"That's what lives on…
What will survive of us is love."
Okay, we're all very sensitive right now. I'm not gonna get into it because if I start ranting I won't stop and then I'll probably start crying so anyway. I hope to some extent Nikki thinks about these words and acts on them in the near future…
And so you look back on the past year of your life; things you have said, things others have said to you, conversations, moments, as if it had been your own death on that lonely little hill in Afghanistan.
It had been, in a way. The death of an era at least.
You look back, reflecting, and you notice how each of those little moments – that seemed to matter so little to you at the time – were in fact bound inexplicably to your life here. To the past.
And suddenly, it is as if everything had been leading to this, all along. All the hopes, the fears, the regrets, the missed-moments, the lost chances, the passionate dreams, the devastating realities, the turmoil, all seem to tie together with moments of your life, seamlessly, in a loop, leading to the same place.
It simultaneously fills you with a devastating bleakness and a burning, tingling hope.
The existence of fate is inevitable.
All those tiny slips. You had been too busy living them to see the undertone.
Thinking of it now, of course it could never have been mere chance; for Leo to leave you in the hands of such beautiful company;
Jack and Clarissa. The only people you have. The only ones who were there to pull you up when you slipped.
And yet they shouldn't have been the ones to prop you up and give you strength at the funeral, and you know that only too well.
Even they know that.
Suddenly, Jack is in front of you, holding out the phone receiver to you, that look of sheer determination, resolve on his chiseled features, as has been the case for the past fortnight; guiding you, telling you how it needs to be:
He has a right to know, Nikki.
You should have done it before. It should have been your first instinct to call him. Yet you had come home and stayed alone, at home, occasionally glancing at the phone.
You had spent a day, sleeves rolled up, with Jack, clearing out the office, top to bottom. Tomorrow you had thought. I'll call him tomorrow. The funeral came and went and you felt slightly angry again, as if he should have somehow known and come home to support you.
Punishment - Had you not left, you would have been here, wouldn't you? You would have known…
But today's epiphany has changed your outlook. Suddenly, you feel somewhat stronger. Suddenly, you know the true meaning behind your own words, spoken - to fewer people than it should have been - in a quiet church in Sheffield.
Leo would not have approved of your scoring points and bitterness.
So, Jack offers you the phone, and like always, you reject it;
No, Jack.
But for the first time, you offer an alternative;
Not like this…
For the first time in a long time, you see a slight glint in Jack's eye as you turn away, take back control, switch on your computer.
What are you doing? Question.
Booking a flight to New York. What would become a life changing answer.
And then and there you book a round trip to J.F.K. International for the following evening, the power of Leo's dazzling kind soul surging through your heart, rushing through your veins, down into your fingertips as you type. Because, after all,
What will survive of us is love.
You only book to fly out for a few days. Had you known the emotional impact those few days would have on you, on both of you, you may have chosen to stay longer.
You haven't seen him in a year. They won't let you into his office and so you watch, as if he were some sort of caged attraction, as his keeper enters his domain and quietly entices him out with news of the arrival of an ex-colleague. His office is like James' was, cut off from the world with a glass pane.
Then he looks out. Straight at you.
The tears come again.
Because you see the confusion on his face, not yet fear and you can't bear to look at him when you are about to give him news that will destroy him. It seems almost inconceivable, now. Only a week ago, you had been 3,500 miles away from each other, something you wouldn't have expected to change any time soon. Now, all that stands between you and him, the one great love of your life, is a single, thin glass pane.
Pain. You must look a mess, judging by his expression. You know you are pale, mottled, tired and weary looking, but he's seen you like that before. The difference now is the added content.
Desperation. He is the only person left.
He almost creeps through the doorway, as if your presence has resulted in the lobby being filled with blinding, burning sunlight and he is unsure how much of it he can take, how close he can get.
Becoming accustomed, he rubs his eyes and blinks a few times.
Your eyes are flooded, brimming and as you stand, you blink and the tears flow over, sticking to your eyelashes and wetting your cheeks. After that they keep coming. You can only just see him through the blur. You can see him enough to know he is no less handsome than when you last saw him. You can see him enough to know you don't have to speak. He is studying your face, fixated. So you simply stand, hands clasped, lips pressed tightly together, suppressing sobs as you watch the colour drain from his face, the sparkle dim in his eyes and he staggers back, clasping a hand over his mouth.
It is a rare gift; to be able to have a conversation without using one's mouth.
He is trapped, in a world he wishes to be a dream, where slowly but surely all he knew to be invincible and concrete is blown apart, literally, horrifically, terrifyingly blown apart. You, as the carrier, can only watch.
No.
Oh dear god no.
