A/N: Hello all! This will be an AU fic in which Gail/Holly meet in high school and then I shall jump ahead to present time (aka Season 4). I would like to note that I saw this idea as a tumblr post somewhere in the gail peck tag, but for the life of me cannot remember who wrote that post and have no idea where it is. So if you were the one who wrote it or know who wrote it, please drop me a message so I can give a proper shoutout, because really—without that fic prompt, I wouldn't have come up with this story.

Also, note number 2: I am American, so the high school experience that I am going to write about may seem, well...super "American". I think I'll keep it that way because that's the life I know best. So I apologize in advance to any Canadians out there if it's an inaccurate representation of Canadian high school life.

Oh and disclaimer: I own notthiiing related to Rookie Blue/its characters. Zip, nada.

All mistakes are mine, as usual.

I guess that's all for now. Happy Reading!

Today was the first day of the rest of my life.

Okay, that statement may have been an exaggeration. But at the very least, today was the first official day of senior year. And at the end of senior year came college. And college meant a chance to finally escape the Peck household that I've been forced to live in for the past 18 years.

And we all knew how much I needed that.

I finished getting dressed and headed downstairs to find breakfast. It was no surprise that my parents were already gone. They were usually gone by the time I started school anyway. Whatwith my mother being superintendent of the police division in the city and my father being an inspector in the city next to us, I was surprised sometimes that they're even home at all. Which was just fine for me. I loved being at home alone. Especially since Steve left for college, it was nice to have quiet in the morning, instead of waiting for some dickhead to finish doing his hair.

I looked in our refrigerator and found...well, basically nothing to eat. Again, no surprise to me. I almost ate every meal outside since my mother was rarely home to cook or do anything. I had no idea what she and my father ate on a regular basis anyway. But we made enough money that we were able to live that kind of lifestyle. I decided that it was a donut kind of morning so I decided to just drop by the bakery near school to pick up one up.

As I drove out of our neighborhood, I glanced curiously at the house a couple houses away from ours. It had been on sale all summer and I think it only had recently been sold. To whom, I have no idea. But I had seen a couple moving trucks here and there when I ventured outside during the last couple weeks. I hadn't seen any sign of the family that moved in though. Or person, whichever. As long as they didn't have snotty yelling children, we wouldn't have a problem.

The only time I ever left the house during the summer was to intern at the local police station. My mother helped me land the position and I mostly spent it filling out shit paperwork and getting officers coffee. I actually got to know one of the officers pretty well-Oliver Shaw. He had already been an officer for 3 years and he'd just gotten married and hadn't stopped talking about his wife the entire summer. Oliver was 10 years older, but he had been really easy to talk to. And he had been really nice to me, offering me ride-alongs when he had the time. He actually made me think that going into the family business wouldn't be too bad.

But other than that, I had been at home. My social life had been nonexistent because my asshat of a boyfriend, Nick, decided to do a last minute summer stint counseling at a kids' summer sports camp in the mountains. He and my other friend Andy were gone all summer. And my social life went with them. I had no idea why anybody would voluntarily want to spend time with yelling, kicking, and screaming little monsters that also double as little petri dishes of germs...but to each his own, I suppose. Chris and Dov were my friends too, but they kind of always have had their own little thing going on. I saw them every now and then, but not on a regular basis.

Apparently though, Nick and Andy only got back last night and evidently, he crashed to sleep right away. He just sent me a simple blunt two-worded text- "I'm back." He was gonna get it as soon as I got to school. One cannot simply disappear all summer like that and announce one's return like that. Unacceptable.

That delicious smell of bread and that good glaze stuff hit me as soon as I walked through the bakery door. I got in line behind everybody else who wanted their donuts and pastries, rolling my eyes at the douche in front who was ordering one of those complicated coffee drinks and demanding a fresh pastry from the oven.

When I got the cash register, the owner, Mr. Buckner smiled a smile of relief at me.

"Hey Gail, how's it going?"

"Alright. First day of school. Needed a pick-me-up. Hit me with your fattiest and most unhealthy one."

"You got it," he grinned, ringing me up.

