Conflict of Interest (9/?) (Morgana/Nikki (with side Arthur/Gwen and past Gwen/Morgana))
Title: Conflict of Interest (9/?)
Fandom: Silent Witness/Merlin (Modern AU)
Characters & Pairings: Morgana/Nikki (with side Arthur/Gwen and past Gwen/Morgana)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~ 25,500 so far
Summary: Morgana/Nikki. When Uther is found dead, Morgana is at the top of the authorities' list of suspects, despite her insistence that she has been set up. But there is one person who believes her, even when the evidence against Morgana seems conclusive.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Merlin or Silent Witness, this is not for profit, just for entertainment!
Note 1: A special thanks goes to oltha_heri , my beta!
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8
“There must be a mistake.” It was the only explanation, the only possible explanation. The samples must have been mixed up or contaminated or... It wasn’t possible. Morgana couldn’t have done it. She just couldn’t.
“Just because her DNA was on the body doesn’t mean that she did it,” Harry whispered fiercely, his defence of Morgana as much a defence of Nikki. “She’s his step daughter. They work together. There’s every reason for her DNA to be there.”
“The sample was taken from under his fingernails,” Leo said, walking over and taking the report from Nikki. “Not that it automatically means she did it. What does it matter to you, Harry, if she did it or not? We’re impartial, we look at the facts.”
“It matters because she didn’t do it.” Harry bit out.
“You don’t know that.” Leo countered. “Oh Harry, please tell me there’s nothing going on between you and her.”
“I don’t have to be sleeping with her to know that she didn’t do it!” Harry was starting to get annoyed now. “You haven’t even met the woman. How can you pass judgement on her when you haven’t even laid eyes on her?”
“Did you learn nothing from the mess with Rebecca Connelly?” Leo’s frustration and worry for Harry flared his anger. Sometimes he felt like he was parenting the two younger pathologists; like they were children that needed his constant supervision to prevent them wandering away after whoever dangled a sweet in front of them.
“Stop it!” Nikki shouted. “Both of you!”
“Nikki.” Harry put a hand on her arm, warning.
“It isn’t Harry,” Nikki said quietly but determinedly, looking up at Leo. “It’s me.”
“What isn’t Harry?” Leo asked. “Nikki, Harry, what is going on here?”
They exchanged a glance. Harry silently pleading with Nikki to keep quiet - ‘you don’t have to do this’ - Nikki wordlessly saying that she did, that she couldn’t let Harry take the fall for her mistake.
“You’re right. One of us is involved with Morgana, but it isn’t Harry. Harry isn’t sleeping with her,” Nikki said, barely able to breathe for fear. “I am - I did. I’m not anymore. It was just once and I took myself off the case straight away. Harry has handled all of the evidence; my name is on nothing but the preliminary autopsy and that was before I’d even met her properly never mind...” She shook her head, clearing her thoughts into a rational argument. “He was present at the original autopsy and has since done another examination and completely concurs with my findings. Leo, it was one night! And she hasn’t asked me a single thing about the case, quite the opposite. After one night we finished things - not that they had even started really - until after all of this is over. I know I’ve been stupid, I know I could be throwing my career away and frankly that terrifies me. But I’ve done nothing wrong and I know that she didn’t do it. If I have to quit my job to get you to prove that then-”
“Enough,” Leo cut her off his voice weary. “I’m putting you on suspension until the case is over, at which point I will review the situation.” He shook his head, not looking at her. “I am very disappointed in you Nikki.”
“Fine,” Nikki sighed sharply and stalked from the room. “If she’s guilty then I resign!”
The double doors clashed loudly behind her, the sheer momentum of her push swinging them open and closed again and again.
~*~
It took all of Nikki’s self control to not press her foot down harder on the accelerator. It was such a strong impulse. She had always been a careful driver but then again she had always been careful in her career too. Never before had she come close to crossing that line. The line that she knew full well she had crossed the moment she agreed to have a drink with Morgana. She had gotten emotionally involved in cases before, they all did, but this was different: this could cost her job. Reckless as she had become with her career, she did not intend to extend that recklessness in her life. So, when her phone chimed with the unmistakable sound of Harry’s personal she pulled over.
