"Gail. Gail, please." Holly gave up waiting for Gail to acknowledge her first. "Gail, please."

"What? I'm having fun." She snarled looking ahead. "Isn't what we're doing? Just having fun?"

"Retract your claws and just— "

"Fuck off Holly."

"Hear me out. A moment, just a moment. Then I'll go." Holly pleaded. Choosing to take Gail's lack of response as assent, she took her arm and guided her away from the crowd. "Look, if it was just for fun I wouldn't have brought you to meet my friends. My family. It means something to me. You mean something to me. And you're stuck on me saying that I'm having fun. Aren't we having fun together? I'm happy. And I think you're too. But I also said that no one was gonna get hurt. Sure, that didn't work. At all. Look at us. But I meant you. And maybe her words weren't—"

"She is a bitch." Gail interrupted her ramble.

"I have an affinity for those kind of person it seems." She tried to joke. "Look, yes, she can be bitchy. But she always had my back. She has yours too."

"Please," Gail scoffed. "She thinks I don't deserve you. That you're out of my league. Because I'm just a cop and you're all— "

"She is also a bit snobby, yes. But she's family. And like many families she likes to think she knows what's best for me."

"And I'm not it."

"And I don't care. It's my life. It's my choice. And I chose you. But she was worried about you getting hurt. Not me." Holly went back to her previous statement.

"Because you're just having fun."

"Gail. Think about it for a second. Look at me." Holly waited until she could look into the blue eyes. "In which alternate universe what we have is uncomplicated and simple?"

Gail looked away.

"I'm not perfect, Gail. I've got issues like everybody else. Issues that my friends know because they helped me through them and you don't, yet, because this, us, it's new. If you're looking for a fairytale…well, it's not me. But if you're looking for someone who will make up idiotic excuses just to see you. Who rambles and forgets everything she knows when she's nervous. Someone who kisses you and shows up at the most inappropriate moments to make sure that you're alright. Who'll run as soon as you call from the hospital even if just hours before you didn't even let her touch you in front of your friends. Someone who'll bring you home on the very first day that you kissed…I never bring people home." Holly slowed her ramble, looking at Gail seriously. "You can ask my friends next time, if you don't believe me."

"There will be a next time?" Gail's question was asked in a quiet, almost shy tone.

Hope flared up. "If you want to."