Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Deleted scenes from the cutting room floor, by Chibiness87
Chapter rating: K
Overall rating: T
Spoilers: None.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Summary: You see two people, and you think they belong together. But nothing happens.

Breaking in a new member of the team, of any team, takes time. This is a truth universally known across all walks of life, but it is especially true to the Lyell.

They have a system. They know what cases sets each other off and do their best to shelter the blow where they can, and offer support when they can’t. There’s good natured teasing and hard hitting arguments and like any team, any family, they band together when it really, truly matters. Their methods may be unorthodox to an outsider, but they are methods that have been tried and tested and it works. But now the trio is down to two, and the dynamic seems to falter with it.

It’s strange.

Not having three pathologists working together when it’s all she’s known for years throws everything off kilter. The workload increase, the on calls more frequent, and everyone seems to be a little bit more on edge. When they replace the missing part of the wheel, she expected things to find, if not the same dynamic, then at least a similar once, but then Harry Cunningham, Pathologist, is replaced by Jack Hodgson, Forensics, and suddenly everything is just a little different.

Oh, he knows what he’s doing, she has to give him that. And he has an easy smile and a grace she wouldn’t expect given his particular… physique. Because whereas Harry was all hidden depths and hidden strength and wiry muscles she has, on occasion, had a chance to see first hand, Jack’s presence is much more… present.

(She suspects boxing for a while before it’s confirmed, gives herself a mental pat on the back when he mentions a bout coming up. He invites her along, his gentle accent less brash than she would suspect in one of his age. But then, she’s not exactly one to talk, being forced away from her homeland in her own youth.)

But he’s quick and efficient, and not having to outsource the forensic tracing means more money in the coiffeurs, means the university can afford to take on more students, and can afford to give more placement time to the next generation.

It galls her slightly to be considered old, mid thirties that she is, but even she has to admit she is no longer the starry eyed early 20’s recent medical graduate she once was.

They’ve just finished an autopsy, Jack watching from the gallery, and she’s tidying up when the doors to the suite open with a small hiss. Eyes wide, she glances round at the others, but Jack seems intent on getting Leo’s opinion on something, and she turns back to what she was doing. Finishing up, she heads towards the scrub area, removing her own gloves and beginning to wash her hands. The door closes with another hiss of the seal, a glance around confirming her suspicions the newest member of the team has left.

“I don’t like him.”

Beside her, she hears Leo give a huff.

“Nikki…”

“He nearly ruined the crime scene. If I hadn’t been there…”

“He’s staying.” The tone of his voice brokers no argument, and he sighs. “Look, I know he isn’t Harry. But please, for my sake, try not to hold that against him.”

Nikki shoots him a glare. “Leo!”

But before she can say anything else, Jack pops his head around the door. “Those results have just come in, if you’re interested.”

His eyes do a sweep of the room, before landing on her. “Oh, hey there. Don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Jack.” And he offers his hand out for her to shake.

She takes it with a small grin, ignoring Nikki’s eye roll from behind him. “Jacqui. I’m one of the assistants here.”

“Nice to meet you.” He gives her another small grin, before flicking his eyes to the others. “You comin’?”

Before they can answer Jack leaves once more, and Nikki shoots Leo a death glare before leading the way out. Just before he leaves, she swears she hears the older man mutter lord give me strength, but she wouldn’t like to swear to it in a Court of Law.

What she will swear to, however, is the feeling that things are about to get very interesting indeed.

Chapter Text

Deleted scenes from the cutting room floor, chapter 2, by Chibiness87
Chapter rating: T
Overall rating: T
Spoilers: General.
Disclaimer: Not mine.

It’s been two months.

Two months of rolled eyes behind backs, of snide looks and snider comments. Two months of resentment. Leo’s sick of it. Clarissa is sick of it. Even the guys who don’t really interact with the two of them together at the same time are sick of it, herself included.

