Chapter 2 – In Which There is an Uncomfortable Realisation

A/N: Thank you to the lovely Charlotte and Immortal for your encouraging reviews of chapter 1 – made my morning :)

Now, I don't remember Nikki having or not having a brother – so he's just thrown in to prove a point. If he doesn't technically exist in the canon land of SW – oops.

So here's the next chapter in this soggy mess that my wayward muse has devised – and this time she felt it only appropriate that both our good friends Emilia and Tom made an appearance on a wall.

Nikki pushed the bathroom door open and practically ran to the nearest cubicle. She locked the door behind her, and lent her forehead against the cool wood. She must be tired – that must be what it was. She'd had a long, stressful week at work, with a lot of late nights spent at the lab, and now she'd had two cocktails of unknown content. Alcohol and sleep deprivation. That's all it was. Yes, definitely.

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Jenelle felt Harry's grip tighten around her momentarily, before he looked back at her and excused himself to the 'little boys room'. That was odd, she thought – but didn't dwell on it. Probably just the effects of the alcohol kicking in.

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Nikki closed the lid of the loo and sat down, staring at the graffiti on the back of the door before her.

Save the whales – collect the whole set.

Destroy Capitalism!

Bush is a dipstick.

Emilia 4 Tom.

"Who writes this crap?" she whispered out loud. What made people feel so strongly about another human being that they were compelled to bring a nikko into a restroom and record it for all eternity. Make a submission to the annuls of time on a toilet wall? Declare their love to the rest of the world in a bathroom?

Nikki had never understood such behaviour and, in reality, didn't really understand what declarations of love in any capacity were about anyway. In her experience, men weren't subject to affection and were largely objectified – her father was a protector (dismal failure there), her brother was a trusted companion (failure since he'd buggered off to Australia), and Harry was a best friend- wait. Wait on two accounts – the failure and the befriending.

Was Harry now to be the next in a long line of men who'd failed her? And was he even still her best friend?

What had he been trying to say when he'd looked at her across that room with all the passion of a lover etched in his deep eyes?

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Harry entered the corridor at the rear of the restaurant and at the end was met with a stark brick wall and a door on either side – the male and female bathrooms. No sign of Nikki. Shit. There was only one place she could be since he'd ratted out all the other potential hiding places. And that was, morally at least, off limits.

What have I done?

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Before she could even start thinking about Harry's actions, Nikki realised that she must work out what her problem was. Why she'd had such a violent reaction. Why she'd felt a little part of herself dying when he'd kissed Jenelle…

They'd laughed together, cried together and flirted together on more occasions than she cared to count. They sought comfort in each others' embrace when times were tough. They'd kissed, just that once, and been on a single date that had been probably the best night of her life. But Harry's past had roughly slammed that door on both of them and they'd never dared to revisit those turbulent undercurrents.

She'd moved on, found other lovers and slowly the wounds had healed until they were unnoticeable. Harry had found his own ways to move on, and between them they'd forged an unbreakable friendship.

Unbreakable until now?

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After seven and a half minutes, Harry knew that Nikki must be avoiding him. He couldn't hang around out here without looking like some weirdo, and couldn't afford to stay away from Jenelle for too much longer lest she begin to wonder what he was doing. He was going to have to go in – there was just no other option. Entering the ladies' bathroom was not what he'd had on his to-do list when he'd come here tonight, but now it looked like it might be the only way of getting through this.

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Finally deciding she couldn't hide in the toilets all night and would have to return to her friends in case they thought she was unwell, Nikki stood up and opened the door. She moved to the sinks, splashed cold water on her face, washed her hands and dried them on the napkins provided. Staring into her tired eyes in the mirror she wondered how she'd ended up in this mess.

A nasty, niggling feeling was churning through her stomach, and she could see the uncertainty reflected in her irises. She was almost sure she knew what it meant, but she just didn't want to go there. Wasn't ready to.

He's your best friend. You don't want to do this. It will never end well. Never.

But no matter how hard she tried to deny it, another voice was whispering treacherous and traitorous nothings in her mind. You've been in denial for a long time, haven't you, Nikki?

In a sudden, blinding moment of clarity, the answer stood before her in the quiet, dank bathroom.

You've fallen for Harry Cunningham.

And the bathroom door swung open.