A/N: Ah! Couple of days late, blame bonfire night. Also I got hit in the face by a leaf, that was pretty distressing. There will still be a chapter this coming weekend.
Oh no... It's here. It's Fite Nite Part 1/3.
"So, Fite Nite tonight." Gail lets out a sigh as Dov practically beams at her from the drivers seat. She could tell this conversation had been coming all week and she wonders if he conspired with Oliver to get her trapped in a car to have it. "Are you bringing Holly?"
"What?" She screws up her face and tries to look as disgusted as possible at the prospect. "No, watching two grown men fight isn't her thing."
"Oh, and what is her thing?" Dov looks at her with his eyebrows raised, and she knows he's just challenging her into revealing more about Holly.
Not watching grown men fight is the easy answer, and Gail Peck is probably the truthful answer. Instead she sticks with the 'professional' answer. "Dead bodies."
"I'm just saying," He carries on as if she hadn't said anything, and Gail finds it slightly horrifying that Dov might be becoming immune to her barbs. "Might be nice to bring her with you, show her the dirty underbelly of police work."
"Yeah, I'm not going." It's the first time she's told him that she's not going, and Gail rolls her eyes at his expression of shock.
"What-" The ringing of her phone interrupts him and she would quite happily kiss Holly in front of everyone from 15 division for calling her at that exact moment.
The phones at her ear before Dov can carry on, his mouth opening and closing repeatedly, before he turns back to the road. "Hey."
"Good morning." It shouldn't be possible, but Gail's certain she can hear the smile in Holly's voice.
"Of course it's good, you're talking to me." If Gail had heard anyone else make that comment on phone, she would have taken it off them and snapped it in half, because that was entirely to sappy. Holly's laugh from the other end of the line makes it worth it though. "You doing okay?"
"Hmmm yeah, I'm fine, I just spoke to Lisa and she's still free for tonight, you still good?" Anxiety whirls in her stomach for possible the thousandth time at the prospect of meeting Holly's friends.
"Yep, I'm still free." If Dov hadn't been in the car, not so subtly eavesdropping on the conversation, she would have dropped her head onto the dashboard, because even she can hear the nerves in her voice
"Gail you sound nervous or excited, I can't see your face so I'm not sure which..."
"Yeah, no, of course I'm really excited." And by excited she really means nervous to the point of nausea.
"You'll all get on great Gail, anyway I've got to go."
"Okay, I'm going to meet you at the Penny tonight probably around..." Hopefully if they get the loot and leave she can be finished by six and she doesn't want to be sat around worrying and twisting herself into knots for any longer than she has to. "Seven o'clock?"
"Perfect, I finish at five today." She knows Holly's also being hopeful, because if her case load for the past week was anything to go by the Gail wouldn't be surprised if she forgets to leave the lab till gone eight again.
"I'll call you after shift then." If anything to make sure Holly actually leaves her shift.
"Yes mum, have a good day Gail."
"Okay, you too."
"U2? Yeah I love U2." She knows that Holly's only quoting one of the Friends episodes she made her watch a couple of nights ago, but her stomach still flutters at her words as she laughs anyway. "I'll see you later Gail."
"Bye." She hangs up, a smile still stretching across her face at the memory of them curled up on Holly's couch together, with a bag of cheese puffs nestled between them as they binged through half a season. It quickly fades when Dov gives her a pointed look. "What?"
"I can't believe you're not going to Fite Nite." Gail looks away from him again, because she knew getting in this car with him was going to end like this. "I mean how's Duncan going to feel when he looks out into the crowd and doesn't see your, pale, pale face cheering him on." One pale was plenty, and she's about to comment on the fact that really, Dov isn't the pinnacle of sun kissed beauty, but she has a more pressing concern. Who the hell is Duncan.
She manages to slip just the right amount of indignation in her tone. "Who is Duncan?"
"The new rookie."
"Oh," Holly had told her the same thing after his first day, and Gail already knows that she's never going to admit to the brunette that she was right. "I've been calling him Gerald."
"What about Chris? Chris has been planning this event for months, he's going to be heartbroken if you don't show up." To be pulling out the Chris card so early could only mean that he has no other arguments, and Gail almost sighs in relief.
"He's your son Dov, why don't you just console him."
"Nice Gail, nice." It's his own fault really, and she's fairly sure within 24 hours of ratting her out to Oliver for being nice he started regretting it.
That innate niceness still bites at her though, because even though she wasn't going for a complete personality reboot any more, she still wants to be a nicer person for Holly and herself. So she caves. "I can't go to fight night tonight, because I'm seeing Holly tonight at the Penny and I'm-" She hopes the anxiety she's feeling doesn't creep into her next words. "Meeting her friends for the first time."
"At the Penny? On your turf, smart move." The subject of her meeting Holly's friends is apparently a lot more interesting to Dov than the subject of her attending Fite Nite and she makes a slight sound of agreement. She knows he's probably going to start a long speech about it and starts to consciously block out the conversation. "You'll be less nervous." That immediately brings her waning attention back, because the only person who was meant to know she was nervous was herself.
"I'm not nervous."
"Well you should be you make a terrible first impression." He's said that before, and no she doesn't, she makes a memorable first impression. "Plus your ambiguous sexuality might make them think you're not serious about Holly, just a thought."
