said, licking her lips and appearing rather distracted.
"You don't have to decide now, but I want to ask you now, so that there is no confusion about my intentions." Harry stated carefully.
"Did you have to spend a lot of time with the lawyers, while I was away Harry?" Nikki asked.
"Will you shut up and listen! You are more special to me than anyone in the whole world. I know you have been let down in the past by some of your other boyfriends"
"More like all of them" interjected Nikki.
"That's why I don't want to be your boyfriend Nikki." Harry added.
"Oh." Nikki looked as if her world had just been torn apart. Her eyes immediately began to well up as she searched Harry's face for clues as to how he could be so cruel to her, minutes after he told her he loved her, and he'd kissed her, and like that... She hated men.
"Nikki look at me." Harry said sternly. He wiped away a tear that was forming with his thumb.
"Nikki, I don't want to be your boyfriend, because I want to be your husband." he finished.
Now it was Nikki's turn to be speechless.
"You're asking me to marry you?" she stammered. "And we've only ever kissed twice!"
"Three times," Harry corrected her.
"Three?" she asked.
"Three," he repeated.
"So it wasn't a dream," Nikki whispered.
" 'Fraid not," he whispered back.
"Oh, Harry, I am so sorry, I've been.." but Nikki was interrupted.
"I'm not sorry at all. I would never have been able to say what I've said today, if I wasn't certain that somewhere deep inside you, that you cared for me too. You know three is my lucky number," he added with a trademark smile.
But Nikki wasn't concentrating on what Harry was saying, her mind was reeling from the previous proposal.
"But what if the sex is awful?" Nikki asked.
Harry laughed heartily, "well, we shall just have to practise!" he said with a sly wink. "Like I said, you don't have to answer now, but you need to know how serious I am about this." He put his arm round her and kissed the top of her head. They walked together, with Harry's arm still around her shoulder, back along the pier and down onto the beach.
"But what if the children have your, what was it, 'dreadful temper and evil hair'" she said playfully as they walked along by the waters edge.
"I think it was my evil temper and dreadful hair actually, but what about your inability to follow a film plot and my knack of saying the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time." he laughed.
"Or your looks and my pig headed stubbornness!"she giggled.
"How about your looks, and my charming personality!" Harry tried.
"Don't flatter yourself! Try your ability to piss people off and my tendency for misappropriating things" Nikki suggested.
"Aha, finally she admits to stealing my desk!" Harry sounded triumphant.
At that moment, they saw a family struggling to carry a buggy over the stones with a toddler clinging on behind. The little boy raced off down to the sea, closely followed by his mum and dad, leaving the buggy on the stones. Instead of the boy's baby brother or sister, the occupant of the buggy turned out to be an older sister, she was staring blankly, rocking slightly and chewing repeatedly on her fingers.
"Could be Rett Syndrome?" mumbled Harry, his doctor brain taking over.
Just then the girl's father returned with a bucket of water. He wriggled the girl's feet out of her sandals and splashed them in the water. For a moment the girls face lit up with a huge smile for her father and for the feel of the cold water. And then just as suddenly she slipped back into her own world.
"And if things didn't quite go to plan?" Nikki couldn't help but ask.
"I would be devastated." Harry answered honestly. "But they would still be ours and anything that we have together would have to be beautiful, because it is part of you."
Nikki slipped her hand into Harry's. They walked together in silence. Harry was still not sure how solid the ground was between them. She hadn't really talked about her feelings at all. She hadn't said 'no.' She hadn't run away screaming and she had joined in the little game about what traits the children could inherit. Suddenly the shelf of shingle he was walking along began to tumble towards the sea and he found himself sliding down the stones. He hoped it wasn't indicative of how the carefully reconstructed ground between the two of them could crumble without warning.
Rett Syndrome affects 1 in 10,000 to 15,000 live female births. It was first described in 1966 by the Austrian doctor, Andreas Rett. Genetic but not hereditary, it could occur in any family at any time. People with Rett syndrome have profound and multiple physical and learning disabilities and are totally reliant on others for support throughout their lives. It is the most common genetic cause of severe disability in females. A large proportion of people with Rett syndrome have a mutation, or fault, on the MECP2 gene on the X chromosome.
Information from RettSocietyUK