THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY

Because I just watched Body of Work, for old times' sake, and got all reminiscent for Harry and Nikki in the old days. So here's what everyone wanted… Penny never happened, things escalated as they should have done after that pub in the rain…

This one's for everyone that's still there in the Silent Witness fandom, and everyone that still reads, reviews and writes H/N.

Quite literally, no spoilers. Body of Work aired NINE years ago, people. That's all kinds of crazy.

Nothing belongs to me. Quotes lifted directly from the episode, I've put in italics.

"Now she shuts up."

That smile on his face has never looked so friendly, so familiar, so inviting. You can hardly breathe.

Like an almost instinct, you find your finger twirling around a strand of blonde, and you sink back slightly in your seat, imagining there's something of a dazed expression on your face.

"Do you think we order at the bar, or do they come to us?" he asks, as if he hasn't just let you taste him, as if everything's back to normal. You can't reply – you can hardly think right now, let alone speak.

Harry seems to make the decision for himself. "I think it's at the bar. I'll order you the surf and turf, shall I?"

You can just about manage a nod. Your lips feel like they are on fire.

When his back's to you, when he's got the attention of the man behind the bar, you bring your fingers up to your lips, dusting over the flesh that still feels scarred. You have maybe thirty seconds before he comes back. You need to steady your breathing, and reach a state where you can say something. He can't find out that he's capable of having this much of an effect on you, with a kiss that lasted barely half a moment.

You take a deep breath, you swallow. You take a long sip of your wine. You can hear your heart thumping, you don't feel quite the same person you were moments ago. But Harry's turning now, smiling at you with that same smile he's always had, and you can't see anything in his eyes to tell you he's seeing anyone different. You manage the tiniest hint of a smile as he sits down, suddenly close again, and you have to stop your breath hitching.

"I wonder if anyone's started feeling even friendly towards the liver yet…" he mock-whispers, and you can't help the giggle that rises in your throat, and as you laugh together, you sink back into some sort of ease. Because whatever else he is, whatever door he's just opened, perhaps unbeknownst to himself, he's still your best friend, he's still got one hell of a sense of humour, and he's still the man who's never failed to cheer you up, to make you smile. He's still Harry, the very same man you've always thought of as your Harry.

That night, you laugh, you share, you keep your heads close together. You talk in hushed voices about how you think Leo is doing, it having just been a year since Theresa and Cassie died, and you toast to conferences that teach absolutely nothing useful but are considerate enough to be close to nice pubs.

You seem to slip into ease, after the initial shock, but there's something different. You've sat at a table with him, just the two of you, more times before than you can count, but it's somehow like you're in a seat you've never been in before. Like a different pair of eyes are watching you from the other side of the table, or at least through different lenses.

There isn't another hint of anything else until he takes the bill the moment the waitress sets in on the table, finding the cash in his wallet and giving you something of an enigmatic smile.

Neither of you say anything, for a moment, and it feels like a thousand unsaid things are shooting through the air. The he widens his smile and his eyes seem to change.

"I'll get this one, Niks. You can get the pub meal the next time we skip school like a pair of children…"

You laugh, but the moment's broken.

You get a taxi home together, and it reaches your place first. Although the feeling's sinking under the surface, your heart's still beating slightly faster and your mouth's still a little dry, your lips tingling.

"Do you want to come up for a nightcap?" you breathe, and your voice sounds slightly shaky.

Inexplicably, he shakes his head at you, sadly. "Not tonight, Nikki." He breathes, though you're sure this time his eyes are darker than they were moments ago, betraying him. He looks as if he's got something else on the tip of his tongue, but he seems to think better of it, and leans forward, brushing his lips against your cheek, burning on your skin as they had done before, but with somehow less promise, more solemnity. "I'll see you tomorrow."

You echo tomorrow, slightly confused, as you step out of the car.

He's already sat at his/your/the desk when you walk into the lab. He looks up quickly, 'morning' on his lips, and if you squint, there's maybe something new in his eyes. Something almost nervous, certainly something unfamiliar. Like he's had time to think on the previous evening, and as you don't see him as quite the same Harry right in front of you anymore, he's not sure who he ought to be around you. The smile on his face seems somewhat forced, and he looks down to the files on his desk slightly too quickly.

It's a quiet day, Leo's working on a sick, twisted case about a conceptual artist drowning in formaldehyde, but all you have is what feels like a full year's worth of catching up on paperwork, and a PM of a paranoid schizophrenic who hadn't been taking their medication for days, to confirm suicide. Harry has a car crash victim from Richmond Park, a thirty three year old man with more than twice the legal limit of alcohol in the system, but the PM's quick, straightforward and without any questions.

You're packing up in the locker room that evening when you feel like you're being watched. You glance to the side, noting Harry in the doorway, suddenly finding his feet rather interesting.

