Holly pushes open the door, steps inside and kicks off her shoes immediately, a habit from childhood. She drops her keys on the walnut bench.

Gail follows suit, kicking off her boots and entering the small space. Holly watches as she pads into the living room in her socks. She looks so much smaller without her boots. Gail begins wandering around, taking in the room, appraising Holly's things. She checks the contents of the bookshelf, stops in front of each frame on the wall to examine whatever is inside. She even runs a hand along the back of the sofa as if feeling for texture.

Holly leaves Gail to it. It doesn't even bother her when Gail takes it upon herself to peek into the rooms leading off her living area, or pick up her papers and read. Holly has nothing, at all, to hide. She also guesses this investigation is less about Gail's police instinct and more about making herself feel less vulnerable to whatever it is that makes her so cagey all the time. She suspects that, just like a domestic cat, Gail needs to sniff a place out, get to know the lay of the land before she can settle in safely.

Instead, Holly give her some time to do whatever she needs to do, and busies herself by clearing up the mess she left on the bench so many hours ago. She rinses her glass from her lunchtime wine, tidies her papers into a pile and throws her take-out container into the recycling.

"Are you hungry?" she calls to Gail. She pulls open a cupboard and inspects its contents, ensuring she can deliver before she promises.

Gail is standing by her desk, reading an old postcard that had been propped on a shelf. She raises her head for a moment and shrugs.

"I'm really not sure." A beep emits from Gail's pocket. She reaches into her jeans and slips her phone out.

Holly watches her read the text, her shoulders hunched over the phone.

"News?" Holly asks softly.

"No change for Chloe. Nothing about Sam."

Gail turns around, still staring at her phone. She eventually looks up. Until this moment, Holly didn't think she could get any paler, but the tiredness has turned her so white, she is ashen.

"You'll hear something soon. Didn't your boss say he'd be in touch?"

Gail nods and sighs, seeming to shrink a little with the release of air. She looks back at her phone and then to Holly.

"I have to be back at work in six hours."

"No" Holly shakes her head, eyes wide. "You can't. Ca...can't you take the day off?"

Gail purses her lips and shakes her head. "No, not with all…" She gestures helplessly with her phone. "I'm so tired" she says, rubbing her eyes, "But I feel crawly and weird and I don't know how to..."

"Do you want to go to sleep?" Holly asks her, closing the cupboard door and taking a few steps toward Gail. "You can take my…."

Gail cuts her off with a shake of her head. "No, No thanks. I know I won't sleep because how can I sleep when…?" she holds her phone up and stutters into silence, her face crumpled into a pale blur. She just stands there on the rug as if she is waiting for Holly to provide the answer.

Holly recognises this look of strung-out defenselessness. She saw this look all too often during her residency, when the hospital became her home. There, she was constantly brought into constant proximity with people looking like this: adrift in that jangled state where nerves meet shock meets utter exhaustion, leaving you so tired, but far too wired to do anything about it. These were people whose unanticipated exposure to the sadness, or anger, or guilt or fear that accompanied death or illness was leaving them so debilitated they don't even know to turn off and shut it all down. They can't take any more, but they can't let go either.

This is exactly what Gail needs right now: to shut down. Holly struggles for a moment to think of what to do, but then it hits her.

"I know what you need."

She steps over to the coffee table, picks up the control and switches the television on. The picture crystallises into a familiar scene of anxious girls gathered around a make up table.

She walks over to Gail and puts the control in her hands.

Gail stares dully at it for a moment, then up at the screen and back at Holly.

Holly smiles, touching her hands gently to each side of Gail's face, and telling her, "You just need stare into the void for a while. Turn off. Seriously, it will help."

Gail raises a weary eyebrow and manages a third of a smile. "Forensic pathologist's orders?"

"Yup." Holly tells her, kissing her. "Think of this show as a prescription."

Gail obediently turns toward the television.

Holly returns to the kitchen and the question of food. She pulls out a loaf of bread. Toast is a good kind of noncommittal food, she thinks, and pulls some slices from the packet. Loading the toaster, she looks back at Gail. She is still standing by the desk, her hands by her side, holding her phone, but Holly can see her eyes are tracking the onscreen action. Eventually, she edges closer to the TV, lowers herself onto an armchair, draws her legs up to her chest and wraps her arms around her knees. She points the remote at the television. The volume climbs.

