I have been re-reading this for ages now. I truly don't know what to think. I feel like I should apologize, but I will wait to hear from you first. It feels a bit ooc, but then it doesn't. I mean, Gail is everywhere. She's everything and nothing at the same time. God knows how much I love her for that. Le sigh. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

P.S. Dearest guest that enjoys making me think: the someone someone was actually a reference to the bar scene before the shooting. Again, and I can hear my thesis adviser saying the connections in your head aren't evident to everyone else, just write them down, it's just a feeling I had. Holly is too good for Gail, or at least that's what I think Gail feels. I believe that was the reason why she left at the fun line. Anyway, in Gail's head it doesn't make sense that someone like Holly would wait or that she would stay single for too long. That was just it. This conference is their first encounter ever since the bar incidente.

OK. READY? Here goes nothing!

"And without further ado…" Theresa's eyes instantly scanned the audience for Gail, finding her standing at the rear of the room, just like back when she was at the university. "Please join me in welcoming our very first speaker." She smiled, nodding reassuringly to the younger woman who now started making her way towards her. "A student, a fellow colleague and a very dear friend of mine." She could read Gail's anxiety in her step but she could also see determination as the blonde held her head high. "She is the company you want to have around when drowning in tequila." Theresa couldn't help but laugh at Gail's slight blush. "Gail Peck, everyone."

Theresa felt Gail exhale deeply as she finally reached her mid-stage. They shook hands and the older woman leaned closer as to place a soft kiss upon Gail's cheek. "Finish them." And then she started applauding, leaving Gail alone with a wink that made the blonde roll her eyes.

Right.

Gail had to stop herself from taking a step back once she turned fully towards the audience. The amount of eyes on her was overwhelming. She was now the one under the scrutiny of a bunch of strangers that had paid to be there. They were expecting her to be worth their money. Oh, expectations. She knew just how to deal with them.

Something is missing, though… She thought to herself as she too scanned her audience, just like Theresa had done only moments before. Once her eyes found Holly's she felt herself relax almost instantly. Oh, there you are. Let's do this shit.

"I was brought here for the way I look." Gail started out of nowhere, her eyes travelling through the faces of the dead silent crowd. "Ah, there you are. Judger number one, first row too. Congratulations on your fantastic emotional reflexes. I almost missed the disgust written all over your face. You must be one hell of a liar." She had truly almost missed the first micro expression, yes, but the person in question made sure she didn't miss the response to her accusation. Had he flipped her off? Indeed, he had. If only that could wash the redness off of his face… Oh yeah, he was definitely blushing. Caught you.

"Let me remind you…" She continued, addressing the whole room again. "All that you know about me is… well, nothing really. Nada. Niente. Rien. Nichts. Yet, you didn't think twice before throwing the first stone. It felt good, didn't it? Being better than me… a me that only exists inside your head, yes, but still makes you better than some random and rather rude woman whose only skill seems to be saying nothing in five different languages. Assumptions. Gotta love them." Perfect high-pitched ending. Oliver would certainly be proud of how theatrical she had become.

"So let's try this again." She said as she eyed the audience like a hunter looking just for the perfectly right prey. "You." She said, also signing towards the face she had found amongst the crowd. She couldn't help but smile at the woman who signed back at her asking if she was talking to her. "Yes, you, ma'am. Would you mind joining me here for a moment, please?" She said out loud as she signed at the same time.

The choice was not as random as it might have appeared to the rest of the audience. Gail had been looking exactly for that face. She had been watching the old woman ever since breakfast time. Her voice had caught her attention first, and then her lovely floral dress that didn't seem to fit in with the whodunnit theme of the conference. Not at all. She seemed completely out of place and yet entirely at home. She didn't look like a homicide aficionado… but then again, what did a homicide aficionado look like? Still, something told Gail that she was someone's family. A killer's? A victim's? No matter the answer, she intrigued Gail. Her face said too much and nothing at all at exactly the same time. It was fascinating. And then she had noticed that her company was signing to her. That had been it.

Gail helped the much older woman up the stairs and signed to her asking if she was okay. The woman quickly replied saying that she was slightly nervous but besides that she was just fine.

"Now, if you don't mind, I would like you to repeat what I first said when I got up on stage." Gail said, still talking and signing at the same time, even though there was an interpreter present.

"I was brought here for the way I look." The confidence with which she said it made Gail smile and a few of the audience members laugh.

"Noticed the slight different reaction?" Gail asked the woman who simply nodded back in response. "You see, I am the good looking bitch with an attitude and you are the poor soul doing comedy for my amusement. Yet, they were the ones laughing, not me." Gail smiled gently at her as she helped her back down the stairs. "But don't you worry, the only difference between us is the Armani. If I were wearing my uniform they would be rolling on the floor and laughing hysterically by now." She said with a wink as she looked down at the woman who was now back on her seat. She signed thank you and then went back up the stage. There were some more laughs and a few awes.

