Harry got back to his house later that evening, as he stepped into the welcoming glow of the living room he couldn't help but grin when he saw Nikki. She was curled up on the sofa wearing a pair of jogging bottoms and an old t-shirt, her hair was tied up messily but in Harry's eyes she looked as gorgeous as she ever did

"Did Erin get back alright?" she said craning her neck to look at Harry as he entered the room, he made a noise of affirmation and sat down next to Nikki "You were gone a long time" she said resting her head on his shoulder

"We got stuck in traffic" he answered "Still it gave me and Erin a chance to talk"

"What about?" Nikki said looking up at him

"Her dad" Harry said playing with a strand of Nikki's hair "She's been dreaming about him a lot and I think it was upsetting her"

"Oh…" Nikki frowned as she listened to what Harry had to say

"I told her about my dad as well" Harry said breathing in Nikki's scent "It seemed to calm her down a bit"

"I forgot you two shared that in common" Nikki said "At least you both can talk about it together now, you understand what she's going through and she understands how you feel"

"I could always talk to you" Harry smiled

"If I remember correctly I had to directly ask you about it"

"Yes well we got there in the end" Harry kissed Nikki gently on the head "It made me think though…"

"Careful, that's dangerous" Nikki laughed

"Very funny" he said rolling his eyes "It made me think that time is too short and when we have something precious we have to act before it slips away from our fingers"

"You're becoming very whimsical in your old age" Nikki said and Harry poked her to make her squeal

"I'm serious Nikki" he said

"I know you are" she smiled and fell silent to let him continue

"And so I thought about how precious you are to me and how I don't want to waste a second of my time with you so I thought…I know we've rushed getting together and everything but I want us to get married soon"

"Really?" Nikki said sitting up hurriedly and Harry nodded

"I doubt we'd have time to plan a lavish occasion but…"

Nikki shook her head "That's more than fine, the idea of a big white wedding always felt a little cheap and tacky to me"

"Really?" the time it was Harry's turn to ask the question and Nikki nodded "Well that's good, so what do you think"

"The sooner the better" she said leaning up to kiss him

"Well Christmas is only a couple of weeks away now" he said looking at the calendar which read the tenth of December

"Christmas is far too tacky to have a wedding" Nikki said and Harry agreed "What about in the new year?"

"New year, new start" harry said and Nikki smiled

"Doctor Cunningham that almost bordered on poetic!"

"January's cold though" Harry mused

"Well I'm hardly going to be out there prancing around stark naked" Nikki retorted and Harry raised his eyebrows

"No" Nikki said firmly "Not even if you asked me to, I love you but not enough to get hypothermia!"

"Fair enough" he smiled "What's your favourite number?"

"What?" Nikki frowned, confused at the sudden change of subject

"What's your favourite number?" Harry asked again

"Erm… thirteen" Nikki replied after a moments deliberation

"Thirteen, unlucky for some"

"But not for me" she grinned

"The thirteenth of January it is" Harry said

"Our wedding day?" she questioned

"Our wedding day" he grinned

"We haven't even told Leo" she smiled

"Erin knows" Harry told her "I sort of let it slip"

Nikki shrugged "It was bound to happen sooner or later, you do have a large mouth and only a small amount of brains"

"Thank you Nikki" he shook his head "And I was very nice today and got you this" he pulled a small square box out of his pocket and passed it to her. She opened it and gasped when she saw a beautiful ring in the centre; it was silver with a small precious stone in the centre

"What do you think?" Harry said as he saw her reaction

"I think you need to get down on one knee and do it properly" she grinned and Harry sighed as he slipped off the sofa but Nikki could see the smile that played across his face