I came into this bakery often enough that he knew what was up. Sometimes I stopped by after school too, just to kill some time while waiting for Nick to finish his basketball practice. Mr. Buckner was a nice old guy. He wasn't old enough that he smelled like lint or mothballs all the time, but old enough to be like...my dad.

As I entered the school building munching on that delicious jelly-filled donut, I could almost smell the freshmen fear. They gathered by their lockers in tiny herds, almost like animals waiting to be hunted. I was willing to bet that if you even stomped towards one, they'd scatter and run in all directions.

Instead of heading for my own locker, I stomped straight towards Nick's in a separate quad. To my surprise (and to his demise), he was already there, pulling books out of his backpack to stuff into his locker.

"Collins!" I hollered with my mouth still half full, while still a couple feet away. I saw him freeze mid-air while placing a book inside, and his head dropped. Oh, he knew what was coming.

He turned around sheepishly, beaming like an idiot. "Gail, hey!" He waved—also like an idiot.

"Don't you 'hey' me," I snarled. I finally came within arm's reach of him and reached out to sock him in the shoulder with my free hand. "No contact for months and just a measly text message?"

"Ow!" he whined, grabbing his shoulder. "C'mon Gail, you know cell phones didn't work up there. And when we did have time to use the landline phone, there were always some kid that was throwing up somewhere that needed my attention," he tacked on a cheesy grin at the end, and put on his damn puppy eyes.

I swore in my head. When he put on that expression, it was way too hard to stay mad at him. I huffed loudly and crossed my arms, staring him down, waiting to see if he was willing to grovel some more.

"I missed you," he added, reaching out with his arms to envelope me in a hug. That was it; after he wrapped his arms around me, I gave in. I hated him at the moment but simultaneously just couldn't stay angry.

"You're an idiot," I muttered into his shoulder.

"But you like me anyway," he replied, using one of his hands to pluck my half-eaten donut away from me. He was lucky that I was feeling generous today because otherwise I would've bitten his head off for stealing my food.

But as he stood there, eating my donut over my head, I was just glad that he was back. As clueless as he was sometimes, he was still my boyfriend and I depended on him like I depended on nobody else. It was hard enough to keep my friends close but I was lucky to find him able and willing. I hated all that corny lovey dovey shit, but it was nice to have somebody to talk to. Somebody to order around, really.

"Don't leave for an entire summer ever again," I pulled away and lectured him sternly. "Or else somebody might find your body in a ditch years later."

"Geez, Gail," he replied, wiping crumbs from his mouth. "Sometimes you scare me."

"Whatever. Did Andy have a good time too? Did the two of you have fun missing me?" I grabbed the donut, what was left of it anyway, and swallowed it.

"Oh. Uh, yeah she had a good time too, I think. It seemed like it anyway," Nick said, shrugging. "You know how she's into that kind of sport stuff."

"Yeah, yeah. Both of you are. I'll never understand it."

And with that, the bell rang and it was off to class. I already knew I wouldn't have any classes together with Nick this year. We were just on different paths and taking completely different classes and electives. He wanted to go straight into the military after school anyway. I...well, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do yet, but I was sure that it would definitely have to do with law enforcement. It kind of came with the Peck name. Which was fine with me, because I thought I liked the idea of ordering people around while armed. Plus Oliver seemed like he enjoyed it.

Luckily this year, at least one of my other friends was in every one of my classes. Except for my last period—I wasn't looking forward to that at all. Actually, Andy was in three of my classes before lunch. Classes were bad enough, so it helped to have a friend to get through the pain together.

But I already started zoning out of classes by 3rd period. By lunchtime, I felt like I had been in school for years already. I couldn't wait to start my college applications and get the hell out of here. At lunch, our group finally reunited—Andy, Chris, Dov, and Nick. Andy and Nick told stories about their kids from camp and even though I didn't admit it out loud, it actually sounded kinda fun. A lot more fun than my summer alternating between sitting at home and sitting in a corner at the police station anyway. Steve hadn't been at home either—he elected to spend the summer before college with a couple of his friends traveling the country. One last-ditch effort to be an idiot before he had to get it together was my guess.