She let out a deep breath and forced herself to answer civilly. “Hello Harry.”
“Where are you?”
“Pulled over by the side of the road, about five minutes from St. Pancreas.”
“Right,” Harry asserted in that voice he often used to suggest he was far superior to whomever he was speaking to. “I’m coming to get you.”
“I can still drive,” Nikki sighed. “A good deal better than you do too.”
“Leo overreacted.” Harry said, apparently giving up on coming to get her. It was probably the tone of her voice; she made an extra effort to sound placid. None of this was Harry’s fault.
“No he didn’t,” Nikki admitted. “He was right, I’ve been stupid.”
“Not stupid just...” He couldn’t think of another word for it, but he was hardly in a position to judge her. And he really didn’t think that she had been stupid, just maybe a little naïve. “Are you going to go and see her?”
“And completely throw my career away? No thank you.” Her voice held an edge of bitterness again.
“She didn’t do it,” Harry said.
“No, she didn’t, but you can’t know that. Not just know it, not like I do. Please don’t get involved, I don’t want you suspended as well.”
“No, couldn’t possibly.” His light tone almost made her smile. “Not even Leo is self-righteous enough to leave himself as the only pathologist. Janet would have his head,” Harry joked. “Just go home and lay low for a week or so. I’ll be over later, after work.”
She smiled at the thought. It was so reassuringly familiar. They would drink enough to have them laughing but not quite enough to make them regret it the next morning. Arguments would rise over whose iPod would be plugged into the speakers or who got control of the TV remote. “That sounds good.” She took another long deep breath. “Thank you, for everything. I think sometimes that I’d go crazy without you.”
“Well, not crazy, I wouldn’t say. Maybe slightly mentally disturbed...”
“Harry!” Nikki protested, laughing. “I mean it though, thank you.”
“No trouble. Just trying to soften the blow of what’s about to happen in about-” There was a pause for dramatic effect as he pretended to check his watch. “Half an hour.”
“Fine, I’ll bite. What’s about to happen in half an hour?”
“Anderson’s going to arrest Morgana,” Harry said.
Nikki exhaled heavily and let her head fall forward onto the steering wheel. She had almost forgotten about that.
“Nikki? You still there?”
“I’m here,” she said evenly. “Just about.”
~*~
Sleep had eventually come for Morgana that night but it wasn’t to be in the slightly lumpy bed of the spare room or in the cool sanctuary of the kitchen. Gwen hadn’t exactly been desperate to sit on a hard wooden chair all night and Morgana wasn’t really in the mood to argue when she had been led wearily into the living room in the early hours. She found sleep with the sound of an old black and white film featuring Lana Turner in the background, her head pillowed in Gwen’s lap and gentle fingers running soothingly through her hair. Being so close to Gwen, wearing Arthur’s university sweatshirt, she could feel her troubles slipping away.
When she woke the next morning it was to the smell of strong coffee and a gruff, “good morning, Morgana, or, more accurately, good afternoon,” from her brother.
“Leave her be.” It was Gwen. “She’s only been asleep a few hours and it’s not like either of you have been going to work. Come, sit down and bring the remote with you. I haven’t been able to reach it since it fell of the arm of the sofa two hours ago. I’ve been watching people who are supposedly designers buying other people housewarming gifts for houses they’ve lived in for years for over an hour. It’s apparently some kind of competition.”
“Couldn’t you just have woken her up?” Arthur asked. Morgana felt Gwen shift slightly as she was handed the remote and the sound of the obnoxious ITV presenters melted into the soft tones of a theatre director enthusing about his latest play. They had definitely switched.
With her eyes closed, Morgana could almost feel the look passing between her brother and his wife. He thought that Gwen was too soft on Morgana and she thought that Arthur was just as soft. It sometimes made Morgana feel like a bit of a charity case, not that she would ever let them know that.
