I.

Holly has only been driving for about five minutes before she notices Gail falling asleep against the window to her right. They had left the diner after hours of talking and Gail ploughing through almost half of the menu in about four different courses. Then they spent ten minutes in the car debating where to go next, Holly insisting on taking Gail home to sleep; she had only had about three hours the previous night, after all, and Gail determined to find a bar near Holly's house. Holly had won, and now, as she looks over at the sleeping blonde, she can't help but smirk a little.

The officer only stirs when the car comes to a halt outside her apartment building.

"Honey…" Holly whispers as she reaches across to stroke the other woman's cheek.

"Mmmm" Gail moans, not opening her eyes.

"You should go to bed."

"Don't wanna."

"I think you need to though."

Gail scrunches up her face before finally opening her eyes, her gaze flicking over Holly's gentle features.

"You come in?" Gail asks, too tired to construct an actual question.

"Of course, if you want me too."

Gail just nods slowly, her eyes falling shut again.

Holly smiles and lets herself out of the car, before moving around to open Gail's door herself from the outside, sensing that the blonde is probably not going to do it for herself.

But apparently she has fallen asleep again because when Holly opens the door Gail jerks from the shock of having her headrest pulled unceremoniously away from her. As she is returned to the land of the living she turns to glare at the taller woman.

"I didn't think you were asleep already." Holly says before the blonde can admonish her, taking her hand and helping her out of the car.

"You know, if you weren't so cute, I'd be kind of upset about you nearly falling asleep on me two nights in a row." Holly muses as Gail snakes an arm around her waist, leaning on her shoulder as the two walk into her apartment building.

"'M not cute." Gail murmurs.

Holly rolls her eyes and smiles knowingly. Protest it all she wants, Gail has the ability to be so ridiculously cute and adorable that she could have Holly wrapped around her little finger if she wanted. Not that Holly has any intention of letting Gail find this out.

It is only when they get into the elevator that Holly realises that she has no idea where Gail's apartment is, having never actually entered the building before, only ever dropping the blonde off or picking her up outside.

"Um, Gail." Holly gestures to the panel on the wall.

Gail is forced from her vacant dozing to lead Holly to her apartment. From the brief flash of the apartment that Holly sees before she is lead into Gail's bedroom, Holly can definitely see why Gail calls it the 'frat house'. There are half empty bottles of liquor lining the kitchen, presumably left over from the night in a couple of weeks ago that Gail had been texting her throughout. The sofa has a couple of blankets dumped unceremoniously over the back, video games are stacked in a couple of very wonky towers near the television and there is a small but noticeable pile of dirty dishes in the sink.

Gail's bedroom is… slightly more orderly. But before Holly has much chance to look around, Gail has let Holly out of the tight grip she had around her waist and collapsed onto the half-made bed. Holly smiles at the woman sprawled before her.

"Don't you think you should maybe take off your boots?" She asks softly.

Gail rolls onto her back in response, letting out a tired groan, before sitting up and complying. When she moves to start taking off her jeans, Holly steps back.

"I should be, uh, heading home then." Holly mumbles, trying not to look at the expanse of pale skin suddenly on show.

"What, no, stay?" Gail looks up at her, a slightly pleading look in her tired eyes.

"Are you sure?"

"If you don't have to go home. I just… I liked waking up with you."

Holly raises an eyebrow in jest. "You just want to feel me up before work again?"

"Maybe. You should be flattered."

"I am. But I'm going to have to head home before work so I'm not sure we'll have much time." Holly smiles. "Do you have anything I can wear to bed?"

Gail locates some clothing in her drawers and passes them to the other woman, before pointing her towards the bathroom to get changed. When she returns, Gail is lying, eyes closed, under the covers

Holly climbs into the other side of the bed. "I knew you'd fall asleep on me."

"I'm not. Was waiting for you." Gail murmurs, her eyes remaining tightly shut as she reaches an arm over to pull Holly into her. She buries her face in the brunette's collar as her arm tightly wraps around her back. Whilst it is not entirely the most comfortable sleeping position ever, there is an intimacy to the embrace which makes that somewhat irrelevant, and so that is how they drift off to sleep, wrapped up in one another.

