Part 28
Gail pushed button after button on the TV remote but it was no use, there was nothing on worth watching. She pouted and, careful of all of her aches and pains, gently tossed the remote towards the bottom of her bed.
Elizabeth looked on with a grin before going back to reading a text message on her phone.
Gail shifted painfully on the bed and glared at the younger girl. "What are you doing?"
Elizabeth kept her eyes on her phone as she typed out a return message. "Telling Holly you're being a pain in the ass." She muttered cheerfully.
Gail narrowed her eyes and debated throwing one of her pillows at Holly's kid sister, it would hurt like hell but if it connected with that smug face, surely it'd be worth the grinding of broken bones.
Elizabeth chuckled at the new text she received before looking up and catching Gail's stare. She cleared her throat and tucked her phone away. No sense in telling Gail that a mob was about to descend on the room now that shift was almost over at 15. Holly had stopped in after going to the morgue to pick up some work stuff. And her phone, obviously, given she was now in constant contact with Elizabeth asking for updates on Gail's condition. Grumpy, just like before Holly had left.
And now apparently Holly wanted to change the food order that Chris had already offered to deliver to Gail later. Burgers and greasy fries weren't on Dr Stewart's approved dinner foods for good patient recovery.
Elizabeth was sure Gail wasn't going to appreciate that, like at all.
She watched the blonde shift against the pillows at her back then still suddenly and close her eyes in what looked to be a painful grimace as she sucked in a breath. Elizabeth frowned and glanced back down at her phone. After another quick look at the blonde she typed out a text telling her sister that she had better at least bring Gail a doughnut if she wanted her to eat something healthy.
She had been beaten up pretty badly she reminded her sister pointedly.
Gail opened her good eye, still having to work at angling her face properly to see what she wanted, in this case Elizabeth who was back on her cell phone again. She rolled her eye. "Why don't you just take off, I'm sure Holly won't be much longer." She offered. She liked the girl, she did, but Elizabeth was due to leave in a few days so Gail figured that the last place she wanted to be was stuck babysitting her in the hospital.
Besides, the pain was really starting to get to Gail and she wasn't sure she wanted an audience around until she could take more of the pain meds she'd finally been allowed to have.
Elizabeth snorted. Yeah, she could just picture her sister's reaction to coming back and finding Gail alone in her room. She might as well fly back to Boston now and have no plans to return. Ever.
"You might not be great entertainment, but it is kinda funny seeing you stuck in a bed." Elizabeth stated with a full grin as Gail glared at her. "I mean, I could do anything to you right now, and you wouldn't be able to stop me." She said with a wicked grin as she lifted up her cell and directed it towards the blonde.
Gail narrowed her eye as the younger woman's comment hit her the wrong way. "Try it." She spat out venomously. "And I'll give you another up close and personal view of my gun."
Elizabeth scowled and pouted as she lowered her phone. "Spoil sport." She muttered grumpily. "You wouldn't even show me your war wounds."
Gail swallowed and did her best to relax, she knew Elizabeth wasn't seriously threatening her, and she felt bad for bringing up the gun incident, not her best introduction to Holly's family. She shifted her position again and sighed before glancing around the room and then back at Elizabeth who was still pouting at her.
It made her relax finally and start to smile. The girl had just brushed off her comments as a joke and moved on to what really mattered, Elizabeth had been complaining about looking at her chart since Holly had left over an hour ago. The same Holly that had insisted on taking a close look at all of the blonde's hurts just to reassure herself before she was willing to leave Gail.
Gail had enjoyed pointing out that even knowing Elizabeth would be with her, Holly clearly would have preferred to stay herself, being a doctor and all. Elizabeth had just huffed and rolled her eyes at her sisters fussing over Gail, it wasn't like she'd be gone for long but pointing that out to Holly had only gotten her told off.
Gail grinned fully for the first time since watching Holly leave. "And I told you, if you were a real doctor I might have."
Elizabeth sighed and slouched in her chair.
