A/N: This is the first story I've posted on this site in years – I first used Archive of Our Own (aka AO3) for the Yuletide fanfic exchange in 2010 and I never looked back. Uploading stories on there was so much easier (simple copy/paste! no wrangling documents in a manager first), the tagging system so versatile and flexible, that I found this site way too difficult in comparison. However, as I've arrived to this fandom so late, I figured I should at least post one fic here to let people on this site know I am active in the fandom – I'll just be posting everything else on AO3, so please check there for my stories!
This "what if" scenario has haunted me almost since I first watched 3x09 Out of Time. Note that this story does deal with implied/referenced sexual assault.
Gail trembles for several minutes into the car ride to the hospital. Nick glances over occasionally, but says nothing. She's never been more grateful for his natural taciturnity.
"Do you want me to come with you?" he asks when they usher her into the triage room.
She shakes her head slightly. "I'll be fine. Thanks," she adds as she turns away, glad to be free from his scrutiny for a few moments.
They ask the usual questions, medications and allergies, and then the nurse asks if she needs a rape kit. The noise in Gail's head is so loud that she's not even sure what words the woman used.
She steels herself, drawing on the lessons learned to survive in the Peck household. Walls up. A little charm to relax the other person. "No, he hadn't gotten to that yet."
It's an easy deception; the nurse doesn't know her well enough to see beyond the mask. She's good with masks. She draws this one tighter and smiles, brightly. Not too brightly.
The nurse buys it and doesn't question her further.
Let them think that Jerry's death saved her from this. That she was worth it all. She knows the truth.
A/N: Gail would not know for sure yet that Jerry had died - but I think a part of her knew when she saw him lying on the floor.
HELP WANTED: I'm writing an AU beginnings fic for Rookie Blue but desperately need an alpha reader to cheerlead and help me stay with it. It would easily be the longest thing I've ever written, from the outline I have so far (am only a little ways into it and it's already over 5k and growing). For more info, check out my Dreamwidth journal for the post made September 3, 2018 – it uses the same nickname I have here. You can see my current writing style/quality at AO3 – anything posted on this site, except for the fic above, is years old and does not reflect my current writing ability.
EDIT: The AU beginnings WIP is now over 11k and stalled, and I have two more AU WIPs around 3-4k each, one of which is also stalled. I have a lot of really interesting AU ideas but I'm going to struggle with writing them without a single fan to chat with. If you'd like to see any of these fics completed and posted somewhere, you might need to volunteer your services as general cheerleader. No actual editing necessary! If you're interested, come to either my Dreamwidth (which I've enabled anonymous commenting for) or find me on IRC on the #yuletide channel on the Slashnet server.
All Rookie Blue fans are also welcome to visit, comment, and/or join the rookieblue community on Dreamwidth. It would enable chatting and communication far better than this site does.