The door to Gail's apartment swung open with a bang. The intruder stood in the doorway wielding a metal bat, prepared to strike. The trespasser stopped short at the sight of Gail, who was standing in the middle of her living room, vase in hand, staring dumbstruck at the invasion of her home by the woman she knew to be her neighbor, but had not yet become acquainted with.

Gail spoke first, attempting to conceal her shaky voice, "What are you doing?"

"Um… I-I uh, I heard some crashing, and I, um, I thought, I mean, usually this apartment is pretty quiet, well, unless you've been out drinking, then you do some lovely karaoke renditions, but I never hear things crashing, so I thought, maybe someone was breaking in, and uh, stealing things." The stranger standing before Gail deflated a bit, the bat she was carrying in her hands dropped to hang by her side.

Horrified realization dawned on Gail's face.

"Oh my god, you've heard my drunk singing?"

"Well the walls aren't very sound proof…" the stranger began, a little confused. "Uh, so are you ok? No one's trying to steal all of your possessions?"

"What? No, of course not, it's just me here. Well, except for you," Gail replied. "Why are you here? Aren't you the new chick who moved in next door?"

The other woman awkwardly peered around the living room, avoiding Gail's gaze, while the rest of her body looked like it didn't know what to do with itself. Her left hand wrapped itself around her stomach protectively, while the bat slipped a little lower in her other hand.

"Yeah, I moved in a few weeks ago. I'm Holly, by the way." Stepping forward, the woman fumbled with the bat in order to hold out her hand, but Gail just stared at it. Quickly pulling her hand back, Holly continued, "I just thought, what with all the crashing and banging, that maybe someone was robbing your apartment." Holly's eyes fell down to her feet, Gail's incessant staring was making her feel incredibly embarrassed.

"And so what? You thought," Gail spoke, shrugging, causing water to spill from the vase in her hand, but she didn't seem to care, "that you'd come over to your neighbor's apartment, a person you've never met before, with a baseball bat, and beat up the intruder?"

"It's a softball bat," Holly corrected her.

"What?"

"The bat. It's not a baseball bat, it's for softball. There are some minor differences, for instance, the barrel is more narrow than that of a baseball bat, and—"

"Ok, stop with the words. Is this a regular thing that you do? You just go around swinging your softball bat at home invaders? Because that's a good way to get yourself shot."

"Well… I- uh, no. It's not really something I do. I just, like I said, you're usually pretty quiet, so…" Holly's voice trailed off as she finally met Gail's eyes.

Gail carefully studied the other woman before speaking, "Do you ever have people in your life that you thought were your friends, but then you turn around for five seconds and they stab you in the back?"

"I'm not sure I understand…" Holly's brow creased, as she tilted her head to the side.

"Friends, Holly, do you have them?" Gail asked, a bit impatient.

"Yes?"

"Are you asking me, or telling me?"

"Yes, I have friends." Holly gave the other woman an exasperated look.

"You never, ever break the cardinal rule of girl code." Gail was still staring at her, rather intensely.

"Ok, you lost me again." Holly regarded the woman in front of her carefully.

"Girl code, Holly, keep up. Exes are off limits. You never sleep with a friend's ex. But apparently McNally forgot that rule."

"Oh," Holly drawled, a look of understanding broke across her face.

"Yep, so now I need to get rid of both of them." Gail turned back to the pile of knick-knacks taking over her couch.

"So you're breaking your possessions?"

"This," Gail held up the vase in her hand, spilling more water, "was a housewarming gift from Andy. She filled it with the ugliest flowers, but the vase is pretty, so…" Gail stared at the object for a moment before continuing, "But now it needs to be gone." With that, Gail hurled the vase into the trashcan next to her. A satisfied look crossed her face at the sound of breaking glass, water splashed all over the bag and some even landed on the carpet. Gail just grinned up at Holly. "Do you want to help?"

The question took Holly by surprise, she didn't feel comfortable breaking someone else's things on purpose.