(She tried to talk to Nikki about it once. Tried to point out it isn’t Jack’s fault he isn’t Harry, that Harry’s secondment was only going to be a year, that everything would be okay once he was back, but the stony silence she had received for a week following that conversation was enough for even her to give up.)

So, they work on the same cases, but she wouldn’t go as far as saying they work together. Someone is always playing the messenger. Test results or autopsy reports left as print outs on each other’s desks. It’s only when the briefing with the police occurs do the two sit in the same room, and from the reports (rants) she’s overheard, (or, on one memorable occasion, been the victim (sounding board) for,) they haven’t exactly been the most civil there either.

And then the inevitable happens.

Leo is on leave, and a case involving a child comes in to the Lyell.

She doesn’t know the full reasoning behind it, but wherever possible, Nikki doesn’t do the child cases. They were taken on by Harry or Leo, even if it meant swapping caseloads. But now Harry is gone and Leo is away and it falls on Nikki.

Jack, to his credit, notices the change in tension almost immediately. He is more focused, less jovial, and more than once she notices him cast a concerned look over to wherever Nikki happens to be. He even stops his own work to watch the full autopsy, something he hasn’t done since that first case when it was more curiosity than curtesy.

Of course, Nikki notices too. She watches as her eyes narrow, and while her hands and her voice don’t faulter as she continues in her work, Jacqui can see the way her shoulders stiffen.

She takes her time after the bulk of the work is done. There is something about closing the Y incision on a child that demands more time, more care. When she’s finished it’s like they could be sleeping, as much as the thought is a cliché.

Nikki is still in the scrub room when she goes in to clean down, something that surprises her, because it must have been over an hour since she left. She’s changed now, scrubs gone and hair down, but it’s like she’s got stuck once these tasks have been completed. Nikki’s back is to the door to the autopsy suite, but even from this angle Jacqui can see how hard she is working to keep up the appearance that everything is fine.

Jacqui’s about to say something, when the other door, that to the main corridor, opens, and Jack appears. “Hey. Clarissa sent me down. Are you…” But whatever he was about to say dies on his lips, and in a move that is both completely surprising and not at all a shock, he hurries in to the room and crouches down in front of Nikki.

“Hey. You okay?”

There’s a tenderness to his tone, and he reaches up almost hesitantly, smooths a strand of hair from her head. Nikki, as much to Jacqui’s shock as anyone’s, doesn’t push him away, but almost seems to fall within herself for a moment. Jack, to his credit, doesn’t so much as shift his weight, just waits, the hand that had moved her hair now lying on top of her clasped ones in her lap.

Eventually Nikki raises her head, and Jacqui wishes she could see her face. She hates having to read people from behind. But then Nikki sighs. Shakes her head. Says, so quietly it’s almost a whisper, “I hate cases like this.”

“Me too.” He doesn’t qualify it, just lets the statement hang in the air for a long minute. A testimony.

They sit for another moment, before something in her expression must make Jack relax, because he lets a small quirk of his lips hint at the corner of his mouth. “C’mon. Clarissa had something to show us. We’d better head up there before she thinks we’ve killed each other.”

Nikki gasps. “I’m not that bad!”

Jack smiles, honest and true, the mirth lighting his eyes for a moment. “Yeah, you are. But it’s okay.” And he shoots Nikki a wink. “I can take it.”

He stands, pulling Nikki to her feet as he does so. She overbalances, pitching forward, but Jack catches her before she stumbles, making sure she is stable. From across the room Jacqui sees the glare the other woman sends his way, but Jack just smiles. Places his hand gently on the small of Nikki’s back, a move Jacqui knows he would never have dared attempt even yesterday.

“C’mon. Can’t keep Clarissa waiting.”

“No.” And unless she is very much mistaken, Nikki even manages a small smile in his direction. “We wouldn’t want that.”

They leave, and Jacqui lets out a small sigh of relief. Something has changed in the past few minutes. Something in a look or a touch, she doesn’t know, but a wall has been breached, and the tension that has been hanging over the two of them for the past two months has eased.

