A/N: Rookie Blue is back! AHhhh..hhh. hh... I'm not actually looking forwards to it? I'm really worried they're going to knob the whole thing up even more...

Anyway thanks for the reviews, you're all lovely, and I'm sure if I could hug you all, you would all smell glorious. This chapters more a set up chapter for... Well you'll see what for and then you can all be devastated whilst I live it up in 'Merica.


What sounds like a content sigh falls from the blonde head laying in Holly's lap, her feet stretching out across the sofa as they sit it silence. The short strands of Gail's fringe bush against the tip of her thumb as she traces it across the subtle frown lines on her forehead.

"Hey, you doing ok?" There's no reaction and she stills her hand, they had been in the same position for at least an hour and she wonders if Gail fell asleep.

"Hmmm, I feel like an idiot." There's still a hoarse tone in her voice from her early crying and Holly knows it's not appropriate, but a jolt of excitement goes through her at the sound of it.

"Nothing new then." Gail's eyes finally blink open again, her hand coming up to lightly slap her across the arm. "Do you still want some breakfast?"

"Yeah," despite her affirmation the blonde makes no effort to move from her lap, instead her eyes just fall shut again and she moves her hand from Gail's forehead to start tracing her thumb across her cheeks instead. "I promise not to run away this time."

She knows that Gail doesn't mean it in any way but self deprecation, but the memory of her running out of the door causes a fresh wave of hurt to wash through her. It scares her more than she would ever admit to the blonde, and she knows logically she actually played no real part in the reason for her running this time, but it still scares her that one day Gail will be running out of the door because of her. She loves her and she thinks that's where the problem could be. She's still not entirely sure when the line between wanting to sleep with Gail and actually falling for her was crossed, but she's brave enough to admit in her head that it has been. She's falling in love with Gail Peck, and it scares her that she needs to make sure the blonde doesn't find out, not yet, not when one wrong word could have her fleeing out the door and her life entirely.

"Do you want pancakes?" There's a slight lump in her throat when she talks and she can feel the heaviness of tears waiting to spill from her eyes, and she's relieved that Gail keeps her eyes shuts when she shakes her head from side to side.

"No, you don't have to, toast is fine." That catches her attention and she quickly blinks back the tears that had started to form, because Gail 'pancakes are a staple breakfast/lunch/dinner food' Peck is turning down freely offered pancakes.

"Honey," leaning down Holly gently lets her lips press a light kiss to her forehead. "I'm offering you pancakes."

"I know, I just," her eyes open again, and Holly wonders if maybe she should pull back a bit, because her head is still hovering just above the blondes, but she takes the chance study the blondes eyes closely. "Do you think I'm a mean person?" That does make her pull back slightly, and she can feel the crease in her brow as Gail's eyes just make her look so vulnerable and she doesn't understand how Gail can't know that anyone even remotely close to her can see straight through her cutting comments to the loving woman underneath.

"This has suddenly become very deep for a conversation about pancakes." She lets her thumb smooth out the crease on Gail's own forehead, lowering her hand to catch the single tear that drips down the side of her face. "And no, I don't think you're a mean person."

The room falls silent again and she can almost see the thoughts in Gail's eyes as they dart between hers and she wonders what it is the blonde isn't telling her.

"Were you serious about pancakes?" The blondes eyes shine with unshed tears and she wants to push her to talk about it, to tell her what else is wrong, but she doesn't want to scare her. A part of her just wishes this could be as simple as it was before Gail ran away from her, because now they're both scared about something unsaid and neither of them is going to admit it to the other.

"Yeah I was." Holly dips her head again to press a kiss to her cheek.

"Then, can I please have pancakes?" She moves to the other cheek and presses another light kiss to her skin.

"Yes, you may." A final kiss is pressed to Gail's forehead before she sits up, pulling Gail off her lap and helping her shuffle round to sit next to her.

The room falls into silence again, and she tries to stand up to start on the pancakes when Gail pulls her back down, her arms wrapping around her neck, her face burying out of sight into her neck.

"Thank you." And she's not sure why, but she thinks it sounds like a 'sorry' to.


"This is nice." The warm water continues to cascade around them and she murmurs her response into the back of Gail's neck, her arms wrapping around her stomach.

"Nicer than the last time we tried to shower together."

"The last time we showered together," the blonde reaches down for one of her arms, intertwining their fingers together before pulling it up to place a light kiss to her knuckles. "You went Notebook on me."

Holly laughs, and remembers that first shower, and the pain in the ass it had been to try and drag her soaking clothes off herself and off an inebriated Gail. "You'd make a beautiful Ryan Gosling."

"Is it because of the hair?"

"Mhmmm."

The blonde turns around in her arms, her own coming up to wrap around her back pulling their bodies together. Holly lets out an appreciative moan when the soft skin of Gail's breasts push into her own, and she can feel the blondes nipples hardening. They stay like that for what feels like hours, until Gail finally lifts one of her hands to cup the side of her face before bringing their lips together.

