There are places I remember...
Twenty Five years later and she was still in love. Painfully, heartbreakingly, in love. Something she hated to admit, even to herself. When had Gail moved on? She wasn't sure. Maybe it was the job, or their different goals, or the broken straight girl with the core of steel she had fallen hard for so long ago, and slowly watched wall herself off from their love, from her touch, from anything that might penetrate her hard won sense of autonomy. She remembered the night when Gail had silently, stoically, packed her bags and left her standing in the middle of their home, clutching her sweater around herself, tears running down in waves, with just an icy look back and a cutting remark. And now, here she was, back in their city, so familiar and yet so foreign to her after all this time. She had changed too, softer now around the belly and the hips, dark hair turned silver, more lines on her face. It had been five years since she had sold the house and moved, fled really, to the farthest place she could imagine without losing herself. They hadn't spoken since. Old habits die hard, somehow her feet had brought her here.
When she left, she had thrown herself into her work, into her new job, in her new city, with a single minded intensity. Her research, her writing, her innovations in her field of study had left her with high praise, academic accolades, long hours, few friends and only the dead to keep her company on most nights. She should be fast asleep by now on the luxurious sheets and comfortable bed of the posh hotel where she was giving her lecture in the morning. She hadn't wanted to come here, but one does not turn down the prestigious invitation and award that would reflect well, not only on her, but on the University, her boss had insisted. She had put herself to bed at a reasonable hour, SVU marathon on the TV, promising herself to be good, to sleep. Sleep would not come. From bed, to computer, to window she had paced until her unrest had driven her to throw on clothes, wrap her hair in a careless bun, and go out into the night. She had walked for hours in a desperate attempt to clear her head. Wrapped in thought, not really paying attention to where she was going, she looked up suddenly to find the morgue looming in front of her. She sighed heavily, and leaned on the post of the nearest streetlamp for support. What was she doing? Cold autumn wind cut into her bones as she wrapped her arms more tightly around herself. Tires crunched, and stopped on the pavement behind her. A car door opened, and a familiar voice said
"Excuse me ma'am, are you all right?"
She smiled as she turned to face the officer leaning on the roof of his car.
"No, Chris, not really." She watched his mouth form a little O as he rushed around his car to catch her in a giant bear hug.
"Wow! Holly! It really is you!" He exclaimed into her hair, squeezing her tighter.
"Shouldn't you be at home taking care of your rugrats, or something?" She asked, not moving from their embrace
"Naw, Laura has them tonight. And besides, busting loiterers like you keeps me on my toes." He replied, pulling back to look at her.
Holding her at arms length his face suddenly serious, he said "Have you seen her?"
"No, " she replied, ground quickly eroding beneath her feet "No, I haven't."
He was looking at her in a way that made the old familiar panic begin to rise in her throat, and made her gut clench.
"What is it Chris? What don't I know?" she asked, suddenly afraid of the answer
"Ya know," he said dropping his hands and trying to sound casual "you must be freezing. Let me give you a ride. Is there somewhere I can take you?"
She looked away as her world began to unravel. Sucking as much air as she could into lungs that no longer seemed to work, and adjusting her glasses, she looked back into his eyes and said "Yes, yes there is.."
He waited
"You know where I want to go." She said
Chris sighed, opened the passenger side door of his black and white for her and said "Ok Holly. Get in."
Some are gone, and some remain...
"What the fuck did they know?" She thought, staring at her drink, waiting for that unsteady feeling in her arm to subside enough to be sure she wouldn't spill it on the way to her mouth. Traci had insisted she would feel better if she got out more. Here she was, on her stool at the Black Penny, daring them to come say something stupid to her. She was a fucking hero. Not that it did her any good. She was a God-Damn Police Officer! It was her fucking job to put herself in danger. Didn't they know that it could have been, still could be them? Was she ever that young? Maybe this was a bad idea. She felt her self stiffen and prickle as a warm hand clapped her on the shoulder.
"Buy an old man a drink?" the voice next to her said and gave her a scratchy kiss on the cheek.
"Hey Oliver" she relaxed visibly
Oliver she could deal with. Oliver, who bumbled through life and never once treated her any differently than he always had. Oliver, who had stayed by her side at the hospital, even when the pain had become so unbearable that she would have died just to make it stop. He had asked her then if she wanted him to give Holly a call, but she had said no. She knew Holly would come, and to see her pain once again reflected in Holly's eyes was more than she could bear. She didn't, couldn't, wouldn't put her through that again.
"Celery wants to know how the salve she made is working out for you" he said, motioning to the bartender with two fingers and then pointing back at the two of them.
"I don't know, but the hand seems better, more flexible" She said flexing her thumb and her two remaining fingers to prove her point as she turned to stiffly to smile at him. She could still smile.
"Good. Good." He said as their drinks arrived, clinking the bottom of his glass with the top of hers that was still sitting on the bar. "We just finished the new guest addition to the cabin, and the grand-kids will be up next week." he offered "You know how they miss their Aunt Gail."
"Sure" She said noncommittally "Why not."