Gail pressed on at the other woman's hesitation, "It's marvelously therapeutic." Holly still looked unsure. "Seriously, it's fine, I don't bite. Unless you ask." Gail winked, as she ushered Holly further into her apartment and shut the door. Then she handed Holly a beautiful necklace, taking the bat from her and setting it down. "Here, this was an anniversary present from Nicholas," she spit out the name with contempt.

"This looks expensive… Are these real diamonds?"

"Please, like he could afford to buy me real diamonds. No, if those were real, I'd sell it. But they're not, so here." Gail handed her a hammer.

"Um…" Holly just stared at the items Gail had handed her. She was very confused about how she had gotten here.

"It's quite simple, Holly. You set the necklace on that board on the table, and then you take the hammer and smash the shit out of it." A mischievous grin took over Gail's face.

Holly looked at the table Gail had pointed to. This would not be the first piece of jewelry Gail destroyed tonight, there were scraps of metal all over the wooden board.

She looked back at Gail, but Gail was just looking expectantly back at her. Slowly, Holly set the necklace on the wooden board. She looked at Gail once more, but saw no ambivalence in the woman's face. Holly took a deep breath in, and raised the hammer. With a quick breath out, she slammed the tool down on the piece of jewelry. When she pulled back, the heart shaped necklace was dented, but not completely smashed.

"You have to keep hitting it! It takes a few good whacks if you really wanna destroy it," Gail spoke from experience.

Holly looked at her questioningly. Was she really going to enable her neighbor's destructive habits? Gail just nodded towards the jewelry, silently inviting Holly to smack the necklace again.

Conceding to the other woman's wishes, Holly slowly raised the hammer again and proceeded to smash the necklace, missing several attempts as she did so, until the metal was unrecognizable.

After admiring Holly's handiwork, Gail beamed up at the slightly taller woman. Holly couldn't help but grin back. Gail turned back to her pile of things, and searching through it, grabbed a very crisp, blue dress shirt.

"This is Nick's favorite shirt. He left it here, and after we broke up, asked me to bring it to work. But that's not going to happen."

"I hope you aren't planning to destroy that with a hammer as well," Holly chuckled as she spoke.

"Of course not!" Gail feigned offense at the implication. "No, we're going to tear it up into a million pieces, and then I'm going to put them all in his locker."

"That way you're doing what he asked?"

"With a few slight modifications, yes." Gail made her way to the kitchen, leaving Holly in her living room. Holly could hear things being rattled around.

"And how do you plan to tear it into a million pieces?" Holly inquired a little louder.

Gail didn't answer, so Holly wandered over to some shelves next to the television set. There were only three pictures that Holly could see in the whole room. One was of Gail standing next to a taller, handsome redhead. They were both smiling in the photo, as if they had been laughing. Holly really liked the genuine smile that was on Gail's face. The second picture, Holly assumed, was of Gail and her family. The same man from the first one was in this one as well. Holly inspected the first picture more closely; the two had similar bone structure, and the same blue eyes. Siblings, she suspected. The third photo was of a group of five, all in Police Academy shirts, all looking a little worse for wear. Gail was on the end, she had distanced herself a little more from the others, and it seemed to Holly, like she wasn't exactly thrilled to be in the picture.

"With these!" Gail returned, triumphantly holding up a pair of scissors, as she made a beeline for the shirt.

She waved Holly over, and shoving the shirt into Holly's hands, spoke again, "Hold this."

Gail adjusted the shirt in the other woman's hands, so that Holly was holding it exactly as she wanted her to. Then, she took the scissors and made a few incisions at the hem.

"What now?"

"Now, we rip it!"

Taking the shirt back, Gail demonstrated by gripping the bottom of the shirt, and with a wrench, ripped the fabric in half. She handed one half to Holly.

"Should I really be helping you with this?" Holly hesitated, while Gail tore the fabric in her hands again.

"Yes, you should." Gail shredded the shirt once more.

"Ok, but, there has to be a healthier way to deal with this…" Holly began.

"This is healthy. The other option is to slash their tires. Or shoot them," Gail said, rather serious.

"Yeah, let's not get you sent to jail."

"Please, Holly, I'm a cop. I could easily hide the evidence."

"Ah, well, I still vote for not hurting anyone."