So I spent my lunch period munching on the school's nasty burrito with questionable content while listening to the others reliving their summer experiences. It wasn't the most exciting lunch period, but I was glad that things were back to normal. Andy was back. Nick was back. That was all I needed.

Andy and I had been friends since middle school, when she moved here in the middle of the school year. We were assigned seatmates, and at first she was scared of talking to me (but she would never admit it if you asked her), but eventually she toughened up and managed to cross into the friendship side of things. She was upbeat and she tried to be positive, which was what I needed sometimes.

And Nick came later. He transferred into our high school the summer before junior year. He transferred in as some big hotshot basketball player. He went straight to the varsity team, which Steve played on as well.

My mother ordered me to attend Steve's basketball games when they were at home court, so I sat up in the bleachers doing my homework instead. I was in the corner of said bleachers when Nick had come bounding up, all sweaty and gross after the game was over. He wasn't put off by my defensive remarks and thus with a few well-put pick up lines, he managed to weasel my phone number out of me. And that was that.

Fifth period P.E. passed by in a blur with Dov, and finally finally, we reached the last period of the day. The class that I had been dreading all day because I knew nobody in the class. And it was some bullshit honors biology class. I hated science classes the most. Give me books, give me history, but don't give me a fucking microscope or scalpel. And as for taking the honors course instead of the regular course, I certainly wasn't one of those smart nerdy kids. But I was good enough to get into the honors classes. Yeah, they were harder but it was better than spending time with goofballs in regular classes. In those periods, I sometimes felt like I was surrounded by apes. So I went the honors class route.

I picked a seat at the lab table right by the door so I could rocket out of there after class. After the bell rang to signify the beginning of class, the teacher, Mr. Anderson rose from his seat in the front and cleared his throat loudly.

"Good afternoon, class," he announced in the nasal-iest voice I had ever heard. This was going to be great to listen to all year.

A couple people muttered back a reply, but most of them just ignored him, waiting for further instructions.

"Due to my experience last year with free for all seating, I have decided that this year to implement a seating chart instead."

Immediately, an uproar. Oh, he had the class's attention now. I couldn't believe it myself. A senior class being forced to follow a seating chart? Who was he kidding? We weren't in elementary school for Christ's sake. I already hated this class the most and we were barely 5 minutes into the period.

Mr. Anderson held up a hand and tutted. Like, actually tutted. "No complaints. I've already made up my mind. Now, if you could all gather up your belongings and stand up here by my desk. I'll go around and call you all by alphabetical order. The person with whom you share a lab table with will be your assigned lab partner for the semester."

The whole class rose as one, grumbling and screeching their chairs while pulling backpacks on their shoulders. I gathered my stuff and stood by the door, impatiently tapping my foot, waiting for name to be called.

"Gail Peck."

I winced at sound of his voice calling my name and walked over to plop myself in my stupid assigned seat.

"Thomas Scott," was the next name called. I cringed and suppressed a loud groan. God that kid was an asshole. Some kid already sitting down called out, "He dropped the class."

"Okay then. We'll skip him for now. Holly Stewart."

I breathed a sigh of relief as I watched a brunette girl with glasses emerge from behind the remaining kids still standing in the front of the room. I eyed her closely as I'd never seen her before in our school. Maybe she was one of those smart junior kids who skipped classes or something? She certainly looked like she was the type—she carried a butt ton of textbooks and she looked like she was about to collapse under her backpack's weight.

She dropped her stack of textbooks on the lab table with a giant thud.

"I see somebody is biting off more than she can chew," I remarked snidely.

Holly turned to me slowly, grinning while pushing up her glasses slowly up her nose—total nerd sign number two. "Nah, I've got a big mouth. Don't you worry about my bite."

I hadn't expected that response, so I didn't have anything to say back to her. Usually the typical nerds would ignore me or roll their eyes at me. Certainly not come up with an actual line. And I thought maybe she wasn't so much of a nerd after all despite her outward appearances. Only time would tell. Time was the ultimate revealer of any and all things, in my opinion.