You don't see it – because your eyes are squeezed tightly shut as he crushes you to him – but you feel everything within him. How much he has missed you, how he has thought of you everyday since he left, his love for Leo, his connection – distance, differences, and continents aside – to the Thomas Lyell Centre and his colleagues, loves and dear friends within it. In fact, all the unspoken truths between you never need be disturbed now, you feel them all encased in that one embrace.
You hear him sob and you're not quite sure what to do. In situations when he has cried before, you have been solid, there for him to lean on, objective so to speak. This time, however, you are just as broken as he is. Consequently, neither of you strong enough to hold the other up, you both simply sink to the floor. The other people in the vicinity soon vacate after that.
Hands in hair, tears on cheeks, you stay like that for what could have been hours. Clinging desperately to one another.
You cry.
You cry until your lungs hurt. Like you've never cried before in your life, because you are with the only person in the world who knows this grief like you do. You gasp and heave and shake against his shoulder and his shallow breathing and tears dampen your neck. One minute you hold his cheekbones against your palms and tell him that you shouldn't cry for him, the next you are clinging to his chest, begging him to tell you that everything will be okay. He doesn't.
Then, you talk.
He wants to know it all, and doesn't seem to care that it so obviously hurts you to talk about it. So you play it over in your head, and it plays out much like it does when you close your eyes every night. Then you speak it aloud, with precision, diction and professionalism. You tell Harry how Leo had escorted Daniel from life, love, water, me…and held him away, held him there. I shouted to him. He just looked at me. He looked desperate, not scared. Determined. I was looking right in his eyes when it happened. He told me to run, Harry.
Another tear slides down his sun kissed cheek as his head falls back against his office wall. He smiles slightly, and swallows hard, the way he always had when he was nervous or about to say something important…or both.
I owe that man my life. He says to you, his voice raspy with the tears he has cried.
For a brief moment, you slip back into the comfortable banter you used to share with him.
Actually, you correct him, almost self-righteously, if it hadn't been for his bravery, I would be the one never to see the light of day again!
Exactly. He replies, his eyes boring deep into your soul, so intense he makes you blush. I owe him my life.
Then, you kiss.
Though not at first. To begin with, it is more a case of lips against lips, eyes firmly closed as if braced, breathing, existing, the only movement being your slowly intrepid hands, and his, as they clutch.
Clothes, hair, skin.
It is almost like leaving a well-lit house, to walk deep into vast countryside at midnight. It takes you both a while to become accustomed; there is a sense of unease in your ragged breaths, unsure of what lies ahead, something that could be dangerous and pleasurable in equal measure. In the end it is you that initiates actual kissing, softly pressing your teeth to his bottom lip. But he doesn't seem to mind.
You kiss him rather a lot, and when you try and stop he pulls you back. For a while, you allow yourself to give in to him, and in an attempt not to panic, you focus on showing him how much you love him; losing all sense of the rest of the world because in the end, what does any of the rest of it really matter? Work, money, death...
And for the rest of the evening, not a word need be spoken, although he takes you gently by the hand and leads you the short walk to his apartment, a lot of staring and touching and close proximity seems to more than make up for the absence of words. You don't question or doubt him when he dares to take it further still, slowly unbuttoning the front of your dress as your chest heaves slightly under his fingers.
It is slightly strange because had it happened in any other circumstance you would stop him. You would tell him that despite everything it is still too soon and that the two of you should ease each other into this gently. But Leo is dead and you need to be loved, in any sense at all and quickly before you forget how it feels entirely, which would surely result in your own demise.
What will survive of us is love.
So, tonight, you let him save your life.
You are almost the same as you once were. You and Harry. Harry and You.
The difference being you are now one ally down.
He still makes you laugh, just as he had before, only now he hungrily swallows down your mirth with deep, sensual, languid kisses that daze you no end. Now, when he looks at you in that way, you unabashedly look back.
Almost a whole day has passed and you have been naked in his arms ever since, in his bed. In the short time he has left you - to take care of a few things, he said - you have slept heavily; catching up on all the sleepless nights since you witnessed Leo's death. When he returns, his body is a totem for your own, cold and slender and shaking. His solidity clears your head and allows you to be present.
He asks, do you know how beautiful you are? His fingertips on your bare hip remind you of how tightly he was able to wind you, until you were almost screaming, a mixture of torture and love-making, with a rhythm so intense it became impossible to beat, ruining you for anyone's attention other than his.
You counteract him with your own question and you shock yourself at how vulnerable you sound; where do you want this to go, Har?
I want to be able to tell you how beautiful you are anytime I like. His words are spoken between kisses, or perhaps the kisses are between words. Either way, his confidence spurs on your own as he moves above you, you catch his cheek in your hand running a tender hand over his stubble;
Just come home, Harry.
From what you knew of yourself – ironically, very little – you had never seen yourself as clingy.
But you saw him differently now.
How could you not? Now you know what he is capable of doing to you, how he can make you feel, you see him in a new, almost holy light.
