ANYTHING TO MAKE YOU STAY
Chapter 1 Disclaimer: Silent Witness is property of the BBC. I don't own anything. Author's Note:I haven't written anything new in years! This is the first time I've ever written anything for Silent Witness, as I mainly used to write Doctor Who back in the David Tennant years. *sob* Please feel free to let me know what you think! They've called in at Harry's flat after work because the builder had said, 'Reckon you're good to go back in, mate, if you need to. It's still gonna be upside down for a while, though.' There's a strong, vinegar-like smell of fresh grout and new plaster and there's a layer of powdery-white dust on every surface. There are mucky footprints all over his kitchen floor and there is a bucket of paint beside his kettle. The builder was right, Harry concedes, as he wanders through his cold flat, eating his 'dinner', (which is actually just a cereal bar) the place is a complete mess. He rejoins the unimpressed-looking blonde standing in his bedroom, and no, the fact that there should be any woman in his bedroom looking unimpressed is not sitting very nicely with his ego at all; let alone that the woman is Nikki. 'What do you think?' he asks her, snapping off half of his Nutri-Grain bar and handing it to her, before mimicking her pose and standing with his arms crossed, surveying his building-site bedroom Nikki takes a careful bite out of the proffered cereal bar before answering him, still with a critical frown on her face. 'I think, Harry, that there is a cold tap on your pillow.' Harry looks at the pile of debris which used to be his bed. Sure enough, he can quite clearly see the blue circle in the middle of a chrome-silver tap handle that is perched on what used to be his pillow. 'And,' she continues, after another mouthful of cereal bar. 'You've got a skip's worth of rubble on your bed. Where exactly were you intending on sleeping?' 'Just call me Mr. Flintstone,' he jokes, feebly, poking at half a brick with his foot. Nikki raises her eyebrows and marches away from him, to the doorway, clicking the light switch on. The room remains bleak and shadowy. The only light is coming in through the window, from the mid-evening sky outside. 'No electricity,' she announces, pointedly. 'Have you got any water?' She doesn't wait for him to answer before she has left the room and is picking her way around the bathroom. 'No,' he admits, under his breath, because he has actually already checked… 'No!' she calls triumphantly from the next room, her voice slightly muffled. He can hear her fiddling with the taps on the sink. She edges her way back into the room and faces him with her hands on her hips, looking very beautiful, and very impatient. He's bewilderingly reminded of when he used to get told off at school for pulling a practical joke. 'Harry, you don't seriously think you can move back in, do you?' she demands, brusquely Harry shrugs and for some reason he's finding it very difficult to look Nikki in the eye. He decides he'll look at his newly-pasted together wall for as long as he can get away with. 'Well I can't just keep staying at yours, can I?' he murmurs, quietly. Awkwardly, even. 'Why ever not?' she asks her brown eyes wide, voice full of surprise. She shakes her head at him, as if it is quite the most ridiculous thing she has ever heard him say and heads towards the front door. But not before sending an amused, smirk over her shoulder at him. Harry stands there for about twenty seconds, mentally arguing with himself, the image of her crinkled, smiley eyes looping around his brain and then obediently follows the clip-clip of her high heels. Nikki's waiting for him in the car, her eyes determinedly focused on something in her rear-view mirror, yet not actually looking at anything. 'You don't mind staying with me, do you?' She asks him as soon as he opens the passenger door, before he can even put his bag of (more) clothes in the footwell, before he's even sat down. Harry chuckles as he gets in and rubs a hand over his unshaven jaw, before spotting the undisguised concern in Nikki's eyes. He instantly stops laughing. 'Hate it,' he replies in a dead-pan voice. 'I can't bear it,' he continues, his eyes twinkling as he sees that small flicker of vulnerability in her eyes melt away. 'You're absolutely the worst flatmate I've ever had.' With your…infestation of head lice,' he continues, talking over her giggles. 'And your visitors at 3 o'clock in the morning.' Nikki smiles at him. He smiles back, for no reason other than he can't seem to help it. 'I love it,' he corrects her, sincerely, no trace of sarcasm in his voice this time. 'Thank you. Again,' he says, stiltedly, 'For letting me stay.' As casually as he can, he leans over and kisses her temple, trying very hard to keep his breathing quiet. Nikki closes her eyes at the contact, her lips curling up at the corners and when she opens them again…the pathologist in him notices that her pupils are dilated. Ah. For three seconds he merely looks at her, allowing her eyes to bore into his. 