Chapter Notes: This is a bit of an angry, yet revealing, chapter. We get to see the reasons behind Holly's unfitting behavior.

Editing Notes: All mistakes are mine, Gail and Holly, are not. They belong to Rookie Blue and its creators.

Guest Reviewers: I wish I could respond to your awesome reviews, but alas, I cannot. So I will provide my thanks here. All of you, thank you for taking the time to read and give your opinions, thanks and criticisms. It is all appreciated. Especially, Debby & Db987: Both of you seem to see right through my words, to the heart of things. And you like my writing. What's not to love! Thank you.

Chapter 4: Too Many Doors

Can you hear me now
Or are there just too many doors
Between then and now
For me to ever reach on through

Savatage

Gail, currently nursing a stiff shot of whiskey, was feeling pretty proud of herself. Who knew she could be the bigger person? Now, the bigger person wasn't getting laid with this tactic, but, details.

The whiskey in her glass sloshed onto her hand and interrupted her self induced ego petting . Whoever was knocking was going to break the damn door.

The door was barely open a crack when Gail was almost knocked on her ass with a barging Holly.

'Who the hell are you?' okay, hadn't meant to come out quite that harshly

'I'm Gail Peck.'

'Fuck off Gail. What happened to you the year I was gone?'

'You want me to recount my life since you left?' Gail was confused.

'NO!' She wasn't doing very well, she had to calm down. 'Can I sit? Maybe have a shot of…something?'

'Suuuure. I'll be right back.'

Get it together Stewart. You should not have come straight from the park. You're acting like…..oh my god….like old Gail. Like seriously, had the girl found Buddha since she'd left?

Gail handed her an etched glass with amber liquid. She downed it. Nice bottle. Gail sat on the opposite side of the small room and sipped her portion. The picture of calm. She crossed her legs and waited.

'You're doing it again!'

'What? What am I doing?'

'Being…..calm and sure and understanding, and NOT GAIL!'

'So you want me to be a mess?'

'YES!'

'Why?' This was getting really confusing.

'Because I am!' Holly needed to lower her voice. 'You are not suppose to be calm and sure and understanding! '

'So you are cross with me? For being calm and sure and understanding about us?'

'Now you're getting it!'

'Did we not agree, 1 year? 1 year to figure out….well….us? What we wanted?'

Holly blew out a breath. 'Yes Gail, we did. But we did not agree to get a personality transplant.'

'Wow. Ok. That was harsh.'

'It was intended to be.'

'And seriously? Where do you get off Holly? You come back with NOTHING! You did NOTHING over the past year to honour our agreement.' Gail was yelling now. 'You come back here, a fucking mess. I step back, I figure that maybe you need us to spend some time together. And I am pretty fucking wonderful about the fact that the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with, doesn't even know if she wants to DATE me!' Gail was also pacing now.

'Gail-'

'No, just no. You are killing me here baby! I am so fucking in love with you. Crazy, nutter, out of my mind for you. I have forced myself to be calm and understanding, because THIS MATTERS! If I force you into a decision, then I will never be sure you are here because you WANT to be!' She rounded on Holly.

If the eyes were the windows to the soul, then Gail was the most wounded person she had ever laid eyes on. It forced the breath right out of her chest.

'I can't do it again Holly.' Gail rarely called her Holly. 'I can't give my heart to you and have you take it away with you again. You're it for me. ' She shrugged. 'And its just really that simple.' She smiled. 'I don't think I have changed as much as you think I have. But saying to you, "Holly, what the fuck did you do for that year? Why the hell did you even come? Do you like playing snooker with my heart? Lets go out and drink and fuck and see how that turns out?". Do you think that would have been the best approach to figuring out what you wanted?'

Holly laughed. Outloud. Then she snorted. Outloud.

'Real pretty lunchbox.'

'You know, you kind of became boring.'

'Ouch.'

'No seriously. You were acting like you are ready to put a big ring on my finger, knock me up and buy a house with a dog and a fence in the suburbs!'

