A HALF OF THE WHOLE

H/N, obviously. Very decidedly AU, in which Harry and Nikki are together before he goes away, and manage to make it work.

Imagine, in this universe, they were together from just before the beginning of series 15.

Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me, but this might just be my new canon at the moment.

Spoilers: Some big ones, and I will get to the happening of Greater Love eventually.

All I have is this feeling inside of me, the only thing I've ever known

He's almost grey when he walks back into the lounge, and he slides a sheet of paper across the table at her. He sinks into the chair opposite her, something heavy in his eyes.

Dear Dr H Cunningham,

We are pleased to inform you that your application for the professorship in the pathology department in Cornell University's New York campus has been successful.

It has a few more things to say, but it's like she can't read the words, after that.

There's silence for a long moment, and then he speaks.

"I almost think it would have been easier if I hadn't got it, Niks…"

She shakes her head, giving him a tiny smile and reaching her hand out to clasp his. His hand is cold and clammy in hers, he's terrified. They've only really just finally got their act together and fallen into each other's arms, months after the events of Hungary, which had given them such a sudden sense of their impermanent reality. She'd found herself with a realisation she needed to take her moment, and they'd found themselves colliding with each other in a way that had always seemed inevitable to everyone else.

They'd gone out for drinks after closing a case, and she'd invited him into hers for a coffee afterwards. They'd both had a little too much to drink, and he'd got up to leave and she'd caught his arm.

"Stay."
He'd frowned at her, not understanding. "Tonight? I mean-"

"Always." she'd half-whispered. "With me."

She hadn't been too drunk to blush, but she'd kept talking. "I mean it, Harry. I thought you were dead, and there wasn't anymore of that time I'd always thought we had... and I don't think I need time anymore. Stay with me. Properly, I mean."

He hadn't said anything, just stared at her, as if the cogs in his brain weren't ticking at full speed. She'd stared him out for a moment, and then looked down.

"I'm sorry." she'd whispered. "I shouldn't have said that. Pretend I didn't. You can leave, I-"

"Properly?" his voice had sounded shaky. "You mean that? Because I don't think I need that time anymore, either."

She looked up, shock spreading through her eyes. "Properly." She nodded.

Everything seemed to happen at once. His hands found their way to either side of her face, his eyes had caught hers in some sort of iron grip, not allowing hers to stray, and his lips came crashing down on hers.

That was where it had started.

"Congratulations." She breathes, so quietly it's almost silent, and it doesn't quite sound sincere. "This is amazing."

He laughs slightly. "That's what it is, is it? I guess I thought you were going to miss me…"

The joke falls on deaf ears, and the tiny smile he gives her apologizes for it.

He can't leave this heavy silence for long, though. He starts talking again. "What do I do, Niks? We… we were… going somewhere."

That makes it her turn to laugh. "You can't use something that's hardly happened yet as an excuse… you…" she bites her lip, painfully aware that she's possibly about to destroy what has become, in the last few months, the best thing in her life. "…you can't say no, Harry. You should go…"

There's something almost exasperated behind his eyes then, and for a split second she wishes she hadn't said it, she hadn't given him up, seemingly so easily, when her heart really felt like it was being torn out from the inside.

"Where does that leave us, Nikki?" he breathes, as if he's frightened at what her answer's going to be.

That seems like the most ridiculous of questions. He's been given a professorship in New York, for heaven's sake. Where does that leave them?

She shakes her head at him, almost imperceptibly. "I don't know." She whispers, "Can anyone survive that? We've hardly been together…" she trails off, because they've not even been together a year yet, properly, but they both know they've been almost-together for an awful lot longer than that.

"What… what if you come with me? What if you look for something out there, too? What if… there's nothing tying you here, really, Nikki…"
She shakes her head, disappointment flashing through her eyes. "You don't get to ask that of me, Harry. This is home, it doesn't matter that I don't have anyone much here, other than you, and Leo… This is my home…" She's raised her voice a little, the anger is seeping through the cracks in her tone.

"I was just, I-" he spins on her, his voice raised suddenly, his eyes flashing. And then he sighs. "Let's not fight, Nikki. We said… we said when I applied we weren't going to let this break us."

Then there are tears in her eyes, wet and heavy, all of a sudden.

"I didn't think anything was going to come of it." Her voice is thick with a sudden realisation that she both hadn't given him enough credit, and had somehow managed to put the side-lines on what the worst possible outcome would be like for her.

He could call her up on that, what she's implying, but he doesn't, because there are enough flaws right now. He realises she's still holding his hand. He swallows.

"You think I should go? You think we can make this work, anyway?"

There's another long silence; she wishes she was going to give another answer, she wishes this wasn't everything, the rest of their lives.

"I think you need to go, Harry. You can't turn this down. This is… amazing… you were picked out of all those other candidates. We'll figure it out. We'll still be you and me. You need to go."

Let me know what you think! This is not an easy AU to play with, but I've got a number of chapters planned out. I'm back on the I-just-can't-let-Harry-go bandwagon… Updates should be every couple of days.