II.

When Holly wakes up, she can sense eyes on her.

"I knew you couldn't be completely flawless." Gail says, leaning on her elbow as she stares at the other woman with that intense, focussed gaze of hers.

"Huh?" Holly asks, reaching up to rub her eye.

"You talk in your sleep."

Holly looks over at Gail, now able to focus on her properly. "Yeah, well you're a duvet stealer."

"I get cold." Gail shrugs.

"Put some socks on then."

"I do." Gail pulls the covers up to reveal her red cotton covered feet poking out the end of the bed.

"Weirdo." Holly retorts, leaning over to give the other woman a kiss. "What was I talking about?"

"Autopsies mainly. Nerd. You mumbled a lot, it was hard to tell."

"I'll try to enunciate more clearly next time."

Gail responds by pulling her back in for another lethargic kiss.

"I should get going if I'm going to have time to get ready before work." Holly eventually says, receiving the expected Peck pout in response.

"I haven't even had a chance to touch your boob yet." Gail scowls.

Holly grins as she climbs out of the bed. "Well maybe I could pick you up after work tonight? If you promise not to get all sleepy on me again."

"I'll drink coffee all day in preparation."

"You always drink coffee all day, I'm surprised caffeine has any effect on you anymore." Holly says, gathering up her clothes.

"I have to have two triple shots before work some days." Gail replies, a slight hint of pride in her voice.

"I really don't want to know what state your internal organs must be in."

"Well maybe I'll land on your autopsy table one day and you'll be able to find out."

Holly's heart skips a beat, and she feels her face heating up. She notices Gail bite her lip and avert her gaze, recognising Holly's response.

"Don't joke about that, Gail."

Holly liked to think of herself as a relatively calm and collected woman, but two days since a police hunting gunman had shot at Gail was probably not enough time to be making jokes about being killed. If there was ever a good time to do that. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking." Gail offers.

"It's okay. Just… you know, I was really, really scared for you the other day."

"If it makes you feel any better, I was one of the few officers he wasn't actively targeting. So you can at least sit safe in the knowledge that you're dating one the cops at 15 division people actually least want to kill. Or who the general public least want to kill anyway; I'm sure if you took a poll inside the division, the results would probably be the opposite. But they're cops, they're mostly pretty law-abiding citizens, so I'm probably safe."

"We're dating, huh?" Holly asks, her lips curling up into a lopsided smile.

Gail frowns slightly. "That's what you took from that?"

Holly nods, smile still plastered on her face.

"Well… I mean, I couldn't say that we're 'sleeping together', because, well, you know. And I think it would not be a huge assumption to think that we've gone beyond being 'friends'. And last night was kind of a date…" Gail trails off, nervously.

"Oh yeah, well we've been on loads of dates; the wedding, the batting cages, that time we went for ice cream at 2am… I just didn't know if we were 'dating'"

"They weren't dates, they were friends, hanging out. We didn't do anything romantic."

"I kissed you at the wedding." Holly points out.

"Even so. They weren't dates."

"Well then last night wasn't a proper date, we didn't get all dressed up or do anything planned."

"Fine, then maybe we're not dating, we're just two people who fall asleep cuddling each other." Gail shrugs.

"Don't pin that on me Gail, you're definitely the cuddler."

Gail's lips form an indignant pout. "That's a bold faced lie and you know it is."

Holly raises her eyebrows at the memory of the shorter woman wrapping herself tightly around her last night. She walks towards the door, turning to speak before she exits the room. "Don't worry Peck, I won't let any of your friends know that you're such a softie at heart."

She hears something, probably a pillow, hit the door as she shuts it behind her, and smirks slightly.

On her return from the bathroom, she finds Gail making coffee in the kitchen, wrapped in her black and white robe with her hair standing on end.

Holly can't help but sneak up behind her and snake her arms around her waist, planting a kiss on the side of her neck as she does so. She feels the other woman shiver slightly under her touch.