Finally.

Things are looking up.

Chapter Text

Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor, Chapter 3, by Chibiness87
Chapter Rating: K
Overall rating: T
Spoilers: Zilch
Disclaimer: Not mine.

Months go by. Cases continue, and the ice that was broken with the death of a child continues to thaw. Jack’s started attending more autopsies, even contributing suggestions and ideas to the running commentary, sparking new ideas and new directions. On rare occasions he ventures down into the cutting room itself, although his presence in the scrub room is more common.

He’s funny, in an understated sort of way. Wry comments or sly glances when he thinks no one else is looking. So when the Secret Santa draw goes around and she ends up with him, she at least knows him well enough to be able to buy him something more than a generic mug for the coffee machine upstairs.

They set the price limit at £10, but in her experience the only person to ever adhere to that was Paul, and he retired last year. Hopefully, this year everyone will continue to splurge, and she even goes as far as mentioning it to Jack with instructions to tell Clarissa, if only their recipients don’t feel they have ended up with the raw end of the deal.

The lunch time do is held in the conference room above the cutting room, and while it might seem an odd place to host such an event, the truth is it’s the biggest table they have. By tradition it’s held on the last Friday before Christmas, and is one of the few times the Lyell comes to a complete standstill. All members of the lab are there; Nikki and Leo and Jack and Clarissa, but also all the APTs and MAs and the lab assistants who never meet the cops, but without whom the Lyell wouldn’t have the prestigious reputation it does. There’s enough food to feed a small army; everyone had been asked to donate a contribution, and boy, have some people gone all out.

(She picks crisps and dips. Stirring, no cooking involved; it’s a win-win.)

At one point, Jack disappears, and she almost thinks they need to send out a search party when he comes back bearing 6 extra large pizza boxes. From the corner of her eye, she can see Nikki shake her head at him, but there is a slight smile on her face, and Jacqui knows she’s more amused than anything.

She has no idea how they’re going to eat everything, has the feeling people will be living on nothing but leftovers between now and New Year’s. But gradually the amount of food dwindles as people go back for seconds and then thirds, and then, in Matthew’s case, a fourth helping of this simply amazing beef stew thing Yolef has made.

Eventually though, the food is pushed to one side, and the time of the presents comes. She watches as the names are drawn from an evidence bag (a tradition that goes back beyond even her time at the lab), and the person selected opens their present, before trying to guess their particular Santa. Some of the cases are easy; Sean gets sets upon sets of personalised monogrammed socks, and his eyes instantly go to Charlotte, whose affinity for the footwear is legendary amongst the Mortuary assistants. Others are more confusing, and it’s more a case of deduction and random guesses that matches Mike up with Jeannie, and Stephan with Michelle.

Leo gets Clarissa, and she laughs when, after a generic bottle of wine, she also opens the Go Faster racing stripes, custom sized for her wheelchair. There’s a pause in the proceedings as Leo helps her out of the seat and attach them herself, and even Richie has a small smile on his face as they watch. Jack’s next, and when he opens the multipack of sport ace bandages and butterfly stripes, for a moment his eyes flick to Nikki, eyebrow raised, but then his eyes land on hers and she knows he’s remembering the time she walked in on him, sans shirt, attempting to patch up a cut on his eyebrow with a sprained wrist. She had sighed, pushed his injured arm down with a gentle nudge, and gone about patching him up, muttering about using up work supplies with a sly grin on her face all the while. Nikki and Leo had been at court that day, if she remembers correctly, and both had given him pointed looks on their return, but obviously nothing more had been said.

Jack nods at her with a smile, a happy grin on his face and she nods back. Nikki shoots them both a confused glance, obviously wondering about the backstory, but before she can say anything Leo calls out the last remaining person, and Jack’s face heats, eyes dropping down. It’s obvious to everyone who’s been keeping track who the last person is, and also the buyer, and she’s curious to know what Jack has gotten her.