'I like having you to stay,' she tells him, simply. 'Course you do,' he replies as she starts the engine. 'I'm rather spectacular at doing the dishes, did you not know?' A few weeks later Harry is at his desk in the middle of the afternoon, having just finished the PM of a girl called Leanne Bennett, a twenty-four year old dancer who was stabbed to death on a night out. He is typing up his report, engrossed in his writing, occasionally flicking back through his earlier hand-written notes for reference. Well, as engrossed as he can be, having been working for a solid eleven hours. He recognises the familiar Miss Dior perfume as Nikki enters the office, before he even hears her hurried footsteps behind him. "Patients' Records Office at UCLH has sent over the medical notes you requested,' she tells him, dropping a heavy-looking brown paper parcel in front of him. 'I think there's a set that I'm after in amongst them, actually,' she adds hopefully 'Thanks,' he replies, not looking up from his computer screen. 'Darling?' he says, putting on an overly posh, clipped English accent like a BBC newsreader from the 50s. 'I shall be late home this evening. Dreadfully sorry.' Nikki, who is ripping the packaging off the tightly-wrapped bundle, raises an eyebrow in his direction, but like Harry, does not look up from what she is doing. "Because of this night club case? I thought you'd nearly finished?' Harry does look up, then. 'You mistake me, my dear,' he tells her earnestly, still in a plummy accent. "I shan't be working. I'm meeting a rather striking woman I had the pleasure of talking to at a crime scene last week.' Nikki's hands still and she looks up, completely taken-aback, her mouth falling open slightly, before her look of surprise is replaced with a flash of hurt and then finally settles on embarrassment. 'Which crime scene?' she asks, lightly, her voice far too casual. She returns her attention to the now-unwrapped medical notes and starts turning them over so that they're the right way up, sorting out which ones are for her and which ones are for Harry. 'The OD in Knightsbridge,' he says, simply, taking Leanne Bennett's medical notes off Nikki. 'Thank you.' But he doesn't open the notes; he's just watching Nikki, trying to gauge her reaction. He is half-smiling, his gaze intent, waiting for her to respond. It's a risk. He knows it's a risk. It's just that they've been having so much of a laugh, playing Mr and Mrs for the past few weeks, plus their regard for each other's personal space has dwindled so much that it is more or less non-existent. She's a very clever, very brilliant woman is Nikki Alexander. So why it seems to be taking her so long to process this is anybody's guess, really. He can almost hear the cogs in her brain whirring. Because… 'You weren't talking to a woman at the Knightsbridge scene,' she insists, shaking her head in confusion. 'You were with me. Trying to wind-up DCI Redfern and avoiding doing anything else remotely productive or helpful.' Harry quite pointedly doesn't say anything. The lab suddenly feels very quiet for a moment. He can hear the gentle humming of his computer, and still he hasn't taken his eyes off Nikki. 'Ah, yes,' he agrees, thoughtfully, as if Nikki has just pointed out something that he hadn't noticed. 'So I was.' Nikki continues to stare at him as if he's lost his mind. He raises his eyebrows meaningfully, and inclines his head at her, his lips slightly parted. Waiting. Ah. Realisation. Here it comes… Nikki smiles and her cheeks go faintly pink. 'Pass me that file back, please,' she orders, gesturing at the patient's file she has just given him, a mischievous look on her face. 'No!' he says incredulously, clutching it to his chest, away from her outstretched hand and laughing. 'Why not?!' 'Why? Because you're going to hit me on the head with it!' he says, sounding mildly affronted.' 'And that is a blatant and serious misuse of confidential medical records. I can't let you do that, I'm afraid.' Nikki rolls her eyes at him and giggles, again, looking so naturally and unobtrusively happy that he just can't seem to look away. 'Where are we going?' she asks, a cross between suspicion and excitement dancing in her eyes. 'I've got work to do,' he says, importantly, once again talking in his normal voice, avoiding her question and turning back to his computer with a self-indulgent smirk on his face. 'Go away.' 'Harry!' she half-laughs, half-whines. 'Tell me?' 'The stab wound,' he reads aloud from his report as he is typing it, ignoring her. 'Is fifteen millimetres across…' He flinches, cringing away from her, as she picks up the file and brings it down onto his head with a thwack.
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