"See? Thanks to you I am now a woman with quite an attitude that seems to stop being a bitch when interacting with older people. Thank you, dearest." She bowed slightly towards her earlier assistant.

"So yeah. Hello. My name is Gail Peck and I am a cop. And that is still all that you know about me." She said matter-of- factly, her eyes meeting Lisa's for a moment before the other woman broke the eye contact and looked down. Right.

"Interesting, isn't it? Till a moment ago you would line up to throw stones at me, but now you can't help but wonder if that would truly be your wisest move as I am now a cop. It would probably mean jail time, wouldn't it? Oh yes, it would. Charge? Assault." Like a walk in the park, she heard Theresa say in her head.

"Now think, what has changed since the moment I walked in? You are still sitting there and I am still up here. And yet, I went from stranger to bitch to savior and back again. Or did I? I mean, you are still just you and I am still just me, right? Or am I?" She had to stop herself from laughing at the fact that most of the audience members had stopped taking notes by now and were boastfully staring at her, looking utterly lost.

"Oh, I know what you are thinking. Look at that blonde beat cop in a power suit wearing heels so high they could probably be used as murder weapons." By now she was so relaxed and comfortable in her own skin that she was making voices, just like she did when she read to Leo every time Traci left him with her to spend a little alone time with her brother. "Look at her, just a kid, thinking so much of herself already. Look at her… talking to us about judging when she too is judging us."

Gail threw her hands up in defeat.

"Ops. You caught me. I am judging. I am judging you as much as you are judging me. But there's only one of me and hundreds of you. Doesn't seem fair, does it? Oh, but don't worry, you are judging each other as well." The level of sarcasm in her voice would probably cause her to overdose if she bit her own tongue. Still, the lopsided grin on Holly's face told her that at least someone in the whole crowd knew exactly what she was aiming at. Then again, Holly was probably the smartest person in that room. No, scratch that, Holly was definitely the smartest person in the room and she spoke Gail-ish fluently. "There's probably a nerd taking notes next to you…" She threw one of her funny faces at Holly and her heart skipped a beat with joy when she noticed the woman bringing her free hand up to cover her mouth to muffle the sound. "And you are sitting there and you can't help but wonder… What is she writing down? Nothing interesting is being said. Is she stupid enough to think this blue collar has something to say? Did it ever cross your mind that she's probably not even listening?" That caused the few people who were indeed taking notes to raise their heads to confirm the fact that they were indeed paying attention. "Perhaps she is starting a novel… or, who knows, writing poetry?" Or being poetry, she thought as her eyes met Holly's again for a moment. "What about that odd looking guy sitting at the back, in the corner, all by himself? Is he planning his own crime? Is he choosing his first, or perhaps his next, victim? I bet he's wondering why you are all sitting in the middle of the room when all the seats around him have a reserved sign on them. Couldn't pick? Well, neither could I…"

Pity party time. Let's see how they react to this.

"You know, the real reason why I was asked to come here was because I took part of an undercover operation gone wrong and then right and then terribly wrong again. I was kidnapped, I was tortured… and the amount of permeant scars on my skin is nothing compared to the pain I felt when I learned that a fellow colleague had died saving me. I lost more than a few inches of perfect ivory skin… I lost more than a colleague, too. I lost a friend, I lost family… I lost hope."

She stopped for a moment and looked down at the floor.

"But I am still the bitch from before." Her voice was now raw and cold. "I am still the cold hearted bitch that put her life at stake so that she could catch the bad guy and keep your daughters, your sisters, your girlfriends, wives and mothers… alive."

She raised her head slowly and sighed deeply.

"I put my life at risk for you and all you did was judge."

She stood there for a moment, in complete silence, just looking at the crowd. The sudden change of pace and tone had shocked them. Welcome to the Gail ride, she thought to herself as she met eyes that had been cold as ice before and that were now begging for forgiveness. I guess I finally did something to deserve your respect, huh?

"But you didn't know, did you? You couldn't have. Yet, you couldn't also be sure I was really a bitch. I mean, I could be a hired actress playing the part of a lifetime. That never crossed your mind, did it? No, you simply judged me. You didn't even give yourself time to second-guess your own thoughts. No, you built them into an opinion and you stood strong by its side. I am not you, I am the other and therefore I have to be the one to be wrong, I have to be the bad guy, I have to be the one who doesn't belong. Never you, right? How does that make you feel now?"

If only her mother was listening to this…

"My name is Gail Peck and I am a cop. That is all that you know but that's not all that I am." She started again, quietly.

"I am a brat, yes. I am a rebel at heart, a cold bitch, trust me, I am hundred percent sure of that, but I won't think twice before standing between you and an aggressor, between you and a bullet."

She unbuttoned her blazer to show that she was wearing no vest.