"I've decided I could probably cope with saying we're dating." Holly says into her pale skin. "I have already asked you out tonight, after all."

Gail wriggles and turns around in the embrace to face the pathologist. "Maybe I've changed my mind now."

"Change it back." Holly says, leaning in to capture soft lips with her own for a moment, before pulling back. "Ugh, morning breath." She grimaces.

"Shut up." Gail whispers, placing her hands on the sides of the other woman's face and pulling her back into a deep but soft kiss.

"Gail are you making coffee… Woah!" They are interrupted by a male voice Holly is not well acquainted with.

"What the fuck, Dov?" Gail exclaims as the couple jump apart in surprise.

"Sorry, I had no idea… Hi, Officer Epstein." He reaches his hand out for Holly to shake. "Dr Stewart, right? We've met at crime scenes a couple of times. Not much though, Gail always insists on going to the morgue now if someone has to."

"Dov!" Gail hisses.

He continues unfazed. "Chris thought that you two were sl… uh, that maybe you would be here this morning. Good to meet you properly. I've always found forensic pathology super interesting…"

Sensing that she should maybe cut him off before his verbal diarrhoea lands him on Gail's hit list, Holly shakes his hand. "You can call me Holly. Nice to meet you too." She turns to Gail. "I should probably get going."

Gail has an unimpressed look on her face, and is still glaring at her roommate. "I'll see you out." She says, finally releasing Dov from her glare and turning to give a slightly sympathetic grimace to the other woman.

Once outside the door, Holly can't help but raise an eyebrow. "I knew you ended up in my lab more often than most other officers, but I had no idea you were actually requesting it, couldn't keep away from me, huh?"

"Don't look so smug, it's not hard to be more bearable company than most of my colleagues. Case in point." She says, rolling her eyes and gesturing towards the door. "Maybe we should stay around yours from now on?"

"Bit forward don't you think?"

Gail shrugs. "I'm just helping you avoid those losers. It'll be at least five times worse when Chloe gets out of hospital too. Your place may not have a games console but at least it's private."

Holly smiles. "Fine, my place then. I'll cook dinner tonight. No tomatoes unless they're properly cooked, and no eggs, I know."

"No slipping any of your weird health foods in either, none of that vegetarian crap."

"I'm not vegetarian, I just don't eat red meats."

"Whatever."

"I'll see you after work." Holly leans down for a brief kiss.

"Pick me up?" Gail asks.

"You know chauffeuring isn't part of the agreement here?"

Gail responds with another kiss. "See you later, nerd."

III.

"What the hell was that?" Gail demands as she re-enters the apartment.

Dov looks up from the toast he is buttering. "Huh?"

"Holly and I aren't sleeping together, and you definitely did not need to say that we are in front of her."

"I didn't actually…"

"You pretty much did." Gail cuts him off, raising a hand to stop him talking.

"I did just walk in on you two…"

"Kissing? Yeah, but not all of us screw people in bathroom stalls a couple of hours after meeting them, Dov."

Dov's mouth falls agape. "Chris told you?"

"Chloe did, she was attempting to bond, or something."

"Well… I mean, this is different. You've known Dr Stewart for a few months, I figured if you've been waiting this long to get together, then you'd be ready to jump each other pretty quickly."

"Dov. Please stop talking about me and Holly. Please stop thinking about me and Holly."

Dov doesn't heed her request and continues to muse. "Although, as you do know each other so well, you've got to wonder quite why Holly is interested in a relationship with you."

It is Gail's mouth's turn to fall open this time. Dov has never been an entirely tactful person, but this is a new level.

"No, no, not because you're not good looking or fun or anything. I just mean, well, she seems really nice; a bit reserved some of the time, but always friendly and helpful. You're not very similar, is all I meant."

"Oh, thanks Dov; that was loads nicer." She turns back to her bedroom to get ready for work.

Typical Dov, always so talented at drawing out her insecurities. There had probably been about 18 hours there of feeling like she was truly in a good, happy stable place.

