AN: Hey all! So this is my first Rookie Blue fic. If you ask me, Gail is the best part of this show and I love her and Holly as a couple. So adorable. That being said, this story is not fluffy. You have been warned.
AN2: This is where I write that none of the characters belong to me and that all mistakes are mine and all that good stuff. I'm just doing this for fun. I hope you like it and I would love to hear what y'all think.
"1534 we have a 911 call. 10-66. Near your location. 68 Brookhaven Drive." The sound of the radio interrupts the silence in the car. The usual witty banter between Gail and Oliver gone with the lateness of the hour.
"Unit 1534. We got it." Oliver's voice seems louder than usual. Or maybe it's just that everything else is abnormally quiet.
As they pull up to the address and stop the squad car, one look between the pair of them is all either of them needs. They know this routine, they've done it countless times before. Their eyes strain to see the buildings in front of them as they step outside the car and begin to clear the area around the house.
"I'll clear the side." Gail calls as she heads into the alley between the two buildings. Oliver is no more than 100 feet behind her when the gun goes off, the sound deafening against the otherwise silent neighborhood.
She doesn't even see the shooter. All Gail feels is the bullet as it pierces the skin above her vest, right in the hollow of her neck. It's only a matter of seconds before she loses consciousness, and it's during those last precious seconds that one final memory flashes before her eyes.
It is interesting that Gail remembered what she did, especially when we consider all of the events throughout her life. Events that, at the time, seemed both meaningful and important. Yet only one served as the final memory of Officer Gail Peck.
For instance, she remembered nothing from her childhood. All of the days she and Steve spent playing cops and robbers with the toy guns they had gotten for Christmas. How annoyed she got every time her stupid older brother made her play the bad guy. Gail didn't remember the time she broke her arm because the boys in her neighborhood had dared her to jump out of the treehouse in her backyard. She didn't cry only because she knew if she did, she would never hear the end of it. The doctor in the Emergency Room had offered her a pink cast, but Gail had refused. Red was her favorite color after all.
Gail didn't remember anything about her days in the academy. The classes, the exams, the grueling hours of training. Not one single detail from those five months of hell. She didn't remember the first time she stepped through the doors of 15 Division. How quickly the adrenaline had flooded her veins once she realized that she had finally made it. All of her hard work had paid off and she was part of the best division in the city.
Nothing from her first six months on the job crossed her mind either. She didn't remember her first undercover assignment, the first time she fired her weapon or the first time she drove the squad car. She didn't even remember the first time she screwed up. It was hard being a rookie, but it was even harder living up to the expectations that came with being a Peck. Yet Gail didn't remember handling the pressure the same way she handled everything else: with her trademark sarcasm and plenty of alcohol. She didn't remember the day their ties were cut and they officially lost the title of rookie, or anything else about the job following that day. Not when Nick and Chloe joined 15. Not when her uniform was stolen. Not when she was abducted. Not the night that Jerry died. None of it.
Gail didn't remember that most of the time not spent on the job or sleeping was spent at the Penny. She didn't remember any of the hours spent there after work drinking and laughing over something that had happened that day. Nor did she remember Dov and Chloe's obsession with trivia or the night all of the rookies had to get themselves out of handcuffs. It didn't matter if the goal was to remember or to forget, someone from 15 was always there. They went there to celebrate Frank and Noelle's engagement, and they went there after Jerry died. Traci had tried so hard to read his whole speech without crying, but the last part had been too much. Gail didn't remember taking the speech out of her hands and reading the last bit for her. She didn't remember the quiet that had settled over the room, the air heavy with the words she had just read. How, even amidst the grief, their bond as a unit… as a family… had grown stronger.
In fact she didn't remember anything about the people at 15. Not her fellow rookies or the veterans who had made her a better cop. Gail didn't remember Nick, or Chris, or Dov, or any of the other guys who she had added to her long list of failed relationships. She didn't remember Oliver, or Andy, or Traci, who had been the closest to family Gail had ever had. She didn't remember how easy it had been for her to push those people away. To keep them at a distance. To build up walls so high that no one even bothered to try knocking them down anymore. When suddenly she looked around and realized that she was alone. When her attempts to fix things had only managed to make them worse. Gail didn't remember anything after life had knocked her down so many times that all she had left was her pride to keep her going.
