"Harry," she breathed as she cautiously opened the door to him.

He stepped over the threshold and pulled her towards him. It was what she wanted wasn't it? What she had been waiting for? Harry Cunningham's arms around her back, his nose buried into her neck and his very soul whispering to hers that everything was alright now.

But the moment had gone. The danger had passed. Now they were just two colleagues, together after a calamitous day. She pulled away and looked into his eyes.

"How are you?" she asked stiffly, breaking the eye contact, not knowing where to begin.

"I've been better. You?" he replied.

"Same," she said sadly, surveying her shoes. She walked backwards into her room, causing Harry's arm to drop from hers. He turned to close the door.

"Your car key." Harry said, producing the key with a flourish and then not knowing what to do with it, hung it on a hook near the door.

"My car's at the Lyell Centre," Nikki muttered.

"Leo, asked me to drive it home for you. He said you wanted to see me," Harry explained.

"So I get bundled into the back of a blue and white, and you get the keys to my car! What was Leo thinking?" her voice caught with the sudden emotion, the anger repressed for so long relentlessly rising to the surface, at this insignificant injustice.

"I think Leo was worried that you would never leave," Harry said sagely.

"And you?" she replied tartly.

"Me?" he scoffed. "He was probably worried where I'd go."

Silence descended.

"I'm sorry Nikki," Harry began after he could stand it no longer.

"What are you sorry for?" Nikki asked.

Harry paused. He wasn't sure anymore. There seemed to be a long list, but he could sense her anger, her tension, the molten lava of boiling emotions that would explode under the smallest additional pressure. He said nothing but ventured towards her kitchen looking for a drink.

"Beer, wine?" he called over his shoulder.

"Got mine," she replied raising her glass; the golden liquid sloshing around the bottom.

"Ah, something stronger," he replied and filled a glass from the uncapped bottle on the kitchen table.

There was silence once more. Harry didn't need to wait to be asked to sit down. He'd been here so many times before and he'd just helped himself to a drink without being invited. But tonight he felt like a stranger. He didn't like it. He leant against the doorframe and watched her scrubbing at her hands.

"How many showers have you had today?" he asked quietly.

"It won't come off!" she cried, her eyes flashing suddenly and filling with tears. But then he saw her inhale sharply and the Nikki mask fall back in place. Explosion averted.

Silence.

"What was he like?" she asked.

"Who?"

"Scott,"

"Scott Weston?"

"That is who you were working on all day wasn't it?"

"Yes," Harry confirmed. "It was Scott in the toilet block, he had a gunshot wound to the face and was in a bad way but he was still alive. I did what I could to make him comfortable, stop the bleeding, you know…"

"Yes, but what was he like?" she repeated, turning to look at him.

"Why do you want to know?"

Nikki just shrugged and looked expectantly at him.

"I don't know, Nikki. He was barely conscious. He wasn't wearing a badge if that's what you mean, 'Hello, my name's Scott and I'm a psychopathic killer,'" Harry replied. He was losing patience with her. These questions were impossible to answer and irrelevant. Neither of them had slept last night and surviving the day they had just had on a coffee fuelled all-nighter was never going to be easy. But now there was this. He needed to be calm. He needed to calm her down, comfort her. But she was acting so peculiarly, so hostile, and he was exhausted. He was only too aware how easily he could lose his temper, or just lose it altogether.

"He had an extradural haematoma amongst other things, he'll probably make it."

"Thanks to you," Nikki said. "You managed to relieve the pressure on his brain."

"Yes."

What else?"

"What do you mean what else?"

"You seem very evasive," Nikki probed.

"Evasive?" he scoffed. "He was almost in a coma, we didn't chat if that's what you're asking."

But Nikki didn't miss the way he looked away, and pulled at his hair.

"Did you know?"

"Would it have made a difference?"

The question hung in the air and she regarded him quizzically.

"You did good work today," Nikki assured him.

It was almost the first positive thing she had said, but it was no easier to believe for Harry who just expelled air from his mouth in a disbelieving fashion.

"Show me," she asked.

"Show you what?"

"Show me how you did it."

I wanted this reunion to be really awkward, so not easy reading I know, but come on you angst lovers… do me proud…