Gail looked down at her watch for the fifth time in the last half-hour. She silently grimaced with the realization that she still had an hour left on shift - an hour patrolling the freezing snow-covered streets of Toronto in a squad car with Andy humming the entire Journey playbook beside her. She cursed her luck and prayed for time to somehow speed up and get her into the warm comfortable bed of her girlfriend's as quickly as possible.
After six-weeks of dating, Holly and she had a general rule. If Gail finished shift and could be at Holly's by one in the morning then she would come over; if not, she would go to her place. It wasn't really a rule favored by either of them, but too many exhausted days walking around like zombies after spending a little too much time enjoying the still newness and excitement of their relationship dictated the necessity.
Gail looked at her watch again. Two minutes had passed and it was now eleven pm. If she could go the next hour without anything but a speeding ticket or two, head back to the station to quickly write up her notes for the day and change quickly, she could make it to Holly's just shy of the deadline. She tapped her fingers on her knee willing the gods to work in her favor.
Lost in thought, she felt the car begin to pull over and realized Andy was parking near one of the busy intersections just out of sight from the motorists. Gail smiled to herself thinking maybe the gods were listening and planned to even be nice to the first speed-breaking motorist as payment. Hell, she would even be nice to Andy for the rest of the hour if it meant going home on time. Things between the two of them were getting better, but were still not that great. Ever since the Ford shootings, the two just silently seemed to agree to let things go. There were other, far more important things, to worry about. Time went on and what started as Gail taking a few of Andy's shifts so she could spend more time with Sam, or Andy including Gail in an invite to Traci to go for a few beers turned into a détente between the two. They still weren't exactly close friends, but the anger was gone and shifts were bearable. Gail peered over and caught a glimpse of Andy as she watched the cars going by waiting for someone to blow the light. She knew if she told Andy about the one a.m. rule, she would bend over backwards to make sure she made it. Andy was just that kind of person; and now that she and Sam were back together and crazy-happy in love, she was in the kind of mood where she wanted everyone else to have the same happiness. It was equally annoying and endearing.
The only problem with telling Andy about the rule was that she never actually told her about Holly in the first place. Andy didn't even know she was dating anyone. Actually she hadn't mentioned it to anyone except Traci and even with her it was more Traci figuring it out and not being afraid enough of Gail to drop hints every now and then until Gail finally caved. Chris and Steve were fairly clued in but they never broached the subject and Gail didn't volunteer any information. Dov had asked her a few times where she was hanging out when he finally realized she was barely home, but she shrugged it off and he knew better to ask again. He was so busy with helping Chloe recuperate; she wasn't exactly a priority for him.
After the shootings, everyone just started to move on and concentrate on their own lives and, for that, Gail was grateful. It had given her the time to really work out what was going on between Holly and her without the pressures of being in a public relationship. Those first few weeks hadn't exactly been easy. The emotional roller-coaster, confusion and fear had almost ended them before they even really started, but somehow they got through it and were beginning to find a true sense of understanding and commitment with each other. If she were to be honest, this was the first relationship she had ever truly put time and energy into building. Usually she just allowed lust and the excitement of the chase to turn into familiarity, but with Holly it was different. They were friends first – the familiarity was already there before the attraction began. Gail corrected herself…before she allowed herself to give into the attraction would probably be a better way of putting it. Some part of her had been attracted to Holly from first glance, but it was accepting that part of herself - of allowing herself to feel emotions she has long since buried that had caused those first few weeks to be difficult.
Holly was an open person and not just with her sexuality. She gave friendship, trust and love freely and without limit to all those who wanted it. She was warm and generous with her time and didn't hide behind smokescreens and charades. The pessimist in Gail couldn't help but once ask Holly how many times her kindness got her burned. Holly just shrugged her shoulders and told her she had spent too many years lost in books, laboratories and bad relationships to not value the gift that is humanity. Sometimes it burned you, but that was okay because sometimes it brought you blonde pseudo-cynics that were worth the patience.