While Holly waits for the kettle to boil and the toast to toast she watches the onscreen events vaguely, but mostly watches Gail, enjoying the opportunity to take her in from a distance. Gail doesn't notice. Her eyes are fixed on the screen, intent on whatever drama is unfolding at this episode's photo shoot, her body now squashed sideways into the welcoming body of the armchair.

Holly tries not to take it personally that Gail has sat down on an armchair by herself. She knows that sometimes, in times like this, being along in company is the ultimate measure of self-care.

Holly is hunting out spreads from the fridge when she hears Gail pipe up from her perch, "You know, if I had to live in that house with those girls, I'd stab myself in the eye."

Holly looks up from the toast she is buttering. Three girls are screaming at each other in a small blue-tiled bathroom. All of them are crying. She grins.

"Actually, maybe I'd just stab them," Gail mutters, her deadpan tone barely audible over the racket. "Then live there on my own."

"I'm not sure how well that would work out for you." Holly tells her, pouring boiling water into two large cups and adding herbal tea bags.

"Mmm." Gail responds, shrugging. Her eyes still fixated on the screen.

Holly carries a steaming cup over to Gail and places it gently on the wide arm of the armchair, right in front of Gail's hand. Without even seeming to register, Gail's hands automatically wind around the cup and she moves to face forward on her chair so she can drink more easily, her eyes never leaving the screen. Holly goes back to the kitchen and returns with the toast, trying the same tact as with the tea and placing the plate by the cup. She knows if Gail tells her to eat she won't. Again, she can't help feeling she is treating Gail like a cat. Only this time she is trying to tempt her by nonchalantly placing food out to tempt her out of some dark hole. It works. Gail automatically picks up a piece of toast and begins to chew on it.

Holly quickly steps into her bedroom, yanks off the work shirt she feels like she has worn a for a century and exchanges it for a t-shirt. She comes back into the living area and parks herself on the couch on the closest end to Gail, cradling her own cup of tea. She watches Gail polish off a piece of toast and pick up another without missing a beat, and then turns to the television herself.

There seems to be only four girls left in the model hell house and things are getting tense. She watches them bicker as they dress for a show. As the girls march in high heels along a swaying catwalk, suspended above the audience, another beep emits from Gail. She pulls her phone out, reads from the bright screen and then places it on the other armrest.

"Anything?" Holly asks, turning to her.

Gail shakes her head. "No change." Her voice cracks.

Holly watches a tear gather in Gail's eye as she stares at the television. She doesn't wipe it away. She lets it fall and instead, without turning or looking, she stretches her arm out toward Holly. Holly meets her hand halfway and takes it in hers. She runs a finger gently along the back of Gail's hand.

They sit in silence, their hands suspended in the tender limbo between the couch and the armchair, watching the four girls finish the catwalk task and then sidle out onto the stage for judging panel, dressed in their tasteless best. Tyra begins her end-of-show spiel as the camera pans across the girls' faces. The judges argue for what seems like hours over a set of photos of the models in tribal make up, while the girls hold their ranks, submitting themselves to judgement.

"See that one?" Gail says, jabbing a finger into the air in the direction of the screen. "The ginger one?"

Holly looks at the red-haired girl. She is the shortest of the four and is dressed in a short skirt and paralysing-ly high heels, ostensibly to cover the distance between herself and the other three contestants.

"Mm hmm" She replies.

"She's mean." Gail says, wiping her nose with her sleeve. "I'd stab her first."

Holly can't help laughing.

"Yep," she says, looking over at Gail, squeezing her hand. "You are truly, utterly, deeply insane."

Gail doesn't respond, but Holly sees the crinkle at the side of her eye and the turn of her mouth suggests that Gail knows it too.

Then, suddenly, without looking away from the television or letting go of Holly's hand, Gail gets up from where she is sitting, turns, shuffles over to the coach and sinks into the spot next to Holly. As Gail leans toward her, Holly smells the faint scent of perfume put on so many hours ago. She smiles, lets go of Gail's hand and makes room for her. She yanks a cushion out from her side and places it on her lap.

"Here," she whispers, patting the cushion

Gail obediently curls up beside Holly, resting her head on the cushion and a hand on her knee. Holy draws her arms around the stretch of Gail's back and shoulders and together they watch Tyra dole out her judgements. When the ginger is sent home, Holly hears a muffled, faint "yay" emanate from the cushions. She smiles and smooths a hand over Gail's blonde ponytail. The credits roll, commercials play and, like clockwork, another episode begins.

"Finale time." Holly says, looking down at Gail.

But Gail is fast asleep.


To be continued...