Sorry for how long this has taken; I had meant to post a chapter every other day at the very least but I lost track of time (and got addicted to True Blood... not much has gotten done these past few days!)!

Thanks for the reviews Charlotte and Silver-Ashes! I really appreciate them!

One chapter to go after this! But I'm already planning a sequel! =D

Chapter Four

Four months passed and life went on. Nikki had finished the job that she had initially gone out there to do and was now back working with Sara, Hilary had moved into Harry's apartment and was now sporting a rather large diamond on her left hand.

But they weren't happy.

"You're two hours late." Hilary asked as Harry came in from work, "You didn't call me."

"Sorry, double murder, it got messy." He threw his coat down onto the sofa and went to pour himself a gin and tonic

"We were supposed to be talking to the vicar." She shouted through to the kitchen. She knew that his working hours weren't strict, and she was fine with him being late, but when he didn't call her and she didn't know where he was, well it bothered her, "Have you sorted out your guest list?" she had been nagging him for a week about this.

"Yeah I left it in here." He brought it through from the kitchen with his drink and sat down beside her.

Hilary looked it over, "Nikki's not on here?"

"No." He said simply and left the conversation there making it clear that he didn't want to talk about it.

He never wanted to talk about it, and yet it was always there. Nicola Alexander unwittingly had such a strong hold on their relationship, even whilst she was halfway across the world, "Okay." She replied, and left it like that. She always left it like that, she never pushed it further.

"Guess who was just on the phone again?" Sara brought Nikki a cup of coffee as they took a five minute break from work.

Nikki sighed, "Anton."

"I could just get Pieter to have a word with him, it would be no bother." Sara was almost as fed up with Anton trying to get back in touch with Nikki as she was, "You've been avoiding him for four months now, I don't think he's going to get the message any time soon Niks."

"I know." She hadn't known how to tell Anton that she didn't feel the same way about him even when they were together. She had made out that the main reason as to why they couldn't be together was distance, but now that there wasn't any distance, she couldn't really think of another excuse.

"We'd better get back to work." Sara said, knowing that they'd be picking the subject up again later that day.

Nikki couldn't honestly say that she preferred working here to working in England what with the amount of bodies and murders and the lack of money, but at least it was keeping her busy, keeping her sane. She didn't have time to think about Harry in the daytime, and often in the evenings she was so exhausted that she didn't have the energy to think about him then either.

She knew that her life still revolved around Harry; every waking moment she was trying to avoid thinking about him in one way or another and then every night she dreamt of him. How long would it take to get over him? How long would it be until her life was no longer a pathetic misery? She felt like a hormonal teenager, hung up on some guy and unable to live her life without him. This wasn't the Nikki Alexander that she had built herself up to be over the last twenty years, she had been totally independent since she was fifteen years old and she had never let a man stop her from doing anything.

But this man was different and he would always be different. In the past after splitting up with someone, she had always counted on the fact that there was someone better out there, someone more suited to her, but that someone was Harry Cunningham, and there really was no one better for her.

Hilary sat on the living room floor, laying out all of the different pieces of paper and fabric samples and everything else that had any relation to the wedding on the floor in front of her, "Harry, we need to decide which shade of purple we want for the seat covers." She held up two pieces of cloth.

Harry shrugged, "You choose."

Hilary sighed; she could cope with him not being bothered about the colour of the seat covers, she wasn't entirely sure if she cared herself, but he didn't seem to be bothered about anything related to the wedding and she was becoming sick of hearing him say 'You choose'. She placed the pieces of fabric back down on the floor, "Have you phoned the suit shop about Kieran yet?" Her younger brother had grown about an inch since he had been measured up.

"Oh sorry, I'll do it later." He picked up a newspaper and stretched himself across the sofa.

It was times like this that Hilary just wanted to cry. She knew that all of these things weren't big problems in themselves, but she just wanted to know that he cared, and not just about the wedding but about her too. She moved towards the sofa until she was knelt by his head. She pulled down the newspaper and bent in to kiss him.

