A/N: Opps, bit later than planned! I started on a new Clexa fic (Holon) and got a little distracted.
Thanks for the continued support :)
(I'm posting this very quickly before I go out, if there's any horrendous mistakes send me a quick PM and I'll get them fixed up when I get home)
"How's the head?" Traci's voice makes Gail twist in her seat, and she pouts at the other woman as she rubs her fingers across the bandage.
Three stitches and no concussion, that was the official medical verdict. Just a cut that didn't even need a hospital visit was still Gail's verdict.
"I think next time I see a criminal I'll just shoot them." The other woman laughs in response, sitting down on the chair opposite her.
There's an expression on Traci's face that Gail knows all to well and Gail glares at her until the silence gets too much for her impatient mind. "Come on, ask, you look like Chloe when she's trying to keep a secret or Swarek that time he ate bad chilli."
"How did the hospital go with Holly?" Traci rushes out, a smile breaking out across her face as she leans her body closer to Gail.
Gail doesn't tell her that those hours spent in the hospital with Holly had just reminded her again of everything she had lost. Having Holly sat with her and speaking to her with no awkwardness between them... It makes her want to smile wistfully at the memory.
Instead she rolls her eyes in response. "She wants to talk."
"Gail that's great news." She replies excitedly, and Gail can't help grimacing, because she's fairly sure Traci thinks her and Holly still have hope of reconciling.
The more Gail thought about it over the weekend the more she realised that Holly was probably only interested in clearing the air between them once and for all. The signals the brunette had been giving her, Lisa telling her that Holly wasn't over her? They weren't lies, if Holly even felt a fraction of what Gail felt for her she knew the brunette was probably hanging on to some lingering feelings too. That didn't mean Holly was about to break up with her girlfriend and stop herself from getting over her though.
"Yeah, no, I dunno, she probably just wants the clear the air." Traci looks at her disbelievingly and Gail almost wants to disappear into the fabric of her seat and out of sight.
"So you're not going to do it?" Traci questions, and Gail can hear the accusation in her voice.
"I dunno, maybe? We're not ignoring each other any more, so maybe that's enough." This time the look Traci gives her alone is enough for her to continue. "Yeah, I know, I know not talking was exactly the problem we had, but this is different."
Traci rolls her eyes, and Gail can feel herself pouting again, because that was her trademark response the other woman had just stolen. She continues to stare at her and Gail finally gives in. "Fine. I need to call her to get her statement later anyway. We'll arrange coffee or something, maybe softball."
Apparently satisfied with her new answer Traci stands up nodding her head. "That's a better answer, we do need her statement though, so if you could give her a call this morning," She over stresses the word as she starts to back away. "That would be great!"
Before Gail can stop her Traci's already striding away. The other woman was apparently still intent on setting her and Holly up. Rubbing her hands against her pants Gail grabs her cell off the desk behind her. If she's going to call Holly it's not going to be in the middle of the office where Traci might be lurking ready to overhear the conversation.
As naturally as possible she leaves the squad room, dodging around the desks to avoid anyone asking her where she might be going. She almost lets out a groan of anguish when she hears someone calling her name.
"Gail!" Gail recognises the voice though, it's one she's certain she will never forget. Swivelling around on her heal, she's just in time to see a breathless Holly practically slide around the corner. The other woman stares at her, seemingly lost for words and Gail stares right back.
"Hi." Gail says, trying to snap the distracted Holly into focus.
"Hi. I've got a problem with a case. It's one you worked a few months ago." Holly rushes out, and Gail finds a file thrust into her hand. Quickly she opens it up, all thoughts of her and Holly's imminent talk out the window as she tries to remember the report. "You filed a report that's full of inconsistencies. Can we talk somewhere privately? How about in here?"
Gail nods slightly as Holly walks into the observation room, her eyes still scanning the report Holly had given her. It's not her report, the case number isn't one she recognises, and she would definitely remember working a case that ended in a 75 year old man beating a burglar with his dead wife's urn."I didn't work this case. I don't even recognise-"
The case report is flying out of her hands, and before she can even look up Holly's hand is on the back of her neck and pulling her in close.
Holly's lips slam into her own, and Gail doesn't miss a beat, her lips immediately moving against Holly's in return. All thoughts of the case file leave her mind as what Gail can only describe as fireworks explode on the inside of her eyelids, because Holly just slid her tongue against her lip.
A deep moan erupts from one of their throats, and the noise starts to bring Gail out of her Holly induced haze. Her lips keep moving, her body keeps reacting to the feel of Holly against her, but what's happened suddenly hits her and she pulls away.
"Wait, wait..." Gail practically pants, and her eyes look away from Holly, not trusting herself not to just dive straight back into kissing her if she did.
Holly just kissed her. Holly Stewart. Her Holly Stewart.
