The music from Gail's alarm played softly, infiltrating her dreams until she woke up with a groan. It had been another night of tossing and turning, finally falling asleep around 2 am only to wake up multiple times. Gail hadn't slept well in weeks, haunted by old traumas from Perik that featured new faces like Sophie, Holly, Steve, and her parents.
Gail threw her housecoat on, shuffling to the kitchen on autopilot to fetch coffee. She responded to Chris and Dov's "good morning" with a muttered response, adding cream and sugar to the coffee until it was palatable.
"Man, your eyes are slitty." Dov commented, pouring his cereal into a bowl. His tone was joking, but with an underlying level of concern. Gail shrugged in response and walked back to her room with the mug. She heard the muffled sound of Chris telling Dov to back off through her door.
Chris had been weirdly supportive over the past month, standing by in his quiet way to make her life easier when he could. This included making her coffee extra strong in the morning, picking her up from bars when she drank herself stupid, and staying up with her several times when the dreams got too bad. On those nights Gail would halfheartedly snap at him to go to bed. He would ignore her and make tea, before settling down on the couch beside her and turning on some mind numbing infomercial channel.
Dov was too engrossed in Chloe to pay much attention, but Gail suspected he was the one to put a blanket on her a few times when she passed out on the couch, empty tequila bottle on the table in front of her.
Gail knew she was drinking too much. She also knew that sleeping with Frankie was doing more harm than good. But having lost everything she cared about caring for, it was just another way to try and fill the void she felt.
The only thing that wasn't suffering was her career. Gail threw herself into work, becoming surprisingly successful at training her rookie. It helped that Fox wasn't as clueless as the rest of the rookies were, and he accepted her biting criticisms with a willingness to improve and well-timed coffees. It was still incredibly hard to get out of bed in the mornings, but having a rookie relying on her that had visible improvement each day made it easier. Gail suspected some strategic placement there on Oliver's part.
Gail suffered through Chloe's prattle on the ride in with Chris and Dov, slurping her coffee loudly to try and drown out Chloe's high-pitched chirps. At least the girl had the decency to buy her a donut.
"All right, everyone shut up and sit down!" Oliver shouted good-naturedly at the beginning of parade. "It's a beautiful day out there. Connors!" Oliver suddenly pointed at one of the rookies, some clueless little thing that had tried to take over Chloe's locker on the first day. The girl gulped at the attention.
"Why, my dear, is today such a good day?" Oliver asked in his familiar dad-voice way.
"I…don't know." The girl stammered.
Oliver sighed dramatically, then brightened up. "Because today is traffic duty day!" A collective groan echoed through the room. "Numbers are down, folks! The public eye is on us, along with the bigwigs from up above that determine our budget. Let's show them that 15 has more than survived the past month, that we have come out to be better than before."
Gail tuned out the hokey inspiration talk. She couldn't do optimism, not on only 4 hours of sleep.
"As a side note, you may notice that Forensics has a few different faces starting today. I don't know why the personnel have been shuffled around, and I definitely don't want any of you speculating about how much this may or may not have to do with the recent scandals." Oliver stated with a tone of innocence.
Traci poked her head into the room. "I'm going to need some uniforms, I just got a case." She said to Oliver.
Gail couldn't recall the last time she witnessed Oliver grin so mischievously. "Peck! Take your Rookie and go." He said. Gail huffed and got up, glad to be off traffic duty. She wondered about the look on Oliver's face though.
"Serve! Protect! And make today the best day of your life!"
Gail snorted as the crowd in the room dispersed, gesturing to her rookie to follow her out to the parking lot. She met Traci in the compound.
"Someone should check Ollie's coffee, he's awfully chirpy this morning." Gail said in way of greeting.
"19 year old male, probable gang affiliations." Traci ignored her. "Forensics is on scene now." She gave the address and Gail nodded, tugging on Fox's sleeve to get him to follow her to their car.
Gail dangled the keys between her thumb and forefinger. "Fastest way to get there?" she asked. Curtis stammered out a response that she deemed acceptable so she tossed the keys over.
"Really?" Fox said in surprise. He had never driven before.
"Get in the car before I change my mind." Gail sniped, waiting for him to unlock the passenger door before getting in. She wasn't about to tell him that she felt too exhausted to want to drive, and he knew better than to remark on the dark circles under her eyes.