“I was worried, when I woke up and you were gone,” Arthur said lightly.
Feeling the tension begin to rise, Morgana gave up her act of sleep. “I should get out of your way,” she murmured, pushing up off Gwen sleepily.
“Morgana, I didn’t know you were awake,” Arthur apologised.
“And you aren’t in the way,” Gwen said, rubbing her arm. “You’re family.”
Morgana yawned and rubbed at her eyes. She took the steaming cup of coffee that Arthur was holding out to her and smiled graciously.
“I’m sorry for monopolising Gwen last night. I was having a... What was it you called it Gwen?” She folded her legs underneath her.
“She looked like something from a Victorian novel, sitting there alone in the deserted kitchen in my Gran’s nightgown and the wind howling in the window.”
“Yeah, I was going to say I was having a Jane Austen moment, though it was probably closer to Dickens.”
Arthur laughed. “You always did have a dramatic streak.”
“Someone did just try and burn me alive!” Morgana protested, laughing along with her brother.
“Which isn’t a laughing matter,” Gwen said sternly, looking between Morgana and Arthur.
“I think we’re being told off,” Arthur whispered to Morgana conspiratorially. “At least I’m dressed, the two of you are still in your pyjamas and it’s almost starting to get dark again.”
A sharp knock on the door jolted the three of them out of their light banter.
“I’ll go,” Arthur said.
~*~
The day went slowly for Nikki, sitting in front of the television trying not to pay attention to what the awful people who made their money in daytime telly were saying. Luckily she had missed the morning shows and instead of warring couples in velour tracksuits she was watching greedy people being told that their “antiques” were worth approximately the same amount as the petrol home. By the time it was getting dark she had settled on a cooking channel. Though she couldn’t even think about eating, not with the low sick feeling from her constant thoughts of Morgana. If Nikki herself was terrified, she couldn’t imagine how Morgana or her family must feel.
There was a knock on her door.
~*~
The prison cell wasn’t as romantic as Morgana remembered it. There were no strategically left marker pens. The walls were spotless and smelled vaguely of disinfectant. The cot was smaller and so was the window. In fact, it was more of an airbrick than a window and there weren’t any bars on it at all. She had remembered it colder as well, there definitely hadn’t been under-floor heating when she was last inside a cell. Maybe this was adult prison. Not adult in the porn version of prison kind of way, more like adult in the ‘now I have a mortgage and apparently a prison cell with under-floor heating’ kind of way.
Time was going very, very slowly.
She hadn’t been questioned yet, just arrested and left alone in a cell to sweat. Despite her incarceration she was feeling remarkably calm. It wasn’t that she wasn’t scared, she was, but it was nothing compared to how vulnerable she had felt. Everyone had dismissed it as paranoia when she had felt eyes tracking her in the dark but now there had been the fire. How could the police believe that she had killed her stepfather when it was obvious someone had it in for her? Nikki was a scientist, just like her and she would find the truth. As long as Nikki was behind her then she had nothing to worry about, right? In a fairytale, maybe.
This was real life, not a fairytale. She wasn’t the kind of woman who sat back and relied on someone else to save her anyway. She didn’t kill her stepfather. She wouldn’t, couldn’t kill anyone let alone him. Nothing about Uther had been likable, not for Morgana anyway, but she had loved him. Deep down, somewhere she had.
“How did I get here?” She wondered aloud. Everything in the last few weeks had come so quickly. First she had gained interest from an ex-professor who had seen the preliminary results of one of her trials. Then Uther had threatened to pull her project; Arthur had stepped in and saved her from that one. Before she knew it her entire world had come crashing down. Uther’s death had been like a knife to the heart but Nikki had made her breath quicken in a way that nobody had since Gwen. Gwen... Gwen was pregnant. She and Arthur were going to be a proper family and they would have no time for Morgana anymore. Then her house, her beautiful house... She thought of the photo of the Derry skyline that her father had taken, burnt, ruined. It was the only thing she had ever had of his that gave her any idea of what he had been like, how he had seen the world.