"Can he see us?" Looking up Gail's body jerks in surprise when she sees the bald headed man sat in the interrogation room next to them.
"He wishes." Taking in a deep breath she finally looks back up at Holly. She almost regrets it, because she can barely see the brown of Holly's eyes behind her lust filled pupils. "What the- What the hell is going on?"
"I- I wanted to talk to you." Holly says in weak defence.
"Holly, that wasn't talking." Gail smiles at her, and Holly ducks her head as a blush spreads across her cheeks.
"I know, I know," One of Holly's hands rubs at the back of her neck. "I just, I missed you, I missed this."
"What about your girlfriend Holly?" She asks quietly, and her stomach churns worry.
"We broke up. I couldn't- She knew I wasn't over you." A sad smile pulls at Holly's lips, and Gail knows there's more to the story, but she doesn't push her for it.
The important thing is Holly's broken up with her girlfriend. They've broken up, and Holly isn't over Gail. Without thinking she steps forwards again, pulling Holly's face down to her own as she kisses her again. This time she knows the moan falls from her own lips as her hands tangle in long brown hair.
She lets herself get lost in the sensation of Holly kissing her, groaning as Holly runs her tongue against her own again. For weeks she's been dreaming of this moment, and Gail's not sure she'll ever be able to go so long without kissing Holly again. The way the brunette tilts her head into her own, the way her fingers gently swirl in the curls on the back of her neck, it reminds her of all those times they lost themselves in each other months ago.
Another groan erupts from her throat as she remembers what Holly had just said to her and Gail unwilling pulls away again. "Wait, wait, wait. Oh my God. Wait."
They both pant for a moment, and Holly seems to understand why she's pulled away again. "I know, I know, we need to talk, can we? Tonight? I'll make you dinner, and I've got this incredible bottle of barolo..." Holly quickly rambles off.
"I can't tonight 'cause I have a thing. I'm-" Her mind is still trying to catch up with itself, because Holly was just kissing her. "I'm meeting the couple that want to adopt Sophie." She explains once the cloud in her brain clears enough.
"Wow." Holly pushes at her glasses.
"Yeah."
"That's great!" Gail grimaces slightly, because she's still not sure how she feels about Sophie's now impending adoption. "That's great, right?"
"Yeah, it's, I don't know." Her voice is barely above a mumble and Gail has to look away from Holly again.
"Hey, do you," There's a brief pauses, and Gail looks up again when Holly takes her hand. "Do you want me to come with you?"
Gail doesn't answer right away, her concentration on the soft circles Holly's thumb has started tracing on the back of her hand. Misinterpreting the silence Holly quickly tries to backtrack. "I'm probably over stepping- I'm sorr-"
"No, no, no," Gail quickly cuts her off "It's not that I don't want you to, I just," Pausing she tries to think of the best way to explain it to the brunette. "I'm not sure if it's the right time."
Holly nods her head in understanding. "Too much for one night?"
"Yeah, but maybe tomorrow?" She offers instead.
"Okay. Tomorrow." A half smile pulls at Holly's mouth, before it erupts into a full grown grin as Gail smiles.
Gail's not sure how long they spend standing in front of each other, their eyes tracing each others faces, but eventually she takes a step back. "I should get back to work."
"Yeah, me to, I didn't tell anyone I was coming here." Holly says guiltily as she scrambles to push all the papers back into the report folder.
"Again, seriously?" Opening the door Gail walks back out into the hallway with Holly close behind. "They are going to fire you if you keep leaving unannounced-"
"Holly. Gail." Traci's voice comes from behind her and Gail feels her eyes widen.
Quickly turning around she doesn't miss barely restrained smirk on Traci's face. "Holly's here to give her statement, about last Friday, like you asked."
"Yep," Gail can just see Holly nodding aggressively out the corner of her eye. "Just, here for the crime, but no need to do time." Holly rhymes awkwardly.
"Lucky you were passing by." Traci holds her hand out for the case file in Holly's hand and Gail can feel herself panicking.
"Just dropping this report off, never can trust those carriers." Holly tries to evade, but Traci keeps her hand held out, and if they weren't in the middle of a police station Gail might have throttled the detective.
Without any other choice Holly hands the folder over to Traci. "Is it meant to be in this order?"
"I dropped it," Gail says quickly. "When Holly gave it to me."
"It's missing the medical examiners notes." She really is going to strangle Traci, because the other woman knows exactly why the folder is a complete mess and missing the most important part. There's no doubt in Gail's mind that the detective had been waiting in the corridor for them so she could accidentally be walking past at the same time they left the room.
"That's why Gail gave it back to me, because, I forgot the notes." Holly tries to explain anyway.
Traci smirking at them, a satisfied twinkle in her eye. "Uh huh, interview room four is free if you want to use it." She continues smiling at them as she walks away. Gail knows she can take the statement in the main pen, Holly's hardly a suspect in the case. On the other hand, Gail knows everyone is going to be staring at her if she takes Holly in there.