He pulled away, "Hilary, not now, I'm trying to read this."

"For goodness sake Harry!" She shouted almost hysterically, a tear in her eyes, "Not now! Not now! Do you know how long it's been Harry? We're not even married yet!"

Harry was shocked at her sudden outburst; this just wasn't in her nature, "Bloody hell Hilary! I didn't realise you were so obsessed!"

"Obsessed?" She laughed disbelievingly, "You're the one who… when we first got together… Harry this isn't about the sex!"

"Then what is it about?" He stood up to face her, his voice starting to rise too.

She brought her hand to her forehead, "It's about me and you. You ignore me, you put no input into the wedding. Do you even care about me?"

"Of course I care about you!" He said defensively, almost as though he couldn't understand why she might think otherwise.

"You know, scratch what I said a second ago, this isn't about me and you… it's about me and you and Nikki Alexander." There, she'd said it, what she'd wanted to say for nearly four months now.

"What do you mean?" He asked knowing full well what she meant.

Hilary took a deep breath, already hating herself for what she was about to do, "I mean that it's now just the two of us in this relationship," she said calmly, "I know you think about her all of the time, more than you think about me. I know that you won't talk about her, that you still feel hurt that she left you. And I know that I'm the second prize, even though you didn't know it when you won me."

Harry wanted to deny it, but he knew that every word she had said was true, "I'm so sorry Hilary, you deserve so much better than me."

"I know I do." She said, silent tears running down her cheeks, "I love you more than anyone in the world, I would give up anything to be with you… anything but my self respect as I need someone who feels the same about me, and you don't. You can't. But it's not your fault."

He sat back down on the sofa, "So where do we go from here?"

Hilary sat beside him, "Well one thing's for sure, the wedding's definitely off. I can't believe I had the guts to do this, to admit that it wasn't working."

"I'm so sorry Hilary. I do love you, please know that. I just wish that I could give you all of the love that you deserve." He put his arm around her.

"You have to go after her Harry, tell her how you feel, because I'm not losing this relationship for nothing. I want you to be happy." She looked into his eyes, trying to take in every part of him, knowing that this might be the last time that she would ever be so close to him.

"I think you're just about the most amazing woman I've ever met Hilary Wolfe." He placed a stray bit of hair behind her ear, stroking her face in the process.

"Too amazing for my own good I think, letting you go." She was near breaking point, "We couldn't have been happy together, not really. You couldn't have been happy with me and we just both would have grown more and more miserable." She stroked his face in return, "But I can't quite believe that this is the end."

He leant forwards, placing his hands around her face as she did the same in return, "I'll miss those wicked blue eyes," he smiled sadly, "I'll miss you." He brought his lips to hers.

She reciprocated. She knew that it would probably be healthier to just leave it at goodbye, but she wanted this. She wanted to memorise every part of him, every millimetre of his body and the way that it moved. She didn't want to say goodbye.

Afterwards they lay wrapped around each other on the living room floor, the carefully ordered piles of wedding planning 'stuff' now strewn around them like a blanket of confetti. Neither of them spoke, both of them knowing that each second that passed was a second closer to it being over. They lay there for hours, keeping warm by each other's body heat and ignoring the grumbling in their bellies.

Darkness fell upon them as night closed in as they waited for one of them to finally end this slow and painful, yet so beautiful death, "You should go." Hilary finally whispered, scared to move.

Harry kissed her neck, "I know." He sat up and reached around for his clothes.

"You'll need your passport." She said, unable to look at him.

"It's at work." He told her, pulling on his underwear.

They were both there for a further five minutes as Harry got dressed and found his wallet. Hilary just lay there, naked and still on the living room floor, staring at nothing in particular, her eyes hurt and hollow as she waited for him to leave.

When he was finally ready he knelt beside her and kissed her for one final time, "Goodbye Hilary."

As soon as she heard the door slam shut, her whole body curled up and her face crumpled. She let out a painful, melancholic wail, grieving for what she had just lost.