Her mother used to talk about him all the time when Morgana was little. She used to remark at how alike they were, how Morgana’s stubbornness was his, how their eyes were the same and her hair. He had left her a book of old tales filled with selkies and banshees. Her pockets had been full of breadcrumbs to protect her from fairies and she had been convinced that Arthur was a changeling, no human baby could ever smell that bad. The book had been lost though, when they moved to England and she hadn’t seen it since. She wondered what her father would think of her. Never once had she stopped to think about his approval, she had always had her mother’s and even Uther’s, even when she was spending all of her energy to garner his glares and disappointment.
Tears spilled down her cheeks, dropping down onto her shaking hand. How could he have died? He was the closest thing to a father she had ever known. When she was a child he had been the one to kiss her bruised knees after falling from her bike. He had been the one beaming as he videoed her First Holy Communion, and the one to teach her to drive. When she had come home late he had been the one to shout at her send her to her room. He had always been at parent’s night and certificate evenings. Even when she had thought she was grown up and independent, he had always been the one to pay bail, to get her out of trouble after a protest. She hadn’t thought anything of the photos of her up in his house or even really noticed the trophy on his mantelpiece she had one for getting the highest grades at GCSE in her entire year. For all of their differences and disagreements he had loved her and she had loved him, she just never realised it.
When her mother died she blamed Uther, blamed him for them leaving Ireland, for her being bullied at school because of her accent and the fact that her hand was always the first one up to answer a question. At university she had chosen to study the life sciences without a thought, never once thinking of her stepfather’s career and why she had chosen hers.
Now he was gone and there was nobody to get her out of trouble or kiss the bruise on arm from the grip of the policeman. She was all alone and scared and truly orphaned.
Thank you to everyone who is following this story, especially those who are taking the time to comment. I really appreciate the feedback, even if its just a couple of words. The next chapter may be a couple of weeks away due to uni exams but I will try and get it done.
Fandom: Silent Witness/Merlin (Modern AU)
Characters & Pairings: Morgana/Nikki (with side Arthur/Gwen and past Gwen/Morgana)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~ 25,500 so far
Summary: Morgana/Nikki. When Uther is found dead, Morgana is at the top of the authorities' list of suspects, despite her insistence that she has been set up. But there is one person who believes her, even when the evidence against Morgana seems conclusive.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Merlin or Silent Witness, this is not for profit, just for entertainment!
Note 1: A special thanks goes to oltha_heri , my beta!
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8
“There must be a mistake.” It was the only explanation, the only possible explanation. The samples must have been mixed up or contaminated or... It wasn’t possible. Morgana couldn’t have done it. She just couldn’t.
“Just because her DNA was on the body doesn’t mean that she did it,” Harry whispered fiercely, his defence of Morgana as much a defence of Nikki. “She’s his step daughter. They work together. There’s every reason for her DNA to be there.”
“The sample was taken from under his fingernails,” Leo said, walking over and taking the report from Nikki. “Not that it automatically means she did it. What does it matter to you, Harry, if she did it or not? We’re impartial, we look at the facts.”
“It matters because she didn’t do it.” Harry bit out.
“You don’t know that.” Leo countered. “Oh Harry, please tell me there’s nothing going on between you and her.”
“I don’t have to be sleeping with her to know that she didn’t do it!” Harry was starting to get annoyed now. “You haven’t even met the woman. How can you pass judgement on her when you haven’t even laid eyes on her?”
“Did you learn nothing from the mess with Rebecca Connelly?” Leo’s frustration and worry for Harry flared his anger. Sometimes he felt like he was parenting the two younger pathologists; like they were children that needed his constant supervision to prevent them wandering away after whoever dangled a sweet in front of them.
“Stop it!” Nikki shouted. “Both of you!”
“Nikki.” Harry put a hand on her arm, warning.