"This way." Gail indicates down the corridor.
"So, you actually do need to take a statement?"
"Yeah, makes sure you tell them how brave I was, they might give me a medal." Holly laughs from behind her as she opens the door for her.
"Are you not doing it?"
"Nope, I was there, you get someone else." Gail pauses in the doorway for a moment, before quickly walking into the room and letting the door shut behind her. She's well aware that Traci is probably hiding in the observation room watching them, but Gail can't stop herself from kissing Holly one final time.
Her lips move slowly, trying to memorise every part of Holly's touch.
Even though it's not close to being enough Gail pulls back first again, her whole body shivering when Holly licks tongue across her lip. "You sure you can't take the statement?"
"No. You're too distracting." Dropping her hands from the brunettes face Gail walks back towards the door. "Try to actually talk to the person taking the statement by the way, you remember how that's meant to work right?" As the door closes behind her she can hear Holly's laugh.
Walking quickly into the squad room she looks around for someone to take the interview. Traci is sat back at her desk, but there's no way Gail's going to unleash her on Holly. The next person she spots is Swarek, and she realises he's perfect, because he could quite literally not care any less about her love life.
"Swarek," She hisses, trying to get his attention without actually walking into the room. "Hey, Swarek." Following his eye line Gail rolls her eyes, because of course he's looking at Andy. "Are you ever not concentrating on Andy?"
The man suddenly turns around, grunting at her. "Sometime I concentrate on football."
"Right, Holly's here, can you take her statement about Friday?" Gail's not sure she's ever seen Sam pout, but she's fairly sure he's current facial expression is the closest thing to it. "I'll tell you what film Andy secretly wants to see."
Finally he looks towards her and nods his head once. "Where is she?"
"Interview room four."
Gail can't help feeling nervous as she stands outside the children's centre.
When Sophie had called her at the weekend to ask her to meet the Healy's her first reaction had been to say no. Sophie had quickly become an intrinsic part of her life, and selfishly Gail couldn't help the thought that maybe after she was adopted Sophie wouldn't want her any more. She had said yes though, because really there was nothing Gail would deny the little girl.
It's not like she hadn't been planning on meeting the couple eventually, their number was still scribbled down on a piece of paper in her jacket pocket. She had wanted more time to prepare herself for it though.
Taking a deep breath Gail pushes open the door to the reception, smiling at the woman behind the counter.
"Here to see Sophie again?" Julie asks.
"Yeah, I'm meeting the Healy's as well? Sophie said they would be here tonight." She says, a part of her hoping that maybe they had cancelled.
"Mark and Tina! Yes, they're already here." Gail could feel her hand shaking as she signs her name into the visitors book. "They're out in the playground."
"Thanks Julie." Gail takes the badge the woman's holding out for her and tries to look as confident as possible as she walks through the corridors towards the playground.
Sophie's on the swings as usual. The only difference to every other time Gail's seen her is this time the little girl is with who Gail assumes is Mark and Tina Healy. She's smiling, which Gail can only take as a good sign, and Mark stands in front of her animatedly moving his hands as he talks with her.
It takes a few more moments, but eventually Sophie looks past him, the smile on her face growing even wider when she spots Gail. The noise of the children playing around her blocks out Sophie's voice, but Gail can see her mouth exclaiming her name as she points towards her.
Waving slightly Gail makes her way over to the three of them, bracing herself as Sophie runs from the swing to wrap her arms around Gail's waist.
"Hey you." Gail smiles.
"You came." Her voice muffles into her jacket and Gail lightly strokes her hair until Sophie pulls away again.
"Hi, Gail Peck." Holding out her hand Mark grips onto it, shaking it firmly. "You must be Mark and Tina."
"That we are, we've heard a lot about you Gail." Mark's deep voice says kindly as Gail shakes Tina's hand as well.
"Hey Sophie," Tina says, kneeling down to Sophie's level. "Do you fancy going on the slide with Mark?"
"Are you still going to be here when we get back?" Sophie asks Gail, her brown eyes big and hopeful.
"Yep, I'm not leaving until I push you on the swing." Gail says, and another wide smile breaks out across the girls face before she's dragging Mark across the playground towards the slide.
"Have a seat?" Tina indicates to the swing set and Gail nods her head as they both sit down.
"She looks really happy." Gail states, watching Sophie as she speaks to Mark next to the slide.
"Yeah, a lot of that's because of you." Tina says and Gail turns back to look at her. "So, Mark and I, we were wondering... Why did you never adopt her?"
Gail appreciates the other woman cutting straight to the topic they had clearly called her there for. She's also grateful, because Sophie already looks ready to come running back over to them at any second.
