Part 32

"Are you sure about this Gail?" Holly muttered as they entered the restaurant, it was one of the classer one in downtown Toronto. One that usually required advance booking which was making Holly a little nervous as she looked around given Gail's seemingly spontaneous decision to come here.

Which had meant rushing back to her own apartment to change as she hadn't anything nice enough to wear despite Gail's insistence that what she had on would have been fine.

Holly had snorted and left the blonde to get changed out of the worn jeans she'd been wearing much to Gail protest.

"We're celebrating Holly, that's reason enough for good food and good wine." Gail replied casually.

Holly scowled and adjusted her glasses. "We don't have anything to celebrate. Yet." Mostly because she still had to wait for Alan to find someone willing to exclusively cover 15 Division if she wasn't going to be process any of their cases.

Which she wasn't.

That was her condition to remaining with the forensic office in Toronto. Her threat hadn't been an empty one and she was grateful Alan had relented and accepted that she would cover the rest of the city, just not that particular division.

"Of course we do." Gail replied beside her as she waited for the maître d' to finish dealing with the couple in front of them.

"But what are we-"

"You agreed to move in with me this morning Holly, or don't you remember?" Gail asked as she faced her girlfriend.

Holly blushed slightly. "Oh, umm." Yeah. She hadn't exactly forgotten about it just that her job and 15 Division seemed to take up most of her thoughts lately.

Gail shook her head and mock sighed.

Holly grinned and snuck a quick squeeze of Gail's hand. "Sorry. Of course we should be celebrating that, just you know, I thought that sort of celebrating happened behind closed doors not in public." She whispered quietly into Gail's ear as the maître d' was suddenly in front of them.

Gail cleared her throat and willed away the blush she knew was spreading over her cheeks at that comment.

The hostess smiled as she approached them, eyeing Gail more than Holly with a familiarity that made Holly's eyes narrow slightly.

"Please, let me take your coats." The accent was European which given the restaurant wasn't much of a surprise.

Holly smiled politely as she handed her coat over as did Gail.

That got them both another smile, which again lingered in Gail's direction.

"Ms Peck, the rest of your party is already seated in the back, enjoy your evening." And with that the woman left them alone.

Gail plastered on a quick grin as she reached for Holly's hand and started making her way to the back room that was for the restaurant's special clientele.

Holly smiled as she was lead through the front section of the restaurant and past already seated patrons. She couldn't believe Gail had booked a private room.

She was just about to make a teasing comment on having that private celebration when she recalled the woman's words. Her brow puckered as she went over them again in her head.

"What did she mean by 'your party' Gail? Who else is here?" She asked her girlfriend. Surely the blonde hadn't invited Chris and Romi to dinner because she was moving in with Gail because that just didn't make sense.

Gail chuckled slightly and paused when they reached the back corridor. "About that," She licked her lips and glanced around nervously. "You have to promise to not get mad, okay?" She said quietly.

"Why would I be mad?" Now Holly felt really confused. She saw the flash of guilt on Gail's face and had to wonder what was really going on. "Gail why exactly are we here?" She asked as she realised that this might not have been such a last minute decision after all. She pulled her hand free from Gail's and folded her arms as she waited for some answers.

Gail winced and tried to do some damage control. "Okay, so this wasn't entirely my idea, but the food is great here and we don't even have to stay long if you don't want to." She said quickly.

"It's not Chris and Romi in there is it?" Holly guessed knowing Gail wouldn't be this worried over her reaction if it was.

Gail shook her head.

"Who are we meeting?" Holly asked again trying not to lose her patience with her girlfriend even if she was being difficult.

"My boss wanted to meet you, plus Anan got back from a trip today and I thought you two should meet." Gail confessed softly adding a smile at that last bit hoping it would take some of Holly's focus away from the first part.

Holly blinked then she grabbed at Gail's arm pulling her close. "You want me to have dinner with Damien Wolf? That boss?"

Gail's shoulders dropped a little. She should have known that's what the Doc would narrow in on. She sighed and just nodded, it wasn't like she could lie when they were seconds away from meeting Damien and Anan.

"Are you fucking insane?" Holly hissed at her.

Gail sighed as she heard someone chuckle from behind her. She knew Holly was making a scene but really how else was the pathologist expected to react given everything that had happened to her recently.

"It's just dinner." She tried.