"You're very beautiful." It's barely above a whisper, and over the sound of the shower she struggles to hear her, but she does clearly feel the intent of Gail's hand as it starts to trace down her stomach. Holly's hand automatically flies out to the tiles next to her as the blondes hand continues down lower, stopping briefly to circle her belly button and she hasn't even touched her properly yet, but her knees already feel like their about to buckle.

"Gail..." There was a whole reply planned, but it's cut off by the gasp that falls from her lips when Gail's hand is suddenly cupping her. There's a wetness between her legs and she just knows that Gail knows it has nothing to do with the water around them, and everything to do with the fingers that are now swirling around experimentally.

She thinks about lowering her hand, moving Gail's fingers to exactly where she needs them, but before she can even properly process that thought the blonde easily slides two fingers inside her.

"Kiss me." Gail's lips are on hers instantly, roughly biting at her bottom lip causing a groan that seems to echo around the bathroom to erupt from her mouth as she starts pumping inside her.

She can feel the blonde moving her thumb round, and she's desperate for her to hit her clit properly, and she's about to help, because she gets it, they've only had sex a few time, Gail's only had sex with a woman a few times, but she doesn't need to. The thought briefly crosses her mind that she might need to install hand rails in the shower, because there's literally nothing to hold onto and her knees are going weak at the sensation of Gail's fingers and thumb working her, and she can already tell shower sex is something Gail is going to excel at. Something between a gasp and a groan spills out of her, and usually she would be embarrassed about just how loud it was.

"Shhh, I've got you," Gail moves her spare hand around her back, pulling her body close as she starts to fall apart, and all Holly can do is hang onto her for dear life.


If there's one thing that Holly's happy to discover about Gail in the past 24 hours, it's when Gail is learning something new, she likes to practice again and again, and again, and Holly is incredible grateful that she is currently trying to perfect the art of having sex with another woman. Their shower had inevitably run on too long, both of them eventually stepping out into the sauna her bathroom had turned into with crinkled skin. That had led to Gail offering to help dry her hair, which had ended with her being pushed back onto the bed and she's struggling to remember a time she's ever slept with someone so many times in such a short space of time.

She sort of gets it though, Gail's irresistible urge to touch her, she still remembers the first time she had slept with a girl in college, it was as amazing as it was awkward, but they had barely been able to stay in the same room as each other for five minutes before ripping their clothes of each other for the following two weeks. Massie. She had been blonde too, but with the greenest eyes she had ever seen, a smile creeps across her face and she wonders where she is now, whether she ever managed to move to Europe like she wanted to back then.

Their break up had been amicable, their lives moving in two different directions, to places that would leave them too far apart. It still took her friends the best part of six months of badgering before she let them set her up with someone else though, and she realises with everything happening in her life, with Gail happening she hasn't seen them in months. As the years from college grew more distant it became more difficult to line up their schedules, but they still found the time to hassle her about not having a girlfriend, so she thinks that maybe it's time to show them she can function ok on her own without them trying to set her up with a string of women.

Gail shuffles in her arms, her back pushing back into her as she watches the TV, their legs intertwined at the bottom of the sofa.

"How would you feel about meeting a few of my friends?" The blonde jerks in response.

"Your friends?" She sounds hesitant, and Holly can't really blame her.

"Yeah, I mean, I see your friends all the time, literally, every week one of them turns up at my lab with a dead body." The arm she has slung over Gail's waist pulls her in closer, and she presses a light kiss to the back of her neck. "Or sometimes just body parts if someones having a bad week."

"That's true."

She pulls back from the blondes neck, resting her head back onto the arm of the sofa. "I think you should re-evaluate your friendship choices, maybe see if mine are a better fit..."

A laugh bubbles from Gail's throat, and it's one of the few times she's heard it that day. "Ok."

"Ok you'll come?"

"Yeah, I'll come."

"Great, they'll take a couple of weeks to sort their lives out enough to meet, I think one of them might be in the Bahamas actually..." She lets her voice trail off and tries to remember exactly where they all are right now.

"Well in the mean time you should meet my girlfriend instead." There's suddenly a flirty tone in Gail's voice and Holly just knows where this conversation is now going.

"Oh? And what's she like?"

"Oh you know, sort of clever, enjoys poking around in dead people, doesn't believe a shirt should be buttoned more than half way..."

"Maybe you should introduce us, she sounds hot."

"So hot, I'll let you in on a secret as well." The blonde turns in her arms, repositioning herself until Holly can feel her breath on her neck. "She really likes it when you kiss her just here." A light kiss drops onto the underside of her jaw, and a light groan follows her next breath.

"Mmm, you should demonstrate that a bit more, just so I know for sure where it is." Holly smiles and brings her hand up to push on the back of Gail's head, coaxing her closer to the sensitive skin.

"How about I show you some other things she likes as well." Gail's hand starts to trail back down her body and she can feel her smiling into the kisses she's pressing against her jaw again, and she truly is very thankful that Gail is such a thorough learner.


A/N: Dun dun dun, the date of doom is now on the horizon... Less that a week until I'm in America! I doubt I'll be posting anything else before I leave, so in the words of Greg Laswell "Off I go, where I fall is where I la-aaaaand" (where I land hopefully being New York and then Phoenix, weeeeeeeeeee.)