What if Holly did really want to have sex, and Gail just… couldn't give her that. In the past 48 hours she has probably swung from thinking she was definitely ready to being absolutely petrified about six times. And Holly would never, ever pressure her. That's not Holly. But Dov made an annoyingly good point. For all she knows Holly may have wanted this for months. And that level of hope puts on Gail some slightly unwelcome expectations. Expectations that she's going to be good, and ready, and something Holly has waited for.

And Gail can't help but feel slightly concerned about the fact that she isn't in a constant state of desire for Holly. She has been, definitely, when they're together and they're doing stuff. Yesterday morning had left her more worked up than she had expected. But when she's alone and that slight fear at the prospect of diving head first (probably literally, Gail smirks) into the unknown rears its head. It took her first boyfriend weeks to be able to anything noteworthy with her vagina when she took his virginity.

But then, to be fair, she reasons, her first boyfriend didn't have a vagina of his own. For Gail at least it's not the complete unknown, and that's got to count for something. Hopefully. And Holly has already reassured her over the complexities of lesbian sex.

Holly makes the best counter-Dov that Gail has ever met. Just thinking about her has calmed her surfacing uncertainties slightly. It takes quite an impressive amount of influence for Gail to be able to stop herself letting her insecurities escalate in her mind to a dangerous point. But Holly does that. They've been over the sex issue before, and sure, Dov may have a point; maybe Holly would be hoping for, or used to, some mind blowing lady sex. But Holly knows Gail is new to this. She wouldn't have gotten involved with her if she wasn't prepared to have to wait a while for some very awkward, inexperienced fumbling. It's normal to be nervous, about sex with anyone. Sure, it's been a while since Gail has been nervous about sex, she knows that she's pretty capable of giving guys what they want, and she's pretty proud of that. And also she's often drunk the first time she sleeps with them, which kind of kills the nerves. But that doesn't mean it's not normal to be nervous. She will be nervous, until it happens, but that doesn't mean anything. It's normal to be nervous. It doesn't have to mean she has to have some sort of large-scale freak out. It's just sex, and whenever it happens, it will happen.

Gail smiles to herself in the mirror as she pulls on her jacket, so proud at having actually managed to talk herself out of an escalating crisis, and manage, for the first time in a long while to control her emotions in a way that isn't just bottling them up, that she forgets for now Dov's other tactless remark about her mean nature in contrast with Holly's more open friendliness. She'll have to thank Holly later. That definitely deserves thanks.

IV.

Holly has been at work for four hours and heard only a couple of times from Gail. Apparently everyone is back at work today, at least everyone who isn't still in hospital. And Officer Shaw, who was released last night but has a couple of days off. Holly's only ever met him briefly at a few crime scenes, but has heard rather a lot about him, as he is the only one of Gail's co-workers she actually enjoys talking about. She's partnered with officer Diaz again, but Holly guesses from the limited contact that today she is driving.

Her own day is proving to be decidedly uninteresting, the lack of dead bodies or body parts or items possibly belonging to dead bodies meaning that she has to fill her time working on one of her papers. Not that she doesn't find her research immensely interesting, it has just been longer than usual since she's had a dead body on her table, and she's getting antsy.

That was kind of morbid. Thoughts like that are probably the reason she doesn't have many friends aside from Gail. Not that that's ever bothered her.

She is therefore, very pleasantly surprised when a blonde police officer comes marching into her lab bearing a selection of sandwiches, two coffees and a bag of cookies.

Holly smiles and stands up, greeting the woman with a gentle kiss. "I wasn't expecting to see you here today."

"You make a far better lunch buddy than Chris. And you bought dinner last night, so it's only fair."

"Well thank you, I'm very glad you're here. We should go to my office though, we're not actually supposed to eat in the lab." She leads the officer out of the lab and down the hallway.

"You have an office?"

"Yeah, I just use it for storage mainly, I prefer to work in here."

"Mm, surrounded by death?" Gail teases.

"That too weird for you Peck?"