Holly laughed unkindly. "Just dinner she says!" She shook her head wondering how Gail couldn't see the problem with this little meet up she had planned for her. "I can't be seen with Damien Wolf Gail, I'm just barely holding onto my job as it is, are you trying to destroy my career?" Holly demanded to know.

"That's not fair Holly and you know it." Gail muttered quietly as she looked away, she hadn't known Holly had been working at the morgue that night.

"Gepeitscht." Was coughed from behind Gail and she aimed her middle finger at the speaker who just laughed back at her.

Holly's eyes slipped past Gail and took in the figure sat there in a chair with a book in his hands. He looked to be in his late forties with greying hair. Whoever he was he clearly knew Gail and if Damien Wolf was in the next room then it was likely this person was some kind of bodyguard.

Which likely also meant that he was carrying a gun and wouldn't hesitate to use it if he needed to.

Now Holly felt incredibly uneasy, arguing with Gail was one thing but the reality of knowing a prominant criminal with ties to murders and drug dealing was just yards away from her made her want to throw up. She was terrified about what this meant.

Why was Gail bringing her here? And now she worried about what Gail had told him about her wearing that wire.

Gail saw the anger drain from her girlfriend and her skin pale. She stepped closer and reached out for Holly's hand. "I swear this is just dinner Holly, please." She whispered. "I know you don't like this, and I know you'd rather be anywhere else right now," Gail said quielty which got a snort of reply from her girlfriend. She did her best to ignore the fact that Kurt was listening. His English was patchy at best but that didn't mean he didn't understand what was being said in front of him.

"He wants to meet you Holly, we don't really have a choice about it." Gail confessed softly and watched Holly deal with that and see the fear turn to reluctant assent.

Holly had bit her lip hard enough to taste blood as she thought that over before finally squeezing Gail's hand a fraction. "Okay." She muttered quietly. It wasn't, this was the furthest from okay she could feel. She'd rather go back to 15 Division and arguee with Detective Swarek.

"It's going to be fine Holly." Gail tried to reassure her girlfriend.

Kurt snorted as the pair slowly approached. He got up and eyed the newcomer speculatively as she paused a step behind Gail. He slowly grinned and took a step closer to the woman. "I check weapons." He told her.

Holly flinched back a step not wanting to be touched but held her tongue.

Gail rolled her eyes at Kurt. "Verpiss dich! And sit back down asshole." She was not having sex tonight. She'd be lucky if Holly wanted to keep dating her after this nightmare was over. If it wasn't Kurt it was going to be Anan starting shit she just knew it.

Kurt let out a belly laugh as he waved them towards the door. "Boss is waiting."

Holly swallowed nervously, not sure she could walk another step.

"Sorry about him." Gail sighed and took a breath before tightening her grip of Holly's hand and taking last last few steps to the private dinning room. She turned to Holly just as she reached for the handle. "Ready?"

No, she wasn't but when the door opened Holly stepped inside anyway.

xxxx

Nick blinked, hardly believing what he'd just heard. "You're pregnant? Are you sure?"

Andy scowled. "There's no need to say it like that." She warned him.

Nick winced and shifted higher in his hospital bed. He still didn't understand why Andy had shown up after her shift even though she'd said she would. People said things all the time, it didn't mean they meant it. "Why are you telling me this?" He asked still confused. His hand and ribs still hurt like a motherfucker but this was definitely not a topic of discussion he ever thought he'd be having with the woman in front of him. "Does Swarek know?" He asked as his eyes dropped to her stomach.

Andy was going to have a kid with Swarek.

Andy looked away. "He knows." She answered quietly her hand unconsciously caressing her tiny, almost invisible to the eye, swelling of her belly. "He's not exactly happy about it." She added with a shake of her head. "And I'm talking to you because I know you won't say anything to anyone." Unlike Dov or Chloe. Even Traci would have her opinion about the state of her relationship with Sam and what would be best for her child.

Studying Andy closely Nick realised she looked tired. He knew how that felt. "I won't you know, tell anyone." He affirmed. It wasn't his place anyway. Plus who would he tell? It wasn't like he had any friends at 15.

Looking relieved Andy nodded and they sat there quietly together for a while.

"You know it was Sam's idea right? About scaring Gail." Nick confessed a secret of his own although he wasn't sure how much of a secret it actually was given he and Sam had become drinking buddies when they were at the Penny together. "I didn't know there was other people in the car when I pulled her over. And I never told Duncan to take his gun out though, and as soon as I had Gail in the back of the patrol car I was going to get him back so we could take her in."