And that is why the following turn of events has the capability to turn everything on its head. Your pent up feelings for him are like one thousand sticks of dynamite strapped to his chest and this time, Daddy isn't here to escort him away from you.
He laughs. He laughs and rolls back onto the mattress, leaving you frowning questioningly, feeling ever so slightly embarrassed.
Please tell me you know things aren't as simple as that? He encourages, and you say nothing.
Nikki, I can't just drop everything here –
He starts to explain but you cut him off, cold and curt and you can immediately see that he doesn't know how to react. You have lost track of who is attacking who, and that was always a bad sign with the two of you. That was usually the point where you lost control.
- Well, you managed fine before!
Oh for Christ sake that is not the same thing! I planned coming here Nikki!
Ah yes. So you did. Suddenly the anger is back. The anger you felt at the funeral, the anger you felt the days following his departure.
But this time, it has an extra sting. You are taken back, to your dark, damp, temporary second home in South Africa, your Mother watching as you open your final Christmas card and freeze for a moment, before ripping it up in a fiery temper, throwing it to the floor and stamping, crying. You feel the same raw, stabbing, aching, burning pain you felt all those years ago. You were just twelve years old, you didn't have the capacity to hate. That made it so much harder.
Night after night spent crying for him, sobbing and praying for him to just come home. You would forgive him, you could love each other again. You just needed to be held…
Happy Christmas Niks
Love Dad x
If you loved me, you'd come home! You wail it all out before the words have even been processed in your head.
You don't even regard his nakedness when he steps out of bed, pulling on some soft-material trousers, shocked and hurt by your words. You can see his thoughts through his eyes; he sees you as an intelligent, diligent, independent, strong woman.
And he isn't going to understand his time.
Oh no, he shakes his head at you, his eyebrows lowering and his neck straining as his jaw clenches. You know what? These childish, guilt trips might have worked on Leo without fail, but they will NOT work on me! The wild anger seems to take over him like a crashing wave through his conscious, until he barely seems able to think anymore. Still, you are not afraid of him. You think about moments last night when you had made him wild and unable to think for other reasons…
Yet, that all seems forgotten, paling into shattering insignificance as you listen like an onlooker, your voices one after the other; back and forth, hurtling at dangerous speed towards what was now an inevitable conclusion;
It's what he would have wanted! You're the only person who could ever even begin to know how to run that place!
But it's not about him, is it? It's about you! That's what you want! Nikki, of course I love you, but I'm done with the Lyell centre!
I can't do this without you! I can't be on my own!
They've already offered me the job, AND I SAID NO!
He takes a shuddering breath of air and you both fall silent. So much emotion had gone into your roaring you have tears in your eyes again; your face is most likely flushed. When you speak again, you are on the brink of collapse, your voice shaking and weak. You shrug, nonchalant. So why am I even here, then?
Oh come on, Nikki, you didn't come all the way over here to 'bring me home, to take up the throne' or – He stops dead when he sees your face - …you did. Right. Fine. Of course you bloody did. Fucking hell…
Even the low grumble of planes taking off overhead doesn't curb the silence that inevitably descends when he kills the engine.
He doesn't seem angry anymore. You, however, have lost all bearings, resigned to the fact that you will never have anyone that you can rely on completely, thus leaving you with two choices;
Die. Be weak.
Or keep going. Be strong.
You quickly chose the latter, changing your flight to six hours earlier than planned, packing up what little you had removed from your case, and he drove you to the airport and all the while you are making lists, planning in your head, who you would need to talk to, the documents you would need to read and sign,
When you took over Leo's job.
Nikki…He says it in such a feeble and weak tone that you don't wait to hear anymore. You open the car door - he doesn't try and lock it - walk to the boot, open it, haul out your case, slam the boot shut and walk towards the airport entrance without so much as a goodbye.
He didn't try and lock the car, or get out and run after you…you can't quite decide if you had wanted him to or not…Perhaps it was better like this. Otherwise, he would have simply given you a half-hearted apology; I'm sorry. Friends? Something shallow, thoughtless and equally as upsetting as the previous conversation that he would be supposedly apologising for. Because he wouldn't mean it. Sorry? He wasn't.
You couldn't have waited to hear it, lies, strung together with little terms of endearment from last night;
Sweetheart. Angel. Princess.
Each one so very foreign when spoken from his lips, to you, and yet they had the ability to make you feel inexplicably wanted, protected, loved in a way you never have before. Terms of endearment made not for a grown woman but for a small girl, perhaps despite her lack of adult integrity to appreciate what the words really meant.
It's a miracle.
It's an absolute, godsend. A wonder, a marvel, a dream.
Professor Leo Dalton is looking out for you.
By rights it shouldn't be; this is not the time, nor is it the place. It puts each and every one of your plans on hold, or perhaps destroys them completely. You are on your own and it hadn't been part of your life itinerary that you have kept to so strictly for so long.
