Author's Note-Not a terribly big Rookie Blue fan. Started watching because all of my Skimmons and Cophine Tumblring had smatterings of Officer Lunchbox. Naturally, being the curiously lesbian that I am, I took a peek. Was watching the shows and (because lesbians love canon lesbianism) because I knew how things ended up, this came into my head. So here is my unparalleled angst that I derived far too much pleasure from writing.
P.S.-Was waiting to publish this to develop back story and other things. Decided, I can't come up with any sort of happy ending and I just like the angst. Maybe my backstory will appear at some point, but currently, that is on permanent hiatus, so enjoy.
Disclaimer: No owning of anything Canadian...meaning this show or its characters.
In all her career, the smell of the morgue never bothered Dr. Holly Stewart. In the morgue, she was in her element. And today was no different as Holly organized her equipment, reviewed cases, made notes, and reviewed professional journals. And while it was horrible, Holly's heart beat fast with excitement when she got a call "Hey doc. Grab your gear. We've got one."
Holly stepped out of her vehicle, pulling her gear out (she remember Gail Peck calling it her lunchbox once and smiled fondly at the now distant memory) and headed towards the police tape. Typically on calls like this, Holly liked to try and guess what had happened prior to the police telling her. By the looks of the scene she was looking at, she guessed a car-jacking gone wrong: the car-jacker sped into a stopped car, causing a car accident. When the car wrecked, the car-jacker jumped out with a gun. Some stupid civilian decides to be a hero and charge at the car-jacker and in the process, manages to get shot and killed.
Holly was told there was one critically injured individual who was taken to the hospital and one dead at the scene. Cases like this were less fun because it is pretty obvious that Holly was just here to confirm what everyone already knew rather than her expertise in analyzing decades old bone fragments.
Holly snapped a pair of blue nitrile gloves over her hands. "So Officer George, what do we have here?"
"Civilian shot and killed. According to witnesses, our hero (check off 'hero' from her initial guess) put herself between our subject and another woman with a child. She was talking him down when she ran straight at him, getting shot in the process." Holly shook her head, constantly surprised at the stupidity of people; running at a desperate person with a loaded gun.
Holly and the Officer made it over to the location of the victim. She was laying on her face, bruises and cuts covering her knuckles, blood pooled around her, staining the edges of her short blonde hair. Holly felt uneasy as the blonde's hair reminded her terribly of Gail. But statistically it was impossible that this victim was Gail Peck. Gail had no reason to be in San Francisco. And even if she did, why didn't she give her a call? Sure it had been two years but they chatted occasionally, and a visit to the States had never been mentioned.
With slight trepidation (statistically it is impossible she reminded herself), Holly rolled the victim over. Dead, hollow blueish-green eyes looked through Holly and she felt like she was falling through a tunnel. Tunnel vision was rapidly shrinking her field of view and only the dull roar of her own heartbeat reverberated in her head.
"Doctor Stewart?" Holly felt herself being shaken. "You ok Doc?" Holly never looked away from the woman. "I, know who this is..."
"How would you know a Toronto Police Detective?"
Holly dimly noted the officer called Gail a detective. The last time they talked she hadn't mentioned she had made detective, or that she even had an inclination to it.
Holly began her inspection but felt like she was going to vomit. Never, throughout her entire time within the medical field, had a dead body made her stomach turn. Yet air refused to make it into Holly's lungs. And since air wasn't getting to her lungs, oxygen wasn't getting to her brain. Lightheaded, Holly slowly stood up, moving away from the body.
She wandered, almost drunkenly, back to her car, leaving her gear at Gail (not Gail, it couldn't be Gail). She was taking deep gulping breathes, even though she knew that it could cause her to hyperventilate or black out. But she needed oxygen, desperately.
Holly awoke with a start. "Gail!"
"Woah there Doctor." Officer George said as he held his hands up, as though Holly was going to jump off the couch. "How do you know the name of our victim?"
