"Are you all right?"
It wasn't how she'd intended to start, but "What the fuck are you doing in here in the dark on your own, Slap" had died on her lips when she caught sight of Julie's face. Her friend had evidently been burning the midnight oil - a bad habit that Gill knew she paired with being one of the world's worst morning people. Finding Julie working late was nothing new. Gill'd dragged her away from her desk for a drink or a gossip a thousand times. She'd never before felt like she was intruding. But now she hovered just outside the doorway of Julie's office, less sure of herself than she had been two minutes ago when she'd jumped out of Mitch's care and told him to push off home.
"You'll go square-eyed staring at that computer with no lights on," she said, trying for a note of levity.
"Hello, love," said Julie at last. "What are you doing here?"
She looked strange in the shadows, but her voice was warm and held no accusation. Emboldened, Gill walked across the room and clicked on the desk-lamp. Julie's face was less ethereal in the light, but Gill saw that she hadn't been wrong about the weariness and tightness in her expression. She didn't look herself.
"What did you want, Gill?" Julie asked her. Her voice was still kind and undemanding. But it wasn't the easy banter Gill wanted. It struck her with a sudden awful clarity what a trick her mind had played on her. What she'd wanted - what she'd wanted - was normalcy. She'd wanted time travel. She'd wanted her and Julie to be her and Julie, like they had been last time they'd chatted. Because then she'd feel like none of today had really happened. But it had happened. And it had happened in Julie's world too. And the slump of Julie's shoulders and the tiredness in her eyes was proof that normalcy was not in stock anywhere tonight.
"I think," she said carefully, "what I really want right now actually, just at the minute... is a hug."
Gill had barely finished the sentence before she found herself wrapped in Julie's arms. She felt as much as she heard Julie's low chuckle:
"Ask and thou shalt receive, you soppy cow."
For a moment, Gill just enjoyed being held. She was a fighter - nobody could ever accuse her differently - but just for a minute it was nice to lower her guard here where nobody would take the piss. Julie was safe and strong.
"Thanks, Slap," Gill whispered.
Julie was silent, and Gill thought that perhaps she hadn't heard. When she finally answered, her voice sounded oddly thick.
"You're all right, love," she said.
"Yeah," said Gill firmly. "Yeah, I am all right. It's okay now." She felt somehow that Julie needed to hear that. She reckoned maybe Julie had needed the reassurance of contact, too.
What happened next was unplanned and unexpected.
Gill moved to hug Julie tighter just as Julie began to pull away. It was a clumsy misstep for two friends usually so entirely in sync. The result was that the kiss Julie had meant to press to Gill's cheek fell low; landed just at her jaw.
Gill gasped involuntarily.
They stood frozen. The sudden spike of shock had come and gone in an instant, but left Gill wrongfooted. A beat of silence passed. And another. Gill began to wonder why Julie wasn't pulling away. Then she realised that it was her own doing because she was clinging to Julie's shoulders and holding her tightly in place. Julie's breath was hot on her neck just where the belt had been. She'd been feeling the ghost of that strap all night. Had felt the bruise there even though every time she checked the mirror there was still no mark. She'd felt the cold touch of the knife against her skin, like a ghost. Now there was only heat.
"Gill?"
Abruptly, Gill realised she had a new answer to the question of what she wanted. A wicked one. She leaned in and returned the kiss, letting her lips brush against Julie's throat just by her ear.
"Gill?!"
Julie's gasp of surprise felt like a victory. Was it the gin? Trauma? Whatever. It felt good. Flirting with Julie always felt good - always left her ready to meet the rest of the day with a cocky grin. But now Gill found herself thinking how foolishly tame that was. They could go so much further in sticking it to the universe. Gill let her lips drift against Julie's throat once more to show it hadn't been an accident on her part before pulling back far enough to look her friend in the face. She could see Julie's confusion. She most certainly hadn't imagined that gasp though; there was something else in Julie's expression too. Something a lot less innocent than surprise. Julie Dodson was a woman at war with herself.
So Gill decided to joy the fray on the side of lust. She took the decision out of Julie's hands by pressing her own mouth firmly against the other woman's lips. This might be insanity. So what? Her own platitudes about Sammy and Orla earlier drifted back to her. Grab happiness while you can see it. That was right wasn't it? She tried to hold on to her train of thought, but found it skipping as her body surged with want. And she lost it entirely when Julie kissed her back.
In all the time they'd worked together Gill had found she and Julie had a natural pattern. It was just one of those chemistry things. They navigated each others leaps of intuiton, professional boundaries, and personal space instinctively. They were never clumsy around each other. But they were clumsy again now. Julie's hands were in her hair. Julie's tongue was in her mouth. Desire for Julie was in every inch of her skin. She wanted more contact. She didn't know where to put her hands.
Desperate for something more, Gill tried to tug Julie's shirt loose from her trousers. The bloody stupid material seemed caught. Belt. Undo the belt, she thought. She fumbled for the buckle. Her hand slipped as her stumbling fingers failed to cooperate. Julie made a sound suspiciously like a whimper. Gill tried again. Her frustration rose as she fumbled a second time. This time she let her hand rake against the front of Julie's trousers.
"Stop it. Gill, stop! God. Stop. Stop!"
Julie forced herself back one step and then another until there was more than an arm's span of distance between their bodies. She tried to compose herself, caught her breath, waited for her vision to clear. She thought she was doing a reasonable job of it until she looked at Gill. Her dark hair was tousled. Her bare collarbones looked like sodding ivory or something against the deep green of her frock. Her eyes were dark in the low light, and her lips were still slightly parted - God those lips. That mouth. Julie drew a hand over her eyes to block out the sight as she tried again to pull herself together. (She hoped Gill wouldn't take offense.) What the hell was wrong with her? And what the hell was up with Gill? Gill had an ex-husband. Gill had tales about toy boys.
Julie tried to back track her thoughts to before the world had gone mad. Well, madder. She'd noticed something. She'd been about to say something. What was it she'd been about to say?... Gill had no coat. That was it. Party dress. No coat. No handbag.
"How did you get here?" Julie found herself asking as she tried to pick up the script of a scene that had gone wildly off the rails. Gill - or whatever strange doppelganger had taken Gill's place - answered readily enough.
"Mitch drove me. We came to fetch you to Sammy's party. I stopped by your flat," she explained, "but you weren't there. So I figured." Gill shrugged.
Julie couldn't help a teasing grin at that.
"So instead of living it up at your son's party you've been over half of Manchester looking for me? And you've had poor Mitch driving you around all over the place like-" Julie stopped short in horror when her ears caught up with her mouth. Bloody hell, Dodson! "Well where's Mitch now?" she asked hastily to cover her tracks. If Gill had noticed her gaffe she didn't respond to it.
"I told him he could head off because you'd give me a lift back."
Julie stared at her for a moment in disbelief.
"And do you really think he'll actually go anywhere before he's seen you safely in somebody else's care? The poor sod's out there pacing the carpark in the dark."
Julie thought about this with a mounting sense of horror. They were all antsy over Gill. Everyone. What if Ian Mitchell had wondered what was keeping her? What if he'd gotten impatient? What if he'd come in to check? The door wasn't even shut, for God's sake!
Julie clamped down on that line of thought before she gave herself a heart attack.
"What do you want to do now, Gill? Do you want me to drive you home?"
Julie half expected Gill to demur - to say she'd have Mitch take her afterall - but she didn't.
"I want you to drive to mine," she said. "I want you to wish my Sammy all the best. I want you to come to my party."
Well, you can't very well say no after the stunt you just pulled, Jules. Christ, how would she ever fix this?