"Yes, my name is Gail Peck and I am a cop. I can be rude and rather moody if you get my coffee wrong, but I will still take a bullet for you without thinking twice. Right now. Right here."

She brought a hand to rest upon her chest, over her heart.

"I, Gail Peck, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a lover… I would die for you."

The silence was full of unspoken confessions. There were people looking down at their hands, others placing comforting hands on their backs… they were now at the stage when they started judging themselves.

Gail knew exactly how they felt. For the past few days she had been trying to avoid herself, trying to avoid her own thoughts. She had tried to exhaust herself to the point of not being able to think clearly and yet, every single time she found herself in bed, she just couldn't fall asleep, she just couldn't hide from herself anymore… and then everything had come tumbling down.

"I have bad days. God, I have more bad days than good ones, to be honest. And that's mostly my fault. I make mistakes, I make bad choices. I run, I avoid, I hide, I say the wrong thing every single fucking time… I can be cruel with words, I can hurt feelings, I can make people cry and break hearts… including my own. And yet, even on my worst day, I would still die for you."

Gail removed Jerry Barber's badge from inside her blazer's pocket.

"I, as my friend Jerry Barber did for me, would die for you without thinking twice."

She closed her hand tightly around it as she stared back at the audience.

"That's what we cops do. We leave our loved ones, we leave ourselves, so that we can make sure that you and yours arrive home safely. We know we might not come back, and yet we get out of bed every single morning, we kiss our loved ones a see you later and we go back out on the streets to make sure the word accident doesn't ever cross your mind, your path, your porch."

You are actually making your way down a tree you chose to climb, Gail Peck. Well done.

"And I don't have to be a specialist in reading micro expressions, even though I am. I don't have to be fluent in five languages, even though I chose to be. I don't have to know sign language, even though my childhood so demanded. I don't have to know how to swim or sing or cook, even though it does come in handy at times. I don't need any of those things, which I am still glad for, to listen. To see. I just have to choose to."

She removed her own badge from the other pocket and set them both on the floor. There she was, naked to the bone. This was Gail Peck. Not the cop, just the person.

"If there's something I've learned from this job is that people are never just people. You never truly know what's going on inside their minds till they decide to let you in. And even when they do, sometimes it's hard for them to speak up, to put their thoughts into words and their feelings into coherent sentences. And that… the taking time, the caring, the listening, the paying attention… that's what makes you a savior, that's what makes us saviors. Staying. Giving an opportunity. You know, trying is the first step on the sometimes long stairwell of achievement."

If only she listened to her own advice…

"Tomorrow is only a today away. So stop. Forgive. Reach out. Give the benefit of the doubt and you will stop being one of 7 billion or so silent killers out there."

She found Theresa's face amongst the crowd and the pride in her eyes was so evident it shocked her.

"At the end of the day we are nothing but constellations of scars, you know? So next time you open your mouth to speak, think twice. We all have our ghosts. But if you, by any change or because you are simply like me, happen to find yourself with a mild case of foot-in-the-mouth syndrome, just apologize. Say you are sorry. Say it again and again. Or it will eat you up right from the inside. Trust me, I would know."

"We forgive you for being a bitch." Someone yelled from the back of the room making everyone laugh.

"Why, thank you. Am afraid that is the least of my worries at the moment, though."

She said with a shrug before looking down at her watch, suddenly realizing that her time had been up quite a few minutes ago.

"Ops. I believe I got slightly carried away, huh? Well, I guess that's all folks."

She was standing exactly on top of the stairs, about to go down, when a thought crossed her mind. Let the lightness return…

"Ah, and if you are still wondering about the suit and the shoes. I could totally run a marathon in these." Gail smiled as the crowd laughed. Back at being a bitch with an attitude playing the clown. "Thank you for your attention and don't forget… you don't know anyone but yourself. So be kind and you might avoid a tragedy."

"She's good. She's really good. Damn, she is really fucking good. I was certainly not expecting this…" Lisa said to no one in particular as she got up to join everyone in a standing ovation to Gail's speech. Assumptions, Lisa thought as she shook her head and raised her hands to applaud the beat cop she had painted in her head.

Holly had left her seat the moment Gail had set foot at the top of the stairs and she was now walking towards a Gail that seemed about to be swallowed by fans. The thought made the brunette smile. Who knew that was even a concept that made sense when in relation to Gail Peck, huh?

"I changed my mind." Holly said as her hand came to rest gently on Gail's arm, calling for her full attention. She then leaned over slightly so that her mouth stood close to the blonde's ear. "There's something of yours I wouldn't mind sharing."

Gail, finally getting caught up with what was going on, found Holly's eyes in an instant. There was something different in them… a twinkle…

Gail's look of confusion was beyond adorable.

"I would definitely adore wearing your skin over mine."

You know, I have a feeling I could end this story right here. It's not what I had planned, but it doesn't sound half bad.

What do you think?