It's Gail.
Gail and Chris to be exact. They march into the lab and immediately take their self-appointed positions at a respectful distance from the table, arms folded across their chests, that same stance adopted by every cop who ever comes in here.
Holly pulls in a calming breath as she yanks the gloves further up her wrists, surprised to feel more disarmed by this sudden appearance of Gail than she felt the last time she saw her in this lab, after that long silence, when everything was still so raw and unfinished between them. And maybe it is because this moment finds itself strangely just as raw— if not more— than the last time. How can that be?
It's been a month since she has seen her and yet she is still a weight, a presence, a force that pushes at Holly. Hard. She grants herself a brief moment to privately take her in as Gail sweeps her own eyes around what must by now be a familiar room. She looks tired, but beautiful. But she'll never stop being beautiful. She has the kind of face that is almost violent in its loveliness, even at its most faded and weary.
The short hair still disorients Holly a little. She wonders if she will ever be entirely used to it. She forgets it even though it was she who cut it, in a tender live-saving operation performed in her bathtub on that night of nights that swooped down on them so swiftly after that day of days. The dramatic, fraught day that turned them from a half-formed, barely-ready-to-be-spoken-out-loud possibility into a tangible, concrete, and intoxicating reality.
It still throws Holly how that simple haircut has rendered Gail— once so fierce with that sometime severe and always sassy ponytail— more vulnerable, more exposed somehow. Gail stripped back. She likes it.
Forcing herself to push away these thoughts and focus, she nods and gives them her best effort at a smile.
"Hi."
"Hey Holly," Chris greets her, with his usual puppyish buoyancy. Gail doesn't say a word, merely meeting her greeting with a quick smile. It's a genuine smile, yet it manages to cause no ripple to the rest of her face, let alone reach anywhere near those eyes of hers.
And, in an attempt to make this unexpected meeting okay, Holly directs the final bars of her own smile right at her before leaning down over the body again.
"So, what do you know, Holly?" Chris asks her, almost obscenely cheery. She almost wants to tell him to dial it back a notch, more for his own sake than hers.
"Nothing yet," She tells him instead. "I'm afraid I've only had him for ten minutes. We're waiting for results from Tox and I'm just going to go over him for any smaller injuries or clues they might have missed at the scene."
Chris just nods and Holly busies herself working her fingers over every inch of the scalp, feeling for any bumps or contusions.
"So, how are things?" Chris suddenly asks, making nice in what he rightfully assumes is a not an ideal social situation.
She registers Gail's impatient inward breath as he asks this question, clearly resenting his infringement on the boundaries of what could have been a well-kept silence, one that if maintained meant Gail wouldn't have to participate in this moment.
"Things are fine, thank you. And you?" Holly asks out of politeness.
"Uh, yeah, good," Chris stumbles, clearly adrift now he is once again left with the burden of carrying on the conversation.
So, instead, to fill the silence, he turns on Gail.
"Hey, are you going for that new detective rotation they were talking about today?"
"Nope."
"Why not?" he asks. "It's the plum job."
"Because I don't want to be a detective," she says quietly.
"But you went for it last time."
"I didn't want to be a detective then, either."
"Then why'd you go for it?"
"Because my father made it very clear how disappointed he'd be if I didn't go for it," she sighs. "And I knew I was safe because Traci was going to get it."
"Oh, right," is all he says to that.
Holly raises her eyebrows slightly as she listens to this exchange, examining the body along the skin of the neck and around the ears, attuned to any discrepancy in what should be smooth planes of skin. She wonders why Chris doesn't know this already about his friend. About his ex-girlfriend. Holly does. And she wonders how much it is that she already knows about this woman that her own friends don't even know. And she wonders why this small fact still makes her feel so warm, like she has been granted a gift no one is ever given, this gift of insight into this beautiful, reticent person who is so clearly slow to trust.
She was keenly aware, when she first met Gail, that she was being subjected to a swifter intimacy than Gail would usually enter into, even when they were going through the early motions of friendship. She knows because Gail told her as much in a roundabout way, often stopping mid-conversation to comment on how weird it was to be talking about something in particular, or even apologising sometimes for revelations she seemed to think were lurching into the territory of over-sharing, things that Holly had never even considered to be even close to it. But she didn't realise how exclusively privy she might have been to some of even the most basic autobiographical details of Gail's life.