Nikki’s eyes meet Jack’s for a moment, a curious tilt to her head but for her own reasons now, even as her hands trace over the creases and folds of the box in her hands, searching for the edge of the tape. It had amused her, that first year with Leo and Harry, watching as she had painstakingly sought out each patch of adhesive, but that was before she knew Christmas, normally a time for joy, for family and familiarity, hasn’t always been that for her.

Jack’s biting his lip slightly, and it hits her suddenly. He’s scared. Unsure. Doesn’t want his gift to be taken in the wrong way, afraid he’s missed the mark with… whatever it is he’s gotten her. The box isn’t large, but not exactly small either, fitting neatly in the palm of Nikki’s hand, and if Jacqui didn’t know better, she’d think he’d done a guy thing and gotten her jewellery, but then Nikki finally pulls the little box free, flicks the lid, and lets out the softest oh Jacqui thinks she’s ever heard.

Nikki’s eyes fly up to Jack’s face, and it’s like the rest of them don’t even exist for a moment, especially when she whispers, “Jack,” his name overriding with emotions she doesn’t even know how to name.

Jacqui cranes her neck, (truthfully, most of those assembled do the same), but then Nikki reaches in and pulls out her gift. It is jewellery, the light catching on the delicate N of the pendant as it sways from her fingertips. It’s nice, not costume jewellery, but obviously of some quality, and well beyond the £10 budget. Nikki’s eyes flick between the necklace and Jack for a moment, before she motions him over. “Help me with it?”

And right there, in front of everyone, she ducks her head and lets Jack slip the chain around her neck. He fumbles for a moment with the catch, but then he lets go, and the necklace falls to sit just below at her sterno-clavicular notch, and she smiles at him softly. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I think thank you is the usual response.”

She thumps him on the arm even as she lets out a huff of laughter, and then, to Jack’s obvious surprise, Nikki leas up and presses a quick kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”

He blushes red, ducks his head, mumbles something Jacqui doesn’t catch before slipping back in to his own seat. Leo clears his throat, and just like that the tension is gone, merriment and joyfulness and the general hubbub of goodwill taking over once more, but Jacqui is more interested in the mini-drama playing out right in front of her. The looks Jack keeps shooting towards Nikki, eyes resting on where the necklace sits, but more than that, she notices when Nikki looks at Jack, something soft and curious in her gaze, and oh, oh!.

Oh, well now, this just got a whole lot more interesting.

So... I'm willing to take prompts for this fic. Any particular scene/scenario you'd like to see, drop me a prompt in the comments, and I'll see what I can do.

Chapter Text

Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor, chapter 4, by Chibness87
Chapter Rating: T
Overall Rating: T
Spoilers: Series 16 finale- Greater Love.
TW: MCD! (canon compliant)
Disclaimer: Not mine

A/N: I started this on my lunch break, because my muse has NO SENSE OF TIMING! None of this has been beta’d btw, y’all get the rough and ready version that demands to be posted.

Jacqui has always felt a certain privilege to work at the Lyell. The cases they work for the home office have never ceased to be enticing, if only for the wrong reasons. The extent human beings can go to in order to inflict pain and suffering on another can sometimes be downright harrowing. But with every case they solve, with every conviction they help achieve, she knows she is truly blessed. Oh sure, she could be working as an APT in any hospital in the UK. But she knows she’d never have the same experience working for a hospital Trust, or in the private sector. There is an awe for the job they do, and an awe for the people who do it. Not everyone, she knows, could look over an autopsy of a burnt-out corpse during the day and then go to a friend’s barbeque that evening and not correlate the two.

She’s been working at the Lyell for years now, seen countless members of the team come and go, but the relationship, or lack thereof, between the second most senior forensic pathologist and the most senior forensics trace expert has been nothing but enticing since day one. But then Christmas happened, and suddenly her little observations might well have been front page news for the rest of the Lyell staff.