Gail chuckled very carefully, this was better than television. She watched as Elizabeth looked up at her with sad eyes. Oh, that wasn't fair. Put a pair of glasses on the girl's face and Gail would have sworn that she was looking at Holly.
It only took seconds for Gail to start to cave. Dammit, the kid played a good game.
"Tell you what, maybe if you're real nice to me I might just let you have a look at my chart and see what the real doctors think of my injuries." Gail reluctantly offered.
Elizabeth yelped in excitement and reached for the patient folder hooked over the end of Gail's bed.
Gail shook her head as the other woman acted like she'd just been told Santa was real.
And people thought Gail was immature.
"What are you doing with that?" Holly asked her sister as she entered the room and spotted Elizabeth with Gail's patient file in her hands. She put her bags down and took the folder out of her sister's hands before Gail could even mutter a hello at her girlfriend. "You shouldn't be reading that." She told her sister with a deep frown.
Elizabeth put her hands up and backed away. "Woah, Gail said I could."
Holly finally looked over at the injured blonde and scowled as Gail confirmed with a nod. She sighed and kept a firm grip on the file even as Elizabeth tried to snatch it back.
Holly glanced over at Gail who was giving her a puzzled look, or as much as she could with a face that was swollen and bruised.
"It has your medical history in here." She explained to Gail in a soft voice as she continued to ignore her sister.
"Oh." Gail blinked and looked at Elizabeth for a long quiet second before shrugging at Holly and letting her know it was okay to give the file over to her sister.
Holly did her best to cover her surprise at Gail allowing Elizabeth to look through her medical reports. She turned to her sister and gave her a stern look to wipe off her smug grin as she held out a hand impatiently for the folder.
"Everything in here is private and confidential, not a word to anyone. Is that understood?" Holly demanded of her sister before she held the file out.
Elizabeth blinked and eyed Gail for a moment then slowly took possession of the folder. Only now she wasn't sure if she should be looking at it or not.
Holly shook her head as she noticed Gail pouting at her. With a tired grin she made her way over to the blonde and gently pressed a kiss to the blonde's mouth, being careful of the healing lip.
"Hey, sorry I took so long." She whispered before kissing Gail again making the blonde smile.
Gail reached over for Holly's hand and gave it a squeeze. "I might not like you leaving but the welcome back's not so bad." She replied as the other woman's presence seemed to dull some of the pain she was feeling.
"How are you doing?" Holly asked as she held Gail's hand and rubbed along her arm with her free hand as her eyes traced over the readouts on the monitors Gail was attached to. "Are you in pain? Have the doctors been back in? Should I call them?"
Gail grinned at her girlfriend's rambling and would have laughed if it wasn't for the ribs. "Nerd, I can't attack your mouth to shut you up right now, but I'll keep a running score for you." She added with a wink as Holly blushed.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes at the pair although it made her smile to see her sister so obviously taken with Gail and concerned for her wellbeing. It was sometimes hard to believe this was the same Holly who never had her head out of a medical book for as long as she could remember, even when she'd lived with Holly in Boston her sister had spent much of her free time studying or just reading the latest journals. Even ones that weren't in Holly's field, her sister just had a thirst for knowledge and learning.
Maybe that was part of the reason her previous relationships never really lasted.
Elizabeth looked over again having just read mention of Gail's assault last year. They had their heads together whispering and occasionally her sister laughed softly and tugged at blonde strands of hair making Gail gaze up at her with, what had to be a drug induced, dopey grin.
Maybe before Holly just hadn't met anyone special enough to want to give her attention to them that fully. Holly had spent most of her young life studying to become who she is, it was a commitment of hours spent reading and note taking and more reading.
That's what that look in her sister's eyes reminded Elizabeth of, when Holly got a brand new reading list and brought the books home for the first time, she always had this look of excitement and anticipation on her face as she got to grips with the new subjects. For weeks on end Elizabeth would watch Holly carrying her book bag everywhere she went so that any free time that she might have could be used productively. It had been one of the reasons Holly hadn't wanted her own car for a long time, preferring public transport because it gave her time to read as she travelled to and from school.