As she tunes back into the room, Chris is still fumbling for chatter to fill the noisy silence.
"You going to those drinks after work at The Penny?"
"Nope," is all Gail says.
"Why not? It'll be fun. We never all hang out any more."
"Because I'm busy," she replies slowly, her tone icy.
And yet Chris perseveres.
"Ah, you're going to see that girl? What's her name?"
Holly does the best she can do not to freeze at this sudden sickening possible revelation. She fumbles for the otoscope, unprepared for the possibility of how hard this kind of news might hit her.
"Sophie," Gail responds through clenched teeth.
"That's right," he nods.
Then there is a silence. And despite her best efforts, Holly finds herself unable to stem the tide of curiosity that is making her blood suddenly buzz and her fingers forget to handle the most familiar of medical instruments.
No, she cannot leave this stone unturned, it seems.
"So, you're seeing someone?" she asks, glancing up, pleased with the successful delivery of the offhand tone with which she asks this loaded question. Still, she feels an immediate rush of regret at asking something she probably has no business asking anyway— even with her effort at making things casual. "Sophie."
Gail just pulls at her earring, staring vaguely into the middle distance between them. Not at the body, but not at Holly either.
"Sophie is an eight-year-old," she mutters in an absent monotone.
"Oh," is all Holly manages in response.
And before Chris can finish the with the uncomfortable shuffle of his feet as he realises the potential awkwardness he has created, and before Holly can gather herself to ask another question about this unknown eight-year-old quantity, Gail sighs loudly and Holly decides not to pursue it.
For a moment, there is an almost unbearable silence. Holly puts down her otoscope without even switching it on and busies herself with the simpler task of examining the face.
But then Gail speaks.
"No, of course I'm not seeing anybody," she says in that low-toned, slightly brusque way she has.
Holly looks up from the body.
"I completely fell for you," Gail says unnervingly matter-of-factly, still not looking at her. "And you know, that's kinda hard to come back from," she adds, as if patiently re-stating the obvious for someone who is a bit slow in catching on. Then she shrugs, as if to say, so be it and starts to turn on her heels. "I need a coffee. Anyone want one? Holly? Chris?" But she is headed for the door even as she speaks.
"Uh, no thanks," Chris mutters.
Holly just watches her departing back, speechless, feeling the rise of something like a flood course through her, part the residual embarrassment at asking the question and part something like grief at hearing such a disarmingly honest answer spoken out loud.
And as she whips her head back around to her work— even without meeting his eyes—she senses Chris's alarm in the nervous bounce of his feet and the way his hands are thrust deeper into his pockets as he finds himself caught in the eye of the small storm that is Gail's most private of feelings so casually made public. She knows he wants to leave, but isn't sure what excuse to make to leave his appointed position. So, as much as Holly would also like to be left alone with the aftermath of those words, obedience keeps him here, suspended in this land of awkward.
At least he, smart boy— Holly has only ever been able to think of this strapping manchild with the baby face as a boy— says nothing more, and she returns to her work in peace, her face flushing.
Oh Gail. How does she always manage to do this? How can she bring feelings so tightly bound and tucked away inside Holly so swiftly and violently to the surface with just one utterance? It is a rude, rare gift she possesses. How is she so abrasive, so cutting, so capable of such unfiltered, brutal honesty, and yet so oddly intoxicating because of it?
This is what it has always been like, though. So many of the things Holly would so swiftly turn from in other people are what make Gail so painfully irresistible to her.
And it was these elements of her personality that made her find Rita, the woman she so briefly dated, so lacking, despite all the wonderful things there were about her. She was so fantastically composed, accomplished, sexy, witty and even kind-hearted, and it made Holly feel miserly and mean that she could not enjoy her company— her attention— to the extent that she knew she ought. Too much was suddenly missing: the salt, the spice, the unexpected. All things found in the sheer beautiful ridiculousness that is Gail.
She danced over the thought then, of course, tried to push it away. But she is greeted with inexorable fact of it now: that even in her absence Gail, beautiful, brash, sometimes so unreachable Gail spoiled what, even a few months ago, would have been a rare and intriguing find for Holly. And Rita, for all her charms, was somehow inexplicably inadequate. Well, maybe not inexplicably. But inadequate.