But then there was Holly. How Gail wished she could hang on to every small, insignificant detail, but she couldn't. She didn't remember that the first time they met, they were surrounded by woods and a pile of bones. Gail had called Holly "Lunchbox" and she had snapped right back with a lecture on medical jurisprudence. She didn't remember the countless hours they had spent together in the morgue. Not when Holly identified the remains they found in the woods or when Chris' son went missing. Even amidst the chaos of her job, the world seemed to stand still when she was there. She would've easily spent the rest of her life there, watching Holly as she focused on her work. Yet Gail didn't remember any of that either.
She didn't remember anything about Frank and Noelle's wedding. Not the ceremony, the dancing, the forced conversation, or hiding in the coat closet and drinking champagne with Holly. She didn't remember when Holly kissed her. How soft and warm Holly's lips felt against hers. How that simple, little kiss set her body on fire and left her craving more.
Gail didn't remember that night in the hospital. The whole division was there waiting to hear about Sam, Chloe, and Oliver and she chose that moment to come out to her brother. Not that she had regretted it, but her timing had never been the best. She left soon after that. The hospital had been teeming with cops anyways. No one would miss her and she had her own issues to work through. She didn't remember impulsively cutting off all her hair, as if doing so would erase all of the heartache and disappointment of her past. She didn't remember sitting in the bathtub either. How the bourbon had burned her throat, but at least made her feel something. It had given her something to focus on that wasn't the huge question mark that was her future. Her friends could be dead by morning and who knew what would happen as soon as the news of her and Holly had gotten out.
And Holly. Her sweet, beautiful Holly. Who had been by her side the entire night. The girl who had held her hand in the hospital waiting room and listened to her rant and fixed her hair because Gail had been too drunk to do it herself. Gail didn't remember when Holly leaned in to kiss her. The spray of the shower, ice cold against her skin, did nothing to quell the heat slowly rising through her core. Right then Gail knew her life had changed. But still she didn't remember the moment Holly had turned her life into a fairy tale.
This is what Gail remembered.
She awoke to a lone strip of sunlight streaming through the crack in the blinds covering the lone window in Holly's bedroom. Instinctively, she stretched one arm across the bed in search of warmth, but instead only felt the cool of the sheets beneath her palm. It was only then that Gail opened her eyes and scanned the room. The clock on the nightstand read 6:08 AM; way too early to be awake. It was Sunday and both of them had the day off, so it made no sense that Holly wasn't still fast asleep. That girl could sleep through a hurricane, which was exactly what she did every time Gail had to be at the station before the sun came up.
Still rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she rolled out of bed and walked silently down the hall in search of Holly. The smell of coffee floated towards Gail, pulling her down the stairs and towards the kitchen, where she suddenly came to a stop.
Her hair was in a braid down the center of her back. A few loose strands had fallen out and around her face, obscuring her vision as she leaned against the kitchen counter. Normal people read the paper in the morning, but not the nerd, as Gail so affectionately referred to her. Nope. Holly had her face buried in some medical journal, her features twisted in concentration as she read about the effects some disease had on some population in some remote tribe in Africa, or something like that. Gail didn't really know, she just knew that she probably wouldn't understand more than two words of it. Seriously though, who made their brain work that hard when it was that early in the morning. Only Holly. That was one of the many things Gail didn't understand and probably would never understand about the magnificent creature in front of her. Like why she made the Y-incision with her left hand, even though she was right handed. Or why she never wore her contacts, just those cute, goofy glasses that only magnified her beautiful, dark eyes. Or why she always chose to stick around, even though Gail had given her plenty of reasons to leave over the years.
After what seemed like only a few seconds, but could have been minutes for all she knew, Gail slipped from her hiding place and wrapped her arms around Holly's middle, kissing her in the soft spot right behind her ear before resting her head on her shoulder.
The rest of the day continued like countless others they had spent together, but Gail didn't remember that. Lying on the cold pavement in that God-forsaken alley as she quietly drifted into unconsciousness, Gail only remembered the warm, fuzzy feeling that filled her whole body. The one that she knew was because of Holly. The one that told her she had finally figured out how to love and let herself be loved in return.