"Yeah I know, you've clearly been giving this a lot of thought." And now by default, she's going to be giving it a lot of thought. Since dating Holly people had asked, and her usual answer was to tell them to work it out for themselves. Maybe she should have outright told anyone who asked that, yes, Gail Peck was a bona fide lesbian. Maybe she should have bought a pride flag decal for her locker...
"I think about you two all the time." Her attention snaps back to Dov again, and she pins him with what she hopes is her best Gail Peck glare. "That came out wrong."
"You came out wrong."
This was an entirely bad idea, and Gail knew it could possibly blow any chance she had of finishing by six. She also knew this could blow any chance she had of Oliver ever trusting her again. Yet here she was, walking across a frozen parking lot with bolt cutters in her hand about to break into an abandoned warehouse. It was completely off task, the leads Dov was making them chase down had nothing to do with the operation they were meant to be working on.
The instructions had been simple. Go to the address on the list. Collect the items on the list. Bring the loot back to 15 division. Simple. Except so far going to the address on the list was the only instruction her and Dov had managed to follow and even that had taken a call to Oliver to sort out whatever ego contest Dov and Wes were having.
"So, what are you guys doing tonight? Dinner? Drinks? 'Rodeo Girls' marathon?" She's fairly sure nobody is going to blame her if she hits Dov across the back of the head with the bolt cutters.
"Oh, good. We're talking about this again." Thankfully he remains silent as he places the chain blocking the door into the cutters and she pushes her whole body into the handle until the metal snaps in two.
The door swings open and she flicks on her torch before walking into the building with Dov. It's quiet and dark, and she prays the building is completely empty with absolutely no leads so they can just go back to the precinct and admit to Oliver that they have no loot to add to fifteen divisions total.
"Not that it's any of my business," Apparently Dov still hasn't finished getting whatever his current fascination is about her love life out of his system, and she wishes he would just stop talking so they could search the building in peace. "But if you suddenly started dating a guy who'd only ever dated other guys, you know, I'd be worried he wasn't serious about you. You know, that he was just trying you on." She elbows him, because she doesn't need to hear this again. The fact that Holly's friends and by extension Holly might think she's not serious about the brunette had already been spinning around her head all day. "Super-unfortunate choice of words."
It really is none of his business, but she wants to set him straight anyway. "Look, I'm really serious about Holly, and I kind of think the only person that needs to know that is Holly."
"You really like her?" The question catches her off guard.
Gail thinks about not saying anything, just ignoring him and letting the conversation drop. Or asking him how his relationship with Chloe is going, because watching them interact earlier in the week had been painful. At the same time she knows Dov is only asking her these questions because he's her friend, and friends spoke to each other about important things like this. Important things like Holly. "Yes."
"'Cause you never talk about her." Which isn't a fair assessment, because she never really talks about any of her relationships.
"Okay, well she's great. I mean, she's, like the smartest person I've ever met, in a kind of sexy-librarian sort of way, which who knew that's that's my thing?" Gail never really had a thing for glasses, but Holly in glasses with her complete inability to fully button a shirt was apparently a look she was very much into. "But we don't really have anything in common, but it actually gives us a lot more to talk about. And we don't even fight, which is that's new for me. It's just different. I'm different." It's a thought that's crossed her mind more than once. In none of her past relationships has she felt the urge to change and be a better person. With Holly it was different, Holly made her want to be a better person. "I'm better, maybe."
The look Dov gives her is entirely unsubtle, and she pushes into him again. "Shut up. Let's just search this creep hole and get out of here before one of us gets hepatitis."
They push through the plastic curtain together and freeze at the sight in front of them. The gun is out of her holster in seconds, and she isn't going to have to worry about Oliver not trusting her again, because she's fairly sure he's going to kill the pair of them.
Oliver had hidden his annoyance with the pair of them well, and she thinks that maybe he gets it now. He's always going to be their friend, and he's always going to care about them, but being the Staff Sargent meant there would be an unspoken gap between them all now.
Her thoughts about Oliver were a welcome break from the sickening worry about Holly and her friends, and with her hair still damp Gail quickly dresses in the empty locker room. She had spoken to the brunette as soon as the clock hit six to remind her that she was meant to have finished an hour earlier, and she wasn't surprised to hear her cursing from the other end of the phone as she scrambled out of the lab.
Sitting down on the bench in front of the lockers Gail lets out a heavy sigh and tries to relax, because if she carries on at her current pace she was going to end up getting to The Penny half an hour early.
If anything she wishes she could be running late, because all the pause in getting ready does is give her time to think about her conversation with Dov. Again. It's stupid, or at least that's what Gail keeps telling herself, because there's no way Holly doesn't know that she's serious about her. There can't possibly be any doubt in Holly's mind that Gail really, really likes her. That Gail loves her.
She's sure Holly feels the same way as well. There's no way the brunette could look at her the way she does and not feel the same way. It was inconceivable that anything else could be true.
Then the thought that had been plaguing her all day rises to the surface again. Holly knew how stunted she could be when expressing herself. So if Holly did feel the same way, why hadn't she already told her?
A/N: In case it totally wasn't obvious, the next chapter is the drinks, prepare your hearts.
Thanks for the continuing support, it's pretty awesome :)