“It isn’t Harry,” Nikki said quietly but determinedly, looking up at Leo. “It’s me.”
“What isn’t Harry?” Leo asked. “Nikki, Harry, what is going on here?”
They exchanged a glance. Harry silently pleading with Nikki to keep quiet - ‘you don’t have to do this’ - Nikki wordlessly saying that she did, that she couldn’t let Harry take the fall for her mistake.
“You’re right. One of us is involved with Morgana, but it isn’t Harry. Harry isn’t sleeping with her,” Nikki said, barely able to breathe for fear. “I am - I did. I’m not anymore. It was just once and I took myself off the case straight away. Harry has handled all of the evidence; my name is on nothing but the preliminary autopsy and that was before I’d even met her properly never mind...” She shook her head, clearing her thoughts into a rational argument. “He was present at the original autopsy and has since done another examination and completely concurs with my findings. Leo, it was one night! And she hasn’t asked me a single thing about the case, quite the opposite. After one night we finished things - not that they had even started really - until after all of this is over. I know I’ve been stupid, I know I could be throwing my career away and frankly that terrifies me. But I’ve done nothing wrong and I know that she didn’t do it. If I have to quit my job to get you to prove that then-”
“Enough,” Leo cut her off his voice weary. “I’m putting you on suspension until the case is over, at which point I will review the situation.” He shook his head, not looking at her. “I am very disappointed in you Nikki.”
“Fine,” Nikki sighed sharply and stalked from the room. “If she’s guilty then I resign!”
The double doors clashed loudly behind her, the sheer momentum of her push swinging them open and closed again and again.
~*~
It took all of Nikki’s self control to not press her foot down harder on the accelerator. It was such a strong impulse. She had always been a careful driver but then again she had always been careful in her career too. Never before had she come close to crossing that line. The line that she knew full well she had crossed the moment she agreed to have a drink with Morgana. She had gotten emotionally involved in cases before, they all did, but this was different: this could cost her job. Reckless as she had become with her career, she did not intend to extend that recklessness in her life. So, when her phone chimed with the unmistakable sound of Harry’s personal she pulled over.
She let out a deep breath and forced herself to answer civilly. “Hello Harry.”
“Where are you?”
“Pulled over by the side of the road, about five minutes from St. Pancreas.”
“Right,” Harry asserted in that voice he often used to suggest he was far superior to whomever he was speaking to. “I’m coming to get you.”
“I can still drive,” Nikki sighed. “A good deal better than you do too.”
“Leo overreacted.” Harry said, apparently giving up on coming to get her. It was probably the tone of her voice; she made an extra effort to sound placid. None of this was Harry’s fault.
“No he didn’t,” Nikki admitted. “He was right, I’ve been stupid.”
“Not stupid just...” He couldn’t think of another word for it, but he was hardly in a position to judge her. And he really didn’t think that she had been stupid, just maybe a little naïve. “Are you going to go and see her?”
“And completely throw my career away? No thank you.” Her voice held an edge of bitterness again.
“She didn’t do it,” Harry said.
“No, she didn’t, but you can’t know that. Not just know it, not like I do. Please don’t get involved, I don’t want you suspended as well.”
“No, couldn’t possibly.” His light tone almost made her smile. “Not even Leo is self-righteous enough to leave himself as the only pathologist. Janet would have his head,” Harry joked. “Just go home and lay low for a week or so. I’ll be over later, after work.”
She smiled at the thought. It was so reassuringly familiar. They would drink enough to have them laughing but not quite enough to make them regret it the next morning. Arguments would rise over whose iPod would be plugged into the speakers or who got control of the TV remote. “That sounds good.” She took another long deep breath. “Thank you, for everything. I think sometimes that I’d go crazy without you.”
“Well, not crazy, I wouldn’t say. Maybe slightly mentally disturbed...”
“Harry!” Nikki protested, laughing. “I mean it though, thank you.”
