Part 41

"I don't need a baby sitter." Emily told Gail with a scowl.

Trying to be patient Gail explained one more time. "No one is babysitting you, I'm just making sure no one gets let up to the apartment while I'm out." She'd only called the front desk and left them in no doubt that should anyone be allowed up to Gail's apartment without her knowledge she'd take it very personally.

Sam had already got into the garage, so Gail wasn't taking any more chances while she had to leave Emily on her own.

Emily huffed and shook her head before picking up the remote and flicking through the channels.

"You can play any of my games, you can even Netflix, hell you can just chill out and sleep for all I care." Gail offered. "Just stay here and don't leave. And don't answer the door no matter what they say, cops, firefighter, God. No one."

"Why?"

"Because I said so. Me adult, you child."

Emily narrowed her eyes at Gail. "You aren't in charge of me."

"It's for an hour at the most Emily, give me a break here." Gail almost begged. Oliver wanted to see her at the station and Gail's only option for someone to stay with Emily was Romi, but that wasn't going to happen. Not after their last interaction.

"Why can't I go with you?" Emily asked. "I wouldn't get in the way."

Gail could feel a headache coming on. "No."

"But?"

"I said no Emily, you can't come with me." Gail quickly put her hand up to try and stop Emily before she got started giving her more reasons why she could go. "I'm going to the police station and I can't explain why you're with me, and I can't explain why you look like you do unless you want to press charges on anyone?"

Flushing Emily looked away, unable to hold Gail's gaze any longer. She didn't want to talk about what happened, especially not to police. "Fine. Whatever. Go, everyone else does." She muttered, turning the sound up on the movie that was playing.

Gail took a deep breath then let it out. "I will be back in one hour. Don't break anything and I might feed you later."

Emily rolled her eyes but refused to respond further.

Deciding no answer was the best she was going to get Gail grabbed her keys and headed out. "Be good," She called back as she was leaving. "And if you can't be good, hide all evidence before I get back."

Emily grunted as she heard the door close over. She tossed the remote across the couch, angry with herself that she thought calling Gail would be different. She'd thought she could trust the older woman but it turned out that Gail Peck treated her just like everyone else.

As someone that was always in the way.

So caught up in her thoughts Emily failed to hear the door creep open behind her.

xxxxxx

Andy could feel the eyes watching her as she sat down at her computer to write up her morning reports. "What?" She asked when Dov inched his chair closer.

"There's a rumour going around that you… uh, that you're, umm." Dov's eyes widened as Andy glared at him. He'd seen that look before. Nothing good ever came of it.

"That I'm what?" Andy bit out.

Dov, finally clued in that he'd touched on a sensitive subject, rolled his chair back over to his own computer screen. "Can't remember now." He muttered staring straight ahead.

"Give it a second, I'm sure it'll come back to you." Andy told him, not letting him get away with talking about her behind her back even if she did have a very good idea what her friend was getting at and whole the 'rumour' came from.

Chloe watched the pair from across the table at her own computer. She was practically bouncing in place. "Dov said that you're pregnant, are you?" She asked quickly.

Dov squeaked and wondered if he should run or just accept his fate like a man.

"Is that what he said Chloe?" Andy kept her eyes on Dov, and if looks could kill…

"That's not exactly what I said." Dov protested, still avoiding direct eye contact with Andy.

"Yes you did, that's exactly what you told me Dov."

"Sweetheart, you're not helping." Dov replied to Chloe.

Chloe scowled. "But this is a happy thing," She told Dov before looking across to Andy. "We're happy for you. Being pregnant."

Andy ground her teeth together. "I never said that Chloe."

"You're not?" Chloe asked looking crestfallen.

Andy didn't know who to strangle first, Dov, Chloe or her crazy ex Sam.

"Officer McNally, can I borrow you for a moment." Luke said having heard enough. They had enough going on in the station without Andy committing murder as well.

Grateful to escape Andy got up from her chair and walked towards Luke's office.

Luke let her go. "You two should get back to work."

As he left Dov finally let out a sigh of relief. That had been way too intense for him. "She's touchy, must be the hormones."

Chloe grinned. "You know they say that early on in pregnancy your sex drive goes up." Chloe commented.

Dov snorted. "Shame she dumped Swarek then."

Chloe shifted uncomfortably. "We probably should talk about that, we don't know what happened between them."

Dov rolled his eyes. "Andy's always had a thing for tall, dark, and troubled." He continued as he went back to typing up his report.

"Nick's tall dark and in trouble." Chloe teased as she wondered if Dov wasn't actually a bit jealous of Sam. "And Chris."

