Chapter 2

He'd slept fitfully after that, a hotch-potch of images from times they'd all been together, swirling in his mind. Laughing in the lab. Out for a drink together with everyone else. It'd never been just the two of them. As if she was always wary, distrustful… of him? Maybe just herself?

He'd know the circumstances of his appointment to the Lyell. One man's sacrifice was another man's promotion. He'd seen it very clinically at the time. He'd been prepared to work hard, really get to grips with the many facets of the role. But, oh, how she had despised him. Those looks she had given him. He'd not understood the enormity of her grief. It was only now when he'd seen the pattern repeated over and over in the time he'd known her. Love and loss, love and loss, love and loss. That he had begun to understand. Love and loss; it was all she'd ever known.

Why had he kissed her?

He wasn't the hugging kind. She was his colleague. They had reached a level of acceptance between them since those early days. But this was a step into the unknown and it made him… made him… nervous? Vulnerable? No… Fearful.

And what about Nikki?

She was buried under the ground and he was trapped in a metal box doing what? Flying in to rescue her? That definitely wasn't his job, his style, his department. What had possessed him?

The department! That was a joke. Clarissa currently was the whole department! It was a good job she was a master at what she did and could tell a smooth lie if required. He hoped there wasn't an emergency alert. It wouldn't look good to have three members of the Lyell Centre staff indisposed.

How had Leo Dalton taken them all to Afghanistan that time? How had Leo swung that? Although he suspected that once Leo had made up his mind to go, Nikki had resolutely refused to let him go on his own and Jack? Jack had been new, but for all he didn't understand about the man. Jack wasn't stupid and he would have wanted to prove himself and not be left out of the party. Had Clarissa run the show single handedly then too?

He checked his phone on auto pilot forgetting it was switched off. He put it back in his pocket and sighed. Three more hours until they landed, and three more hours until he had to turn it back on.

What would the news be?

Jack telling him, he was too late?

Or no message at all. Would that be worse?

Or yet another message from Professor Cunningham.

His voicemail would probably be full. That man was nothing if not persistent. He hadn't told him Nikki was missing. Jack certainly wouldn't have. How had he known?

He eased himself out of his seat and made his way back past the last couple of rows of seats to the toilet.

Nikki.

He stretched his cramped legs as he waited for the cubicle to become free. He tried to smile at the cabin crew, but they were all busy. He checked his watch and pulled at his collar again. He felt sick. He could feel his forehead sweating and the prickling sensation at the back of his neck.

What was he going to tell Harry? How had he even known?