Bumper edition today, still three but all quite long. This one's a bit left field, I'd love to know if you think I've pushed too far or if it's ok.
Chapter Forty
Thursday 4th July
You've Changed
But there was no stopping Nikki now. "Why?" she shouted. "Because I really hate you, that's why you should be angry at me! That's why you should hate me! And why aren't you angry at the Taliban, at Leo for going, or the mess that is Afghanistan and every other stupid injustice in the world?"
"Because if I was Nikki I would never make it out of bed in the morning, or I'd have had a vodka and Valium cocktail years ago! What is the matter with you?"
"I don't get it!" she said brusquely. "This new you, you're all calm, collected. I don't know if I know you anymore?"
"Don't be ridiculous. Of course you know me. I'm exactly the same as I was."
"That's not true. You've changed."
"A year's gone passed Nikki, of course we've changed, we've both changed and Leo's death has changed us as well but you do know me!"
"I don't," she insisted.
"What and making me lose my temper and shout at you is going to make that better? You think you'll see something you recognise then do you? Nikki what the hell is the matter with you?"
"I'm just so angry Harry, I'm so angry and I don't see any of that in you. How is that possible? I thought I knew you and now I just don't know."
"I had plenty of time to be angry," he said his voice low but full of passion. "I've been angry since a week before you even left on that stupid mission AND I told Leo so. He should have realised he had no business in that place. You should have known too. And Jack seems like a sensible bloke in a crazy kind of way. He'd have known it was likely to be a fight. Maybe that's why he went." Harry broke off and gave a half laugh.
"But the rest of you! You should have known better. I WAS angry then, Nikki, I was livid! With you and with Leo but YOU weren't talking to me. You never knew how angry I was because you weren't speaking to me! You say you don't know me now but you were the one that didn't return my calls, my texts or my emails, how were you supposed to know me if you ignored my very existence for three months? Tell me that Nikki!" He was shouting now and he knew it, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest, but she had started this and despite appearances to the contrary he hadn't lost control yet. He screwed his hands up into fists.
"That wasn't anger, that was fear!" she sneered.
"Don't you tell me what I was feeling," he bit back.
"You want to know what I'm angry about most?" she asked.
Harry didn't reply, but didn't lose eye contact with her. She'd started the fight by telling him she hated him, he might as well hear the whole lot. He'd wanted her to open up to him, this wasn't what he was anticipating but it was talking and there was no doubt that she was being honest.
She moved around the boxes and took a step closer to him. "You know what I've wanted most since all this happened? So I wouldn't be here dealing with all this shit?" She gestured around the room but Harry understood she wasn't really talking about the physical house clearance. "I wished that you had come with us," she spat.
"Nikki?" Harry asked nonplussed.
"I wish that you were the one that died and not Leo," she pointed her finger at him and took another step forward. She was stood right in front of him now, closer than she'd been since his return. He saw pain in her eyes and something else, something dark and totally consuming.
"Why wasn't it you?" she yelled the sudden change in volume breaking the funereal silence that had hung upon the house, and to Harry's surprise she brought her fist down hard on his chest. It was almost strong enough to knock him off his balance but he stood his ground, his hands by his sides.
"I could easily hate you," she thumped him again but still Harry didn't back off. "Then I wouldn't be in this mess," she jabbed her right fist into his stomach. "Losing you wouldn't have hurt this much," her left fist crashed into his chest. "Then I could stop being angry at you, because there'd be no one left to be angry at and I could stop feeling angry with myself for hating you and wishing you were dead. I want Leo back! I want things to go back as they were before. I don't want you. I don't even know who you are? I want Leo!" She cried, all the while her fists flailed against Harry's chest and shoulders. He hadn't retaliated at all, but as her shouts reached a crescendo he grabbed both of her wrists, almost lifting her off the floor and put her down at arm's length away from him but didn't loosen his grip on her wrists.
"You don't want me dead," he said evenly, despite feeling anything but calm. She had a pretty mean punch and she wasn't holding anything back.
"Don't you be so sure," she replied menacingly.
"Then why are you here now helping me?" he cried shaking her arm's for emphasis. He saw her open her mouth to reply but no words came out. She twisted her wrists in his hands to break free of him, but he held on tightly, he wasn't going to let her hit him again.
But Nikki had other ways of fighting and she stared back at him defiantly. "I can't be angry with Leo, I can't be angry at some faceless Taliban pawn, there's no one over there I can be angry with except you and I can't control it anymore. I know how to be angry at you! I wish it had been YOU! Leo would have known what to do. He would have been able to help me. You'd left me anyway. You've been gone so long. Why couldn't it have been you? I want him back," her voice had taken on a more desperate sound. "I want Leo back!"
"Nikki, Leo has gone. He's not coming back." She stood blankly staring at him, her wrists still in Harry's hands as he willed her to understand the unstated completion of his sentence, before he gave her hands a final shake and let go of her. His mind wandered back to the conversation he'd had with his friends earlier, Beto would have told him to 'stop wasting time and get on with it.' It wouldn't have taken much to have pulled her towards him, rather than push her away. Wasn't that another classic movie end? The one where the hero and heroine have an amazing bust up and mid-fight he grabs her; holds her tight, kisses her hard until she stops trying to escape and finally reciprocates. One look at the fury and agony etched on Nikki's face would burst that fantasy bubble. She was more likely to knee him in the groin than kiss him back, besides it wasn't an attractive look. He hated seeing her this close to the edge, the fringes of her sanity being devoured by her anger.