Leo got home later the evening; in fact it was so later it was almost better to say morning. The lights were turned off when he entered the house so he assumed that Erin was asleep and sure enough when he went to check on her she was curled up in her duvet fast asleep. He went back downstairs and into the kitchen, he rummaged around for some aspirin to sooth the pounding in his head; it had been a stressful day and the last case he had been working on had made his day a lot worse. Three bodies at the bottom of a river meant three post-mortems and even more paperwork. He'd been working at the lab until the early hours to try and get things sorted but when the headache had come on he'd given up and headed for home. As he put the tablets in the glass and watched them fizz when he added the water, he sank down into a chair. He hadn't been feeling great for the last couple of days, he'd tried to shrug it off as nothing, he was sure he might have picked it up off of Erin when she'd had the chest infection. But it was getting steadily worse, he'd tried to hide it away from Harry and Nikki who he knew would only fuss and he'd tried even harder to hide it away from Erin who had enough to deal with at the moment. He downed the contents of the glass and tried to ignore the nauseous feeling in his stomach, his limbs ached as he dragged himself upstairs and finally sank into bed where his eyes shut immediately


Erin's eyes snapped open and she looked across at the clock on her wall, the hands were pointing at four o'clock. It was still dark outside and nothing stirred in the house. Erin liked the early mornings, everyone was still asleep and it made her feel like she was the only person awake in the world. She climbed out of bed and started to go through her morning ritual, very quietly so as not to disturb Leo who she knew would be asleep for at least a couple of hours more. She crept downstairs and walked into the living room and stopped at the picture of Theresa and Cassie

"Good morning" she whispered to the photo

This was something Erin did every morning and something Leo didn't know. Each morning she'd come down and greet the photo; she knew Leo loved them very much and she was respectful of that and so this was her own little way of showing her admiration. She pottered about the house getting herself sorted for the day ahead and soon found herself absorbed in a drawing she hadn't finished yesterday. She was going to give this one to Harry when she next saw him; it was a drawing of the heart, she knew this was his specialist organ and so she'd borrowed one of Leo's medical textbooks and carefully copied it, it was going to be her little way of saying thank you for talking things through with her yesterday.

Eventually she looked up to stretch her neck and frowned as her gaze fell on the clock; it was nearing nine o'clock; for Erin to be absorbed in drawing for hours on end wasn't unusual but Leo still wasn't up. She knew he was always up by eight to leave the house by nine to go to work. Her first thought was that he had already gone but that soon went out of her mind; he would have said goodbye to her first. Her next answer was that it was his day off but she checked the events diary he logged things in and saw he had two meetings pencilled in for today so it couldn't be and anyway he would have told her. She went through different scenarios in her head until ten o' clock and she knew that she couldn't put it off any longer. She crept upstairs and knocked tentatively on the door

"Leo" she called but there was no answer, she called several times more but to know avail.

She pressed her ear to the door to listen for any sound but the whole house was silent. Making up her mind, she pushed open the door and nearly collapsed with fright when she looked into the room


"Leo's not here yet" Harry said and he and Nikki walked into the lad holding hands and going through their usual cheery banter

"It's not his day off is it?" she asked and Harry shook his head "Maybe he got a call out"

"He would have left a note"

"Maybe he's just late" Nikki suggested and Harry shrugged

They both sat down at their desks but both knew that it was not like Leo to be late, the clock read ten o'clock and both knew that Leo was usually there by half past nine. Just then Harry's phone rang in his pocket

"Doctor Cunningham" he said into the phone in an over-exaggerated professional manner that made Nikki role her eyes

He grinned across at her as he listened to the speaker but his facial expression soon changed as the conversation went on "Listen to me, just keep calm and I'll be there as soon as I can. I'm leaving right now so just hang in there for me" he said in an urgent tone

"Harry?" Nikki stood up as she saw Harry put on the coat he had just taken off and scrabble around for his car keys

"That was Erin" he said breathlessly "We have to go"

"We can't just leave the lab!" Nikki said now very worried about Harry's erratic manner

"Nikki we have to go now" he protested "It's Leo…"

The sentence was left hanging as both Nikki and Harry dashed out of the lab as fast as they could neither knowing what they would find.