'So you thought we'd move back to the 1950s once we got this sorted?'

She laughed again. 'Get me another drink officer. We've got some processing to do.'

######

The night was eerily calm. Dark and not a breath of wind. The sky was black. The moon was the only light. Gail sat with her legs tucked under her in an Adirondack chair, with Holly opposite her, in much the same position. Gail had poured them each a finger of scotch and by mutual silent agreement, they had headed to the deck. The city sounds of Toronto played like a soundtrack in the background while they sipped their scotch and tried to put thoughts into words.

'You said you knew your answer by the time I got on the plane?' Holly's voice cut through the still moment

'I did.'

'Is there a picture, a plan, that goes with that answer?'

Gail was silent. Afraid of saying the wrong thing, afraid of saying the right thing.

'I think, I actually imagined us doing the long distance thing for awhile.'

'Oh?'

'Yeah. Taking our holidays together, or because of my shift work, I could take a couple of days every few months, make it into a longer time off. Maybe fly out 5 or 6 times a year. We would figure out how your schedule could work into flying out a couple of times. Try to go no more than 2 months without seeing eachother. That sort of thing.'

'So, if I came back and said that I unequivocally wanted to be with you, it wasn't an automatic assumption that I would drop everything and move back here?'

'God no! ' She paused, trying to find the right diplomacy to bring up the past without shattering the fragile momentum. 'When you told me, you were going to ask me to come with you…I felt like…like my life was insignificant to you. That my job, for you, was in a different class I guess? It was the only time I felt like you looked at me and saw a beat cop. I never want to make you feel like I did that day. '

Ouch. Holly was an arse.

'But then I started to think about it.' She continued. 'Well, once I was sober.' Holly smiled at that. 'And, in the end, it was kind of flattering. You having enough confidence in us, to ask me to move 4000 km away with you. To take on San Francisco together.'

'Yeah, I had this vision of us moving into this empty, but large apartment together, finding out there is the coolest little coffee shop on the corner where we get to know "Kit" the daytime barrista, who is also a lesbian, by the way.'

'Of course.'

'We'd find somewhere for that, awful gaming addiction of yours, in the apartment where you could play with your mates back home until 3 in the morning. Well, on the nights you weren't making mad passionate love to me.'

'naturally.'

'You'd stop by my new office for lunch. Because, I have a pretty nice office.' She paused to take a nip of her scotch.

'Was I in uniform for these, lunch visits?' Gail asked quietly with the opening.

'Well, that is where it started to unravel for me. ' She paused and fiddled with her glasses. 'I realized, that no where in there, had I considered, other than the parts with me, what you'd be doing.'

'I see.'

'Yeah. And I started thinking about what kind of person that makes me? I just wanted you with me, so bad, that I expected you to jump on a plane and just follow me? What an egotistical brat!'

'Holly….' Suddenly, it was all starting to make sense.

'No Gail, its time I got this out. Its time you understand why I came back the way I did.' Holly was relived at the darkness that enveloped them. She wasn't sure, she could bear to see the accusations in Gail's eyes right now. 'I was so ashamed of myself. How could I have done that to you? Just, dismiss you out of hand like that. It didn't hit me at first. I was cross with you for not coming with me. Letting me face this change alone. I mean, I came back for you. Interrogation room kissing and all! But when it hit me, that I kind of expected you to just, fall at my feet. That is when the self recriminations came crashing down. What kind of person does that make me? I thought I'd come back here and have a hell of a fight on my hands given the way I treated you. But….I didn't. You were wonderful and centered and seemed to have it all figured out. The opinion I have of myself now doesn't know what to do with that.'

There. There it was. In a nutshell. All of it. Holly didn't expect an answer right away. This was a lot. She had laid herself bare out there in the dark still night and she waited for judgment.

End Notes: I know, I know. Short chapter, cliff hanger. All my specialties! Comments are always appreciated. As always, brutal honesty is preferred.