And that was why, after that painfully honest, heartbreaking little encounter in the hallway of Fifteenth, one that Holly had stupidly instigated, needing to make things just a little more right than they had been left, she had ended it with Rita. She had no idea until that moment how capable Gail was going to be of grating at her resolve with just a handful of words. And even though she was nowhere near done with being hurt and upset with Gail, she knew those feelings were still too big— too unwieldy— to be carrying them into another relationship, however purposefully casual.
Holly takes a deep breath, drawing herself back to the task at hand.
With Gail absent, Holly takes the opportunity to pull it together and learn to handle basic medical equipment again. She picks up the otoscope, flicks on the light and gets back to the task, trying to push Gail from her mind, something she has become so well—too well— practised in of late.
She examines the inner right ear. Clear. She moves around the table, registering Gail's return as she leans over the other ear. She does not look up. Instead she bends down, smelling a whiff of coffee. She knows she should tell Gail not to drink it in here, but she won't.
Leaning in closer, she notes something visibly protruding from the outer ear canal. How did Simpson miss this at the scene? She certainly likes to think she would not have. She tries to work out what it is with her naked eye, but she can't. Only a very small part is protruding from the outer canal. Reaching over the body, she snatches up her forceps from the tray. She leans back over; getting a grip on whatever it is with the thin metal blades and tugging it gently loose. It resists ever so slightly and then the object slides out, bloodied at the end. Whatever it is, it has penetrated the eardrum.
Frowning, she holds it up.
"What is that?" Chris asks.
Holly moves closer to the light.
"It's a piece of plastic," she says, dubious, unsure of what to make of its sudden presence in what has so far been an unsullied body. She thought for sure the cause of death would be revealed in the tox screen. Of course, this piece of plastic would not have killed him. But its existence is odd to say the least. She peers at it, turning it over in her hand. "You know, it looks like a shard of the casing of a pen," she screws up her face, perplexed. "One of those regular plastic ones. Jammed in the ear."
"Weird," Gail and Chris mutter in unison.
"Uh huh," Holly agrees.
She places it on the tray and examines inside the ear.
As suspected.
"It's been pushed right into the ear," she tells them. "The eardrum is a mess."
"Why would anyone stab someone in the ear with a shard of plastic?" Chris asks.
"I wanted to do it to you all the time when we were going out," Gail offers.
Holly raises an eyebrow at that.
"You did not," Chris counters, scoffing.
"Okay, only sometimes," Gail says, smiling sweetly at him.
Then she catches Holly's eye and the smile disappears, as if she is embarrassed suddenly to be talking 'ex' in front of her. And Holly is not sure if it is because they are now exes, too, or something else.
"I'll fingerprint it," Holly tells them, leaving them there, grateful for this small respite.
"And I'll call Oliver," Chris says, pulling out his phone.
She returns a few minutes later, prints emailed to Fifteenth, and returns to her task of examining the body.
"Hey Diaz," a voice calls out.
Another uniform, one Holly does not recognise pokes his head in the door. "Shaw says he needs you need to come back to Fifteenth for interviews. Said Peck should stay and bring back the evidence."
Chris nods but turns to Gail and gives her the briefest of regretful looks, like it has already been pre-arranged— silently or otherwise between them— that if one of them were to be left here, it would be Chris, faithful puppy to the rescue all the way. But now he cannot.
"Okay, coming." He turns on his heel, flashing Holly an awkward nodding smile. "See you, Holly."
"Bye," Holly looks up, smiles and waves a gloved hand at him, catching Gail's eye on her way back to the body. But Gail's face is set at purposefully at blank, staring at the coffee cup clutched in her hand.
Holly takes her time with the rest of the examination. She takes her time because, despite herself, she finds that she wants to keep her here. Because suddenly, requiring Gail's presence is a small matter of urgency.
Because missing her has been a petty, self-inflicted torture, one that she tried to tell herself that, however painful, didn't mean anything beyond what it usually means when a relationship is abruptly ended— and well before it's expected expiration date. Of course she missed her. But it didn't mean they were right together, she repeatedly told herself, or that she should give in to this desire to see her. But she could tell herself this when Gail was a mere presence in her mind. It's not so easy to dismiss her when she is a startling, pensive presence here in her lab, and has just willingly admitted her inability to get over her.