But you hadn't realised how much you wanted it until it became reality.
Jack and Clarissa are in cahoots as always at his desk when you click past in your heels, grabbing your bag and coat on the way past from the open office, a satisfied, excited smile adorning your features.
Ay! Bosses aren't allowed to skive off! Jack has become more spirited of late, the dust was beginning to settle, a few months along, although the vast emptiness left by your mentor was far from filled. Standing in for him was harder than you had anticipated and coping with the workload while maintaining an upbeat atmosphere was difficult. You weren't suited to it. Leo hadn't moulded you for it. Harry had always been the one to step up when Leo was out of the picture, you know he struggled too, he had told you as much, and yet he had always handled it with dignity and an air of extremely attractive assertiveness.
Yes. As long as Harry Cunningham walked the earth, that job would never have been yours, anyway. Never mind.
Oh, and Professor Alexander?
He's teasing you now, though you know he is happy for you, they both are. They've seen you hit rock bottom in the past few months and it was their hands that had grabbed you, pulling, lifting and hauling you out from the black cavern that had threatened to consume you. They smiled at their own handiwork.
I took a call earlier from the Principal, says she wants to speak to you about having you in charge around here…I'd give her a call back sooner rather than later.
Your reply is simple; I don't want it anymore.
What!?
The job. Leo's job. I can't take it.
Why?
Almost in sync, the two of them frown at you. You're sure they'll understand, eventually, that this simply isn't what you want, that what has happened is, yes, unconventional, but it's what you want. More than anything. You can't take on the Professorship.
Other things now have to take priority, because, after all,
What will survive of us is love.
And that is the legacy Leo has left you; not his job or his title, but something infinitely more important and now that you have the opportunity to, you vow to protect it and live by it to the very best of your abilities.
I think I'm having a baby.
You state, very matter-of-factly. Of course, the scientist in you tells you to remember that it is not certain. You haven't even taken a test yet but still…
You just somehow know.
You leave your work colleagues in their state of shock, smiling because you enjoy being an enigma, and more so because you believe in the butterfly effect. Science or not, every action has an equal reaction as so there will never be anything to worry about. You know when you speak to the home office and the university they will be reluctant to hire someone who is planning on buggering off seven months down the line.
Does science really feel? Yes. If you let it. Love and magic exist and perhaps they are the reason science itself exists. The university will contact a greying professor in New York and tell him they are nearing their wits end trying to find a replacement, What with Nikki, pregnant, and his heart will almost stop.
Moving on, it can be made simpler; sometimes, letting go of the merry-go-round of your life and allowing it to spin freely means things come full circle right before your eyes. Without doubt, you know he will come back to you then, walking through the glass doors in a suit and tie and taking up the seat that was left shaped for him; nothing to do with you, and everything to do with him, of course.
It is only human to feel embarrassed to say the nice things that we think…or to hear them, and yet sometimes words just aren't needed when you have a connection. He won't apologise, and you won't ask him to, but as he sits down at his desk and straightens out his suit sleeves, he will wink at you and you will smile back through the glass, eulogies aside.
You'll take his things through to him at the end of the day, tell him you'd looked after them and he'll tell you it would have been impossible for him to stay away any longer. And you'll forget about James and any other men pale into insignificance. He is the only thing that will ever be good for you.
And when baby Leo Cunningham is brought shivering into the world, gasping for air to fill his brand new lungs, you will cling to him and even at his christening you won't let go, because this is your turn now.
And every night for the rest of your life you will fall asleep with a smile on your face and a tear in your eye and you will think about your father figure of ten years and thank him. Because of him, you are still a believer. In love.
That's what lives on…What will survive of us is love.
Now, the ending is deliberately sort of...weird. It is Nikki looking into the future she may have, but all of it is based around the previous quotes from chapters of this story - which is now FINISHED. Partly because it's bloody draining and partly because the series is over! No more quotes! –
So, I'll leave it up to you to decide the ending for yourself. Do the fluff lovers among you trust and believe in Nikki and think that this is how things will pan out for her? And do you angsty gremlins think this is just Nikki losing her marbles having been rejected by everyone she has ever leant upon; her slip into insanity. After all, there is only so much sadness one person's sanity can take, surely! I'd love to hear what your thoughts are in a wee review!
I did leave it open ended though, so I can maybe follow on in series 17 (aaaahhhhh!) if it feels like the right thing to do!
Anyway, I'll leave you now, hope you enjoyed, thank you for all the support with this over the last month or so, really, I've been blown away! You guys really give me that wee boost that makes every day that little bit brighter!
Love and slightly creepy fanfic endings,
D.A. xxx
p.s. here's a wee disclaimer because I haven't done one for a while. I don't own anybody...just the concept!