Anderson finished seating the rest of the class and called us back into order, looking very pleased with himself. He laid into us, under the strictest terms, that this would not be a class to slack off in. The normal bullshit. I'd heard it all before. Then he dove straight into the biology material. I didn't feel much like taking notes on the first day so I sat there waiting for the bell to ring. I propped my chin on my elbows and tried not to fall asleep. My new lab partner, on the other hand, was scribbling away in her notebook like her life depended on it and like there was going to be a final the very next day. When I snuck a peek over at her paper, I saw that her writing was oh-so-neat. Maybe she was a robot. I didn't know it was possible to write that fast and write that neatly. Wasn't it that you either had to sacrifice speed or neatness? Apparently not for one Holly Stewart. Fast and neat.

Anderson clearly had finished his teaching material with less than five minutes of class to go, so he stood there, fumbling through his desk and tried to make up some more bullshit to kill the time. But he had already lost the class's attention. He may have tried to put us into a seating chart, but we sure as hell were going to do things our way. He finally threw his hands up in the air as the class noise slowly increased as people started conversations without bothering to whisper and sat down in his chair, and waited glumly for the bell to ring like the rest of us.

Despite the fact Anderson had stopped talking, Holly continued to scribble in her notebook in strict fashion.

"You know he stopped talking right?" I told her flatly.

"Yeah. So? Who said we only could take notes while the teacher's talking?" she shot back, without even looking at me.

I found myself rendered speechless again. I couldn't get a handle on this girl. At the very least, she would definitely be able to help me in this class if I needed it.

I gathered myself and got to the point. "So you actually know what you're doing then right?"

"Oh yes. I plan to go into the medical field in the future. Not sure which specific route to take yet. There's so many options! General practice, ophthalmology, surgery—even within surgery there are multiple sub paths. Or there's lab work, research, maybe even neurology? But I heard that field may be harder—" she finally put down her pen and turned to me excitedly, her eyes wide open with enthusiasm, about to take a huge breath to undoubtedly continue down her crazed rant about medical stuff.

Her words were making my head spin. "Why are you saying all these words?" I asked bitingly. I hadn't asked for her life story. Surprisingly, her only response was a head tilt and slight smile.

I barged on. "Look. I didn't ask about your future plans, lady. As long as you can help me pass the class, then that's all I need to know." And right then I decided once and for all that this one Holly Stewart was definitely one of the biggest nerds I had ever met, albeit a slightly stranger one.

She scrutinized me over the top of her glasses, suddenly looking much older than a teenager. "That depends. What can you offer me?"

"Who said it had to be a two-way deal?"

"Well it just doesn't seem fair for this to be a one-way deal. I mean isn't that the definition of a deal? An exchange, no?" she pondered thoughtfully.

Before I could find an answer for her, the bell rang, signifying the end of the school day. I silently gave thanks to the school system and hastily shoved my notebook (still blank) back into my bag and hopped out of my seat. I just wanted to get home to take a nap. This first day business was way too tiring for me. I muttered a hasty goodbye to Holly and had only taken two steps away from the table when I heard a "Hey!"

I swiveled on the spot, wondering what else this girl wanted from me.

"You can help me carry my books to my car. How's that for today?"

I could hardly believe my ears. She was definitely a strange one. But I took a look at the stack of her books and for a tiny split second, I felt bad for her.

"Fine."

I grabbed half of her bookstack and waited for her to finish packing up. "Come on, this stuff is heavy."

"You're telling me."

She flipped her long hair over her shoulder, and for another split second, I marveled at how she managed to pull off the slow motion hair toss. I had no idea what to think of this Holly Stewart. One second she looked like a nerd, the next second she was spouting her mouth off at me. And now it turned out that she was really good at the hair toss. And she was shameless in asking for total strangers for help in carrying books. I never even asked Nick to carry my books for me!

I followed her out the classroom door and into the parking lot. She walked somewhat unburdened now, since she dumped half that burden on me. Usually with the outcasts in school, you could just tell from the way they walked that they had no confidence in themselves. No self-esteem. They walked slowly or shuffled with their books hugged to their chest, always with their head bowed down looking at the ground. Not Holly. She walked swiftly, purposely, with her head up and hair flowing in the wind. She didn't even look back to see if I was following her. For all she knew, I could've run away with her precious textbooks and she would've never seen them again. But I guess she just had that blind faith in me—for whatever reason I couldn't fathom.