“No trouble. Just trying to soften the blow of what’s about to happen in about-” There was a pause for dramatic effect as he pretended to check his watch. “Half an hour.”
“Fine, I’ll bite. What’s about to happen in half an hour?”
“Anderson’s going to arrest Morgana,” Harry said.
Nikki exhaled heavily and let her head fall forward onto the steering wheel. She had almost forgotten about that.
“Nikki? You still there?”
“I’m here,” she said evenly. “Just about.”
~*~
Sleep had eventually come for Morgana that night but it wasn’t to be in the slightly lumpy bed of the spare room or in the cool sanctuary of the kitchen. Gwen hadn’t exactly been desperate to sit on a hard wooden chair all night and Morgana wasn’t really in the mood to argue when she had been led wearily into the living room in the early hours. She found sleep with the sound of an old black and white film featuring Lana Turner in the background, her head pillowed in Gwen’s lap and gentle fingers running soothingly through her hair. Being so close to Gwen, wearing Arthur’s university sweatshirt, she could feel her troubles slipping away.
When she woke the next morning it was to the smell of strong coffee and a gruff, “good morning, Morgana, or, more accurately, good afternoon,” from her brother.
“Leave her be.” It was Gwen. “She’s only been asleep a few hours and it’s not like either of you have been going to work. Come, sit down and bring the remote with you. I haven’t been able to reach it since it fell of the arm of the sofa two hours ago. I’ve been watching people who are supposedly designers buying other people housewarming gifts for houses they’ve lived in for years for over an hour. It’s apparently some kind of competition.”
“Couldn’t you just have woken her up?” Arthur asked. Morgana felt Gwen shift slightly as she was handed the remote and the sound of the obnoxious ITV presenters melted into the soft tones of a theatre director enthusing about his latest play. They had definitely switched.
With her eyes closed, Morgana could almost feel the look passing between her brother and his wife. He thought that Gwen was too soft on Morgana and she thought that Arthur was just as soft. It sometimes made Morgana feel like a bit of a charity case, not that she would ever let them know that.
“I was worried, when I woke up and you were gone,” Arthur said lightly.
Feeling the tension begin to rise, Morgana gave up her act of sleep. “I should get out of your way,” she murmured, pushing up off Gwen sleepily.
“Morgana, I didn’t know you were awake,” Arthur apologised.
“And you aren’t in the way,” Gwen said, rubbing her arm. “You’re family.”
Morgana yawned and rubbed at her eyes. She took the steaming cup of coffee that Arthur was holding out to her and smiled graciously.
“I’m sorry for monopolising Gwen last night. I was having a... What was it you called it Gwen?” She folded her legs underneath her.
“She looked like something from a Victorian novel, sitting there alone in the deserted kitchen in my Gran’s nightgown and the wind howling in the window.”
“Yeah, I was going to say I was having a Jane Austen moment, though it was probably closer to Dickens.”
Arthur laughed. “You always did have a dramatic streak.”
“Someone did just try and burn me alive!” Morgana protested, laughing along with her brother.
“Which isn’t a laughing matter,” Gwen said sternly, looking between Morgana and Arthur.
“I think we’re being told off,” Arthur whispered to Morgana conspiratorially. “At least I’m dressed, the two of you are still in your pyjamas and it’s almost starting to get dark again.”
A sharp knock on the door jolted the three of them out of their light banter.
“I’ll go,” Arthur said.
~*~
The day went slowly for Nikki, sitting in front of the television trying not to pay attention to what the awful people who made their money in daytime telly were saying. Luckily she had missed the morning shows and instead of warring couples in velour tracksuits she was watching greedy people being told that their “antiques” were worth approximately the same amount as the petrol home. By the time it was getting dark she had settled on a cooking channel. Though she couldn’t even think about eating, not with the low sick feeling from her constant thoughts of Morgana. If Nikki herself was terrified, she couldn’t imagine how Morgana or her family must feel.
There was a knock on her door.
