Disclaimer: Rookie Blue does not belong to me. I am merely borrowing the characters.

After a while Holly looked up.

"Hey, I'll just get the camera."

"What? It's too dark. You'll only get unfocussed mess." But Holly had already gone.

When she returned with a digital SLR attached to a tripod Gail looked at her uncomprehendingly.

"Just stand here, this might need some experimentation." Holly ordered.

"Jeez nerd!" But Gail complied anyway, because she was physically incapable of not doing what Holly told her to.

"This will take a little patience but if we can pull this off the results will be magical!"

"OK"

Holly set the tripod and got Gail to stand so her left profile faced the camera.

A few minutes later she gave a yelp of triumph!

"Come and see babe. You're a saint!"

Gail looked at the screen at the back of the camera and saw her profile in shadow with a halo around it.

"Weird. How did you do that."

"Look at the moon." Gail did as she was told and Holly continued: "Do you see the faint glow around it?"

"YES! YES! I do" Gail was jumping up and down like a child. "You positioned me so I'd block the moon so that weird halo would appear round my head."

"Got it in one. The halo is actually called a Glory*. It occurs because the light reflected off the Moon diffuses on ice crystals high up in the Earth's atmosphere. They occur around the Sun too but are difficult to see without damaging your eyes by looking at the Sun."

"WOW!"

Gail then took a similar picture of Holly.

A little later Gail said "I want our kids to know this stuff, if they want to be cops, fine but they're going to have other options too."

Holly just hugged Gail tight.

The next morning over breakfast something occurred to Gail.

"Why did you have the ring with you? Were you planning to propose last night as well?"

"No. I put it in my pocket yesterday morning thinking you'd be picking me up from the lab. I was going to propose there by asking you to help with something. I was going to put the ring in a plastic bag at the bottom of a beaker and put in an indicator called thymolphthalein and then put a base solution in whilst stirring. That would have turned the whole solution a dark blue and opaque. I was going to prepare a mild acid solution in another beaker by mixing dry ice with water. Both beakers would have been less than half full. Then when you came I was going to casually ask you to help me by pouring the clear liquid into the dark blue one and bring the beakers over while I was doing something else.

"I was hoping you would have observed the ring and told me. I would then have asked you to use the forceps to remove it. I would then have turned to face you and asked the question."

"Don't do things simply do you? But actually it sounds kinda nice in a weird nerdy way!"

"Glad you like it!"

After another couple of days of what they called their 'engagement honeymoon' they returned to the city both wearing their rings.

They called at Oliver's house to return the keys to the cabin and thank him and Celery.

Gail phoned her mom and asked her to bring her dad to the condo that night as she and Holly had something to tell them. She also rang Steve and Traci to ask them to come as well.
That evening they cooked the meal for the party together as usual.

Then the entry buzzer went and Gail left to answer it. It was her parents. Early.

"Sorry about this but she was like a cat on a hot tin roof." Bill whispered into his daughter's ear.

"Then we'd better not keep you waiting." Gail whispered back. Then she raised her voice: "Holly my parents are here." then in a normal conversational voice: "Come through to the kitchen."

Elaine went through with Bill. Her first thought was that she'd walked into a chemistry lab by mistake. There was gas bubbling away and thermometers everywhere. She was impressed by the size of the room. It had space for a breakfast bar and table to fit in comfortably.

"Take a seat at the table. Dinner will be about half an hour" said Holly.

The entry buzzer went again. Holly went this time and returned with Steve, Traci and Leo.

Once they had all sat down. Gail spoke:"I asked Holly to marry me while we were away..."

"And since I had planned to ask her when I got back to my lab, I accepted!" Holly interrupted her.

"Congratulations" said Traci.

"Yes congratulations." everyone joined in.

"So do you give rings or what?" asked Traci.

Both women showed off their respective rings.

"There's one more piece of news." said Holly "I want, if you'll accept it, to be Holly Peck after the wedding."

Both Bill's and Elaine's faces lit up.

"Wonderful. Welcome to the family" Elaine got in first as usual, "Now a spring wedding. We'll hire a hall. The chief will probably want to come..."

"MOTHER. Don't you think Holly and Gail should decide this stuff." Steve was annoyed. "Honestly this is why I haven't asked Traci yet."

Traci stored this fact for later.

"Of course Gail and Holly will have a say. Now why don't we make it a double wedding..." Elaine was in full flow.

Gail had poured white wine for everyone except Leo who had to make do with orange juice.

"A toast!" said Elaine, "Holly and Gail."

Just after this a bleeping was heard.

"That'll be the lamb" said Holly as she and Gail went to the stove. Holly removed the meat from the oven and put the roasting tin on the hob. The joint was put on a wooden carving board to rest. Holly set to work to make one of the sources with the meat juices. The other sources had been made earlier and were warming in the microwave.

Gail carved the meat while Holly put the vegetables into dishes so everyone could help themselves.

They put everything onto a trolley and asked their guests to follow them into
the dining room.

After the main course Holly invited anyone who wanted to see ice cream being made instantly to come to the kitchen. Everyone went through. She and Gail put on safety goggles and gauntlets.

"OK this is half and half cream and sugar which I've mixed until all the sugar dissolved." said Gail.

"And these are the flavours. We can make strawberry, vanilla, chocolate or raspberry. So what would people like?" said Holly.

"And here are the colours. We can do purple vanilla ice cream if you want." said Gail.

Steve and Traci both went for the purple vanilla. Elaine for raspberry coloured raspberry. Leo for blue chocolate. Bill ummed and ahhed for a bit then chose red chocolate. Holly wanted green mint chocolate as did Gail.

Gail set up a row of lab beakers, Holly poured liquid nitrogen into each one.

"This liquid is at -195 degrees Celsius. It will do damage to human tissue hence the protective gear." said Holly.

They poured the prepared cream mixture into each of seven bowls. Holly set up small electric whisks over each bowl that stirred the cream mixture while Gail put the flavours and colours into each bowl.

"Right here comes the dangerous part. We are going to pour the liquid nitrogen onto the mixture to make the ice cream." said Gail.

Starting at opposite ends of the row they picked up the beakers one by one and poured the liquid onto the creamy mixtures while the beaters continued to stir.

"Wow lots of smoke! Is there a fire!" said an excited Leo.

"It's not smoke. It's the liquid nitrogen evaporating into the air." said Gail.

"Is that safe? Should we be wearing breathing apparatus?" asked Steve.

"Honey the air is 75% nitrogen so a little more won't hurt you!" said Traci.

"OK ice cream made. Do you want to eat it here or go back to the dining room?" said Holly.

"That took seconds!" said Traci.

"Cool!" said Leo. They ate it there.

"This ice cream is smoother even than the ones I buy in the shop." said Traci. "Yeah that's because the ice crystals get less time to form and so are smaller." Everyone was looking at Gail after she said this.

"Welcome to nerd-dom!" said Holly. Everyone laughed.

*This is a real, and quite common, phenomenon if you want to know more and learn about rainbows too look at: /watch?v=p9iB2PALVeY (the first 30 minutes are about rainbows. I might do the rainbow stuff in a later chapter.)A