Prompt: Gail's gruesome death in Holly's arms.
WELL First off - I'm sure the lot of you have scampered off reading that message so there's that.
Set after zhe whole 'Good night Gail' episode. (5X07 was it?). I seem to be obsessed with the Gail's POV thing. Sorry. And of course no freaking idea if all this is medically feasible.
Now - let's set the angst at max shall we.
As for the elaborate plan I've written here - y'all should be grateful I'm not a super villain.
Riding out with Chloe. There are much less painful ways to die, you roll your eyes as Chloe keeps pestering the you with all sorts of questions. You long ago learnt that Chloe was literally immune to your sarcasm, and the best way to deal with her was to either give her what she wanted or to ignore her completely. And you opt for the latter today. Chloe could be asking you for all the ways you've dreamt off strangling her - but you've tuned her out. The previous evening at the precinct is on replay in your mind, and never would you have imagined yourself on the other side of the equation. It was usually you who kept people on their toes, and you're clearly not used to this.
The words "Good night, Gail." are on loop in your head, those eyes that were trying so hard to be strong and not cave in boring right through you.
Ugh, why am I such a snappy idiot.
"It's a double murder" Chloe chirps in glee as the two of you step out of the squad car and you really wonder if she's morbid or just exceptionally happy about two murders.
The crime scene is on the ground floor of this dilapidated gloomy building, the walls actually look like they're going to swallow you whole.
This doesn't seem to be my day.
Making your way through the dark wet walkways to the scene, the sight of someone's hair done up neatly in a pony-tail catches you, and you immediately stop and think to turn around and decide perhaps outside would be a better place to wait. Chloe's the one who's right behind you, and rather than answer her badgering queries of 'What's wrong?' you decide that perhaps facing Holly after the previous evening would be a better option.
Making your way back to the crime scene, sure enough there's yellow tape all over the place, officers and detectives all causing quite a bit of bustle in the tiny room. You aren't avoiding her, you tell yourself as you carefully make sure she doesn't catch sight of you. Sure enough, after a while - all the officers on scene make their way back to the precinct to get on with catching the you're about to get away with it - when Sam pulls you back and tells you to keep Holly and her team company as they collect evidence.
Getting tased in the eye would hurt less, you internally groan as you begrudgingly walk back to the crime scene, where Holly's doing all sorts of things. Chloe's outside where the rest of Holly's team - which consisted of three rather puny nerd assistants collecting all sorts of samples of – Wallpaint? You're supposed to make sure she makes it out of her alive, that's your job for now.
Holly of course is rambling to herself, going over various details of the bloody corpses as you try to find any clue that would give any answers to who did this. It all seemed to elaborate to simply be a break-in gone wrong. The victim's faces were so distorted with their skin almost falling off their faces - it's a gruesome sight indeed - and you can't understand how Holly's still leaning over the body and trying to figure out what it was that killed them.
You also realize you've never seen Holly at work - save the first day you met her. She went about picking clues in dead bodies with the joy of a five year old at the candy store. And your presence at the scene hasn't fazed her a bit - she seems to have decided to ignore you as much as you've ignored her. She's diligently working through her various tests, concentrating purely on the task at hand and not caring much about your gawking at her.
You're properly looking at her like a puppy dog, craving for some smidgen of attention - and she doesn't look like she's going to budge.
This day just keeps getting better.
Deciding to snoop around a bit, rummaging through loft, cupboards and cabinets in the inner rooms that are already falling off their hinges, you come across this huge glass bottle, which seems to be empty but gives out this almost nauseating stench. The whole drain-cleaner-on-your-arm incident left you a bit weary of liquids you didn't know much about - so you decide to swallow your pride and call Holly over to check if she could figure out what it was. You're sure it's some sort of acid - and the nerd that Holly is - she would probably take a whiff of the thing and identify it. She doesn't ignore you - of course she wouldn't do that - she's a professional in all those matters - but you can notice that she's a tad warmer than she was yesterday with the 'thumb' scenario. Perhaps if you kept up the puppy looks - maybe you could get back together with her.
She picks up the jar - and the minute she does - you notice it's rigged to something and before you can warn her - the walls cave in from an explosion. After getting up off the floor after rather muted sound of explosion - you notice is that the two of you are sort of shut in this tiny room, and the glass - now broken besides Holly's feet. The explosion was apparently to kill whoever moved the bottle - but because of the awkward angle - all that it's done is effectively seal the room off, leaving the two of you all alone in this tiny room.