The officer referring to Gail as the victim hit Holly like a sack of bricks. The image of the love of her life lying dead in the street lay imprinted on the backs of her eyelids. Her eyes hurt and she could feel herself sputtering out gasping sobs.
Officer George was not particularly quick on the uptake when it came to women, but the visibly distraught doctor was all he needed to know that, whatever the association, the victim was close to her. "Doc, do you...want to know what happened to her?"
Holly nodded weakly. She didn't want to hear it, but needed to know what had happened.
"It appears as though she was visiting the area. According to her daughter, there was someone important in town she needed to find. She happened to be walking by as a man with a gun was leveling it at a women and her child. She inserted herself between them and attempting to talk to him. At some point she ran at the man who got two shots off. However, the shots didn't kill her. She managed to tackle the gunman and wrestle the gun out of his hand. Another gunman ran out of the stolen car. Detective Peck, Toronto Police Department, 15 Division shot the other gunman before she fell to the ground. San Francisco PD arrived on scene to arrest the first gunman and take the second to the ER. Detective Peck was declared dead at the scene. After you passed out, Dr. Hirschman determined that, based on entry wounds and relative trajectory, had Detective Peck not continued to struggle after being shot, she might not have bled out."
A million thoughts were running through Holly's mind. But all she could think to say was, "This is what happens when we glorify heroes..."
Holly's phone rang.
"Doctor Stewart?"
"Yeah." Normally she'd be more formal but her head hurt from all the crying she had done in the past few hours.
"It's Detective Traci Nash. I'm from the Toronto Police Department, 15 Division."
"I remember you. The one with the cute kid. And you were dating…" Holly began tearing up again just thinking about mentioning a Peck.
Traci laughed hollowly. "Ya that's me. So..." Traci let out a long breath. "There was an, incident, with Gail. She was..."
"I saw her. I had to..." Holly cut her off. She just couldn't hear another person telling her that Gail was dead. But she couldn't find the words to tell one of Gail's friends that she was the one who found her.
"Oh...god I'm so sorry Holly..."
"I...yeah...thanks. So...why are you calling me? We broke up two years ago and I wasn't exactly a part of the group at the 15th."
"You are Gail's emergency contact."
After two years of occasional calls and a relationship that ended on uncertain terms, and Gail still had Holly as her emergency contact.
"Also, she has you as the legal guardian of her adopted daughter, Sophie, if anything were to happen to her. Superintendent Peck is trying to get custody of Sophie but..."
Holly was reeling as though she had been punched multiple times in the face. Emergency contact? Legal guardian?
"...after working with Gail for years, I know how much she cared about you and trusted you to take care of, arguably, her greatest achievement. But I know Gail realized that might be a lot for you so if you..."
"I'll fly out tomorrow to pick her up."
The words were out of Holly's mouth before she knew she was saying them.
Awkward silence.
"I'm sorry for..." Holly started.
"She never got over you." Traci cut Holly off. "Two years with everything going right for her. But she never got over you. That's why she was in San Francisco. I don't know what for, but I know it had to do with you."
"I'll be there tomorrow." And Holly hung up.
Holly found she has unconsciously wandered back to the morgue. Usually a place of comfort and familiarity, today she found it oppressively suffocating. The smell of formaldehyde hit her the moment she opened the door and for the first time, it made her feel nauseous.
She continued in, disregarding the smell and the nausea. When she turned the corner she saw her, Gail Peck, laid out on her slab. Another wave of body wracking sobs tore through the scientist.
Placing her hand on Gail's check, she remembered the warmth she once felt there. She ran her hand through her short hair, remembering the day she sat down in her bathtub with the blonde and cut her hair.
"God damn it Gail." Holly realized she was talking to a dead human, but she couldn't help it; her fist slammed down on the slab. "Why did you have to be a fucking hero? Protect the family, I get it. But you didn't need to run at a guy with a gun, or wrestle him to the ground. Now you've left Sophie without a mom...twice."