So of course, she should have expected the fallout. Should have seen that, after that little display of whatever they want to call it, a betting pool would be set up amongst the junior (and not so junior) staff. Truthfully, she’d been expecting it before now, but then again some of the most private moments between the two of them had been just that. Private. But after that Christmas and the necklace and the looks, well. Let’s just say she’s not the only one who’s paying attention.

So. The bets. The how and the why and then when. Some go for soon; others go for later. Some pick a meet up after work while she knows someone, who will most definitely remain nameless, has them breaking over an argument (discussion) over the briefing room table mid-case. Because apparently clichés exist for a reason, or some such thing.

But she doesn’t pick any of those. Because she’s been watching them for weeks. Months, even. And while she knows there’s something there, she’s pretty sure they don’t. Know. So when she picks a random date years in the future, she gets scoffed at and told there’s no way, absolutely no way they will wait nigh on a decade before something happens between them. Kevin, the ringleader of the pool, even offers her a free bet, almost out of sympathy. But she doesn’t take him up on it. And she sticks to her guns. Because well, she’s been watching them for months. Almost a year at this point. And whereas everyone else seem an imminent resolution, she… doesn’t. There’s something there, sure, but there’s also the fact that they are either blind or stupid or just plain stubborn (maybe a combination of all three) that makes her think that as close as they are, as close as they could be, it will take something miraculous for that final push over whatever line has been drawn between them. (And besides, it’s not like she’s in this for the money anyway.)

And then, just when the betting pool is getting serious, and the money on offer is getting serious, and she’s getting tempted by the offer of a free bet, because even they, surely even they can’t be that stubborn, there’s a case in Afghanistan, and suddenly all bets are off.

Because while three members of the Lyell go out, only two return.

Well, technically, all three do return, but only two return to work. Only two return alive.

There’s a sense of shock about the place. Only two (three) people know exactly what happened out there in the desert, but two aren’t talking about it, and the third… well. He’s not exactly in a position to say much about it. About anything. Not anymore.

There’s a tension between Jack and Nikki once they return to work. A tension that hasn’t been there since the beginning, since before a dead child and a shared look and an unspoken promise. A tension that feels more than pain. Than sadness. A tension that, if she had to call it anything at all, she would call anger. At each other? At him? The situation in general? Jacqui doesn’t know. But what she does know is whatever the reason, whatever the cause, she knows, oh, she knows, it can’t last forever, something is going to have to give, and soon.

And then something does.

Oh boy, does something give.

In the weeks and the months and the years that follow, the memory of the fight goes down in history. A cautionary tale of what can happen, even if no one thinks it will. At least, not again.

She doesn’t know who or what started it, doesn’t know if it was a comment or a look or just time running out. All she knows is one minute Jack and Nikki are arguing back and forth in the way that they sometimes do, and the next Nikki’s gone pale, Jack looks like he’s just been socked in the stomach, and there’s a sudden, harrowing silence that echoes between them and around the scrub room in general.

In fact, if it wasn’t for their reactions, she would think she hadn’t heard the final blow. But the pain, deep and aching and so, so tangible makes her realise the words were real. The pain was real.

I wish it had been you who'd died in that desert.

Jack doesn’t say anything, just turns on his heels and leaves, and Nikki holds it together for about a second after he’s gone before she breaks down in gut wrenching sobs that makes Jacqui forget everything and hurry over and pull the other women into her arms. Nikki all but collapses into her embrace, almost like she can’t support her own weight, and while Jacqui has been waiting for something like this to happen ever since they got that awful, devastating phone call, she never thought she would be the one picking up the pieces.

She has no idea how they’re supposed to come back from this.

Chapter Text

Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor, Chapter 5, by Chibiness87
Chapter Rating: K+
Overall Rating: T
Spoilers: Um… Leo is still dead.
Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: Hmmm. Packing. Yeah. About that…

Things don’t get better.

