Apologies before we start, this is not the chapter many of you were hoping for; I claim in my defence: 'The course of true love never did run smooth.' Midsummer Night's Dream Act 1 Sc 1.

At least I know KiwiSWfan is with me on this…

Hope anyone getting results yesterday, got what they wanted. Good luck.


Chapter Twenty Seven

Sunday 30th June

Sundays at One

'…'

Nikki opened her eyes to bright sunshine; it took her a while to work out where she was. She was in her bed for once and if the clock said 11 then she must have had six hours of continuous sleep. Perhaps things were improving? If you could call sleeping between the hours of 5am and 11am improving. It was Sunday, her brain managed to recall. Maybe she'd go for a walk later.

She climbed reluctantly out of bed feeling somehow heavy, drugged almost. She'd gone for so long just snatching a couple of hours of sleep at a time that this long sleep had disoriented her and despite the sunny weather and the fact that she should be feeling better, she felt just as lethargic and weak as she did on the days when she'd not slept at all, worse perhaps.

She'd taken a shower and on finding fresh milk in the fridge sat down and ate some cereal. She didn't remember buying it. Maybe Jack had put it there when he picked her up a couple of days ago. He wasn't subtle but she did appreciate his thoughtfulness.

She tried to feel positive, but the more she thought about what she wanted to do on that bright and sunny day the more her mood plummeted.

She'd not been in contact with any of her girlfriends for months; most of the relationships had descended to cards on birthdays and the occasional email. She could facebook them but she had little interest in the number of children they all had and even less about their exotic holidays. Her depression since Leo's death, (she wasn't a fool and she wasn't kidding herself, she knew she was depressed) had driven even the friends that had tried to phone her away. Her goddaughter's mother had tried, at least they shared Leo's loss but she had a new baby and had everything to look forward to whereas Nikki had nothing.

Maybe she could call Jack.

Would she need an excuse?

She'd got tired of finding work related reasons to call him. Maybe she could thank him for the milk.

She switched on her laptop to check her messages and see if she could think of someone she could visit.

She'd not seen Anne for a while…

Nikki shook her head. It wouldn't be fair. That woman had dealt with enough tragedy in her life time; she didn't need any extra vicariously.

It would be good to talk to Harry, she thought, spinning the bottle of pills that had been on the table in her hand. He would understand she thought. It had been months. She could allow herself one conversation. She needed to find out the truth about his flat being up for sale. She looked at the clock in the bottom right hand corner of the toolbar on the screen. It was 12:55.

Would he be there?

He'd promised when she had returned to England that he would always be there, Sundays at one. Always waiting.

But he would have given up when she never contacted him. Wouldn't he? He wouldn't wait forever. It had been fifteen weeks since their weekend together. Three months was too long to wait.

He was happy in New York. She'd seen that.

That weekend they'd been together he had been happy, she had known it. It wasn't down to her being there. He had a great time with his friends, his own friends. He'd made something different happen and he was happy. The New York Harry was different to the London Harry, he took chances and sang in gay bars but he still hadn't taken any chances with her, and that had hurt.

The clock clicked nearer to one and she could feel her heart thumping in her chest as she opened her own Skype connection.

He wasn't online.

Any vestiges of positive thinking evaporated and she pushed the remains of her cereal away from her. So much for promises.

She waited.

Nothing changed.

Her disappointment was now replaced by rage. Trust no one; that should be her new motto. He was probably out shagging Candy. She cursed herself for her weakness. She should never have turned on the Skype, what had she been thinking? She'd avoided the computer every Sunday lunch time for exactly this reason. Her head hurt. Sleeping was over rated; it had just made her vulnerable, it had made her think she could handle a conversation with Harry.

What really did she have to say to Harry? It would only have descended into an argument about why he hadn't been there and there was no need to specify where THERE was. THERE. It was the final crack of the axe that had split them apart for good.

She knew his reasons of course, she'd read the first few emails before they made her too angry to look at and she knew in his mind they were good reasons but that wouldn't have meant that they couldn't have still had the most almighty row about it. Shouting at police officers wasn't anywhere near as satisfying as a decent fight with Harry.

She shut her computer down and was surprised to hear the doorbell. Maybe it was Jack coming round to restock her fridge.

"Hello Nikki," the man on the doorstep said as she opened the door.

The face in front of her was the one that had caused her such anger only seconds ago. Instead of improving her mood his sudden appearance at her front door precipitated her into a state of complete meltdown.

"You bastard!" she shouted and slammed the door in Harry's face.

She could see his outline through the bevelled glass windows. He wasn't moving and he certainly wasn't leaving.

"Nikki?"

"I just tried to Skype you," she called petulantly through the door.

"Sunday's at one!" Harry replied, checking his watch. "I got a cab straight here from the airport to make it in time. I'm only a few minutes late."

Nikki didn't answer; she was still in turmoil and hadn't actually processed the fact that it was Harry stood on her doorstep in London, despite slamming the door on him.

"Erm Nikki? You can slam the door on me again in a minute, but please can I borrow some money for the cab, my card didn't work in the machine at Heathrow and I'm all out of sterling. It just swallowed my card for no reason I don't know what the problem was. I was really careful with the pin number. Please can you lend me thirty quid? You can push it out the letter box if you wish but if you don't do it soon it'll be thirty five quid."

Nikki opened the door slightly and handed Harry her purse.

"Take what you need," she said and was surprised to see her arm shaking as she pulled it back round the door. She opened the door a tiny bit further then and watched Harry jog down the path and to retrieve his bags and pay the taxi driver.

He carried his bags back, placing them on the path outside her front door and handed her back her purse.

"Thank you, I'll pay you back." His face looked tired, more deeply lined than she remembered it, but she didn't dare look for long.

Nikki shrugged and stared at the bags on her doorstep. They were the same bags he'd left her house with the year before. The same ones she'd helped him pack and carry down her path and into her car before that awful trip to the airport.

"It was out of date," she blurted out, her whole world beginning to spin.

"Pardon?"

"Your bankcard was out of date,"

"Oh,"

"I've got your new one inside."

"Oh," Harry said again and pointedly looked at the half closed door. He stood in silence for a while. "Nikki? May I come in?"

She didn't reply but he saw the door open and Nikki step back to allow him to get through the door with his bags. She kept her face looking down at the floor. He couldn't read her expression. But he knew that his dream, the one where he'd had flown back, burst through her front door, swept her into his arms, kissed her and changed the world with one embrace was just a stupid fantasy. This was real life not Disney.

This was going to be much harder.

Much, much harder.

She'd not even said 'hello,' yet. Maybe all those months of not saying goodbye had rubbed off and now she'd deleted 'hello' from her repertoire too.

He put his bags down in the hallway and rubbed the scar on his forehead. 'You never believed in fantasy anyway,' he told himself.

"Hello Nikki," he repeated, hoping for a more favourable response this time. She had at least let him in the house.

"You are a complete bastard," she yelled her face to the wall, slammed the front door and turned back around and glared at him. Except she didn't quite glare at him, for some reason she glared at his left shoulder, not daring to raise her gaze to meet his eyes.


Silence: Elvis has left the building. Elvis Presley died today August 16th 1977, thanks for the music.

Poor Harry plunged into turmoil and confusion and silence. Without Jorge's lift music, Elvis won't be able to help Harry along anymore. And apologies to all expecting the 'Disney' ending, I just couldn't do it, we've all come so far and I appreciate every single one of you who has spent time reading this drabble but thought to do them justice they needed a bit more…So there's more to come, we will get there I promise. Besides KiwiSWfan is already planning the wedding… Feel free to yell at me, just press the review button first ; )