"No, I like it."

"I'm glad." She says, holding open the door to the small room so the other woman can enter. It is a slightly stuffy room, with walls lined with books and journals and a large dark wooden desk at its centre, which Gail dumps their food on. There are three chairs, one Holly's and the others on the other side of the desk for those rare times Holly has to hold meetings in there. She starts to wheel one of them around to her side of the desk so they don't have to sit with the lump of wood between them, but Gail has already perched herself on the desk next to the food..

Holly picks up a coffee and takes a sip, before grimacing. "I think this is yours. You weren't kidding about those triple shots, huh?"

"That's only a double." Gail grins, taking the cup from the other woman.

"Oh. Well I haven't had a strong coffee since I was in med school."

"How do you stay awake through the day?"

Holly shrugs. "Your body doesn't need all that caffeine. I try to limit myself to two coffees a day and then just drink herbal teas for the rest of the day."

"Are there any lesbian stereotypes you don't embody?" Gail asks, her mouth still half full of sandwich, but empty enough that Holly can understand her.

"You're so attractive." Holly grins. "It's not lesbian, it's healthy. Even two cups of coffee a day is quite a lot. And, for the record, I don't drive a pickup, and I've never owned a cat."

Gail's eyes narrow. "I don't really do healthy, just so you know. Or cats, so we're on the same page there."

"Don't worry Gail, I'm not going to start dragging you down the health foods aisle just yet."

"Thank you." Gail grins, leaning down to kiss the other woman lightly on the lips. "How, uh, how old were you when you first had sex with a woman?" She asks after she pulls back.

Holly settles back in her chair. "19, why?"

"I'm just trying to work out how many years catch up I have to do." Gail sips her coffee. "Who was it?"

"My first time? A girl I met at a gay bar, her name was… Lucy, I think."

Gail raises her eyebrows.

"Don't look at me like that. I was just out of the closet and my friend Jeremy took me to a gay bar to meet girls. I was so nervous I stayed at the bar and kept drinking, but Jeremy found her and introduced us, and then the next thing I remember we were at her place having sex."

"Was it good?"

"It… wasn't bad. But it wasn't amazing. I was so nervous the next morning that I just upped and left without getting her number and never saw her again. She wasn't my type, anyway, I was just so excited that another girl actually wanted to sleep with me that I went along with it."

"When did it, you know, get good?" Gail asks, taking a cookie from the bag and starting to eat it.

"I guess with my first girlfriend, when I was 20. Georgia; the one who was already a med student." She says, referring back to an earlier conversation about exes when the two were just friends.

Gail continues her irreverent questioning. "How long did you wait, when you were dating her, before you slept with her?"

"Jesus Gail, have you got an endless stream of questions in there?" Holly smiles lopsidedly, also taking a cookie from the bag. "I can't remember exactly. Maybe three weeks."

"Sorry, I just was wondering. For reference or something?"

Holly tilts her head slightly. "You mean you were wondering how long it was going to be before I expected to have sex?"

Gail looks down and nods slightly. "I guess. It was just something Dov said earlier. It was stupid, and I talked myself out of blowing it out of proportion, which is kind of rare for me, but I couldn't help but wonder…?"

"What did he say?"

"He implied that because we were friends before, we must have been wanting to sleep together for a while, so he thought that when we got together we would have had sex straight away. Primal desires and all that." Gail looks up deeply at Holly to read her response carefully. But the brunette just scoffs a little.

"Well that's a flawed reasoning. Loads of people put off sex for a while even when they really want to have it."

"But you do, really want to have it?" Gail's endless questioning suggests a degree of vulnerability and apprehension, but her tone is one more of intrigue than worry.

Holly bites her lip and leans back. "I... it's only been two days, I haven't had the time to put much thought into it."

Gail narrows her eyes.

