" I want to believe in this stuff. But everything I've learned…every marriage I see-"
"Nikki, don't."
"What? You're still a believer?"
"In love? Yeah."
"Look around you. All these names. They're only here because people loved them…however much we screw up."
So we already know, Nikki isn't the average scientist. She wants to believe in something 'other'. I think this shows however, that Harry's departure has robbed her of magic and romance and belief in all that stuff. Leo here I think knows Harry 'screwed up' and yet he still believes…wonder why that is!? Maybe this….
You're not there, when the conversation takes place.
Perhaps, had you been, you would have suffered a lot less heartache.
Or perhaps a lot more.
That was exactly Leo's dilemma when deciding what to tell you. In the end, he decided not to tell you anything. You were like a daughter to him and one of the most precious people in his life. In almost any situation he would rather keep something from you, if it meant lowering the risk of hurting you, any day.
Had he chosen otherwise, he perhaps would have started his anecdote by telling you about how he had felt quite subdued that night, for obvious reasons, and he had poured himself a generous glass of whiskey to see him through the evening in a chair with a good journal.
The night before Harry Cunningham left the country.
Then he would have divulged his surprise when he heard the door bell, spilling a drop of his tipple onto his sleeve.
He was still trying to wipe it off when he reached the door and opened it tentatively, to be met by Harry's sorry face.
He would have told you – though of course you already knew – how he never had a son and how he had often wondered what it would have been like to have one; to have the same closeness and connection with a child that Theresa had with Cassie. Then Harry had come along and it had been like having a son and best friend and a prodigy all rolled into one. So of course he had let him in.
He perhaps would have described how uncomfortable Harry had looked. Even as he sat down, he perched on the edge of the sofa, jacket still on his back, hands shoved unnaturally into his pockets. He had put it down to stress with the move and inability to settle.
Perhaps he would have told you how this was the first time since Harry had told you both, that he had heard him speak of the big move in such a negative fashion. He could have told you Harry was hesitant, nervous looking, on edge, as if he had cold feet. But he doesn't, remember, because that would have been unfair to you.
He may have explained how he had told him to Calm down, relax, Harry. And persuaded him to Have a whiskey?
He then may have described how he had poured out the whiskey, perhaps a little more than a double, and handed it to Harry, and how they had sat in silence for a good 5 minutes, sipping occasionally. Harry had sat further onto the chair, but had almost completely folded; elbows on knees, white, tense fingers spread over the expanse of the whiskey glass.
Leo may then have told you how he had brought up the subject of you.
I thought you would have been at Nikki's… is what he had said. Perhaps you would have been hurt at Harry's reaction; squeezing closed his eyes and standing, walking to the window, his back to his boss.
Leo would have told you what Harry had said, or the rest of the story wouldn't have made sense.
Can we not talk about her, please?
He didn't question further, and another silence had descended. Leo would then have told you that it was Harry who finally spoke, into air thick with unspoken confessions, to no one in particular;
God I'm so stupid.
Perhaps you and Leo would have shared a laugh at this. He had breezed through medical school from what you could tell, landed himself with a first. He continued to impress in the working world so much so he specialised in pathology for more of a challenge. He instantly got a job at the Lyell centre, where the amount of papers he had contributed to, and the number of ground breaking scientific discoveries he had been part of were well into double figures by the time his immaculately hand-written letter of resignation found its way to Leo's desk. Harry Cunningham was anything but stupid.
Why? Leo had instantly questioned, perplexed.
Harry had turned then, and Leo had watched as he slumped back down into the sofa, like a defeated, weary warrior, head in his hands. She goes against everything I thought I believed, was spoken very quietly, muffled by his hands.
Leo had stayed silent, waiting for him to finish, and finish he had. Finally.
I've loved her since the very first moment I laid eyes on her.
Leo may have explained to you after that, Harry hadn't elaborated. Leo may have chosen to tell you his own understanding of Harry's words. He for one knew Harry's type; volatile, confident, sassy women, often curvaceous and brunette. Then along you had come and knocked him for six. And what could explain it? Fate? If so, that did indeed contradict everything he stood for. Science is about proof. Fate couldn't be proved.
Perhaps the fact itself that Leo kept this from you shows his weakness for you, especially when it came to your tragic, unsung love for your ruggedly handsome colleague. This softness of heart however, didn't stretch to the man in question.
Leo was nothing if not a gentleman, a ground breaking scientist, yes, but when it came to love, there was a certain old fashioned etiquette that should be followed.
Harry hadn't followed it.
Knowing him like you do, you could have guessed for yourself the tone he had used in his retaliation; you had long enough, Harry. It's not like you haven't had the chance, is it?
Maybe he would then have described to you, gently, how Harry had reacted, running a hand quickly through his hair and bursting out of his chair again. It had been as if he were possessed; carrying a heart so full of silent feelings had finally become too much for him to bear.
Or perhaps he would have just straight out told you what he said, word for word;
Do you remember when she first turned up at the lab? I do, because I couldn't think of anything else, to the point where I wasn't sure what I'd do if you'd kicked her out. Everything about her just…feels right! Even before I really knew her! I don't know how else to describe it! She's like…that millisecond just before you wake up on Christmas morning as a child…or…a firm handshake when you've helped an innocent man walk free or…that moment of stillness just after summer rain, when the streets gleam and everyone's gone indoors and the leaves on the trees look so fresh and relieved and everything is so fucking beautiful! That's what she feels like! To me! And I tried, Leo! I wanted to take it somewhere and then I screwed it up! But it was after that, after that she somehow became the most precious thing, the most breakable thing, and…just…she's so wonderful at falling and I'm…I'm just no good at catching.
And I wish that wasn't the way of it but it is, Leo, and I've already proved it. She deserves something so, so much more extraordinary than that. If she finds it with someone else, I mean 'really' finds it…then good. But my only aspiration in this life is to learn how to catch…just in case she doesn't.
Leo was a cultured man. He had been to many a good resurrection of a Shakespeare play. He could have told you that despite his decades of experience, in love, in life, in death, in heartbreak, that was the most profound thing he had ever heard. Never had he heard such truth, such passion and complete, unadulterated and unconditional devotion. He had expected it from play after book after wedding and had been disappointed each time. He hadn't expected it from a thirty-something bachelor, bed-hopping, pathologist from London.
He could have told you how, despite a tearful, fond goodbye, he had fallen asleep that night with a broad smile on his face, safe, secure in the knowledge that true beauty did exist in the world around him. Despite the war and suffering and death he saw on a daily basis, there was light, hidden away in the cracks of a fruitless human existence.
He could have left you standing in the middle of that little church in Acton, gawping and barely able to breathe; shocked, nonplussed and troubled by his words.
…instead he chose not to.