Dov scowled at the mention of his one-time flatmate. "Chris isn't Andy's type." He muttered with a snort.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Chloe asked but Dov just kept typing.

xxxxxx

Gail let out a snort of surprise when Oliver laid down her garage key between them as they sat across from each other a café far from 15. One she'd trusted her friend not to fill with undercover wet behind the ears rookies.

"I completely forgot about that." She said honestly as she picked it up a turned it around in her hand. She'd assumed Sam had flashed his badge to get into her garage, or snuck in while another resident was leaving. Both of them she could imagine Sam Swarek doing.

"I figured." Oliver replied with a nod. He glanced around taking in the faces at other tables, unable to keep from wondering if any one of them were also part of Wolf's game.

This was supposed to be as close to neutral territory as they could get given that he was a white shirt career cop and Gail Peck was the fallen legacy cop that had turned into the right hand of Toronto's major underworld criminal Damien Wolf.

Allegedly.

"You were supposed to get a call about picking up your car from our lockup but…" Oliver shrugged. "I guess it fell through the cracks."

"Or Sam made it fall through the cracks." Gail replied.

Lifting her key fob from her car after Romi and Holly were almost shot inside it? That was sneakier that she'd given Sam credit for.

Gail had been so angry at being pulled over in the first place and then when the gun shot had rang out and she was just driven off back to the station without any comment on injuries.

And then…

And then Sam had come to see her and nothing mattered for a while there.

Honestly Gail hadn't given her car more than a passing thought about needing to get a new one. It wasn't even a consideration for her to get the car returned. Even if the damage was minor the memories were some of her worst while she'd been trapped in that cell having been told by Sam that Romi had been killed. She couldn't even contemplate that Sam had been talking about Holly.

If it hadn't been for Chris letting her know they were both okay Gail isn't sure what she would have done that day.

It wouldn't have been good, she knew that much. She'd been caught up in anger and grief and an absolute hatred for Sam Swarek that without Chris' intervention, revenge would have been her only focus once she'd stepped foot outside of 15 Division.

A waitress came over and set down two mugs of coffee.

Oliver quickly reached for his, his eyes lighting up as he savoured the smell before taking his first sip.

Gail chuckled and shook her head at his antics. "Celery taken away caffeine too?"

"What she doesn't know won't hurt her, and this is just between us." Oliver told his friend. Celery was constantly prodding him to eat better. "She's making me drink green tea." He confessed quietly.

"Sucks to be you then." Gail replied with a grin.

Oliver waggled a finger at the blonde but continued to be swayed by the coffee in his hands. He'd done his bit, well most of it, he was allowed to enjoy one of life's little luxuries while he could.

They talked some more, Gail teased about Celery and Oliver touched on Gail's relationship with Holly but that was wrapped up in more problems than he was ready to wade into.

He believed it was actually safer just to stick with discussing Sam. Which was a very scary thought.

"He's keeping his badge." Oliver finally offered, just in case word hadn't reached Gail yet. The look in her eyes confirmed it for him. She hadn't known. He'd think more on that later.

"You are shitting me, right?" Gail asked. "After everything he's done you're giving him a pass?" Gail could hardly believe what she was hearing. She laughed. "Unbelievable. Even with hard evidence, on tape, it's not enough."

Oliver winced. "He's out of 15 Division, won't get promoted past detective, if he even keeps that."

Gail shook her head and stood, pulling her wallet from her pocket and dropping a few bills down on to the table, more than enough to cover their drinks.

"I'm done letting this slide Ollie. I'm done letting 15 think they can keep pushing me, going after Holly, threatening to mess up her career over what? She's done nothing but be in a relationship with me." Gail went on.

"I know darling, I knew nothing about that until it was already over." Oliver explained.

"You know it's funny."

"What is?"

Gail's eyes caught another set in the café and she gave the owner of them a jerk of her head. Once that person moved to get up Gail turned back to her old TO. "Damien Wolf knows Holly's out of bounds yet to 15 she's just someone they can try and use to get what they want. Sam, my mother, even Steve."

Oliver swallowed wondering where Gail was going with this.

"Who's the real bad guy here Ollie?" Gail asked as she watched Emily, dressed in a hoody to hide her face, exit the café and head down the street just like she'd told her to do before Oliver arrived.

"It's complicated darling."

Gail shook her head. "Not from where I'm standing. Seems pretty damn clear to me." And with a sad look clouding her eyes she turned and left her old friend sat there.

xxxxxx

AN/

Joj14 – just for you ;)

And to the anon reviewing my fics these last few days. You got to me too.

Hope everyone enjoyed it. I'll update again sometime.

Thanks for reading!