Here's chapter three! Thanks to Nicky, Charlotte and Harry-Nikki-Love for reviewing the last chapter! I'm glad you liked it and I'm always so grateful for reviews! I'd absolutely love to know who else is reading it, so if anyone fancies dropping me a note to let me know, it'd be much appreciated! =D

This chapter's a bit shorter than I thought it was- sorry!

Chapter Three

"So tell me why you left. The real reason." Sara insisted, pouring her friend another glass of wine, "I know that it wasn't just the job. For one thing, there was no need to get out here so quickly, you don't start for over a week, and for another you loved it there in England, I know you did."

Nikki rolled her eyes, she just has to ask, doesn't she?, "There's really nothing more to it."

Sara lit some candles as the sun started to set across Cape Town, "I have always been able to tell when you're lying Niks. It's something to do with Harry isn't it? Have you two fallen out?"

"You don't move to another continent, another hemisphere just because you've fallen out with someone." She sipped her wine trying to avoid eye contact with her friend, "Any way, enough about me, how have the kids been?"

"You've not denied that it's something to do with Harry." Sara continued with the topic, "Niks are you crying?"

She wiped her eyes with her cuff, "Yeah, I've been doing that a lot lately, spontaneously bursting into tears." She tried to smile, but her emotions wouldn't let her.

"So I take that as a 'yes it is Harry'? You like him, don't you?" She asked putting her arm around her friend, "And he's met someone else, hasn't he?" She asked after she received a nod.

"Her name's Hilary. Gorgeous, brunette, two inches taller than me, five years younger than me, Language professor and all-round genius, and what makes it worse I think she's the loveliest person I've ever met. She's not even lovely in an annoying way, which makes it impossible to hate her." She leant forward and rested her head on the table in front of them, staring at the sunset.

"Oh dear! And it's serious between them? The M word and the B word have been mentioned?"

If Nikki had been drinking her wine at that moment then she would have splurted it out all over the table, "B word? Babies?" She spluttered, "No, I mean, once he said that maybe if he was younger, but…" She could barely consider the prospect.

"But she is younger Nikki, she must be, what, thirty?" She didn't want to have to tell Nikki this, she wanted to say 'Of course they'll never have children Niks, and of course one day he'll come running back to you!'

"Twenty nine" She sat up, "Well if that doesn't make me feel better about moving away, I don't know what will! I could cope with a wedding, but I'm not sure I could deal with that."

"When did you realise that you loved him? I mean you can't have known for all of this time." She didn't know whether this probing was really a good idea, but she thought it might help her to talk about it.

"They had been together for about a month, which was already longer than his average relationship, and they went away to Venice for a long weekend… I don't know what it was about that, but it just made me realise that this relationship might just last, and at first I didn't know why this bothered me so much, but eventually it dawned on me." She told her sadly, "And from that point I couldn't bear to be around the pair of them, and yet they were there all of the time. I lasted another two months, then a couple of weeks ago I found him looking for engagement rings on the internet… and here we are."

"Sounds like a mess. Are you sure that this was the right thing to do Nikki?" Sara asked.

Nikki shrugged, "I couldn't stay there, I couldn't watch them fall more and more in love with each other, live out there lives together. This way they can both be happy and one day I can be too."

"I'm so sorry Harry. I'm sure this won't be forever." Hilary comforted her boyfriend as they returned to his apartment. Nikki had just rang him to let him know that she was in South Africa and was safe, but yet again it had been left to voicemail, "She'll be back to visit at some point at the very least."

"I just can't believe that she'd do that, that she'd up and leave without so much as a goodbye! The last time I saw her face to face everything seemed fine… and that might be the last time I ever see her face to face." He couldn't imagine never seeing Nikki again, he couldn't even imagine turning up to work everyday and her not being there.

"I know it's not what you want to hear right now Harry, but things will get easier. And you'll always have me." She went into the kitchen to turn on the kettle, "I'll skip work tomorrow, we'll do something nice."

He followed her into the kitchen and placed his arms around her waist, "Ahh but I have three corpses waiting for me and you have 200 students waiting for you. You've got that big Hebrew lecture thingy tomorrow, remember?"

She sighed, "Oh the joys! I guess I won't be taking tomorrow off then. Actually I should be preparing for that right now." She pulled his arms tighter around her waist and stretched up to kiss him, "But I can think of better things to be doing."

"Now that's dedication Professor Wolfe!" He rested his head on the top of hers, breathing in the smell of her hair, trying to dispel all thoughts of Nikki and doing so unsuccessfully, "You don't get to be a professor before you're thirty without a little dedication."

"Are you trying to suggest that I slept my way to the top Doctor Cunningham?" She smirked, turning around to face him whilst his arms were still wrapped tightly around her so that her chest was pressed right up against his.

"With that innocent little face? Never!" He laughed. He gave an extra chuckle as he thought about the rather minimal possibility of that being true. For a few moments his thoughts were away from Nikki, but that night he would dream of her, and the next morning, as his eyes fell upon the sleeping beauty lying beside him he would feel so guilty for doing so.