And now she wishes Gail would speak. Speak in general. Or— better— to speak specifically to the matter of the two of them again. But she also knows it would be unfair of her to ask for that. Because Holly knows that what she didn't give Gail when she actually tried to ask for that opportunity last time here at the lab, was a chance to talk. And she learned that in a swift and brutal lesson from the brief glimpse she got of Gail voicing her feelings that same night in the hallway of Fifteenth, a lesson in how willing and ready Gail finally was to speak her feelings aloud.
She clears her throat, knowing she needs to be the instigator now.
"Hey," she says quietly, staring down at the body. "I'm really sorry I asked you that before, about if you were seeing someone. It's really none of my business."
"That's okay," Gail shrugs. "You're allowed to ask me things."
Holly nods, not quite sure what the nature of that simple response should tell exactly, what it should tell her of where the two of them stand exactly. But she knows it's an offering of some sort, so she takes it with two hands.
"So how have you been?" she ventures.
"Uh," Gail takes in a breath and lets it out slowly, as if thinking. "You know, I'm …" She shrugs and frowns. "I don't know. Sorry," she finally mutters.
Holly just looks at her, surprised by the apology.
"Why be sorry?"
"I don't know, actually," Gail frowns. "Maybe because I just told you that you could ask me things, I guess, and then I completely failed to deliver." She kind of smiles, one of her doubtful, thin, lips-pressed-together smiles.
"Ask me something easier," she says.
"Okay," Holly smiles. She tries to think clearly enough to formulate an innocuous question, to play along with this game, to answer this offering Gail is giving her in the form of a conversation she may or may not deserve. But she can only think of one question she wants to ask.
So before she can second-guess the wisdom of it, or give in to her usual need to know where something is taking her before she speaks, she decides to ask it anyway.
"Can I ask you something that I am not sure if it is hard or easy?"
She looks up. And Gail meets her eyes, her lips pursed and her eyes unflinching.
"Sure," she shrugs.
"If I were to ask you," Holly bites her lip, trying to quash the sudden rush of nerves, to hold them in abeyance. "What you were going to say to me, when you wanted to explain yourself to me that night when you asked me for a drink … ." She takes a deep breath, eyes fixed to Gail, already trying to gauge her reaction. "Would you still tell me?"
"That depends," she immediately counters, her blue eyes still unblinking.
"On what?" Holly asks, even though she is sure she already knows.
"Are you still seeing someone?"
"No, I am not," Holly replies, knowing full well that she is giving away the last card she holds. But, for the sake of knowing, she's willing to relinquish it. She wants the answer too much, despite not knowing exactly where she wants it to take them.
Gail drops her head slightly, staring down at her hands for what feels like a thousand years. Then she finally nods. "Yeah," she shrugs. "I'd tell you."
Holly nods, pulling off her gloves and dropping them in a waste bin beside her. She smiles, crossing her arms over her chest.
"And would you also tell me about this Sophie?"
She can't help it, because she is so, so damn curious about the newfound existence of a small person called Sophie in Gail's life.
With that question Gail smiles a smile unlike any she has fabricated today. It is a smile that edges closer to being of the riches that is one of Gail's rare gifts of a smile than anything Holly has had had pleasure to witness from her in a long time — the kind she produces when she's really seeing or being seen.
Gail nods again.
"Yeah," she concedes. "And I'd tell you about Sophie, too."
"Good," is all Holly can bring herself to say.
Then she passes her the bag with the piece of bloody plastic inside.
"Your evidence," she says.
And Gail just takes it, granting her another smile.
"At least it isn't a severed thumb," she says quietly, turning on her heel and heading for the door.
And Holly just watches her leave.
Later, as she writes up her notes at her desk, she hears the beep of her phone. With a small, hopeful trill in her stomach she pulls it from the pocket of her lab coat.
So does this mean I should be asking you out for a drink again?
She instantly smiles, wide and voluptuous, but also feels the push of tears at her eyes too, as she types out her response.
Yes. Please.
She barely has to wait a minute.
Okay
But that is all the response she gets. No when. No where. Not yet.
And Holly doesn't care. Because she finds herself strangely willing to wait for whatever is to come. She knows she has no choice. She's already given in to it.
This may or may not be a thing. Not sure yet. Let me know what you think.
Thank you to SG for your vote of confidence. It's always treasured!