In other people she would have regarded the sentiment as a sign of weakness, but with Holly she admired it a great deal. Wrapped in the kindness was also a genuine strength Gail rarely saw in people. Holly's openness and trust was not without its boundaries – when a friend burned her, it took time to regain that relationship back- if that was even an option at all. It was that observation that had led to many sleepless nights for Gail those first few weeks. Walking down this path with Holly and not being able to make it work wouldn't have just been about losing another lover, it would have been losing the closest friend she had ever had.
Surprisingly it was the fear of failure that got them through because it made Gail do something she had never done in prior relationships – she actually talked to Holly about it. What surprised her most was to learn Holly was struggling with the same fears. It was in those moments the two of them truly began to build a relationship. Gail had promised she wouldn't run and Holly promised she wouldn't push and day-by-day things just got easier. Six weeks in and Gail was beginning to feel like she was settling into the new normal of being Holly's girlfriend. The fear of losing Holly was now at a level that kept her wanting to continue to be better but not enough to worry her and the joy of finding someone that just got her so perfectly made her smile and shiver in the most random moments. She knew it was time to really show Holly how important this was to her and to do that she needed to start telling her friends and family.
Listening to Andy switch from 'Faithfully' to 'Don't Stop Believing' as she flipped the sirens when a BMW flew through the light made her question for the hundredth time why she was having such difficulty getting the words out. Her friends were kind of as odd as she was so why should revealing a part of herself be so difficult? They all gossiped like old women about who was dating who, but that was just what happened when you spent as many hours with people as they did in such close quarters and in a stressful environment. She thought about the different ways she could tell them – ways to minimize the gossip. The easiest would be to somehow let Chloe in and everyone in Toronto would know by day's end, but that didn't seem fair to her friends. She could gather them around and make some kind of declaration, but she more preferred being stoned and left tied to a pole in the blazing hot sun than that option. That left the 'falling sideways' method. She would just begin to bring Holly around more and not be as quiet about the whole thing and people could just start figuring it out for themselves. She imagined that is what Chris and Steve were currently in the middle of, unless Traci had somehow helped them along, and it seemed to be working. Her circle of friends wasn't exactly huge so it shouldn't be that difficult except she knew that them all knowing also meant the division would know and that worried her. She had spent so many years hearing 'Peck Princess' muttered under breath as she walked by, she couldn't even imagine what new adjectives her fellow officers would add to the mix. Plus the division knowing meant she had to tell her parents and they were going to be a little more difficult to deal with - there was not falling sideways with them. Now there was a conversation she wouldn't mind Chloe taking control over.
Gail smiled at the thought of Chloe doing her dirty work for her as she finished running the plates and license of the BMW. The woman was clean but probably needed to turn in her sports car. Not one ticket in forty years of driving and then three in the two years since she acquired her little mid-life crisis on wheels. She smirked and told Andy to tell the woman to enjoy driving school. Andy got back in the car and turned up the heat to try and warm up. Gail looked down at her watch again – 11:37. She was about to casually mention that maybe they should head back to the station early to warm up when dispatch echoed throughout the car. A teenage male had been spotted in the park visibly intoxicated and armed. Gail sighed and looked over to her partner who had the same look of defeat. They were the closest squad car and they both knew it. Gail flipped the lights and siren as she briefly closed her eyes and allowed herself to imagine herself snuggled up in Holly's bed one last time before releasing that dream into the night.
A/N: This is going to be a 2-3 chapter story that has been stuck in my head for a few days. I haven't written anything since I finished 'Another Day' a few months ago. I am inspired by the continued great work of all those authors writing about Gail/Holly and wanted to write a little something to get back in the game. Just to forewarn you, Holly may make an appearance but this story is going to be all Gail. I also apologize for all grammatical errors – they are mine and they drive me up a wall.