"We would never have all gone to Afghanistan together," he began to explain more quietly. He wasn't even sure if she was listening but he had to cover the aching silence somehow.
"If I hadn't have left the Lyell," he continued. Leo would have already left; he'd probably have gone to Afghanistan on his own! Do you think that would have been better? He probably still would have got himself killed but he wouldn't have had you there with him. He wouldn't have had you there looking out for him the way you did, watching his back, with him right to the end. You think if I was there Leo wouldn't have been blown up? Or are you still hoping it was me in his place? I suppose you think I would have been too wrapped up in my own pain to have missed the chance of stopping us both from joining him. Is that really what you wanted? For us all to get blown apart with him?" He paused to look at her face, confusion played across her eyes where rage had been only moments before. "You do realise Jack saved your life just as much as Leo did! Don't you?"
Her outburst over, she started listening to Harry's words. She'd never really thought of it like that before. Jack had saved her life. She'd never thanked him. Two hot tears ran down her face and she felt herself begin to tremble. What had she said? What had she done?
"Harry?" she began in a wobbly voice and tentatively took a step towards him.
"So you wish I was dead," he said sadly but stepped back from her advance.
"I'm still so angry Harry; I needed you with me at his funeral. I needed you and you let me down."
"I did," Harry admitted. "I let you down, and I'm sorry. It took me too long to see something I should have noticed from the beginning."
"Which was?"
"You have to stand up for what you believe in, no matter what the consequences. Leo knew how to do that."
"Harry?"
"I'm sorry Nikki. I should have been there for you and I wasn't. I would do anything to make it up to you, but I realise I can't. I am sincerely sorry."
She looked up at him then, he did look sorry. More than sorry, shaken up.
"I'm sorry," she stuttered to a stop only now truly becoming aware of what she had done. "For what I said just now. For what I did. I'm….It's…"
"Hey, I know, it's grief," Harry said roughly. "You rescued me from Tesco metro the other day remember? I know. I do."
She put one hand forward and brushed it gently down the front of his shirt, as if to soothe away her blows of earlier. Her tears were coming thick and fast now.
"Harry, I'm sorry. I'm a mess. I'm so sorry." She gasped out between sobs. He let her cry for a while before awkwardly pulling her against him.
"Shh, now," he whispered into her hair. "It's probably too soon to be doing all this."
"This?" she asked looking up at him, a distant memory playing in her mind.
Harry shook his head and she replaced hers on his shoulder, "Clearing out the books. Do you want to go?" he asked.
He felt her nod against him.
They stood amidst the boxes arms around each other, but there was none of the closeness that Harry remembered. She had her head bowed, so only her crown reached his shoulder, their bodies as distant as their fractured relationship. He had been as direct as he could, told her and written to her that he wanted to be with her and she had said she wished him dead. If that were true his new grand plan wasn't going well, but he was not giving up without a fight.
They stood together unmoving, long after her sobs had stopped. He smoothed her hair with his hand, but didn't dare kiss her as he would have before, in a way he could cope with her saying she wished he was dead, but for her to pull out of his arms or shrug off a kiss would be more than he could bear.
"Come on now," he soothed.
She sniffed and he wiped her cheeks with his thumb.
"I was thinking of driving up to Sheffield on Sunday, would you like to come with me?" Harry asked. "I could take you out to lunch somewhere."
"Sunday at one?" she asked sardonically but gave him a weak smile.
"Please?"
She sniffed again but nodded.
"You alright?"
She wiped a hand across her eyes. "No," she said truthfully. "You?"
"Not really."
"I'm sorry,"
"Me too."
"Are you going home?" he asked.
She nodded.
He held her to him a tiny bit closer before letting go and said, "Ok then," She picked up her bag and made her way towards the study door.
"Thanks for offering," Nikki said cryptically over her shoulder.
"What to take you out to lunch?" She shook her head again. Now she had moved away from him she had gone back to gazing at the floor. He wished he could hold her again and tip her chin up with his hand. "For offering what?"
"To make up that dance."
"Oh,"
"I'm not ready yet," she admitted.
"I know," he replied. "I'm not either."
They stood staring at each other across the room, neither willing to move.
"But you might be one day?" he asked.
"I should go," Nikki said half-heartedly.
"I won't wait forever," he said darkly.
Just then the oven timer went off.
They stood listening to the incessant beeping from the kitchen.
"You hungry?" Harry asked finally breaking the deadlock.
"No," Nikki replied.
"Me neither."
They stood still, caught in the silence between them; but with the oven timer still screaming for attention from the kitchen.
"It's ready now, you could eat it anyway, or I could put it in a pot, you could take it with you."
"I… I?"
"Nikki just eat some food and we'll talk on Sunday, how does that sound?"
She nodded mutely.
He thought she would take the food back out in the garden, to be as far away from him as she could but she sat across from him at the table, the only noise coming from Leo's kitchen clock. Nothing more was said until she went to the door.
"Sunday at one's a bit late for a drive to Sheffield" she called as she pulled the door open.
"Sunday at nine thirty better?" Harry asked and he saw her nod her head. She'd not answered his question about the dance, but she'd not left either and she had initiated the conversation about it, it would take time he would just have to try and be patient.
