"What are you doing here?" Nick asked as he saw Gail sitting on the stoop of his apartment building. His face ached from the fight and the last thing he wanted was another confrontation. He ran his fingers through his hair and waited for her response. "I...I really don't know...I just walked here from the Penny." she said quietly without looking at him. Nick looked down at her and had to admit he loved her hair like this, it suited her. As complicated as Gail seemed to make her life she was anything but and it was one of the things he respected about her. After all had been said at done if there was anything he felt for Gail it was respect, she exuded a confidence he wished he had himself. He motioned her to follow him as he unlocked the entrance to his apartment building and without a word she did.
The silence in the elevator was numbing, neither knew what to say or when. The elevator dinged signaling that they'd arrived at the fifth floor. The fifth floor. Gail remembered thinking how weird it was he lived so high up. Nick always positioned himself to be the first out, the most alert in the room. He analyzed every situation for a way out, every door notated; every window surveyed a plan mapped in the back of his mind if he needed to make a quick exit. Being on the fifth floor meant he couldn't just run. He was boxed in to an extent. They arrived at 5C and he unlocked the door and moved aside so she could move past him.
"Your face looks terrible," she uttered trying to break the tension. "Thanks, I wasn't aware!" he replied as moved to his freezer and pulled out a frozen bag of corn. Placing it on his well-bruised face he bent down to open the refrigerator and pulled out two Molson Canadians and contemplated placing one of the cold bottles on his face as well.
Gail sat quietly on his well-worn leather couch. She looked around his apartment, everything in a specific place, everything organized. Everything but a pair of wind pants and a t-shirt by his bedroom door. Seeing her notice the misplaced laundry he kicked the clothing in to his room and closed the door. "It's from the last time she was here..." he spoke quietly as he claimed a spot next to her on the couch and handed her the second beer.
She is Andy McNally. She being the person who up until a few days ago he'd considered his best friend and briefly girlfriend. Someone he let in. Correction, the only person he'd let in. Nick Collins was more guarded than most prisons. He let no one see him. He grew up a foster kid, he joined the Army and he became a cop. Somewhere in that time he met Gail at a bar in Vegas and they spent a whirlwind year together before getting engaged and almost getting married. He knew at some point in their relationship he had to open up to her and Nick Collins didn't play vulnerable. So he did what he knew was best and he left her at the alter, he walked away. They never spoke after that day until he popped up at 15 Division as a new recruit. Neither talked about it, she never asked why he left or where he went though the rumblings around the precinct indicated he'd served four tours in Afghanistan. He pursued her trying to regain some semblance of normalcy, something to ground him and she resisted at first but within a few weeks they'd slipped back in to their relationship like a pair of well worn jeans. The kind with the holes that fit perfectly and are just so comfortable but have so many holes and stains you know they really should be tossed. Nick and Gail where a pair of old worn jeans, just comfortable. Nothing more, nothing less. Sex, companionship but never complicated conversations or talks of the future they just existed.
Gail sighed and leaned her head back on the couch. Her eyes caught site of a picture on the wall next to the door. It was the two of them in Vegas, intoxicated beyond reason and when he proposed. She tilted her head and moved to look at it closer. "It's to remind me not to be that person again." he answered her unspoken question. "Where we that bad?" she asked moving back to face him. "No. We just weren't alive, but it reminded me that I did exist to someone once." he replied without looking at her. She shook her head and moved to get up. "This was a mistake!" she started barely off the couch. He lightly grabbed her arm and pulled her back to the couch. "You came here for a reason, I imagine it has to do with Holly since you aren't with her." Gail sat back down and tucked her feet under her; they finally looked at each other. "I met her friends tonight and they hated me...they hated Gail Peck." Nick tilted his head and looked at her. "You really care about her," he said as a small smile formed on his lips. "How so?" she asked her hands splayed out over her lap as she picked the stitching in her jeans. "Because you care what she and her friends think, and that's like the anti Gail Peck. It's not a bad thing," he reasoned as he took a sip from his beer. "What happened with Andy?" she asked trying to change the subject. He didn't reply he stared at the wall trying to think of anything other than Andy. "She broke me. She went back to the one person that matters to her. The one person who will always be her downfall." he replied above a whisper. Nick could feel his chest tighten and his eyes sting. Saying Andy broke him was an understatement. She'd obliterated every fiber of him and he was barely functioning. "She made me fully aware that I exist alone, it's always supposed to be like that and that I meant absolutely nothing to her. So I did what I know how to do and I walked away. I made the obvious choice for her." He felt his face getting warmer and knew it wasn't the swelling from his likely bruised cheek. He let out slow breaths and tried to regain his composure trying to put himself in any place other than the waiting room of the hospital after Sam Swarek was shot. Gail moved her hand to his face and locked her eyes with his. Without a word she laid her head on his shoulder and started talking about Holly. She knew he wanted to change the subject. To be perfectly honest this Nick in front of her terrified her. She'd never seen him so lost and broken and seeing this person that was normally so strong fall to pieces hit her like a brick. His strength and composure was exactly why she missed him, something she'd never realized until this moment.
"Her friends think I'm beneath her, that she can do so much better...and she can" Gail spoke softly. "Are you serious?" Nick laughed. Her head shot up and she looked at him with a look of complete disbelief. "Gail Peck is freaking awesome. You are the strongest person I know. YOU have always been a rock, and YOU are amazing." Her jaw dropped in disbelief and she let out a small laugh. Her eyes widened when she saw him wince as the cut on his lip cracked. "Andy made you warm you know? I knew it when we were together, she made you laugh and talk and be human...and I hated her for that. I hated that she got to see that side of you and as soon as it was just us you shut it off like a switch. You were cold with me," she admitted. "Holly does that for you. The Gail I almost married was cold and brash and isolated and this Gail, this Gail that is head over heals in love with a pathologist...a hot one but a person that plays with dead things...anyway she lights you up. You glow around her. THAT feeling, that's what Andy was for me. She was my Holly...yeah that sounds weird." he laughed again and Gail smiled at him. "So if that means Holly is my Andy and I should be prepared for her to go running back to her former love?" The smile on Gail's face widened at the thought and they both started laughing. "Her loss..." they both said and Gail returned her head to his shoulder and sighed heavily.
"You know this is the longest conversation we've ever had. Probably the closest we've ever been." she confided and she felt his body shift from a slight chuckle.
"We should probably get some sleep, you cool out here?" he asked motioning towards the pillow and blanket at the foot of the couch. "Yeah...just in the morning don't make me a tomato omelet, I'd like to live to see Holly again." His eyes rolled and he smiled at her as he moved to get off the couch.
"You are never going to let me forget that are you?" he pointed out. "DUDE you tried to kill me!" she answered. He reached for the blanket as she sprawled out on the couch and pulled it over her. He leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. "Thank you," he whispered as she fell asleep and he headed towards his room.