Elizabeth loved medicine, but not enough to pass over the chance of her own car. Her sister was different though, lost in her own head most of the time that things like driving wasn't high on her list of priorities.
It was the same look, Elizabeth was sure of it. Holly looked at Gail like she was the most fascinating book Holly had ever discovered and everything about the blonde was new and had to be read carefully and studied and noted down for future reference.
It was a bit creepy, but it told Elizabeth all she needed to know about how much in love her sister was with Gail. Her sister wasn't even considering that other books existed, Holly had found hers in Gail.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes at herself wondering if all the lovey dovey thoughts her sister and Gail were causing her was going to make her diabetic. She snuck another glance at the pair then continued reading the pages and wincing as she imagined Gail going through this.
It was awful to read, her medical training filled her mind with pictures of similar injuries and for the very first time she wished she didn't know what half of the codes used in the file meant.
But this had happened to Gail long before Holly was around.
And Elizabeth could see now, why the blonde might be in therapy. And why Holly was so fiercely protective of her girlfriend, going so far as to yell at her, which Holly would never normally do.
As she closed the file over having read more than enough about someone she was starting to really care for she glanced over at her sister again and at the bruises on Gail's face and arms, and the cast, and thought of the injuries she couldn't see but knew were there now.
She didn't know how the blonde could smile the way she was at Holly right now.
Maybe they were both nutts.
Love sure was funny.
In the funny strange way, not funny haha way.
With those two currently acting like she wasn't even in the room Elizabeth decided to have a quick look to see what her sister had brought back with her.
Books.
No surprise there for Elizabeth. She just rolled her eyes and looked into the next bag.
More folders with notes and pictures.
Trial stuff for the case Holly was due at court for tomorrow Elizabeth figured. Next bag then.
And finally Elizabeth hit pay dirt.
"Is that a doughnut?"
Elizabeth ignored Gail's sudden question and continued on eating her prize.
"Holly, is your sister stealing my doughnut?"
Elizabeth grinned as she heard her sister giggle. She took another healthy bite and grinned over at the grumpy looking blonde.
"It's not like either of you two need the sugar, you're both so sweet together it's making me ill just being in the same room." Elizabeth told the pair before faking throwing up.
Gail looked up at Holly. "You brought more than one, right?"
Holly chuckled and moved away from the bed and over to her things, deliberately not bothering to answer Gail's question.
"Here." She said as she plopped down a deli bag in Gail's lap. "Have this."
Gail eyed the paper bag with disdain then glanced at the last of the doughnut that headed into Elizabeth's mouth. Then she glared at her girlfriend.
Holly sighed. "There might be more than one but you'll never know if you don't at least try some of that."
Gail pouted and gave the bag a poke with a finger. Whatever was in there wasn't half as appealing as the doughnut she had seen in Elizabeth's hands seconds ago.
Holly pulled a couple of files from her bag then pulled a chair closer to Gail's bed before getting comfortable. She read a few lines before Gail's continued jabbing at the bag drew her attention.
"Just try it Gail, you never know." She tried to encourage her.
Gail looked at Holly and they stared at each other for a long moment before Gail finally sighed and glanced back down at the bag in her lap. "And then I get a doughnut?"
Holly tried not to grin too much as she replied with her head back down facing her notes. "Yes."
Elizabeth watched the scene unfold with an amused grin. "Whipped." She muttered at Gail as the blonde, with one hand, pulled a leafy green looking sandwich from the bag and took a careful bite.
Gail took another bite of the sandwich and then another, glaring at Elizabeth the whole time.
Elizabeth just grinned back and took a second doughnut out of the box causing Gail to actually whimper.
"Eliza, behave."
Gail just glared at the younger girl and thought that there was another list she was keeping track of now. And when she was out of hospital and after she had gotten done with her Holly kissing list, and wherever that may lead to list, she was going to get to paying someone else back.
And she was going to enjoy that just as much as the kissing.
xxxxx
AN/
Sorry for the wait. Busy in RL. It's also 3 am and I have to be up very soon for work! Won't that be fun :D
But thanks for reading!