In fact, if anything, they actually get worse.

Gone is the friendly atmosphere. There’s a regression back to the beginning where reports are left on desks, and handovers are via other members of the team. Only it’s worse than right at the beginning. There’s a silence there. A tension. Walls that have never been in place are erected with supreme efficiency, and there is a definite feeling of that’s mine; this is yours about the place. There are very few places that could be conceded as middle ground, and even then, places like the coffee area have almost been provided with a timetable to ensure no crossover between them occurs.

Jack hasn’t watched an autopsy in weeks, and if it hadn’t been for Clarissa spotting an abnormality in the trace report either Nikki or Jack or both should have picked up on, a murderer would have walked free.

It’s obvious to all that something needs to be done, the whispers amongst the APTs and MAs growing less and less subtle the longer the tension remains.

The problem is, both Nikki and Jack are acting like there isn’t a problem to be solved.

She still expects him to be there in briefings, and to give him his due, Jack always is. He still does his analysis, they still get the bad guys, and if anyone is keeping score they would see one common trend: they are the good guys and the good guys win.

But they’re not. Winning. The shadow of Leo Dalton is everywhere, and she can feel it every time she walks in to the cutting room. Keeps turning around, expecting to see him, and she knows she’s not the only one. Nikki is pale and drawn, deep shadows under her eyes growing darker every day. And Jack’s just as bad. She’s lost count of the number of new cuts and bruises around his cheekbone he’s been coming to work with recently. Jacqui was there the first time Nikki caught sight of one nasty looking cut a few weeks ago, but whereas in the past she might have offered to tend to it, this time Nikki just shook her head. Told him not to bother coming in if he’s going to look like one of their victims.

So no, they’re not winning. Barely passing par score, just about keeping their heads above water. In more ways than one.

Turns out, having a bone fide Professor of Forensic Science heading up the team not only gave them a good name and a good reputation, it also gave them additional funding. Funding that, if the conversation currently ongoing in the briefing room Jacqui is most not hanging about to allow her to eavesdrop is anything to go by, is in serious danger of being withdrawn.

They’ll keep the work for the Home Office, that much she knows, but some of the ‘perks’ appear to be in contention. Like staff numbers. And the pioneering technology they have.

Like having a single forensic trace expert employed here at the Lyell, and not using the central one most other facilities in the area rely on.

There’s a sudden, marked silence on the other side of the door. Jacqui wishes, more than anything, that she was a fly on the other wall, if only to know what is clearly being said with no words involved. And then Nikki speaks, and her voice is the coldest she has ever known it to be.

“Excuse me?”

Jacqui doesn’t catch everything that is said in response, her attention grabbed by the one person that cannot, absolutely cannot go in to the briefing room right now. Arms waving madly, she manages to catch Jack’s attention, and he gives her a small smile and wave in greeting, still heading for the door.

“Wait!” It’s a desperate hiss, enough to forestall his interruption. Instead, Jack takes a closer step off to the side, towards her, head now tilted curiously.

“What?”

“Nikki’s in there.” Jacqui winces slightly at her name, but if they’re going to walk around on eggshells in each other’s presence, quite frankly she’d rather be elsewhere.

“Oh.” Jack turns to head away, but before he can take more than a step, they both hear Nikki, for lack of a better term, explode.

“You can’t fire Jack just because Leo died!”

Jack’s eyes go wide, shock all over his face. “What-?”

But whoever is in there with her is talking again, and the words are mumbled. With a flap of her arm, Jacqui waves him quiet. “Shhh!”

Together, they creep closer to the door, all pretence of not doing what they are so obviously doing gone out the window. Not that she can blame him in the slightest.

“I don’t care what your budget says. I need Jack here. Find something else to cut back on.”

“I’m not sure there is…”

“Then find someone else.”

There’s a cough from the other room. A timid voice finally dares to ask, “To… let go?”