Andy didn't quite believe him. Oh she knew Sam had been after Gail for ever it felt like, but it was Nick that had a problem with Gail too. "Why do you hate her so much?" She couldn't help but ask.

He opened his mouth to explain but he couldn't find one that didn't make him sound vindictive or petty. He hated that he'd met her way back when. At a time he thought the world was his for the taking, he had nothing and no one holding him back, not family or school. So what if he met a pretty girl that could drink him under the table and trade shitty family stories with him over a bottle of tequila. He could run off to Vegas and get married to her if he wanted to.

But then he'd woken up sober lying in bed next her early the morning they were due to get married and panicked because if they got married they'd just screw it up, he'd screw it up. He hadn't done anything but fuck around after finishing high school a few years before and there he was thinking about getting married.

And not to just anyone, to a Peck.

Gail had taken him over to her parents' house one night they were holding a party. They'd both been drunk and had made a bit of a show in front of the guests. But Gail had laughed with him and grabbed a bottle of Champaign and they'd left the old folks to their boring party while they'd gotten more drunk and had sex in the back of his car.

He'd been scared about what a life with Gail would have been like. A whole family of cops that knew everything about his past. Inspector Peck had paid him a visit and made it crystal clear to him that if he didn't treat his daughter properly he'd end up dealing with a city full of Peck cops with a grudge against him.

He wasn't sure what exactly it was that made him run that morning as he gazed down at her sleeping beside him. She'd never looked more beautiful to him. And what he knew was that she was out of his league. She was slumming it with him, a way to piss off her parents. He knew that too. Had always suspected it but that had been oaky because he was just after a good time as well wasn't he.

But marriage?

He couldn't do that. He couldn't be someone's husband and then what about a family? What did he know about that after his years in foster homes?

So he'd ran.

"I fell in love with her." He whispered into the quiet room not daring to look at Andy. "But she scared the shit out of me." He chuckled as he thought back to the first time he stood in his army uniform as a proper soldier being told that he and his regiment were being deployed overseas heading straight into the warzone.

He knew in his heart that if they had gotten married it would have never have lasted, either they'd be divorced within a year or Gail's parents would have arranged an annulment. They'd never been right for each other. Oh, they had some great times together and the sex wasn't half bad either, but they'd been stupid kids.

When he'd been on his second tour he often wondered where his life would have taken him had he not met the pretty girl in the bar waitressing. Probably in some shitty apartment living off social security cheques drinking his life away and angry about a car crash that had cost him a picture perfect future.

Like his brother.

But he had met Gail and without her he probably wouldn't have signed up at that recruitment office the minute he landed back in Toronto.

He thought after his discharge he'd be coming back as more of an equal. That he could match a Peck at policing, he'd found that out over there on duty to protect the brothers and sisters that fought alongside him, the ones that fought and died for their country and for the people that couldn't fight for themselves.

It sounded stupid in his head now because after everything he was the one still doing the right thing and Gail was still being Gail. Not caring about anyone but herself.

He did hate her, because now he was someone he was proud to see reflected back at him each morning except Gail Peck was still completely out of his reach.

Gail had been the only person besides his brother that knew everything about his childhood and about growing up an orphan.

Andy couldn't help but snort. How could Nick claim to love Gail when he'd gone out of his way to arrest her every chance he got?

"That's a funny way of showing it." She commented.

Nick reached for his medication button and pressed as his ribs started to make breathing hurt again. "How's Sam, Andy?"

Sucking in a breath Andy glared at her fellow officer.

"Yeah. Emotions are funny things Andy, people don't always say or do the right thing, or even what they meant to do. I know I sure didn't." He told her and held his broken hand up as evidence.

"What do you mean?" Andy asked curiously.

"Gail Peck is what I mean."

Andy felt lost again and it must have showed because Nick sighed.

"She's a Peck Andy, do you even know what that means in this city?" He asked her.

"Of course I do." Andy replied.

Nick nodded and got to the heart of what was bugging him, had been ever since Sam first came to him with those pictures of Gail with Damien Wolf.

"So explain to me how a Peck in this city not only becomes part of one of the largest and most dangerous criminal gangs in the country, but lived to see past day one with them?" He asked her. Sam had told him about the dead cops that had tried going undercover before, how he'd even been asked to make a few contacts while he'd been undercover but never got further than a few petty dealers and henchmen. Nobodies. But Gail Peck walks out of 15 Division and a few short months later is running with Wolf and his people?