She's fairly certain that wasn't the question Tina wanted to ask though. Gail could see subtle worry in the other woman's eyes, and she knew real question was if she was planning to try and adopt Sophie herself.
"It's one thing to visit Sophie here, but actually adopt her?" Gail shook her head looking at Sophie again. "God... She deserves so much from life, but I wouldn't be able to provide her with it. I don't even own my own car, or my own house. I mean she needs stability right now, and being a police officer isn't going to give her that." Gail explains mournfully.
She can see Tina nodding her head out the corner of her eye. "She was lucky to have found you Gail."
Looking towards her again Gail smiles. "I think I was the one lucky to find her. Sophie's a special girl."
Tina makes a noise of agreement and they both silently watch Sophie and Mark playing for a few moments. "Thank you, for coming here tonight, I know it must have been strange."
"Not at all, I mean you can't exactly say no to Sophie y'know?" She leaves out the fact that she was planning on calling them soon anyway, and that Sophie inviting her to the center had just sped that along. Truthfully meeting them so soon had felt strange, and overwhelming and completely nerve wracking though.
"We were wondering- And you can say no, don't feel like you have to say yes," Tina stutters. "But would you still be a part of her life after we adopt her? She's very fond of you and we would like it if you could be. And after what she's been through, we know you were the officer that found her, and well, I think it would be good for Sophie if you were still around." Tina asks her and there's nothing in the world that could have stopped Gail's smile.
"Yeah, I mean yes, of course I would love to be." Gail said smiling.
"To be honest I think Mark likes the idea of Sophie being friends with a police officer as well." Tina adds rolling her eyes slightly.
Gail laughs and kicks her feet on the ground to start swinging. A tension that had started to form in her muscles the moment she had seen Sophie with the Healy's started to ease, the worry that they were going to try and cut her out of Sophie's life finally dispelled.
Kicking her feet into the floor again Gail can't help imagining if one day it would be her and Holly here, watching as their future child plays in the park with their friends.
The Healy's were nice people. Gail couldn't have disliked them, even if she wanted to. Sophie seemed happy with them to, and despite the strange bout of jealousy it had initially caused she was happy to see other people getting the girl to smile too.
Pulling out the keys for Dov's car she opens the door and slides in. She doesn't hesitate when for the first time in months she takes out her phone and dials Holly's number.
After sending Swarek in to talk to the brunette at the station she had been forced out of a call. Despite dealing with it in record time, by the time she had returned Holly had been gone and Swarek had been back to pining at Andy from across the office.
"Gail, hi." Holly answers after the first ring.
"Hi." There's a moment of silence, and despite wanting to call the brunette, now she has her Gail's not sure what to say.
She hears Holly cough awkwardly down the phone . "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, everything's great, I just-" She stalls, licking her dry lips. "I just wanted to call."
"How did it go with the couple? Do you need me to run their DNA." Holly suggests and Gail lets herself laugh.
Resting her head into the car seat she relaxes. "No, no, they seemed like nice people. Sophie seems happy."
"Yeah?"
"Hmmm, she wants to see you again though, something to do with her microscope. If you would like to that is?" She quickly adds on the end, because despite Holly offering to come with her to see Sophie that even, she doesn't want the woman to feel forced into it.
"Yeah, of course, I can put together some slides for her." The suggestion makes Gail's heart swell, and for possibly the hundredth time since Holly left the station Gail feels completely overwhelmed at the thought of Holly being back in her life again.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" Gail says.
"Yeah, tomorrow, I'll text you the time?"
"Sure yeah, I'm-" Swallowing back her nerves she quickly continues. "I'm really looking forwards to it Holly." Her voice is quiet and she worries for a moment that Holly might not have heard her.
"Me too." Holly replies and Gail feels her heart swell even further. "Goodnight Gail."
"Goodnight Holly." The other end of the phone clicks, and Gail pulls it away from her ear.
Considering where her thoughts were just 12 short hours ago Gail can't help worrying that maybe she's dreaming. In the space of a day Holly had kissed her, invited her for dinner at her house and offered to spend time with Sophie. Even if someone had asked her at the hospital on Friday if she thought it was possible she would have vehemently denied that it.
For the first time since Friday she feels herself relax at the thought of the talk her and Holly were going to be having. Gail knew this was the last shot she had at convincing Holly she had changed, that she could have a relationship with her and not freak out every time anything significant happened between them.
She was going to tell Holly everything. Why she had been so scared, what had happened with Sophie and most importantly Gail was going tell her that she was still hopelessly in love with her.
A/N: And that's Sophie's story line tied up... One of the only real 'regrets' I have about this fic is that I didn't expand it to the rest of the Rookie Blue verse, I kept it fairly Gail/Holly contained. That could be me projecting because I don't want the fic to end though... Three more chapters D:
Also next chapter they finally have 'the talk' with no interruptions.