Jacqui can hear Nikki’s eye roll, even from beyond the door. “No. If having someone with the… prestige Leo had is what’s needed, then that’s what you should do. Find someone.” A beat. “To work here.”

“You mean, a replac-” A sudden clearing of a throat. Obviously someone (her money’s on Nikki) has shot a glare or a nudge or both at the speaker. “Ahem. I mean, someone else to join the team here?”

“I mean, if Jack goes, Clarissa Mullery goes.” And then, so quite she positively has to strain to hear, “If you let Jack go, I go.”

There’s a scrape of a chair on the floor, and then footsteps head their way. Before the two of them can turn and look innocent, like they just happened to be passing by, the door to the briefing room opens, and Nikki strides through. There’s a moment of comedy when she comes to a sudden stop at seeing them both there, gaping like a fish, the door closing behind her with a hiss, but then she takes in both their faces and her shoulders slump.

“You heard.”

Jack nods, a slow smile forming. “Yeah.”

“That’s not… I didn’t want you to find out like that.”

“What? Why?”

Nikki gives him a look like he’s being deliberately obtuse. “Because you deserve more than to find out like that some bureaucratic arse thinks you're… expendable.”

Jack grins, nudges her shoulder. It’s the most contact they’ve had in days. It’s the closest they’ve stood physically in a month.

“But you defended me.”

“I… what?” And she furrows her brow in obvious confusion. “Of course I defended you!”

“Yeah well,” and Jack goes shy for a moment. “Just surprised me, I guess. That you still, I dunno, like me enough to have around.”

“Jack.” And she sighs, slumping down like all the energy has been drained out of her. “About that.”

“Nah. It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jack shrugs. “S’okay. I get it.”

“Still.” Nikki turns, makes sure Jack’s looking at her. “I am. Sorry.”

There’s a pause, and Jacqui watches as his eyes flick over her face for a long moment before he nods once. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

There’s a beat, but this time the tension between them is easy. Friendly. Finally, Jack shrugs. Nods his head to the room behind them. “Think they’ll do it? Hire someone else?”

Nikki shrugs, a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “I think they’ll have to. I didn’t really give them much choice.”

“I heard.” And then he smiles, his eyes lighting up. “Pretty badass, really, Dr Alexander.”

“Well, I’m a pretty badass kinda girl.”

“That you are.” And he winks, causing her to let out a small huff of laughter. It’s the lightest Jacqui has seen them since they returned from Afghanistan.

Together they turn, heading back up to the main lab, Jack’s hand falling absently to the small of Nikki’s back as they go.

In sync once again.

Chapter Text

Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor, chapter 6, by Chibiness87
Chapter Rating: T
Overall Rating: T
Spoilers: Um, New Guy! Oh. And 17.3/4 Coup de Grace
Disclaimer: I do not even own Jack.

A/N: I started writing this after half a bottle of wine. And then finished it once I was sober. I’ll let you be the judge as to where the line between the two was drawn.

They hire someone else.

Truthfully, it’s all they can do. After all, losing one member of the senior forensic pathology department is bad enough. Potentially losing all of them? Oh, there’s not a chance in hell.

And so, Professor Thomas Chamberlain joins their little band of mis-fit toys, and, if reports and rumours are right, he immediately makes an impression. Not one, if what she’s overheard can be believed, he will A) live down, and B) want to repeat.

“I’m replacing Professor Dalton.”

“No you’re not. You’re taking over from him.”

A subtle distinction, but big enough to be important. After all, they all know that if Professor Leo Dalton was still here, then Professor Thomas Chamberlain would not. Because if Professor Leo Dalton was still here, he would still be alive, and the threat over funding and politics and prestige would never have made the light of day.

But Professor Leo Dalton is dead, and so they have a new member once more.

To be fair to the new guy, once that slight hiccup is dealt with, nothing else is said on the matter. There is a truce forged between the pathologists, an acknowledgment that they are grieving a loss he can’t possibly begin to understand.

