Ooh I feel like Darth Vader… Come with me to the dark side… So glad so many of you are enjoying this.
"Harry, Harry. I'm so sorry, so sorry," she cried into his neck.
"Harry, I didn't mean it, you know I didn't mean it, any of it, Harry please," she begged.
She had his face in her palms now, her thumbs futilely wiping away his seemingly unstoppable tears.
"Harry please," she whispered again, as she tried kissing away another one.
"Say you'll forgive me, please Harry. I'm sorry, really sorry. I shouldn't have provoked you like that, it's all my fault." She punctuated her apologies with more kisses, down his cheek, and back to his neck where she nuzzled into his shoulder again.
"It's not true, it's not true."
"You're all I've got Harry, you and Leo you're all I've got. Please say you'll forgive me."
Harry remained resolutely unresponsive.
"I need you Harry," she soothed.
"It's tempting to confuse need with love."
"No you don't, you don't need anyone, you're a one woman show, everything just always has to be about you. I'm sick of being your safety net," he growled.
"That's not true, Harry you know it's not true. You're not that, please believe me. What we have it's much more than that, much more. It's been the two of us for so long now, Harry! I don't want it to change," she pleaded.
"But I just don't do it for you, do I?" he thundered.
"Just stay here. You will be safer here."
"Harry," she moaned but in her mind's eye she saw him throw that student across the room.
"That is not an answer," he stated, gripping her shoulders and roughly pulling her away from him, but holding on tight.
"Now's not the time for this Harry, we're too tired…" she never got to finish his little speech.
"You think of that now. What about five minutes ago when you were screaming at me, calling me a liar and telling me that Neil Corrigan was more of a man than I am? Do you really think I've wanted any of this?" he shook her by the shoulders again.
"I'm sorry," she whimpered. "It should have been you."
"What?" he gave her shoulders one last shake, and then pushed her right away from him. "What should have been me? The one with my brains splattered across a wall. Is that what this has descended to? Is that what you want?"
"You should have been with me, you said you'd be quick," she said regretfully.
It was obvious that wherever Nikki was in her mind, it wasn't with Harry in the here and now; the two of them still sat on her floor.
"Tell the KAD if he wants to come round, I'll make him his favourite Cup-a-Soup."
"It was just that I needed you, I've never known anything like it Harry. I couldn't think, I didn't know what to do, you were in the Percival building and I was so alone. I just kept hearing those screams over and over in my head. Leo said he would call Janet, but I didn't want Janet, I just wanted you and you weren't there."
Silence
"But then he was," she finished.
Finally she was beginning to make sense.
"Nikki," Harry began quietly, pulling his knees up against himself; letting his body begin to relax. "If I had been with you, there is every chance that both of us would be dead by now, along with Leo, countless students, policeman, paramedics and whoever else was in the vicinity. Because of you, because of what you did we know the truth of what went on at LSSE today. Without you the story is incomplete, and if you hadn't befriended him, he would never have opened up to you about what really happened. You Nikki, you're the one with the success here. I'm just the one with a barely alive psychopath on my scorecard."
"You wouldn't have let him die, even if you were sure would you?" she asked.
"No," he replied.
There was another silence, but this time Nikki met Harry's gaze.
"I'm sorry about all the things I said," she apologised.
"You were right, I could easily have moved position; I don't know why it didn't occur to me at the time. I'm sorry too." Harry got to his feet, walked across the room, offered Nikki a hand, pulled her up to standing , but he couldn't take her into his arms, not with those words still infecting the air around them.
"I'm sorry I never came back."
"I never really expected you to."
"So what has this actually been about?" Harry asked.
"I don't control you, do I?" Nikki asked quietly.
Harry's heart ached from her stated ambivalence to him, she had wounded him deeply with those words, no she didn't control him, not like she did the others. She didn't control him at all, but she did have the ability to make him lose control; lose his mind with worry when she was missing, lose patience, lose his temper. That she did do. Well it took two to play a power game like that and he knew exactly how to wound her and expose her vulnerability. His desire for revenge rumbled despite the apologies and it still felt as if there was something else. Tonight it seemed there was always something more, some new fear yet to be discovered.
Her question remained waiting to be answered.
"Nikki, you need to drop this, it's really not the time," he said suppressing his need to lash out again.
"You do think I'm a coward don't you," she asked taking a step closer.
Neither could look away from the other now. They both knew what Nikki was actually asking.
No words were said. Harry could hear the blood thumping in his ears.
"In some ways you are a coward," he said narrowing his eyes, making sure he was provoking her. "You make sure those poor bastards never have a chance, because you're too afraid to face the fact that you are incapable of having a proper relationship." The sweetness of the revenge and the pain he knew he was causing spurring him on.
"And, you're the liar," he declared, stepping forward into her space, his mouth inches from hers.
She didn't flinch at his words, just continued to stare into him.
"Because I think you do like me," he insisted.
She didn't reply, but she didn't look away either.
"Just tell me what to do?"
"You know what to do."
"I think you've liked me for a while."
"I think you're afraid of just how much you do like me," he taunted her.
They continued to stare at each other, this time the silence was charged.
"This is not the right time for this," Harry declared before reaching closer and roughly kissing her lips.
"We're much too tired," he said and snatched at her mouth with his own again.
"There'll be regrets," he murmured against her lips deepening the kiss, her hands meanwhile had found their way around the back of his neck, into his hair and pulling him closer against her, despite his obvious anger.
"We've seen too much," he whispered against the skin of her cheek, and he heard her gasp and turn to find his mouth again.
Nikki made sure that there was no possibility that Harry could misinterpret her responses.
"You wouldn't kill yourself would you, not if you felt loved back.
You're asking the wrong person, Neil."
Instead of deepening the kiss, Harry nipped at her lips once more and then pulled her sharply away from himself. "Nikki, really now is not the time."
She stared at him, startled and confused, before the reality of what was before her hit home.
Blinking back more tears, she searched his eyes for his motivations but saw only anger.
"I know," she sighed.
"But sometime?" she asked her heart raw, exposed and laid bare.
"You're forgetting, I'm still the one in control here."
Harry didn't reply. It was all too much, he didn't know, he really didn't know. They were too tired and there would definitely be regrets. His every instinct was to run, he'd stayed after the first show down between them, but this was too much. There would be no fake gun fire now to distract them.
"I think I should go now," Harry said seriously.
"Get some rest, we'll be working flat out for the next week," he added with forced benevolence.
"Harry! I'm sorry…" she began.
He pressed his finger against her lips, "Shhh! Enough now, go to bed, I'll see you in the morning."
"Goodnight Harry," she replied kissing his finger that had lingered against her lips.
"Goodnight Nikki," Harry said, snatching his hand away from her. "I'll see you in the morning."
"Harry," she said quietly. "I am attracted to you, you do know that don't you, didn't I just make it obvious."
"That's hardly important is it?" he said softly, unwilling to let anything else start them off again.
"Isn't that what we were fighting about?"
"I don't think so," he said pensively. "Nikki, attraction is bullshit. If you actually want to manage some kind of long term relationship, you need to stop listening to your hormones and find someone that you can actually face waking up to each morning, and who you can imagine having the same conversations with week in week out about which bin it is that has to go out on a Wednesday night, and who's turn it is to collect the dry cleaning."
"It's tempting to confuse need with love."
And with that he finally pulled his eyes away from hers and slowly walked to the door and let himself out.
It was my original intention to leave it here or somewhere like here, but there was still one more layer that just wouldn't leave me alone. The key to it all…Any guesses?