Irreplaceable

"He thinks you're irreplaceable."

As you stare at her, for what seems like eternity, you can't help but wonder if you really are irreplaceable. There must be thousands of other pathologists out there, with just as much passion and talent as you; even if there wasn't someone as experienced who was willing to accept the pay, there must be dozens of fresh ones, just begging for such an opportunity. You think that maybe Nikki knows this, and most probably Leo does too; the department wouldn't shut down just because of your absence, you might be special but not that special. It would carry on, you like to think whoever they hired would be second rate compared to you, but it would carry on nonetheless.

No. Dr Harry Cunningham employee of the Lyell Centre is not irreplaceable.

But maybe you are. Maybe just plain Harry Cunningham, best friend and resident tormenter of Nikki, loveable pain in the backside to Leo; maybe he's irreplaceable.

Maybe it wouldn't just be the work that seemed poor in comparison to your efficient and stubborn methods; maybe the jokes would be mediocre too. Maybe they wouldn't be able to remember that she likes Lattes, except on Monday where she requires an espresso just to draw herself out of her comatose state, and that Leo doesn't like anything at all, but if you bring him back to odd muffin you'll be in the good books all day. What if something happened to Nikki again? How could they ever know where she kept her spare key? Maybe they wouldn't know how much was too much when they teased her; maybe they wouldn't tease her at all. Maybe all that fun banter would just be...gone.

Maybe they wouldn't go comfort her after a date gone wrong or a call from her father; they wouldn't even know something was wrong; it wasn't like she ever told you willingly, it had taken years of practice and analyzing for you to be able to figure out her bad days, and even longer to perfect a method of getting things out of her. You doubted their shoulder would be as comfy as yours, she often declared it was the comfiest shoulder she had ever cried on; sometimes you wonder if it's the only shoulder she's ever cried on, because somehow the image of anyone else's shirt soaking up her tears seems wrong in your mind.

You realise that she could have easily have taken off the 's' in addition to saying 'I' instead of 'He' and it would still have made sense. It might have even been more truthful than the original sentence.

That thought makes you a little bit giddy inside.

You try not to seem to delighted, so instead of grinning widely like you want to, you smirk. She knows you're not going anywhere, you just hope she knows it's because of her.

It's short and quick and quite honestly pretty dire.

But I can't believe it's over and I couldn't resist keeping it alive in my mind just for a little longer.