"God, how far did you park? Did you plan ahead for this torture?" I complained, as it felt like she was leading me across a desert trek. It felt like we had already been walking for hours and the books were slowly getting heavier with every step.

She ignored me but finally gestured to a beat-up sedan at the end of the parking lot. I thought it may have been a really old Honda. It wasn't too beat-up like it came out of a trashcan. But definitely a step or two lower than the BMW my mother bought for me to drive. She was a woman all about status and power. If I were to be entirely truthful, I supposed I would have to admit that I liked driving it. But it came at the expense of my mother's nagging.

"Nice car," I couldn't help but remarking.

"Thanks," she said. If she could tell I was being sarcastic, she ignored it. "It's my mom's baby. She finally got a new car over the summer and passed this one onto me. It's a beaut, huh?"

"Uh, sure," I said, while waiting for her to open the door so I could toss the books and bounce out of there.

She finally did so and I flung the books into her passenger seat without a second thought.

"Hey! Peck, those are expensive, you know," Holly reprimanded. She brushed past me and placed her own half on the seat, rearranging the books so that they stacked neatly on the seat instead.

I stood behind her watching impatiently. "Well, Stewart," I said, making sure to emphasize her last name, "You know hundreds of students have already probably used those right? Kids never take good care of these books anyway."

"Doesn't mean we have to do the same thing. Why make it worse for the next person?" Holly shut the car door carefully, without slamming it like the way I usually shut doors.

"Whatever." I said, rolling my eyes. "Did you want something else from me?" I added sarcastically.

"No, I think I'm good now. I'll let you know if I need anything else," she told me seriously. Or was it sarcasm? I couldn't tell because her mouth turned slightly up on one side, like she wanted to laugh. But her tone was serious. Everything about her was just full of contradictions.

"See ya later then," I turned swiftly and waved half-heartedly over my shoulder. If she said bye, I hadn't heard it.

I trekked back towards my own car and was in the process of backing out of my parking space when I heard a car horn beep. I instinctively slammed on the brakes and automatically thought that I had missed a car driving by. When no car drove by despite my peering into the rearview mirror after a couple seconds, I slowly continued backing out.

I saw the car horn culprit after I had backed out of my space completely. Holly. She sat there in her car, grinning at me. She waved exaggeratedly, and I couldn't tell if she was just enthusiastic about waving or if she was doing so just to annoy me.

This girl was really starting to get on my nerves, but I couldn't tell if I was annoyed because she was a pest, or if it was because she was just a straight up weirdo. My friends were weird, but they were nothing like Holly. At least not when we first met. But Holly had jumped straight into it. Wasn't it usually an unspoken rule that when you first met somebody not to show them your true self? Weren't you supposed to be annoyingly polite? I was an exception to the rule, of course. But I thought everybody else had followed that rule to a T.

Apparently not.

I started driving out of the parking lot and on a whim, stuck my hand out the car window and flipped her off, just for the hell of it.

She honked again and with both our car windows down, her laughter came travelling in and the sound went whirling around my ears.

Then the strangest thing happened. She drove behind me the entire way home. The entire 7 minute drive. Turn by turn. Light by light. I kept glancing in the rearview mirror and I wondered why on earth she was following me. She was really carrying out this "annoy the hell out of your lab partner" task to its fullest extent.

Even when I turned onto our quiet neighborhood street, she followed. It wasn't until right before I passed the recently sold house that it hit me.

"No, no, no," I muttered to myself, peering at my mirror closely. She started slowing down and my suspicions were confirmed. Holly turned into the driveway of that exact house. Right before she turned, I saw her throw her head back and laugh and despite the fact that I was still somewhat far away, I swore...her laughter rang all around my ears.

In addition to being one of my classmates, Holly Stewart was also now my neighbor.

A/N: So...thoughts? Good? Terrible? Drop me a line if you want. Or let me know if there's anything you'd like to see happen too!