"Also, you'd probably be happy to know I haven't had a sip of that," Gail pointed to the open bottle of tequila on the counter, "since you busted in here."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry about that…" Holly's eyes fell to the floor.

"No worries, you're actually pretty good company," Gail was still ripping the shirt as she spoke.

"Thanks, I think…" Holly gripped the shirt, and with a yank, ripped the fabric.

- *An hour and several broken objects later...* -

The two were now sitting on the floor, scraps of broken things surrounding them. It had taken Gail and Holly a good five minutes to calm down from laughing. This night was turning out to be so much better than expected. Gail had thought it would just end in her drunkly smashing things, until she passed out on the couch, possibly after crying herself to sleep. But this, this was a thousand times better. She really liked her new neighbor.

Once she could breathe, Gail asked, "Why do men always give jewelry?"

"I couldn't tell you," Holly responded, shaking her head.

"But it's like, for everything. When they're in the dog house, anniversaries, birthdays, holidays. Why not give something useful?"

"I generally try to get people something they want, or something I know they'd like. Jewelry is just, well it's kind of cheesy." Holly sat back, resting her weight on her hands.

"Right? Like how hard is it to get me a new Smith and Wesson knife? Or a new holster?" Gail's eyes glazed over, as she pictured the aforementioned items.

"Uh, that's, yeah… that's one example," the other woman commented. She looked at her neighbor for a moment, a lopsided grin crossing her face.

"Did your exes all give you a bunch of useless junk? Jewelry you pile up because you can't wear it anymore?" Gail questioned, picking through the debris around her.

"Well, yes, sometimes they gave me jewelry, but not always." Holly watched her neighbor inspect a mangled bracelet.

Gail tossed the bracelet into the trashcan. "But do you use any of it anymore?" she asked, meeting Holly's eyes.

"Well no. I guess not." The two stared at each other for a moment, smiles gracing both their lips.

"Exactly. God, I should be a lesbian, I'd be an excellent gift giver," Gail exclaimed, leaning back against the couch to stare up at the ceiling.

"That doesn't exactly make it any easier," Holly chuckled.

"What?" Gail looked over at her.

"Dating women. They aren't easy to shop for, regardless of your gender identity. Like my last girlfriend, she was so picky. If it wasn't exactly what she wanted, I had to send it back and get the right thing."

If Gail was surprised by Holly's disclosure, she didn't show it. She merely nodded in acceptance, saying, "Oh god, I hope you weren't with her long."

"No, but it was long enough to figure out how controlling she was."

"Do you have some things you need destroyed?" Gail looked sympathetically at the other woman.

Holly laughed, "No, she didn't really give me anything of importance. She was kind of a terrible girlfriend."

"I hope you dumped her hard."

"Well, I like to think I was nice about it…" Holly thought for a minute. "Ok, maybe I was a little mean."

"Good."

Holly just flashed a lopsided smile at the other woman. Gail was starting to really like that smile.

"So, what should we break next?" Gail asked, looking around the room.

"You still have things to break?" Holly laughed again. Gail thought she could listen to that sound all night.

Gail stood up, stretching as she did. Her shirt road up, and Holly caught a glimpse of the woman's abdomen. Realizing she was staring, Holly quickly turned away to stare at the wall.

"What about these?" Gail walked back in from the kitchen. Holly hadn't realized she'd left the room. Gail was looking at her, holding up a set of wine glasses. Taking one, Holly inspected the glass.

"Why would you want to break these?"

"Another gift from McNally. For my birthday last year. I don't even like wine all that much," Gail grumbled, setting the other glass down on the wooden board on top of the table. Then she grabbed the hammer.

"What are you doing?" Holly queried, looking from the hammer, to the glass, and finally up at Gail.

Gail looked at her like the answer was obvious, replying, "I'm going to smash it."

"I don't think—"

But Gail slammed the hammer down on the glass before Holly could finish her warning. Holly barely had time to register what had happened, when Gail shouted in pain, "FUCK! Shit, ow! Goddamn it!"

"What happened?" Holly quickly stood, moving over to stand by Gail.

Gail was cradling her right hand in her left. That was when Holly saw the blood trickling from her hands down onto the carpet.