"Obviously, yes, I do." She continues. "I'm very attracted to you, and everything we've done so far has been... amazing, more than amazing. But it's not... it's very fresh. We're very fresh, and it's all new for you. I haven't, and I wouldn't put any expectations on anything this new. I've never gone there with anyone after less only two days of dating though." Not that she has ever been in a relationship anything like this one has been so far, Holly notes internally. "All I really can say is that I don't want you to feel pressured. At all. I don't expect anything from you, not ever, definitely not after two days."

Gail sniggers. "Two days is already pretty much the longest I've waited, except maybe my first boyfriend. With Nick it was about minus three months. I'm kind of a sex first, emotions later, sort of girl."

Holly laughs lightly to disguise her slight sadness at Gail's history of struggling to feel safe opening herself up to people emotionally. She's so spectacular to Holly, she doesn't understand how so many people have brought themselves to hurt her.

"I think I'm over freaking out about vaginas though." Gail observes, and Holly sprays cookie crumbs as she bursts out into laughter at the unexpected comment. Although with Gail, no comment should really be that unexpected, Holly reasons.

"Gross, Holly." Gail whines, flicking crumbs off her pants.

"I'm sorry, but what on earth do you mean?"

"I meant that even though I am kind of nervous, I'm normal nervous." She pauses, her brow furrowed in concentration. "The idea of sex with you is more exciting than terrifying. I mean, I can't guarantee that I'm not going to get down there and draw a complete blank as to what to do. But I'm more nervous about failing to meet your expectations than sex with women in general. I was a little, before I kissed you but now..." She trails off, her pale skin making obvious the pink twinge on her cheeks and ears.

"I make you nervous?" Holly reaches up and takes Gail's hand in her own

"Yeah I mean, you have… what, fourteen years of experience I don't have? You're sexy and smart and a bit of a seasoned veteran. I'm a rookie again. And I really hated being a rookie."

"I'm really not that impressive. Don't be nervous of me. You make me nervous."

"I do?"

"Yeah. Have you seen you? I mean, you say I'm sexy but you… you're effortlessly gorgeous. And you intimidate people, you have their respect. And you're out on the streets fighting crime all day, that's pretty hardcore; I spend all day cutting up dead people. I'm kind of a weirdo."

"We're both kind of weirdos, Holly." Gail retorts, pulling Holly into a standing position between her legs. One hand reaches up behind her neck to pull her down into a kiss. It still astonishes her, the ease with which their lips work together.

When their tongues meet, Holly pulls Gail onto her feet without breaking their kiss, the leaning she had to do to meet Gail's lips when she was sat down causing a light ache in her lower back.

Gail's hand that isn't snaking up into her hair from the base of her neck slips around her waist, holding them tightly together. Holly's hands run up and down the sides of her bullet proof vest, cursing the thick material that is keeping her hands from being able to feel the woman's soft curves. Her hatred for the inanimate object increases more when Gail's hand slips under her shirt, tracing the hot skin of her lower back. Her own relinquish their vain attempt to feel Gail's torso, falling instead to knead her buttocks.

Gail groans at the sensation, pushing into Holly until her back hits the bookcase. Holly's hands reach up to cup her cheeks as the kiss breaks.

"You may be ready but we probably shouldn't have sex right here." Holly sighs, leaning her forehead against Gail's, their noses brushing against each other.

"Maybe not."

"You look really sexy in this thing, but it sure is impractical when it comes to actually doing stuff." Holly observes, pulling on the shoulders of Gail's bullet proof vest.

"I'll remember not to wear it tonight."

"We're still on for dinner, then?"

"Of course." Gail reaches up to kiss her again. "And then whatever happens after that."

"We'll see where the night leads us. You might pass out on me again."

"I promise you that won't be a problem. But aside from that, I don't want to promise anything else. It feels right, but I guess it is kind of soon."

"We'll just do what feels right to us." Holly says softly.

"You're amazing." Gail looks deeply into her eyes, like she's staring into her soul, and Holly feels herself melting under the gaze.

"You still want me to pick you up from work?"

"Yeah please. Actually, no, maybe from home? I'll text you when I get off shift and then maybe give me half an hour."

"Sure." Holly smiles, dipping down to kiss her gently.