~*~
The prison cell wasn’t as romantic as Morgana remembered it. There were no strategically left marker pens. The walls were spotless and smelled vaguely of disinfectant. The cot was smaller and so was the window. In fact, it was more of an airbrick than a window and there weren’t any bars on it at all. She had remembered it colder as well, there definitely hadn’t been under-floor heating when she was last inside a cell. Maybe this was adult prison. Not adult in the porn version of prison kind of way, more like adult in the ‘now I have a mortgage and apparently a prison cell with under-floor heating’ kind of way.
Time was going very, very slowly.
She hadn’t been questioned yet, just arrested and left alone in a cell to sweat. Despite her incarceration she was feeling remarkably calm. It wasn’t that she wasn’t scared, she was, but it was nothing compared to how vulnerable she had felt. Everyone had dismissed it as paranoia when she had felt eyes tracking her in the dark but now there had been the fire. How could the police believe that she had killed her stepfather when it was obvious someone had it in for her? Nikki was a scientist, just like her and she would find the truth. As long as Nikki was behind her then she had nothing to worry about, right? In a fairytale, maybe.
This was real life, not a fairytale. She wasn’t the kind of woman who sat back and relied on someone else to save her anyway. She didn’t kill her stepfather. She wouldn’t, couldn’t kill anyone let alone him. Nothing about Uther had been likable, not for Morgana anyway, but she had loved him. Deep down, somewhere she had.
“How did I get here?” She wondered aloud. Everything in the last few weeks had come so quickly. First she had gained interest from an ex-professor who had seen the preliminary results of one of her trials. Then Uther had threatened to pull her project; Arthur had stepped in and saved her from that one. Before she knew it her entire world had come crashing down. Uther’s death had been like a knife to the heart but Nikki had made her breath quicken in a way that nobody had since Gwen. Gwen... Gwen was pregnant. She and Arthur were going to be a proper family and they would have no time for Morgana anymore. Then her house, her beautiful house... She thought of the photo of the Derry skyline that her father had taken, burnt, ruined. It was the only thing she had ever had of his that gave her any idea of what he had been like, how he had seen the world.
Her mother used to talk about him all the time when Morgana was little. She used to remark at how alike they were, how Morgana’s stubbornness was his, how their eyes were the same and her hair. He had left her a book of old tales filled with selkies and banshees. Her pockets had been full of breadcrumbs to protect her from fairies and she had been convinced that Arthur was a changeling, no human baby could ever smell that bad. The book had been lost though, when they moved to England and she hadn’t seen it since. She wondered what her father would think of her. Never once had she stopped to think about his approval, she had always had her mother’s and even Uther’s, even when she was spending all of her energy to garner his glares and disappointment.
Tears spilled down her cheeks, dropping down onto her shaking hand. How could he have died? He was the closest thing to a father she had ever known. When she was a child he had been the one to kiss her bruised knees after falling from her bike. He had been the one beaming as he videoed her First Holy Communion, and the one to teach her to drive. When she had come home late he had been the one to shout at her send her to her room. He had always been at parent’s night and certificate evenings. Even when she had thought she was grown up and independent, he had always been the one to pay bail, to get her out of trouble after a protest. She hadn’t thought anything of the photos of her up in his house or even really noticed the trophy on his mantelpiece she had one for getting the highest grades at GCSE in her entire year. For all of their differences and disagreements he had loved her and she had loved him, she just never realised it.
When her mother died she blamed Uther, blamed him for them leaving Ireland, for her being bullied at school because of her accent and the fact that her hand was always the first one up to answer a question. At university she had chosen to study the life sciences without a thought, never once thinking of her stepfather’s career and why she had chosen hers.
Now he was gone and there was nobody to get her out of trouble or kiss the bruise on arm from the grip of the policeman. She was all alone and scared and truly orphaned.
Thank you to everyone who is following this story, especially those who are taking the time to comment. I really appreciate the feedback, even if its just a couple of words. The next chapter may be a couple of weeks away due to uni exams but I will try and get it done.