Andy blinked slowly. There were only a couple of reason for that, one sprang to her mind more than the others. "You think she's undercover?" She had to whisper it because the idea of Gail Peck still being a cop wasn't something her brain could handle right now.

Nick shrugged. Sam had laughed at the thought.

"Why though?" Andy asked. "I'm not saying she is, but if you are right, then why? Everyone's been giving her a hard time you included. Her own mother tried to get her arrested!"

Rubbing his eyes Nick shook his head. "I don't know." Because if it was to gather evidence to put Damien Wolf and his gang away for good she'd have that by now. He say her with them at the docks, she was there and if she was part of the body snatch at the morgue then she had everything any judge would need to grant a warrant for his arrest. So why was Gail still out there?

Andy bit her lip and shook her head as the recording of Gail and Holly in the café invaded her thoughts. Gail had sounded serious about going after her mother and Steve if Holly was harassed by them.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. "That's Sam." She muttered as she read the text message asking to talk. She'd moved out the other night. No one knew about that either. Maybe she should talk to him.

If only to arrange to pick up the rest of her things. And her dog. The baby wasn't up for discussion anymore. Sam had made his feeling clear and so had she.

Sometimes there just wasn't any middle ground when it came to love. And the child growing inside her was her only priority right now.

She stared at Nick as she stood up. "I think you're wrong. Maybe you want to believe that Gail has a reason to be doing what she's doing but if she was undercover her own mother wouldn't be planning sting operations on her." And while she'd considered Gail a good cop she'd been passed over for all the serious undercover work 15 had run.

Nick shook his head. "But what if I'm right?"

Andy couldn't answer that. She didn't think he was, he couldn't be. Sam would have been warned off a long time ago and Best would never have allowed half of the things that had happened.

She'd learned the hard way that cops weren't allowed to interfere with ongoing undercover operations. Not only did you get raked over the coals if you did, and in her case suspended without pay, you endangered that officers life and those around them.

"I got to go." She said when her phone received another message. "Get some sleep you look like you need it." She told him with a half-smile.

"Funny." He looked beaten and bruised is what he looked.

"And don't eat all of those at once." She added as she snatched back one of the chocolates she'd brought with her and headed for the door. "Bye."

Nick watched her go and pressed his bed control to lower back down. Sleep would be nice but he hurt too much right now and it would be a while before his meds kicked in.

He might not be able to sleep but he closed his eyes anyway. Those word that had been spoken to him as he fell unconscious after his beaten rang in his ears. Go near her again and next time you'll join your brother in a wheelchair.

Gail was the only person that had a reason for setting up his attack and she was the only one that knew about Finn. It was a stark warning to back off and he was going to listen to it.

It also leant weight to Gail not being undercover. A cop, even an undercover one, could still face criminal charges for breaking the law even when on assignment. You could get a lot of leeway for your actions as it was part of the role you had to play, but you still had to face a panel and account of every decision you made when undercover.

Nick might not be sure of which biker gang had been the one to beat him up but he knew an undercover officer would have likely carried out the assault themselves, if for no other reason than to make sure the message was delivered properly.

Maybe he didn't know Gail any better now than he did when he first met her.

Maybe she was just another corrupt cop that needed taken down like Swarek said.

He just could mesh the image of someone that would threaten to put him in a wheelchair with the girl that sang Kelly Clarkson song to him whenever they came on the radio.

Time changed people he knew that from personal experience, but could Gail really change that much?

The rest of 15 obviously thought so. So maybe he was wrong.

He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling.

Gail Peck. He didn't know if he still loved her or if he truly hated her. Sometimes he allowed himself to think about the what ifs, what if he hadn't joined the army? What if he had stayed for another tour? What if he'd married Gail way back when? And what if he'd never come back to Toronto?

For one thing he never would have gone along with Swarek's plan to target Gail and rattle her into some sort of confession. If he hadn't he sure as hell wouldn't be lying in a hospital bed with a hand that might never work again.

But he couldn't change any of the choices he'd made in the past only the ones he made from now on. And he could live with that even if he lost his career.

He wondered if Gail could live with hers.

xxxxxxxx

AN/

Hey an update!

But a lack of Golly right? Right. I'll work on that. Promise.

Thanks for reading.