She was still out on disability, with time on her hands and a head full of doubt and disturbing images and sensations that made it hard to sleep at night. Really what else was she going to do? Take up knitting, as the occupational therapist had advised. I don't think so.
She had secretly restarted her yoga practice, doing it at home when nobody else was around. That seemed to be helping too. Not only did it quiet her racing mind, when she pushed her injured body to the limit she found she could sleep. She was starting to be able to walk better too. On good days, she could leave her cane by her bedside and shuffle around her small, one bedroom apartment without tripping over her own feet, or falling once. Yippee. Her mother had said she always knew Gail would come to a bad end.
The thing she had always feared, the one thing that terrified her actually, was the thought that she would end up on Holly's slab, and Holly would find her there before anyone had a chance to warn her that her lover was waiting for her at the lab - on ice. And this is why she had to protect Holly, to push her away, to finally go leaving a gulf of silence and hurt between them. It had almost happened too. Just over a year ago, on a beautiful, warm fall day, she and Oliver had gone to investigate a strange man wearing a trench coat hanging around an elementary school. Her last clear memory was of Oliver singing Ziggy Stardust off key as the got out of the car. Later, they had told her that she had thrown herself and a cafeteria table in front of a small group of first graders just as the suicide bomber had detonated his device. She had saved their lives. The blast had flayed her open, it left shrapnel in her skin, broke her pelvis, and her back, and a number of other bones, wrecked her left hand and almost removed her left leg above the knee, only to have it reattached. Three months later, she had been released from the hospital feeling somewhat like a Tim Burton creation. Traci and Steve had taken her in as she had gone through six more months of rehab and several more operations. She had moved into her own apartment near by just as soon as she could climb stairs. Thank God she had ditched Holly long before this happened. She knew she had hurt her, but not like this would have. She wondered why she still cared.
"Hey Peck, it's late. I should get going." Oliver said, downing the last of his scotch.
"Good night Oliver" she replied. She watched him make his way across the crowded bar and warmly greet a couple who had just come inside before disappearing out the door. The shock wave hit her like a slap. She felt herself go from cold to hot to cold as all of the blood seemed to drain from her. Holly. Not the apparition of Holly she sometimes saw out of the corner of her eye in the crowd, but Holly in the flesh. Holly standing in the doorway of the Penny with Chris standing close behind her. Holly scanned the room for a moment, and then began to make her way purposefully in Gail's direction. She found she couldn't speak, in-fact she could barely breathe as Holly leaned on the bar to face her. Holly reached out to trace the angry red furrow of a scar that ran from Gail's hairline, in front of her ear and down to her collarbone, her eyes opaque. Cupping Gail's cheek in her hand, she leaned in until their foreheads were barely touching.
"You are such an asshole. You know that, right?"
"I still love you too." Gail whispered back.
All these places have their moments...
There are moments of Grace in life that cannot be explained away. There were times when the beauty of the universe crashed in on daily life and overwhelmed her, beyond peace, beyond forgiveness, like a door had opened to give her a second chance that she doubted she deserved. Gail had never believed in God or anything, but she was grateful nonetheless.
She remembered when she had been in the hospital for just over two months, when they decided she was strong enough to take her off of the machines, removed the drain from her side, and the wires from her chest. Two days later, Sam had paid her a visit for the first time, pushing a wheel chair with that devil-may-care grin on his face.
"Wanna get outta here?" he asked, grin growing wider.
"What?!" she had only stared at him "We can't do that…can we?"
"Oliver and Celery are creating a diversion. Come on Peck, no one is going to miss you if I have you back, safe in your bed, in less than an hour." He smirked
He had lifted her easily, like a child, out of the bed where she laid prisoner to her own body for so long, placed her gently on pillows, and wrapped her in warm blankets. As she clung to his neck with her good arm, she could see the thick pink scars on his body too. With her secured as comfortably as possible, he nearly ran down the hall, and out a door that lead to an outdoor patio on the roof, out into the open air. In spite of her weakness and pain, she had giggled like a school girl on a carnival ride all the way there. That feeling of Grace as the first rays of unfiltered sunlight struck her face and a warm early spring breeze had caressed her skin and ruffled her hair made her cry. She had breathed in fresh air in gulps, as if desperately trying to fill herself with it's cleansing sweetness and felt gratitude for still being alive, for the first time in months.
As she looked into Holly's eyes, everything else seemed to disappear. She knew she must be crying from the wetness on her cheeks, but she didn't care.
"I am so sorry." She whispered
She felt Holly try to repress a sob.
"You suck Gail. I am so angry with you for shutting me out of your life. But yes, I love you too." Holly whispered back.
"So, now what?" Gail asked in a barely audible voice
Holly broke eye contact and turned, hand still resting lightly on Gail's shoulder.
"Chris? Can you take us somewhere more private?" She turned back to look at Gail "Your place or mine? She said with the hint of a smile.
That smile, Holly's smile, Gail remembered how she lived for that smile she had thought she would never see again. To only be able to bask in that smile as she once had. It warmed her soul like the rays of the sun.