Terrific.
Holly's flustered, considerably and you're alert as well. Your radio is sqwaking with static signals, all which are incomplete. You grab it and try to send a signal but of no avail. All that's left is this tiny window through which no one can crawl through - and you the two of look at each other before realizing there's only one way out of here.
Sure enough - the two of you are screaming on the top of your lungs - hoping someone would hear you and atleast reassure you help was on the way. After ten minutes of screaming with no outcome, the two of you give up. You fall back on the floor or what's remaining of it - and Holly's still trying to do something with the wall. Clearly this particular section of the wall was stronger than the rest.
"It's no point Hol. We've just got to wait."
Soon, she too slides down on to the floor, carefully avoiding the shattered glass. For once, you're thankful that the police uniform is thick as fur. You fumble out your phone and try to call someone and Holly tries to do the 's no signal on either of your phones, which is astonishing because really surprises you. The batteries are fine, yet everytime you try and call someone from your phone it gets cut off.
"It's a signal jammer. It's scrambling and cutting off the signals from here." Holly huffs out, after you've tried to call Sam for the tenth time. Damn it.
You're breathing heavy, panting almost and looking at her - all the memories about yesterday wiped out from your mind. For now - all that's on your mind is to get out of here in one piece.
You both stare at each other in silence and terror - except for the constant static from your radio. You see her fingers are trembling and she's probably going over the periodic table in her head to stop herself from having a full on panic attack. You aren't really sure what to do - do you comfort her - do you not at all touch her - you barely know anything about her. But you also know that you probably fell in love with her way back at the batting cages - she with her adorkably cute attempt to get you to try sports.
Slowly she lowers her head onto your shoulder, trembling and at this rate she's probably going to have a fit. You grab her as tight as you can and hold her close and she curls up to you, her fingers almost white with the grip she's got on your shirt. You've barely managed to keep yourself calm but seeing her really shaken up you push that to a corner of your mind - and try to calm her down. You have no idea what you're saying, as long as it's words in a soft tone and it seems to be working on her.
Strike out Comforted a loved one from my bucket list.
After what feels like ages, she calms down now she's still, and you go over all that happened between the two of you in this short span. Or rather the mistakes you made in such a short time. Perhaps this was the universe telling you that this was a great time to have a conversation.
In a crumbling building with damp walls. Wow.
"I'm sorry about the whole tase myself in the eye comment." you start, well that's a good start. Apologizing for being an ass. That's a first as well.
"Should have warned you about Lisa. The whole cat in a tree metaphor really went over my head I guess." she replies, still not letting go of you. This feels nice. Maybe today wasn't all that bad.
Silence again, and it stuns you. Wow - if only you had had this simple conversation a week ago and saved yourself some misery.
"You have no idea how many times I dreamt you would come in to the precinct."
She looks up at you in surprise, okay you should have kept this to yourself.
"What?"
"You know - hair all lose, holding on to a file and drag me into an interrogation room again - throw me against the wall - yeah - I'll stop at that." you stop, seeing her softly laughing at your little thoughts.
She just shakes her head at you and nuzzles into your shoulder again and you're mentally cursing yourself for telling her all that.
As you're leaning back against the damp wall, you think about the setup here - pressure sensors, signal jammers - acid? This guy was clearly elaborate - surely he would have placed the explosives in such an area that should have killed you two on the spot. But he didn't. Why would he -
Before you can finish that though - you notice a slight flicker through the tiny window. Too late really because the minute you crane your neck to just see what it is - something nicks you on the right side of your neck. Thankfully, Holly was on your left.
Mother of God!
She's looks up from your chest and shrieks, and you can feel the warm blood just pouring down your neck and down your collar, and she's pressing her hand firmly against your neck, as if to stop the bleeding, but it doesn't seem to help much, it's only making it hurt more.
Your thoughts are jumbled, and you're trying to say something but you can't. Your energy is just draining, you can see she's yelling at you but you can't hear a thing.
Worst day ever.
You're trying to tell her - that she shouldn't be yelling, whoever it was could come back and shoot her as well, that you love her and hate that you were an idiot thus far. But you can feel all the warmth slipping from your fingers.
You're the only thing that's right in all I've done Hol.
It's all slowly fading to dark.