So, Profession Chamberlain (No, please, call me Thomas) spends the first few weeks of his new role as head of the Lyell forensic division not working cases, but working the team. Finding out about not just Nikki and Jack and Clarissa, but also the rest of them. Herself and Sean and Charlotte. Yolef and Michelle, even Richie. It settles nerves she didn’t know were frayed, and everything seems to be sailing along, if not smoothly, then definitely less choppy than it could have been.

People begin to relax, understanding that a new leader and a new team player didn’t necessarily mean a new team. And then, just when everything seems calm and safe, Nikki finds out the guy she has been on a few dates with is actually a murderer and well, things go rapidly downhill from there.

Thomas and Jack and Clarissa work the case with an urgency she can all but taste, everyone becoming a little bit more on edge as they get to the point where they can swoop in and save the day. Because that’s what they’ve started doing, she’s come to realise. Save each other. But then, reports start coming back in through the grapevine that this time it wasn’t Jack or Clarissa or Thomas that saved Nikki, but Nikki herself.

Oh sure, Jack was there at the end, there to, as far as she can tell, to hold her as tight as he knew how, (to the point of people wondering if there was actually something going on between them all this time and the whole dating a murderer thing was completely the wrong end of the stick) but that’s just the way he hugs people. She should know, being on the receiving end of one such hug a few months before when her grandfather passed away suddenly in the night.

So she knows what it’s like to be held by Jack, and if that’s what Nikki needed right then in that moment, well, she’s not about to judge her for it.

They get back to the Lyell, and the case continues. Minutes turn into hours, and it’s well past the late evening and into the night when she finds her. Jacqui could have sworn Nikki had left hours ago, but then she’s also not surprised to find she hasn’t. Sat on the bench in the scrub room, her back to the cutting room, Jacqui almost speaks up, lets the other woman know she’s still there too, when she suddenly realises she’s not alone.

Jack is crouched in front of her, bowl of water at his feet, swab in hand. Neither of them have noticed her presence, and she watches in a kind of entranced awe as Jack gently swabs at what must be a cut on Nikki’s cheek, the pad coming away slightly red at the end of the swipe. Nikki hisses slightly at the contact, but doesn’t move otherwise, doesn’t look away. There’s an entire conversation going on, not even 20 feet away, and Jacqui knows she’ll never know a single word of it.

She wouldn’t want to.

Slowly, quietly, she backs away, slipping back into the cutting room. There’s always something extra to do in here. Another bench to scrub down, another floor to be washed. Sure, she could leave it for someone else, but this way it keeps her busy enough to not look like she’s obviously avoiding the scrub room when that is precisely what she is doing.

Because interrupting that conversation isn’t something she’s willing to do, for love nor money. Because as much as she would like to leave, she knows they need a minute to themselves. A reminder that they are both still here, still alive, especially with the gaping wound of Leo’s death still clawing at them all with every painful breath.

(Also, Jacqui is neither blind not stupid. And sure, she may not know the whole conversation she walked in on, but she knows enough. She saw enough.)

They’re getting good at breaking in new members of the team. And, more importantly, keeping them. After all, Jacqui knows this job, this place, isn’t for everyone. Some prefer the environment of a hospital, others prefer the unknown of an anthropology dig. But she wouldn’t give up this job for the world.

Because there just isn’t the same feeling in a hospital or out on a dig that there is in the Lyell. There isn’t the same family, the same teasing. There isn’t the soap drama two of her esteemed colleagues have started up and starred in from minute one.

It might even be funny, from an outsiders prospective, if it wasn’t quite so tragically sad.

Because she knows, now, as much as she knows the strongest bone in the human body is the femur, that a twisting motion is the easiest to cause a fracture, that the gluteus maximus is the strongest muscle… she knows one thing more than any other: Jack Hodgson is completely in love with one Dr Nikki Alexander.

And the latter has absolutely no idea.