You shut your locker with some force, creating deliberate noise, startling him out of his avoidance, bringing his eyes up to yours.

"I was thinking of going out for dinner." He says, that characteristic smile creeping back onto his face, but with something of a shield over it. You can't help the smile creeping onto your own face, reading for the first time in the whole day his awkward glances, his forced conversations, his seeming inability to be alone in the same room as you. He's been building up to asking you out.

"Oh, really?" you return, something warm trickling through you. Because you'd spent the whole day (and most of last night) thinking he hadn't wanted to come up to your flat with you, he hadn't thought anything of it, the moment he brought your world crashing around your shoulders, the moment everything changed. But he had. Harry Cunningham, who'd always seemed that charming ladies-man when you were watching from the outside, had refused your shameless advances as far too much of a gentleman, and had been psyching himself up for nearly 24 hours to ask you out to dinner.

"You interested in coming?" he smiles, and that's back to what you've been used to viewing from the sidelines. Suave and confident and sexy. You don't torture him much longer.

"Sure. I'll assume you'll pick me up at eight?"

You start walking towards him, your heels clacking on the lino floor, Harry looking somewhere between disbelieving and proud of himself. As you pass him in the doorway, you lean up and brush your lips against his cheek.

You wonder if his skin's burning like yours was.

He takes you to a little privately owned Italian place down a back street, owned by Romero and Valeria, and you sit at the back by a small fire and twirl fresh spaghetti around a little silver fork.

He's back to the perfect charming gentleman Harry now, and you have no doubt he's brought seemingly a thousand other girls to his delightful, quiet, romantic little Italian that no one else seems to know about, that's he's made a thousand other hearts flutter here, but you don't hang onto that thought, not in this moment. Your heart's fluttering and the rich Italian red's going straight to your head, and you're out on something that can't be classed as anything other than a date with your very best friend. It's beautiful.

He pays the bill again, with something of a twinkle in his eyes, and a hand over yours at your protestation, and "I said you were getting the next one at a conference" with a slight comedy scolding look in his eyes.

As he laughs and puts his PIN into the card machine, his left hand doesn't leave yours.

In the taxi home, the effects of the wine and the heady high of the evening seem to take you over, and you try again.

"I've got half a bottle of wine in my fridge that needs finishing up." You look at him through your eyelashes. "I probably shouldn't drink it all by myself."

He smiles at you in a completely different way this time, his eyes darkening ever-so-slightly. "You shouldn't." he agrees, leaning slightly towards you. "I'd be happy to help."

You're sure you notice the cab driver giving you both a knowing smile in the rear-view mirror.

You pour two glasses of wine (and they're very small glasses; you had not, in reality, had a lot of wine in your fridge). You push one along the counter slightly towards him, but you find him suddenly much closer to you than he'd been seconds ago. You look up at him, through wide, suddenly nervous eyes, and there's only a hint of a smile on his face.

"I had a lovely evening." He half-whispers, breathy and somehow with more fire in his voice than usual.

"Me too." You manage, hoping and praying in that moment that he's not about to end the evening. Because you're so not ready for it to be over.

It's in that moment that you have the dawning realisation that maybe you don't want this ever to be over, this little more than 24 hours of you and Harry being something slightly more.

"We should do it again sometime." He says, as if reading your mind. His hand ghosts up to rest lightly on your cheek. You set your glass of wine down on the side. You have a feeling they're both going to be left, unnoticed, for quite a while.

"I'd like that." You breathe, and you don't quite sound like yourself. He seems to edge closer to you, and all of a sudden you can feel every inch of his body against yours, and he's robbing you of your breath, again.

He needs to stop doing that.

His mouth seems to be millimetres from yours within seconds.

"I don't think we can go back, from this." He whispers, a slight undertone of apprehension in his voice. "You have to be sure this is what you want. Because this is what I want." You can feel every breath with every word.

"I don't want to go back." You breathe, and you've never been more certain. "I want you." That smile widens slightly before his lips crash against yours, burning against yours as they did just over twenty four hours ago, ridding you of your breath again, but somehow hungrier than before. Somehow his kiss this time is laced with futures and lifetimes and feelings, where yesterday it was only a spur of the moment action, a split second, laced with unknowns, almost afraid to even think of possibilities.

His other hand finds its place resting against your hip, and you find both your own linking around his neck, joining at the nape, against his skin.

Somehow, he tastes both exactly the same and better than you'd ever imagined, and as his teeth dig into your lip slightly, and you feel his body's reaction, every inch of him pressed up against you, you pull back slightly and rest your forehead against his, gathering your breath.

You find his lips are caught in the same smile you'd imagine yours are. He presses them against the bridge of your nose, taking one of your hands in his.

And with that, a thousand dreams turn into a thousand possibilities.

That's a wrap! Hope you enjoyed, and would love to hear what you think!