They drove along in silence. Gail ignored the repeated side glances Fox sent her way, and rolled her eyes when he cleared his throat to begin small talking.
"So glad we got out of traffic duty." He said, drumming his fingertips across the top of the steering wheel as they waited for the light.
"Traffic duty is good for Rookies." Gail replied flatly. "It teaches you how to stage, reminds you about the mundane points of the law we enforce, and it gets you talking to people who are either angry or lying to your face the whole time."
"It would have sucked for you."
"That's why I usually volunteer for helping the D's or desk duty. But it's not like I can do that with you tagging along."
Fox scratched his face in surprise. "But we are with the D's today."
Gail frowned as she remembered the strange look on Ollie's face that morning. "Yeah. I'm not exactly sure why. Oliver is up to something."
Fox did that thing where he bobbed his head slightly while chewing on the inside of his lip. It meant that the little hamster wheel in his head was beginning to turn a little too fast for her liking.
"What." She snapped.
"Sergeant Shaw seems to care for you a lot." He said carefully. Gail shot him a look and he stiffened. "Sorry. Shutting up now."
"Thank god." She said under her breath as they turned into the parking lot of the scene.
Traci met them in the front of the building and they waited for the small elevator in relative silence. It wasn't until they were in the elevator that Traci turned and commented "You look terrible."
"Thanks, you too."
"I mean you have circles under your eyes like you've been up for a week." Traci said, shaking her head in exasperation.
"It's the shitty fluorescents. And my pale skin."
Traci gave her a disparaging look and Gail sighed. "Plus my rookie's here and you haven't looked at me without seeing Steve Peck in weeks, so I'm not exactly interested in talking about it."
Traci opened her mouth to reply, but the ancient elevator finally dinged and the doors opened. Gail strode down the hallway to the door with the officer in front, her rookie following. She turned to Curtis before entering. "Stay out front for now, and don't let anyone in. We want to get a look at the scene first then I'll take you in, that way I don't have to worry about you accidently contaminating anything."
The other officer thanked Gail as Fox took his spot, promising to bring back coffee from across the street.
Gail and Traci walked carefully in the room, avoiding the debris on the floor. The room was completely trashed, with drawers and cupboards emptied everywhere. Someone had apparently been looking for something, and had a hard time finding it.
They approached the bedroom where all the forensics techs were, passing a red lunchbox that was set on the ground beside the doorway.
'Forensics bag.' Gail corrected mentally.
"What do we have?" Traci asked, standing beside Gail in the doorway.
"The pathologist just had to run out to the truck to grab something, she'll be back in a minute." Rodney said apologetically, poking his head out of the crowd. His eyes widened slightly as he saw Gail, before clearing his throat and continuing his work.
Gail opened her mouth to retort something about them being big kids who can think for themselves, when her attention was caught by some commotion from the hall.
"No, you don't understand. I just had to run out to get some more medium gloves, there were only large ones in the bag." A female voice rang out, clearly exasperated.
"And who are you, ma'am?"
"The forensic pathologist."
The tone, the cadence. The voice rang out in Gail's mind, the same one that had been keeping her up the past few nights.
"Let her in, Fox." Gail called, hoping her voice didn't sound nearly as strangled as it sounded to her. This wasn't happening. This was just a result of sleep deprivation and stress. She should really consider taking a day off.
Holly rounded the corner, but stopped short when she saw Gail.
"Gail. Hey." Holly stammered, clearly caught off guard.
"Hi." This wasn't happening.
"Hey."
"You said that already." Gail said softly. Her arms unconsciously drifted to hug her torso.
Holly nervously ran a hand through her hair. "Yeah, sounded familiar." An awkward silence stretched between them for a few seconds, neither of them sure what to say.
Traci looked between them slowly. "Um… so Dr. Stewart. Why don't you walk us through your findings so far."
Holly appeared grateful at the rescue, walking with Traci towards the body while going over what they had found. Gail lingered behind, her mind still reeling from what just happened.
"Wow." Fox said, appearing beside her to hand her a coffee. "The new pathologist is hot."
Gail accepted the drink without taking her eyes off Holly. "Fox?"
"Yes?" Curtis replied warily, the tone in Gail's voice scaring him.
"If you ever say that again, I will castrate you myself."
"Yes, Officer Peck."
To be continued...